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    In what had to be one of the least surprising reveals of all time, we couldn’t just fly up to the top of the tower and find a way in there. Because of course not, that would’ve been too much of a shortcut. There were at least thirty different powerful bits of magic surrounding the tower, which got stronger the higher up you went. Even with this spaceship we had, there was no way to get close to the building if we weren’t low to the ground. Whoever was behind this place, they had really wanted to make sure a person had no choice but to go in the front door and then walk through all their assorted traps and other defenses to prove they had the right to be there. Or something. Who knew what was in the mind of a completely unidentified and phenomenally powerful Necromancer? Powerful enough to build a tower like this, which was scary.


    Yes, part of me did think we might be in over our heads as I looked at the sheer scale of the building we were about to walk into. This thing had been here for how long? Somehow, it had reached out to us while we approached, examined us, and then revealed itself. Was that just because Laein and I were Necromancers? Did it have something to do with Gaia, or Percy, or… or… I had no idea. All I knew was that it had been impossible to see until it allowed us to see it. Which raised the question of exactly how Fahsteth had figured out where it was, but we probably wouldn’t get an answer to that any time soon either. I had a feeling the answer was complicated.


    With thoughts of just how powerful the person or people who had set this tower up had to be if their defensive magics were this strong after–wait a minute.


    We were all starting to leave the ship, which had landed about a hundred yards from the base of the tower. But I stopped, frowning toward Percy. “Hang on, didn’t you say this tower was supposed to be on an island somewhere? And that it was supposed to have been destroyed a few thousand years ago? I mean, obviously it wasn’t destroyed, but this is definitely not an island. We’re completely landlocked here.”


    “Perhaps it was on an island,” Gaia put in thoughtfully, after processing what I had just said. “There are so many incredibly powerful magics surrounding this structure, if it was attacked at some point in the past, some of those magics might have transferred it to this location. Which, if others saw the transportation happen–”


    “They might think it was destroyed rather than moved,” I finished. “Right, that makes sense. I mean, as much sense as anything right now. But who made this place? Who built a tower fifteen fucking miles tall, gave it enough magic to stop anyone, even us, from getting near the top, and the ability to teleport the entire thing somewhere else? Also, what was that magic that reached out to touch our minds? What was all that about? Why is it full of so many treasures and Necromancer artifacts anyway? And what–” Cutting myself off, I exhaled. “Not gonna get any answers out here, huh?”


    Sounding impatient, Laein shook her head. “No, we are not, Not-Jacob! Now cease your embarrassingly endless pontificating and dilly-dallying and allow us to continue our approach to what will soon become the seat of the ultimate power in the universe, as our nightmarish terror takes wing and casts its terrible shadow over its cowering populace!” Her cackle filled the air, while two of the zombies I’d let her take over lifted the small figure up onto their shoulders and started to walk forward, carrying her like that.


    The rest of us exchanged shrugs, then started to follow after her. There was Gaia, Percy, Cerberus, Eurso, and me. Not to mention the fifty or so zombies trailing along behind, ready to make themselves useful. The ghosts were ready too, but staying out of sight and resting to save their energy for the time being. Together, our smallish army approached the structure ahead of us.


    Somehow, the tower looked even more imposing from this angle. It stretched up and up and up far beyond anything we could see. Seriously, the tallest building in the modern world of my own time was the Burj Khalifa, at something like two thousand, seven hundred feet (it came up during a trivia night with Vanessa). Just under three thousand feet for the tallest Bystander structure in the world. This place, meanwhile, was somewhere around eighty thousand feet. That was just–it was–impossible to comprehend. The Empire State Building was around fourteen hundred feet if you counted the spire thing. You could fit more than fifty Empire State Buildings standing on top of one another in this single tower!


    All those little facts and more kept playing through my head as I craned my neck back… back… back–and almost fell over to keep staring up at this impossibly giant structure. A shiver went through me, and I had to swallow back the urge to start blurting more questions. Just like before, that wouldn’t help anything. There was nothing to do now except make our way inside and see what we could find. Maybe we’d run into whoever had built this place. And maybe, maybe they might actually not react with violence. After all, the tower had revealed itself to us, right? So it wanted us here. Granted, that could be because we were walking into a trap, but…


    And yes, it had occurred to me that there might be a bunch of Necromancer artifacts inside because other Necromancers had gone in there and been killed. I was very much aware of that possibility. We were going to have to be careful. And hope that if things did go terribly wrong, my transportation power would be able to get us out. Even if I was half-expecting to be cut off from it just because that’s how these things tended to go. I did, after all, have pattern recognition.


    Still, I pushed those thoughts out of my head and kept walking. The only way to find out the truth was to go in there and see for ourselves. And if I didn’t take this chance to see what the tower was all about, I’d probably never forgive myself. Not to mention Laein would never forgive me. This was our best chance to get a big boost to help get this Necromancy school off the ground. And that was our best chance to eventually one day actually stop the Fomorians for good. No matter how dangerous this was, we had to go in there. Whatever happened, we’d deal with it.


    There was an actual door at the base of the tower. Or rather, a pair of double doors. Each stood at least twenty feet high and twelve feet wide. From the look of them as we approached, the doors themselves had to weigh a literal ton. There were no handles or knobs on them, but there was a knocker on each. Everyone looked at me, clearly waiting. Not even Laein wanted to be the one who actually approached and touched those doors, which said something about how imposing they were.


    Shaking my head, I gestured for Eurso to stay with the others, then walked up that way. Gravel, dirt, and bits of sagebrush cracked under my feet, sounding far too loud in that quiet moment. It was like every tiny sound was enhanced. The knockers looked like terrifying onyx gargoyle heads holding a silver-ruby circle with a matching ball on it in their mouths. Before reaching out to it, I took a moment to study the thing for magic. And boy did I find it. The whole structure was completely covered in various spells, most of which I didn’t have the slightest understanding of. But from what I could tell, none would immediately kill me or anything like that. They seemed to be spells that mostly centered on alerting anything that was inside and possibly opening the door. At least, I could kind of tell there was some sort of mechanism for that (Gaia confirmed when I asked), and some of the spells were directed that way. And speaking of a mechanism for the door, while Gaia was able to confirm its existence, she couldn’t control it. Because, naturally, that also would’ve been too easy. On the other hand, from what she said, there was some pretty wild machinery just out of sight. It sounded like there was the sort of stuff she’d sensed back on the ship we’d just left, only even more advanced. This tower had obviously been constructed by someone who didn’t just have magic, but also incredible technology. Which made sense, if people thought it had been on multiple worlds. Hell, that whole thing also fit the theory that it had transported itself here after being attacked back on whatever island.


    Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.


    I tried to have one of my ghosts poke their heads in, but they couldn’t go through the side of the structure any more than we could. It was protected against any sort of intangible entrance. And when I tried to use my power to touch an object and see through it, nothing happened. Whoever was behind this tower had made certain it wasn’t easy to spy on whatever was inside. You had to get the doors open and check it out the old-fashioned way. Which was just fantastic and definitely wouldn’t lead to a lot of screaming and violence.


    In any case, once I was as certain as I could possibly be that my hand at least wasn’t about to disintegrate if I touched it, I reached out and took hold of the ball part. I felt a heat to it, which spread a bit through my arm. It wasn’t exactly unpleasant, but it definitely wasn’t natural either. Grimacing, I slowly lifted the knocker, then brought it down hard against the door.


    Oh boy, that was loud. Unnaturally loud. A deafening thunder clap echoed across the field, making Eurso whimper. I wasn’t exactly thrilled about it either. Was that really necessary, or was whoever had made this place just showing off? Either way, there was another loud noise. This one was a deep rumbling, the two doors began to grind inward. Well, we had gotten what we wanted. The tower was opening itself for us to go inside. That was a good thing, right? Yeah, I wasn’t exactly sure either. There were still very large bats flying around inside my stomach. But here went nothing.


    I was the first to step through the large doorway. The floor under my feet was metallic, and gave off a soft, actually pleasant ringing sound as I moved across it. Looking around, I saw a gigantic foyer. The ceiling was about a hundred and fifty feet up, while the room itself was several hundred feet wide and shaped like a semicircle with the curved part ahead of us. There were dozens of tall ornate pillars spread throughout the chamber. Those pillars were several feet wide and had a bunch of carved faces on them all the way from the base to the top far above us. The faces were of people from a bunch of different species. And all of them seemed terrified. Their mouths were open in silent screams, contorted with pain, and just… bad. They were bad.


    Well, this place was already thoroughly awful. I tore my gaze away from those horrible faces and focused on the other parts of the chamber. There was a grand, twenty-foot-wide stairway around the middle of the room. It led to another pair of double doors, almost identical to the first, about halfway up the opposite wall. Meanwhile, the walls themselves were covered in swirling gold and silver patterns, which glowed brightly to illuminate the room we were in. As did the floor, though to a lesser degree. There was no one else in sight to greet or attack us. And other than the soft, pleasant chimes that came whenever we moved across the floor, the place was quiet. If something was about to jump out and chase us through the tower like had apparently happened to everyone else who came in here, it was biding its time.


    Before going anywhere near those stairs or the doors they led to, I sent my zombies through the room, each accompanied by a ghost, to examine everything for any more spells, or secret latches/doors, or anything else that might stand out. A quick check confirmed that not only could the ghosts still not move through any of the walls in this room, but they couldn’t pass through the face-covered pillars either. It was like every solid structure in this tower was protected against that, not just the outside wall.


    Unfortunately, they also didn’t find anything useful. And Gaia, despite again being able to detect more technology throughout the space behind the walls and under the floor, couldn’t do anything with it. She said there was a chance she might be able to eventually get a handle on it and make something work, it would take awhile. And none of us knew how long we would have before something appeared to try to kill us. So, we had to keep moving. After checking the stairs for traps, Laein and I headed up them first, trailed by the others. She had gotten down off her zombie escorts’ shoulders once we made it inside, mostly because she was darting in every direction, peering at the faces, touching the walls, tapping the floor to make more of those musical notes, and anything else she could do to try to find anything useful or interesting. She did, however, have those zombies surrounding her on all sides, acting as bodyguards. It kind of made me wish I could summon up some black suits and sunglasses for them to wear as her Secret Service.


    At least that was a nice, somewhat amusing thought for me to push out of my head as we climbed those stairs. They made soft chiming sounds when we stepped on them as well, though it seemed to get somewhat deeper in tone the higher we climbed. Maybe it was just my imagination running away with itself.


    As we approached that second set of higher doors, Laein looked at me. She was clearly trying to decide if she really wanted to speak up, before finally asking, “Can you sense anything?”


    Frowning thoughtfully, I held a hand out and focused with my necromancy sense. I was trying to get a feel for if there was any such magic anywhere around us that wasn’t coming from our own ghosts and zombies. But there was nothing. I couldn’t pick up any extra energy at all aside from what we had already felt running through the walls and floor, and none of that really stood out too much. It definitely wasn’t Necromancy as far as I could tell.


    After shaking my head at her, I stopped in front of those doors and examined them to see if they were any different from the ones on the outside. At a glance, they looked identical, and deeper examination didn’t reveal anything special aside from the fact that the knockers were maybe a little smaller. I wasn’t sure if that was relevant at all, but it was the only difference I could pick out.


    Finally, I looked back to the others. “Could someone cover Eurso’s ears for a second? I feel like this is going to be loud again.” Already grimacing in anticipation, I took hold of the knocker and raised it up.


    But in the same instant that I was bringing it down, a figure materialized directly in front of me, snapping a hand up to catch the knocker just before it hit the door. I was so utterly surprised I started to fall backwards before their other hand grabbed my shoulder to stop me. At the same time, Laein started to do something with magic, only to give a muffled yelp as the figure sent a jolt of electricity that way and snapped with a somewhat familiar voice, “Stop that, before you doom this entire planet!”


    That made me blink at the figure, finally taking in her familiar form with a soft gasp. “Bastet?” It was definitely her, though looking maybe slightly younger than she had in the future. Maybe it was simply a product of my imagination, or the fact that she hadn’t seen as much. Either way, she stood there with her hand blocking the knocker and the other keeping me from falling.


    Eyes narrowing as I said her name, the half-Reaper grunted. “Yes, time-traveler, of course you would know me. Is this place why you came back? You heard about the tower in the future and sought its treasure?”


    “It’s a little more complicated than that,” I admitted before giving a double take. “Wait, were you there when we met Sonoma?”


    She gave me a tug by the shoulder to make me straighten up fully so I wouldn’t fall once she let go, then released me before looking over us. “I’ve been tracking you since then, yes. I wanted to know more about you, but it took time to figure out where you’d gone when you teleported. And I didn’t think you’d be stupid enough to try to wake up the Entombed Ones.”


    Gaia frowned. “We’ve not come to awaken anything. And what precisely is an Entombed One?”


    Bastet squinted at her. “You smell like time travel as well, but it’s much fainter than these ones. You came forward in time long ago. But whatever the case, whatever your reasons for coming here, you’ve made a mistake. This tower is the prison containing the last remnants of the Reaper empire which once threatened to wipe all life from this universe. Those who could not be turned away from their genocidal efforts were contained in this building. Over the hundreds of millennia since then, their influence has spread through the building, corrupting and taking control of it, but never able to release them.


    “That is why it has allowed you inside, and why it will not allow you to leave. They required a powerful Necromancer to break the remnants of their chains. Those creatures have brought you here to release them, so they may resume their efforts to annihilate all other life in the universe.”