Jobtran and his group finally passed the old man's test and got on the carriage to Arkham Town.
"Old man, if we don't find you, what will happen to those who are going to Miskatonic University?"
After getting on the carriage, Sif asked the old man who was sitting in the front of the carriage and driving the horse slowly.
"There are more than a dozen guides like me at the port. If you don't even have the ability to find a guide, don't go to Arkham to die."
The old man held his pipe in one hand and drove the horse forward with the other.
After hearing this, Sif patted her chest.
“That’s good. I hope Professor Margery and the others can find the way.
Then why do you keep saying that going to Arkham is a death wish?"
Sif couldn't help feeling sad when she thought about how she had to leave behind Professor Margery, who was originally traveling with her, in order to take care of Joet Brown. But after hearing that they could meet in Arkham, she figured it out.
"Haha, the people of Arkham are simple and honest, and there are many talented people in the University of Michigan."
The old man said something mysterious and nonsensical, and then didn't continue the conversation.
The scenery along the way was not as beautiful as that in Ouzhou. It was full of dusty dirt roads and the carriage was bumpy, so the four of them hurried and discussed before arriving.
"Master Joe Butran, how about I be your little follower? Servant? How about this identity?"
Columbia, the mouse, said with a sly smile,
"That way you won't be turned away at the door."
Joe Butran thought for a moment and nodded slightly.
"It would have been difficult to take you in when I was in good health. Now that I'm in a wheelchair, it's a good excuse. I'm asking you to take care of me."
After that, Jobtran took out a blank piece of paper from his bag and wrote some simple terms on the paper to prove his Colombian identity.
"Okay, just sign it."
Joe Butran handed over the document, and Columbia signed his name without even looking at it.
"Hey, done."
"Aren't you afraid that this is a contract to sell your body?"
Sif rolled her eyes and crossed her arms over her chest.
"Don't be afraid, Lord Joe Butran is not that kind of sinister villain."
Columbia responded with a bright smile.
"By the way, when we get to Arkham, all documents to be signed must be carefully reviewed before signing."
Professor Robert, who had been silent all this time, suddenly spoke up to remind.
"Oh? Why?"
Sif turned her head and looked at Jobtran who seemed to be in deep thought.
"Just thirteen years ago, a library worker accidentally spilled ink on an ancient document, and the trace of ink formed a handprint."
Joe Butran recalled the records he saw in the archives at that time and said slowly,
“Then three days later, it turned into a zombie-like body, biting anyone it saw.
I think Professor Robert is telling us to be careful about what we encounter in Arkham."
Professor Robert nodded slightly after hearing this.
“The reason why the town of Arkham cannot be found on any map is because everything in this town is too dangerous.
Once anything is leaked, it may cause the collapse of modern civilization, so the danger of Arkham Town is self-evident."
Columbia gasped.
"Sir, is it too late for me to go back now?"
Joe Butran smiled slyly and waved the document in his hand.
“You signed it.”
Columbia, on the other hand, deliberately acted annoyed, causing Sif to giggle.
After a period of laughter and playfulness, the carriage gradually moved away from the port and arrived at a more remote wilderness.
It was a barren desert with cacti and prickly dead grass growing on the ground.
The lizards hiding in the sand looked coldly at the passing carriage.
The brown scorpion built a nest in the bones of animals that died of thirst, and it spread its two large claws and arthropod-like poisonous tail in a show of force.
The scorching sun was shining, but the old man endured the heat silently and continued to move forward.
A vulture circled in the air, then landed on a cactus and looked at the carriage, as if waiting for a delicious meal.
The four people in the carriage had stopped fighting. They couldn't help but take out some documents and use them as fans to fan themselves, but unfortunately the wind that came out was also hot.
"How long will it take us to get there?"
Columbia complained as he lay back in the shadow of the carriage.
Not only him, but all four of them were sweating profusely.
Professor Robert and Jobtran were both shirtless and wore only a pair of shorts, while Sif simply covered her vital parts with clothes.
Sweat was dripping down, but the high temperature here showed no sign of dropping.
Jobtran knocked on the carriage and asked the old man driving the horse,
"Old man, how far are we from Arkham now?"
"There's still half a day left, just wait."
The old man was holding a piece of hay that came from nowhere and chewing it.
"Is there a place to get supplies nearby? The water we brought with us is not enough."
Joet Brown said with some annoyance.
"You won't die if you don't drink water for half a day, just bear with it.
Tell me, where can I find supplies for you in this vast desert? "
The old man rolled his eyes and ignored Jobtran.
"Half a day."
Joe Butran said to himself helplessly.
When the last drop of water in the water bag was drunk, everyone could only wait anxiously for the town at the end.
The dry mouth along the way makes me irritable and my thinking slow.
Thankfully the sun was beginning to set and the temperature in the wilderness was dropping as well.
As night fell, the four began to feel the extreme cold.
Just as Sif was complaining about wanting to go to the bathroom, the surrounding environment suddenly changed.
The world seemed to be cut in two, one half was a desert and the other half was lush green grassland.
After a dazzling flash of light, half of the desert disappeared on its own, leaving only the carriage alone in the middle of the wilderness road.
"arrive."
The carriage slowly stopped, and at this time the old man's voice was heard.
There is a huge metal sign on the roadside ahead.
It read: Welcome to Arkham.
But under the font, someone had painted a skull pattern with red paint.
Compared with the chirping of insects and the peace around it, this red skull looks like a warning to keep out strangers, so abrupt and weird.
"Give me money, fifty taels of silver.
You guys can explore the rest on your own, I'm going back to sleep."
The old man opened the door of the carriage and spoke to the four people.
Jobtran took out the cash he had prepared in advance from his bag and handed it over.
The old man was about to snatch it away, but Joet Brown held it tightly, smiling and saying,
"Old man, don't you want to give me some advice?"
The old man blew his beard, put his hands on his hips,
"You cunning fellow, don't push your luck.
There is no such thing as free intelligence in this world."
After saying that, he rubbed his thumb and index finger together to make a gesture that people all over the world understood instantly.
"Ten gold coins for one message, three in total, you can decide for yourself."
Joet Brown did not hesitate to add thirty gold coins and handed it over.
The old man spat on his hand, counted the money and put it into his chest pocket.
“First, don’t mess with the things in the mines;
Second, don’t go to Dunwich for no reason. The people there are not hospitable. Compared to me, I am a hundred times more approachable than they are.
Third, this is a teleportation node set up by the University of Michigan. Do not try to understand the principle of teleportation, and do not cross the teleportation point without a token.
The last guy who was researching alone successfully teleported the upper body away, but the lower body remained where it was. You can do whatever you want.
Look around you, we are already in Arkham."
After saying this, the old man took out a small pendant hanging on his chest, but carefully showed only a corner of it to Joet Brown.
It was a pendant engraved with the Miskatonic University emblem, but the material did not look like ordinary metal, and it had a mysterious glow on it.
"Thank you for the reminder, old man. What should we do when we need to return to the city?"
Joet Brown asked one last question, apparently expecting the old man to leave a contact number.
"Good fellow, you're still trying to get some information."
The old man saw through Jobutran's little trick at a glance. After helping Jobutran drop all the luggage on the ground, he turned to the front and said without turning his head,
"If you want to leave, go to the school office yourself."
After saying this, the old man drove the horse away along the mountain road.
After asking for these useful information, Jobtran began to look around.
The winding path he was on was full of dust and ruts, and there were gravel walls surrounded by wild roses.
In the forests that can be seen everywhere, the trees here are taller than ever seen before.
The weeds, thorns and bushes on the roadside also grew quite lushly.
From these details, we can observe that there are definitely not many people living here, because this is why few people take care of it.
The arable land here seems to be very scarce, and the relatively poor soil can only be used to grow coarse-grained corn.
Not far away you can see some abandoned houses, scattered here and there, but they all have the same look: old, dirty and dilapidated.
When the path extends to a higher place, the mountains surrounded by dense forests will bring a sense of weirdness and uneasiness to people.
Those mountains are too round and too symmetrical, giving people a sense of disharmony and unnaturalness.
On some hilltops there are strange circles made up of tall stone pillars, which look like altars used to worship some mysterious existence.
Walking along the path, there is a wooden bridge in front of us that makes people feel uneasy. The ropes that have become fuzzy are struggling to keep the bridge from breaking, and there are even some holes in the wooden boards of the bridge.
Looking down from the bridge, the thin, shining river always reminds people of a swimming poisonous snake.
The bullfrogs in the river croaked shrilly, interweaving into an endless, irritating, hoarse melody.
Countless fireflies danced to the sounds of the frogs, as well as the shrill cries of nightingales flying low over the sky.
Every step on the bridge is a thrilling adventure. The creaking sound of the wooden boards always makes people doubt whether the boards can support their weight.
The wooden bridge will also vibrate with every footstep, which will make people imagine themselves falling from the bridge into the abyss.
After crossing the wooden bridge, there are steep and almost vertical slopes on both sides.
The eerie hillsides on the side looked so dark and steep that all passers-by wanted to stay away from them, but there was no way to avoid them.
All the road signs that should have been on the roadside have been removed, and the iron plates have fallen to the ground. The paint on them has been washed away by the rain, leaving only a few faint words remaining in the spots of rust.
There was a faint stench wafting in the wind, with a hint of ominousness and death, like the stench accumulated after mold grew on a corpse and rotted for centuries.
"Oh my god, should we keep going?"
Columbia asked tremblingly, looking at the dark hillsides on both sides.
It felt like something scary would jump out from that hillside at any moment, or turn into a living creature and swallow me up.
On the other hand, Jobtran and Professor Robert were relatively calm at this time, while Sif clenched her fists, looking ready to encounter anything at any time.
“Just get used to it.
Now I finally understand why outsiders hate Arkham so much.
From an ordinary person's aesthetic point of view, the terrain here alone looks disturbing."
Joe Butran said softly and looked ahead.
He pointed and said,
"There should be someone there, let's go take a look."
It was a small village curled up between streams and hillsides. The mansard roofs were full of holes, and the villagers had hastily spread some hay on them as a form of repair.
There is a dilapidated church in the village. Half of the church spire has collapsed, but a small shop selling sundries has been built in the collapsed ruins.
The reason why Jobtran said there was someone there was because he saw the light coming from the shop.
Outside the small village stood some fences that served more as a warning than a practical purpose. These fences were simply made of branches the size of an index finger hastily inserted into the ground and then tied together with ropes. Jobtran even felt that a child could knock down the entire fence with a light push.
There were a few villagers wandering around the streets of the village, but their eyes did not look friendly.
It was like the look one gives to a dead person, lonely and empty.
Jobtran, who was sitting in a wheelchair and being pushed by Sif, ignored all this and went straight to the small grocery store.
There is a stone tablet in front of the small shop. It seems that the inscription was picked up from the ruins of the church. In front of the stone tablet is a wooden sign that says "Open for Business".
"Wait a minute. Let me see."
Jobtran raised his hand and called for Sif to stop.
Most of the text on the stele has faded, but a lot of visible text still remains.
"We must admit that many of the blasphemous practices of the demons here have become common knowledge and cannot be denied.
The beings of the abyss will emit cursed sounds from underground, those clear demonic conversations, those gurgling, rolling, groaning, screaming and roaring.
These sounds must come from caves that only witchcraft can find, lairs that only demons can open.
—Abijah Hadley, Congregational minister, 1747.