When the graph of Thomas’ energy signature showed up on the screen and Agent Hall pulled up the graph of the energy signatures of the pieces of wall, all three members present could easily tell that there was a presence of Thomas’ energy signature in the walls.

“So this IS a sacrifice room.” Thomas looked around: “And our energy is being siphoned through these six bodies, all of us. Maybe the thing or the one being sacrificed would be sucked at a faster rate?”

“Sounds like what we’re seeing.” Caroline nodded then looked up: “And if I’m right, that mirror would be the - what do you call it, the interface? The terminal?”

“Whatever it is, it’s some kind of bi-directional gateway for the energy to pass through.” Thomas said: “Which means that whatever’s on the other side, it could also receive energy from this place, and it can pump some energy this way. It’s a network of sorts, it seems? ”

“And if we could find something about the network, we could find out where the other locations are.” Agent Hall clapped his hands and said: “Nice, this is super nice - we’ve been having trouble locating other places like this - and I don’t mean just dispensing stations and locations of restricted and illegal materials like drug-processed human blood and others. Assuming other locations connected to here through mirrors are also using similar fronts as covers, then find other locations of sacrifice, then we find the other dispensing stations.”

“You know what? Let’s perform a sacrifice then.” Caroline thought for a brief moment then asked.

“What?!” Thomas and Agent Hall asked with great surprise at the same time.

“No, not humans or any other things, like a fish, or a chicken.” Caroline shook her head: “Assuming that this room will take the energy from the sacrifice and transmit it to somewhere, I assume that if we do this we could use a spell to color and trace the energy. What’s that technique called again - luminescence tracking?”

“I - I’m not sure, does that work?” Agent Hall looked at Caroline then Thomas.

“I assume if there is some kind of energy filtering mechanism, it could block our spell.” Thomas answered, thinking: “But you just said that the energy transmission mechanism is old here? If I remember correctly, means to prevent this kind of tracing weren’t invented until at least eight to ten years ago so it’s definitely newer. Let’s give it a try then. Where do we find some live chicken or live fish around here?”

“There’s a Chinese supermarket around here, so at least you can find some fish there.” Caroline shrugged.

After around 20 minutes, Caroline and Thomas came back from the supermarket with three fish, one lobster and one dungeness crab, all of which were in plastic bags. When Agent Hall saw what they had in their hands, his eyes kept twitching as if he just saw something very ridiculous but he was trying to suppress his judgment.

“Sorry, they didn’t have chicken, so we bought all the different live things they have.” Caroline shrugged and told Agent Hall: “I don’t know what the different kinds of lives are worth in this equation, so I guess we will have to proceed by trial and error.”

“Okay - how do you wanna try?” Agent Hall stood on the side as Caroline laid out the fish on the ground and cast a simple binding spell to keep them in place.

“I figured we just do it quickly?” Thomas shrugged.

“What if the array requires some kind of torture?” Caroline frowned as she conjured a translucent orange and red kitchen knife in her hand: “That - I don’t think I can do that.”

“We’ll figure it out then. But for now just try it quickly and humanely.” Thomas shook his head.

“Alright, we have our other team members on standby, and I couldn’t reach anyone higher up for now.” Agent Hall came in and was about to close the metal door: “I think you should proceed, but be very careful.”

“Thank you, agent. Are you gonna stay here?” Thomas cast a protective spell on himself and then activated his mind block: “If yes, then we’ll need to prep you.”

“Yes, please.”

“Sure, relax and don’t resist.” Caroline went to Agent Hall’s side and placed her hand on his left shoulder. Her Xuanli flowed into his body and temporarily fortified his defenses against curses, ability to absorb and endure shock and puncture attacks, and helped him pull up a basic mind block as well. 

“I feel - warm. Thank you Ms. Baker. What is it?” Agent Hall nodded and adjusted his earbuds.

“Flames of Resilience, think of it as a blessing to increase your resistance to outside harm and curses.” Caroline then knelt beside the three fish and took a look at Thomas who was holding a silvery grey handgun and a short one hand shotgun in his hands: “Alright, Thomas, get ready. But don’t shoot carelessly, okay?”

“Don’t worry, you can count on me.” Thomas nodded - his task was to defend Caroline and Agent Hall should something unexpected occur, because Caroline had to perform the sacrifice as well as pay close attention to the effects of the spell she cast, and to lead them on where the energy flowed when it left the room and this very site.

“Alright, agent, if we succeed, we’ll need to head out as fast as possible to follow it.” Caroline nodded at Agent Hall, then raised the translucent orange and red knife.

Agent Hall nodded back, then closed the door.

“Alright, fishy. You won’t die in vain.” Caroline double checked the spell she cast on the three fish on the floor at the center of the array, then swung the knife down.

A clean cut ran through the neck area of all three fish and separated their heads from their bodies. Their ends of tails flapped around, but their bodies were still kept in place, as well as their heads.

Nothing happened for a short while, while the fish tails were still flapping, and just when Caroline was about to get closer to check if there was anything wrong with the spell, light grey and light orange fog arose from the cuts of on the three fish’s heads and bodies and floated upwards towards the six lanterns hanging from the ceiling.