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The old bishop remained quiet, the weight of years apparent in his silence. Undeterred, Agatha pressed further: “In your judgment… do you think the strange incidents happening regularly within the city-state and the ominous shadow cast by Dagger Island are part of the Frost Queen’s intricate web of strategies?”

“The queen, she is no deity,” began Bishop Ivan, shaking his head with a sense of disbelief. His mind, swirling with fragments of the past, struggled to recall the intricate details of events that occurred fifty years prior. “She might have predicted that there would be dissenters seeking to disrupt her perceived ‘reckless’ actions, but she couldn’t have foreseen the events unfolding here half a century later,” he confessed, his voice layered with regret and faded memories. “In all honesty, I can’t recall with absolute clarity what the queen uttered to me on that fateful night. During the ritual of soul-sending, she appeared to converse with me continually, but you must understand that performing such a ceremony demands unwavering focus, and one must inhale potent incense beforehand, so… my recollections are sadly unclear.”

Taking a brief pause, he spread his hands in a gesture of helplessness: “Under normal circumstances, there should be no dialogue between the ‘deceased’ lying on the ceremonial platform and the priest performing the rites concerning the ceremony experience.”

Agatha was silent, her mind actively processing the information, trying to piece together the puzzle before her. After a moment, she ventured, “Can you expand upon the circumstances of that time? Before the conclusion of the Abyss Project… what else did you witness within that church?”

“…From what I remember, it was a day of intense snowfall, reminiscent of this year, and for a considerable length of time, the relentless snowfall showed no signs of stopping. The accumulated snow often concealed the roads around the humble chapel, making the boundaries indistinguishable. Many folks slipped and fell,” recounted Bishop Ivan in a quiet, slow cadence. His muffled and distant voice drew one’s imagination back to that frigid winter half a century ago. “Wounded individuals often sought refuge and aid in the church, as the local clinics were already overwhelmed with patients.”

“Back then, the Abyss Project was the source of considerable unease within the city. Unlike today, it was not a topic that was swept under the rug. Even though the core aspect was kept covert, the average citizen was aware of this ‘oceanic exploration’ project. Thus, individuals frequently visited the church and recounted the ‘unusual phenomena’ they had observed…”

“Unusual phenomena?” Agatha interjected, curiosity piqued.

“Indeed, peculiar occurrences. Some recounted seeing mysterious glimmers emanating from houses long deserted, while others claimed familiar faces of their neighbors abruptly transformed overnight. Some even reported witnessing the graveyard gates creak open under the moonlight, and the dead, interred during daylight, were seen strolling out of the cemetery at night, boldly and without hesitation. Such chilling and uncanny tales were rife, occurring constantly during that time. Naturally, given the city-state’s most sinister undertaking was the Abyss Project, people began attributing all these anomalies to it, and eventually… the blame fell on the Frost Queen.”

“People interred in the cemetery boldly emerged,” Agatha echoed, listening to the old bishop’s tales. Her forehead furrowed in thought as if his words stirred an uncomfortable parallel with the present. “And inexplicable lights appearing in abandoned houses, this… it sounds strikingly similar to…”

“It does bear a striking resemblance to the artificial corpse discovered in Cemetery No. 3 and the eerie room you encountered at 42 Fireplace Street, doesn’t it?” interjected the old bishop slowly. “But you’ve seen tangible evidence and even collected what appears to be primal matter. Back then, all we had were scattered rumors. People would daily approach me with their tales of the uncanny, but despite deploying city guardians to investigate, they all returned empty-handed.”

“Every single one returned empty-handed?” Agatha inquired, disbelief creeping into her voice.

“Yes, we followed up on the residents’ claims. Even half a century ago, we adhered to stringent procedures. I dispatched numerous individuals to probe these chilling accounts, and the cathedral’s gatekeeper at that time even personally undertook investigations akin to yours, yet we uncovered nothing. Apart from the increasingly agitated citizenry, the city-state itself remained oddly normal. However, the testing ground for the Abyss Project began to close off gradually, and within its sealed confines, horrors began to unfurl.”

“As for the true nature of the occurrences there… you must have gleaned from the archives—the inexplicable emergence of cloned submersibles, the arrival and departure of unidentified strangers, and explorers meeting their demise in the fathomless depths.”

Agatha fell silent momentarily, her mind a whirlwind of thoughts. An inexplicable feeling nagged at her. There was something jarring in the old bishop’s narrative, a missing piece, or perhaps a misaligned one, that had evaded detection for fifty long years.

“So, even though the Abyss Project stirred widespread panic at the time, in reality, all the abnormal incidents were confined within the testing ground, and the city-state, for the most part, carried on as per usual. Despite the citizens being under considerable psychological duress due to the queen’s extreme edicts, the city’s operations faced hardships, and people ceaselessly reported strange occurrences. But from the standpoint of supernatural influences, the ‘corruption’ from the depths never extended beyond the sealed boundaries?”

“…At least that’s my recollection of it,” the elderly bishop agreed, nodding gently. Yet, he quickly veered off into a different direction. “Nonetheless, I do not mean to absolve the Frost Queen of that era. Even if the city-state maintained its routine, her Abyss Project strained Frost’s economy and the nerves of its citizens to the brink of collapse. Whether the Abyss Project remained under her firm control or spun out of hand, an uprising was an inevitability.”

Agatha appeared to have glossed over the bishop’s concluding statements while lost in her own thoughts. After a moment’s contemplation, she shook her head, “Let’s focus on the here and now, Bishop Ivan. I’m interested in hearing your views regarding the current situation within the city and this report that I hold.”

“You’ve uncovered signs of Annihilators in the city and gathered evidence supporting their involvement, which is encouraging. When faced with supernatural contamination, the most unnerving aspect isn’t necessarily the identity of your adversaries, but the uncertainty of not knowing who they are.” Bishop Ivan articulated slowly, holding up the document in his grasp.

“The report you presented also alludes to this—speculating that the Annihilators in Frost have established contact with the deep-sea powers through some clandestine ritual, leading to the direct spillage of the marine pollution into the city-state. Thus, our priority should be locating the sites of these cultist ceremonies.”

Agatha fixed her gaze on the bishop’s eye, visible amidst the swathes of bandages, “Do you believe… the ‘visitor’ who penned this report can be trusted?”

“At the very least, every assertion within the report is backed by factual evidence, and even those parts that cannot be confirmed at present align logically,” Bishop Ivan nodded his affirmation. “Of course, I can’t vouch for the trustworthiness of the writer’s existence. The sentiments and viewpoints of higher beings differ vastly from mortal comprehension, thus we can never engage with them through human emotional logic.”

“I can only suggest that when they temporarily display neutrality or amicability, we can cooperate or even proactively collaborate with them. But, should they abruptly find the game tiresome and opt to oppose us, we must not allow ourselves to be taken aback or confused. After all, the only truly trustworthy and loyal higher beings in this universe are the Four Gods; all else are neither foe nor ally.”

The old bishop’s words resonated deeply with the wisdom of fifty long years. Even though their statuses were on par, Agatha felt compelled to offer a respectful nod in acknowledgment.

“The next time the visitor makes an appearance, I shall endeavor to initiate engagement and gauge their current disposition.”

“That would indeed be beneficial,” Bishop Ivan responded, nodding in agreement.

Agatha paused to reflect, her gaze flitting to the document held securely in the aged bishop’s grasp, “That leaves us now with just one complex problem to unravel.”

Following her lead, Bishop Ivan’s gaze also gravitated towards the report’s final section.

The entirety of the letter was lucid and comprehensible, save for the final part, which seemed to confound both the cemetery keeper who initially received the correspondence and now Agatha and Bishop Ivan in discerning its underlying implications.

The two preeminent representatives of the church’s supreme command in the city-state congregated their trio of eyes veiled beneath swathes of bandages, transfixed on the letter’s conclusion – the mysterious visitor had encrypted a puzzle into their clandestine message.

“…What could these numerical values signify?” Bishop Ivan asked hesitantly.

Agatha slowly shook her head, “I am equally bewildered.”

“…Perhaps we could employ the services of a diviner to infer their significance or assemble a team of mathematicians and mystics to work in tandem. It could potentially be a cryptic numerical code hinting at the city-state’s future.”

“That’s a plausible hypothesis.”

…

At the fringes of the upper city, adjacent to Fireplace Street, at 44 Oak Street, Duncan stood gazing out of the slender window at the end of the second-floor corridor, transfixed by the encroaching darkness.

After a pause, he abruptly swiveled his head, glancing at Vanna, who was lost in a world of her own nearby: “Do you reckon they’ve forwarded the payment by now?”

Roused from her daydream, Vanna appeared disoriented, “Uh… what?”

“Drop by the bank for me tomorrow and check if they’ve processed the payment,” Duncan instructed earnestly. “In that report, I included an anonymous account number dedicated solely to receiving rewards for my submissions.”

Vanna, in response: “What…?”