It took over an hour for the massive group to split into smaller groups. Once that was done, Norman waited to hear what each group wished to do.
The first group to step up was a small group of mixed species. The smallest group Norman noticed. “We wish to return to our homes.”
Norman just shook his head and waved for them to move off to the side where a corridor of his Death Knights waited. He said he wouldn’t stop them from doing what they wanted, but he thought this group was being rather shortsighted. But it was their lives.
If they even made it back to their homes, they weren’t likely to be received with open arms. But that was the smallest of the groups. Norman turned his focus back to the next group that stepped up.
“You mentioned you had lizna amongst your people? How did this come about?”
Norman ignored the accusation in the lizna’s tone. “We did. They were displaced, and I came across their bodies and revived them.”
“Are they dead then?”
“I can’t say what happened to them. They live in an area to the north and we don’t interact regularly.”
The lizna representative seemed to perk up at this information. “What is this area you speak of?”
Norman told the representative about the fog lands. He could hear hisses of approval among his group. Norman didn’t know where the necromancer had acquired so many lizna bodies, but it was disturbing to see. Especially with what Norman knew of the lizna’s habits of solitude.
“This place is large enough to house us?”
Norman nodded. “It stretches for a few hundred miles.”
“We will go there then.”
“Before you go, please wait until I have spoken with the other groups.”
The lizna looked toward the first group who was already disappearing into the distance. “You did not hold them up. Why us?”
Because they are fools and idiots Norman wanted to say. “There is an important matter that needs to be discussed with those deciding to remain,” he said instead.
“Very well… we will remain for now, but being in a large group like this makes us nervous.”
“I understand and sympathize. But please be patient and I will get through the other groups as quickly as possible.”
The lizna group moved off to a quieter area inside the cordon to wait.
In the end, less than half of the new undead wished to remain in Ashvale. A large group of ooraki wanted to build their own town. Norman eyed them with suspicion, especially the females. When he asked if any of them were magic users, he got looks of confusion and disgust from them. Eventually one of the females came forward to address his question.
The ooraki woman bowed deeply before speaking. “Honored Sovereign. The only ooraki with magic is the ruling class. And they hoard their power jealously and use their gifts to enslave our males to their whims. If we were aware of an ooraki with magic in our midst, we would have dealt with them ourselves.”
Norman was surprised at the vehemence in the woman’s statement. Maybe he could finally get some answers as to why Noorani acted the way she did. He decided to grant them their city. But made sure its location was far from any borders. In the end, he gave them a plot of land at the edge of the fog lands. This would require them to traverse the fog lands or travel through the rest of Normenia before encountering any other zones. It should keep them from interacting with anyone outside of his territory for quite some time.
The next group that came up was composed of what looked like humans and… merfolk? Norman wasn’t quite sure what to classify the second group as.
“Are you human?” Norman decided to ask first and foremost.
The woman leading their group shook her head. “While we can certainly see the similarities, we are not. Our species is called the narasi.” The woman spread her fingers apart and Norman could see she had webbed hands. Fascinating!
“And you?” he asked, looking at the other representative.
There was a bubbling burbling sound that escaped the thing's lips. Norman turned a confused look back at the narasi woman.
“Please forgive the bagu representative. Living most of their lives underwater, they cannot form the same types of sounds with their vocal cords.”
“Ah,” was all Norman could say in reply. “And what would your group like to do?”
“We would prefer to live near or in large bodies of water.”
Norman scratched his head. That request was going to be difficult. While Normenia had its fair share of lakes and rivers, none of them were very large.
In the end, Norman had Grobert draw up a map of the local waterways for the group. He could have offered to tell them about the great river in the wasteland. But decided against that. Norman didn’t need any added friction between him and the Alacala Merchants at the moment.
After the narasi and bagu moved off to the side, the next group swaggered up like they owned the place. Norman groaned under his breath when he noticed it was entirely composed of humans. Not some offset branch of hum, but normal humans. And these looked like they thought their shit didn’t stink.
“We have a list of demands,” the representative spoke and his small group of sycophants bobbed their heads in support.
Norman’s first thought was to strip their souls from their bodies and speak to the next representative chosen from this group. When Norman glanced at Grobert, he saw the man shake his head minutely. Norman suppressed a sigh. Just because he had to listen, didn’t mean he had to agree to any of them. He motioned for the man to state their “demands”.
And they did… for over ten minutes. It was all wrapped up in legal mumbo jumbo, giving Norman a headache. Which shouldn’t have been possible in his undead state, but yet, this group had somehow managed the feat. Norman wondered if he could weaponize this ability to give undead headaches.
After twenty minutes, the group finally finished their demands. Most of them weren’t all that unreasonable. But that was only most of them. That still left their demands not to pay taxes, to have full autonomy within his borders, and to have voting rights to choose a new leader of the country.
Now while Norman didn’t want to be a ruler, he was. And after all the bullshit he had gone through, he wasn’t going to simply give it up. Especially not to some shitty elected official that could be suborned through trickery and deceit by those with the most influence. Which is obviously what this larger group had in mind.
“No,” Norman replied simply.
The group of representatives blinked at Norman. “What do you mean, no? You can’t do that. We have rights.”
“No, you don’t. At least not the same as you used to. This is not the United States of America. This is the Kingdom of Normenia. My kingdom. And I was chosen to lead. If you don’t like that, feel free to return to your own state. See how well they receive your demands.”
“You can’t do that to us. That would be a death sentence.”
Norman nodded. “You’re right, it probably would be. But don’t think you can come into my land and make demands. I will run it the way I see fit. And you can either get in line with that or leave. I honestly don’t care either way.”
The man stepped forward as if to argue the point but Norman’s two Death Knight guards leveled their magical spears at him.
Norman stood up and approached the man, stopping uncomfortably close to him. Norman was the taller of the two by half a head, which forced the man to either look up into his eyes or lower his head and stare at Norman’s chest. The man chose to act subdued.
“Are you going to be a problem?” Norman asked coldly.
The man shook his head at the pointed question. Norman lifted his head and let his gaze wander across the other gathered representatives. All of which avoided direct eye contact with Norman.
“I don’t care how you run your city. If you wish to elect a leader, then fine. Do that. So long as your laws do not interfere with mine. Do what you will. But do not think I will suffer any attempt to undermine my leadership or ownership of this country.”
After Norman’s little speech, the representatives slunk off back to their group. He would need to keep an eye on them. While they acted cowed, he had a strong suspicion they were just playing for time. Norman decided keeping tabs on these new towns would be a good first test of his Wraith Guard project.
With that group of idiots out of the way, that left the last group, which consisted of humans along with a few hundred ratar like his guard Nolix. There were some other species mixed in that Norman didn’t recognize. But he was sure he would learn what they were soon enough.
This was the largest group at around five thousand. And they all wanted to stay in Ashvale. It seemed these were the smarter humans. They realized something the other group of humans hadn’t. Starting from scratch was not going to be easy.
Norman chuckled internally at the mental image of that first group of humans arriving at their chosen destination only to realize they had to build their town themselves. Norman certainly wasn’t going to help them. They should have added that to their list of demands. Oh well.
After speaking with this last group, Norman moved back to the top of the wall to address the remaining groups one last time.
“One last thing before you all set off on your desired course. As an undead, your bodily needs are different than before. You can still enjoy food but you no longer get drunk from alcohol. That may come as a shock to some, but it is what it is. You may also notice that most of your forms have decayed quite a bit since you were last alive and ours are pristine. Have no fear, that can be fixed.”
Norman gestured to the bottom of the wall. Where large clay pots were simmering away and groups of greykin were rushing back and forth with ingredients. “One of the new requirements of your body is mana. The cooks below will hand you a ladle full of a rejuvenating liquid. This I offer freely this one time. Those that are remaining in Ashvale can earn additional doses by helping around town or by simply purchasing the liquid with funds or trade. Those of you who are heading out to start your own cities will have to trade for this resource or purchase it with whatever means you come up with.”
There was a whole lot of grumbling about that. With some even calling Norman a tyrant. He ignored them. “You do not have to purchase this liquid right away. As a greykin, which is the type of undead that you all are, you can go about a month by sustaining yourself on only normal food. You can also come up with your own way to combat the mana loss of your bodies. Unfortunately, we do not have enough containers to simply hand out samples. But a sip of this liquid will keep your body in peak condition for around a week. Longer if you don’t exert yourself.”
“Why didn’t you let the group that left know about this?” He heard someone shout.
He had expected the question. Instead of answering it, he asked one of his own. “What do you think that group would do when they encounter civilization?”
A bunch of talking and conversations sprung up at Norman’s question. He was able to make out a few of the closer conversations. And the people were beginning to realize the truth.
“Yes. They would expose us to the greater outside world. And while I am confident in my own power, I don’t need the added headache this group would bring us.”
“You’re going to let them die!” an outraged voice yelled.
“No!” Norman spoke forcefully. “I gave them a choice. They chose to leave. I owe them nothing else. Now as fun as this day has been, I have shit to do.” With that, he waved them off and made his way toward the stairs.
As soon as Norman was out of sight, he finally dropped the act. “God this is exhausting,” he muttered to Grobert.
“You did good though. They really bought into that whole undead overlord persona.”
“You think so?” Norman asked while he cracked his stiff neck. He wasn’t looking forward to the process of reverting back to living again. But he needed to restore his supply of magic powder. Then he could focus on figuring out the undead side of his magic so he wouldn’t have to keep going back and forth.
“For the most part. That one group of humans is going to be a problem.”
“Yeah, I thought so as well. Have some people keep an eye on them for now. This might also be a good opportunity to test out Operation Peeking Dawn.”
Grobert shook his head at the idiotic name. The gron didn’t really do secrecy to the level that humans did. So he found the covert name for Norman’s wraith program to be absurd. But it was their only way to ensure information security at the moment. So if it worked, it worked. Once the project was complete, he could send them out to find out what was going on in California. Based on what the other necromancer said during their fight, he doubted this was the last time he would have an encounter with the group from California.
MJMarkgraf Early chapter release to celebrate chapter 100!
It took over an hour for the massive group to split into smaller groups. Once that was done, Norman waited to hear what each group wished to do.
The first group to step up was a small group of mixed species. The smallest group Norman noticed. “We wish to return to our homes.”
Norman just shook his head and waved for them to move off to the side where a corridor of his Death Knights waited. He said he wouldn’t stop them from doing what they wanted, but he thought this group was being rather shortsighted. But it was their lives.
If they even made it back to their homes, they weren’t likely to be received with open arms. But that was the smallest of the groups. Norman turned his focus back to the next group that stepped up.
“You mentioned you had lizna amongst your people? How did this come about?”
Norman ignored the accusation in the lizna’s tone. “We did. They were displaced, and I came across their bodies and revived them.”
“Are they dead then?”
“I can’t say what happened to them. They live in an area to the north and we don’t interact regularly.”
The lizna representative seemed to perk up at this information. “What is this area you speak of?”
Norman told the representative about the fog lands. He could hear hisses of approval among his group. Norman didn’t know where the necromancer had acquired so many lizna bodies, but it was disturbing to see. Especially with what Norman knew of the lizna’s habits of solitude.
“This place is large enough to house us?”
Norman nodded. “It stretches for a few hundred miles.”
“We will go there then.”
“Before you go, please wait until I have spoken with the other groups.”
The lizna looked toward the first group who was already disappearing into the distance. “You did not hold them up. Why us?”
Because they are fools and idiots Norman wanted to say. “There is an important matter that needs to be discussed with those deciding to remain,” he said instead.
“Very well… we will remain for now, but being in a large group like this makes us nervous.”
“I understand and sympathize. But please be patient and I will get through the other groups as quickly as possible.”
The lizna group moved off to a quieter area inside the cordon to wait.
In the end, less than half of the new undead wished to remain in Ashvale. A large group of ooraki wanted to build their own town. Norman eyed them with suspicion, especially the females. When he asked if any of them were magic users, he got looks of confusion and disgust from them. Eventually one of the females came forward to address his question.
The ooraki woman bowed deeply before speaking. “Honored Sovereign. The only ooraki with magic is the ruling class. And they hoard their power jealously and use their gifts to enslave our males to their whims. If we were aware of an ooraki with magic in our midst, we would have dealt with them ourselves.”
Norman was surprised at the vehemence in the woman’s statement. Maybe he could finally get some answers as to why Noorani acted the way she did. He decided to grant them their city. But made sure its location was far from any borders. In the end, he gave them a plot of land at the edge of the fog lands. This would require them to traverse the fog lands or travel through the rest of Normenia before encountering any other zones. It should keep them from interacting with anyone outside of his territory for quite some time.
The next group that came up was composed of what looked like humans and… merfolk? Norman wasn’t quite sure what to classify the second group as.
“Are you human?” Norman decided to ask first and foremost.
The woman leading their group shook her head. “While we can certainly see the similarities, we are not. Our species is called the narasi.” The woman spread her fingers apart and Norman could see she had webbed hands. Fascinating!
“And you?” he asked, looking at the other representative.
There was a bubbling burbling sound that escaped the thing's lips. Norman turned a confused look back at the narasi woman.
“Please forgive the bagu representative. Living most of their lives underwater, they cannot form the same types of sounds with their vocal cords.”
“Ah,” was all Norman could say in reply. “And what would your group like to do?”
“We would prefer to live near or in large bodies of water.”
Norman scratched his head. That request was going to be difficult. While Normenia had its fair share of lakes and rivers, none of them were very large.
In the end, Norman had Grobert draw up a map of the local waterways for the group. He could have offered to tell them about the great river in the wasteland. But decided against that. Norman didn’t need any added friction between him and the Alacala Merchants at the moment.
After the narasi and bagu moved off to the side, the next group swaggered up like they owned the place. Norman groaned under his breath when he noticed it was entirely composed of humans. Not some offset branch of hum, but normal humans. And these looked like they thought their shit didn’t stink.
“We have a list of demands,” the representative spoke and his small group of sycophants bobbed their heads in support.
Norman’s first thought was to strip their souls from their bodies and speak to the next representative chosen from this group. When Norman glanced at Grobert, he saw the man shake his head minutely. Norman suppressed a sigh. Just because he had to listen, didn’t mean he had to agree to any of them. He motioned for the man to state their “demands”.
And they did… for over ten minutes. It was all wrapped up in legal mumbo jumbo, giving Norman a headache. Which shouldn’t have been possible in his undead state, but yet, this group had somehow managed the feat. Norman wondered if he could weaponize this ability to give undead headaches.
After twenty minutes, the group finally finished their demands. Most of them weren’t all that unreasonable. But that was only most of them. That still left their demands not to pay taxes, to have full autonomy within his borders, and to have voting rights to choose a new leader of the country.
Now while Norman didn’t want to be a ruler, he was. And after all the bullshit he had gone through, he wasn’t going to simply give it up. Especially not to some shitty elected official that could be suborned through trickery and deceit by those with the most influence. Which is obviously what this larger group had in mind.
“No,” Norman replied simply.
The group of representatives blinked at Norman. “What do you mean, no? You can’t do that. We have rights.”
“No, you don’t. At least not the same as you used to. This is not the United States of America. This is the Kingdom of Normenia. My kingdom. And I was chosen to lead. If you don’t like that, feel free to return to your own state. See how well they receive your demands.”
“You can’t do that to us. That would be a death sentence.”
Norman nodded. “You’re right, it probably would be. But don’t think you can come into my land and make demands. I will run it the way I see fit. And you can either get in line with that or leave. I honestly don’t care either way.”
The man stepped forward as if to argue the point but Norman’s two Death Knight guards leveled their magical spears at him.
Norman stood up and approached the man, stopping uncomfortably close to him. Norman was the taller of the two by half a head, which forced the man to either look up into his eyes or lower his head and stare at Norman’s chest. The man chose to act subdued.
“Are you going to be a problem?” Norman asked coldly.
The man shook his head at the pointed question. Norman lifted his head and let his gaze wander across the other gathered representatives. All of which avoided direct eye contact with Norman.
“I don’t care how you run your city. If you wish to elect a leader, then fine. Do that. So long as your laws do not interfere with mine. Do what you will. But do not think I will suffer any attempt to undermine my leadership or ownership of this country.”
After Norman’s little speech, the representatives slunk off back to their group. He would need to keep an eye on them. While they acted cowed, he had a strong suspicion they were just playing for time. Norman decided keeping tabs on these new towns would be a good first test of his Wraith Guard project.
With that group of idiots out of the way, that left the last group, which consisted of humans along with a few hundred ratar like his guard Nolix. There were some other species mixed in that Norman didn’t recognize. But he was sure he would learn what they were soon enough.
This was the largest group at around five thousand. And they all wanted to stay in Ashvale. It seemed these were the smarter humans. They realized something the other group of humans hadn’t. Starting from scratch was not going to be easy.
Norman chuckled internally at the mental image of that first group of humans arriving at their chosen destination only to realize they had to build their town themselves. Norman certainly wasn’t going to help them. They should have added that to their list of demands. Oh well.
After speaking with this last group, Norman moved back to the top of the wall to address the remaining groups one last time.
“One last thing before you all set off on your desired course. As an undead, your bodily needs are different than before. You can still enjoy food but you no longer get drunk from alcohol. That may come as a shock to some, but it is what it is. You may also notice that most of your forms have decayed quite a bit since you were last alive and ours are pristine. Have no fear, that can be fixed.”
Norman gestured to the bottom of the wall. Where large clay pots were simmering away and groups of greykin were rushing back and forth with ingredients. “One of the new requirements of your body is mana. The cooks below will hand you a ladle full of a rejuvenating liquid. This I offer freely this one time. Those that are remaining in Ashvale can earn additional doses by helping around town or by simply purchasing the liquid with funds or trade. Those of you who are heading out to start your own cities will have to trade for this resource or purchase it with whatever means you come up with.”
There was a whole lot of grumbling about that. With some even calling Norman a tyrant. He ignored them. “You do not have to purchase this liquid right away. As a greykin, which is the type of undead that you all are, you can go about a month by sustaining yourself on only normal food. You can also come up with your own way to combat the mana loss of your bodies. Unfortunately, we do not have enough containers to simply hand out samples. But a sip of this liquid will keep your body in peak condition for around a week. Longer if you don’t exert yourself.”
“Why didn’t you let the group that left know about this?” He heard someone shout.
He had expected the question. Instead of answering it, he asked one of his own. “What do you think that group would do when they encounter civilization?”
A bunch of talking and conversations sprung up at Norman’s question. He was able to make out a few of the closer conversations. And the people were beginning to realize the truth.
“Yes. They would expose us to the greater outside world. And while I am confident in my own power, I don’t need the added headache this group would bring us.”
“You’re going to let them die!” an outraged voice yelled.
“No!” Norman spoke forcefully. “I gave them a choice. They chose to leave. I owe them nothing else. Now as fun as this day has been, I have shit to do.” With that, he waved them off and made his way toward the stairs.
As soon as Norman was out of sight, he finally dropped the act. “God this is exhausting,” he muttered to Grobert.
“You did good though. They really bought into that whole undead overlord persona.”
“You think so?” Norman asked while he cracked his stiff neck. He wasn’t looking forward to the process of reverting back to living again. But he needed to restore his supply of magic powder. Then he could focus on figuring out the undead side of his magic so he wouldn’t have to keep going back and forth.
“For the most part. That one group of humans is going to be a problem.”
“Yeah, I thought so as well. Have some people keep an eye on them for now. This might also be a good opportunity to test out Operation Peeking Dawn.”
Grobert shook his head at the idiotic name. The gron didn’t really do secrecy to the level that humans did. So he found the covert name for Norman’s wraith program to be absurd. But it was their only way to ensure information security at the moment. So if it worked, it worked. Once the project was complete, he could send them out to find out what was going on in California. Based on what the other necromancer said during their fight, he doubted this was the last time he would have an encounter with the group from California.
MJMarkgraf Early chapter release to celebrate chapter 100!
