The other side of the portal appears to be some sort of windowless fortress. The walls are made of rough carved stone blocks, dark grey but streaked with black soot from years of torches burning. Guess that means we're unlikely to see anything electronic here, and possibly nothing magical either.
The enchantments placed on me seem to be working just fine though, my steps are easy and long, taking almost nothing out of me which is a huge relief.
"See, breaking the truck was no big deal, wouldn't have fit down the hallways anyhow" Karl greets me with, following me in. "Preference on left or right? I've got a 3D scanner with a mapping program running, so we can explore without fear of getting too lost"
Now that's handy. Why didn't I know such a thing existed? The humans have been keeping some pretty cool toys to themselves it seems. Or maybe it's just that with our enhanced senses being able to track the way we went even a few days previously it just never became a necessary item for Lycans to have?
Moving cautiously to the left, shotgun in hand I remembered one pertinent question for my partner.
"Hey, these shells aren't going to cause a huge explosion or something on contact, right? Because we're in close quarters here and I really don't want to get blown up by accident."
"No worries" Karl nodded back seriously. "The blue marked drums have penetrating charms on them, the green ones are scatter shot, wide dispersion small explosions"
I checked my drum, quickly changing it from green to a blue one and pocketing the chambered shell.
"You really love your enchanted ammunition don't you?"
"Well how could I call myself a self respecting mage if I didn't at least use magic to attack, right? Enough mages look down on me using firearms instead of just spells, but Arcane Specialists aren't the best at conventional ranged attack spells. Those Explosive rounds take me 3 hours a batch to enchant, because I'm not great at fire magic. So I make a lot at a time when I've got days off"
"For comparison, how long do the penetrating rounds take to make? They're arcane magic right?" I asked quietly, hoping to fill in the gaps in my knowledge before we met any more opponents.
"About 12 seconds a batch, and yeah they are"
Okay, note to self, go heavy on the penetrating rounds, light on the fireworks. I must have burned through a whole day of his time on the machine gun during our takeover of the orcish encampment. A flashback of the smells, gore and craters left behind made me shudder in revulsion. Lycan battles are messy, but now I know what the humans mean when they talk about somewhere looking like a war zone.
"Map shows no more corridors on this level. No exits downward, one upwards" Karl noted pointing at a narrow, winding staircase. "Ladies first?" He joked, motioning that he'd cover me as I checked the door at the top of the stairs.
Carefully I twisted the handle and cracked the door open towards us, using a mirror to check the surroundings, but finding nothing but another deserted hallway, this time with windows.
A pungent smell of rot wafted through the opening, causing us to lock eyes in concern. I know that smell, and it seems Karl does too. The smell of rotted flesh. A lot of people died here and it smells like their bodies were left to decay. Apprehensive now, we stepped through to find we were in a large open room with two human sized thrones at the end opposite us.
A quick look at the door we entered showed the side facing this room to be covered in marble tile, perfectly matching the interior. That explains why nobody was on the lower floor, but not how the orcs made it through the portal.
Karl motioned me to clear the left wall, while he took the right. Meeting up by the thrones, we surveyed the carnage.
"I count 42 dead humans, all in court apparel. 16 beast kin corpses with rabbit ears, dressed as servants and 9 orc corpses. Every body appears to have been cannibalized." Karl droned, and I noticed he was making an audio recording of his findings.
"Let's move on to the rest of the floor, I want to check the very north end where the portal was on the lower floor, it might give us some clues to how the orcs got to our world"
Sounding my agreement, I added "Best we don't separate, orcs might not be the only danger here, and we're definitely lacking in reinforcements".
With that we moved through the north door of the throne room, thankfully leaving the smell behind and out into a single sided corridor, with a central garden on the other side. Only it seemed nothing had survived the siege of this castle, everything was burned to cinders.
Seeing nothing alive, we methodically moved through the surrounding rooms, finding nothing but shattered furniture and the occasional body, until we reached the large hall that made up the north side of the main floor. It appeared to be a reception area of sorts, as clusters of shattered couches and divans littered the room, along with an inordinate number of armored soldiers and orc corpses.
Karl nodded towards a shimmering area in the back corner. "Looks like the portal reaches through the floor, they must have made their last stand here, we'll have to get the technicians to look for signs some of the defenders of this castle tried to flee to our side, I don't see anything that looks like a king or queen here."
What he didn't mention was that everyone here appeared to be soldiers. Surely this castle needed more than just that bare handful of servants we found dead in the throne room? Even those in the side rooms were armoured. What a strange place.
Moving up to the second floor we found it to be the backbone of the palace, the servants quarters, kitchens, armouries and a soldiers barracks. All deserted, the weapons cleared out and most of the kitchen implements gone. Possibly to the orcs, as the damages were substantial.
Looking out a window by the kitchen, Karl motioned me to join him. Looking up I saw one more floor, then battlements on the roof, with towers at the 2 visible corners. But that was not the shocking part. Looking out away from the castle, there was nothing but ruin. The surrounding village was burnt with no signs of a defensive battle, the fields were razed, grain silos destroyed and emptied and the distant forest still smouldered.
"It seems this was the last stop for the orcs. Nothing is left in the surrounding area, possibly a scorched earth tactic to try to starve them out."
Scorched earth. The last option for a desperate kingdom, sacrificing everything to do as much damage to an enemy as possible.
"But where is everyone? I don't see or smell anyone in the village, even with the wind blowing right at us. Plus there's not enough people in the castle."
"Quite right. Hopefully we'll find out something on the top floor that will make sense of this. If not, I suggest we return and I'll begin the process of closing the portal. Officially it will have led to a deserted castle in a wasteland" Karl noted as he continued clearing the last few rooms before heading for a servants staircase to the third floor.
A floor it seemed that was even more inexplicably deserted than the servant's quarters below. They can't have simply disappeared, but it doesn't look like they had anywhere to run to. Are they perhaps on Earth now? Did they escape through the portal?
Then we came across one door not open or destroyed, finally a glimmer of hope.
"I'm catching a scent of rabbit and something else from inside. Possibly a heart beat, but it's hard to tell with the windows smashed out in the hall." I whispered to Karl.
"Door is enchanted, doesn't look to have been breached, we might have found a survivor" This was the best news I've heard all day.