Eventually, Peter agreed to Jerome's invitation. He had planned to check out the main hall on the first floor, but as soon as they reached the first floor, they saw that all the people who had scattered from the meeting were crammed in there.
Peter's vision was becoming more and more blurred; it was as if he was looking at a bunch of sardines squeezed into a can, their scales, fins, and slimy mucus were undulating continuously, emitting a nauseating fishy smell.
He felt he really couldn't mingle with the crowd anymore; clearly, his mental state had been affected. Perhaps, as Jerome had said, he was on the verge of collapsing. If things continued like this, he wouldn't need anyone else to provoke him; he would be unable to take it anymore.
Deciding to go with Jerome to the basement to investigate, they first walked down the emergency passage, only to find the door to the sublevel locked.
The door didn't have a lock, just a latch on the backside, making it impossible to open from the front. It seemed there must be another entrance.
For Peter, this was simple. He smashed the glass above, used his Spider Silk to stick to the latch, and pulled it — the door was opened, while Jerome looked on with an 'I knew I chose the right person' expression.
Peter shrugged and said, "I'm good with this sort of thing, but if we run into some creepy monster later, you're up. I can't make heads or tails of those."
Jerome did not argue; the two continued downwards. Jerome said, "The first sublevel and the second sublevel are parking lots, not the places we're looking for. The hotel should have a third sublevel, but it's not shown on the maps of the elevator or the safety diagrams of the fire escape."
"How are we going to get in, then?"
"There's definitely a door," Jerome confidently asserted, "Let's go down to the second sublevel first; I have some theories."
Inside Wayne Manor, Shiller was also busy. Although the monster resembling Alfred was patrolling outside, they couldn't talk, communicate, or make any significant movements. However, a simple investigation was still possible.
Shiller suspected that the space-time in Gotham City was in chaos right now, so they may no longer be on the upper floors of Wayne Hotel but had actually arrived at the real Wayne Manor; he was just not sure which time period they were in.
In fact, it was easy to judge by looking at the wear and tear on the furniture and walls, but the problem was they were currently in a guest room which might not have been occupied for years or decades, and only showed traces from routine cleaning and maintenance. To determine the specific time, they would need to go to the frequently visited areas of the manor.
Moreover, to uncover the secrets of Thomas and Martha, they had to venture into the master bedroom or the study, but Shiller was also unsure if he would encounter Alfred's large head if he went now.
He gently opened the door and peeked through the crack; he saw no abnormalities outside, but did notice a few more bodies in the hallway, presumably those who had attempted to flee and been killed by tentacles.
Gordon, sitting on the couch, gestured to Shiller, suggesting he could distract the big-headed monster. Shiller was uncertain whether he could locate the study in a short time, and if Gordon died, he would be left to face everything alone.
After some thought, Shiller decided he could not simply wait to die. He and Gordon couldn't communicate smoothly at the moment, so they couldn't form a specific plan, but a few gestures were enough for them to understand each other.
Gordon gently pushed the door open and walked out; he was going to make some noise and attract the big-headed monster, giving Shiller the opportunity to look for the study or the bedroom upstairs.
After Gordon left, Shiller heard some noises from the garden outside; the sticky sound of water moved past the doorway—Alfred seemed to have left.
Without time to hesitate, Shiller bolted out the door, heading for the stairs he remembered, rapidly ascending. The slime and blood mixed on the floor made it exceptionally slippery, and Shiller stumbled a bit, but quickly made it to the third floor.
According to his memory, the study should be on this floor, but this was not the Wayne Manor he was familiar with. After searching the third floor, he found neither the study nor the bedrooms.
There were two possibilities: either these two vital rooms were hidden and required some special means to be opened, or the study and bedrooms were on an upper level and he'd need to continue searching upward.
Shiller didn't have much time to hesitate as the garden had gone quiet; the sticky sound of water appeared again on the first floor—Alfred had clearly returned.
He had no time to clean up his footprints, so the monster would surely follow them up to him. It seemed like a good idea to keep running upstairs, but Shiller hesitated for a moment and did not leave the third floor.
Regardless of whether it was Wayne Hotel or Wayne Manor, both were connected to Martha Wayne. So some of the hotel's rules might also apply within the manor—perhaps the door plates had been removed?
Shiller looked around at the rooms on the third floor. There were no door plates to be found, but that wasn't unusual in a private residence, where people rarely label each door.
However, Shiller noticed a detail—all the door handles on the rooms looked the same. He tried turning one at random and found that turning it to the right would open the door, but turning it to the left wasn't immovable: if he applied a little extra force and turned it several more times, he could unscrew the door handle.
Shiller unscrewed a door handle as fast as he could, and sure enough, the door began to disappear, leaving only a hole and the screw holes where the handle had been, a clever mechanism indeed.
Understanding the principle, Shiller knew he had to figure out where the doorknobs for the study and bedroom had gone. As he watched the monstrous figure below steadily approaching, Shiller had an unsettling guess—that the head steward of the manor personally held on to the doorknobs of the most important rooms.
It seemed he had to confront the situation head-on.
The sticky sound was not footsteps but something scraping across the balustrade of the inner courtyard staircase. The massive head did not need to walk; it could rise or descend freely in the courtyard, like an elevator.
Wait, an elevator?
All the imagery in these horror scenes had meaning and represented something. The elevator was a recurring theme in two scenes, which must have held a special significance for Martha Wayne.
Did Martha Wayne first encounter the creature in an elevator?
Shiller couldn't be sure, but he suddenly realized the rule of not hearing, not seeing, and not speaking must be tailored to Martha Wayne, or perhaps Martha felt she was in such a state within the manor. Consequently, the imagined monster surely targeted Martha as well.
Shiller immediately knew what to do.
He crouched down, hiding in a corner at the turn of the staircase, waiting for the giant head to rise.
As the dark shadow slowly approached, the foul stench became so overwhelming that Shiller could hardly breathe. Enduring the suffocating sensation, he looked towards the gigantic head as the faint moonlight illuminated the entire skull.
In the moment he looked straight at it, Shiller felt as though he was struck hard. He sensed a bloody smell lingering around his nostrils, and when he reached to wipe his nose, he had bled profusely.
But that glance hadn't allowed Shiller to see if there was anything else on the head, so he had to look once more. This time blood flowed from Shiller's eyes.
His vision was almost completely darkened; clearly, he could not afford a third look. But the good news was that Shiller saw that two tentacles on the back of Alfred's head seemed to be holding a string of doorknobs, fitting the image of a head steward holding all the keys of the house.
The giant head was never meant to be looked at directly. Having caught Alfred's attention by looking twice already, Shiller might even have ignited Alfred's rage.
The tentacles sped towards him while numerous small tentacles like bamboo shoots started emerging from the ground. Many people had been impaled by these emerging tentacles.
Shiller tried his best to dodge the tentacles. He moved agilely, rolling and tumbling, and made his way to the other side of the courtyard.
He threw something down.
It was a doorknob he had earlier removed, wrapped with two strands of hair that Shiller had found in the battery compartment of the alarm clock at the Wayne Hotel, suspected to belong to Martha Wayne.
Shiller's gamble paid off. The hair did indeed belong to Martha Wayne, and Alfred always prioritized Martha as his primary target. The doorknob fell with a thud to the first floor, and the big head swiftly followed after it.
Shiller made a daring move—he flipped over the balustrade of the inner courtyard and jumped onto the top of the giant head, snatching away the string of doorknobs before leaping onto the second floor of the courtyard.
The direct contact had predictably infuriated Alfred, or perhaps the two strands of hair were not significant enough to keep his attention, as he once again shifted his target and turned his face towards Shiller.
Shiller guessed the doorknobs held by Alfred must be special in some way, whether they led to the master bedroom or the study, and they might very well be places Alfred could not access.
This was reasonable. Even as the head steward, the privacy of the masters came first—there were definitely places in the manor he was not allowed to go.
Shiller ran back to the third floor, swiftly grabbing a doorknob from the string and twisting it into the hole left by the doorknob that had been previously removed.
The moment he opened the door, a thick tentacle burst through the corridor. Fortunately, Shiller had already stepped into the room.
After closing the door, Shiller took a deep breath and listened to the gradually subsiding noises outside, knowing he had made another right choice.
As he turned around, he found his luck was quite good—the room was a study with signs of recent activity. Judging by the height and condition of the traces, Thomas Wayne had been here.
What surprised Shiller was that everything was covered with a layer of dust as if the study had not been used for at least 20 years.