Chapter 169 Burned
The darkness was as deep as the forest at the end of the crescent moon, as dense as the deep sea where even the sun could not penetrate. Even the lights in the hotel lobby seemed to be absorbed and swallowed by the darkest shadow.
But the moth in the skull kept flapping its scaly wings, throwing away the scales that had accumulated for a long time, and the colors of fantasy and intuition permeated its eyes.
The gloom of the stairs began to fade slowly, like the thick black smoke that was gradually blown away by the wind, and the alien body hidden in it finally revealed its true appearance. It was a terrible appearance that even Watson felt was extremely ugly and weird!
I saw a strange arm that seemed to be completely without skin covering and directly exposed the dark blue muscle fibers protruding from the black fog. The surface of the tangled texture that was like the twisted and tangled texture of old tree roots was covered with dense bronze bumps, like pustules, and like some kind of creepy scales.
At the front of this terrifying arm, there are five fingers like bird toes, three of which are bent in front and two are curled in the back, holding a cane that seems to be carved from human thigh bones and has been coiled and shiny yellow.
As the bone cane hits the wooden board of the stairs again, the alien body of the visitor is further revealed. As the pustules that make people with intensive phobia crazy look upward, it is a seemingly normal face of an old man with vicissitudes and wrinkles - if you ignore the other party's bald head also covered with hideous and sharp bone spurs, the nose that is sunken like a basin but has three round holes, the strange mouthparts that split to the jaw like a T, and the forked flesh tongue is dancing like a snake in the slightly closed jaw crack, licking the saw-like fangs.
What really makes Watson feel strange is that the other party's alien body actually has three faces and six arms!
However, this three-headed, six-armed creature was not like the Nezha in the ancient myth, with three heads on the shoulders and six arms on the ribs. Instead, it had the faces of an old man, a man, and a woman on its head, chest, waist, and abdomen. The old man's face was the clearest and most obvious, and the outlines of his facial features could be distinguished at a glance.
The faces of the man and the woman were hideous like deformed tumors, blurry and unclear, but both had hideous expressions, clenched yellow and cracked teeth, and muttered indistinct words.
The emotions of resentment and hatred were so direct - they frantically waved the pair of deformed, thin, dry hands like chicken claws at the corners of their eyes, as if they were scratching other parts of the body, wanting to tear apart the place where they were forced to parasitize.
The three eyes of these three faces were all like pure and flawless fifty-eight-faceted diamonds, without eyelids or eyelashes to cover them. Only the eyes on the head shone with a fiery and ruthless bright yellow light. The eyes of the male face on the chest seemed to be brewing crackling lightning, and the eyes of the female face on the waist and abdomen were flowing with blood-red liquid.
Watson looked at the strange three-headed, six-armed monster stroking his bone staff and slowly walking towards the dining table. He remained calm and just thought in his heart: "A strange figure with multiple faces... Could it be that the owner of the Gowell Hotel is also like Crovitt, with multiple souls in one body?" "But although Crovitt and Emma are also two bodies, they will show almost the same faces in the moth's vision... But the old man in front of him shows three faces of different ages and genders, and even the facial features are not similar?" He carefully and secretly observed the other party's three faces, trying to find a connection from these three faces, but because the tumors on the male and female faces were too deformed, he could only find that the male face seemed to have a faint resemblance to the old man's face. While Watson was immersed in the vision of the moth, Sebastian, who was collecting firewood, heard the sound of a wooden stick on the ground, turned his head in surprise, and said, "Grandfather! Why are you coming downstairs?"
The young man quickly threw away the fire tongs, ran to the monster with three heads and six arms, and carefully supported the other's left arm, "Are you hungry? Please wait a moment, Faris has cooked clam chowder, I will bring it to you immediately."
"Ahem - I saw a guest coming upstairs. As the owner of the Gaowei Hotel, how can I not come down to greet him in person?!"
The old man with completely white and sparse hair coughed violently. He seemed not to want his illness to splash with the foam, and raised his left fist to cover his mouth.
But when Watson saw the other side's honor, he saw the monster's strange T-shaped mouthparts, and three snake-like fleshy tongues stretched out to lick the black claws on his left arm, but if it was said that the animal was cleaning itself, it felt more like a beast sharpening its claws.
Even Faris, who had just walked out of the kitchen with food, was surprised and shouted: "Master Michaelis! Why did you come downstairs in person?!"
But in fact, the old housekeeper was thinking, did the master also find out the abnormality of these four little guys? Is he going to come down in person to test their intentions?
"Master, your cold is not healed yet, how can you get out of bed casually!" He shouted anxiously: "Young master, hurry up and help the master sit down."
When the owner of the Gaowei Hotel sat at the head of the table, Watson's moth vision was temporarily closed halfway. His right pupil was the ordinary real world, but his left pupil could see hallucinations like crazy.
Because the hotel owner Michaelis was waiting on the spot, the housekeeper Faris quickly moved a variety of dishes to the table to entertain the four long-lost guests.
If a town resident with a normal mental state came to visit at this time, he would be able to see through the window glass how sumptuous the dinner at the Cowell Hotel tonight was.
A weak flame lit up the romantic and classic silver candlestick, and the warm and cozy candlelight illuminated the rectangular dining table covered with white cloth, which was filled with steaming delicious food - the fragrant and tempting clam chowder, fried until golden on both sides Sea fish, fried and crispy potato chips, thin slices of ham, large pieces of roasted pork tenderloin, and the precious Lagavulin ale - it seems that Mr. Farris values this batch very much. Resident!
However, the four strangers with unfamiliar faces seemed extremely reserved. They all remained silent and just kept their heads down and stuffed food into their mouths. They really didn't know how to be grateful at all - at this time, they should stand up and raise a glass to thank Faris. Thank you for your hard work, sir!
But in fact, from Watson's moth's perspective, the rectangular dining table was clearly surrounded by a monster boss with three heads and six arms, a hotel steward who was as skinny as a haggard old tree, and three esoteric cultists with sarcomas on their chests. The young Sebastian and his two normal people... No, there should be only one normal person, Sebastian.
And in the big iron pot that contained the rich, creamy clam chowder, the clams in the pot were clearly not dead yet. Their spiny shells opened and closed, making a weird clicking sound, and protrusions from the open shells Tentacles as slender as silk threads gently caressed the tumbling bacon, dancing onions and shivering potato chunks that were also soaked in gray-white soup.
The originally excited vegetables gradually calmed down under the caress of the clam. Like a baby whose mother sang a lullaby, they seemed to slowly fall asleep and turned into ordinary side dishes, allowing the new strangers to put them in their mouths. ...Their corpses sank obediently into their stomachs, just waiting for the right time to wake up again, struggle again, and start acting up again!
The three hungry Crossroads esoteric cultists could not see anything strange about these dishes and just ate their heads away.
Khalsa scooped up a clam with its tentacles twisting happily and put it into his mouth. He inhaled the sweet clam meat and the rich and milky soup in one breath. Then he reached out to the corner of his mouth to wipe away either the soup or the residue of the broken tentacles. He said sincerely He exclaimed in admiration: "Hmm - I didn't expect that such a remote country town can also eat such delicious dishes. Mr. Farris, your skills are really amazing. It is simply better than some famous restaurant chefs in the city." Be superb!”
"Thank you for your compliments. As long as the four of you don't mind the simple ingredients in our country." Faris, the hotel steward, nodded with a smile. "If you really like it, please eat more. If it's not enough, I'll give it to you." You can go back to the kitchen and cook some more.”
"Then you're welcome! Your clam chowder is indeed a rare delicacy. If I don't eat more today, I'm afraid I will regret it when I think about it later!" Khalsa happily picked up a piece that seemed loose and fragile. The bone-like bread, dipped in the thick milky white soup, and a piece of fat, yellow, muscular, dark red ham slices, were placed in the mouth and chewed carefully.
He felt the delicious taste reverberating on the tip of his tongue, and felt that all his hunger and thirst were satisfied. He couldn't help but close his eyes and taste it carefully.
Farris looked at the intoxicated expression of this guest and felt very satisfied. Unfortunately, the other three were not as obsessed with oral pleasure as this cup-faced boy. They all seemed to be wary, and their portions of food were quite sparse. The extra ingredients he asked him to add would hardly be effective. Especially that hypocritical guy with a smile on his face all the time. He only ate a small piece of ham from the time he sat down to the present. He drank the malt wine silently the whole time, but every time he raised his glass, he only sipped it lightly. One sip, and I'm afraid I won't be able to finish a glass of wine by the time dinner is over.
He turned to look at the old man who was tearing the bread slowly like an old man, and he knew that the old man meant to let him speak first and test the ins and outs of these foreigners.
So Farris raised his glass and shouted to the four visitors: "Guests, welcome to your arrival. I didn't expect that our dilapidated small hotel could actually attract tourists from out of town. I don't know if you are... Where did you come from?"
The only female foreigner among them smiled lightly and replied: "We are all coming from London. I heard that the owner of the Gowell Hotel is a knowledgeable historian and has a rich collection of books comparable to a small one." I wonder if we can have the pleasure of visiting the library’s study room?”
Faris sneered in his heart, he really came here for the master's collection of books... But there was a look of regret on his face, and he slowly shook his head and said: "Oh - it's a pity that you came more than ten years late. The hotel was because of several The negligence of a guest caused a violent fire. The master's library was also burned in the fire, and all the books in it were burned to ashes. Even our hotel was later rebuilt on the original site. Get up.”
"Oh! Did it burn down more than ten years ago?"
Melanie frowned slightly, thinking that this was inconsistent with the information mentioned by the leader. The information clearly mentioned that there was a secret document recording the secret transmission of the fifth-level heart hidden in the Gowell Hotel, and there was even a secret document hidden in it. The ancient and orthodox ritual of summoning the Twins of the Sea.
Is the information really too old, or is the butler in front of me hiding something?
Although she had some doubts in her heart, she still showed an indifferent expression and said: "That's okay, the main purpose of our trip is to visit the seaside scenery."
"Hahaha, that's good. By the way, guests, how many days do you plan to stay?"
On the surface, Faris was just tactfully reminding the four of them that they should pay for room and food expenses, but in reality, he wanted to know the length of stay of the other party, and also asked himself to adjust the amount of special condiments to ensure that they would not be paid in advance. The explosion made the young master discover the tragic situation of these four strangers.
Melanie pondered for a moment, but the toes hidden in her boots were already tapping the ground, sending out a hidden rhythm, conveying a message of inquiry.
"The housekeeper said that the library has been burned down and the books have been reduced to ashes, but I think this may not be true. We'd better stay a few more days and observe the situation carefully. If there really are no secret documents, Then we have at least tried our best to search, so that we will not betray the trust of the leader - what do you think?"
Lido chewed the tenderloin: "I agree."
Khalsa continued to scoop up the thick milky white soup and drank it in big gulps: "I agree too! Hmm - this clam chowder tastes really good. It just gets better and better the more you drink it. Why do you all eat so little?" Eat more, we usually stay underground and don’t have many opportunities to come out and taste such delicious food!”
Watson took another shallow sip of the wine, but in fact the clear wine only slightly moistened his lips: "I agree, but I think this situation must be informed to the cult first, and at least let them see it. to our efforts.”
Melanie: "Well, I will contact the Order later."
After she finished sending this message, she started to stop tapping her toes and raised her head as if she had just considered the result, "Let's just pay for five days' room and food expenses first. If we leave early at that time, If so, this fee does not need to be refunded.”
As Melanie said this, she took out a dozen large-denomination British pound coins from her arms and said, "Do you think this number is enough to pay for the five-day stay for the four of us?"
Sebastian was cutting the tenderloin for his grandfather who had a bad tooth. When he heard what the female guest said, he quickly shouted: "How can this be done?! You will pay whatever you have to pay, wait for the guest When you leave, we will definitely refund all the excess room fees! ”
Faris, on the other hand, pretended to have a philistine and greedy expression, immediately accepted the money, and nodded his thanks frequently.
The first dinner at the Cowell Hotel ended in such a conspiracy. After the meal, Sebastian led the four of them to their respective rooms.
Melanie once again gave instructions through walking words: "After three o'clock in the night, we gathered behind the hotel. I think this cliff seems very suspicious."