“Do you see anything?” Will shouts down as Steve continues to make his way down the ladder..

 

“Not yet.” Steve responds as he finally reaches the ground. “I’ll let you know if I see anything strange.”

 

He aims his flashlight around the dark room as he attempts to gain his bearings.

 

As he continues to slowly make his way around the room his foot slams into something.

 

He looks down and slowly realizes just what it was that he almost tripped over. It took a while to make out through all of the dust and cobwebs, but it was definitely a human skull.

 

As he flashed his light around he found even more skulls along with a myriad of other human bones scattered across the floor.

 

He also found tables with things like beakers, books, and a microscope strewn across its surface along with a wooden chair with straps along the arm rests and front legs.

 

Steve takes out a small voice recorder and turns it on.

 

“Is there anyone in this room with me?”

 

He holds the recorder out towards nothing like he was conducting a street interview and doesn’t get an answer in response.

 

“I want to let you know that we mean you no harm. We just would like to know what happened here for the purposes of our investigation.”

 

There is still no response.

 

Steve hears a static click sound over his walkie talkie.

 

“...Are you alright down there? Over…” Will said through muffled static.

 

Steve pulled out his walkie talkie and pressed down the button, but right before he was able to respond he suddenly felt the room around him begin to shake.

 

He pointed his flashlight around him and noticed the bones on the floor of the room were rattling and slowly moving towards one another.

 

They started dividing themselves into small piles before they started floating slightly upwards.

 

They eventually put themselves back together into somewhat complete skeletons (though most of them were missing quite a few of their bones) and also surrounded themselves in a glowing red ghostly aura.

 

“...Mr. Stine? Are you alright? Over…” Will continues to ask through the static.

 

As these spirits slowly make their way towards Steve he reaches into his pocket and pulls out a small bag of salt.

 

He kneels down and pours it in a circle around himself. After he does this he stands back up and finally has time to answer his walkie talkie.

 

“I’m alright for now. This should just take a few minutes. With that being said, if I am not back up the ladder in the next ten minutes I want you to leave without me. Over”

 

“...What do you mean by that? What’s happening down there? Over…”

 

“Don’t worry about it. Over.”

 

Even though Will continued to respond to him Steve put his walkie talkie back on his belt and pulled his voice recorder back out.

 

“...Leave…this…place…” Some of the ghosts slowly say in unison.

 

“As long as I stand in this ring of salt there is nothing you can do to me.” Steve warns as the ghosts continue to slowly make their way towards him.

 

Eventually one of the bravest among the ghosts rapidly floats forwards and lunges towards Steve, but quickly disintegrates into dust as soon as it passes the threshold of the salt. Steve isn’t phased by this and is standing there with the same stoic expression he usually wears.

 

This causes all of the other ghosts to quickly float backwards in fear.

 

“As I said, I mean no harm, but that doesn’t mean I am not going to defend myself. Just tell us what we need to know for our investigation and we’ll be out of here soon.”

 

One of the ghosts slowly floats forwards and points a spectral hand towards the table that he was just standing in front of.

 

“Thank you for your cooperation.” Steve nonchalantly says as he makes his way over towards the table. After what had happened to the other ghost none of the others dared to do anything else to him.

 

As he reaches the table he points his flashlight over one of the books. He wiped some dust off the front cover which revealed that the book was simply titled ‘Alchemy’.

 

He sees that one of the pages was bookmarked and quickly flips to the saved page.

 

Large cursive text at the top of the page read ‘Recipe For Immortality’.

 

He skimmed through the page until he stopped at a specific passage that caught his attention.

 

“...You must collect the remains of one hundred sacrificed humans and then use these remains to create an alchemic circle…After placing your hands down inside of the circle and reading the following incantation then you may receive eternal life…” Steve reads aloud. “...Huh…So that’s what happened here…”

 

He slowly makes his way back towards the ladder, but turns around right as he reaches it.

 

“We will find out who did this to you. I promise.” Steve says before he makes his way back up the ladder.

 

As soon as Steve made it back to the top Will instantly started questioning him.

 

“Can you please fill us in on what just happened down there?” Will says with a scowl on his face and his arms crossed.

 

“Nothing too unusual. There were a few ghosts down there, but I am taking care of the situation.”

 

“What do you mean by ‘taking care of the situation’? We’re teammates now. We deserve context.”

 

Casey shrugs their shoulders as they were able to read Steve’s mind the entire time.

 

“...I mean I deserve context.” Will says as he rolls his eyes.

 

“What? Didn’t you read the case file?”

 

“No. Only you got a case file. The rest of us don’t know anything because you didn’t tell us anything yet.”

 

“...I didn’t?” Steve says as he scratches the back of his head.

 

Will pinches the bridge of his nose in annoyance.

 

“...No…You’ve told us almost nothing about the case.”

 

After a brief impromptu staring match Steve sighs as he takes out and lights a cigarette.

 

“...Fine…I guess I should’ve told you…I’ve just been doing this by myself for so long that I almost forgot how it was like to have a team with me…” Steve explains as he takes a drag on his cigarette. “...So…From the intel that we gathered we figured out that a couple by the names of Corey and Delilah Teed owned this place in the 1890s. They were both found dead in a nearby forest back in the early 1900s. During this time there were also a lot of unexplained disappearances around here. Of course the house fire happened sometime in between. After they gathered all these details together they figured that these things might be linked in some way. The reason why we are here is to use these leads to figure out exactly what happened here.”

 

“...Alright…Thank you for the information.” Will says with a slight yet weaker scowl still resting on his face. “We should inform the girls and put our heads together to try and figure this out.”

 

“Speak of the devil.” Steve says as he takes another drag on his cigarette.

 

Will turns around to see what Steve was referring to.

 

What he saw was Casey pointing towards down the hall as Rose quickly made her way towards them.

 

When she eventually reached the others she put her hands on her knees out of exhaustion from the sprint.

 

“What happened?” Steve asks as Rose tries to collect her thoughts.

 

Casey closes their eyes and puts a hand on Rose’s shoulder.

 

A few seconds later Casey opens their eyes and stares at Steve as they give him a nod.

 

Steve gives a nod in return and quickly starts to make his way towards the stairs.

 

“I can’t read minds! What’s happening?” Will says as he grits his teeth.

 

“Jacky needs our help. No time to explain.” Steve says as he makes his way to the bottom of the stairs and starts his ascent.