Norman may have been sent away to safety, but that didn’t mean he was going to sit inside the castle. Instead, he waited outside of it with his guards. It was a good thing he had because he noticed the screams getting closer to the hill. He wasn’t sure how the enemy had gotten inside the walls, but he knew they had.
“Alert all the stations, quickly!”
One of the guards rushed toward the booth and sent out the message, he just hoped someone was there manning them.
There seemed to be a pause in the fighting inside the city, but then Norman heard a vicious fight break out. It seemed to last a few minutes, then everything went quiet. That was until Norman saw someone leap upon the hill. Norman didn’t even think, he simply reacted, unleashing his spell. The man collapsed to the ground but the spell didn’t have time to complete before another man hit him with another spell that caused the infected man to burst into flames.
“Fuck,” he whispered. Norman recognized the defensive spell.
More and more enemies leaped atop the wall and his guards rushed in to battle them while Norman tried to inflict as much damage as possible with his spells. He was so focused on attacking that he missed the giant fucking spear that nearly tore his arm off.
Norman choked down a scream as he rushed into the castle. He needed time to heal a wound this severe, assuming he even could. He fumbled out a healing potion and chugged it down, then he heard silence from outside.
He cursed and threw the bottle away, reaching into his pouch and throwing everything he had into the hallway to try and buy himself time. That time turned out to be short-lived as the door and part of the wall exploded inward. A large chunk of stone slammed into Norman’s pelvis, shattering his armor and bones.
When he came to, he found himself laying on the floor pinned below the massive stone. He couldn’t breathe and he could feel his lungs filling with blood, but he heard the footsteps. A man with wavy auburn hair and greying temples stepped on Norman’s good hand. Not that Norman had the energy left to fight. Well, jokes on that asshole, he couldn’t feel the arm. His spine was most likely damaged. So Norman just sneered at the man. A last act of defiance before the prick shoved his sword through his heart. Norman smiled through the pain, not wanting to give the asshole the satisfaction of knowing it hurt.
***
In a small copse of trees, a hand burst forth from beneath the ground. Soon another hand followed. The hands flailed around ineffectually for a bit before a head pushed its way out of the ground. A mouthful of dirt was spat out by the grey-skinned thing crawling from beneath the earth. Its eyes blinked a few times to clear away more dirt as it looked around.
“Fuck!” Norman stated, spitting out a bit more dirt from his mouth. “I shouldn’t have buried that damn orb so deep.”
He continued to wiggle his body and try to use his arms to push dirt aside, but it was slow going. It had been the better part of a day before he even managed to free his arms from the ground. It was a good thing he didn’t need to breathe anymore, otherwise, this spell would have been a complete waste of time.
After a few more hours of struggling, Norman managed to free his shoulders, giving him enough mobility to move his arms properly. From there, things went a bit faster, and just before the sun went down, Norman managed to free himself completely from his grave. He was nude and completely covered in dirt, but he was free. He did his best to shake off the dirt and brush it off with his hands, but he was going to need a nice long shower before he was completely clean.
When he tried to run his hands through his hair, he found he was completely bald.
“Dammit, I should have tested the spell a bit more thoroughly,” he lamented the loss of his luxurious hair.
Honestly, he was just glad the spell had functioned correctly. He had tested it because putting his life on the line for an untested spell was insane. But his tests were rushed and he was forced to utilize the only resource he could get his hands on, which was a local analog to a pig, only smaller. The tests worked on the brick-sized hairless beasts, but that was no guarantee it would work for a human. It's one of the reasons he didn’t mention the spell to Eugene and Grobert.
The simple phylactery was designed to link to the last person that touched them. That was the quickest way he figured out how to make them work, which was why Norman had them bury the devices. It wouldn’t do to have some random greykin or Brotherhood member accidentally touch the item, rendering it useless for the purpose Norman built them for. The phylactery acted like a magnet for their soul when they died, as well as a template to store their body's shape.
Once the devices absorbed enough ambient life energy near them, they could create a body and place the captured soul into it. It worked like a bastardized copy of Norman’s resurrection spell that he used on Toby and the Soul Link spell that he used to revive greykin. Ideally, the phylacteries would be precharged but Norman didn’t have time for that. He also wasn’t sure if the precharged items could be detected so he didn’t want to risk it. It should be fine though, they would collect enough life energy and work eventually.
With the items being single-use, it meant they had to be extremely careful with them. It also meant there was no third chance for Norman. At least until he sought out the other spare phylactery that he had left unactivated and untouched.
Not wanting to run around naked, Norman dug around in the dirt until he found the vacuum-sealed bag that held some clothes and other items he had prepared for himself. The vacuum-sealed bag was a necessity. Norman figured it would take a few months for enough wildlife to wander into the phylactery’s area of effect to charge the device and he didn’t want his clothes rotting.
Eugene and Grobert were going to be pissed when they woke up butt naked, but he simply couldn’t tell them without spilling the beans about the spell. At least Norman should have a month or two to come up with a suitable apology before those two got resurrected. Being larger and denser than Norman, both would take more energy before their bodies could be created.
Opening the bag turned out to be a bit of a challenge, but Norman eventually found a sharp enough stick to rip the plastic open.
He quickly got dressed, feeling pretty gross with a layer of dirt coating his skin, but it was better than being nude in the forest. The bag contained a few other essential items. There were two test tubes, one filled with blood powder, one filled with a healing potion, two spell anchors for his armor, three Orbs of Decay, a Bone Shield spell anchor, and five miscellaneous bones that Norman could use for other spells as needed.
Once that was done, Norman felt much better. He took a deep breath in and let it out. Being undead was a new experience for him. It wasn’t exactly what he had expected. Was Norman a lich now, a demi-lich, or some form of revenant? Did it matter?
Norman chuckled, he was alive or at least undead.
He had outwitted the enemy. Once he realized Ashvale couldn’t fight off their enemies, the only thing that came to mind for Norman was a war of attrition. It would have worked out but the enemy was sick of slowly increasing their attacks. Nobody had expected them to attack in such numbers.
Despite the minor setback, a war of attrition could still work. Nobody was better at fighting a war like that than the undead. Sure it would be costly and take time to resurrect all of the greykin, but now that Norman knew who and where the enemy was, he could do that anywhere. Hell, if enough months had passed by, he could do it right in Ashvale, with them being none the wiser.
Now all Norman had to do was scout the town, then sneak inside and retrieve the spell anchor where all of the citizens were stored. He decided to wait until the sun set before he headed toward Ashvale. If there were any lights inside, it would indicate possible enemies left behind. He doubted any of the greykin would have remained in the area after they saw the damage to the town.
Norman didn’t see any lights as he neared the city. That was a good sign. As he got closer, however, he noticed something else.
The once pristine city was covered in dirt, leaves, and patchy grasses that had grown through cracks in the cobblestone streets. Not having or needing vehicles, Norman preferred the cobblestone look over concrete or something like blacktop. Not that the city had much of an option in that regard.
The gate still lay where the enemy forces had broken through. But even that was covered in a thick layer of dirt and grasses. Norman was starting to get a sinking feeling as he walked through the broken entry. Sure enough, Norman spotted some of the wood from the previously intact buildings had started rotting from neglect.
It was clear the Brotherhood had ransacked the entire town before leaving. But that didn’t explain the wood. Water damage shouldn’t have done that in only a few months. The same with the grasses and weeds that were everywhere.
Something had gone very very wrong. Norman hurried through the dark town until he got to the wall around the castle. The grass from above was overgrown, and hanging down the wall nearly the entire way.
Norman had seen abandoned places before, and the whole town looked like it had been sitting abandoned for years, and not just a few months.
“No, no, no!” he shouted as he rushed up the thin path that lead to the unfinished plateau above.
Moonlight peaked through a break in the clouds, showing Norman the destroyed façade of the castle. All of the windows had been busted out, and entire sections of the front of the building had been destroyed. To say that the Brotherhood had taken their anger out on the building would be an understatement.
But Norman didn’t care about the building.
He crawled through one of the broken walls, slipping past moss and lichen that had grown in the openings. The inside of the castle wasn’t much better than the outside. Norman couldn’t see a single wall without any damage, even the floor and what remained of the ceiling showed damage.
No signs of fires though.
Despite his worry, Norman chuckled at that. How frustrated must the Brotherhood have become when they couldn’t burn the town down? And every time they tried, it cost them another one of their people as the spell used their life force to keep them from putting the place to the torch.
Eventually, Norman made his way to the workshop, what remained of it anyway. Any papers or notes left behind were now only soggy remnants. He searched through the room, but it was clear his grimoire was gone.
He had been afraid of that, which is why he had hidden it in the first place. Not that he needed it at the moment, he could remember all of his spells through sheer repetition at this point. No, he wanted to keep it out of the hands of the Brotherhood if possible. Ideally, they would have destroyed it when they found it, but he needed to plan for the other eventuality.
He knew he should have burned it, but he just couldn’t bring himself to do that. It was his grimoire, a sentimental item that held all of his original spells and thoughts on magic. Now he was regretting the decision to keep it around. One thing he had destroyed though was all evidence of the phylactery. He had also never recorded anything about it in the grimoire. If the enemy ever found those plans, they would have scoured the countryside until they found them, and he wouldn’t be here right now.
Seeing that his workshop was a lost cause, Norman climbed back through the rubble and into the throne room. It looked like a Tornado had ripped through the room. The chairs and the table were nothing more than kindling against the walls. Even the fancy rug was ripped up, and Norman was sure he smelled urea coming from the remains.
“Fucking savages, that was my good rug!”
Norman avoided the old piss-soaked rug and headed over to where the throne had once stood. Walking past the remains of his old headless body, still trapped below the fallen stone, was a bit weird, but that was magic for ya. Norman decided to ignore his body, it was too creepy to think about right now. The only thing that remained of the throne were bits of broken bones and the heavy stone base. He smiled at that.
The base of the chair had been made from a heavy slab of stone that even Eugene had trouble lifting. This is why Norman picked beneath it as his hiding spot for the spell anchor that stored all of the dead townsfolk.
Seeing that it hadn’t been moved, Norman let out a sigh of relief. The villagers’ bodies were safe, but Norman wouldn’t be able to get at the spell anchor until either Eugene or Grobert returned. That was not ideal, but Norman didn’t really have any other options at the moment. He certainly wasn’t strong enough to move the slab himself.
With a sigh, he sat on the dais and thought about what needed to get done. Then Norman recalled the treasury. He hurried down the hall and into the basement where the room was at. It was no surprise to him when he found the stone door broken apart and laying on the floor.
The room had nothing but spider webs in it now, not that it held a lot before, but still. All of his magical supplies and even his potions were gone. He cursed again, realizing they had his potion recipe from his grimoire. Even if they didn’t know what the special ingredient was, they had likely figured it out over time just by randomly testing the items they stole from the castle.
Going up to the second floor was a lost cause. Even if the stairs were intact, the floor had enough holes and water damage that Norman didn’t want to risk it. He left the castle and started searching through town for a place to spend the night. It was extremely upsetting and depressing as he passed broken house after broken house. All of the hard work and effort that had gone into building Ashvale was destroyed and left to rot by an enemy that had come out of nowhere.
Eventually, Norman came to the armory and found it to be relatively intact. The doors had been broken through, but the walls and ceiling seemed to have been too much for the enemy forces to bother with.
With a bit of hunting around, Norman found some dry wood and started a small fire in the armory. Not that he needed the fire or any rest, since he was undead now, but old habits were hard to break. Norman had the fire going before he remembered the anti-fire spell he had placed around the town. It seemed the spell had either broken or worn away over time, otherwise this fire would have immediately gone out. It was another thing he would need to look at later.
Norman needed time to just think and plan. It was clear something had gone wrong in his calculations for the phylacteries. Instead of a few months, it seemed like a few years had passed. He really wished Grobert or Eugene were here to help out. He also wished he had asked them to tell him where they had hidden their phylacteries. Not that those thoughts were helpful now.
Norman lay back against the stone wall and lost himself to his thoughts. He needed to come up with a way to recover the city and deal with the Brotherhood once and for all. Even if a thousand years had gone by – he really hoped that wasn’t the case – he was going to destroy them if they were still around.
Norman may have been sent away to safety, but that didn’t mean he was going to sit inside the castle. Instead, he waited outside of it with his guards. It was a good thing he had because he noticed the screams getting closer to the hill. He wasn’t sure how the enemy had gotten inside the walls, but he knew they had.
“Alert all the stations, quickly!”
One of the guards rushed toward the booth and sent out the message, he just hoped someone was there manning them.
There seemed to be a pause in the fighting inside the city, but then Norman heard a vicious fight break out. It seemed to last a few minutes, then everything went quiet. That was until Norman saw someone leap upon the hill. Norman didn’t even think, he simply reacted, unleashing his spell. The man collapsed to the ground but the spell didn’t have time to complete before another man hit him with another spell that caused the infected man to burst into flames.
“Fuck,” he whispered. Norman recognized the defensive spell.
More and more enemies leaped atop the wall and his guards rushed in to battle them while Norman tried to inflict as much damage as possible with his spells. He was so focused on attacking that he missed the giant fucking spear that nearly tore his arm off.
Norman choked down a scream as he rushed into the castle. He needed time to heal a wound this severe, assuming he even could. He fumbled out a healing potion and chugged it down, then he heard silence from outside.
He cursed and threw the bottle away, reaching into his pouch and throwing everything he had into the hallway to try and buy himself time. That time turned out to be short-lived as the door and part of the wall exploded inward. A large chunk of stone slammed into Norman’s pelvis, shattering his armor and bones.
When he came to, he found himself laying on the floor pinned below the massive stone. He couldn’t breathe and he could feel his lungs filling with blood, but he heard the footsteps. A man with wavy auburn hair and greying temples stepped on Norman’s good hand. Not that Norman had the energy left to fight. Well, jokes on that asshole, he couldn’t feel the arm. His spine was most likely damaged. So Norman just sneered at the man. A last act of defiance before the prick shoved his sword through his heart. Norman smiled through the pain, not wanting to give the asshole the satisfaction of knowing it hurt.
***
In a small copse of trees, a hand burst forth from beneath the ground. Soon another hand followed. The hands flailed around ineffectually for a bit before a head pushed its way out of the ground. A mouthful of dirt was spat out by the grey-skinned thing crawling from beneath the earth. Its eyes blinked a few times to clear away more dirt as it looked around.
“Fuck!” Norman stated, spitting out a bit more dirt from his mouth. “I shouldn’t have buried that damn orb so deep.”
He continued to wiggle his body and try to use his arms to push dirt aside, but it was slow going. It had been the better part of a day before he even managed to free his arms from the ground. It was a good thing he didn’t need to breathe anymore, otherwise, this spell would have been a complete waste of time.
After a few more hours of struggling, Norman managed to free his shoulders, giving him enough mobility to move his arms properly. From there, things went a bit faster, and just before the sun went down, Norman managed to free himself completely from his grave. He was nude and completely covered in dirt, but he was free. He did his best to shake off the dirt and brush it off with his hands, but he was going to need a nice long shower before he was completely clean.
When he tried to run his hands through his hair, he found he was completely bald.
“Dammit, I should have tested the spell a bit more thoroughly,” he lamented the loss of his luxurious hair.
Honestly, he was just glad the spell had functioned correctly. He had tested it because putting his life on the line for an untested spell was insane. But his tests were rushed and he was forced to utilize the only resource he could get his hands on, which was a local analog to a pig, only smaller. The tests worked on the brick-sized hairless beasts, but that was no guarantee it would work for a human. It's one of the reasons he didn’t mention the spell to Eugene and Grobert.
The simple phylactery was designed to link to the last person that touched them. That was the quickest way he figured out how to make them work, which was why Norman had them bury the devices. It wouldn’t do to have some random greykin or Brotherhood member accidentally touch the item, rendering it useless for the purpose Norman built them for. The phylactery acted like a magnet for their soul when they died, as well as a template to store their body's shape.
Once the devices absorbed enough ambient life energy near them, they could create a body and place the captured soul into it. It worked like a bastardized copy of Norman’s resurrection spell that he used on Toby and the Soul Link spell that he used to revive greykin. Ideally, the phylacteries would be precharged but Norman didn’t have time for that. He also wasn’t sure if the precharged items could be detected so he didn’t want to risk it. It should be fine though, they would collect enough life energy and work eventually.
With the items being single-use, it meant they had to be extremely careful with them. It also meant there was no third chance for Norman. At least until he sought out the other spare phylactery that he had left unactivated and untouched.
Not wanting to run around naked, Norman dug around in the dirt until he found the vacuum-sealed bag that held some clothes and other items he had prepared for himself. The vacuum-sealed bag was a necessity. Norman figured it would take a few months for enough wildlife to wander into the phylactery’s area of effect to charge the device and he didn’t want his clothes rotting.
Eugene and Grobert were going to be pissed when they woke up butt naked, but he simply couldn’t tell them without spilling the beans about the spell. At least Norman should have a month or two to come up with a suitable apology before those two got resurrected. Being larger and denser than Norman, both would take more energy before their bodies could be created.
Opening the bag turned out to be a bit of a challenge, but Norman eventually found a sharp enough stick to rip the plastic open.
He quickly got dressed, feeling pretty gross with a layer of dirt coating his skin, but it was better than being nude in the forest. The bag contained a few other essential items. There were two test tubes, one filled with blood powder, one filled with a healing potion, two spell anchors for his armor, three Orbs of Decay, a Bone Shield spell anchor, and five miscellaneous bones that Norman could use for other spells as needed.
Once that was done, Norman felt much better. He took a deep breath in and let it out. Being undead was a new experience for him. It wasn’t exactly what he had expected. Was Norman a lich now, a demi-lich, or some form of revenant? Did it matter?
Norman chuckled, he was alive or at least undead.
He had outwitted the enemy. Once he realized Ashvale couldn’t fight off their enemies, the only thing that came to mind for Norman was a war of attrition. It would have worked out but the enemy was sick of slowly increasing their attacks. Nobody had expected them to attack in such numbers.
Despite the minor setback, a war of attrition could still work. Nobody was better at fighting a war like that than the undead. Sure it would be costly and take time to resurrect all of the greykin, but now that Norman knew who and where the enemy was, he could do that anywhere. Hell, if enough months had passed by, he could do it right in Ashvale, with them being none the wiser.
Now all Norman had to do was scout the town, then sneak inside and retrieve the spell anchor where all of the citizens were stored. He decided to wait until the sun set before he headed toward Ashvale. If there were any lights inside, it would indicate possible enemies left behind. He doubted any of the greykin would have remained in the area after they saw the damage to the town.
Norman didn’t see any lights as he neared the city. That was a good sign. As he got closer, however, he noticed something else.
The once pristine city was covered in dirt, leaves, and patchy grasses that had grown through cracks in the cobblestone streets. Not having or needing vehicles, Norman preferred the cobblestone look over concrete or something like blacktop. Not that the city had much of an option in that regard.
The gate still lay where the enemy forces had broken through. But even that was covered in a thick layer of dirt and grasses. Norman was starting to get a sinking feeling as he walked through the broken entry. Sure enough, Norman spotted some of the wood from the previously intact buildings had started rotting from neglect.
It was clear the Brotherhood had ransacked the entire town before leaving. But that didn’t explain the wood. Water damage shouldn’t have done that in only a few months. The same with the grasses and weeds that were everywhere.
Something had gone very very wrong. Norman hurried through the dark town until he got to the wall around the castle. The grass from above was overgrown, and hanging down the wall nearly the entire way.
Norman had seen abandoned places before, and the whole town looked like it had been sitting abandoned for years, and not just a few months.
“No, no, no!” he shouted as he rushed up the thin path that lead to the unfinished plateau above.
Moonlight peaked through a break in the clouds, showing Norman the destroyed façade of the castle. All of the windows had been busted out, and entire sections of the front of the building had been destroyed. To say that the Brotherhood had taken their anger out on the building would be an understatement.
But Norman didn’t care about the building.
He crawled through one of the broken walls, slipping past moss and lichen that had grown in the openings. The inside of the castle wasn’t much better than the outside. Norman couldn’t see a single wall without any damage, even the floor and what remained of the ceiling showed damage.
No signs of fires though.
Despite his worry, Norman chuckled at that. How frustrated must the Brotherhood have become when they couldn’t burn the town down? And every time they tried, it cost them another one of their people as the spell used their life force to keep them from putting the place to the torch.
Eventually, Norman made his way to the workshop, what remained of it anyway. Any papers or notes left behind were now only soggy remnants. He searched through the room, but it was clear his grimoire was gone.
He had been afraid of that, which is why he had hidden it in the first place. Not that he needed it at the moment, he could remember all of his spells through sheer repetition at this point. No, he wanted to keep it out of the hands of the Brotherhood if possible. Ideally, they would have destroyed it when they found it, but he needed to plan for the other eventuality.
He knew he should have burned it, but he just couldn’t bring himself to do that. It was his grimoire, a sentimental item that held all of his original spells and thoughts on magic. Now he was regretting the decision to keep it around. One thing he had destroyed though was all evidence of the phylactery. He had also never recorded anything about it in the grimoire. If the enemy ever found those plans, they would have scoured the countryside until they found them, and he wouldn’t be here right now.
Seeing that his workshop was a lost cause, Norman climbed back through the rubble and into the throne room. It looked like a Tornado had ripped through the room. The chairs and the table were nothing more than kindling against the walls. Even the fancy rug was ripped up, and Norman was sure he smelled urea coming from the remains.
“Fucking savages, that was my good rug!”
Norman avoided the old piss-soaked rug and headed over to where the throne had once stood. Walking past the remains of his old headless body, still trapped below the fallen stone, was a bit weird, but that was magic for ya. Norman decided to ignore his body, it was too creepy to think about right now. The only thing that remained of the throne were bits of broken bones and the heavy stone base. He smiled at that.
The base of the chair had been made from a heavy slab of stone that even Eugene had trouble lifting. This is why Norman picked beneath it as his hiding spot for the spell anchor that stored all of the dead townsfolk.
Seeing that it hadn’t been moved, Norman let out a sigh of relief. The villagers’ bodies were safe, but Norman wouldn’t be able to get at the spell anchor until either Eugene or Grobert returned. That was not ideal, but Norman didn’t really have any other options at the moment. He certainly wasn’t strong enough to move the slab himself.
With a sigh, he sat on the dais and thought about what needed to get done. Then Norman recalled the treasury. He hurried down the hall and into the basement where the room was at. It was no surprise to him when he found the stone door broken apart and laying on the floor.
The room had nothing but spider webs in it now, not that it held a lot before, but still. All of his magical supplies and even his potions were gone. He cursed again, realizing they had his potion recipe from his grimoire. Even if they didn’t know what the special ingredient was, they had likely figured it out over time just by randomly testing the items they stole from the castle.
Going up to the second floor was a lost cause. Even if the stairs were intact, the floor had enough holes and water damage that Norman didn’t want to risk it. He left the castle and started searching through town for a place to spend the night. It was extremely upsetting and depressing as he passed broken house after broken house. All of the hard work and effort that had gone into building Ashvale was destroyed and left to rot by an enemy that had come out of nowhere.
Eventually, Norman came to the armory and found it to be relatively intact. The doors had been broken through, but the walls and ceiling seemed to have been too much for the enemy forces to bother with.
With a bit of hunting around, Norman found some dry wood and started a small fire in the armory. Not that he needed the fire or any rest, since he was undead now, but old habits were hard to break. Norman had the fire going before he remembered the anti-fire spell he had placed around the town. It seemed the spell had either broken or worn away over time, otherwise this fire would have immediately gone out. It was another thing he would need to look at later.
Norman needed time to just think and plan. It was clear something had gone wrong in his calculations for the phylacteries. Instead of a few months, it seemed like a few years had passed. He really wished Grobert or Eugene were here to help out. He also wished he had asked them to tell him where they had hidden their phylacteries. Not that those thoughts were helpful now.
Norman lay back against the stone wall and lost himself to his thoughts. He needed to come up with a way to recover the city and deal with the Brotherhood once and for all. Even if a thousand years had gone by – he really hoped that wasn’t the case – he was going to destroy them if they were still around.
