“You want to do what?” Norman asked in surprise.

“You heard me, boy,” Grobert replied as he sat at the table.

Norman shook his head in disbelief. It was just so sudden. Here he was sitting down for breakfast a few days after the malarky involving the necromancer and Grobert just sprung this news on him.

“Obviously, I heard you. What I don’t understand is why? Why do you want to go into the jungle?”

“For a couple of reasons. I want to reestablish our teleportation network to Grothlosburg. And I want to hunt down that magical beast.”

“You know it’ll probably kill you right?”

Grobert shrugged. “If I die, I’ll just be revived into the nearest phylactery. What's the big deal?”

“What's the big deal, he says. How about what if you can’t revive from that sort of magical attack?”

“Eh, I’ll take my chances. I never got the chance to hunt a magical creature from my homeworld. This may be my only chance.”

“What about the troll? You killed that.”

“Bah, those things are more like pests than actual threats. I would barely even call them magical. No, I want to hunt something with real stakes.”

“…Ok. I guess I can understand that. But I kind of need you here to help run the city.”

Grobert snapped his fingers, before pointing them at Norman. Norman instantly regretted showing Grobert that gesture. “That’s where you’re wrong. I have finally found suitable people to take over most of my duties.”

“What people?” Norman asked around a mouthful of eggs of some sort. They didn’t taste like chicken eggs but Norman knew better than to ask where his food came from anymore. As long as it tasted good, he didn’t care.

“Some of the new arrivals. A few greykin as well.”

“And you trust these new people?” It certainly hadn’t been long enough to vet anyone.

Grobert snorted. “No. But they are being given the less sensitive positions. The greykin are being given the more important parts.”

Norman knew nothing he said was going to change Grobert’s mind on this. “Ok, how many new people are we talking about? I want to meet them all before you leave.”

Grobert smiled. “I knew you would be on board.”

“As if I had a choice,” Norman mumbled.

A few hours later, a group of ten stood at attention in front of the throne. He recognized Nolia the jorik female but he couldn’t name the other three greykin. And he certainly couldn’t name the six unknown humans that waited in a single file line in front of him.

“Grobert has picked you ten to help lighten his burden as he expands our influence. Tell me who you are and why I should accept you in his place.”

Nolia was the first to step forward. She gave Norman a slight bow. Something, Norman recently learned, the jorik would only give to those they respected. “My Lord. I am Nolia. As you may be aware. I helped run my partner’s business and managed financial decisions for decades. While the entire finances of a kingdom are much broader, I believe I can handle it after Grobert’s tutelage.” When she was finished, she took a step back and the next man spoke.

“My Lord. I am called Garta. Back in Grothlosburg, I was an engineer. While I wasn’t responsible for the public works, I did apprentice under them. So I am familiar with city management to a degree. I believe with my experience, we can avoid some pitfalls to the design of expanding the city.”

Before the man stepped back, Norman held up his hand. “I will need to see any designs before implementation. I don’t want Ashvale to end up like the boring, monotonous design of Grothlosburg.”

The man nodded and stepped back into line.

The third man was a human, one of the few greykin humans around before the influx of new greykin.

“Lord, my friends call me Paul. I was a construction foreman back before the fall. I believe I can leverage those skills to improve the efficiency of new constructions.”

Norman nodded and the man moved back.

The fourth woman stepped forward. “Greetings, Lord Norman. My name is Freya. Grobert has asked me to step in and take over the judiciary process. I performed a similar function in Grothlosburg before my passing. I believe I can help alleviate some of the problems that are bound to crop up with so many new people.”

This continued for the next six people. Bob, Sydney, Jacob, Rachel, Stewart, and Carmen. All of whom used to be executive assistants, of some fashion, back in California. Honestly, if it wasn’t for the helpful nametags, all six were now wearing, Norman would have forgotten their names.

Had they realized Norman wouldn’t remember who they were? Is that why they had donned the nametags in the first place? If so, their ability to foresee future issues was impressive. One of the six would be assigned to each of the department heads to assist as needed. The last two were set aside as Norman’s personal assistants, twenty-four-seven. He hoped that the last part was a joke. He didn’t need someone standing outside his room waiting for him all day every day.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

All in all, Norman couldn’t find any immediate fault in Grobert’s choices. Which sucked. Because it meant Grobert practically vanished after Norman gave his thumbs up. Grobert hadn’t left Ashvale, but he wasn’t exactly making himself available either.

Norman couldn’t fault his friend and advisor for avoiding him. Some days he felt like disappearing too.

The two assistants assigned to him ended up being Jacob and Stewart. Both were rather short, unassuming-looking men. Which was probably a plus in their line of work.

While Norman didn’t have any immediate work for the two, he did grill them on what they knew about California and what was happening there.

Nothing good was the short answer. The long answer was far more complex. Jacob had worked for some Silicon Valley billionaire. After the fall, his boss leveraged his huge financial and political clout to help him quickly develop his magic. The man’s ego went to his head and he eventually tried to take control of a section of California to ‘correct the errors of the past’. From what Jacob said, the man was trying to make some sort of agrarian utopia. And he actually succeeded for a time.

Until other such megalomaniacs started popping up. It seemed like California had a rather dense population of strong opinionated people with powers. Jacob didn’t know what happened after that as he died in the attack that killed his boss.

Stewart was able to fill in the gaps after that. Seeing as he worked for the man that killed Jacob’s boss. That fact that Stewart had worked for his killer didn’t seem to bother Jacob one bit. Stewart’s boss was not trying to start some holistic commune as Jabob’s boss had. He had gone the brutal tyrant route.

After Stewart's boss took control, there was a whole lot more fighting amongst former tech giants and those with large egos. All of whom seemed to have developed magical powers.

Then another contender appeared and eliminated Stewart’s boss and put an end to the fighting by creating a magical alliance of wizards. Which they simply called the Wizard Council. After the fighting came to an end, this council used its power to force the rest of Northern California to fall into line with their goals. Which appeared to be the reunification of the State under one authority.

While this seemed like a noble goal, their methods were anything but. Then again, could Norman fault them for using what worked?

Those in power now, being a lot of the same individuals that held sway prior to the fall was concerning. And it wasn’t just the magically inclined taking over that concerned him, but the fact that those inclined to magic seemed to be a bit narcissistic. At least that’s what Norman was beginning to notice. While Norman certainly didn’t consider himself to fall on the spectrum of narcissism, he couldn’t rule it out. He had after all started his own county.

His experience with classers and mages seemed to indicate a predilection for some form of mental disorder. At least as far as humans went. Maybe it was another aspect of the gene responsible for those disorders that also unlocked abilities and magic. If true, that was a worrying thought.

Although, narcissism was low on Norman’s worry list, even if those people had kind of run the country into the ground before the fall. No, it was the other types of mental illnesses that Norman really lost sleep over. The psychopaths and sociopaths. While Sin and even Eugene showed tendencies toward both, he doubted he had even come across a true psychopath or sociopath yet. The closest example he had was that Gail person.

What someone with powerful magic and a complete lack of conscience could do was not something he wanted to ponder. It left him imagining scenarios of world-ending proportions.

But Norman couldn’t dwell on the what-if. And he certainly wasn’t responsible for everyone’s actions. As far as he was concerned, this was just another mystery that he didn’t have time to look into. Especially now that he knew what was in California.

When he asked Stewart how he died, the man said he never died. He was converted into undead to assist Vincent – that was the name of the necromancer Norman had killed – and never really liked the man, but wasn’t really given a choice in the matter.

Norman even asked him if he would like to be returned to life. The man declined the offer. He said he was a far more effective assistant when he didn’t need to worry about niggling little things like sleep and other bodily functions.

Apparently, all the man ever wanted to do was be the best executive assistant there was. Norman thought that was a bit sad but didn’t comment on the man’s life choices.

After Norman got their life stories, he was going to dismiss them, but they had prepared for that. Jacob listed out people with job specialties and where they best fit in inside the city.

Norman had to stop the man and ask him why he was telling him this. The man seemed confused by this for a moment before Stewart spoke up.

“I believe our Lord allows people to choose their own roles.”

“…But…that’s so inefficient,” Jacob replied in confusion.

Norman sighed. “While I can appreciate some amount of efficiency. A town is not a company. And I don’t plan to micromanage the lives of my people. They would hate me if I did, and I would never get anything else done. Tell them to find something they enjoy and do that. But they do need to do something. Tell Eugene if he finds people not pulling their weight that he can assign them to a work crew.”

Jacob nodded, seeming happy to scribble that down in his notepad before hurrying off to locate Eugene.

Norman turned toward Stewart. “And what about you?”

The man smiled. “My first boss wasn’t quite so rigid. And when I worked under Vincent, well… let's just say he issued demands rather than orders.”

Norman didn’t ask what would happen if someone failed to carry out Vincent’s demands. He only had to see the host of mindless undead in Vincent’s employ to see what happened to people that displeased him.

“Well, I’m sorry you had to work for someone like that. I won’t ever demand you do something. I like to think of myself as low maintenance. But if you’ve spoken to Grobert, you probably got the full scoop already.”

The man’s smile grew. “I did, Sir. Would you prefer I call you Sir, Lord, or just Norman?”

“Norman when we are alone. Sir or Lord when in the company of outsiders.”

“Very well, Norman. Grobert did give me an agenda to go over with you… if you have time.”

Norman sighed. “Of course he did. Let's get this over with.”

He spent the rest of the afternoon going over the city’s finances. Which were abysmal, but improving. Thanks in part to the Alacala merchants coming through on a weekly basis. The influx of resources was mainly in metals rather than money, but they didn’t need money at the moment. Nolia would eventually take over this task, but Grobert was still getting her up to speed on the more detailed aspects of her position.

Hopefully, if Grobert survived his little excursion and connected to Grothlosburg they could change their money issues.

“Oh,” Stewart pulled out a folded sheet of paper. “Grobert said he was going to need these resources for his trip.”

Norman’s eyes widened at the resource amounts listed. “These are almost half our supply of rare elements.”

“Over two-thirds actually.”

He groaned at that. “I assume these are for his project?”

“He did mention a project called ‘Project Dislocation’ I assume that is what you are referring to?”

Norman just nodded. Apparently, Grobert felt it was best to keep their little teleportation project a secret for now. “Ok, have Nolia mark it down as going toward that project. Any other reports?”

“None at the moment, Norman.”

Norman waited for the man to leave before he relaxed in his chair. He wished he could be heading off with Grobert for an adventure, instead of doing this.