The Game Show of Death: Demons of Reason

The guests in the ballroom were all assembled, but not a tenth of the original number.When Nian Weiji followed the others into the ballroom, he heard the long-lost laughter.Carmichael stood on the edge of the dance floor, holding a microphone and hosting the punishment game.He had swapped out his clown suit for a new gray striped suit, and his hair had been restyled, with blond curls combed out with hairspray.

The dress of the guests was in contrast to Carmichael. They were generally disheveled, dazed by champagne and games, and staggered around Carmichael.Carmichael is having people take turns drawing lots to perform according to the penalty on the lottery.A few guests took a look at the lottery and were immediately amused.

Mick was the first to walk. He pushed away the drunken crowd, walked straight to Carmichael, and coughed a few times.Carmichael noticed Mick, turned his head with a smile, removed the microphone and asked, "Mr. Revere, you haven't been caught, are you here impatient to start the next round of the game?"

"Mr. Carmichael, I want to ask, there are so few guests here, where are the others?" Mick stared at Carmichael and asked.

Carmichael: "Others? Maybe they're still hiding somewhere. They'll come back before the show."

"You're lying! We came all the way from the outside, we didn't see any other guests at all, and we found more than one corpse! How do you explain—" Just as Carmichael finished answering, Wei Zixu suddenly shouted excitedly up.He frantically loosened his tie, and his gold-rimmed glasses slipped down the bridge of his nose, looking like a salaryman crushed by stress.

Mick didn't expect Wei Zixu to be suddenly excited, and looked back at him in surprise.

"We were invited to your house, and ended up with this kind of thing, this kind of terrible thing...God, and Miss Jessica, poor Miss Jessica, she is still so young..." Wei Zixu's eyes Hollow, jaw chattering, and even biting his fingers uncontrollably.

It's amazing, at the end of the year, I can't help but think, Wei Zixu was observing Jessica's intestines as if nothing had happened one second, and acted like he lost a friend for many years in the next second.However, Wei Zixu set a good example. Wells, a well-fed financial advisor, would be shocked when he first saw the corpse.

Carmichael obviously also became nervous, let go of the microphone, and said in a low voice: "Go out and talk." He hurried out of the ballroom and led them to a place where there were few people.

A few guests seemed to want to follow them out to see the situation, but they were blocked by Carmichael. Carmichael perfunctorily asked them to play first and come back later, and then closed the door of the ballroom.

Jessica's body was behind the sofa close to the wall not far away. When they took Carmichael over, Jessica leaned on the back of the sofa with her head tilted, her facial features flickering in the faint light, and her smile seemed to deepen a bit. .

"Hmm!" When Carmichael saw the crack on Jessica's face, he stopped abruptly, and the cane fell to the ground with a "slap", and he stiffened to pick it up, with sweat protruding from his back.He leaned on the ground with his cane, his face whiter than moonlight.

Wei Zixu, who was standing on Carmichael's right, entered the scene even more deeply. He has now turned around, leaning against the wall in a prostration, lowering his head and covering his face, muttering: "Miss Jessica is kind-hearted and easy-going, she is a rare She is such a good actor, how could someone do such a thing cruelly to her... It's terrible, it's really terrible..."

The corridor was silent, only Wei Zixu was choked with thoughts, and the others didn't understand why, so they couldn't help but feel embarrassed by a certain player's excessive acting skills.Only actor Carmichael liked Wei Zixu's performance very much, and comforted him: "Calm down, Mr. Wells, a crime has happened here, I will call the police immediately, before the police arrive here, you should take refuge upstairs."

[A successful impersonation gives a reward roll, and your next skill check success rate increases by 20 points. 】

After hearing the director's reward, Wei Zixu peeped out his eyes from between his fingers, and threw a victorious wink to Nian Weiyi.

It must be that Wei Zixu was thinking about the reward vote he got for successfully playing "Neo" in the previous year, and now he uses Carmichael to score points.At the end of the year, the vocabulary of swear words is scarce, and now only one sentence "scheming bitch" comes to mind.

Fortunately, this scheming bitch is his teammate.

"Jessica was killed when you invited me to the dinner. We also found Algamon's body. I heard that they had conflicts with you before. Do you dare to say that their death has nothing to do with you? "Jin Hou stood behind Carmichael, opened his arms slightly, and questioned Carmichael.

"What? Mr. Chambers is dead!" Carmichael was shocked: "Are you saying that more than one person was killed tonight?"

Carmichael's panic did not appear to be feigned.Nian Wei already stood a little far away from Carmichael and observed in a low voice, "I'm going to make a [Psychology] check on Carmichael to see if he's hiding something."

[A "Psychology" secret vote.Carmichael was indeed shocked, tense and anxious.Given that he's a good actor, you can't tell if he's lying, but it doesn't mean he's telling the truth either. 】

"Does anyone else know about these things?" Carmichael asked Mick.

Mick replied: "Probably not. The guests are all drunk. I don't believe anyone was killed here."

"Oh..." Carmichael squeezed his chin for a while, then raised his head and said to them, "I apologize for the inconvenience I caused you, but please don't tell other guests, this house is too closed, I'm afraid it will cause panic, I don’t know what will happen at that time. You come to the studio with me, and I will call the police.”

The studio that Carmichael mentioned was next to the living room. When Carmichael saw Algamon's body, he showed the same shock and regret, but also more nervous.They entered the studio, a telephone was placed on the wall cabinet, and Carmichael turned the dial: "Hello, is this the Arkham Police Department?"

After waiting for a long time without a busy signal, Carmichael frowned and lowered his head to check, only to find that the phone line had been cut off. "It seems that there is trouble..." Carmichael put down the phone, opened the drawer on the left side of the closet, and took out a revolver from it.He reloaded the magazine, turned to them, and said in a very sensible tone: "You stay here, so I know where you are."

"No, we'll be with you, it's safer if there are more people." Nian Weiji retorted.

"Well, that's right." Carmichael nodded: "Then you come with me."

After Carmichael finished speaking, he loaded the pistol, unscrewed the door and walked out.Nian Weiji followed closely behind and went out, only to find that there was only a shadow outside the door, and Carmichael was nowhere to be seen, as if the house had swallowed him in.

"Carmichael is gone." Nian Weiji turned around and said helplessly.

Mick followed, looked carefully at the corridor on the second floor, and said, "It's indeed gone—this is expected, Carmichael wouldn't have let us follow him all the time."

"I have some ideas to share with you while there is no one around." Mick continued, turning to Chen Luyao: "What do you mean, are you willing to be with us now?"

"Hmm..." Chen Luyao hesitated for a moment, exchanged a word with Qin Guican in a low voice, nodded and said, "The situation here is indeed more complicated than I thought, neither of us has any experience in playing this kind of game, so let's join you. We I have told them all about what I discovered just now, and it can be regarded as an expression of sincerity."

"Okay, then you two don't act alone in the future, communicate with other people." Mick replied very simply, after all, there is not much time wasted on mutual suspicion.

"What was your idea just now?" Marquis Jin reminded Mick.

"That's it." Mick held up the notebook: "I roughly flipped through it, folded the corners of the most important pages, and showed you just now. The drama content and graffiti in it have their source, because I usually I often play the running game and know a little bit, so I can guess that the stranger who appears in the second scene of the first act should be the evil god we have to face in this game."

"How can you be sure?" Nian Weiji asked.

"The evil god in the Cthulhu system, one is called the 'King of Drama', also known as the 'King of Yellow Clothes', he likes to torture souls who are sensitive to art very much, and his usual image is a Combining the game background and these script outlines, it should be the 'King in Yellow'."

"This is out of line at all. How can someone who has never played a team game know that!" Chen Luyao said dissatisfiedly, and Qin Guican noticed another thing: "You said that the person wearing yellow rags In human form, is the hunchbacked gentleman we saw an evil god?"

"No, the 'King in Yellow' is not the kind of evil god that will come to believers. Its influence is mainly spread through works of art, such as——" Mick was talking when suddenly two short and sharp voices came from downstairs There was a gunshot, followed by two muffled falls to the ground.

Chen Luyao was the first to react when it happened suddenly, and went out to find the source of the sound.The corridor on the second floor is empty, extending an arc from the outside of the living room, connecting the stairs leading to the first floor.The doors of the ballroom and surrounding guest rooms were tightly closed, and no one could be seen.The gunshots and the sound of falling to the ground sounded like they were coming from downstairs. Chen Luyao looked down while holding on to the railing above the stairs, his eyes fixed on one place.

Nian Wei followed, and also leaned on the railing to look in the direction Chen Lu was looking at.At the bottom of the stairs on the first floor, at the junction of the lobby corridor and the corridor outside the servants' room, there was a pool of dark liquid. An object of unknown shape leaned against the corner of the wall, and the pool of liquid continued to grow at the bottom.

"Someone was shot." Chen Luyao said in a low voice, then turned and rushed down the stairs.At the end of the year, it was difficult to walk in the dark, so I could only hold on to the handrail of the stairs and rub it down bit by bit.This kind of old spiral staircase has a large span and narrow steps. He walked down the stairs with small steps, not understanding how Chen Luyao could rush to the bottom so handsomely.

By the time the year had not passed down to the first floor, the others had already arrived.Chen Luyao was bending over to observe the projection of the corpse. It was only at the end of the year that he realized that the unknown object leaning against the corner was a person. It was two people lying on the ground overlapping each other.They were all wearing black tights and cat ears on their heads. They had an impression of this outfit at the end of the year, and they had a flash of inspiration and said: "We saw these two people when we were playing hide-and-seek. Adrian called them the 'Baranov couple. ’, also guests tonight, but I have not spoken to them.”

"Gunshot wounds, both of them were shot in the back." Chen Luyao raised his head: "Is there anyone else besides Carmichael who is carrying a gun?"

"I talked to them," Mick interjected: "The Bararovs are Russian, their husband, Sergey Baranov, is a theater critic, and his wife, Natasha Baranov, is a dancer. Cher Guy's comments have always been known for their vitriol, and I believe that he has fallen short of Carmichael's works. If the corpses you have seen before had friction with Carmichael, then I think the death of the Baranov couple has also had conflicts with Carmichael. related to revenge.”

Mick got another badge, which made Nian Weiji regret not chatting more with others at the dance.

"There's no one else, it's obviously Carmichael who did it! Aren't there security patrols outside? Now that we have evidence of Carmichael's crimes, we should be able to call someone to rescue us, right?" Qin Guican said a little nervously, although Carmichael with a gun was just a projection, but the eerie atmosphere of this house had already frightened her.

Mick: "First of all, you tried it before, and we couldn't get out of the gate. Secondly, running away is not the way to win the game, it will only get farther and farther from the truth. We should now figure out Carmichael's purpose and reduce the damage to lowest."

Chen Luyao asked: "Since you said that evil god is the culprit, why don't we find it and deal with it directly?"

"No, you don't know the background of the Cthulhu running game." Wei Zixu added for Mick: "We can't deal with the evil god. We can only get rid of the people affected by it. It is best to find The connection between evil gods and believers, destroy that connection, and prevent more people from being affected."

"Yes, I was talking about that connection just now, but it was interrupted by gunfire. The followers of the 'King in Yellow' were bewitched through the King in Yellow script. Dr. Archer said that when Carmichael was hospitalized Received the old books from Fish, and then healed miraculously. I suspect that among those old books, there is the original manuscript of the King in Yellow script. I need to go to the library on the second floor for half an hour to find, and all the books cabinet and bookshelf”

"Okay, then when you are looking for books, let's look for Carmichael." Jin Hou said, pointing to the threshold on the edge of the terrace, a string of bloody footprints leading directly to the outside of the terrace.The blood was still fresh, and it was possible that Carmichael stood there observing for a while after killing someone, and then walked to the terrace to leave the bloody footprints.