“Light a fire,” Michael commanded his undead orc shaman.
She obeyed instantly, raising her hand to conjure a small ball of fire.
The flames appeared harmless at first glance, but Michael’s senses told him otherwise.
He could feel the raw potential radiating from them—it was clear this was no ordinary fire.
Shifting his focus back to the tower’s entrance, Michael took a deep breath, activating his {Bone Armour} once more.
The familiar sensation of skeletal plates forming over his body brought a sense of security.
With the orc shaman at his side, Lucky taking point, and Prince guarding the rear, Michael dismissed the orc that had smashed open the door.
He didn’t know what to expect beyond the entrance and didn’t need an overwhelming number of undead complicating the situation if something did come up.
If numbers became necessary, he could always rely on {Undead Summoning} to pull reinforcements from the netherworld.
Still, Michael hoped that, if he did summon more, it would be to haul loot rather than fight for his life.
The moment he stepped inside, a damp, icy cold enveloped him.
With the shaman’s fire casting flickering light around the space, the hall ahead came into view—a wide, empty expanse lined with open rooms.
The air was thick with the scent of mildew.
The flickering light of the orc shaman’s fire illuminated the crumbling walls.
“Seems like only the outer walls are made with special materials,” Michael noticed. He also felt it made sense. Regardless of the organisation, there had to be a level of luxury they couldn’t afford.
“Stay alert,” Michael muttered, his voice low but firm.
Lucky, the towering undead wolf, growled softly in response.
The open rooms lining the walls were eerily still. Michael approached the nearest one, gesturing for the shaman to illuminate the space.
As the light spilled into the room, he saw broken furniture scattered across the floor—tables splintered into pieces, shelves overturned, and glass shards glinting like tiny stars.
Unfortunately, though the space outside the room was wide enough for Lucky and Prince to turn around, as long as they didn’t stand side by side, passing through the door was impossible.
Prince could barely squeeze himself into the room, but it was impossible for Lucky, with his towering physique.
Michael had the two wolves stay outside while entering the room cautiously with the orc shaman.
The room was exactly as he had expected—disarrayed furniture, a few looking like they’d turn to dust with a touch, and glass scattered across the floor—but something was different this time.
The destruction didn’t have the frantic urgency of an evacuation. It was as if the room had just been left.
Michael’s senses were on high alert as he stepped deeper into the room, his eyes scanning every corner.
As he moved further in, his gaze fell upon the walls, which were adorned with faded diagrams and blueprints.
They detailed not only the structure of the gargoyles but also machinery that seemed designed to enhance and augment them—metal plates, wires, and strange runes, all fused together in bizarre patterns.
“Was this a gargoyle production factory or something?” he muttered, looking at the designs.
The orc shaman’s fire flickered, casting dancing shadows across a rusted workbench that looked like it had not been in use for a very long time, but its placement seemed to tell a story.
Tools were scattered around, metal parts half-finished, as though someone had been in the middle of crafting something when everything was abandoned.
Among the debris, Michael spotted more sketches, this time showing partial figures—stone-like, armored beings with jagged limbs and sharp features.
Gargoyles.
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“These aren’t finished,” Michael mused aloud. “They were still building them.”
He stepped back and motioned for his undead to follow him.
The deeper into the tower they went, the more the pieces of the puzzle seemed to fit together.
This place was a factory—each room designed to craft different parts for gargoyles, each piece a component of some larger, terrifying machine.
As they made their way through the first floor, the pattern was clear.
Every room seemed dedicated to a different stage in the creation of the gargoyles.
Michael could almost hear the clang of hammers and the hum of energy filling the air as the work had been in progress.
“There’s no way this was just some research outpost,” he muttered. “This was a weapons factory. This entire place… it looks like it was meant for war.”
Michael couldn’t help but wonder what location in the land of origin he had ended up in.
“Hopefully it’s not some war-torn continent or something,” Michael muttered under his breath.
Unfortunately, location wasn’t something that could be controlled unless they killed themselves to change locations, and even then, the location was still random.
His thoughts were interrupted as they reached the staircase leading up to the second floor.
The space was too narrow and could only accommodate Michael and the shaman.
So far, they hadn’t encountered any issues, but Michael still didn’t feel completely safe until he was out of the tower.
However, he had little choice in this situation.
In the end, he dismissed Lucky and Prince into the Netherworld while summoning three male orcs with {Undead Summoning} to guard him.
After ascending the stairs to the second floor, the space finally opened up again, and Michael immediately summoned Lucky and Prince back, dismissing the orcs aside from the orc shaman.
Only when Lucky and Prince were by his side again did Michael feel safer and more confident.
He took a moment to observe his surroundings, and the sight before him took his breath away.
While the first floor had been about creation, this level seemed focused on assembly.
The room they entered was filled with large stone slabs, some cracked and others still intact.
On these slabs lay gargoyle bodies—half-formed, with limbs missing, their stone surfaces glistening faintly under the shaman’s fire.
Each piece was incomplete.
Some of the gargoyles had their heads, but others were missing limbs.
“They didn’t complete them,” Michael whispered, his voice tinged with realization. “They were assembling, but something interrupted the process… or someone…..”