As Norman and his entourage traveled across Normenia, they came across the path that the Golatian army had made. He had seen a bit of the devastation at the battle, but he had been more concerned with other things at the time.
That many people left an indelible mark on the landscape. A visible scar that would take time to heal.
It wasn’t the sight of the trampled vegetation that made him angry though. It was the loss of life.
Eight guards that had been stationed out in this remote side of the kingdom were missing. Seeing that this side of the kingdom was relatively safe, Eugene had placed less experienced, less qualified individuals to keep an eye on it. Those without callings. Not that Norman blamed the man for his choice. He would have made the same decision because it was the correct one to make.
His anger was based on the fact they hadn’t been able to revive these men and women. The guards had their phylacteries, but it seemed that hadn’t been enough to save them from that massive army. And now there was no sign of these lost guards. Without a sample of blood, he had no way to revive them. He should have anticipated this problem.
There was of course the slim hope that one of the many scouts would find some evidence and collect it. But he held out little hope for that. It had been weeks since the Golatian army had been routed and no traces of the missing soldiers had been found yet. Maybe if the search could have began sooner they might have found something. But it had taken days for Grobert and the Death Knights to run down all of the fleeing soldiers. It was only after they finished cleaning up the remnants that someone realized the border scouts had never reported in.
He had questioned some of the Golatian army’s scouts to figure out where they encountered his border units, but they were little help. The Prince was even more useless as he only demanded to be brought back to life, and when Norman started twisting his soul to make him comply, the man broke down and said he didn’t know where they had encountered his people as he was busy inside with his harem.
Norman gagged at that mental image.
That left him hoping that some evidence would turn up so he could personally resurrect these brave souls. But with each passing day, he lost a little of that hope. The thought of losing more soldiers like this spurred him into implementing the blood storage program.
All greykin were allowed to participate, although they could opt out if they wanted. The only ones that couldn’t were anyone who was involved in the guard. Already Grobert was teleporting to the outskirts to collect samples from every soldier serving among the border guards. Norman also shifted the priority of creating multi-use phylacteries to the top of his list. He had cracked the issue of a permanent phylactery already, but it was impossible to create one for every person in the guard, not to mention the people of the city.
The issue wasn’t that he didn’t want to protect all of his people. There were multiple other reasons he couldn’t implement the new phylactery on a wide scale. The first was he couldn’t allow a permanent version of the device to fall into Donovan’s hands like the first design had. The second issue had to deal with material requirements. A permanent phylactery had to be made from two pounds of pure gold. Or a gold bar about the same size as a smartphone.
No matter how you looked at it, that was a lot of gold. Once it was formed into the phylactery, it became an ornate sphere about the size of a baseball. If Norman had to compare it to something, it reminded him of those super fancy Fabergé eggs. But that really only represented the exterior components of the spell and those parts were more geared toward initial activation and defence. The real magic happened in the occluded core. And therein lay the problem.
He had not figured out a way to make the interior design, except by using a modified version of his Transfer spell. Saliu, Kalia, and Varter tried multiple ways to try and recreate the internal structure using buildup methods or trying to coat a substrate with gold to reduce the cost but they hadn’t been successful. Kalia even built a strange magical 3D printer. It was able to recreate the design, but the way it laid down the layers caused the spell to fizzle out.
Those were some big issues that needed to be overcome. He glanced back and could barely make out the eight Death Knights and two other riders accompanying the secure box that housed his new phylactery.
He hadn’t asked Kalia and Saliu to accompany them on this trip. But the two had been enamored by the object and wanted to study it more. They also wanted to see if the box they designed to hold it was up to the challenge. Norman hoped Donovan or one of his spies would take a crack at the box. Just to see the looks on their faces.
Even if they got through the eight Death Knights and the two enchanters, they would then need to deal with the deadly box.
It came with the same anti-life enchantment that protected their top secret documents as well as a force redirection enchantment, and a magic-absorbing enchantment that would shunt any damage done to it into whatever was touching it. That would likely be the poor wagon it rode in, then the ground.
But suppose they attacked Norman’s entourage first? Well, assuming he died, he would resurrect back at the phylactery. And then the defensive measures of the item itself would kick in. He had designed it to rapidly restore the energy needed to recreate him if it was expended. A field would extend from the encased item, rapidly draining whatever life energy it could until full. The more times it was activated in the same spot, the larger this field would grow. Making it impossible for anything living to get within reach of the box. And while he hadn't tested this feature, in theory, it had no maximum limit. The life-absorbing field would expand and expand until it was satiated and regrew Norman’s body.
That was the biggest change to this design over his last, and the main reason he couldn’t mass-produce them. The magic involved in the field was based on his very early forays into soul manipulation. It was a crude implementation of the energy but even that might be enough for someone like Donovan to figure out what he was doing and reverse engineer it. He was already working on an alternative that didn’t use this method and would give a phylactery three charges.
What about the undead, you might ask?
Norman had a defense against them, as well as constructs. Mindless undead were easy to deal with. He simply made the phylactery invisible to them, and if something without a soul attempted to pick up the box, well… let's just say it wouldn’t end well for them. There were a few other measures baked in, like the inability to touch either the box of the phylactery unless you were created using his blood. That left a greykin traitor as the only possible way to move the box. And the faster the box was moved, the quicker it would recharge, allowing Norman to be resurrected. This would force anyone dumb enough to try and turn against him to have to fight him off every few dozen feet. It was a battle of attrition that Norman would win eventually.
Now he wasn’t conceited enough to think the box or its contents were impervious. The gravity magic that the Prince used could probably overwhelm the enchantments. Grobert’s ability to teleport objects would bypass the box completely. And he was sure Donovan could come up with some way to get at it if he knew it was there. But he did his best to ensure the box was secure. His backup was, of course, the sample of his blood back in Ashvale. Anyone of two dozen mages could resurrect him in the catastrophic event of his death. But he was getting off track.
He hadn’t come out here to bait more of Donovan’s spies out of hiding. Although he would certainly like to rid himself of all of them. He had come out here to tour his country and see the villages he didn’t normally get to visit. This was likely the only time for quite a while that he would get this opportunity since the “Peace” talks were coming up soon. Something that made him rather nervous.
His spies no longer had access to Donovan. It seemed the Council leader had finally wised up to Norman’s wraiths and enchanted their entire headquarters to keep them out. They still had access to a few of the Councilor’s homes, but as the days passed, they slowly lost access to those as well. The Councilors had also set up personal portals to travel between their homes and the Wizard Council headquarters. So it was rare to see them outside of their residences unless they were taking their turn on the front against the Gorfan or the Commonwealth.
They had picked up a few interesting tidbits though, enough to let him know that the Council had replaced both Gail and J-son’s seats with new members. Who they were was as of yet unknown. But he would learn eventually.
As his party crested the next hill, he spotted the gron’s research city in the distance. Somehow they had remained undetected by the Prince or his forces. Considering their ability to secretly conduct research in every new zone, he wasn’t all that surprised by them being unmolested.
As they neared the entrance to the small walled-off base a gron in a white lab coat stepped out to greet them.
“Greetings, Lord Norman, and welcome to Normenia Research Outpost One. I am Senior Researcher Brasha. What brings you here today?” The man’s tone was bland and disinterested with a hint of annoyance at having to stop his work to come out here and greet uninvited guests.
“I am touring my kingdom, and while this research base is not part of my kingdom, I was curious and also wanted to ensure you had come to no harm.”
“As the agreement states, you are welcome to visit and peruse our work at any time. Just be aware that we are on a tight deadline and any disturbances may set our work back.” Norman smiled tightly, there was the testy attitude and conformity to a strict set of rules that he hadn’t missed.
“I will make my trip brief, Senior Researcher Brasha. You called this place NRO1, does that mean you plan to have more?”
The man visibly bristled at Norman’s shortening of the name, and Norman chuckled internally at getting a rise out of the stiff gron.
“No, Lord Norman. It is the standard naming convention in articles 17-3 of the policies pertaining to non-gron deployment of scientific endeavors where encountering native lifeforms is a high probability.”
Norman held up his hand to stop the man from reciting the entire lengthy article and policy. For someone so concerned with getting back to his work, he seemed more upset that Norman had stopped him from laying out the very long and probably very convoluted ruleset that they lived by.
From what Norman could see in the research base, all they were currently working on was sampling the nearby grass. While he didn’t want to listen to a long speech, he had asked about that.
“It is important that we conduct a thorough analysis of everything in our vicinity before we expand our research outward.”
“How long does that usually take?” Norman asked offhandedly.
“As long as it takes.”
“Ok… but can you give me an example?”
“As long as it takes.”
“Ballpark average, then?”
The gron grunted angrily before muttering something unintelligible under his breath. “A decade, maybe two.”
…They were going to research the properties of the grass around their base for two decades. He really shouldn’t be surprised by that.
He quickly finished his visit at the research base and moved on to the ooraki settlement.
Their houses were built much like the houses in Ashvale. Likely because they had traded with Ashvale regularly for more potions as well as help to build their village. Much like the previous ooraki, their men took on more of a crafting role, while the women took on the job of hunting, gathering, and farming. Being the stronger of the species, it made sense. And as always, their crafts were top-notch and sold well to the traders in Ashvale.
The last up were the narasi and bagu as the lizna didn’t have settlements or homes. Norman couldn’t actually visit the aquatic homes, since he was in his human form, but he did meet with their representatives along the rocky beach to their lakes.
They didn’t much like interacting with land dwellers and had already come up with an alternative to Norman’s potion so they didn’t need to trade constantly for it. That didn’t mean they didn’t trade at all. It turns out they were very talented alchemists.
Norman wasn't sure how that worked underwater, but the proof was in the concoctions they sold at the market. While his potion did wonders to repair a body and heal damage. It didn’t fix existing conditions or genetic defects. The more humanoid narasi’s did. And again, the Alacala had jumped on those potions to sell to their people. Considering how prevalent cancer was in their society, he wasn’t surprised that the restorative potions sold well.
With his visits complete, he headed back toward Ashvale to prepare for the talks. He wondered if they would be as exciting as the last ones, he hoped not.
As Norman and his entourage traveled across Normenia, they came across the path that the Golatian army had made. He had seen a bit of the devastation at the battle, but he had been more concerned with other things at the time.
That many people left an indelible mark on the landscape. A visible scar that would take time to heal.
It wasn’t the sight of the trampled vegetation that made him angry though. It was the loss of life.
Eight guards that had been stationed out in this remote side of the kingdom were missing. Seeing that this side of the kingdom was relatively safe, Eugene had placed less experienced, less qualified individuals to keep an eye on it. Those without callings. Not that Norman blamed the man for his choice. He would have made the same decision because it was the correct one to make.
His anger was based on the fact they hadn’t been able to revive these men and women. The guards had their phylacteries, but it seemed that hadn’t been enough to save them from that massive army. And now there was no sign of these lost guards. Without a sample of blood, he had no way to revive them. He should have anticipated this problem.
There was of course the slim hope that one of the many scouts would find some evidence and collect it. But he held out little hope for that. It had been weeks since the Golatian army had been routed and no traces of the missing soldiers had been found yet. Maybe if the search could have began sooner they might have found something. But it had taken days for Grobert and the Death Knights to run down all of the fleeing soldiers. It was only after they finished cleaning up the remnants that someone realized the border scouts had never reported in.
He had questioned some of the Golatian army’s scouts to figure out where they encountered his border units, but they were little help. The Prince was even more useless as he only demanded to be brought back to life, and when Norman started twisting his soul to make him comply, the man broke down and said he didn’t know where they had encountered his people as he was busy inside with his harem.
Norman gagged at that mental image.
That left him hoping that some evidence would turn up so he could personally resurrect these brave souls. But with each passing day, he lost a little of that hope. The thought of losing more soldiers like this spurred him into implementing the blood storage program.
All greykin were allowed to participate, although they could opt out if they wanted. The only ones that couldn’t were anyone who was involved in the guard. Already Grobert was teleporting to the outskirts to collect samples from every soldier serving among the border guards. Norman also shifted the priority of creating multi-use phylacteries to the top of his list. He had cracked the issue of a permanent phylactery already, but it was impossible to create one for every person in the guard, not to mention the people of the city.
The issue wasn’t that he didn’t want to protect all of his people. There were multiple other reasons he couldn’t implement the new phylactery on a wide scale. The first was he couldn’t allow a permanent version of the device to fall into Donovan’s hands like the first design had. The second issue had to deal with material requirements. A permanent phylactery had to be made from two pounds of pure gold. Or a gold bar about the same size as a smartphone.
No matter how you looked at it, that was a lot of gold. Once it was formed into the phylactery, it became an ornate sphere about the size of a baseball. If Norman had to compare it to something, it reminded him of those super fancy Fabergé eggs. But that really only represented the exterior components of the spell and those parts were more geared toward initial activation and defence. The real magic happened in the occluded core. And therein lay the problem.
He had not figured out a way to make the interior design, except by using a modified version of his Transfer spell. Saliu, Kalia, and Varter tried multiple ways to try and recreate the internal structure using buildup methods or trying to coat a substrate with gold to reduce the cost but they hadn’t been successful. Kalia even built a strange magical 3D printer. It was able to recreate the design, but the way it laid down the layers caused the spell to fizzle out.
Those were some big issues that needed to be overcome. He glanced back and could barely make out the eight Death Knights and two other riders accompanying the secure box that housed his new phylactery.
He hadn’t asked Kalia and Saliu to accompany them on this trip. But the two had been enamored by the object and wanted to study it more. They also wanted to see if the box they designed to hold it was up to the challenge. Norman hoped Donovan or one of his spies would take a crack at the box. Just to see the looks on their faces.
Even if they got through the eight Death Knights and the two enchanters, they would then need to deal with the deadly box.
It came with the same anti-life enchantment that protected their top secret documents as well as a force redirection enchantment, and a magic-absorbing enchantment that would shunt any damage done to it into whatever was touching it. That would likely be the poor wagon it rode in, then the ground.
But suppose they attacked Norman’s entourage first? Well, assuming he died, he would resurrect back at the phylactery. And then the defensive measures of the item itself would kick in. He had designed it to rapidly restore the energy needed to recreate him if it was expended. A field would extend from the encased item, rapidly draining whatever life energy it could until full. The more times it was activated in the same spot, the larger this field would grow. Making it impossible for anything living to get within reach of the box. And while he hadn't tested this feature, in theory, it had no maximum limit. The life-absorbing field would expand and expand until it was satiated and regrew Norman’s body.
That was the biggest change to this design over his last, and the main reason he couldn’t mass-produce them. The magic involved in the field was based on his very early forays into soul manipulation. It was a crude implementation of the energy but even that might be enough for someone like Donovan to figure out what he was doing and reverse engineer it. He was already working on an alternative that didn’t use this method and would give a phylactery three charges.
What about the undead, you might ask?
Norman had a defense against them, as well as constructs. Mindless undead were easy to deal with. He simply made the phylactery invisible to them, and if something without a soul attempted to pick up the box, well… let's just say it wouldn’t end well for them. There were a few other measures baked in, like the inability to touch either the box of the phylactery unless you were created using his blood. That left a greykin traitor as the only possible way to move the box. And the faster the box was moved, the quicker it would recharge, allowing Norman to be resurrected. This would force anyone dumb enough to try and turn against him to have to fight him off every few dozen feet. It was a battle of attrition that Norman would win eventually.
Now he wasn’t conceited enough to think the box or its contents were impervious. The gravity magic that the Prince used could probably overwhelm the enchantments. Grobert’s ability to teleport objects would bypass the box completely. And he was sure Donovan could come up with some way to get at it if he knew it was there. But he did his best to ensure the box was secure. His backup was, of course, the sample of his blood back in Ashvale. Anyone of two dozen mages could resurrect him in the catastrophic event of his death. But he was getting off track.
He hadn’t come out here to bait more of Donovan’s spies out of hiding. Although he would certainly like to rid himself of all of them. He had come out here to tour his country and see the villages he didn’t normally get to visit. This was likely the only time for quite a while that he would get this opportunity since the “Peace” talks were coming up soon. Something that made him rather nervous.
His spies no longer had access to Donovan. It seemed the Council leader had finally wised up to Norman’s wraiths and enchanted their entire headquarters to keep them out. They still had access to a few of the Councilor’s homes, but as the days passed, they slowly lost access to those as well. The Councilors had also set up personal portals to travel between their homes and the Wizard Council headquarters. So it was rare to see them outside of their residences unless they were taking their turn on the front against the Gorfan or the Commonwealth.
They had picked up a few interesting tidbits though, enough to let him know that the Council had replaced both Gail and J-son’s seats with new members. Who they were was as of yet unknown. But he would learn eventually.
As his party crested the next hill, he spotted the gron’s research city in the distance. Somehow they had remained undetected by the Prince or his forces. Considering their ability to secretly conduct research in every new zone, he wasn’t all that surprised by them being unmolested.
As they neared the entrance to the small walled-off base a gron in a white lab coat stepped out to greet them.
“Greetings, Lord Norman, and welcome to Normenia Research Outpost One. I am Senior Researcher Brasha. What brings you here today?” The man’s tone was bland and disinterested with a hint of annoyance at having to stop his work to come out here and greet uninvited guests.
“I am touring my kingdom, and while this research base is not part of my kingdom, I was curious and also wanted to ensure you had come to no harm.”
“As the agreement states, you are welcome to visit and peruse our work at any time. Just be aware that we are on a tight deadline and any disturbances may set our work back.” Norman smiled tightly, there was the testy attitude and conformity to a strict set of rules that he hadn’t missed.
“I will make my trip brief, Senior Researcher Brasha. You called this place NRO1, does that mean you plan to have more?”
The man visibly bristled at Norman’s shortening of the name, and Norman chuckled internally at getting a rise out of the stiff gron.
“No, Lord Norman. It is the standard naming convention in articles 17-3 of the policies pertaining to non-gron deployment of scientific endeavors where encountering native lifeforms is a high probability.”
Norman held up his hand to stop the man from reciting the entire lengthy article and policy. For someone so concerned with getting back to his work, he seemed more upset that Norman had stopped him from laying out the very long and probably very convoluted ruleset that they lived by.
From what Norman could see in the research base, all they were currently working on was sampling the nearby grass. While he didn’t want to listen to a long speech, he had asked about that.
“It is important that we conduct a thorough analysis of everything in our vicinity before we expand our research outward.”
“How long does that usually take?” Norman asked offhandedly.
“As long as it takes.”
“Ok… but can you give me an example?”
“As long as it takes.”
“Ballpark average, then?”
The gron grunted angrily before muttering something unintelligible under his breath. “A decade, maybe two.”
…They were going to research the properties of the grass around their base for two decades. He really shouldn’t be surprised by that.
He quickly finished his visit at the research base and moved on to the ooraki settlement.
Their houses were built much like the houses in Ashvale. Likely because they had traded with Ashvale regularly for more potions as well as help to build their village. Much like the previous ooraki, their men took on more of a crafting role, while the women took on the job of hunting, gathering, and farming. Being the stronger of the species, it made sense. And as always, their crafts were top-notch and sold well to the traders in Ashvale.
The last up were the narasi and bagu as the lizna didn’t have settlements or homes. Norman couldn’t actually visit the aquatic homes, since he was in his human form, but he did meet with their representatives along the rocky beach to their lakes.
They didn’t much like interacting with land dwellers and had already come up with an alternative to Norman’s potion so they didn’t need to trade constantly for it. That didn’t mean they didn’t trade at all. It turns out they were very talented alchemists.
Norman wasn't sure how that worked underwater, but the proof was in the concoctions they sold at the market. While his potion did wonders to repair a body and heal damage. It didn’t fix existing conditions or genetic defects. The more humanoid narasi’s did. And again, the Alacala had jumped on those potions to sell to their people. Considering how prevalent cancer was in their society, he wasn’t surprised that the restorative potions sold well.
With his visits complete, he headed back toward Ashvale to prepare for the talks. He wondered if they would be as exciting as the last ones, he hoped not.
