Draven slid the ID into the card reader. The light above the elevator doors switched from red to green. The doors opened. Draven and Sygvar stepped inside and then the doors closed. Draven turned around and searched for a button, but all he found were smooth metallic surfaces. Then, the elevator shook and started to go down. The ride was brief, and the duo arrived at their destination.

The doors opened, revealing a person standing on the other side in a white hazmat suit. The visor covering their face was tinted, too dark for Draven to see their appearance. The name tag on their suit had the word geneticist and the name Olina Athra printed on it.

"Hello, good day… I mean, good night so far?" her voice quivered as she stumbled over her words. "The lab is a real mess today. Lots of orders from the higher-ups," she spoke fast, slurring her words. She then hit her hand on her head, "I forgot something." She turned around and ran.

Draven shook his head. She obviously knew that they were not supposed to be here. Draven sympathetically bound his arm and her together. He pulled her back, sending her into his waiting arms, "What gave us away?"

"Help! Help!"

Her cries were muffled when Draven covered her mouth. "That wouldn't be a good idea. Now, I'm going to let go of your mouth, and you will cooperate. Is that clear?"

Olina nodded. Draven let go of her mouth, and she took a deep breath of air. "Please don't hurt me," she squeaked out.

"Don't worry, we won't. We just want to ask some questions." Draven grabbed the headpiece of her suit and pulled it off.

"No, don't do that!" She screamed as she grabbed onto the headpiece and pulled it down. "There might be Blight in the air."

Draven frowned. The word Blight sounded familiar. He searched his memory. He remembered the Al'Manti sect taught him that the Blight was a fungal-like organism from the master of the Harbinger. Draven instantly covered his mouth, afraid of becoming infected and a Hollow.

"The Blight is transmitted when a Hollow bites you. It can't infect you via the air." Sygvar said.

"Still, you can never be safe. All it takes is for a strain to mutate," Olina said.

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Draven lowered his hand. He looked around the room they were in. White Hazmat suits hung from railings along the grey metallic walls. A giant reinforced glass door was directly behind the geneticist. Two more identical doors were behind it, creating a multilayered chambered entryway into the lab.

The level of security and Olina mentioned the Blight clicked in Draven's mind. "You're creating Hollows down here. How did you get any of the Blight? I thought all the traces of it were destroyed."

"Where do you all send your most dangerous criminals? If you can answer that, you have your answer to your question."

The Abyss came to Draven's mind. But they should not have been able to get into the Prison. The security around the place was high. The rebellion must have someone on the inside. "What are you doing playing with Blight? You could kill us all. If enough of that stuff infects enough life, it could bring back the age of Darkness when He walked the Nine Realms."

"We're not trying to bring Him back. We just want to weaponize the Hollows. The main goal of this lab is to eliminate the ability of the Hollows to infect people."

Draven could not tell if she was lying or telling the truth. The Thread between him and her was too weak for sensations to easily pass between them. His Essence reserves were also low. He wanted to conserve Essence for the future.

Draven asked Sygvar, "Can you cast a spell to see if she is telling the truth?"

"I think we should see things with our own eyes," Sygvar went over to one of the racks and pulled off one of the hazmat suits. "A primary source is always better than a secondary one." He said as he put on the suit.

Draven tied up the geneticist. He bound her to one of the metal round railings from which the hazmat suits hung. After he was done, he put on one of the hazmat suits and released Olina from the zip ties.

"How do we open the door?" Sygvar questioned. He felt around the closed entrance to the lab. Searching for some hidden switch.

"It's facial recognition," Olina said as she approached a round glass orb adjacent to the sealed door. With her mask still on, she leaned her head towards the device. A blue light flashed as it scanned her face through her tinted mask.

For a second, Draven saw her face, tinted blue by the laser and hidden by the mask. Then the light was gone, taking her face with it, replaced by the dark-tinted mask of her suit. Draven conjured a mental image of her from memory. She was a young woman, he guessed, in her mid-twenties. Her face was pretty lean, on the verge of being skeletal. The lower part of her eyelids were puffy, likely due to a lack of sleep.

The laboratory entrance hissed. Motor spun, unlocking the bolts confining the door in place. The door opened, splitting into two separate glass structures that slid into the wall.

Olina stepped into the chamber room on the other side. Sygvar followed after with prep in his steps. Draven waited a few seconds and then joined them. The door behind them closed and relocked itself. Then, the door in front of them opened. This process repeated once more until they finally stepped foot into the laboratory.