"You go, or do I go?"
Lothar held his longsword and gestured to Ogrim.
Ogrim glanced at Lothar, completely ignoring his suggestion, picked up his warhammer, and with immense strength in both hands, hurled the heavy runic warhammer at the inn wall.
"Bang!"
After a loud bang, half of the inn directly collapsed, stirring up a large amount of dust that obscured their vision.
Ogrim activated his runic power, and the connection to his warhammer allowed his weapon to fly out of the inn and be tightly gripped in his hand once more.
"Sometimes, being direct is more effective."
The Orc's low voice echoed in Lothar's ear. Lothar shrugged, swept his longsword, and a cold wind surged out, dispersing the smoke and wood chips, instantly clearing their vision.
However, they still only saw the empty hall of the inn, with no suspicious creatures moving about.
But the two battle-hardened Death Knights quickly sensed something was amiss. They opened their soul sight and began to observe things that ordinary people could not see.
Sure enough, in a corner of the inn, Lothar and Ogrim saw a female ghost, trembling with a child.
If Lothar wasn't mistaken, the previous commotion must have been related to these two ghosts.
"Just ordinary ghosts," Ogrim observed carefully for a moment before concluding, "They're not even as threatening as Ghouls."
Lothar tried to converse with the two ghosts, but no matter what method he used, whether speaking or soul communication, he couldn't communicate normally with the two cowering ghosts.
"Their consciousness is imprisoned; only their instincts are active here," Lothar sighed, his gaze sweeping around, and he indeed found many more undead wandering in the empty rooms or gardens.
They were almost incapable of communication, merely pitiful beings imprisoned by the magical power unleashed by Medivh before his death, unconsciously affecting the material world.
Ogrim's sudden attack had threatened the ghostly woman and the child. Instinctively sensing danger, they hid there trembling, but that didn't mean they were self-aware ghosts.
"Perhaps we should be glad there are no self-aware undead here; otherwise, I dare not imagine what kind of monster it would become, bathed in such magic and resentment."
Lothar shook his head sympathetically and sheathed his runic longsword, but just as he was about to continue with Ogrim towards Karazhan, the two ghosts let out a murmur like a dream.
"Don't… don't come closer… Black… Knight…"
As soon as the words fell, the two ghosts let out a piercing shriek and vanished from the inn; they seemed to have had an allergic reaction and fled to another place.
Lothar stopped, and only after noticing that the other ghosts had not changed did he converse with Ogrim.
Ogrim looked in the direction where the souls had disappeared and tilted his head, asking, "They seemed to be saying something about a black knight… Are they referring to us?"
"Not quite; we don't look like knights riding warhorses right now," Lothar pondered for a moment, denying the idea, "We have no way of knowing other information, but it's still best to be careful. Their abnormality makes me feel that Karazhan might not be completely silent."
The Orc bared his teeth, revealing his snowy white fangs. He weighed the warhammer in his hand, "Then let's eliminate the dangerous things first, and then get what we need."
"Hmm, though a bit crude, Medivh is dead, so he shouldn't mind me taking a few things from him." Lothar rubbed his stubbled chin, feeling that Ogrim had a point.
The surrounding ghosts posed no threat to the two Death Knights, and due to Karazhan itself, there were no fierce beasts or monsters in this small town, only the cold desolation left by the rampant fel.
Soon, the tightly closed main gate of Karazhan Tower appeared before Lothar and Ogrim. The metal gate was shut tight. Lothar gripped the metal bars and shook them hard, but the sturdy gate did not open for him.
Ogrim pressed down on the lever controlling the gate, but the old, dilapidated wooden lever snapped right off in his hand. Holding a piece of rotten wood, Ogrim looked at Lothar rather innocently.
"This gate is locked too tightly…" Lothar tried again with force to open the closed iron bars, but he couldn't lift the gate.
"Move aside, I'll smash it open." Ogrim raised his warhammer and swung it right next to Lothar's head.
However, the twisted iron gate Ogrim expected did not appear; instead, both of them were flung backward by a burst of magical light.
After sliding on the ground for a while, they crashed through a low wall before the magical force dissipated.
Lothar brushed off the broken bricks from his body, climbed out of the rubble, and with wide eyes, questioned Ogrim, "What are you doing?"
A thick arm emerged from the bricks. Ogrim rubbed his head and stood up from the ground. The defensive mechanism just now hadn't harmed him, but it made him feel a bit dizzy.
"You couldn't open that door anyway… could you?" Ogrim retorted self-righteously; he had merely used the Orc's usual method of opening doors.
"You!" Lothar pointed at Ogrim, about to scold him, but then realized he truly couldn't open that tightly shut gate. "Alright, but it doesn't matter if we can't open it. This entrance leads to Karazhan's banquet hall and Medivh's residence. What we're looking for should be on the upper levels of the tower."
Hearing Lothar, Ogrim looked up at the towering mage tower. "You'd better not tell me we have to climb up."
"Definitely not. Come with me; I know Karazhan has a side door that leads directly to the stairs to the upper levels."
Lothar abandoned the idea of entering through the main gate and led Ogrim onto an overgrown path, heading towards a side tower of Karazhan.
That was originally where Karazhan kept its gryphons. Lothar still remembered the old butler named Moros always greeting him there.
Before Medivh had completely fallen, Lothar would often visit Karazhan to see his friend. However, things had changed, and Lothar didn't know what fate had befallen the original servants in the mage tower after Medivh's death.
Passing through the gryphon pens filled with dry grass and cobwebs, Lothar and Ogrim stood on the long bridge connecting the two buildings. Karazhan's side door was still tightly shut, but this time, Lothar pushed hard and opened the heavy wooden door.
With a dull scraping sound, the tower, sealed for over a decade, opened for outsiders for the first time.