“We’ve arrested Councilor Sharina,” Eugene stated as he stormed into the castle.
“I assume by your angry demeanor that you were not able to find Donovan?” Princess growled next to his seat at the mention of the missing Councilor’s name and Norman rubbed her head to settle her.
Princess was another one who seemed to be upset, but probably for a different reason than Eugene.
“No, it seems he well and truly fled back to California.”
Norman nodded, expecting as much from what he learned during his little chat with Gail while she was trying to murder him. The man must have known something was up to plan his escape like this. “Well, since you’re here, John and Shannon, can you fill us in on what you discovered.”
The two Wraiths appeared in the room and bowed to Norman and Eugene.
Shannon was the first to speak. Her words were tinged with annoyance, likely aimed at herself. “I was following Donovan as you ordered when he cast a spell and I was ejected from the building. By the time I returned, Gail had already made her move and the enemy soldiers were already attacking. Whatever spell Donovan used to force me away, prevented me from reentering the Ministry to assist. Not wanting to expose myself, I surveyed the surroundings to ensure no gomer escaped the square.”
“Did he say or do anything out of the ordinary before that?” Eugene asked.
“No, the man never even conversed with his fellow councilors. He would always just walk around with that smirk on his face like he knew something.”
Norman got the same impression from the man like everything was going according to his plan. Nobody knew exactly what the man’s magical specialty was, he had never cast a single spell in front of anyone until today.
“Any idea what type of magic he used?” Norman inquired.
Shannon shook her head. “I can only assume it was necromantic in origin since it affected me.”
Either Donovan was another necromancer, which seemed unlikely, or his son had created a spell.
“Thank you, Shannon. What did you find on the ship, John?” Norman was curious to see what these aggressive Gorfan had created.
“There were twenty Gorfan aboard with ten being officers of some type. Dispatching them proved to be easy since they had no means of harming me. The genetically modified soldiers were a different story.”
“Their weapons could hit you?” Eugene asked in surprise.
“No, but they were packed so tightly inside those balls that it was impossible for me to phase in and attack them.”
Norman held up his hand to stop the man. “Wait, you just left them?”
John shrugged. “They were dormant so I didn’t see it as much of a problem. I think they are only activated by the weapon.”
Norman wanted to rub his temples. He didn’t need a possible Trojan horse on his doorstep. “At least tell me you got an accurate count of the remaining gomer?”
“Oh, yeah, They shove twenty of those things in each sphere. All the remaining space is filled with some sort of gel, it’s probably what keeps them alive and sedated.”
“What about the ship?” Eugene inquired.
“There’s not much to it. It seems like an ocean barge with a large U shape cut out on one end that acts like a magical slingshot. I couldn’t tell you how it flies or how it stays invisible. Asking their corpses would probably garner that information if they hadn’t taken steps to prevent that.”
This time Norman did rub his temples. “Let me guess, their bodies dissolved?”
“Yup, all but one.”
Norman perked up at this. “Go on.”
“The Captain, or whatever they call their Captains, was the last to fall. Only he didn’t melt away like the others, instead, he reverted to a semi-transparent blob. That’s the best description I can come up with.”
Princess stood up and growled at this as she started pawing Norman’s arm. Then she stepped down and nodded her head for Norman and the others to follow. Curious to see what his hellhound wanted, he followed her.
Soon they were led through the streets until they came to a small alley. Inside the alley was a scene of carnage. Princess chuffed as she pawed at the strangely colored blood on the ground. John appeared again and got a closer look at the blood.
“I think it’s the same as the ship Captain’s.”
“The question is, what does it mean?” Norman pondered the issue while Eugene and the two wraiths examined the scene. Was this another force looking to cause chaos? Norman didn’t think so. He had a pretty good idea of what these things were.
“Who do we have watching Donovan’s spies?”
Eugene looked up from his examination. “You think it’s one of his?”
“It’s the only thing that makes sense, but I want to verify it first.”
“I think both Yulia and Greg are shadowing one of his people. You want only one?”
Norman shook his head. “Tell them both to dispatch them as soon as possible and relocate to the Council’s territory. They can send us their finding while they are on the move.”
Eugene wiped his hands off and nodded. “I’ll go send their new orders right now if you don’t need me for anything else.”
Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
“Not at the moment. I will come by later when it’s time to question Gail, J-son, and Sharina.”
Norman could have gone over right away, but there were a couple of things he wanted to prepare special for Gail and J-son. Storing their souls for an extended period would be expensive and risky. But he had another way to ensure people would leave them be. It was the step he hadn’t wanted to take but it seemed it was inevitable.
One thing Norman was sure about was that he wasn’t about to let the Gorfan Principality get away with attacking them. While Eugene was issuing orders, Norman was doing the same. Only his didn’t involve the guard, at least not yet. He even handed a letter to Stewart to hand off to a guard at the teleportation center. There was one man stationed there in case they needed to reach Grobert. The letter wouldn’t call the man back, but it would give him an additional set of instructions.
“Jacob.”
“Yes, Sir?”
“Are you familiar with Parker?”
“The hunter?”
“That’s the one. Please take this to him and wait for his reply,” Norman handed a note to the unassuming assistant. Norman could have sworn the man had grown slightly in the last few weeks. Then again it was probably due to the man’s weird diet. Really, who eats gemstones? Norman wasn’t concerned, it was probably some weird calling. Besides, the man was cleared as a potential risk by his Wraith Guard. If the man wished to keep his secret, that was fine. If he wanted to speak about it, that was fine too. Norman didn’t need to pry into the lives of his people.
After sending off the two men, Norman couldn’t put off this next part any longer. With Lohr and Nolix back on their feet, they followed behind him, looking stoic as he headed for the barracks. After arriving, Norman left the two upstairs as he pressed his hand into a magic circle to reveal a hidden door.
Magical lights lit the winding stairwell down, and down. Norman could feel the responsibilities of his position weighing down on him more and more as he took each step until he reached the bottom level. Some of that was due to the wards and enchantments carved into the walls, ceilings, and floors but not all of it.
Very few people would ever be subjected to the prison inside Ashvale. Even the attack teams sent by the SCA, or he supposed he should call it the Commonwealth, were only ever held in lockup.
This place was meant for the worst offenders, those who should never see the light of day again. Norman stepped through a Wall of Fog into a large open room. There were no cells or bars to hold anyone inside, even the wall was only meant to keep people out. Only three people had access to this room, Norman, Grobert, and Eugene. Anyone else attempting to get inside would be in for a world of hurt.
The reason for that was the unique magic that encased this entire bottom floor as well as the ground around it going all the way up to the doorway he had left his guards at. The spell was based on Norman’s experience when he dosed himself with jorik blood. Saliu had called him a fucking fool and said what Norman experienced was mana poisoning. Apparently, it was almost always lethal. That fact would have been good to know back when he was still using the substance.
And while Saliu and the other enchanters, he had assembled, were able to mostly recreate the feeling, it wasn’t quite as bad. How did Norman know? Well, someone had to test it. Norman confirmed that even in his undead state, it left him paralyzed in agony and unable to cast any magic. Anyone caught down here that shouldn’t be would be subject to that state until someone found them. They wouldn’t die though, Norman made sure of that. But that was only for uninvited guests.
As for the prisoners? Norman walked over to a series of racks situated against one wall. On the rack sat row after row of soul traps. They were linked to all of his arrays inside the city. The only people exempt from those arrays were the leadership and ministers.
Norman hesitated when reaching out to grab one of the active orbs.
“You don’t have to do this, Boss,” Eugene spoke quietly as he walked over.
Norman hadn’t even heard him enter the room.
“If I don’t more of our people will have to suffer.”
“Better them, than you,” Eugene grunted.
Norman shook his head slightly. “I know you don’t believe that, at least not completely. This burden is for me to take on.” Eugene remained quiet as Norman snatched up the first orb and walked over to the array area.
The spell form was already laid out and waiting, it had been for some time, but Norman hadn’t wanted to or needed to use it until today. “I will become the devil if it allows my people to live in peace.” With that statement, he passed the orb into one of the spell circles and activated it.
He wasn’t sure who would pop out, but when he saw the snarling form of Gail, he smiled. She was the perfect candidate for the initial test.
She was yelling or screaming, but the array blocked all sound, not as if Norman cared for what she had to say. He moved over to the second circle and began manipulating the symbols. It took him no time at all, his recent work with creating the Wraith was still fresh in his mind. Once the changes were made, he stepped back and activated the second half.
For this spell, Norman had removed any of the pain dampeners set into the circle. There would always be some pain, even in his Wraith spell. You didn’t simply manipulate the shape of someone’s soul without some pain. The pain was the purpose of this spell.
He watched in detachment as Gail’s ghostly form was wrenched through the transference circle and spit out the other end, slightly changed.
The look of dumbfounded horror on her face almost made Norman stop what he was doing, but then he recalled how many people she had harmed. He stuck the soul trap into the circle and repeated the spell, over and over and over again. Changing and twisting her slightly with each and every iteration.
He could tell when she finally broke, and he moved her to another circle where he could question her.
“Was Donovan a part of your plan?”
“No,” the woman wailed in agony.
So either the woman was lying or she had been completely duped by Donovan like he thought she had.
“What type of mage is Donovan!”
“He’s a controller,” the ghostly woman flinched back at Norman’s angry tone.
“That doesn’t tell me shit, what kind of magic can he perform!”
“H- he controls things, he can make pacts, or prevent you from accessing your magic, those sorts of things.”
“What else? Where do his spies come from?” Norman demanded.
“I don’t know. Most of the Council assumes he summons them somehow.”
This explained the man’s ability to censure people. If it was some sort of binding pact that prevented them from accessing their spells. It seemed like a different version of a blood oath. It still surprised Norman that something so simple had allowed the man to kill a powerful mage and take over as the leader of Northern California. Either Gail was hiding something or she didn’t know the man’s true potential. Norman figured it was the latter. But what about the spell he used today? Knowing what he knew now, Norman had an idea of what it might be. Some sort of banish spell, or turn undead was his guess. Neither of those required the user to be a necromancer.
“What was your goal with this attack!”
“To kill you all so I could take over California. Please, change me back, I won’t hurt anyone ever again, I swear!”
The woman was fucking delusional if she thought he believed that. Well, he believed the part where she wanted to take over California. It made a twisted sort of sense. Get her main competition and their greatest threats out of the way and it would have been clear sailing for the power-mad woman.
“How are the Gorfan involved?”
“They wanted to kill off the Council, so I approached them with a deal.”
Norman wasn’t surprised by this, Gail and the Gorfan seemed to be cut from the same fucked up cloth as far as he was concerned.
“What happened with Bridgette?” While he didn’t really care for the woman, it would suck if his actions got her killed, or worse.
“Who?” the tortured spirit moaned.
“The woman that attacked you in Colorado.”
“I- I don’t know. I think she married the Ice King.”
Well, at least she had a happy ending. This was the second time he had heard of this person. Norman was curious as to who this Ice King was but not enough to go stick his nose in and find out.
“Any questions for her?” Norman asked Eugene.
The big man shook his head.
He clapped his hands and stood up. “Alrighty, back to it.”
“What! No, I told you everything you wanted to know.”
“You did, but I never said your torment was going to end.”
The woman wailed and tried to flee but she was trapped inside the magical cage.