It was surprising to Norman just how much impact trade had on Ashvale. Over the next month, the trickle of merchants from the Alacala merchants had tripled. It had increased so much that Garta – the gron engineer that had been assigned to take over for Grobert – had asked to build a dedicated market area for them.
After discussing it with Grobert and Eugene, it was agreed to build a market street outside of the old wall.
It was weird calling a wall, that had existed for less than a year in its current configuration, the old wall, but it was the truth. The new wall had gone up in half the time as the first one with the influx of new residents. It effectively tripled the area that Ashvale would cover.
New homes and other businesses were quickly being established in this new area. Which was good. The old area had become quite cramped after the five thousand additional residents had joined the city. And building more than three stories vertically wasn’t yet an option with the materials they had available.
The magically created stone was a wonderful building material but it was just compacted dirt. It just wasn’t as strong as concrete or steel. Unless you used magic to enhance it further. And that was cost-prohibitive. Even the walls, that protected the city, were only able to withstand siege due to how thick they were.
Steps were being taken to create better building materials but Ashvale had a lot of little projects like this going on. Even Norman wasn’t aware of most of them anymore. There were just too many projects and developments for him to keep track of. He left that to his administrators and councilors to handle. They notified him of anything that needed his direct attention or intervention. Which was far less than it had been when the city was first established.
The main issue Norman kept apprised of was the ongoing attacks from the Gorfan and the Southern California Alliance. Although it wasn’t really called the South California Alliance, that’s just the name Norman had given that group. In the last month, both groups had sent multiple failed attacks against the city. With their upgraded countermeasures, all but one attack was intercepted before it even arrived.
Only the Gorfan had managed to sneak through another one of their gomer bio-engineered monstrosities. Nolix and Lohr had intercepted it before it got into the castle this time. Which was a shame. Norman hadn’t prepared any magical circles outside the castle to capture the creature's essence.
While the attacks were annoying, they hadn’t accomplished much. The captured SCA people knew even less than the first group. That didn’t mean Norman was going to sit by and continue to allow them to attack and harass his people without repercussions. He had Eugene and Grobert retask four more Wraith Guards to that region. Which was what today’s little meeting was about.
The three met in a newly enchanted room inside the castle. “Any word from our spies?” he asked.
Eugene opened up a secured document and looked it over quickly before responding. “The SCA leadership is hard to pin down. Even when it seems we have located one, they move. This seems to be a direct result of their fighting with the Wizard Council. Their field commanders are easier to locate though.”
Grobert rubbed his chin in thought. “It’s a sound strategy. If they have been at war with the Council for this many years I’m certain the Council has tried assassinating them on more than one occasion.”
Norman nodded. “I certainly wouldn’t put it past them. What about the Council? They have been rather quiet as of late.”
Eugene flipped to another page in his document. “It seems they are struggling slightly on the Gorfan front and the SCA one. But our spies indicate that might just be misdirection. It seems they are building up undead troops out of sight of either border. They have also pulled back from the lizna border. This was where the trolls had come from. Once the Council disengaged, the lizna fighters were content to retreat back into their valley dwellings. My guess is they are gearing up for a major push against one of those targets.”
“So, no real surprise on that front,” Norman mused. “What about Vincent’s efforts?”
“The spies indicated the man managed to bypass your blood oath on at least one spell by changing the symbol orientations enough that the oath no longer stopped him from casting it.”
He was annoyed, but not surprised that Vincent had finally managed to bypass the oath. According to the wraiths, the man had been relentlessly working on this problem. To the point, he spent more time than Norman did studying magic. It was fascinating to see how someone without his intuition worked through spells. Slowly and methodically was the answer.
It also made Norman realize just how lucky he was. And how overpowered his magical intuition turned out to be. Without that little tickle in the back of his mind, Norman would have to go through and test thousands of slight variations of a spell to figure out what worked and what didn’t. But with his intuition, he could simply bypass that step completely because he knew if a spell design would work or not by simply looking at it.
And while it didn’t tell him what a spell would do. It meant he didn’t need to waste time or resources casting dozens of different variants to find one that worked. It’s what allowed him to build over a dozen custom spells since first learning magic. What had taken Norman no more than two years, over a dozen necromancers had failed to replicate in a decade. That fact alone finally put into perspective just how insane his growth was.
Sure Grobert had told him, but Norman never truly believed the man. He just figured Grobert was trying to keep his spirits up.
Despite that, Norman wasn’t all that happy. He had spells, sure, but he was lacking something Vincent had shown him back during their fight. The ability to cast a spell without producing the visible spell circle, either on the ground or in the air. The difference it made in casting speed was not to be dismissed.
Norman had asked Grobert about it, but the man didn’t know either. The fact that Grobert didn’t know wasn’t a surprise since Grobert wasn’t a mage. His ability was spatial awareness, which he then used to figure out teleportation. That was as far as Grobert had ever taken his magical learning. He would need to speak with Saliu when he had time. If anyone knew how to do it, it was likely the jorik.
“Tell the Wraiths to keep an eye on him but not to act.”
Eugene nodded, “There is one other thing we did learn.”
“Oh?”
“We kept hearing muttered complaints from some of the low-level Controllers about something called censure. At first, our spies brushed it off as normal complaining. But it kept coming up and one of the Wraiths finally looked into it. Apparently, it doesn’t mean what we thought it meant.”
Norman quirked an eyebrow. “Ok… what does it mean then?”
“In the context of the Council, it’s a complete lockdown of your magic or abilities. We haven’t figured out how they do it, but we discovered a recent woman who has gone through the treatment.” Eugene flipped through his report until he found the page he was looking for. “A woman by the name of Kalia. She is… or was a very talented crafter. We aren’t yet sure what got her on the Council’s shit list but the Wraiths are looking into it.”
“Well… that’s terrifying. Just another reason to steer clear of the Council.” Norman paused for a bit as an idea came to him. “What about turning this woman to our side or offering her asylum? If this censure is magical in nature and Vincent wasn’t involved with the censure procedure, it likely isn’t retained past death. Although that would be a last resort, we could try removing it with the use of our mana-absorbing cuffs first.”
Eugene and Grobert shared a glance before Grobert spoke up. “To contact her would mean exposing our spies. And we wouldn’t want to expose the Wraiths directly, which would mean sending a Death Knight. We both know how that went last time.”
Norman grunted. “Shit, you’re right. We don’t want to feed any more of our elites into their lands if we can help it. It’s too bad. If this woman was so important to them that they would censure her for something instead of disposing of her, she would make a great asset on our side.”
Grobert sighed. “I agree, which is why I will go and see about recruiting her personally. It will still expose the fact that we have spies amongst them, but we’re pretty sure they already know. They have increased their protections around their meetings to the point our Wraiths can’t listen in anymore. This will also allow me to extend a hidden teleportation line closer toward California.”
“You sure about this?” Norman asked.
Grobert shrugged. “It needs to happen. If they realize we can undermine their censured individuals, it may impact how they interact with us. As for the teleporters, yes. It gives us the ability to strike back if we need it.”
Norman reluctantly nodded, wishing he could go himself. “Alright, do it. But be careful.”
That comment earned a snort from the old man.
“Is there anything else to discuss?” Norman asked.
“… unfortunately, yes.”
Norman turned toward Eugene again.
“Our spies have found one of their council members who is also censured… she is someone we are both well acquainted with, the Witch Gail.”
“What! How? …Why?”
“That we don’t know. What do you want to do about her?”
The obvious answer was to have the Wraiths kill her. But Norman didn’t say that right away. He needed to weigh the benefits of getting rid of the woman against the drawbacks of striking directly at someone within the Council. Sure he had killed Vincent, but that was different. The man had attacked Ashvale.
Should he even care? The woman was a threat, with her ability to turn people into human puppets to serve her will. But that wasn’t any real different than what Anna did. Although, he was sure Anna would disagree. In the end, they were both a form of mental slavery and Norman didn’t want anything to do with it.
On another note, Gail had never been a direct threat to him. An indirect one, sure. And back when he first learned about her, her powers were terrifying. They still kind of were, but he was no longer afraid of the woman. And she was already censured by the Council. Was there any real need to involve himself?
“Tell the Wraiths to keep their standard surveillance on her.”
“You sure, Boss?”
Norman nodded. “I know you two have a history. But yes. She is currently the Council’s problem. If she somehow manages to break free of whatever process this censure involves, let her run wild. Once she does her damage to the Council, we can eliminate her. But it’s more than likely the Council will do it for us. They were strong enough to subdue her at least once before.”
Eugene grumbled. “I want my disagreement noted. But I will relay the order.”
“Fair enough. I’ll even compromise. If she ever steps foot into our territory, you have my permission to deal with her personally.”
Eugene smiled at that.
Norman stood up to leave but paused. “Almost forgot, one last thing before we go. Pick some targets inside the SCA, it's time they realize the consequences of their actions.”
Grobert spoke up as well. “Let's try to time the strikes to coincide with my trip. That should lessen the chance of me being detected.”
Norman nodded. “Sounds perfect. I will see you two in two weeks. Good hunting.”
It was surprising to Norman just how much impact trade had on Ashvale. Over the next month, the trickle of merchants from the Alacala merchants had tripled. It had increased so much that Garta – the gron engineer that had been assigned to take over for Grobert – had asked to build a dedicated market area for them.
After discussing it with Grobert and Eugene, it was agreed to build a market street outside of the old wall.
It was weird calling a wall, that had existed for less than a year in its current configuration, the old wall, but it was the truth. The new wall had gone up in half the time as the first one with the influx of new residents. It effectively tripled the area that Ashvale would cover.
New homes and other businesses were quickly being established in this new area. Which was good. The old area had become quite cramped after the five thousand additional residents had joined the city. And building more than three stories vertically wasn’t yet an option with the materials they had available.
The magically created stone was a wonderful building material but it was just compacted dirt. It just wasn’t as strong as concrete or steel. Unless you used magic to enhance it further. And that was cost-prohibitive. Even the walls, that protected the city, were only able to withstand siege due to how thick they were.
Steps were being taken to create better building materials but Ashvale had a lot of little projects like this going on. Even Norman wasn’t aware of most of them anymore. There were just too many projects and developments for him to keep track of. He left that to his administrators and councilors to handle. They notified him of anything that needed his direct attention or intervention. Which was far less than it had been when the city was first established.
The main issue Norman kept apprised of was the ongoing attacks from the Gorfan and the Southern California Alliance. Although it wasn’t really called the South California Alliance, that’s just the name Norman had given that group. In the last month, both groups had sent multiple failed attacks against the city. With their upgraded countermeasures, all but one attack was intercepted before it even arrived.
Only the Gorfan had managed to sneak through another one of their gomer bio-engineered monstrosities. Nolix and Lohr had intercepted it before it got into the castle this time. Which was a shame. Norman hadn’t prepared any magical circles outside the castle to capture the creature's essence.
While the attacks were annoying, they hadn’t accomplished much. The captured SCA people knew even less than the first group. That didn’t mean Norman was going to sit by and continue to allow them to attack and harass his people without repercussions. He had Eugene and Grobert retask four more Wraith Guards to that region. Which was what today’s little meeting was about.
The three met in a newly enchanted room inside the castle. “Any word from our spies?” he asked.
Eugene opened up a secured document and looked it over quickly before responding. “The SCA leadership is hard to pin down. Even when it seems we have located one, they move. This seems to be a direct result of their fighting with the Wizard Council. Their field commanders are easier to locate though.”
Grobert rubbed his chin in thought. “It’s a sound strategy. If they have been at war with the Council for this many years I’m certain the Council has tried assassinating them on more than one occasion.”
Norman nodded. “I certainly wouldn’t put it past them. What about the Council? They have been rather quiet as of late.”
Eugene flipped to another page in his document. “It seems they are struggling slightly on the Gorfan front and the SCA one. But our spies indicate that might just be misdirection. It seems they are building up undead troops out of sight of either border. They have also pulled back from the lizna border. This was where the trolls had come from. Once the Council disengaged, the lizna fighters were content to retreat back into their valley dwellings. My guess is they are gearing up for a major push against one of those targets.”
“So, no real surprise on that front,” Norman mused. “What about Vincent’s efforts?”
“The spies indicated the man managed to bypass your blood oath on at least one spell by changing the symbol orientations enough that the oath no longer stopped him from casting it.”
He was annoyed, but not surprised that Vincent had finally managed to bypass the oath. According to the wraiths, the man had been relentlessly working on this problem. To the point, he spent more time than Norman did studying magic. It was fascinating to see how someone without his intuition worked through spells. Slowly and methodically was the answer.
It also made Norman realize just how lucky he was. And how overpowered his magical intuition turned out to be. Without that little tickle in the back of his mind, Norman would have to go through and test thousands of slight variations of a spell to figure out what worked and what didn’t. But with his intuition, he could simply bypass that step completely because he knew if a spell design would work or not by simply looking at it.
And while it didn’t tell him what a spell would do. It meant he didn’t need to waste time or resources casting dozens of different variants to find one that worked. It’s what allowed him to build over a dozen custom spells since first learning magic. What had taken Norman no more than two years, over a dozen necromancers had failed to replicate in a decade. That fact alone finally put into perspective just how insane his growth was.
Sure Grobert had told him, but Norman never truly believed the man. He just figured Grobert was trying to keep his spirits up.
Despite that, Norman wasn’t all that happy. He had spells, sure, but he was lacking something Vincent had shown him back during their fight. The ability to cast a spell without producing the visible spell circle, either on the ground or in the air. The difference it made in casting speed was not to be dismissed.
Norman had asked Grobert about it, but the man didn’t know either. The fact that Grobert didn’t know wasn’t a surprise since Grobert wasn’t a mage. His ability was spatial awareness, which he then used to figure out teleportation. That was as far as Grobert had ever taken his magical learning. He would need to speak with Saliu when he had time. If anyone knew how to do it, it was likely the jorik.
“Tell the Wraiths to keep an eye on him but not to act.”
Eugene nodded, “There is one other thing we did learn.”
“Oh?”
“We kept hearing muttered complaints from some of the low-level Controllers about something called censure. At first, our spies brushed it off as normal complaining. But it kept coming up and one of the Wraiths finally looked into it. Apparently, it doesn’t mean what we thought it meant.”
Norman quirked an eyebrow. “Ok… what does it mean then?”
“In the context of the Council, it’s a complete lockdown of your magic or abilities. We haven’t figured out how they do it, but we discovered a recent woman who has gone through the treatment.” Eugene flipped through his report until he found the page he was looking for. “A woman by the name of Kalia. She is… or was a very talented crafter. We aren’t yet sure what got her on the Council’s shit list but the Wraiths are looking into it.”
“Well… that’s terrifying. Just another reason to steer clear of the Council.” Norman paused for a bit as an idea came to him. “What about turning this woman to our side or offering her asylum? If this censure is magical in nature and Vincent wasn’t involved with the censure procedure, it likely isn’t retained past death. Although that would be a last resort, we could try removing it with the use of our mana-absorbing cuffs first.”
Eugene and Grobert shared a glance before Grobert spoke up. “To contact her would mean exposing our spies. And we wouldn’t want to expose the Wraiths directly, which would mean sending a Death Knight. We both know how that went last time.”
Norman grunted. “Shit, you’re right. We don’t want to feed any more of our elites into their lands if we can help it. It’s too bad. If this woman was so important to them that they would censure her for something instead of disposing of her, she would make a great asset on our side.”
Grobert sighed. “I agree, which is why I will go and see about recruiting her personally. It will still expose the fact that we have spies amongst them, but we’re pretty sure they already know. They have increased their protections around their meetings to the point our Wraiths can’t listen in anymore. This will also allow me to extend a hidden teleportation line closer toward California.”
“You sure about this?” Norman asked.
Grobert shrugged. “It needs to happen. If they realize we can undermine their censured individuals, it may impact how they interact with us. As for the teleporters, yes. It gives us the ability to strike back if we need it.”
Norman reluctantly nodded, wishing he could go himself. “Alright, do it. But be careful.”
That comment earned a snort from the old man.
“Is there anything else to discuss?” Norman asked.
“… unfortunately, yes.”
Norman turned toward Eugene again.
“Our spies have found one of their council members who is also censured… she is someone we are both well acquainted with, the Witch Gail.”
“What! How? …Why?”
“That we don’t know. What do you want to do about her?”
The obvious answer was to have the Wraiths kill her. But Norman didn’t say that right away. He needed to weigh the benefits of getting rid of the woman against the drawbacks of striking directly at someone within the Council. Sure he had killed Vincent, but that was different. The man had attacked Ashvale.
Should he even care? The woman was a threat, with her ability to turn people into human puppets to serve her will. But that wasn’t any real different than what Anna did. Although, he was sure Anna would disagree. In the end, they were both a form of mental slavery and Norman didn’t want anything to do with it.
On another note, Gail had never been a direct threat to him. An indirect one, sure. And back when he first learned about her, her powers were terrifying. They still kind of were, but he was no longer afraid of the woman. And she was already censured by the Council. Was there any real need to involve himself?
“Tell the Wraiths to keep their standard surveillance on her.”
“You sure, Boss?”
Norman nodded. “I know you two have a history. But yes. She is currently the Council’s problem. If she somehow manages to break free of whatever process this censure involves, let her run wild. Once she does her damage to the Council, we can eliminate her. But it’s more than likely the Council will do it for us. They were strong enough to subdue her at least once before.”
Eugene grumbled. “I want my disagreement noted. But I will relay the order.”
“Fair enough. I’ll even compromise. If she ever steps foot into our territory, you have my permission to deal with her personally.”
Eugene smiled at that.
Norman stood up to leave but paused. “Almost forgot, one last thing before we go. Pick some targets inside the SCA, it's time they realize the consequences of their actions.”
Grobert spoke up as well. “Let's try to time the strikes to coincide with my trip. That should lessen the chance of me being detected.”
Norman nodded. “Sounds perfect. I will see you two in two weeks. Good hunting.”
