Fabericotte calmed himself down a little. When he stood in front of the window and saw those half-human, half-frogfish monsters, his poor rationality and common sense had been completely destroyed. Fortunately, his spirit did not fall into a state of confusion.
Because of this, he was able to truthfully describe what he saw and heard that day to Zhang Heng.
According to the young traveler, he originally wanted to transfer here and take the bus to Arkham at eight o 'clock in the evening. There was usually no one on this route, and the ticket price was very cheap. For a poor traveler like him, it was still very attractive. Of course, another reason was that he was very curious about this place.
When he was in Newburyport, he had heard many legends about this place, such as the disgusting ugliness of the townspeople, the gloomy and depressing atmosphere, and the occasional disappearances. All these things were quite attractive to the young man.
Especially when Fabericotte saw the golden crown in the museum, he was deeply fascinated by the strange, unimaginable evil it exuded.
"Is the golden crown made of this material?" Zhang Heng took out the necklace from his bag.
"Yes, that's right." Fabericotte screamed as soon as he saw the necklace. He shuddered and tried to look away, but the necklace seemed to contain some kind of magic. It was obviously evil, but at the same time, he was fascinated by it.
Fortunately, Zhang Heng did not take out the necklace for too long. He just waved it in front of the young traveler's face and put it away again.
Fabericotte breathed a sigh of relief. "In short, I took the bus at ten o 'clock the next morning and came here. Although I had done a lot of research before coming here, and I was mentally prepared, I have to admit that the strange and dead atmosphere here still exceeded my imagination. I mean, can you believe it? Before 1846, this place was full of people, and it was thriving. People said that a great plague killed more than half of the people in the town. Combined with the strange appearance of the townspeople, it seems reasonable that it was the influence of an unknown disease …"
Fabericotte paused for a moment. "Anyway, I have already taken the bus here. If I want to leave, I will have to take the bus at night. So, I decided to use this time to walk around the town and satisfy my curiosity. I want to see if I can hear more stories about this place … But as you can see, the people here are not very friendly to outsiders. No one is willing to talk to me. In fact, I don't really want to communicate with them. Whether it is their weird appearance or the stench on their bodies, they make me uncomfortable. Fortunately, I found a shop assistant in the grocery store. He is not a local. He was just transferred here by the headquarters."
"He told me some things to pay attention to here, such as not going out in the middle of the night and staying away from the church. The original Freemasonry here has now been replaced by another mysterious order. Their priests seem to be thinking about some strange rituals, and the townspeople love water very much. They compete with each other in swimming from time to time. You don't want to know how they behave in the water. By the way, there are four famous families in this town — the Marsh family who runs the refinery, the Witt family, the Gilman family, and the Elliot family. But few people see them go out.
"In the end, when the young man in the grocery store heard that I wanted to hear more anecdotes, he recommended an old man named Zadok Allen. Allen's old man is a pitiful old drunkard who lives alone. He's already in his nineties. He's usually very tight-lipped and somewhat neurotic, but once he's drunk, he'll start spouting nonsense. It's said that many of the legends here came from his mouth. "
"Did you find him?" Zhang Heng asked.
"Yes, although it took me a lot of effort, and I had to try my best to get rid of the others. The young man in the grocery store told me that it was best to meet Zadok Allen without being seen by the townspeople. I lured him to a ruin with a bottle of wine. There, we had a precious opportunity to communicate one-on-one, "Fabericotte said with a look of horror and chagrin on his face." But now, I wish I had never heard those horrible stories from his mouth. "
"What stories?"
"Everything started on a small island in the South Pacific. At that time, bad things happened at the same time. A privateer killed a ship of good fishermen during the War of 1812, and three ships of the Gilman family went missing. Only the Marsh family's ship was still at sea, but it wasn't doing too well either. They couldn't catch many fish. The captain of one of the ships, named Obed, heard about the island. The natives wore gold-like ornaments, and there was an endless supply of fish there."
"Thus, Captain Obeid led his men to that small island. At first, he just wanted to find a way to exchange some gold-like ornaments with the natives on the island. But later, Obeid found a way to find out the source of the gold from the chief. The chief told him that the people on the island would hold a ceremony from time to time, using the tribe's youths to trade, and that the gold and fish were the rewards from those things.
"And after that, those things went one step further. They persuaded the people on the island to reproduce with them. The children they gave birth to looked like humans at first, but as they grew older, they would become more and more like those things. In the end, they would live underwater forever."
"Are you referring to those half-human, half-fish, and frogs?" Zhang Heng frowned.
"Yes, those are the things that do business with the tribe. But not all children will become like that, and the time of transformation is different. Some are born like that, and some can maintain their human appearance until they are seventy or eighty years old. Some will never complete the final transformation."
"Heh." Zhang Heng was noncommittal.
"In short, Captain Obeid figured out what happened on the island and brought back a gift from the chief. It was a small object made of lead or something else, as well as a corresponding ritual. According to the chief, he had to find a place with fish and throw the lead into it. With the ritual, he would be able to find the things that lived under the water.
"Captain Obeid didn't use it at first. He just put it aside and continued to trade with the tribes on the island, exchanging for gold-like things in their hands. Meanwhile, he opened a refinery in town and secretly processed those things, earning quite a bit of money. But in 1938, when Obeid brought people to the island again, he discovered that the tribe had disappeared. They had been eliminated by the people on the other islands, and there were some mysterious protective talismans everywhere on the island. This was incomparably bad news for Captain Obeid."
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