M.J. Markgraf
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Norman the Necromancer Chapter 94
🕑 Added 2023-04-24 12:01:00 +0000 UTCAs soon as Norman returned to the castle he heard a racket coming from the kitchen of all places. Curious, he went to go see what was going on. When he pushed the door open he saw two gron women and a human woman cooking.
The human greykin woman must have spotted the door opening as she immediately looked over.
She gave a slight bow. “Hello, Sir. Sorry about the noise and the mess. Grobert asked us if we could help prepare a meal.”
“Oh… well, thank you. All of you, you didn’t have to. And don’t worry about the noise, I was just curious as all.”
“It was the least we could do after you saved us, Sir.”
Norman gave an awkward nod. “Well, I’ll let you get back to your work then.”
After he left them to prepare, he went upstairs and took a nice long shower. He was glad someone had fixed that feature. By some miracle when he got out of the shower, there was a clean set of clothes laying on a table for him. He ran his hand over the cloth. The clothes were made from the same plant fibers as every other set of recent clothing he had seen. It made sense, the grass was found everywhere around the valley. Norman did notice this set of clothing was much nicer than what he had been wearing. It seemed someone had improved on the process, which was a good sign that things were slowly returning to normal.
After he put the new clothes on, he also found he wasn’t nearly as hot and sweaty as he had been before. While the wasteland clothing was overall still a better quality, it wasn’t built for this environment. It was good at keeping you cool from the blistering sun, but it absorbed moisture like a sponge.
This new plant-based clothing didn’t seem to have that issue. When Norman got a small corner of it wet, it seemed to shed the water almost like it was hydrophobic. The only downside to this new clothing was how much it itched. That probably had something to do with the thick fibers that the grasses were made out of. Norman really missed his cotton shirts and jean shorts.
The town resembled some weird naturalist hippy commune with everyone wandering around in off-white clothing. It would probably look that way for a few more months. There wasn’t exactly a big push for dyes to change that. At least the cloth looked slightly green in the right light, which gave the material some personality. Norman wished he had a mirror so he could see how goofy he looked in the loose-fitting tunic and pants.
After getting dressed and brushing his hair with a comb made from fish bone, he headed downstairs.
He didn’t think he was late, but when he entered the room, he found the table set. His advisors and Anna were also waiting for him.
“I hope I didn’t keep you all waiting.”
“We just arrived,” Grobert responded diplomatically. Norman didn’t believe it for a minute.
Norman pulled out his chair and motioned for everyone to be seated since it seemed like they were waiting for him to take his place first. He wanted to shake his head at the nonsense, but they had an outside guest, so he needed to put his best foot forward.
As if on cue, the kitchen door opened and the three greykin women hustled out carrying dishes of food along with a few pitchers of ice-cold beverages. Norman could tell the liquid inside was ice cold because the pitchers had condensation beading along the outside of the clay surface.
“Well, isn’t this fancy? Eating like a king up here while everyone else gets gruel,” Anna snapped, earning a disapproving look from Grobert who sat across from her.
Eugene remained stoically quiet.
Norman waited for the women to leave before he addressed Anna. He knew where she was coming from, but the fact is, she was wrong. “If you think I eat like this every day, you are mistaken. Those women chose to come up here and make this meal tonight. If I hear you belittling the hard work of the people in town again, you can pack up and leave. I will not stand for it.”
He stared at the woman.
“Sorry,” she mumbled, looking away.
Seeing that he got his point across, Norman nodded. “Now, let's eat. We can discuss matters after we are full.”
The meal went by peacefully as everyone enjoyed the food. The women had cooked up some sort of roast with a sweet and spicy sauce drizzled over it. It was paired with grilled wild vegetables and something like a salad. Only Norman didn’t recognize any of the ingredients from the salad. It was delicious though.
He wanted to ask Grobert about it but didn’t want to disrupt the quiet peace of the meal.
All of that was washed down by a fruity drink that tasted a lot like pear juice. Everything had been delicious. Even more so since he hadn’t eaten anything other than bland foods and maybe some local fruits and vegetables lately.
As soon as everyone finished their food, the women came back and cleared everything away. He would really like to know how they knew it was time to come back. Norman suspected it was something Grobert was doing, but whatever it was, the man was being very circumspect about it.
“Well, that was delicious. Thank you all again for agreeing to make this meal for us.”
“Yes, it was amazing,” Anna added, earning a small smile from the women.
The three women bowed. “It was our pleasure.”
With that, they finished removing the dishes and left.
“Well, I guess it's time to get down to why I invited you all here. Anna, I would like to know what you can tell me about the situation outside our zone.”
“I honestly probably can’t tell you much. I wasn’t exactly keen on local politics in the places I lived. Other than New York.”
“Alright, well, start there. How did you even get to New York?”
Before she could answer, Eugene coughed. “I can probably answer that. You found a portal from Grothlosburg?”
Anna nodded.
“There should be two more. One to China, and the other to Brazil. At least a part of Brazil.”
That sparked a memory in Norman’s mind. “Wait? Is that where that goofy fire mage came from?”
Eugene nodded. “He worked as a hitman for the Triad. The groups formed a council between the three and Sin.”
Norman chuckled. “I’m taking it that didn’t work out well in Sin’s favor?”
Eugene shook his head.
“I guess that explains why the New York families wanted the land back so badly,” Anna added.
That statement got Norman’s attention. “Go on.”
She spoke of how she ruthlessly carved out a chunk of New York as revenge for her brother’s death. This only solidified Norman’s resolve never to mention the possibility that his death could have been what caused Toby’s untimely and questionable – but well-earned – demise.
“If you had all that, why did you leave?” Grobert asked.
Anna frowned. “I didn’t have a choice. The families ganged up on me and killed off all of my people. After leaving them a going away present, I was forced to retreat back to Grothlosburg. Then I ran afoul of the lovely gron legal system for a year,” she stated, looking pointedly at Grobert.
Grobert simply shrugged. “I’m sure they had their reasons to punish you.”
The two continued to glare at each other until Norman cleared his throat. “Ahem. Let’s keep going.”
With a disdainful sniff, Anna turned away from Grobert and continued speaking. “Well, the quakes likely broke up the council that those three had developed. Only New York remained connected afterward.”
“Quakes?” Norman asked in confusion.
“Yeah, the quakes, the ones that happened about three years ago. How can you not know about the quakes?”
“She likely means the ones that caused the zones to shift,” Grobert cut in.
“Obviously,” Anna huffed. “How do you not know this?”
Norman sighed. “When you first arrived and I said I was dead. I wasn’t being facetious. I really was dead. For almost eight years.”
Anna gave Norman a blank look. “I… don’t understand.”
Norman explained it to her. “You know how I came back after my heart exploded?”
She nodded, a dark look crossing her face.
“Well, a year after we arrived here, we were attacked by a group that called itself the Brotherhood. At first, we thought they were some religious extremists hell-bent on ridding the world of the undead. And some of them actually were. But mainly they were just a group of outlaws that tricked people into thinking they were righteous and just. One of my people betrayed us to this organization and they attacked Ashvale and killed everyone here. Through sheer effort, I managed to come up with a spell to save myself. Only it wasn’t perfect. I miscalculated the energy requirements and it took far longer to activate than it should have.”
He could see Anna shiver at the idea of being dead for so long.
“Does that mean you can bring anyone back?” She asked hopefully.
Norman shook his head. “No, I need an intact body for the spell to work correctly.” It wasn’t a lie, not technically.
There is no way in hell Norman would consider resurrecting Toby. It was best if Anna thought it was impossible.
The girl deflated slightly. “Sorry. I just thought – Anyway, after my incarceration in Grothlosburg, I found out someone had made portals connecting some of the old United States. It only connected New York to Florida, Texas, Colorado, and Tennessee but it was a start. I moved around from state to state, not staying long. It was much the same everywhere. The local governments had collapsed or turned into some form of Monarchy, Authoritarian state, Fascist Regime, or Totalitarian nightmare. With a strong magic user or classer ruling over large parts of the former states and the people’s lives.”
“Well shit, I guess we had it rather good in Colorado. What happened there?”
“I visited Redstone Springs. The town was simply gone. Everything had been destroyed years before I showed up. I never did find out what happened to the town. The few people still living nearby scuttled away in fear at the first sight of me. I was able to learn that Sin was killed by his own men not long after Eugene disappeared though.”
Norman saw Eugene wince at this.
“From there, his criminal empire split up and everyone tried to grab a piece for themselves. At least until the Ice King cracked down on the lawlessness. I don’t know who the person was but he seemed to be doing a decent job running the state. Far more so than some others I came across. I didn’t want to get into a pissing contest with someone who went around calling themselves the Ice King so I left. Other than that there isn’t anything else of note. The other states are even more fractured than New York. To be honest, Norman, this is the calmest place I have lived short of Grothlosburg, and let's face it, that place sucks.”
All three men nodded in agreement.
“What about California? I recently met a man that had traveled from there. Although he had been gone for some time.”
“Only rumors I’m afraid. They say that anyone that goes north from a certain point never returns.”
“That doesn’t sound good. I hope Pedro will be ok.”
Norman also hoped his death knights would be ok too. They had been heading toward Northern California. The fact that his grimoire had first been sold near there and now people were vanishing could not be a coincidence. He would talk with Eugene and Grobert about it after Anna left.
“Thank you, Anna. Do either of you have any more questions?”
Grobert and Eugene asked a few more questions. It seemed like they mainly wanted to know the strength of these possible entities or any forces that might cause issues.
Anna wasn’t able to supply much information on them, but she was able to tell Grobert more about these portals.
After she left, Grobert turned toward Norman. “I don’t think we need to worry about those portals. They aren’t like my teleporters. If anything, they are a tactical vulnerability, worse than my teleporter. Speaking of teleporters, I finally have the materials ready to rebuild the one for Ashvale.”
“Hold up,” Eugene spoke. “I am not letting you put another one of those things inside the city.”
Grobert sighed. “I am well aware of your reservations. And as much as I am loath to admit it, I agree. But we still need teleporters. The economic value they bring alone is too good to pass up. So I propose we build a new arrival station outside the wall.”
“It's still a risk. What if another enemy uses it to attack us?”
“Do we know how they managed it last time?” Norman asked.
Grobert nodded. “I spoke with the guards stationed inside at the time. They described a woman appearing from the teleporter. Before they could react, she exploded in blue light.”
“She blew herself up!” Norman exclaimed.
“Yes and no. What she did was detonate her entire mana pool. The resulting expulsion of mana interacted with the environment and flash froze everything inside.”
“How does something like that even work?” Norman asked, stupefied. It seemed like he learned something new about magic every day.
“You know how you can see wind currents around an air mage when they are drawing mana from the environment?”
Norman nodded.
“Well, it's essentially the same thing, but in reverse, and a hundred times more concentrated. The internal mana doesn’t really have any effect on the surroundings, but it acts like a magnet, drawing huge amounts of environmental mana into the area. The two forms of mana interact, causing the spell to manifest. It's much like how normal spells operate but on a much larger scale.”
Norman thought he understood. It was almost like matter and anti-matter. The two opposing forces would collide, creating energy. Or in this case magic.
“Well, that’s terrifying. Can we stop people from doing this?”
“Maybe, but not with our current resources.”
Norman sat back in his chair and rubbed his chin. “What is the likelihood of someone doing this again?”
“Slim. It’s essentially a death sentence to the person doing it. We can also mitigate the effects similar to how it was mitigated before.”
“Oh?” Norman asked.
“Having the teleporter in an enclosed building will slow down the environmental mana transfer process. The internal mana can only exist for a short time outside of a body. Once it dissipates, the spell ends.”
“I still think it’s too dangerous,” Eugene grumbled.
“While I agree there is some danger,” Norman spoke, “I also agree with Grobert’s assessment. We need these teleporters if we want to expand beyond our small town.”
Eugene grunted. “Yeah, I thought you might say that. But I still needed to give my opinion on the matter.”
“Ok, let's do this. Build a structure outside of town. Far enough from the wall and the new farms to give us time to act if it's attacked. Maintain a force of eight death knights at the building. Four inside and four patrolling around the exterior. Have the walls made as thick as the armory, and work with the jorik and anyone else with magic to enchant the door. I will also add an array around the building that is triggered if any soul is released inside. It will then cover the entire area inside with an array that sucks away all mana. I would like to do more, but I don’t think the array would last long enough to be effective for anything else.”
Eugene frowned. “You’re not going to recreate the array you used in town during the battle?”
Norman shook his head. “No. I thought about it but decided it was a bad idea. With our new trading partners, it wouldn’t work. I can’t have the spell randomly sucking a visitor dry if say a citizen takes a nasty header off a roof and bites the dust.”
“I guess I see your point. Are we going to create a teleporter into the wasteland?”
Norman shook his head. “No. We might establish one if we build an outpost near the border, but I don’t want any teleporters outside the country unless we secure the area they are in.”
“I suppose I can live with that,” Eugene grudgingly agreed.
“One last thing before you go. You both heard what Anna said about California? Should we be worried?”
Eugene rubbed his chin in thought. “It’s too early to know anything for sure. According to the map we found, it should take around a month just to get to the outskirts of California. It's too bad we don’t have any way to communicate over long distances.”
“Yeah. I guess all I can really do is try summoning them once a week. The spell should fail if they are still alive. I’ll need to verify that though. Any chance we could get a primitive radio working?” He knew it was unlikely, but it couldn’t hurt to ask.
Grobert shook his head. “We barely managed to get that telegraph working before, and now we don’t even have that thanks to the Brotherhood. It’s probably going to be a few years before our industry gets up to speed enough to craft something like a radio.”
“Yeah, I figured. Well, that’s all I have, but I want to do these discussion sessions once every two weeks for now. And if anything important crops up, just come see me.”
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Anna getting put in her place by Norm! Go Norm.
