The group continued to move forward according to the guidance of the black scale. The firelight kept shaking as the four people walked, illuminating the terrifying and strange black shadows and then throwing them behind them.
"That is to say, if you want to get something here, there are more ways than just paying money."
The witch walking in front of us summarized quietly. She was of course talking to Shade:
"His Majesty did not mention this situation before we entered here."
Xia De looked at the witch's back in front of him:
"Never think that you understand such a strange place. It is unexpected that His Majesty can prepare currency for you in advance. However, I always feel that the currency is still strange... Mrs. Miles, are you okay?"
Because he put his hand on the old woman's shoulder, Xia De could feel that the old woman's walking movements were becoming more and more strenuous:
"Ms. Higgins, how far is the road?"
“It is impossible to estimate the exact time required.”
"Don't worry about me. Keep going forward. No matter what, I must find his soul and let him tell me in person why he didn't come back. I have waited for too long. Even if I die here, I want to see him again."
Mrs. Miles was very determined. Her frail and old body could not hinder her determination. She even begged Shad not to care about her:
"Young man, I have been waiting for him all my life. Even in my dreams, I have been dreaming about seeing him again on a sunny day at the intersection where we parted, which is full of sage, rosemary and thyme. Please keep going forward. I know he must be waiting for me too."
As if to prove that she could still walk, she tried to stop her body from shaking, but she couldn't overcome her instinct. Fortunately, Xia De didn't mean to go back now:
"Mrs. Myers, please relax - puppetry."
Shade temporarily took over the elderly woman's walking. As for the boy behind him, he was still able to walk on his own and did not need Shade's special care.
The road ahead was quite long. The group held torches and held the shoulders of the people in front of them as they walked through this strange place. The cautious witch did not talk to Shade again, but patiently looked for directions according to the direction of the scale. She took the wrong road several times because there were "dead ends" in this maze-like market, that is, after turning into a small road, she found that the end of the road was blocked by a stall.
As a result, the group had to spend a longer time to advance. The torches in everyone's hands were only about two-thirds brighter than when they first entered the camp. If they couldn't reach their destination, then even if the mental strength of two ordinary people could still hold on, they would have to end their first exploration into the camp.
Suddenly, the witch in the front slowed down her pace and stretched out three fingers to the back. This was the signal she and Shade had agreed on: one finger represented danger, two represented reaching the destination, and three represented encountering the shadow outside the stall again.
They didn't think about avoiding it, so they walked straight over. In this strange stall, on the tattered wooden table in front of the black shadow, there was a black coin and three chipped porcelain teacups. The teacups were dirty, and there were stains on the inner wall that looked like blood.
The black shadow stood quietly behind the wooden table and did not move after the four people arrived in front of it.
The witch tried to move forward and was not stopped. The other three followed closely and this time no one was stopped.
“It doesn’t look like it’s mandatory to participate.”
Miss Higgins discussed quietly with Shade:
"The things on the table, this should be the classic gambling game, one of the three cups holds a coin, and then changes its position for us to guess... Are you interested in this?"
The importance of coins is self-evident, but the conditions for participation are unknown, and the possibility of losing cannot be ruled out.
Xia De thought about it and felt that he needed to get his own currency:
"Let me try."
Sooner or later you have to try it anyway.
Mrs. Miles and the boy were still hiding behind the two men, and then Shad and the witch returned to the wooden table with the cups.
The shadow behind the table raised his hand and pointed at the black scale floating next to the witch, and then it automatically flew to the table. The end facing it immediately pressed down, and Shade held up the torch and looked at the witch:
"Miss Higgins, could you lend me some coins? I promise I'll return them to you."
The witch put the coin with her own portrait on it. Just one coin, and the scales were balanced again, which meant that this was a game of betting one coin for one coin.
The black shadow reached out and used the cup to pick up the coins that were originally placed on the table. Then both hands moved quickly at the same time, exchanging the positions of the three inverted teacups in front of him.
Its hand was so fast that if the sound was not blocked in the fog, Shade even suspected that he would have heard a sonic boom. It was quite difficult for dynamic vision to capture the correct position of the teacup, and the drifting black fog occasionally caused a large area of blind spot in front of the eyes. Even if it was only for a moment, it was enough to lose the correct choice.
The shadow stopped after twenty seconds and motioned for Shade to guess. Shade no longer knew which one was the correct answer, and his suppressed perception made it impossible for him to rely on his own inspiration to find the answer.
But fortunately there is a method of perception that is not limited in any way.
"Which one?"
middle.
Xia De pointed to the teacup in the middle, and the shadow turned it over and pushed the coin inside to Xia De. The coin turned over to the front, and Xia De's own portrait was clearly visible on it.
Both Shad and the witch breathed a sigh of relief. After Shad returned Miss Higgins's coin, Miss Higgins looked at the table again. Unfortunately, there was no second coin on the table, which meant that they could only play this seemingly simple "game" once.
“There will be more opportunities next time.”
Compared to the large number of vendors, there were very few special "characters" such as magicians. However, they soon saw the third strange black figure, but this time everyone avoided it without thinking, because after everyone appeared, the other party stood in the fence surrounded by branches, waving a sword in his hand.
This is likely to involve a duel to obtain coins or other items, and the degree of danger involved is naturally self-evident. Here, if you can avoid fighting, you should try to avoid it.
Mrs. Miles and the boy were getting worse and worse. Physical exhaustion was a minor problem. After excessive mental exhaustion, they had slight auditory and visual hallucinations. According to the boy, he now had the urge to stay where he was and take a nap, or to find a vendor and trade his soul for "permanent sleep".
Fortunately, the destination indicated by the black scale was finally determined. After encountering a dead end again and carefully taking a detour, they stopped in front of a stall placed on the ground.
There were eight items scattered on the brown rag stained with blood. Only two of them were visible, and the remaining six items were completely invisible under the black fog.
The witch let out a long breath, and after the white mist in her mouth dissipated, she carefully bent down by pulling the edge of her skirt, placed the scale in front of the stall, and then asked softly:
"Hello. We wish to call upon a spirit. If it is dead, please bring it to us. If it is not dead, please let us know that it is not dead."
She stated her request very clearly, and the black mist covering the six items dissipated, revealing the items of trade.
The two items that were not originally covered by the black fog were all flesh and blood, so they were definitely not items used to summon souls.
The six items revealed at this moment are a small bottle of colorless and transparent water in a sealed glass container;
A broken sword, the blade is made of metal. Even if you just look at it, you will feel like your soul is about to be sucked out.
A bloodstained pink-white conch, about the same size as Shad's hand;
A gray fossil conch, similar in size to the former, with whispering elements and strong miracle elements coexisting;
A pink... bra, neatly folded there, not only did it not fit in with the surrounding objects, it even didn't fit in with this area. For a moment, Shad thought he was hallucinating.
The last piece is a small statue that seems to be made of tin. It is a noble man with his hands open and a terrified expression on his face. It is about the size of a finger.
Among the six items, only the runes on the surface of the gray petrified conch were revealed in the direction of Shade, so Shade could only see the words on that thing - miss, so communicate.
Before Shad could speak, Miss Higgins could not help but cover her mouth in fear. She did not look at other objects, but stared at the tin figurine with wide eyes, and said to Shad in a trembling voice:
“It’s the soul.”
"soul?"
"Yes, solidified souls. How can they sell such things here? Only demons would do such things. Solidified souls will never be able to move on. Unless they are destroyed, they can only continue to suffer until the end of the world. This is solidifying the soul into an object. This is a great sin. The gods will spit on anyone who tries to do this."
"But at least one possibility has been ruled out. If we rule out the first two pieces of meat, then we have to choose one out of five. No, it's one out of four."
Xia De pointed to the bottle of clear water and said with certainty:
"This is not what you want either. I recognize this bottle of water, but I have never heard of anyone naming it, so I gave it a name myself: Water of the Styx. This is the water from the Styx that souls pass through in the real death."
In fact, the water in real death is not water. The dark waters, the mudflats and the dark moon are only visible because of the appearance of human beings.
There is actually nothing in death, which priest Augustus and Shade had discussed. But if special means are used, the water there and even the stones on the beach can indeed be brought to the material world. This is top-level death-related material, and it is also effective in assisting rituals of destruction, death, and corruption of life. However, this is the first time Shade has seen this kind of water outside of death.
White smoke came out of his mouth as he spoke. Even with the double blessing of "Moon Shadow" always being under the moon and "Moon of Life" never getting tired under the moon, he still felt a little tired:
"Choose one of the four. What do you know?"
He asked the young witch, who pointed to the fossilized conch:
"This is the conch shell of longing. By speaking to the conch shell, you can convey your thoughts to the person you miss and establish a short-term conversation. Of course, the other person must be alive."
At this point, she already had an idea. So she put the black metal scale on the ground and said to the shadow sitting behind the booth:
"I don't want to buy it, can I borrow it?"
She pointed to the fossilized conch, and the motionless shadow pointed to the scales, which became unbalanced again. But the witch simply put down a coin, and the balance was achieved again:
"You see, there is a reason why His Majesty chose me."
She said to Shade, and then saw the pale old lady Miles, who was almost unable to hold the torch with the boy's support, so she threw the coin to the shadow, picked up the gray fossil conch, and put it to her ear:
"Can you hear me? Your Majesty? Okay, yes, yes, the broken sword, the pink and white conch, the bra, yes, I'm not kidding. Runes? Sorry, I can't touch or look closely, feelings? They should all be related to the undead, the details are like this... Yes, you are right. Okay, I will take good care of Mrs. Miles. Oh, I will also take good care of myself, I wish you... Time's up."
She stood up straight and talked to the conch very respectfully. No one except her could hear the sound coming from the conch. When the call ended, Miss Higgins took the conch away reluctantly. Seeing Shad looking at her, she explained as if to defend herself:
"It's right to be respectful when talking to a witch of this status. Even if Your Majesty can only hear my voice... one day, I can become such a witch."
She tried to raise her head to show her ambition, and Xia De smiled and said:
"Yes, I wish you success."
Although Miss Higgins's conversation with the Witch Queen of the Desert was brief, at least she gained something:
"I contacted His Majesty, but after all, I could only give a simple description of the appearance, so His Majesty only confirmed what this thing is."
Higgins pointed at the woman's bra. It was obvious that the young witch was not surprised by its appearance, which showed that the textile industry in their era had reached a very high level. At least lace and other decorations were common. Moreover, hundreds of years had passed since Shade told the little girl about the steam industry in Hope Town, which made her awaken and become a witch. Presumably, the material world had entered the steam industry era.
"The relic is the charm of the undead, and can only be used by women. Wearing it greatly increases the probability of pregnancy after intercourse with undead creatures. Of course, the other party does not have to be a blood-sucking species, but can also be an undead with reproductive ability, or... Never mind. But this relic is ineffective against witches. It seems that this is not what Mrs. Miles wants to use, and it is impossible to summon the undead. Speaking of which, your majesty said that if a man wears this relic,... you don't want to know."
She was not very comfortable with this topic, so she did not go into it. Then, she lowered her voice, looked into Xia De's eyes and urged:
"Do you want to try it?"