It was another very productive day and Norman was in high spirits as he exited his workroom. He had gone back to trying to catalog more of the symbols after his success with creating those new test spells.
He could have simply spent time improving on those new spells. But what if one symbol he hadn’t experimented with could make the spell so much better? So instead of switching back and forth every time he discovered something new, he wanted to finish what he started.
That was a big job though. In the month or so since he had created those spells, he had added another seventy symbols to his knowledge base. That might seem like a lot until you realized there were over seven hundred different symbols in his collection. And most of the ones he had worked out did the same thing as the ones he already knew or a slight variation of that. That didn’t mean that any of them were useless though. Each symbol had a purpose, much as a ten amp fuse had a different purpose than a forty amp one did.
One of the symbols he found really interesting was the reactor symbol. It was part of the Bone Horror spell. As far as Norman could tell, the symbol took in mana and converted it to something else. In the case of the Bone Horror spell, it seemed to convert it into violent killing intent. He hadn’t quite figured out how that worked.
Another set of symbols acted like gates. Each seemed to allow a set amount of mana or energy to flow through them. And by twisting their orientation in the spell, you could increase or decrease the amount of energy it allowed to pass through based on the specific symbol's upper or lower limit.
He stepped into the throne room, still lost in his thoughts and completely oblivious to his surroundings. So it was a surprise when something jumped out of the corner at him.
Thankfully, Princess was paying attention. She latched onto what looked like a black tentacle, jerking it off target. Instead of skewering Norman through the head, it simply tore through his cheek. Had he mentioned just how much he loved the pain reduction of being undead?
Norman reacted quickly to the attack by backpedaling away from this unknown attacker and toward his throne. He tried to whistle for the other hellhounds – who were probably in the kitchen looking for food – but with his cheek torn open, he only produced a wet hiss.
He growled and clenched his teeth as he reached out his hand and activated his armor. It flowed across his body and his staff flew into his hand as the tentacled abomination fought against Princess. But Princess was proving to be a bit too much for the this assassin as its black appendages struck against her exoskeleton and skittered off. She wasn’t having the same issue as she tore one of the creature's arms off.
It let out a high-pitched scream and tried to bolt for the door, seeming to defy gravity as it swam through the air.
“Oh, no you don’t you mother fucker. I have questions for you!” Norman tapped his staff on the ground and a ripple of magic beat the creature to the hallway, making a dull gray barrier appear.
The thing let out another scream as one of its appendages impacted the barrier before it could reverse direction. Norman found the creature's quick reaction surprising.
The one tentacle that touched the barrier turned ashy grey but the creature sliced it off before the damage reached its main body.
But the thing had made a few mistakes as it barreled for another door. The first was that Princess wasn’t alone. Dante and Lucifer came bounding into the room, immediately spotting the intruder and rushing for it.
Norman could see the panic in the creature’s eyes, confirming what he had suspected after seeing it react to the barrier, it was indeed intelligent. A normal creature would have tried to break through the Wall of Fog as it appeared like mist and not something solid. Yeah, Wall of Fog was a stupid name, he knew but he wasn’t the one that named the spell.
The creature tried to go toward the high ceiling to avoid the hellhounds, but Norman smacked it down with an Air Shield, then he intercepted the angry appendages that were shot his way with his Bone Shield.
He would prefer to take it alive, but it didn’t seem like this thing was going to allow that to happen, that was ok with him. He pulled out a bone and rapidly formed the spell circle as the creature was otherwise occupied trying not to die as his three hell hounds chased it around. It saw him casting but couldn’t break free to stop him. In one last-ditch attempt, it fled for the kitchen. Princess stopped it short by latching onto another tentacle just as Norman struck it with Plague Ray.
If he thought it's screeching before had been bad, this was ten times worse. Thankfully, it was short-lived as the creature burst like an over-inflated water balloon. There was another flash of mana as the Soul Trap – which Norman had installed in his throne room after his fight with Vincent – activated. Well, technically he had installed them in every room, but he figured the throne room was where he would see most of his action.
Norman deactivated the Wall of Fog as he heard his guards approaching. The spell indiscriminately killed anyone that wasn’t the original caster. Norman hadn’t gotten around to tweaking it so it wouldn’t do that yet.
“Are you ok, Boss?” Lohr asked, looking upset that yet another enemy had gotten past them.
“Just another Monday,” Norman replied nonchalantly.
“But, it’s Wednesday, Boss.”
Norman cursed. He had lost track of time again so he played it off as a joke. “Obviously, I know that. I was kidding.”
Nolix was poking at the remains of the body, trying to push the hellhounds out of the way. When he lifted up one of the arms, he let out a curse in his native tongue.
“It’s a gomer, Sir.”
“A what?”
“A biologically modified ratar from one of the principalities in my home world. From the same principality that our new ratar hail from,” he spit on the ground next to the creature and said something in his language.
“Mind translating that last sentence?” Norman asked before chugging down a potion to heal his torn cheek.
Nolix looked embarrassed. “Sorry boss, I was just cursing the entire lineage of whoever created this thing.”
“… Ah.”
“What I don’t understand is why they would send an assassin after you, Sir. That principality used these monstrosities to target their enemies' leaders but we aren’t even near them. It would make more sense to target their direct enemies.”
“Maybe they have,” Norman replied. “I believe I know why they attacked here though. We know the Council has enemies at their borders, and that at least one of them is this ratar principality. So either they thought we were supplying the Council with the undead, or someone led them to that conclusion. My guess is the latter. My question is, how did it get in here undetected?”
Nolix flipped over one of the intact tentacles. It was no longer black, but clear and looked to be pulsating. “Biomimicry. Knowing the Gorfan and their ways it wouldn’t surprise me if they added magic to help it blend in even more.”
Sort of like a squid. “I’m assuming Gorfan is the name of this principality.”
Nolix nodded.
“Well, why don’t we ask our friend here,” Norman smiled.
It turned out that asking the gomer any questions was impossible. While he had indeed trapped the thing's soul, the body’s DNA, or whatever equivalent the thing had, broke down as soon as it died, rendering any material unusable. That was a deliberate design choice if Norman had ever seen one.
He made a note to add a stasis field as well as a siphon to his soul trap. That should allow him to capture enough material if another attack occurred. He would have to go speak with Eugene about this incident.
As he made his way toward the barracks, he once again wished he had more Wraith Guard. The ones he had were already tasked with important information-gathering missions and he couldn’t risk pulling them away to check on this new threat. Hell, he couldn’t even afford to have one stationed in the castle to help protect him. Not that he needed any more protection with the three hellhounds being there as well as his two guards. But he was certain a Wraith would have spotted the creature sneaking in, even if it was cloaked in magic and camouflage.
But that would have to wait until the new crop of soldiers were vetted and trained. Norman knocked on Eugene’s office door, but there was no answer. Seeing as Eugene’s guards were absent as well, he found a recruit and tasked him to locate Eugene for him.
The man ran off while Norman waited outside the office.
It took a good twenty minutes for Eugene to arrive. Norman could tell by the man’s appearance that he had run the entire way.
“What’s up, Boss?” the big man asked, eying both Lohr and Nolix as if he could pluck the information from their minds.
Going by how much the two squirmed under Eugene’s gaze, maybe he could.
He cleared his throat to get Eugene’s attention. “It’s sensitive.”
Eugene nodded and opened his office door and he followed him inside. Once inside, the big man shut everyone, including Princess out. A glare from Eugene even cowed the hellhound enough to get her to back away from the door.
“What’s happening?” Eugene asked before plopping into his chair with an audible creak.
“I was just attacked in the castle.”
“Those useless… I’ll issue you some new guards, this is unacceptable.”
Norman waved the man down. “Calm yourself. This wasn’t their fault. The thing that attacked me was a magically engineered assassin.”
Eugene grunted, “That may be, but this is the third time they haven’t managed to keep you safe.”
Norman rolled his eyes. “I doubt even you or Grobert could have stopped this thing from getting inside. It was literally built to be invisible. And you can’t blame those two for last time. Vincent literally ejected their souls from their bodies while he was invisible to them. If anything, we need better defense against unseen threats.”
“Like your amulet?” Eugene asked, pointedly.
“Point taken, but no. You know why we can’t create more of those. But someone in town should be able to create something to see through regular invisibility.”
It was Eugene’s turn to roll his eyes. “If you can convince Nolia that this is urgent, then I can look into it. But I can assure you she will balk at the expense. She might even want another project dropped to help pay for this one.”
“Shit… I forgot we have a budget now. Ok, I will speak with her and see if we have any other projects that can be delayed or dropped to pay for these new items. I wanted all of the Death Knights to have one but if we are tight for cash, we may have to limit how many we have made.”
“Good luck with that,” Eugene snorted. “Anything else, Boss?”
“Yes. Any word from our agents in the field?”
Eugene opened his drawer and pulled out the folded sheet before quickly reading it. Then he handed it to Norman.
Day 14 report
No movement from Council.
Encountered an agent of Donovan’s. The man turned into a bird and flew away – suspect the same man may have been involved with refugees at other undead city – Orders?
Shannon reports that Vincent is making strides in bypassing his blood oath on spells. – Orders?
“So that’s who Donovan is using as his spies.”
“Seems like some kind of shapeshifter. We need to be careful there as well.”
Norman nodded.
“Want to adjust their orders?”
Did he? He was annoyed that Vincent was trying to bypass the blood oath, but not all that surprised by the fact. He could have simply made it so the man couldn’t cast magic ever again. But he suspected that sort of restrictive oath may not have stuck. It was better to have oaths be simple and singular in nature, they tended to last longer that way.
“Tell them to stick to their current orders. We already suspected these two were up to something.”
Eugene erased the page and wrote them back before folding the sheet and tucking it back away in the drawer.
“Here I thought you were gonna order one of them to keep an eye on this new threat.”
“It's hardly a threat. Even if they did manage to kill me, I would just come back. We’ll deal with them in time, but for now, let them be a pain in the Council’s ass. It’ll serve the Council right for being dicks. Speaking of the Council. Have we put the manufactured goods they delivered to good use?”
“As far as I know. I believe it freed up a tenth of our labor pool to work on other things. Some of those joined the farming alliance, while others moved to construction and manufacturing.”
Norman sighed. “I really wish people would stop forming guilds, alliances, and whatnot. That shit is gonna come back to bite us in the ass eventually.”
“Just say the word and I’ll put a stop to it.”
“No, I promised people autonomy, I would be a hypocrite if I took it away now. I’ll speak with Freya during our next meeting and have her draft up laws limiting these groups' power. Otherwise, we will end up with small groups controlling everything.”
“Some people won't be happy about that.”
“Probably not, but they will get over it.” Norman stood. “Keep me up to date on what's going on in California. I don’t believe this will be the last attempt, nor the only one. If someone on the Council, or even just Donovan leaked information about us, I suspect we will see more company soon.”
“I’ll increase patrols near the border. The new crop of guards needs a good first mission anyway, so they will be perfect for that.”
It was another very productive day and Norman was in high spirits as he exited his workroom. He had gone back to trying to catalog more of the symbols after his success with creating those new test spells.
He could have simply spent time improving on those new spells. But what if one symbol he hadn’t experimented with could make the spell so much better? So instead of switching back and forth every time he discovered something new, he wanted to finish what he started.
That was a big job though. In the month or so since he had created those spells, he had added another seventy symbols to his knowledge base. That might seem like a lot until you realized there were over seven hundred different symbols in his collection. And most of the ones he had worked out did the same thing as the ones he already knew or a slight variation of that. That didn’t mean that any of them were useless though. Each symbol had a purpose, much as a ten amp fuse had a different purpose than a forty amp one did.
One of the symbols he found really interesting was the reactor symbol. It was part of the Bone Horror spell. As far as Norman could tell, the symbol took in mana and converted it to something else. In the case of the Bone Horror spell, it seemed to convert it into violent killing intent. He hadn’t quite figured out how that worked.
Another set of symbols acted like gates. Each seemed to allow a set amount of mana or energy to flow through them. And by twisting their orientation in the spell, you could increase or decrease the amount of energy it allowed to pass through based on the specific symbol's upper or lower limit.
He stepped into the throne room, still lost in his thoughts and completely oblivious to his surroundings. So it was a surprise when something jumped out of the corner at him.
Thankfully, Princess was paying attention. She latched onto what looked like a black tentacle, jerking it off target. Instead of skewering Norman through the head, it simply tore through his cheek. Had he mentioned just how much he loved the pain reduction of being undead?
Norman reacted quickly to the attack by backpedaling away from this unknown attacker and toward his throne. He tried to whistle for the other hellhounds – who were probably in the kitchen looking for food – but with his cheek torn open, he only produced a wet hiss.
He growled and clenched his teeth as he reached out his hand and activated his armor. It flowed across his body and his staff flew into his hand as the tentacled abomination fought against Princess. But Princess was proving to be a bit too much for the this assassin as its black appendages struck against her exoskeleton and skittered off. She wasn’t having the same issue as she tore one of the creature's arms off.
It let out a high-pitched scream and tried to bolt for the door, seeming to defy gravity as it swam through the air.
“Oh, no you don’t you mother fucker. I have questions for you!” Norman tapped his staff on the ground and a ripple of magic beat the creature to the hallway, making a dull gray barrier appear.
The thing let out another scream as one of its appendages impacted the barrier before it could reverse direction. Norman found the creature's quick reaction surprising.
The one tentacle that touched the barrier turned ashy grey but the creature sliced it off before the damage reached its main body.
But the thing had made a few mistakes as it barreled for another door. The first was that Princess wasn’t alone. Dante and Lucifer came bounding into the room, immediately spotting the intruder and rushing for it.
Norman could see the panic in the creature’s eyes, confirming what he had suspected after seeing it react to the barrier, it was indeed intelligent. A normal creature would have tried to break through the Wall of Fog as it appeared like mist and not something solid. Yeah, Wall of Fog was a stupid name, he knew but he wasn’t the one that named the spell.
The creature tried to go toward the high ceiling to avoid the hellhounds, but Norman smacked it down with an Air Shield, then he intercepted the angry appendages that were shot his way with his Bone Shield.
He would prefer to take it alive, but it didn’t seem like this thing was going to allow that to happen, that was ok with him. He pulled out a bone and rapidly formed the spell circle as the creature was otherwise occupied trying not to die as his three hell hounds chased it around. It saw him casting but couldn’t break free to stop him. In one last-ditch attempt, it fled for the kitchen. Princess stopped it short by latching onto another tentacle just as Norman struck it with Plague Ray.
If he thought it's screeching before had been bad, this was ten times worse. Thankfully, it was short-lived as the creature burst like an over-inflated water balloon. There was another flash of mana as the Soul Trap – which Norman had installed in his throne room after his fight with Vincent – activated. Well, technically he had installed them in every room, but he figured the throne room was where he would see most of his action.
Norman deactivated the Wall of Fog as he heard his guards approaching. The spell indiscriminately killed anyone that wasn’t the original caster. Norman hadn’t gotten around to tweaking it so it wouldn’t do that yet.
“Are you ok, Boss?” Lohr asked, looking upset that yet another enemy had gotten past them.
“Just another Monday,” Norman replied nonchalantly.
“But, it’s Wednesday, Boss.”
Norman cursed. He had lost track of time again so he played it off as a joke. “Obviously, I know that. I was kidding.”
Nolix was poking at the remains of the body, trying to push the hellhounds out of the way. When he lifted up one of the arms, he let out a curse in his native tongue.
“It’s a gomer, Sir.”
“A what?”
“A biologically modified ratar from one of the principalities in my home world. From the same principality that our new ratar hail from,” he spit on the ground next to the creature and said something in his language.
“Mind translating that last sentence?” Norman asked before chugging down a potion to heal his torn cheek.
Nolix looked embarrassed. “Sorry boss, I was just cursing the entire lineage of whoever created this thing.”
“… Ah.”
“What I don’t understand is why they would send an assassin after you, Sir. That principality used these monstrosities to target their enemies' leaders but we aren’t even near them. It would make more sense to target their direct enemies.”
“Maybe they have,” Norman replied. “I believe I know why they attacked here though. We know the Council has enemies at their borders, and that at least one of them is this ratar principality. So either they thought we were supplying the Council with the undead, or someone led them to that conclusion. My guess is the latter. My question is, how did it get in here undetected?”
Nolix flipped over one of the intact tentacles. It was no longer black, but clear and looked to be pulsating. “Biomimicry. Knowing the Gorfan and their ways it wouldn’t surprise me if they added magic to help it blend in even more.”
Sort of like a squid. “I’m assuming Gorfan is the name of this principality.”
Nolix nodded.
“Well, why don’t we ask our friend here,” Norman smiled.
It turned out that asking the gomer any questions was impossible. While he had indeed trapped the thing's soul, the body’s DNA, or whatever equivalent the thing had, broke down as soon as it died, rendering any material unusable. That was a deliberate design choice if Norman had ever seen one.
He made a note to add a stasis field as well as a siphon to his soul trap. That should allow him to capture enough material if another attack occurred. He would have to go speak with Eugene about this incident.
As he made his way toward the barracks, he once again wished he had more Wraith Guard. The ones he had were already tasked with important information-gathering missions and he couldn’t risk pulling them away to check on this new threat. Hell, he couldn’t even afford to have one stationed in the castle to help protect him. Not that he needed any more protection with the three hellhounds being there as well as his two guards. But he was certain a Wraith would have spotted the creature sneaking in, even if it was cloaked in magic and camouflage.
But that would have to wait until the new crop of soldiers were vetted and trained. Norman knocked on Eugene’s office door, but there was no answer. Seeing as Eugene’s guards were absent as well, he found a recruit and tasked him to locate Eugene for him.
The man ran off while Norman waited outside the office.
It took a good twenty minutes for Eugene to arrive. Norman could tell by the man’s appearance that he had run the entire way.
“What’s up, Boss?” the big man asked, eying both Lohr and Nolix as if he could pluck the information from their minds.
Going by how much the two squirmed under Eugene’s gaze, maybe he could.
He cleared his throat to get Eugene’s attention. “It’s sensitive.”
Eugene nodded and opened his office door and he followed him inside. Once inside, the big man shut everyone, including Princess out. A glare from Eugene even cowed the hellhound enough to get her to back away from the door.
“What’s happening?” Eugene asked before plopping into his chair with an audible creak.
“I was just attacked in the castle.”
“Those useless… I’ll issue you some new guards, this is unacceptable.”
Norman waved the man down. “Calm yourself. This wasn’t their fault. The thing that attacked me was a magically engineered assassin.”
Eugene grunted, “That may be, but this is the third time they haven’t managed to keep you safe.”
Norman rolled his eyes. “I doubt even you or Grobert could have stopped this thing from getting inside. It was literally built to be invisible. And you can’t blame those two for last time. Vincent literally ejected their souls from their bodies while he was invisible to them. If anything, we need better defense against unseen threats.”
“Like your amulet?” Eugene asked, pointedly.
“Point taken, but no. You know why we can’t create more of those. But someone in town should be able to create something to see through regular invisibility.”
It was Eugene’s turn to roll his eyes. “If you can convince Nolia that this is urgent, then I can look into it. But I can assure you she will balk at the expense. She might even want another project dropped to help pay for this one.”
“Shit… I forgot we have a budget now. Ok, I will speak with her and see if we have any other projects that can be delayed or dropped to pay for these new items. I wanted all of the Death Knights to have one but if we are tight for cash, we may have to limit how many we have made.”
“Good luck with that,” Eugene snorted. “Anything else, Boss?”
“Yes. Any word from our agents in the field?”
Eugene opened his drawer and pulled out the folded sheet before quickly reading it. Then he handed it to Norman.
Day 14 report
No movement from Council.
Encountered an agent of Donovan’s. The man turned into a bird and flew away – suspect the same man may have been involved with refugees at other undead city – Orders?
Shannon reports that Vincent is making strides in bypassing his blood oath on spells. – Orders?
“So that’s who Donovan is using as his spies.”
“Seems like some kind of shapeshifter. We need to be careful there as well.”
Norman nodded.
“Want to adjust their orders?”
Did he? He was annoyed that Vincent was trying to bypass the blood oath, but not all that surprised by the fact. He could have simply made it so the man couldn’t cast magic ever again. But he suspected that sort of restrictive oath may not have stuck. It was better to have oaths be simple and singular in nature, they tended to last longer that way.
“Tell them to stick to their current orders. We already suspected these two were up to something.”
Eugene erased the page and wrote them back before folding the sheet and tucking it back away in the drawer.
“Here I thought you were gonna order one of them to keep an eye on this new threat.”
“It's hardly a threat. Even if they did manage to kill me, I would just come back. We’ll deal with them in time, but for now, let them be a pain in the Council’s ass. It’ll serve the Council right for being dicks. Speaking of the Council. Have we put the manufactured goods they delivered to good use?”
“As far as I know. I believe it freed up a tenth of our labor pool to work on other things. Some of those joined the farming alliance, while others moved to construction and manufacturing.”
Norman sighed. “I really wish people would stop forming guilds, alliances, and whatnot. That shit is gonna come back to bite us in the ass eventually.”
“Just say the word and I’ll put a stop to it.”
“No, I promised people autonomy, I would be a hypocrite if I took it away now. I’ll speak with Freya during our next meeting and have her draft up laws limiting these groups' power. Otherwise, we will end up with small groups controlling everything.”
“Some people won't be happy about that.”
“Probably not, but they will get over it.” Norman stood. “Keep me up to date on what's going on in California. I don’t believe this will be the last attempt, nor the only one. If someone on the Council, or even just Donovan leaked information about us, I suspect we will see more company soon.”
“I’ll increase patrols near the border. The new crop of guards needs a good first mission anyway, so they will be perfect for that.”
