Through a hidden passage within the Buck Mansion, Dorothy finally escaped to a secluded beach by the banks of the White River. Using the Corpse Marionette Ring, she remotely activated a backup corpse marionette stationed inside a carriage hidden in a nearby alley. The marionette drove the carriage back to Buck Mansion and then picked up Dorothy and the corpse marionette Brandon at the beach’s entrance.
Riding the carriage, Dorothy quickly headed to a riverside location downstream along the Ironclay River to recover the corpse marionette Edrick. After taking care of the carriage and corpse marionettes, she hailed a regular hired carriage to take her home.
At last, when the carriage stopped near Southern Sunflower Street, Dorothy stepped off with two suitcases in hand. Entering her apartment building, she climbed the stairs all the way to the fifth floor, gasping for breath by the time she arrived.
“Huff... huff... Beyonders under the Revelation domain really have no physical enhancements. If not for the Corpse Marionette Ring and Dragon Shout, my direct combat ability would be abysmal.”
Once inside her home, Dorothy immediately rushed to her bedroom, locked the door behind her, and collapsed onto the bed, letting out a long sigh of relief.
“Finally... it’s over. That last part almost scared me to death…”
Lying on the bed, Dorothy muttered to herself in reflection. The sudden arrival of the hunters at the end had caught her entirely off guard, becoming the biggest variable in her plan. If Edrick hadn’t successfully distracted them and bought enough time for her to crack the password and open the door, she wouldn’t have known what to do next.
Edrick had been stationed as a contingency piece in the attic beforehand. When Turner started smashing the door, Dorothy had no choice but to use Edrick as bait to lure the trio away from the secret chamber and up to the rooftop, where she could stall them.
As for her method of stalling, it was, of course, bluffing, misleading, and riddling.
Dorothy had a significant advantage in intelligence. Through the corpse marionette’s reconnaissance, she could discern the hunters’ movements. Additionally, she had given Edrick the Concealment Ring to mask him from the hunters’ mystical detection. Moreover, Gregor and the others believed that the gruesome scene in the study was Edrick’s doing.
The information disparity was the foundation of Dorothy’s riddles. By weaving convoluted, cryptic, and nonsensical riddles, she successfully unsettled the hunters.
This experience made Dorothy realize just how exhausting it was to play the role of a cryptic riddler. After this ordeal, she couldn’t help but admire certain characters in stories who maintained their enigmatic demeanor from start to finish, speaking in riddles even when a few straightforward sentences would suffice. How tiring that must be—they’d probably run out of saliva in the process!
When Gregor asked for the name of her organization at the end, Dorothy had made one up on the spot. After all, if they wanted a phantom target to pursue, it needed a name.
Of course, while the name was improvised, it wasn’t entirely random.
“Rose Cross Order” was a name that had emerged from Dorothy’s distant memories of a work titled Trinity Blood, in which it was the name of a secret organization and the main antagonist—a faction bent on renewing the world with flames. The full name was the "the Golden and Rose Cross Order." Supposedly, this name also held significant meaning in the mysticism of Dorothy’s original world.
When Gregor asked about the organization’s name, “Rose Cross Order” was the first to come to Dorothy’s mind, so she used it. After all, it was just a name and didn’t matter much.
After lying on the bed for a while to recover, Dorothy got up and sat at her desk to examine her spoils from the operation.
First, she opened the box of valuables looted from the Buck Mansion. She began her inventory: a few pieces of fine jewelry, which could be pawned for cash when things quieted down, and about 120 pounds in cash. Adding this to her previous total of 215 pounds, Dorothy now had 335 pounds in cash.
Next were some sigils. Dorothy found four standard Chalice sigils and two peculiar ones. These odd sigils resembled the standard Chalice ones but featured much denser inscriptions. Dorothy couldn’t decipher what they were for at first glance.
“Strange Chalice sigils... could they be related to Buck’s sudden berserk transformation? I should consult Aldrich about this later.”
With that thought, Dorothy set aside the two complex Chalice sigils and picked up one last unique sigil.
This sigil hadn’t been found in the secret chamber but in the study, near the wall where Buck had been slammed by the Dragon Shout. It had evidently fallen from him.
Upon closer inspection, the sigil didn’t depict a Chalice but rather a combination of two overlapping symbols. Dorothy identified them as representing Shadow and Revelation.
“Hah… A dual-domain sigil. I wonder what it does. I’ll have to add this to my questions for Aldrich. If I recall correctly, the combination of Shadow and Revelation relates to dreams, right?”
After storing the special sigil, Dorothy turned her attention to the other spoils: two mystical texts. One was a duplicate copy of The Taste of Crimson, a novel-form mystical text she had already read. This text was designed to corrupt others, but rereading it wouldn’t provide her with additional Revelation spirituality. Dorothy considered selling it later.
The other mystical text was titled “Hymns to the Mother of the Chalice.”
A brief glance revealed it to be a poetry collection, filled with verses praising a deity.
This deity was referred to by various names in the poems: “Mother of the Chalice,” “Blood Chalice,” “Mother of All Flesh,” “Goddess of Desires.” She appeared to be a goddess of the Chalice domain, representing its essence.
“Is this the god worshiped by the Crimson Eucharist? Judging by the nature of the Eucharist, there’s a good chance this is an evil god. Then again, maybe not…”
Dorothy cast another glance at the cover of “Hymns to the Mother of the Chalice” and mused further.
“Unfortunately, this text is in poetry form. Exchanging it for knowledge of another world might yield a poor return. It’ll probably just serve as a spiritual resource.”
Dorothy recalled asking the system about knowledge exchanges. The system categorized exchanges by type—for example, language for language or identification skills for identification skills. This was why she hadn’t exchanged “The Taste of Crimson” before; she doubted a novel would yield anything particularly useful. She preferred practical skills. Similarly, “Hymns to the Mother of the Chalice” being poetry made her hesitant—it might just return another poem.
With limited capacity left in her Soul Codex, Dorothy could only perform one more exchange before her next advancement. She needed to choose carefully which knowledge to exchange.