“Drop your gun and go stand over by your sister. Don’t try anything dumb… or dumber than normal for you. I have no reason to keep you alive.” Toby glared at Norman but put his gun down and slowly walked over to his sister.

Anna grabbed onto her brother's arm like a drowning woman as she too glared at him. At least she wasn’t still harboring feelings for him. That could have made this whole encounter really awkward.

“Why is it every time I interact with you, it's always some fucking drama? You were doing so well the last time we spoke. I actually thought you might be able to change. But here you are back to your old crazy self. I suppose Toby’s to blame for most of that. He never was a good influence.”

“Fuck you, Norman,” Toby spat. “If it wasn’t for you, our lives would be normal.”

Norman laughed at that accusation. “Me? You’re the dumb fuck that got me involved with your nonsense. But I’m not here to point fingers. I’m here to ask Anna where Donovan is.”

“Who?” Toby asked.

“How would I know?” Anna said at the same time.

Toby glanced at his sister.

“He’s the leader of the Council. The one that told me how to revive you,” she answered her brother's unasked question.

“He was the leader. But not any longer. And the council is no more,” Norman stated.

“What did you do?” she hissed at him.

“I did what any intelligent person would do. I got rid of a threat. But the man and his son escaped. If you have any idea where he is, now’s the time to tell me. I won’t ask again.” At least not while she was alive anyway.

“I already fucking told you, I don’t know where he is! And why would I fucking tell you if I did? You come barging into my territory, acting like you own the damn place, and then come here demanding answers! No, Norman, Fuck You! I’m not telling you shit.”

He sighed. When he saw Anna’s name in the book he knew getting information from her was not going to be easy. “I see. I didn’t want to do this, but you leave me no choice.” He started spinning up a spell form in his mind.

Before the spell could be completed, Toby reached down to the desk and clicked a button.

There was a pop and the two started to fall through a hidden trapdoor behind the desk. Norman cursed and canceled the spell he had been preparing. There wasn’t time for anything fancy but he was able to quickly put together another spell and launch it at the dropping pair of siblings.

When the spell failed to do anything, Anna flipped him off just before she vanished behind the desk. He rushed across the room, but by the time he got there, the trap door that led to the floor below was already swinging closed. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a flashing light.

When he leaned down to see what it was, he froze. There was a brick of C4 stuck to the underside of the desk. He managed to turn his head away from the explosive just before it detonated. Intense heat rolled across his body as his armor protected him from the shockwave.

Moments later a cloud of wooden shrapnel from the obliterated desk pelted him. Whatever missed his body embedded itself into the walls and ceiling of the room. His vision was momentarily blocked by the dust and smoke that filled the air, but he didn’t need to breathe, so he simply waited for it to clear enough to see again.

Norman surveyed the damage that the trap had done to the room. The floor, ceiling, and wall out to ten feet had been obliterated, the rest of the room wasn’t much better. He checked his body for any wounds, but other than some carbon scoring from the blast, he was unharmed. The floor had dented underneath him, but the blast had cleared away most of the wood flooring, revealing a thick plate of steel underneath.

He cursed himself for falling for this trap and letting the pair escape. Of course, the paranoid bastard Toby would have contingency plans in place. If he hadn’t made them stand next to each other would Toby have sacrificed himself to save his sister?

After pushing some soot aside, he stomped against the exposed trap door, but it didn’t budge. It was solid, likely designed to survive the blast. He rubbed his chin as he contemplated his options.

The first was to go after them. A disintegration beam would cut through the metal eventually but what would be the point? If Donovan hadn’t told the rest of his council where he was going, he doubted he had told Anna. So she probably wasn’t lying about that part. The woman was unstable at the best of times and wasn’t the type of person you would trust with anything of value. So chasing them down seemed rather pointless.

If he doubted Anna knew anything, then he was just chasing them for revenge. Revenge for what though? He hadn’t so much as taken a scratch in this encounter, despite being shot at, restrained, and blown up. Some might argue he would be eliminating a future threat by killing the siblings. And he supposed that was true on some level.

Were they a threat though? If this was the best Toby and Anna could come up with to stop him, they weren’t even a threat to a normal Normanian citizen, let alone him. Maybe back before he left Grothlosburg he would fear retaliation from the pair. But now he just found them quite sad.

Norman sighed, he just wanted to go home. He didn’t want to waste time chasing two idiots through whatever trap-infested escape route the pair had prepared. Besides, it wasn’t like he couldn’t deal with them if they became a problem in the future. The spells he had cast may not have harmed them but it did act as a beacon.

It was a simple spell composed of Oscillation, Ethereal Binding, and Soul Anchor symbols. As long as he was within range of the pair, he could fire off any deadly combination of magic that targeted that unique oscillation pattern and it would home in on them. His range was limited but if he amplified the spell he could probably reach out to over a mile. It was something he hadn’t tested the limit of yet, it had just been a thought experiment until today. This was so last minute that he didn’t even have a name for this spell yet. There were other unknowns to consider as well, like them hiding in cover or underground. But it was the best he could do in the time he had to cast.

After a bit of mental back and forth, he decided it wasn’t worth wasting his time chasing down the siblings at the moment. He needed to get back to Ashvale to help with the deployment and ensure Donovan didn’t take the opportunity to strike while he wasn’t there.

When he had time, he would add a sensor to the wards around Ashvale to detect the signal from Toby or Anna. If they ever approached Ashvale, he would simply strike out with his most deadly spell and call it a day.

With a decision made, he made his way through the broken room. It took him a bit of effort to get the reinforced doors opened. He had to strain his enhanced strength, but the door eventually bent enough that he was able to wrench it open and slip through.

A lot of thought and planning went into that room to make it contain the blast. But it was all done with mundane effort. There wasn’t a single spec of magic or enchantments on the room or doors. He found that a bit odd considering Anna worked with the Council. But perhaps they didn’t have that close of a relationship. It could help explain why she was never uncovered by his spies.

The once full room outside the office was now empty and quiet. It seemed everyone had fled at some point during his chat. Probably when the explosive went off. Instead of wasting his time weaving his way through the tangle of desks, he hopped on top of them and made a beeline for the stairs.

As he was about to enter the stairwell, the man who had been stationed there to guide him appeared from around the corner with a fire axe. Out of instinct, Norman jerked his arm up and the blade of the axe slammed into his forearm. He barely felt the blow thanks to his armor. The man cocked his arm back for a second strike but Norman was faster. A small hole sliced through the man’s forehead and he dropped to the ground.

Grunting in annoyance, he stepped over the corpse and made his way downstairs.

There were a few more obstacles in his way, but he dealt with them in a similar manner.

When he exited the building, he found Eugene and the rest of the Death Knights guarding the doorway in a semi-circle. Around them lay a literal pile of corpses and the street was eerily quiet. He wondered where the people from the top floor had gone. Probably some other secret exit.

“Boss,” Eugene nodded when he heard the door behind him open.

“Had a bit of trouble?”

“Not really. They attacked about a minute after you entered the building but we dealt with it. We heard the blast. I assume your talk didn’t go as planned?”

“Oh, you could say that. She didn’t know anything about Donovan’s whereabouts. Although I did get to learn why she joined the Council.” Norman told his commander of Toby’s return.

Eugene’s only reply was a grunt. The big man turned toward the pile of bodies and jerked his head. “What do you wanna do about them?”

“Nothing,” he said as he started walking toward an open section in the pile of bodies.

The rest of his people fell in line behind him. Norman didn’t owe these people anything. It wasn’t his fault they were brainwashed by Anna. If she came back, she could clean up her own mess. If not, someone else could do it for her, he didn’t particularly care.

***

After what felt like days, but had only been roughly eight hours, Norman found himself standing back in Ashvale. He breathed in a deep breath of fresh air, letting the smell of his home sit in his undead lungs before releasing it back out. There was a faint hint of flowers as well as the thick loamy smell of the forest with only a slight undertone of decay from all the undead.

He wished he could just grab Kalia and escape into the gardens around the Ministry for the rest of the day. But there was still much work to do.

With Donovan and his son roaming free, he needed to figure out a way to prevent them from striking Normenia. Even though the former Council Leader’s power base was stripped away, Norman doubted he had seen the last of the man. He would need to be extra vigilant against him.

The first thing Norman did was go and visit his wife. They shared a kiss and a meal before they went back to work. After that, he checked in with Grobert.

The old gron didn’t have much to report other than he had the teleporters finished. At least the ones they needed at the moment. More would need to be constructed as the array placement expanded into new territories. Thankfully, the gron ministry had finally gotten off their asses and agreed to assist with the project. A bit late to help with the design phase, but they were willing to commit people to assisting with the deployment so that was something.

Norman was glad to hear this because he was uncertain how they were going to deploy to places halfway around the world. The gron would be instrumental with that facet of the plan since they had teleporters in all of their old zones. They also had hundreds, maybe even thousands of earth mages they could call on to create the sensors and dampeners that the enchanters had come up with.

That was a huge weight off his back. He wasn’t sure they could have created enough of the devices to make a difference before. But now he was more optimistic about their success. There was still a lot that needed to be done in a short amount of time, and many things that could go wrong, but Normenia would push forward no matter what.