Norman woke up in a field, surrounded by the forces he had left outside the wall. A man was waiting nearby and handed him some clothes. “Thanks,” Norman muttered as he got dressed.
Dying again sucked, but at least the anti-mind control device he had had Grobert build for him worked. Although maybe next time he would tell the man to use a less destructive explosive circle in the design.
When Norman failed to come up with his own solution to defending against mind magic, he had asked Grobert about creating a trigger, similar to how his portals worked. The man had agreed to build it, but couldn’t disclose the plans for how he did it since magitech was still the domain of the gron. Norman was fine with that, he was pretty sure he already knew parts of how they functioned or at least he had recognized some of the runes from the recovered unexploded ordinance that the Brotherhood hadn’t bothered to retrieve.
It took Grobert a few days – back when they were planning the assault on the Brotherhood – to gather the necessary materials for the trigger. He was going to have Grobet use some of the material from the teleporter but that wasn’t possible. The Brotherhood hadn’t simply destroyed the old teleporters, they had stripped all of the metals from the ground and been thorough about not leaving anything of value behind in the city. He was sure they had only left the bombs behind because they were worried about them going off since they had been activated by the magic circle on their siege wagons already.
The lack of materials didn’t matter for Grobert, he could pull trace amounts of the precious metals from the ground. Technically Grobert could do this and rebuild a teleporter, but the time it would take for him to gather that much precious metal would be absurd. But gathering the tiny bit needed for Norman’s task wasn’t too daunting. Once Grobert had enough material to work with, he constructed the tiny marble-sized orb.
That was the easy part. The hard part was cutting open his chest cavity and placing the device near Norman’s heart without killing him. Norman could have turned himself undead to make the process easier, but then he would just have to go and revive himself again, and he wasn’t sure if the bomb would remain in place if he did that.
Why not just stay undead, well, that was easy. Norman figured dealing with the surviving Beskara people would be easier if he was alive. And it was the only way he could still utilize all of his magic.
The operation to install the bomb had been a success and after Norman sucked down a bottle of his potion you couldn’t even tell he had ever undergone a procedure.
Shortly after Norman finished getting dressed, Grobert appeared next to him.
“The shock of seeing you die must have broken Anna’s control over her people. We managed to kill them before they recovered.”
That was a surprise, but a welcome one. As soon as Norman realized it was Anna here, he knew he was destined to die. But that was fine, he would die as many times as he needed to ensure his people survived. Speaking of his people. “What about the ones guarding the barricaded door?”
“Yes, we got to those as well… we locked up Anna for the time being, we figured you might wish to speak with her.”
Norman nodded. He wasn’t sure what he was going to say to the woman ‘Hi, how are you?’ didn’t seem appropriate. “Thanks. And how are our people?”
“All alive and accounted for, Eugene is helping them. Some had injuries, but they were able to heal them by taking their potions. The ones I questioned said they had been locked up for about a week.”
“Alright, get the people here packed up and have someone locate the three groups searching the city. It should be safe now. While you’re doing that, I’m going to go have a chat with my old friend.”
Grobert nodded. “I will see to it.”
Norman’s walk through the city and back to the castle was much quicker this time. Both because he didn’t need to worry about any more enemies and because he didn’t get tired now that he was undead again.
That second part left him in a bit of a dilemma though. He knew from experimentation that some of his blood magic didn’t work the same way with undead blood as it did with his living blood.
That was an issue because he needed a lot of blood to do extensive testing in the coming weeks. It meant he was going to have to restore himself to life again. It was annoying to constantly have to switch back but unavoidable at the moment. He would have to figure out the undead blood issue at another time. He would also have to do something with Anna so she couldn’t try to mind fuck him again.
His feelings for the woman were complicated. It was a good thing Anna hadn’t purposefully harmed any of his people. If she had, Norman wouldn’t be going for a chat, he simply would have had Eugene deal with her and call it a day. That stance might seem harsh to someone outside of Norman’s normal circles, but there had already been too much betrayal for him to take someone with her power lightly.
What he was going to do with her, he still wasn’t sure. He would be putting a blood oath on her, that was a given. She was too dangerous otherwise.
Another reason Norman was glad his people were alive, was the fact that the earth mages had been among those that remained behind. That group was one of the few that he refused to allow to come with. Their duty was to help rebuild the city. He also wanted to protect them as they were the only ones that could make phylacteries at the moment. Well, two of them could. The third wasn’t quite there yet. But he was working on it.
Norman did feel a bit bad about having to place the mages under a blood oath to prevent them from making the orbs for anyone but him, but it was a necessity to keep the magic a secret. But that was a temporary solution. Norman wanted to be able to create them himself eventually. His wouldn’t be made of compressed dirt thought.
Norman entered the castle where he saw Eugene standing in the main room with a group of disheveled-looking people. Well, more disheveled than normal. His whole populace looked like barely able cave dwellers thanks to their rough clothing made from animal hides and weaved grass.
Once they noticed his arrival, they all broke down in happy tears, running up to shake his hand for saving them. Norman stood there dumbly, he hadn’t done anything, they should be thanking Eugene and Grobert, they did all the heavy lifting. Norman awkwardly shook hands and gave hugs while giving Eugene an emploring look to help him. The man ignored his pleas with a smirk on his face and a twinkle in his eye, the bastard.
After watching Norman suffer for a bit, he must have finally taken pity on him. “Alright, that’s enough. The city is safe again, you can all return to what you were doing. I need to have a word with the boss.”
Despite Eugene’s harsh tone, there was a smile on his face. The people slowly filtered out of the castle after they all showed their gratitude toward Norman. Norman waited until it was only Eugene left standing there before turning toward the man. “What was that all about?”
“They were just being thankful, I wouldn’t worry about it too much. They did the same thing to me.”
Ah, that explained the grin on Eugene’s face, he knew what was gonna happen. Norman shook off the wellspring of emotions he was feeling, he needed to be in the proper mindset to deal with Anna.
“Where is she?”
Eugene motioned for Norman to follow him. “After your little performance, she went catatonic so we shoved her into one of the bedrooms. She hasn’t moved since I stuck her there. Seeing you die really fucked her up.”
“Good, maybe she will finally think about her actions next time.”
Norman hoped the woman had gotten over him, but it appears that she hadn’t. At least not fully. It could complicate matters, but he decided to ignore that for now. The perk of being dead, there wasn’t much of a libido. Although he knew it wasn’t completely gone from watching people around town. It was something to ponder on later.
Eugene shrugged as he led Norman to a door. Norman squared his shoulders and nodded to Eugene. The man politely knocked on the door before opening it and letting Norman inside.
Even though this was called a bedroom, there wasn’t any bed or furniture for that matter. It was a bland empty room on the second floor with busted-out windows looking out the back of the castle. But it was clean. If Anna had wanted to escape, she could have simply gone out the window. Not that that was likely, the woman stared off into nothingness until Norman entered the room.
Her once vacant eyes seemed to focus after a bit and a sad smile appeared on her face. “Norm…You’re alive.”
Norman didn’t answer as he walked toward the window to look outside while Eugene took up a position inside the door. He watched Anna’s eyes track him the entire time from the periphery of his view.
The land outside the window was as scenic as it had always been, he had missed this view. The rolling hills, the forests, the quiet. Would he ever get that feeling of tranquility back again? Or was he destined to have his life constantly interrupted by people who wanted something from him that they simply didn’t deserve or earn?
Without turning, he asked Anna a question. “Why are you here, Anna?”
He could hear her sniffle, but he was unmoved by her emotions.
“I was angry with you, with what you did. I… I wanted revenge.”
Norman stood there, pondering her words for a bit before finally turning. “I left because you were sick in the head. You needed to come to terms with that on your own.”
She nodded, tears streaming down her face. “I know. I did, but I was just so angry at you. And then Toby died, and I was left alone. People tried to take advantage of me. Use me for their own ends or other sick pleasures.” She laughed bitterly, “I showed them who was stronger though.”
Anna wiped her eyes with her sleeve, looking like the same awkward girl he once remembered for a moment. “What happened to the people with me?”
“Dead,” Norman replied flatly.
She let out a bittersweet laugh. “Good, I hope they suffered. Are you going to kill me?”
“I haven’t decided yet.”
She only nodded, not seeming all that surprised by Norman’s answer.
“I understand your anger at me, Anna, but you involved innocent people. That is unforgivable.”
She lowered her head, not able to look Norman in the eyes. “I’m sorry. It’s just that when I found this city and saw that they were undead, I knew I had finally found you. I… I wasn’t thinking straight. I know that’s no excuse, I’m sorry.”
“How did you even find me or manage to get here anyway?” It should have been impossible, then doubly so with the new dinosaur zone to their north.
“A seer was able to point me towards where you lived and I hired an airship captain to fly me over the jungle. Although both are now dead downstairs, so there will be no going back that way.”
Airship? Fuck just how much innovation and change had Norman missed in eight years. He would need to speed up his plans if he wanted to claim the entire deadlands for his kingdom before some other asshats decided to move in.
Norman decided to keep Anna around for the time being. This was only after putting her under a blood oath that prevented her from speaking of the city or harming any of the locals. He didn’t do it out of nostalgia's sake, that ship had sailed long ago. He kept her around because she was the only person here with direct information on the outside world and what had happened over the last eight years. Information was worth more to him right now than a bit of awkwardness every time he saw her.
That didn’t mean she wasn’t put to work. Norman assigned two death knights to keep an eye on her and put her to work helping to clean up the damage around town. Anna had asked him about the damage, but he decided not to answer her question, he was still pretty mad at her.
The pair parted and Norman, Grobert, and Eugene walked outside the city where Anna had said the airship was landed. If they could get it working, maybe they could get past the jungle with ease.
They found the “airship”. It was nothing more than a raft with railings to keep people from falling overboard. Above that was a mess of ropes that must have surrounded a balloon or something at one time, only the balloon was missing. There weren’t any magical symbols or anything magical at all about the craft, it was just wood. Norman couldn’t quite figure out how the thing had flown, let alone left the ground.
It wasn’t like they had found a massive balloon on any of the dead guards Anna had brought with her or anything. It had to be some spell or skill, which was more annoying than finding a broken balloon. They could fix a broken balloon, but Norman wasn’t going to resurrect any of the guards Anna brought. While he could put them under oaths like her, he just didn’t feel like the benefit outweighed the risk.
“Do you think we could make a hot air balloon for it?” Norman asked.
Grobert chewed his lip, “given enough time, sure. But we are stretched thin for resources as it is, and something like this would take months if not years to put together with our current resources. It would be faster to travel through that jungle on foot than it would be to wait for this to be constructed.”
Norman sighed, “I figured as much but it was worth asking. Get a few people out here to disassemble the craft, we can at least repurpose the wood and the ropes elsewhere.”
Norman woke up in a field, surrounded by the forces he had left outside the wall. A man was waiting nearby and handed him some clothes. “Thanks,” Norman muttered as he got dressed.
Dying again sucked, but at least the anti-mind control device he had had Grobert build for him worked. Although maybe next time he would tell the man to use a less destructive explosive circle in the design.
When Norman failed to come up with his own solution to defending against mind magic, he had asked Grobert about creating a trigger, similar to how his portals worked. The man had agreed to build it, but couldn’t disclose the plans for how he did it since magitech was still the domain of the gron. Norman was fine with that, he was pretty sure he already knew parts of how they functioned or at least he had recognized some of the runes from the recovered unexploded ordinance that the Brotherhood hadn’t bothered to retrieve.
It took Grobert a few days – back when they were planning the assault on the Brotherhood – to gather the necessary materials for the trigger. He was going to have Grobet use some of the material from the teleporter but that wasn’t possible. The Brotherhood hadn’t simply destroyed the old teleporters, they had stripped all of the metals from the ground and been thorough about not leaving anything of value behind in the city. He was sure they had only left the bombs behind because they were worried about them going off since they had been activated by the magic circle on their siege wagons already.
The lack of materials didn’t matter for Grobert, he could pull trace amounts of the precious metals from the ground. Technically Grobert could do this and rebuild a teleporter, but the time it would take for him to gather that much precious metal would be absurd. But gathering the tiny bit needed for Norman’s task wasn’t too daunting. Once Grobert had enough material to work with, he constructed the tiny marble-sized orb.
That was the easy part. The hard part was cutting open his chest cavity and placing the device near Norman’s heart without killing him. Norman could have turned himself undead to make the process easier, but then he would just have to go and revive himself again, and he wasn’t sure if the bomb would remain in place if he did that.
Why not just stay undead, well, that was easy. Norman figured dealing with the surviving Beskara people would be easier if he was alive. And it was the only way he could still utilize all of his magic.
The operation to install the bomb had been a success and after Norman sucked down a bottle of his potion you couldn’t even tell he had ever undergone a procedure.
Shortly after Norman finished getting dressed, Grobert appeared next to him.
“The shock of seeing you die must have broken Anna’s control over her people. We managed to kill them before they recovered.”
That was a surprise, but a welcome one. As soon as Norman realized it was Anna here, he knew he was destined to die. But that was fine, he would die as many times as he needed to ensure his people survived. Speaking of his people. “What about the ones guarding the barricaded door?”
“Yes, we got to those as well… we locked up Anna for the time being, we figured you might wish to speak with her.”
Norman nodded. He wasn’t sure what he was going to say to the woman ‘Hi, how are you?’ didn’t seem appropriate. “Thanks. And how are our people?”
“All alive and accounted for, Eugene is helping them. Some had injuries, but they were able to heal them by taking their potions. The ones I questioned said they had been locked up for about a week.”
“Alright, get the people here packed up and have someone locate the three groups searching the city. It should be safe now. While you’re doing that, I’m going to go have a chat with my old friend.”
Grobert nodded. “I will see to it.”
Norman’s walk through the city and back to the castle was much quicker this time. Both because he didn’t need to worry about any more enemies and because he didn’t get tired now that he was undead again.
That second part left him in a bit of a dilemma though. He knew from experimentation that some of his blood magic didn’t work the same way with undead blood as it did with his living blood.
That was an issue because he needed a lot of blood to do extensive testing in the coming weeks. It meant he was going to have to restore himself to life again. It was annoying to constantly have to switch back but unavoidable at the moment. He would have to figure out the undead blood issue at another time. He would also have to do something with Anna so she couldn’t try to mind fuck him again.
His feelings for the woman were complicated. It was a good thing Anna hadn’t purposefully harmed any of his people. If she had, Norman wouldn’t be going for a chat, he simply would have had Eugene deal with her and call it a day. That stance might seem harsh to someone outside of Norman’s normal circles, but there had already been too much betrayal for him to take someone with her power lightly.
What he was going to do with her, he still wasn’t sure. He would be putting a blood oath on her, that was a given. She was too dangerous otherwise.
Another reason Norman was glad his people were alive, was the fact that the earth mages had been among those that remained behind. That group was one of the few that he refused to allow to come with. Their duty was to help rebuild the city. He also wanted to protect them as they were the only ones that could make phylacteries at the moment. Well, two of them could. The third wasn’t quite there yet. But he was working on it.
Norman did feel a bit bad about having to place the mages under a blood oath to prevent them from making the orbs for anyone but him, but it was a necessity to keep the magic a secret. But that was a temporary solution. Norman wanted to be able to create them himself eventually. His wouldn’t be made of compressed dirt thought.
Norman entered the castle where he saw Eugene standing in the main room with a group of disheveled-looking people. Well, more disheveled than normal. His whole populace looked like barely able cave dwellers thanks to their rough clothing made from animal hides and weaved grass.
Once they noticed his arrival, they all broke down in happy tears, running up to shake his hand for saving them. Norman stood there dumbly, he hadn’t done anything, they should be thanking Eugene and Grobert, they did all the heavy lifting. Norman awkwardly shook hands and gave hugs while giving Eugene an emploring look to help him. The man ignored his pleas with a smirk on his face and a twinkle in his eye, the bastard.
After watching Norman suffer for a bit, he must have finally taken pity on him. “Alright, that’s enough. The city is safe again, you can all return to what you were doing. I need to have a word with the boss.”
Despite Eugene’s harsh tone, there was a smile on his face. The people slowly filtered out of the castle after they all showed their gratitude toward Norman. Norman waited until it was only Eugene left standing there before turning toward the man. “What was that all about?”
“They were just being thankful, I wouldn’t worry about it too much. They did the same thing to me.”
Ah, that explained the grin on Eugene’s face, he knew what was gonna happen. Norman shook off the wellspring of emotions he was feeling, he needed to be in the proper mindset to deal with Anna.
“Where is she?”
Eugene motioned for Norman to follow him. “After your little performance, she went catatonic so we shoved her into one of the bedrooms. She hasn’t moved since I stuck her there. Seeing you die really fucked her up.”
“Good, maybe she will finally think about her actions next time.”
Norman hoped the woman had gotten over him, but it appears that she hadn’t. At least not fully. It could complicate matters, but he decided to ignore that for now. The perk of being dead, there wasn’t much of a libido. Although he knew it wasn’t completely gone from watching people around town. It was something to ponder on later.
Eugene shrugged as he led Norman to a door. Norman squared his shoulders and nodded to Eugene. The man politely knocked on the door before opening it and letting Norman inside.
Even though this was called a bedroom, there wasn’t any bed or furniture for that matter. It was a bland empty room on the second floor with busted-out windows looking out the back of the castle. But it was clean. If Anna had wanted to escape, she could have simply gone out the window. Not that that was likely, the woman stared off into nothingness until Norman entered the room.
Her once vacant eyes seemed to focus after a bit and a sad smile appeared on her face. “Norm…You’re alive.”
Norman didn’t answer as he walked toward the window to look outside while Eugene took up a position inside the door. He watched Anna’s eyes track him the entire time from the periphery of his view.
The land outside the window was as scenic as it had always been, he had missed this view. The rolling hills, the forests, the quiet. Would he ever get that feeling of tranquility back again? Or was he destined to have his life constantly interrupted by people who wanted something from him that they simply didn’t deserve or earn?
Without turning, he asked Anna a question. “Why are you here, Anna?”
He could hear her sniffle, but he was unmoved by her emotions.
“I was angry with you, with what you did. I… I wanted revenge.”
Norman stood there, pondering her words for a bit before finally turning. “I left because you were sick in the head. You needed to come to terms with that on your own.”
She nodded, tears streaming down her face. “I know. I did, but I was just so angry at you. And then Toby died, and I was left alone. People tried to take advantage of me. Use me for their own ends or other sick pleasures.” She laughed bitterly, “I showed them who was stronger though.”
Anna wiped her eyes with her sleeve, looking like the same awkward girl he once remembered for a moment. “What happened to the people with me?”
“Dead,” Norman replied flatly.
She let out a bittersweet laugh. “Good, I hope they suffered. Are you going to kill me?”
“I haven’t decided yet.”
She only nodded, not seeming all that surprised by Norman’s answer.
“I understand your anger at me, Anna, but you involved innocent people. That is unforgivable.”
She lowered her head, not able to look Norman in the eyes. “I’m sorry. It’s just that when I found this city and saw that they were undead, I knew I had finally found you. I… I wasn’t thinking straight. I know that’s no excuse, I’m sorry.”
“How did you even find me or manage to get here anyway?” It should have been impossible, then doubly so with the new dinosaur zone to their north.
“A seer was able to point me towards where you lived and I hired an airship captain to fly me over the jungle. Although both are now dead downstairs, so there will be no going back that way.”
Airship? Fuck just how much innovation and change had Norman missed in eight years. He would need to speed up his plans if he wanted to claim the entire deadlands for his kingdom before some other asshats decided to move in.
Norman decided to keep Anna around for the time being. This was only after putting her under a blood oath that prevented her from speaking of the city or harming any of the locals. He didn’t do it out of nostalgia's sake, that ship had sailed long ago. He kept her around because she was the only person here with direct information on the outside world and what had happened over the last eight years. Information was worth more to him right now than a bit of awkwardness every time he saw her.
That didn’t mean she wasn’t put to work. Norman assigned two death knights to keep an eye on her and put her to work helping to clean up the damage around town. Anna had asked him about the damage, but he decided not to answer her question, he was still pretty mad at her.
The pair parted and Norman, Grobert, and Eugene walked outside the city where Anna had said the airship was landed. If they could get it working, maybe they could get past the jungle with ease.
They found the “airship”. It was nothing more than a raft with railings to keep people from falling overboard. Above that was a mess of ropes that must have surrounded a balloon or something at one time, only the balloon was missing. There weren’t any magical symbols or anything magical at all about the craft, it was just wood. Norman couldn’t quite figure out how the thing had flown, let alone left the ground.
It wasn’t like they had found a massive balloon on any of the dead guards Anna had brought with her or anything. It had to be some spell or skill, which was more annoying than finding a broken balloon. They could fix a broken balloon, but Norman wasn’t going to resurrect any of the guards Anna brought. While he could put them under oaths like her, he just didn’t feel like the benefit outweighed the risk.
“Do you think we could make a hot air balloon for it?” Norman asked.
Grobert chewed his lip, “given enough time, sure. But we are stretched thin for resources as it is, and something like this would take months if not years to put together with our current resources. It would be faster to travel through that jungle on foot than it would be to wait for this to be constructed.”
Norman sighed, “I figured as much but it was worth asking. Get a few people out here to disassemble the craft, we can at least repurpose the wood and the ropes elsewhere.”
