The attack was nothing less than a resounding success. All of the targets had been eliminated and the Death Knights had quickly outpaced their pursuers to escape. And even the gift he had prepared for Donovan and the Council had been delivered without issue. So why was there a knot of worry in Norman’s gut?
He thought he knew why, it had to do with escalating the conflict. But there wasn’t anything he could do about that. He only had two options, attack or roll over and take it. And he sure as hell wasn’t going to do that.
All he could do now was hope both the Council and the Gorfan backed off. War was not in Normenia’s interest or even a possibility. They weren’t some superpower and Norman never wanted them to become one. He liked the small intimate nature of his country. It was nice when the most annoying thing he had to deal with was a city of undead acting like the black sheep cousin.
But these other powers kept trying to pull him in and get him involved. But what could he do to stop them?
Those and other thoughts flitted through his mind as he resurrected, then promptly killed all of the Gorfan elite that Grobert had brought back. He felt like a fool for overlooking the possibility of them being revived. But he was nearly done ensuring they would never become an issue again.
He could have mutilated their souls as he did with Gail and J-son, but he didn’t feel like wasting his time. What he did to them still bothered him a bit. Not because he cared about Gail or J-son’s souls. They got what they deserved and it wasn’t like the damage was permanent. Their souls would recover after a hundred years or so. But just having to do it felt wrong somehow. So instead of burdening his conscience anymore, he simply trapped the Gorfan in the soul prison below the garrison. This didn’t mean he wouldn’t mutilate someone's soul again if the need arose. Some people just didn’t learn unless they were shown what would happen to them.
After finishing up with the Gorfan, Norman got a briefing from the wraith that had snuck the Council members back into California. They had no trouble getting the three past the wards and enchantments as they weren’t active when the Council wasn’t in session. That seemed like a pretty big security hole but he wasn’t going to complain.
According to the wraith, that remained behind to observe, the appearance of the three Councilors had the desired effect. But he knew memories were short so eventually this incident would fade from their minds and once again they would turn their sights on Normenia.
He had one idea that might ensure lasting peace. Well, it was more an inkling of an idea. He was in his testing chamber at the moment to see if it would even be feasible. Before he could get started though, the door to the room burst open and a diminutive brunette strode into the room and up to Norman like she owned the place.
Norman turned toward the barely contained thunderstorm that was wearing the guise of a woman. “Kalia. How did you get in here?”
“Don’t give me that!” She angrily poked Norman in the chest. “Did you forget?”
“…”
“My censure, you scatterbrained halfwit!”
Oh shit! It had completely slipped his mind. What with the attack and how he planned to respond taking up his time.
“You did!” She threw up her hands and stomped around in a circle.
“To be fair, things were a bit hectic around here.”
She stopped her pacing and glared at him. “Yeah, well that’s done now from what I hear, and I want to be fixed. So get to it, Mr. Necromancer.”
“This could take months. You know how stuff like this goes.”
“Pff,” she waved her arm around the room. “You have this whole fancy room just for experiments. I see you even stole my design for a permanent spell circle. I’m sure if we put our heads together, we can figure this out.”
He blinked at her. Her statement about the spell circle didn’t surprise him. He knew Vincent was not the type to create something like that himself. What caught him by surprise was her last statement.
“You… you want to work with me?” He couldn’t quite believe it. There were plenty of people in Ashvale with magic, yet not one had ever asked to work with him on something.
“I want to be free of this collar. If that means keeping you focused on the task at hand, then yes.”
Her straightforward statement left Norman confused as to how to proceed. Eventually, a soft growl from Princess brought him out of his stupor. He looked over at the hellhound, who was getting head scratches from Kalia and looking supremely pleased by it.
“Traitor,” he muttered under his breath.
He refocused his attention back on the brunette enchanter. “Very well. Where would you like to start? Or better yet, tell me any insights you might have about this censure.”
Norman listened as Kalia explained everything she knew about the process. He had questioned Gail and even J-son about it before their minds had been too warped to respond coherently. And everything they had told him was useless.
According to Gail, she had broken through the spell with sheer will. He knew that was complete bullshit the moment he heard it. There was no way a man like Donovan created a method to prevent dangerous mages from using their magic and then left a weakness like that behind.
Either the spell expired or Donovan let it expire. The latter seemed more likely with what he knew about the attack and the Council leader’s spy being onboard the Gorfan ship.
“And that’s pretty much it,” Kalia finished.
Norman rubbed his chin in thought. He had a few ideas to test out but he asked a follow-up question first. “Have you tried anything to remove the… I guess we should call it a curse.”
She paused, tilting her head slightly in thought. “A curse? Yeah, I suppose that fits the description. And who do you take me for, one of them lazy Council mages? Of course, I tried to remove it. Kind of hard though when I can’t enchant anything to help me.”
The woman listed off the tests she had attempted on her own. Norman was surprised at just how many things she had tried. He held up his hand to pause her increasingly frustrated rant as he needed clarification on something. “How did you even do all of this without your magic?”
She snorted, a smile appearing on her face. “That bastard may have taken my magic away, but he didn’t take my tools. And I had a lot of tools… There isn’t any chance your little teleporting friend could retrieve them for me, could he?”
“Who, Grobert?” Norman chuckled at hearing the gruff man being referred to as his little teleporting friend. “I can ask him but I doubt he will agree. It’s been long enough that Donovan is sure to know about your absence. If he hasn’t carted away your stuff, it would probably be a trap.”
The woman let out a long string of expletives that made the tips of Norman’s ears burn in embarrassment. After she was done, she huffed one last time and looked him in the eyes. Once again, he was struck by just how piercing her gaze was. “Fine, I’ll just have to remake all my tools. It’s probably better that way, some of my early designs were shit. So, now that you know my whole life story, any ideas on how to fix me?”
Norman smiled, “A few.”
He walked over to a door set on the far wall. This is where he stored all his works in progress as well as the plants and animals he used in his tests. At least the smaller ones. Although, now that he had Living Stasis, he could probably just store anything down here. As he walked through the rows, he made a mental note to create more of the spell anchors. He wrinkled his nose, even if just to improve upon the smell of the storage room.
Despite Kalia’s initial drive, she seemed hesitant to speak once they entered the room.
As the search dragged on, she finally spoke up, her voice filled with a bit of sadness. “You test on live animals?”
He turned to look at the woman. Her gaze was locked on the animal cages. He sighed. This was one of the reasons he didn’t like letting people into the room. “What do you know about necromancers?"
"Just what was in popular culture, then what I was forced to help Vincent with."
"Did you know him, before?"
She seemed hesitant to answer. “…Yes. We grew up together and went to the same prep school.”
Norman wasn’t sure what a prep school was. It was probably some rich person's version of middle or high school. And he didn’t want to show his ignorance by asking. If she was in school during the collapse, he figured she was in her mid or late twenties now. If Norman hadn’t been dead for nearly a decade, the two would be of a similar age.
Curiosity getting the better of him, he asked another question. “You two dated?”
The woman ground her teeth together so hard, Norman could hear it over the animal sounds in the room. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
He quickly nodded and went back to his search. He really should sort this place out, it was a mess.
After a while, Kalia spoke again. “When the world collapsed, Donovan was quick to take over our town. In their infinite wisdom, my parents thought it would be good for me to get back in Vincent’s good graces.”
He decided not to comment on the fact that her parents had essentially pimped her out for status, it sounded like she already knew this.
She went on to talk about how it began, and how Donovan was the one to keep her away from Vincent. Nothing in her tone suggested she thanked the man for that though.
“I’m sorry you had to go through that.” He replied sincerely.
The woman seemed taken aback by his comment. “Why? You’re not the one that put me through that nightmare.”
“Still. If it wasn’t for my blunder, Vincent would have never gotten his hands on my spells. You also only have him as a comparison. That man uses necromancy without a care for anyone but himself.”
“And you’re somehow different?”
He ignored her accusatory tone. She was angry and had just drudged up bitter memories. “Yes. Did you know that souls exist?”
“Kinda figured they had to. Why?”
Norman motioned toward the cages. “All of these creatures have died and have been reborn. I ensure I do as little damage to their souls as possible. And even then, souls recover in the immaterial over time.”
“They do? What happens if you accidentally destroy a soul.”
He chuckled uncomfortably. “Who can say? Ah, here it is!” he stated, quickly changing the subject.
Deep in a pile of discarded items was a pair of handcuffs with an orb in the center.
He turned to the woman with a smile on his face. She took one look at the cuffs and crossed her arms. “I’m not into kink.”
His face went beet red and he spluttered, “Wha!”
Then she laughed, “I’m just joking. Geez, you need to lighten up. What are the cuffs for?”
He didn’t know why he was acting this way, it wasn’t like he was a virgin, or even inexperienced with women. Hell, he had done the kink thing plenty of times in the past. But somehow Kalia mentioning it made him blush like a schoolgirl.
He managed to get his emotions under control enough to respond to her. “Put your hands on the orb, it should remove any active magical effects.” This was one of Grobert’s earlier iterations of the cuffs, where it still held most of the features of the original orb. It’s also the one Norman used as a puzzle to try and figure out the magitech.
Without touching the orb, Kalia snatched the cuffs from his hands and examined them closely, her eyes doing that whole glowy thing they did. “Wha!” was all that came out of her mouth as she was lost in examining the intricate device.
It took her a full twenty minutes before she finally looked away. “Who made this?”
“My little teleporting friend,” he said with a straight face.
“This is gron magitech, isn’t it?”
Norman nodded.
“It's… it's so condensed. I can’t see the pathways clearly.”
“Oh yeah, that was Grobert being a dick. He obscured the correct paths with dozens of false ones. All gron are under oath not to divulge the secrets of magitech to outsiders. And even though that old fart is no longer bound by those oaths, he said I needed to work for it if I wanted them for myself.”
“Can I have this?” She asked, enraptured by the item.
For a moment, Norman was tempted to snatch the cuffs away from the woman and keep the secrets to himself. But he realized that was dumb. Even if he figured out gron magitech, he had more than enough on his plate that he would not be able to capitalize on that knowledge any time soon.
“I’ll make you a deal.”
She looked up at him, a bit of suspicion crossing her face.
“If you figure it out, you’ll let me know?”
“That’s it?”
“That and you can’t share it with anyone else unless I say so.”
Her hand snapped out lightning fast and gripped Norman’s giving it a quick shake. He hadn’t even been offering his hand. “Deal!” She stated before he could change his mind.
He had to stop her from leaving then and there. “Before you run off, could you at least see if the orb fixes you?”
She looked down at the cuffs, then back at Norman, “Oh… right.” She placed her hands on the orb and waited. The two stood there awkwardly for a minute. “Is it supposed to take this long?”
“Nope, it’s supposed to be pretty instant.”
She glared at him. “You just let me stand here for a minute, you could have told me sooner.”
He shrugged. “I wanted to make sure. Oh well, I’ll put together some other ideas I had, we’ll figure this out eventually.”
With those words, Kalia hurried off with her new puzzle. After she was gone, Norman rubbed his fingers into the palm of his hand. He could still feel the lingering softness of her fingers.
The attack was nothing less than a resounding success. All of the targets had been eliminated and the Death Knights had quickly outpaced their pursuers to escape. And even the gift he had prepared for Donovan and the Council had been delivered without issue. So why was there a knot of worry in Norman’s gut?
He thought he knew why, it had to do with escalating the conflict. But there wasn’t anything he could do about that. He only had two options, attack or roll over and take it. And he sure as hell wasn’t going to do that.
All he could do now was hope both the Council and the Gorfan backed off. War was not in Normenia’s interest or even a possibility. They weren’t some superpower and Norman never wanted them to become one. He liked the small intimate nature of his country. It was nice when the most annoying thing he had to deal with was a city of undead acting like the black sheep cousin.
But these other powers kept trying to pull him in and get him involved. But what could he do to stop them?
Those and other thoughts flitted through his mind as he resurrected, then promptly killed all of the Gorfan elite that Grobert had brought back. He felt like a fool for overlooking the possibility of them being revived. But he was nearly done ensuring they would never become an issue again.
He could have mutilated their souls as he did with Gail and J-son, but he didn’t feel like wasting his time. What he did to them still bothered him a bit. Not because he cared about Gail or J-son’s souls. They got what they deserved and it wasn’t like the damage was permanent. Their souls would recover after a hundred years or so. But just having to do it felt wrong somehow. So instead of burdening his conscience anymore, he simply trapped the Gorfan in the soul prison below the garrison. This didn’t mean he wouldn’t mutilate someone's soul again if the need arose. Some people just didn’t learn unless they were shown what would happen to them.
After finishing up with the Gorfan, Norman got a briefing from the wraith that had snuck the Council members back into California. They had no trouble getting the three past the wards and enchantments as they weren’t active when the Council wasn’t in session. That seemed like a pretty big security hole but he wasn’t going to complain.
According to the wraith, that remained behind to observe, the appearance of the three Councilors had the desired effect. But he knew memories were short so eventually this incident would fade from their minds and once again they would turn their sights on Normenia.
He had one idea that might ensure lasting peace. Well, it was more an inkling of an idea. He was in his testing chamber at the moment to see if it would even be feasible. Before he could get started though, the door to the room burst open and a diminutive brunette strode into the room and up to Norman like she owned the place.
Norman turned toward the barely contained thunderstorm that was wearing the guise of a woman. “Kalia. How did you get in here?”
“Don’t give me that!” She angrily poked Norman in the chest. “Did you forget?”
“…”
“My censure, you scatterbrained halfwit!”
Oh shit! It had completely slipped his mind. What with the attack and how he planned to respond taking up his time.
“You did!” She threw up her hands and stomped around in a circle.
“To be fair, things were a bit hectic around here.”
She stopped her pacing and glared at him. “Yeah, well that’s done now from what I hear, and I want to be fixed. So get to it, Mr. Necromancer.”
“This could take months. You know how stuff like this goes.”
“Pff,” she waved her arm around the room. “You have this whole fancy room just for experiments. I see you even stole my design for a permanent spell circle. I’m sure if we put our heads together, we can figure this out.”
He blinked at her. Her statement about the spell circle didn’t surprise him. He knew Vincent was not the type to create something like that himself. What caught him by surprise was her last statement.
“You… you want to work with me?” He couldn’t quite believe it. There were plenty of people in Ashvale with magic, yet not one had ever asked to work with him on something.
“I want to be free of this collar. If that means keeping you focused on the task at hand, then yes.”
Her straightforward statement left Norman confused as to how to proceed. Eventually, a soft growl from Princess brought him out of his stupor. He looked over at the hellhound, who was getting head scratches from Kalia and looking supremely pleased by it.
“Traitor,” he muttered under his breath.
He refocused his attention back on the brunette enchanter. “Very well. Where would you like to start? Or better yet, tell me any insights you might have about this censure.”
Norman listened as Kalia explained everything she knew about the process. He had questioned Gail and even J-son about it before their minds had been too warped to respond coherently. And everything they had told him was useless.
According to Gail, she had broken through the spell with sheer will. He knew that was complete bullshit the moment he heard it. There was no way a man like Donovan created a method to prevent dangerous mages from using their magic and then left a weakness like that behind.
Either the spell expired or Donovan let it expire. The latter seemed more likely with what he knew about the attack and the Council leader’s spy being onboard the Gorfan ship.
“And that’s pretty much it,” Kalia finished.
Norman rubbed his chin in thought. He had a few ideas to test out but he asked a follow-up question first. “Have you tried anything to remove the… I guess we should call it a curse.”
She paused, tilting her head slightly in thought. “A curse? Yeah, I suppose that fits the description. And who do you take me for, one of them lazy Council mages? Of course, I tried to remove it. Kind of hard though when I can’t enchant anything to help me.”
The woman listed off the tests she had attempted on her own. Norman was surprised at just how many things she had tried. He held up his hand to pause her increasingly frustrated rant as he needed clarification on something. “How did you even do all of this without your magic?”
She snorted, a smile appearing on her face. “That bastard may have taken my magic away, but he didn’t take my tools. And I had a lot of tools… There isn’t any chance your little teleporting friend could retrieve them for me, could he?”
“Who, Grobert?” Norman chuckled at hearing the gruff man being referred to as his little teleporting friend. “I can ask him but I doubt he will agree. It’s been long enough that Donovan is sure to know about your absence. If he hasn’t carted away your stuff, it would probably be a trap.”
The woman let out a long string of expletives that made the tips of Norman’s ears burn in embarrassment. After she was done, she huffed one last time and looked him in the eyes. Once again, he was struck by just how piercing her gaze was. “Fine, I’ll just have to remake all my tools. It’s probably better that way, some of my early designs were shit. So, now that you know my whole life story, any ideas on how to fix me?”
Norman smiled, “A few.”
He walked over to a door set on the far wall. This is where he stored all his works in progress as well as the plants and animals he used in his tests. At least the smaller ones. Although, now that he had Living Stasis, he could probably just store anything down here. As he walked through the rows, he made a mental note to create more of the spell anchors. He wrinkled his nose, even if just to improve upon the smell of the storage room.
Despite Kalia’s initial drive, she seemed hesitant to speak once they entered the room.
As the search dragged on, she finally spoke up, her voice filled with a bit of sadness. “You test on live animals?”
He turned to look at the woman. Her gaze was locked on the animal cages. He sighed. This was one of the reasons he didn’t like letting people into the room. “What do you know about necromancers?"
"Just what was in popular culture, then what I was forced to help Vincent with."
"Did you know him, before?"
She seemed hesitant to answer. “…Yes. We grew up together and went to the same prep school.”
Norman wasn’t sure what a prep school was. It was probably some rich person's version of middle or high school. And he didn’t want to show his ignorance by asking. If she was in school during the collapse, he figured she was in her mid or late twenties now. If Norman hadn’t been dead for nearly a decade, the two would be of a similar age.
Curiosity getting the better of him, he asked another question. “You two dated?”
The woman ground her teeth together so hard, Norman could hear it over the animal sounds in the room. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
He quickly nodded and went back to his search. He really should sort this place out, it was a mess.
After a while, Kalia spoke again. “When the world collapsed, Donovan was quick to take over our town. In their infinite wisdom, my parents thought it would be good for me to get back in Vincent’s good graces.”
He decided not to comment on the fact that her parents had essentially pimped her out for status, it sounded like she already knew this.
She went on to talk about how it began, and how Donovan was the one to keep her away from Vincent. Nothing in her tone suggested she thanked the man for that though.
“I’m sorry you had to go through that.” He replied sincerely.
The woman seemed taken aback by his comment. “Why? You’re not the one that put me through that nightmare.”
“Still. If it wasn’t for my blunder, Vincent would have never gotten his hands on my spells. You also only have him as a comparison. That man uses necromancy without a care for anyone but himself.”
“And you’re somehow different?”
He ignored her accusatory tone. She was angry and had just drudged up bitter memories. “Yes. Did you know that souls exist?”
“Kinda figured they had to. Why?”
Norman motioned toward the cages. “All of these creatures have died and have been reborn. I ensure I do as little damage to their souls as possible. And even then, souls recover in the immaterial over time.”
“They do? What happens if you accidentally destroy a soul.”
He chuckled uncomfortably. “Who can say? Ah, here it is!” he stated, quickly changing the subject.
Deep in a pile of discarded items was a pair of handcuffs with an orb in the center.
He turned to the woman with a smile on his face. She took one look at the cuffs and crossed her arms. “I’m not into kink.”
His face went beet red and he spluttered, “Wha!”
Then she laughed, “I’m just joking. Geez, you need to lighten up. What are the cuffs for?”
He didn’t know why he was acting this way, it wasn’t like he was a virgin, or even inexperienced with women. Hell, he had done the kink thing plenty of times in the past. But somehow Kalia mentioning it made him blush like a schoolgirl.
He managed to get his emotions under control enough to respond to her. “Put your hands on the orb, it should remove any active magical effects.” This was one of Grobert’s earlier iterations of the cuffs, where it still held most of the features of the original orb. It’s also the one Norman used as a puzzle to try and figure out the magitech.
Without touching the orb, Kalia snatched the cuffs from his hands and examined them closely, her eyes doing that whole glowy thing they did. “Wha!” was all that came out of her mouth as she was lost in examining the intricate device.
It took her a full twenty minutes before she finally looked away. “Who made this?”
“My little teleporting friend,” he said with a straight face.
“This is gron magitech, isn’t it?”
Norman nodded.
“It's… it's so condensed. I can’t see the pathways clearly.”
“Oh yeah, that was Grobert being a dick. He obscured the correct paths with dozens of false ones. All gron are under oath not to divulge the secrets of magitech to outsiders. And even though that old fart is no longer bound by those oaths, he said I needed to work for it if I wanted them for myself.”
“Can I have this?” She asked, enraptured by the item.
For a moment, Norman was tempted to snatch the cuffs away from the woman and keep the secrets to himself. But he realized that was dumb. Even if he figured out gron magitech, he had more than enough on his plate that he would not be able to capitalize on that knowledge any time soon.
“I’ll make you a deal.”
She looked up at him, a bit of suspicion crossing her face.
“If you figure it out, you’ll let me know?”
“That’s it?”
“That and you can’t share it with anyone else unless I say so.”
Her hand snapped out lightning fast and gripped Norman’s giving it a quick shake. He hadn’t even been offering his hand. “Deal!” She stated before he could change his mind.
He had to stop her from leaving then and there. “Before you run off, could you at least see if the orb fixes you?”
She looked down at the cuffs, then back at Norman, “Oh… right.” She placed her hands on the orb and waited. The two stood there awkwardly for a minute. “Is it supposed to take this long?”
“Nope, it’s supposed to be pretty instant.”
She glared at him. “You just let me stand here for a minute, you could have told me sooner.”
He shrugged. “I wanted to make sure. Oh well, I’ll put together some other ideas I had, we’ll figure this out eventually.”
With those words, Kalia hurried off with her new puzzle. After she was gone, Norman rubbed his fingers into the palm of his hand. He could still feel the lingering softness of her fingers.
