Chapter 349: Snow, Fog, and Secrets

In an ancient coffin’s dim and confined space, an aged bishop lay swaddled in layers of bandages reminiscent of an Egyptian mummy from a long past. After years of silence, he finally unveiled a secret that had been closely guarded for five long decades.

Following his revelation, a period of profound silence engulfed the space, an almost tangible tension hanging in the air until Agatha, unable to bear the quiet any longer, voiced her thoughts: “However, it seems evident that this situation is far from over.”

The old bishop remained quiet, the weight of years apparent in his silence. Undeterred, Agatha pressed further: “In your judgment... do you think the strange incidents happening regularly within the city-state and the ominous shadow cast by Dagger Island are part of the Frost Queen’s intricate web of strategies?”

“The queen, she is no deity,” began Bishop Ivan, shaking his head with a sense of disbelief. His mind, swirling with fragments of the past, struggled to recall the intricate details of events that occurred fifty years prior. “She might have predicted that there would be dissenters seeking to disrupt her perceived ‘reckless’ actions, but she couldn’t have foreseen the events unfolding here half a century later,” he confessed, his voice layered with regret and faded memories. “In all honesty, I can’t recall with absolute clarity what the queen uttered to me on that fateful night. During the ritual of soul-sending, she appeared to converse with me continually, but you must understand that performing such a ceremony demands unwavering focus, and one must inhale potent incense beforehand, so... my recollections are sadly unclear.”

Taking a brief pause, he spread his hands in a gesture of helplessness: “Under normal circumstances, there should be no dialogue between the ‘deceased’ lying on the ceremonial platform and the priest performing the rites concerning the ceremony experience.”

Agatha was silent, her mind actively processing the information, trying to piece together the puzzle before her. After a moment, she ventured, “Can you expand upon the circumstances of that time? Before the conclusion of the Abyss Project... what else did you witness within that church?”

“...From what I remember, it was a day of intense snowfall, reminiscent of this year, and for a considerable length of time, the relentless snowfall showed no signs of stopping. The accumulated snow often concealed the roads around the humble chapel, making the boundaries indistinguishable. Many folks slipped and fell,” recounted Bishop Ivan in a quiet, slow cadence. His muffled and distant voice drew one’s imagination back to that frigid winter half a century ago. “Wounded individuals often sought refuge and aid in the church, as the local clinics were already overwhelmed with patients.”

“Back then, the Abyss Project was the source of considerable unease within the city. Unlike today, it was not a topic that was swept under the rug. Even though the core aspect was kept covert, the average citizen was aware of this ‘oceanic exploration’ project. Thus, individuals frequently visited the church and recounted the ‘unusual phenomena’ they had observed...”

“Unusual phenomena?” Agatha interjected, curiosity piqued.

“Indeed, peculiar occurrences. Some recounted seeing mysterious glimmers emanating from houses long deserted, while others claimed familiar faces of their neighbors abruptly transformed overnight. Some even reported witnessing the graveyard gates creak open under the moonlight, and the dead, interred during daylight, were seen strolling out of the cemetery at night, boldly and without hesitation. Such chilling and uncanny tales were rife, occurring constantly during that time. Naturally, given the city-state’s most sinister undertaking was the Abyss Project, people began attributing all these anomalies to it, and eventually... the blame fell on the Frost Queen.”

“People interred in the cemetery boldly emerged,” Agatha echoed, listening to the old bishop’s tales. Her forehead furrowed in thought as if his words stirred an uncomfortable parallel with the present. “And inexplicable lights appearing in abandoned houses, this... it sounds strikingly similar to...”

“It does bear a striking resemblance to the artificial corpse discovered in Cemetery No. 3 and the eerie room you encountered at 42 Fireplace Street, doesn’t it?” interjected the old bishop slowly. “But you’ve seen tangible evidence and even collected what appears to be primal matter. Back then, all we had were scattered rumors. People would daily approach me with their tales of the uncanny, but despite deploying city guardians to investigate, they all returned empty-handed.”

“Every single one returned empty-handed?” Agatha inquired, disbelief creeping into her voice.Discover new chapters at novelhall.com

Agatha paused to reflect, her gaze flitting to the document held securely in the aged bishop’s grasp, “That leaves us now with just one complex problem to unravel.”

Following her lead, Bishop Ivan’s gaze also gravitated towards the report’s final section.

The entirety of the letter was lucid and comprehensible, save for the final part, which seemed to confound both the cemetery keeper who initially received the correspondence and now Agatha and Bishop Ivan in discerning its underlying implications.

The two preeminent representatives of the church’s supreme command in the city-state congregated their trio of eyes veiled beneath swathes of bandages, transfixed on the letter’s conclusion – the mysterious visitor had encrypted a puzzle into their clandestine message.

“...What could these numerical values signify?” Bishop Ivan asked hesitantly.

Agatha slowly shook her head, “I am equally bewildered.”

“...Perhaps we could employ the services of a diviner to infer their significance or assemble a team of mathematicians and mystics to work in tandem. It could potentially be a cryptic numerical code hinting at the city-state’s future.”

“That’s a plausible hypothesis.”

...

At the fringes of the upper city, adjacent to Fireplace Street, at 44 Oak Street, Duncan stood gazing out of the slender window at the end of the second-floor corridor, transfixed by the encroaching darkness.

After a pause, he abruptly swiveled his head, glancing at Vanna, who was lost in a world of her own nearby: “Do you reckon they’ve forwarded the payment by now?”

Roused from her daydream, Vanna appeared disoriented, “Uh... what?”

“Drop by the bank for me tomorrow and check if they’ve processed the payment,” Duncan instructed earnestly. “In that report, I included an anonymous account number dedicated solely to receiving rewards for my submissions.”

Vanna, in response: “What...?”