The confession of Edward Verlac is written in a meticulous, somewhat old-fashioned style that feels rather out of place in a story set in the 1990s. Of course, he has had the centuries-old spirit of Croesus Verlac working on his mind.
The protagonist gives off the impression of a clever, persistent and resourceful woman, and yet is completely useless when it comes to solving the puzzle box. The proprietor of The Cauldron, however, solves it immediately upon seeing it. One may wonder whether the protagonist's inability to make even the slightest progress with the puzzle is a case of Idiot Ball... but remember that this is the very shop that disappears as soon as things start getting dangerous, and is replaced by a different geography that goes around in a loop, which implies that the proprietor can somehow manipulate Alien Geometries to make his shop inaccessible when the environment is hostile. Many things and places related to the cult use Alien Geometries, so it makes sense that the puzzle box does so as well, which explains why the protagonist was utterly incapable of solving it, but the proprietor opened it like it was nothing.
