Chapter 78: Concealed Trap

Sheyan held his breath as he witnessed such an extraordinary sight. He had prepared earlier; an apple, fried bacon, two loaves of rye bread according to Chris's instructions, and threw them into the water.

A peculiar sound rung softly; the soft sound of a Greece Harp. From beneath the water surface, a shadow darted back and forth. This shadow was strangely fast, like a black belt darting around rapidly.

Sheyan observed the shadow, and felt a queer dangerous sensation welling up in his heart; as though he would get polluted and suffer dire consequences. He knew this was his high perceptive sense warning him. Thus, he reflexly took a step back in precaution, that he may dive behind the nearby rocks to take cover.

The shadow seemed as though it had no intention to surface. After consuming the food Sheyan threw in, it dispersed. The silverish glow on the water surface gradually dimmed, at this moment he could see a message in a bottle, covered in moss and algae, floating inwards at a fast pace.

Sheyan picked up the bottle, as the silverish glow dissipated regaining its earlier turbulent condition.

He wasn't willing to continue staying by the seashore, as his lone figure was extremely prominent in the darkness of the night.

After entering a tavern, he tossed out 2 guineas and requested a room from the bartender.

Presently, taverns were the combination of a supermarket, hotel and even a brothel. Thus, the bartender was not surprised at all, bringing Sheyan to the back as they rounded a corner, and entered into a room.

Probably because their main customers were mostly pirates or sailors, this room was renovated to look like a ship's cabin. Atop the wall, hung a decorative rudder. It had small oval-shaped windows, and beside it was the popular darts game set at the time. On top of a bench at the side, were several distinct burn marks, it seemed like an inconsiderate customer had previously pressed their cigarette bud there. The room's only praiseworthy aspect was an old fashioned greyish striped linen made bed sheet that was relatively clean. It even gave off a clean and fresh fragrance as though it had previously been in the sun.

Sheyan sat down on the bed, and carefully inspected the bottle. This was a dark brown, thin neck circular body type bottle, with a thick layer of wax sealing it which maintained the cork of the bottle to be clean and dry.

The surface of this bottle was no longer glossy, several vine and algae had attached itself to it; producing a deliberate rough feeling. What surprised Sheyan was that, the bottle was icy-cold to touch; as though it was just taken out from a freezer. Holding it eliminated all trace of warmth from his hand all the way into the bone marrow.

According to Chris, if he opened this bottle, the mission would abruptly cease and cause an evil spirit to emerge. This evil spirit was an illusionary being and no amounts of attack could harm it. Instead, it would carry out curses on people and the user that opened it would have a 100 HP reduction within 5 minutes. Then, it would vanish. Previously, an unfortunate member impulsively opened it, and was subsequently cursed by that evil spirit.

Before entering the nightmare realm, that unfortunate member was a pickpocket. He was known as a sly and slick expert who could pinch out over 10 coins secretly from others without harming them. His agility had painstakingly been raised above 20 points, however, his physique was only on par with an average person. In the end, after suffering from that curse, and even after racking his brains to think of a solution, he could only watch in silence as he stepped into death's doors after five minutes......one could only imagine his crumbling state of mind before dying.

After witnessing such a scene, the rest obviously dared not open up their bottles. After a series of investigations, Chris's party managed to discover an old person named, Palesius, who resided inside Turtuga castle and expressed great interest in this object.

That old man's status wasn't low in the castle, he was probably a butler who had earned the trust of his masters. Every day at 9 in the morning, he would go out to purchase groceries.

Once one passed the bottle to him, one would obtain a hefty reward of 20 guineas and even obtain his friendship. From then, one can use the excuse of visiting Palesius to freely enter the outer area of Turtuga castle. This was obviously not without any benefits, based on Chris, using a piece of whetstone in there could enhance your weapon's attack powers permanently by 11, and even held a certain percentage of receiving other deeper level mission.

However, Sheyan had no intentions of following the action sequence that Chris took.

Firstly, Chris brat wasn't a good person. Earlier he had exploited the agreement contract, and purposely omitted the essential clue of having to build a good relationship with Mole Waller. This caused huge frustrations to Sheyan. According to psychologists, a person would let his guard down the most when he was nearing success. Therefore, if Sheyan continued to follow this action sequence, he may encounter another trap that Chris had craftily set up.

Crucially speaking, the rewards from this did not attract Sheyan much. After Ammand's generous division of loots, Sheyan's personal guineas exceeded 3 figures. A mere 20 guineas was not important.

Regarding the ability to be able to freely enter the outer courts of Turtuga castle, it looked like it provides many benefits, but to the killer of the Madam of the castle and a Bell and Mug pirate member, frequently entering that place was not a good idea. If something went wrong, it would do more harm than good.

Therefore, Sheyan chose to attempt the other pathway of this side mission - that was opening the bottle which Chris's party avoided!

The spirit's curse seemed exceedingly dreadful, but unfortunately this sort of abnormal conditions (loss of blood etc) would not threaten Sheyan at all.

Once he equipped the title of 'pirate ringleader', his maximum life points would reach as high as 190 points. Even now, his life point was worth 170 points. Draining 100 HP within 5 minutes to him, was just a slight strain..... It would not carry any life threatening or crippling injuries at all.

After carefully weighing out the pros and cons, Sheyan steadily picked up the bottle and willfully absorbed the icy chill into his body temperature. He retrieved the candlestick beside him, before using his hand to touch the flames for a moment; as though he was testing the heat of the flames. He then placed the tip of the bottle against the candle.

Slowly, the thick and reliable wax started melting from the roasting heat.

Following the heat from the flames, the wax at the tip started dripping, one drop at a time, onto the table. A faint fragrance permeated into the air.

Sheyan looked at this image, and suddenly recalled a time when he was young where Uncle Dasi told him a 'haunted house' story, which was roughly about Uncle Dasi's father.

When he was young he travelled with his friends for business. In a mountainous area when the sky had turned dark, they found a small house. There was nobody in the house, a sinister looking headless idol was displayed in the center of the house, but the rice bags, firewood and bed were fairly organized. Although everything felt very eerie, their stomachs were rumbling with hunger from walking the whole day in the mountains, in addition to the pouring rain, they decided to rest there for the night.

Naturally, the few businessmen decided to start a fire to cook their meal, after eating they slept early. In the end, the house had no chimney, the vapour from cooking the meal extended everywhere. Not long after, when their meal had not yet finished cooking, they realized dozens of horrifying evil spirits had appeared and frantically charged at them. Astounded, they fled for their lives, two of their counterparts fell off an overhanging cliff because of the slippery roads. Afterwards an experienced and intelligent colleague mentioned that the house was a trap set up by bandits, the crux was the firewood that they used to cook their rice.

This firewood was probably layered with a poisonous mushroom extract from Ailao town, interpreting it would simply mean a layer of hallucinogen. After it burnt up, it would produce a smoke which would cause the inhaling persons to hallucinate. Adding up the surrounding eerie environment, the sinister headless idol, of course a terrifying image would be formed.

Yet when Sheyan saw the burning candle wax and after smelling the faint fragrance, his heart unconsciously formed an anxious and ominous premonition. Because following this present generation, to open up this message in a bottle, the most common method was undoubtedly to melt off the wax.

Therefore, it was hard to determine if there were booby traps devised with it. As such, he immediately moved away the bottle and from the candle flames, before opening the window to take in a few breaths of fresh air. He did not know if he was paranoid or what, but Sheyan felt that his head had cleared up a little.

Although there was no notification of damage from the nightmare imprint, he still had a strange paranoid feeling. He swiftly checked on his personal attributes, and instantly he obtained the origin of his paranoia! Because on the side of his attributes showed a prominent notification:

[ 14% chance of your attack being ineffective when attacking an enemy ]

Very naturally this cruel effect faded rapidly, because Sheyan immediately examined himself again after reading those words. He realized this damned negative buff had not much difference in nature. That effect of probability in rendering an attack ineffective had dropped to 13%. It looked like within a minute, this debuff would gradually fade away and wouldn't alarm anyone.