Lowly Ascent

"Where are we?" Darla stepped out of the hatch to see herself surrounded by dust and ruined furniture. On the walls were what looked to be family pictures and paintings of different kinds, all worn and hard to make out.

'Why is there a hatch to the sewers in an abandoned house? Was this the place the cultists would enter the surface from? But there was dust from the hatch...strange.'

Cain pieced everything available to him together, but he still couldn't find an answer to why a building had access to that part of the sewers.

Pushing on, Darla crept around a corner, entering what looked to be a kitchen. Silverware and dishes were everywhere, filling the sink and countertops. Crusted grime and rotting food remained on some of the dishes, leading nearby flies over.

'Looks like someone lived here, or still does, but why is the house partially destroyed?' Cain nudged Darla, she understood what he wanted and her footsteps became quieter.

The next room was an office, a desk was surrounded by bookshelves and papers littered about. Darla picked up one such paper and it was a letter from a bank. She read it aloud.

"Dear Thomas Kinchin, we have yet to receive payment on you're loan. This marks the third month unpaid. We are reserving our right to take ownership of the house. Count this letter as the eviction notice, you have a month. Sincerely, Parlin Family Bank."

'So the last owner was evicted. But why is the house still in this state, is the month not up yet?' Cain needed more clues.

Darla picked another letter, it was a grocery list. After reading through a few more unimportant papers she found one of value. Again, she read it out loud.

"Notice! With the Parlin Family Bank going bankrupt, this land has been returned to the government and will be sold."

Cain snapped his beak as he grew more confused.

'So the bank that acquired the house went bankrupt? Then the government took over the deed. What state is this place in now? Is half ruined? Did the bank sell it?'

Unfortunately, no matter how much Darla looked, there were no more papers on the matter. At least in the room they were in.

Moving through the adjacent hallway, the Raven and Human found lots of furniture. However, they found something else, a poorly boarded-up window.

Darla didn't hesitate to run over and peer outside. Daylight touched her skin as her eyes peered through the boards and into the vile streets. A burning barrel entered her vision, with three homeless men using it.

"Where are we....this can't be the surface..." Darla didn't know what she was looking at.

All the while, something clicked for Cain.

'That seals it, this place is just an old ruined building. This area must be the expansion of the slums, the last owner must be at least in their fifties by now. No wonder the government didn't do anything with this place.'

With the slums, there was no value in a derelict building that could have squatters inside. Not to mention everything in a five-block radius was filled with gangs and drugs. It wasn't prime real estate in the slightest.

"Aaagh! No! Stop! Argh!" A distant scream echoed in the house.

"What was that?" Darla's back straightened.

'Somethings in the basement. Perhaps this place isn't just a ruined house.'

Cain's senses were sharp. Upon hearing the screams, he sent his soul energy into the basement to get a sense of things.

Strangely, he was blocked by a barrier of sorts. The barrier was shaped like a pebble and Cain sensed it had another purpose.

'A charm, it will alert its creator if I do anything. People are living in the basement and they know the occult. Is there fighting?'

Nudging his beak against Darla, Cain relayed his want to explore the basement. At first, Darla was hesitant, but Cain activated the mark and her fear dissipated as she took the first step.

Creaking open the door to the stairs below, the pair found from here on out everything was in perfect condition, be it the wooden stairs to the walls without a crack. Cain noted this down in his head.

At the bottom, there was a small area with handyman tools, and then across from that was a door with a colorful pebble hanging from it.

'The charm. I need to somehow stop its operation while not alerting the soul energy inside. Luckily, I can now tell this was made by someone who's only refined their soul. My soul energy can just block the charm by covering it for a while, enough to pass by.'

It was an easy trick, Cain's soul energy enveloped the charm and caused it to flicker. Darla opened and passed through the door just before Cain pulled back his energy, not alerting its creator.

Darla and Cain found themselves on an underground floor of the house. Before them was a long hall with rooms on either side. There were additional hallways but they led to the unknown, at least the ones closest to the door they entered from.

Instead of looking down those other hallways, they continued forward, coming up to the first room on the right and creaking open the door.

Inside was the smell of blood, and cages filled with dead animals. The most noticeable object was a machine mounted on a clean surgical table. It had a strange cylinder sticking out of it and had a glowing green light.

"An audio transmitter!" Darla whispered.

She ran over to the machine and looked at it, "Raven look, this is so cool! I only got to read about it in a book! This is an old way to communicate back in the day. It worked by recording audio in these cylinders and then placing the cylinders into the audio transmitter to send it to a designated source! This one seems to be one of the last versions, it has a playback button and volume notch!"

Cain got an idea of what Darla was speaking about, the people of the complex had some similar devices but they mostly belonged to those who worked for the Family.

'Audio transceiver, huh? Using old tech to send information. Isn't that stupid? Unless...'

Darla kept speaking in a hushed tone, "This is strange, the book I read said all this old stuff was put in a museum for viewing pleasure. These machines were never released to the public too, it was a pet project for some scientists from the government. At least the book said so...but I guess not since they're here."

'Government....wait...it couldn't be.' A chilling realization hit Cain.

While he was frozen in place, Darla hit the playback button and made sure to lower the volume. At first, white noise played, but then an aged voice came through.

"This is Doctor Ivan, I have my first report of Project Daydream. So far, almost all subjects reacted negatively to the enhanced Heptanilia drug. The subjects would convulse before bleeding from the brain. A few even had their heads combust. I've done dissections and studied the residue, I believe there's a problem with how the drug is synthesized, creating additional variables. There's also the issue with the drug itself. Using X as a base might not be the best way to go."

The Doctor sighed, "We need more time before moving to human trials, this is a bigger challenge than we first thought it would be. I'll be leaving the room as is if you want any samples, though we have no preservation measures here.

"Nevertheless, I'll be moving my research to the room over where the others are working on adapting the primates to have similar brain waves to humans. Unlike me, I've heard they have been successful."

Cain and Darla were left in silence as the playback came to a stop. Darla's mind worked slower than the Raven, who already knew what was going on.

'So there are people here working on a drug. From the looks of it, they plan to use it on humans, seeing as their next subjects are apes with brainwaves that should replicate a human's. Shit, it's just one thing and then another.'

Screams echoed in the halls once more.