Deep Sea Embers

The moment Duncan took out the sun talisman, there was a few seconds of silence at the scene - his words "my own person" floated in the air calmly, which brought about a dozen pairs of eyes unexpectedly and cautiously interacting with each other. They looked at each other, and then the tall, thin man who looked like a small boss suddenly lowered his voice and said in a hurried tone, "Hurry up! Be careful of the church's eyeliner nearby!"

Does this amulet really work? Is this thing so convincing among the Sun Cultists?

Duncan was delighted in his heart, but he still maintained a mysterious posture with an expressionless face covering half of his face. My talisman stands out."

As soon as he finished speaking, there was a man with a beard on the opposite side who subconsciously said: "No, we can gather together at most to attract the sheriff and disturb the social order..."

"Shut up!" The tall and thin leader immediately stopped the bullshit, and then his eyes fell on Duncan, "This is a necessary precaution - after all, this city is very unsafe now. You come over , don't make any extra moves."

Duncan calmly walked towards the opposite side, and the other side looked him up and down carefully. After looking at him for a long time, the tall and thin man asked in a low voice, "Are you a believer living in this city?"

Duncan thought for a while, then nodded: "Yes."

The original owner of this body did live in the city, and he lives in the city now, and on these obvious issues, he decided to tell the truth.

His plan was very simple. He tried to find a way to find a fish in troubled waters to get in with these cultists, and then see if he could find out any news. If he didn't expose it, he would listen and ask more. If it was exposed, he would let Ai Yin transform into pigeons and give them all.

The tall and thin man didn't notice any dangerous thoughts in the mind of this "compatriot of the church" in front of him, but asked: "As far as I know, the Deep Sea Church attacked a few days ago..."

"The meeting place in the sewers, where there was a sun worship, the ceremony got out of control, we lost a lot of people - but I escaped," Duncan said without any psychological burden, while paying attention to the reactions of the surrounding sun worshippers, He could feel that the tense atmosphere on these people had clearly relaxed, and only the tall and thin little leader in front of him remained cautious, "There were three other people who escaped with me, but we got separated, Now I'm completely out of touch with the church - until I met you and the sun gave me guidance."

The tall and thin man hummed noncommittally, and then his eyes fell on Duncan's shoulder: "What is this?"

"My pet," Duncan said casually, "can't you tell? It's just an ordinary pigeon."

Ai Yin shook his head at the right time and made a loud "gugu" sound.

"This pigeon's voice is so loud..." The tall and thin man seemed to have finally let go of his vigilance, probably subconsciously feeling that those guys in the church who abide by the rules and regulations would not have the habit of running around the city with a bird, he nodded, "Following. I'm here, it's not safe to speak outside."

Duncan breathed a sigh of relief. He felt that the first step of fishing in troubled waters seemed to be a success.

Then he followed behind the group of cultists and followed them deeper into the alley.

The alley was deeper than he had imagined, and it seemed to lead to the darkest and most forgotten hinterland of this rundown city. A group of cultists led Duncan around, passing through the old piping system that constantly released steam, passing through After crossing the sewage-flowing path, and finally detouring into a low and dilapidated building complex, and the deeper you go, the darker and more broken side of this prosperous steam capital is revealed to Duncan. undoubtedly.

He thought that the place where he and Nina lived was already the lower-level community of the city, but now he suddenly realized that the original antique store had turned out to be a "decent place" in the lower city.

Most of the dilapidated houses on both sides of the road are dead and seem to have been abandoned for a while, but in the shadows of a few houses, there seems to be a numb or gloomy gaze, it seems that there are homeless people hiding in this area. In the forgotten city, I watched indifferently the uninvited guests who broke into the place.

But in the end, these gloomy gazes were quickly withdrawn - the dozen or so people that the tall and thin man was carrying were obviously enough to make the homeless people living here fearful.

"See, this is the most prosperous city-state on the boundless sea, Perland," muttered the man in black who initially caught Duncan's attention, as if speaking to himself, but also as if to tell Duncan, "Everywhere The same is true of Rensa, the same is true of Cold Harbor, and even the light-winded harbor of the elves called 'the land of peace and justice'... They claim that the so-called 'sun' illuminates the world fairly and brings light and order to all things , but how much sunshine is there to talk about in these gutters?"

Duncan didn't respond, just glanced up. He saw steam and fuel pipes that spread from Uptown and the Industrial City crisscrossing the buildings above him. The huge valves and pressure regulating structures were entrenched like many bizarre beasts. Above the low and dilapidated buildings around, the sun shines through the gaps in these pipes, making the sewage between the buildings emit an unpleasant stench.

Most of the sewage was condensed from steam leaking from nearby pipes. With the operation of the city, this sewage mixed with the chemicals in the factory and accumulated in the lower city day after day.

Without having to live long in the city, Duncan could roughly guess how this "urban abscess" appeared at a glance.

Duncan silently glanced at the aggrieved man in black, his expression still sullen.

Bewitched by the Sons of the Sun, or persecuted by a bad life, these cultists were born for a reason—but so what?

These cultists, who thought they were forced by the city-state and had to live in the gutter, finally came to this lower city to arrest the helpless poor people and sacrificed their lives - there are countless ragged people in the cave , but none of them were decent people uptown.

As a "foreigner" who didn't know enough about the world, Duncan felt that he didn't need to comment too much on this city-state, but at least as a former sacrifice, he felt that these cultists were not a thing.

In silence, he finally reached the stronghold of these cultists.

The base is underground in an abandoned factory.

These cultists who are drilling in the gutter always seem to have a way to find a suitable gutter and transform it into their gathering place, or this prosperous steam capital already has countless gutters, suitable for growing some Something dark and profane.

A group of people crossed the half-collapsed courtyard wall outside the factory and opened the iron gate leading to the underground structure. Duncan originally planned to take a good look at the situation in the factory to satisfy his curiosity about the "steam age". Not finding a chance, he was taken directly to a sloping staircase leading to the underground, and came to the "secret base" of the cultists.

It used to be a warehouse of a factory or a facility such as a machinery room, but now it has obviously been evacuated, leaving only the residual piping system on the roof and the gas on the walls that can no longer be lit. Lamps—Dark spaces are dangerous, and even the cultists knew that, so they lit up whale tallow-fueled oil lamps all over the ground, and in the light of the flood of lamps, Duncan saw that there were ten more. Several cultists gathered here.

After the church devastated a sacrifice site, there are still so many Sun believers gathered together? Where did these cultists come from? Is it possible that it is the same as the moss of the mushroom, but if there is a sewer, it will grow out by itself?

Duncan looked at the figures gathered in the wide basement with some surprise, and the cultists also looked at him, the stranger who suddenly appeared, curiously and warily, and then the tall and thin man came over again, a few seconds later. A tall and strong-looking cultist followed, standing around Duncan.

Duncan frowned: "Why, you have to search again after you come in? I didn't know there was such a rule."

"If you are really the eyeliner of the church, a body search is useless," the tall and thin man said, taking out a cloth strip from his arms and handing it to Duncan, "Relax, it's just a more rigorous verification, it's just necessary Caution - we've lost a lot of our countrymen over the years for various reasons. Take it and read it with me."

Duncan glanced at the thing handed over by the other party, and saw that it was a dirty strip of cloth, even like something torn from old clothes, with dark brown stains on the surface, like dried blood.

Is this another prop for the Sun believers to verify their compatriots?

Duncan was a little surprised, sighing that this is indeed a group of professionals who are hunted and killed all day long. Although there is not much combat power, the skills of preventing external penetration and internal ghosts are indeed full.

Then he took the things handed over by the other party, and heard the tall and thin man start muttering some sentences in a low voice: "In the name of the sun, may the glory of the Lord shine..."

When Duncan heard it, he felt very familiar - he just heard a cultist say this to him not long ago!

The cult also gave him an amulet.

Duncan raised his finger calmly, and a cluster of undetected green flames infiltrated the seemingly ordinary cloth in his hand. The thin man recited the few prayers.

The strip of cloth, which seemed to be soaked in blood, remained in his hand, looking unresponsive.

The tall and thin man's eyes fell on the cloth strip. After a long time, he finally nodded slightly, stretched out his hand to retract the cloth strip from Duncan's hand, and said with a smile, "Welcome back to the glory of the Lord, compatriot."