Deep Sea Embers

Duncan stood at the top of the tall spiral staircase, overlooking and scanning this old and gorgeous mansion, and reconfirmed his judgment: this mysterious mansion is the same as the room where Frost Queen Leh Nora slept. Almost identical in style!

With a thought in his heart, he immediately turned his head and looked at the other direction at the top of the spiral staircase.

There is a deep corridor on the second floor. On the walls on both sides are weird oil paintings whose details cannot be seen clearly. Between the paintings are dark iron candlesticks like thorns. In the deepest part of the cave, between the hazy and dim shadows, there seems to be a faint door.

Is that the room of the owner of the mansion?

Duncan immediately stepped forward and walked quickly towards the depths of the dark corridor. The old wooden floorboards creaked monotonously under his feet, and the pale candlesticks on both sides of the corridor seemed to be disturbed by the breeze he brought. Shaking irregularly, the originally eerie corridor suddenly flickered, making it look more and more hazy.

Duncan stopped at the end of the corridor, frowning tightly, looking at the darkness in front of him.

There is no door here—the door that appeared in the shadows before seemed to be just a fleeting illusion, and there was only a corridor that ended abruptly in front of him, where the floor, walls and roof of the corridor were broken and broken, And on the opposite side of that fracture, there is only a hollow and terrifying dark space.

Duncan cautiously came to the edge of the fragmented floor, poked his head out for a look, then turned his head to look around the fault zone.

Outside was an endless empty space, and the corridor under his feet was floating abruptly and alone in the helpless mid-air. There was no other part of the mansion in sight, let alone the rooms and gates that should theoretically be at the end of the corridor.

Duncan stepped back and looked at the empty place silently.

There was supposed to be something here, there was a room, there was a door, but now it disappeared, as if it had been "torn" from the mansion, disappearing into the nothingness.

Suddenly, a rustling sound sounded from nearby, interrupting Duncan's meditation.

He suddenly looked in the direction of the sound.

A headless figure in a black coat was standing by the wall not far away, bending over and carefully cleaning a marble decorative table.

Duncan thought briefly, then walked towards the headless figure.

The headless figure didn't run away like the previous figures, but slowly straightened up. When Duncan approached, he even bent slightly, just like a well-trained butler, Show decent posture.

It's just that the bare structure above his shoulders only makes this polite posture look more creepy and terrifying.

"Guest, who are you looking for?" A hollow and muffled voice sounded from the chest of the headless body, sounding polite.

A strange feeling emerged in his heart, but after all, Duncan had dealt with a lot of evil things in this world, so he quickly ignored the strangeness, and talked with the headless body in front of him calmly: "The end of the corridor Why is your room missing?"

"It left," replied the headless figure, "a long, long time ago."

Duncan frowned, and then asked again: "Then what about the people in the room? Should there be someone in the room?"

"The mistress of the room also left, with the room—a long, long time ago." The headless body replied.

"A long time ago?" Duncan couldn't restrain the disobedience in his heart, "Didn't you just leave?"

"Yes, guest, just left, that is, a long, long time ago," the headless body replied politely, "here, everything that has happened happened a long, long time ago - the next thing, it happened After a long, long time."

The words spoken by this headless body were strange and difficult to understand, but Duncan couldn't help but be drawn to many guesses by these strange and obscure words in his heart - discontinuity of time? Fault? The mansion is in some sort of time gap?

Duncan suddenly thought of the brass key. He came to this eerie mansion after turning the key, and the brass key came from a sane final missionary—a time-discontinuous group .

Brass key?

Duncan's heart moved, and he suddenly felt something, and immediately looked at his hand - the cold touch seemed to have been delayed for a long time, and it suddenly spread into his palm at this moment, and a brass key lay there quietly.

And when he saw the brass key, the headless body standing opposite seemed to notice something suddenly, the body shook, and a dull voice came from its chest: "Ah, so you are holding the key." Your honored guest—forgive me for being negligent, but are you here to find the hostess?"

"Mistress?" Duncan was puzzled, "Didn't you just say that the mistress had left with the room? And she left a long, long time ago..."

"There are two hostesses," the headless body said slowly, patiently answering guests' questions like a butler, "one is the hostess of the room, she never leaves the room, and now she has followed the room leave together, and the other is the mistress of the mansion—she never enters the mansion."

The headless body's words became more and more weird. Duncan was confused by it, but he quickly guessed that the "mistress who never leaves the room" refers to the Frost Queen Leh Nora, and then There is a vague guess about another "hostess".

"What's the name of the other mistress?" He stared at the headless body in front of him and asked.

"This is Alice's mansion," the headless body quickly replied, "The hostess' name is, of course, Alice."

Duncan lowered his eyelids calmly, controlling the subtle changes in his eyes.

Everything was expected—I entered the mansion after turning the keyhole on Alice's back, so how could this weird mansion have nothing to do with "Alice"?

The name of this mansion is called "Alice's Mansion". Alice is the mistress of this mansion, and Ray Nora is only the mistress of that room - the latter never steps out of her room , so it sounds more like a special prisoner than a "hostess", and this is also in line with the information revealed by Ray Nora:

She was bound in the "drifting place" in order to control the "ancient god clone" in the deep sea.

Now, thanks to the "help" of a Warp shadow, this particular prisoner escaped with her cage.

The "warden" of this prison is hovering outside the prison?

Alice's innocent and happy smiling face involuntarily appeared in Duncan's mind, and he couldn't connect that silly doll with the identity of "the mistress of Alice's mansion" or "the warden of the drifting land".

So he quickly controlled the wild thoughts in his mind, and while finishing his expression, he raised his eyes to look at the headless body in front of him: "Why doesn't the mistress of the mansion ever enter the mansion?"

"She is taking a nap in the garden," replied the headless body. "She has been resting for a long time, but it is not time to return to the mansion."

Taking a nap in the garden?

Thoughts swirled in Duncan's mind, but he kept his expression calm: "Can I go see that 'hostess'?"

"Of course," the headless body said immediately, even though there was no head, Duncan felt that the other party seemed to have a "gaze" on the brass key, "You are the guest holding the key, you can open this mansion any door in the garden—including, of course, the one that leads to the garden. Come with me, and I will show you to the garden.”

Duncan nodded, "Yes", and followed behind the headless body, walking towards the spiral staircase connecting the first and second floors of the mansion.

On the way to the garden, he tried to chat with the other party with the idea of ​​collecting as much information as possible: "What is your identity here?"

"I am the butler here, guest," said the headless body that claimed to be the butler. "Ordinary servants and maids dare not approach you, so I am here."

"There are still many servants and maids here?" Duncan remembered the whispers he heard in the hall and the phantoms he saw by chance. "It sounds like this place is quite lively on weekdays?"

"Wanderingly accepts drifters, and all strayed souls here, where all have no home to go to - so it's at least a decent sanctuary."

"What's your name?" Duncan asked again.

"I don't have a name, guest, you can just call me the butler," said the headless butler. "Most of the servants and maids here don't have names, and those who have names will gradually lose them—those who lose their homes will eventually lose themselves. It is our destiny, and I was the first to come here, my name was lost long ago."

"The homeless..." Duncan stopped suddenly, subconsciously repeating the word.

"Guest?" The headless butler also stopped, turning his head to "look" at Duncan curiously.

"It's okay, I'm just a little distracted." Duncan reacted quickly, shaking his head and said.

But just when he was about to step out again, an oil painting on a nearby wall suddenly caught his attention.