The mists of Thornhaven clung to the morning like a shroud, diffusing the light and turning the world into a realm of soft edges and blurry outlines. Even with her improved vision, Aubrey found it difficult to see further than ten paces ahead of where she stood in the cobblestone streets.

Seraphine led the way while Levy trailed along behind them both. The former dressed in her usual ensemble—leather skirt, blouse, corset, thigh-high boots, and a cloak slung about her shoulders. The latter wore a dark-colored suit with a matching waistcoat buttoned across his chest and a bowler hat atop his head, his hands stuffed into his coat pockets for warmth against the cool dampness of the morning mist.

They traveled by foot this time around rather than by carriage, traversing through winding alleys and shadowed passageways as though avoiding prying eyes on their trek towards the outskirts of the district. After more than half an hour of walking through the eerily silent streets, they stopped at a lone structure looming alone amidst a sea of fog, half-lost among a copse of trees that encircled its perimeter.

Ivy crawled over the stone walls, weaving an intricate tapestry of green against the gray. Its spiked iron fence lay in places overgrown with foliage, and moss covered much of its surface like fur on some beast long dead. It looked decrepit enough that the slightest breeze might scatter it to dust and nothingness.

"Here we are..." Seraphine announced flatly as she approached its rusted gates. After casting a quick glance over her shoulder to confirm that Aubrey and Levy hadn't strayed far behind her, she reached out with one hand, placed her palm flat against the metal bars, then shoved forward with surprising ease.

Aubrey expected there to be some manner of wards preventing entry to this place, but nothing happened as soon as they stepped through onto the grounds beyond its threshold.

The building itself stood three stories tall and roughly thrice as wide as it stretched across its length. Tall, arched windows flanked either side of its entranceway, framing twin doors constructed entirely from reinforced steel and iron, and barred with heavy chains looped around them tightly.

"What is this place...?" Aubrey asked, staring up at its dour façade.

Levy moved past her to stand beside Seraphine who stood watching for any activity through the cracks between wooden panels blocking off several of the lower windows.

"It's an asylum, Miss Sinclair," Levy answered softly, his breath frosting out before him in wispy curls. "Though, I believe it's been abandoned for several years now since they built a new one in a different location. This one was shut down due to claims of mistreatment toward the patients held within... among other things..."

Aubrey grimaced at those words as the memories associated with that horrible facility resurfaced in her mind—the endless screams echoing along sterile hallways, cold metal restraints clamping tight around wrists, ankles, and throat, bright lights blinding her vision as she thrashed desperately against her shackles while needles stabbed into her veins again and again.

She shook her head to disperse those thoughts before they overwhelmed her again.

Seraphine wasted no time crossing toward the front entrance. She grabbed hold of one chain and gave it a hard tug with all her might. At first, it held firm without budging, but eventually the links snapped off from around its handles under her efforts. Then she repeated the same process on the remaining ones until all of them came apart.

Once that task finished, she pushed the door open with one hand. It groaned loudly on rusty hinges as she leaned her entire body forward against it. The heavy metal door scraped harshly against stone tiles beneath before coming to rest against the inside wall of its frame. Seraphine disappeared inside a moment later, vanishing into the building's shadow-cloaked interior with barely a rustle of her garments or even her footsteps.

Levy and Aubrey followed after her into the gloom, their eyes adjusting gradually to the darkness. Within the dim confines, it became apparent that this place hadn't seen anyone come through here for a long period.

Thick cobwebs hung everywhere from corners and ceiling corners, draping across everything they could touch in gossamer sheets of silk. Dust caked over furniture and appliances that lay scattered about the foyer and reception area, covering everything in layers upon layers of fine grey powder that looked like dirty snowflakes falling from the ceiling overhead.

They proceeded deeper still into the building's labyrinthine corridors—all eerily vacant aside from abandoned medical equipment, abandoned patient rooms, broken beds, empty cribs, and rotting bed frames with rusted springs jutting out from sagging mattresses and moth-eaten blankets. Everything smelled dank and foul within these chambers where sunlight couldn't reach, reeking of mildew mixed with decay.

"This is... depressing," Aubrey muttered under her breath.

"I have a bad feeling..." Levy muttered quietly as he trailed close behind her.

They found Seraphine standing alone in one room near an old desk against its rear wall—an office once belonging to a medical professional judging by its layout.

"Anything good?" Aubrey asked as she approached beside the huntress, noting that Seraphine rummaging through drawers. The room itself looked relatively untouched, albeit in an equal state of neglect as the rest.

"Not sure yet..." came Seraphine's distracted reply, still engrossed in her search.

With the lack of anything interesting happening yet, Aubrey began wandering around the space, poking at objects and poking about. At first, it didn't seem like there would be anything worth checking, just another dead end... but one look at a staircase hidden in the corner gave Aubrey pause.

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Another memory flashed through her mind, this one of running barefooted up metal stairs with the clattering steps of boots close behind. She could still feel the icy chill seeping through her hospital gown, clinging to her skin like frost against a windowpane.

She approached the staircase and brushed her hand against the wall beneath it, tracing a finger across faint lines etched deep into the concrete there. "This..."

Her fingers found their way underneath a small groove carved into its side. With a gentle tug upward, she slid open a section of the wall, revealing another passage hidden behind it.

"Hey... I found something over here!" she shouted.

Levy and Seraphine were quick to join her side again and together they descended down a steep flight of stairs until reaching the bottom where another hallway lay in wait below.

This place looks... familiar.

More memories came flooding back as she gazed ahead at rows upon rows of dark rooms lining both sides of a narrow hallway, their doors hanging open or half-smashed apart, letting out cold air from within. She walked past all these chambers in silence, staring straight ahead while Levy and Seraphine kept pace behind her.

Eventually she stopped at a heavy steel door at the end of the corridor where a large glass window dominated most of its surface, gazing inside towards what appeared to be some kind of surgical theater. "This...is the same room in my memories."

"Memories? How do you mean?" Seraphine pressed.

"It's where..." Aubrey started but trailed off after seeing what lay beyond it. Or rather, what lacked within the sterile chamber—or its surroundings more specifically. "Where... the experiments took place."

Levy and Seraphine turned to follow her line of sight towards an operating table set against one wall, complete with straps holding down someone's wrists, ankles, waist, and neck.

"What exactly happened here?" Levy asked.

Seraphine stepped closer towards Aubrey until they stood right next to each other in front of the window. She raised her hand, placing it flat against its smooth surface as she stared through its glass at the empty room beyond it. "Whatever they did here, I have a feeling we're going to find something unpleasant if we continue exploring further."

A clattering noise from an adjacent corridor interrupted whatever response Aubrey could give. All three of them turned sharply in unison towards its source—a shadowy passage just beyond the surgical theater where dim lights flickered intermittently overhead, casting ominous flickering shadows along its walls.

"Stay together, no splitting up," Seraphine ordered as she began striding towards the source of the noise, drawing her rapier from its scabbard at her hip in one smooth motion. A faint green light enveloped its length from hilt to tip before settling back into the metal itself once more.

Both Levy and Aubrey followed suit in silence as the three moved single file toward whatever awaited them beyond the shadows, their footsteps echoing loudly through this still place.

A loud metallic scrape from somewhere ahead made everyone stop short in their tracks. The sound repeated a moment later, followed by shuffling sounds like someone dragging heavy objects across a smooth floor.

Seraphine raised a closed fist, signaling them to remain still and quiet.

Then all three fell completely quiet as they watched a figure appear from around a distant corner.

Chains draped around its form like a macabre cloak. They trailed along after it wherever it went, dragging across stone tiles in their wake as its feet scuffed forward in lumbering steps.

The figure's head was bowed, its face obscured by a mass of tangled hair. Its arms hung limply by its sides as though broken and useless appendages, while its chest appeared sunken, caved in upon itself.

It stopped once it noticed the trio standing just ahead of it, lifting its head enough for them to glimpse a face that appeared sallow, pallid, and bloodless, with eyes sunk deep into hollowed pits within its skull and lips sewn shut with strands of shadowy thread.

Aubrey felt a whispering voice brush against her mind, soft and insistent, like the rustle of leaves in a forgotten grove.

Help... me...

Free me... please... free me...

I'm begging... save... me... free... me...

Those pleas echoed ceaselessly until the creature threw its head back, issuing forth a muffled wail behind its sealed mouth before lunging forward with frightening speed, its chains whipping out behind it like living things driven by an unseen will.

At the same time, Seraphine leapt ahead, raising her blade above her head in a reverse grip.

The blade met the chains with a shower of sparks, causing the creature's lunge to veer away just past their group and slamming into the brick wall on their right instead. It slid to the floor in a writhing heap of limbs, thrashing around wildly while its body contorted into unnatural shapes.

Levy’s voice rose in a chant, his talismans glowing with a soft, ethereal light. He hurled one at the figure, the paper sticking to its chest and burning with an unearthly fire. The chains reacted instantly, whipping toward him in response.

One chain struck the floor where Levy had been a moment ago, but another managed to graze his thigh and coiled tightly around his ankle. With one leg lifted from beneath, he fell hard onto his back.

Seraphine sprang forward with her sword flashing toward the coil binding his foot. The glowing rapier sliced straight through it. The chain unwound itself from around Levy, slithering back towards the creature as it pulled itself upright again.

Aubrey watched all this unfold without moving, her gaze transfixed upon the thing standing amidst its shroud of manacles. She stared intently into its vacant eyes as it glared back, its mouth still sewn shut. The whispers filled her head again, pleading with her for release.

Another noise snapped Aubrey's attention to their right, where several more figures had appeared at the opposite end of the hallway. Three patients in tattered hospital gowns shuffled towards their group, heads bowed low like marionettes with broken strings.

These looked more ghoulish than the one with the chains: skin grey and rotting, flesh pitted and torn, eyes milky white with blackened sclerae. Their arms hung uselessly at their sides, fingers claw-like as their nails scraped across concrete and stone while dragging themselves forward through sheer force of will alone.

Well, at least ghouls were slow and stupid. And easy targets for blunt force trauma.

But their shambling gait quickly picked up into a stumbling jog, then into an outright run that made them seem less dead—just extremely hungry instead.