Violet Orchestra

"I always think it's a bit too gloomy here."

Half an hour later, Elaine whispered in Violet's ear.

They had spent half an hour looking for a living person in this modest cemetery, but they still found nothing, which in itself was very unusual.In addition, even the guards who led them to find someone became a little strange. Not only did they become silent a lot, they no longer complained about "Where is Old John?" is killing time.

...as if he knew they couldn't find anything.

Of course, Elaine was not the only one who noticed the abnormality. In fact, Violet had already felt that something was wrong—it was the first time he saw a guy who would enthusiastically introduce the cemetery to others, and the guard's attitude towards Hodge was very strange. Subtle, and odd in comparison to the rest of Domonoch's.The young guard who released Hodge ten years ago may indeed have felt pity for him, but ten years have passed since that incident. With the strength of Domonoch's publicity of Hodge's various "criminal" deeds, the young guard now People can actually show admiration for Hodge, even if he has seemingly good reasons, it is difficult not to make people suspicious.

"Tell Birkins and Petra, try not to act alone, and don't stay with him alone." He explained to Elaine in this way, and at the same time he kept staring at the young guard who was walking in the front, trying to learn from the other party. Find the abnormal place in the action.

"If Old John doesn't come back today, maybe you will have to spend another day in Domonoch." The guard said to Violet as he walked, "You can leave Hodge here for now, and you will go back to the city after dark. It's more troublesome, but there is a small hotel nearby, not too far away, you can go there to rest."

His attitude was warm and polite, and Violet nodded to thank him: "Maybe Old John will be back in a while, let's wait."

"Alright." The other party smiled and did not continue this topic.

Violet continued to observe his expression and reaction, and soon found what she was looking for. More precisely, Elaine discovered the clue when she came back from whispering with Birkins.

"It seems a bit strange here." The young man stopped at the door of Old John's hut, frowned at the messy footprints in front of the door, "Violet, do you want to come over and take a look?"

Before he finished speaking, the poet caught a flash of panic from the guard's face.

"What's the matter?" Violet continued to observe the guard without any trace, while walking towards Elaine's position.The young man had already unscrewed the doorknob, and was moving several pots piled up by the door with the help of Birkins. He obviously planned to go in and continue searching. They didn't go into the house before because the guards kept leading them around , Now it's hard to find an entry point, and Violet doesn't want to let it go.

So he pretended to be surprised, walked a few steps past the guard and followed Elaine's footsteps: "Open the door quickly, maybe old John fainted in the room."

They entered the room smoothly, but of course they failed to find "Old John Fainted". The hut was empty, at least from the furnishings, it seemed that it was indeed the residence of an old bachelor.Birkins and Elaine walked around the house, but the house was easy to see at a glance, and there was really nothing to look for.

"It seems that Old John is not here." Violet turned his head and met the guard's gaze, "Maybe he went shopping? You know, this place is a bit far from the city, maybe you lost time on the road? "

"Maybe." The guard smiled unnaturally, "We are on a rotation system, but Old John only has one person, so it's not surprising that he leaves temporarily."

The poet nodded, walked out of the house with him, and gave Elaine a wink at the same time.The young man took a few steps behind knowingly, pretending to suddenly become interested in Old John's weird cup, and stayed alone in the room.

He understood what Violet meant. This cemetery is not small but not big. There are places where an adult can hide, but other than those messy graves, the only convenient place to hide things is This room remains.The hut was built of bricks, which was stronger than they expected. Although the situation inside the house was clear at a glance, another possibility could not be ruled out—the cellar.

This is the outskirts, the traffic is not convenient, and because it is close to "Sardion", the temperature in winter will be much lower than that in the city. According to the custom of craftsmen, they usually build a cellar under such a brick house, using to stockpile food and other things.But Elaine walked around the house just now, but couldn't find the entrance to the cellar. He had a vague premonition, so he stayed behind under Violet's hint, planning to look for it again.

Violet told him not to stay alone. Elaine didn't dare to waste too much time. He walked under the window, knocked on the floor with a wooden stick along the wall, and soon heard the sound coming from the ground in the corner of the room. echo.Then he lifted the worn carpet on the ground, and a hidden cellar door appeared in front of his eyes.

He didn't intend to go down the adventure alone, so he went to the window and called Birkins. Taking advantage of Violet attracting the attention of the guards, the two quietly pried open the sliding door of the cellar, one after another from the hanging ladder. Climb up and down.

It was a fairly standard cellar, and it looked like it had been dug carelessly, just an irregular storage space, but it was obviously re-excavated and repaired afterwards, and now it looks like a decent cellar.

The air in the basement was a bit cloudy, but the wind could still be vaguely felt, which meant that there were other vents besides the closed cellar sliding door.As for the other decorations illuminated by the dim lights... Elaine and Birkins glanced at each other, seeing the solemnity in each other's eyes.

"It seems that someone here is doing some 'research'." Birkins carefully avoided the messy piles of various potions and tools on the table, and looked at a scroll on the table, on which many complicated drawings were drawn. There are patterns, and there are many incomprehensible words, "Poor old John didn't stumble and fall, someone should have killed him here, and he planned to use it as a research material."

A table in the corner of the basement was covered with bottles and jars of different sizes, with suspicious red traces drawn in the middle that they could not understand, and a dead body lay on it. Old John they had been looking for a long time.

The corpse was cleaned up very cleanly, lying naked on the red pattern, the skin was lifeless blue and white, the blood vessels underneath were clearly visible, revealing an obvious purplish red.Elaine took a look and couldn't bear to turn around, and finally Birkins reached out and closed Old John's eyes.

"It looks like a magic circle."

Elaine, who couldn't bear to look at Old John, turned to study the strange red pattern. Although he couldn't understand it, he could roughly guess what the flowing suspicious pattern might be.

"Don't touch it, there may be a problem." Birkins pressed his shoulder, "Go up and tell Violet, I'm afraid that guard is the owner here."

Even with Petra by her side, Violet's absolute safety cannot be guaranteed.They returned to the ground the same way, but only saw Violet standing in front of the hut waiting for them, and the strange guard disappeared.

"...Where's the person?" Elaine asked suspiciously.

Violet kicked the bulging bag at her feet with the toe of her shoe.

"Not long after you went down, Petra found out that he wanted to sneak attack me, so he knocked me out." His eyes fell on Elaine's hand, and seeing something in his hand, he asked casually, "What is that? ?”

"I found it in the basement." Elaine raised his hand to show him the dagger he was holding, "There was a dagger like this stuck in Old John's body, I didn't dare to touch that one, so I brought this one out .”

It was an exquisite dagger, with a silver handle and a sharp blade. The handle was carved with complicated and fine patterns, but it was unexpectedly light in the hand, as if it was not a metal dagger, but It is a decoration worn by noble ladies.

There were two such daggers in the basement. The one stuck in Old John's chest was stained with blood. After the blood dried and solidified on the handle, it left a mottled rust color, which looked ominous.Birkins guessed that it was some kind of forbidden ritual, and he was not allowed to touch the dagger easily. Fortunately, they found an almost identical one on the desk later, so they brought it out to let Vio Lett took a look.

"Birkins and I both think that the guard should have killed old John... Violet, what's wrong with you?"

"Throw it away." The poet stared at the dagger palely, "Elaine, throw it away now!"

He looked like he was about to faint on the ground in the next second, not only his complexion was frighteningly bad, but cold sweat broke out from his forehead, as if that dagger was something more terrifying than a dead person, so he couldn't even restrain his emotions. The sound of the uncontrolled exit was as harsh as shattered glass.

Seeing his reaction so violently, Elaine didn't bother to think about it, first threw the dagger far away, and then supported his shoulder to prevent him from falling: "I lost it, you calm down first, what's wrong?"

The dagger was thrown far away by Elaine, and it seemed to land on a stone, making a crisp "ding". Violet still stared at the direction where the dagger landed, and leaned against Elaine's arms for a while before returning Overwhelmed, he shook his head and took his hand.

"...what's in the basement?" He didn't seem to be ready to answer Elaine's question. He wiped the cold sweat from his forehead with the handkerchief he carried, and abruptly changed the subject.

Elaine was still very worried about him, recalling the last time he was so out of order, she suddenly thought of something.

The hand mirror found in his uncle's manor also has a similar silver handle, and it is also carved with exquisite patterns, but due to the long time, those exquisite patterns have been worn out clearly - looking back now, it seems that It is somewhat similar to the dagger handle just now.

He couldn't help but look at Violet, but the poet's expression had returned to normal, as if the loss of control just now was all his illusion, but nothing actually happened.

Elaine sighed softly, and decided to put this matter on hold for now, deal with the problem at hand before finding a chance to talk to him in private.

"Let's go look in the basement."