Norman had thoroughly enjoyed his time working with Kalia. Even the frustration that had started to creep in. But after their short moment of affection, she dashed out of the room yelling about all the things she could now craft. He wasn’t sure how to take that.
Eventually, he just decided that this was okay. If he wanted to take things further with her, he would just have to work at it like everything else. A smile crossed his lips at that thought as he headed to get some rest.
***
Kalia didn’t know what had gotten into her. She had been so happy she was cured that she hugged Lord Norman without so much as a second thought. When she realized what she had done, she nearly freaked out. Searching her mind for a way out of that situation without making it embarrassing for the both of them, she started spouting stuff about crafting and ran out of there as fast as she could. She thought it worked or at least she hoped it did.
And while it was true that she wanted to get back to crafting now that her magic was back. She couldn’t stop thinking about how nice it was to hug the man. “No, stop that. Don’t get your hopes up,” she muttered to herself as she hurried out of the castle.
There was a reason she shied away from men with power. Her experiences with Vincent and other well-off boys in her teen years left their marks on her. Not physically, thankfully, but emotionally. They almost always treated her like a prize to show off. And she hated every moment of it.
It didn’t seem like Lord Norman was the same way. But she hardly knew the man. She would feel him out over the next few months and see how things developed. If the man couldn’t handle that, she would have her answer. And the next thing she would do is set out for some other zone. She wasn’t going to end up as a veritable prisoner again like she was in California. Or a prize to be won.
***
After he had gotten plenty of rest, Norman went through the daily rigamarole of being a leader. He didn’t hate it nearly as much as he used to. But it still took up time he would prefer to spend on other things.
Ashvale was once again back to where it had been before the Gorfan attack. It had taken quite some time to demolish and reconstruct the areas of the ministry that were damaged during the incident. But that was now done and construction on the previously unfinished sections of the building had begun again.
He had talked with Saliu’s group about enchanting the walls of the structure to make it more durable. And while possible, the cost and materials were more than the country could afford at the moment.
That being said, Norman wasn’t going to just sit by and do nothing. He already had a partial schematic of an array in his workroom for a force-absorbing formation. It was an interesting side project he had been working on.
He needed to find a balance with the formation that would slow objects enough that they couldn’t damage the walls, without hindering everyone within. This was made more difficult by most of his magic being necromancy-based. That didn’t mean it was impossible. He had found many spells that weren’t technically necromancy starting to show up in his repertoire. He supposed he wasn’t truly a necromancer but more a blood mage at this point. Then again did it really matter? Nobody he knew referred to him this way. And he didn’t give a shit what outsiders referred to him as.
Speaking of outsiders. Norman’s next report detailed their continuing involvement with The Commonwealth. It covered what they were willing to offer and what they wanted in exchange.
He looked up at Eugene who had been in charge of the negotiations while Grobert was away. Norman didn’t want to get involved personally. He was still pissed about their assaults on his territory. But Eugene was less emotional about the situation. “That’s all they want?”
“Right now.”
He looked back at the sheet and read the words one more time. It stated they only wanted the ability to restore their dead to life.
“Did you mention that this isn’t without cost?”
“Yup. They said they could cover the requirements.”
Norman set the report down and leaned back in his chair. “If we do this, the Council is going to catch wind of our involvement pretty quickly. That puts us at risk. What did he offer in return?”
Eugene pulled out another sheet and read it. “Communication equipment, weapons, ammo, manufacturing equipment, mobile power generation, and experts to set it all up.”
Norman snorted at that. “Well, that tells us that he doesn’t know about our comm towers.”
Eugene nodded. “They don’t really stand out. So unless you know what to look for they are easy to miss.”
“Cross out the weapons and ammo, we don’t need that. Not with our magic and enchanting. Everything else sounds good though. We will take their communication equipment, which will help hide our communication ability even more. As for the mobile power generation. It’s, meh. I want the enchanters to take a look at it though. See if we can improve upon it or just remove the requirement for fossil fuel, that would be huge. I don’t want to be reliant on the Commonwealth for our energy needs.”
“I assume you want that done after their techs install it and leave.”
Norman nodded. “That would probably be prudent.” He wasn’t above taking advantage of these outside forces to get what he wanted. Especially now that he knew they would not leave Normenia in peace.
With the report on the Commonwealth out of the way, they got to the meat of today’s meeting. “What’s going on in the Gorfan principality?”
Eugene smiled. “They didn’t fall apart as we hoped they would.”
Going by the fact that the big man was smiling, what did happen must be good. “Go on.”
“Turns out their military really hated their leadership. So once we killed them all off, the military took over. They are still hell-bent on their racial supremacist ways, but they are no longer being held back by bureaucracy.”
“That… that doesn’t sound like a good thing,” Norman stated. The Gorfan were the twenty-first-century alien equivalent of what the Nazis could have been if left to develop. And look how much damage the Nazis had managed to do in their own time.
“In the long run, definitely not,” Eugene added. “But at the moment, they have started a full-scale war against the Council, tying up both sides forces. I spoke with the Admiral and he has confirmed that they have retaken land in the last week or so, solidifying their front lines. He doesn’t think he will ever have the force necessary to completely eliminate the threat that the Council represents, but with our assistance, he might be able to establish a lasting border.”
Norman thought about that. While he couldn’t prove it, he knew the Council had been the main antagonist for Normenia ever since the defeat of the Brotherhood. It galled him that there was no evidence of Donovan’s influence, other than a few dead spies. But at this point, all sides were spying on each other so he couldn’t point to that as a smoking gun. If he could capture one of the man’s spies, then he could try and question it.
The two corpses, the one on the airship, and the one that Princess and the other hellhounds tore apart were soulless. It had been a surprising revelation when Norman tried to summon them. Mostly because every living thing he had come across had a soul. Even bugs. It only made him want to study the shape changers more to find out why they didn’t have one.
But he was letting his mind wander.
Was removing the Council a benefit to him? Yes, and also no. As long as they stayed in their state, they performed a vital function of holding off the Gorfan. If they tried attacking him in Normenia, they faced an uphill battle, since they fielded mostly undead. He wasn’t naive enough to think that was all that they could field though. And assuming he wasn’t dead, he could ensure every single combatant they sent to Normenia never revived, or worse joined his side.
Donovan knew this. Which is probably why he hadn’t attacked. As for why Norman hadn’t bothered attacking them. It wasn’t worth the effort. The one person they needed to kill, was paranoid in the extreme. And while his spies had managed to slip the three councilors in under their noses, they had to take advantage of a weakness to do that. Donovan had no such weakness they had been able to discover.
His people still didn’t know how the man had vanished from Ashvale during the attack. And even if they did kill him, Donovan had access to a phylactery and his son’s ability to revive people. That meant getting a soul trap in physical contact with the man. And he doubted that was going to be possible.
In the end, any large-scale conflict between the two states would devolve into a cycle of kill, revive, kill. Eventually, the Council would come out on top just by the sheer volume of people they could throw at him. It was a lose-lose situation. Norman let out a sigh. This is why he had been so adamant about protecting the secret of the phylactery. But he supposed that wish had been too much.
He didn’t regret sending those four Death Knights to scout California. Their deaths had given him time to prepare for Vincent’s arrival. Something that may or may not have happened eventually anyway.
“Monitor the situation. If either side starts to get too big of an advantage, we may need to use the wraiths. But I would prefer not to.”
“Do you want to give them operational oversight?”
That was a slippery slope. Did he want to give them the ability to act as they saw fit? “Not at this moment.”
Eugene nodded, seeming happy with the decision.
Norman snapped his fingers, remembering something. “Saliu mentioned a project he was working on. He said he needed a set of Bone Armor and a willing participant to test it out.”
“I suppose you gave him the armor already?” Norman nodded at Eugene’s question. “Alright. I will assign one of the privates over to him two hours a day.”
“Fantastic! I will let him know to speak with you. Was there anything else to report?”
“Nope, I think that pretty much covers it. Oh, there was one other thing. They haven’t asked yet, but it's only a matter of time until the Admiral wants enchanted weapons. What do you want me to tell him?”
This question didn’t surprise him. The Admiral had hinted at it in the meeting. “Let's see how the first exchange goes. If everything is up to snuff, I will consider allowing certain enchanted items to be sold to them. But I want to ensure they cannot reverse-engineer them before then.”
“I don’t think that will be much of an issue,” Eugene stated, “If the intelligence our spies have found is correct, the Commonwealth doesn’t have much in the way of magical innovation. That might be another thing we can offer them. From what I’ve heard, their jets and aircraft are not flying as often anymore due to fuel shortages. If our people can change over the generator to run on something else, I don’t see why we couldn’t create and install something similar in their aircraft.”
“That is certainly something to consider. But don’t mention it for now.” One of the reasons Norman didn’t want that information getting out, is because it sounded like a strategic advantage. And why give something like that to a possible enemy when he could use it for Normenia? The other reason was, that he didn’t want to give them a reason to annex his country to control that sort of technology. The old government had a habit of doing that sort of thing in the past so he wouldn’t leave it out of the realm of possibility for the Commonwealth to do something similar as well.
Norman had thoroughly enjoyed his time working with Kalia. Even the frustration that had started to creep in. But after their short moment of affection, she dashed out of the room yelling about all the things she could now craft. He wasn’t sure how to take that.
Eventually, he just decided that this was okay. If he wanted to take things further with her, he would just have to work at it like everything else. A smile crossed his lips at that thought as he headed to get some rest.
***
Kalia didn’t know what had gotten into her. She had been so happy she was cured that she hugged Lord Norman without so much as a second thought. When she realized what she had done, she nearly freaked out. Searching her mind for a way out of that situation without making it embarrassing for the both of them, she started spouting stuff about crafting and ran out of there as fast as she could. She thought it worked or at least she hoped it did.
And while it was true that she wanted to get back to crafting now that her magic was back. She couldn’t stop thinking about how nice it was to hug the man. “No, stop that. Don’t get your hopes up,” she muttered to herself as she hurried out of the castle.
There was a reason she shied away from men with power. Her experiences with Vincent and other well-off boys in her teen years left their marks on her. Not physically, thankfully, but emotionally. They almost always treated her like a prize to show off. And she hated every moment of it.
It didn’t seem like Lord Norman was the same way. But she hardly knew the man. She would feel him out over the next few months and see how things developed. If the man couldn’t handle that, she would have her answer. And the next thing she would do is set out for some other zone. She wasn’t going to end up as a veritable prisoner again like she was in California. Or a prize to be won.
***
After he had gotten plenty of rest, Norman went through the daily rigamarole of being a leader. He didn’t hate it nearly as much as he used to. But it still took up time he would prefer to spend on other things.
Ashvale was once again back to where it had been before the Gorfan attack. It had taken quite some time to demolish and reconstruct the areas of the ministry that were damaged during the incident. But that was now done and construction on the previously unfinished sections of the building had begun again.
He had talked with Saliu’s group about enchanting the walls of the structure to make it more durable. And while possible, the cost and materials were more than the country could afford at the moment.
That being said, Norman wasn’t going to just sit by and do nothing. He already had a partial schematic of an array in his workroom for a force-absorbing formation. It was an interesting side project he had been working on.
He needed to find a balance with the formation that would slow objects enough that they couldn’t damage the walls, without hindering everyone within. This was made more difficult by most of his magic being necromancy-based. That didn’t mean it was impossible. He had found many spells that weren’t technically necromancy starting to show up in his repertoire. He supposed he wasn’t truly a necromancer but more a blood mage at this point. Then again did it really matter? Nobody he knew referred to him this way. And he didn’t give a shit what outsiders referred to him as.
Speaking of outsiders. Norman’s next report detailed their continuing involvement with The Commonwealth. It covered what they were willing to offer and what they wanted in exchange.
He looked up at Eugene who had been in charge of the negotiations while Grobert was away. Norman didn’t want to get involved personally. He was still pissed about their assaults on his territory. But Eugene was less emotional about the situation. “That’s all they want?”
“Right now.”
He looked back at the sheet and read the words one more time. It stated they only wanted the ability to restore their dead to life.
“Did you mention that this isn’t without cost?”
“Yup. They said they could cover the requirements.”
Norman set the report down and leaned back in his chair. “If we do this, the Council is going to catch wind of our involvement pretty quickly. That puts us at risk. What did he offer in return?”
Eugene pulled out another sheet and read it. “Communication equipment, weapons, ammo, manufacturing equipment, mobile power generation, and experts to set it all up.”
Norman snorted at that. “Well, that tells us that he doesn’t know about our comm towers.”
Eugene nodded. “They don’t really stand out. So unless you know what to look for they are easy to miss.”
“Cross out the weapons and ammo, we don’t need that. Not with our magic and enchanting. Everything else sounds good though. We will take their communication equipment, which will help hide our communication ability even more. As for the mobile power generation. It’s, meh. I want the enchanters to take a look at it though. See if we can improve upon it or just remove the requirement for fossil fuel, that would be huge. I don’t want to be reliant on the Commonwealth for our energy needs.”
“I assume you want that done after their techs install it and leave.”
Norman nodded. “That would probably be prudent.” He wasn’t above taking advantage of these outside forces to get what he wanted. Especially now that he knew they would not leave Normenia in peace.
With the report on the Commonwealth out of the way, they got to the meat of today’s meeting. “What’s going on in the Gorfan principality?”
Eugene smiled. “They didn’t fall apart as we hoped they would.”
Going by the fact that the big man was smiling, what did happen must be good. “Go on.”
“Turns out their military really hated their leadership. So once we killed them all off, the military took over. They are still hell-bent on their racial supremacist ways, but they are no longer being held back by bureaucracy.”
“That… that doesn’t sound like a good thing,” Norman stated. The Gorfan were the twenty-first-century alien equivalent of what the Nazis could have been if left to develop. And look how much damage the Nazis had managed to do in their own time.
“In the long run, definitely not,” Eugene added. “But at the moment, they have started a full-scale war against the Council, tying up both sides forces. I spoke with the Admiral and he has confirmed that they have retaken land in the last week or so, solidifying their front lines. He doesn’t think he will ever have the force necessary to completely eliminate the threat that the Council represents, but with our assistance, he might be able to establish a lasting border.”
Norman thought about that. While he couldn’t prove it, he knew the Council had been the main antagonist for Normenia ever since the defeat of the Brotherhood. It galled him that there was no evidence of Donovan’s influence, other than a few dead spies. But at this point, all sides were spying on each other so he couldn’t point to that as a smoking gun. If he could capture one of the man’s spies, then he could try and question it.
The two corpses, the one on the airship, and the one that Princess and the other hellhounds tore apart were soulless. It had been a surprising revelation when Norman tried to summon them. Mostly because every living thing he had come across had a soul. Even bugs. It only made him want to study the shape changers more to find out why they didn’t have one.
But he was letting his mind wander.
Was removing the Council a benefit to him? Yes, and also no. As long as they stayed in their state, they performed a vital function of holding off the Gorfan. If they tried attacking him in Normenia, they faced an uphill battle, since they fielded mostly undead. He wasn’t naive enough to think that was all that they could field though. And assuming he wasn’t dead, he could ensure every single combatant they sent to Normenia never revived, or worse joined his side.
Donovan knew this. Which is probably why he hadn’t attacked. As for why Norman hadn’t bothered attacking them. It wasn’t worth the effort. The one person they needed to kill, was paranoid in the extreme. And while his spies had managed to slip the three councilors in under their noses, they had to take advantage of a weakness to do that. Donovan had no such weakness they had been able to discover.
His people still didn’t know how the man had vanished from Ashvale during the attack. And even if they did kill him, Donovan had access to a phylactery and his son’s ability to revive people. That meant getting a soul trap in physical contact with the man. And he doubted that was going to be possible.
In the end, any large-scale conflict between the two states would devolve into a cycle of kill, revive, kill. Eventually, the Council would come out on top just by the sheer volume of people they could throw at him. It was a lose-lose situation. Norman let out a sigh. This is why he had been so adamant about protecting the secret of the phylactery. But he supposed that wish had been too much.
He didn’t regret sending those four Death Knights to scout California. Their deaths had given him time to prepare for Vincent’s arrival. Something that may or may not have happened eventually anyway.
“Monitor the situation. If either side starts to get too big of an advantage, we may need to use the wraiths. But I would prefer not to.”
“Do you want to give them operational oversight?”
That was a slippery slope. Did he want to give them the ability to act as they saw fit? “Not at this moment.”
Eugene nodded, seeming happy with the decision.
Norman snapped his fingers, remembering something. “Saliu mentioned a project he was working on. He said he needed a set of Bone Armor and a willing participant to test it out.”
“I suppose you gave him the armor already?” Norman nodded at Eugene’s question. “Alright. I will assign one of the privates over to him two hours a day.”
“Fantastic! I will let him know to speak with you. Was there anything else to report?”
“Nope, I think that pretty much covers it. Oh, there was one other thing. They haven’t asked yet, but it's only a matter of time until the Admiral wants enchanted weapons. What do you want me to tell him?”
This question didn’t surprise him. The Admiral had hinted at it in the meeting. “Let's see how the first exchange goes. If everything is up to snuff, I will consider allowing certain enchanted items to be sold to them. But I want to ensure they cannot reverse-engineer them before then.”
“I don’t think that will be much of an issue,” Eugene stated, “If the intelligence our spies have found is correct, the Commonwealth doesn’t have much in the way of magical innovation. That might be another thing we can offer them. From what I’ve heard, their jets and aircraft are not flying as often anymore due to fuel shortages. If our people can change over the generator to run on something else, I don’t see why we couldn’t create and install something similar in their aircraft.”
“That is certainly something to consider. But don’t mention it for now.” One of the reasons Norman didn’t want that information getting out, is because it sounded like a strategic advantage. And why give something like that to a possible enemy when he could use it for Normenia? The other reason was, that he didn’t want to give them a reason to annex his country to control that sort of technology. The old government had a habit of doing that sort of thing in the past so he wouldn’t leave it out of the realm of possibility for the Commonwealth to do something similar as well.
