Thankfully, Norman didn’t have much to do to prepare for the upcoming talks. It wasn’t that there wasn’t stuff to do, it just wasn’t his job to do it.

Eugene was busy getting yet another fresh batch of recruits trained up. These would replace the ones coming off rotation near the borders.

Although, Eugene was learning just as much from them as they were from him. The reason for this was the fact they were former US Marines.

The bodies had been recovered by the Commonwealth and sent over to be revived. Surprisingly few chose to be restored to their living forms and go back to fight for the Commonwealth. More had agreed to join Normenia as greykin. It was a bit of a sticking point with the Admiral, but Norman had explained to the man that he would respect the wishes of the dead, no matter where they came from. The man was annoyed by that but quickly relented.

Twenty Marines weren’t much, but it did increase his forces. And every little bit helped. Seeing how good they were, Eugene equipped them with the full Bone Armor. With the bonuses the armor provided, they were quite a sight to behold. They did need to take additional training on how to work with a spear versus a rifle, but they picked it up quickly.

That wasn’t the only thing on Eugene’s plate. He was also maintaining security within Ashvale. Which had been tightened in preparation for the talks, as well as the security in New Cali. With the addition of a new teleporter there, he was splitting his time between there and Ashvale. Most of his time in New Cali was spent cracking down on the lawlessness that had grown since its inception.

While Eugene was dealing with that, Grobert was upgrading his teleporter line through the jungle from his telepads into proper teleporters. When the old fart had told him about the telepad’s tendency to misplace people, Norman was a bit shocked. Mainly because the entire gron committee had come through it while knowing that was a possibility. It still surprised him how apathetic the gron could be at times.

His other administrators were also busy.

Nolia was, of course, monitoring finances and complaining about the added expenses of recruiting more guards and hosting such a contentious event. Norman was able to placate the woman by reminding her that the last one, while a major headache, had resulted in a net capital gain for the country.

Garta was busy ensuring the city planning and accommodations were ready for the talks. While the Admiral had initially only wanted talks between him and the Council, Norman decided not to waste the opportunity and invited the gron, as well as some of the people enslaved by the Third Prince. Which meant they needed places for these people to stay.

After his forces freed them from the Prince’s minders, a few even agreed to attend. Most were reluctant or suspicious of his motives though. Which was fine. He really just wanted to make connections further in that direction to ensure he could keep an eye on the Empire’s movements. At least until he could get some Wraiths over there to do the leg work. But you never knew, something interesting might come off allying with those lands.

Freya didn’t have much to do, but she was expanding on the laws governing allies and vassal states. As well as the laws covering diplomats. She was also putting together cases on some of the more violent offenders from New Cali.

That left Paul, the Construction Forman. He was in charge of making sure all of these new buildings were up to proper standards.

Then there was Norman. He wasn’t just sitting around doing nothing while everyone else was slaving away. He was continuing his research when he wasn’t answering questions or providing feedback for this event. Kalia had even reached out to him to have dinner together tonight. Something he was looking forward to.

He quickly finished up his work and got ready.

The brunette enchanter showed up with a big grin on her face and Norman could tell she was practically vibrating in excitement to tell him something. “You seem happy. I assume you made a breakthrough on something?”

She nodded enthusiastically. “I’ll tell you about it after we eat, I’m famished.”

Norman smiled and nodded. “Fair enough.” He clapped his hands lightly and the door to the kitchen swung open and two of the assistant cooks brought out platters and drinks for both of them. “Thank you, Tasha and Natalie. Please give that old fossil in the kitchen my regards.” He had made time to remember their names. He knew the cook’s name as well, but that old fart always chased him out of the kitchen with a wooden spoon if he caught him in there, so he stopped trying to thank him personally.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

The two cooks rolled their eyes and laughed lightly as they made their way back to the kitchen. He turned back to see Kalia looking shocked.

“I assume this is a normal interaction between you and them?” She asked.

He nodded. “Yeah? Why wouldn’t it be? I admit, it did take them some time to loosen up to me. Why?”

“No reason, it’s just nice to see you treating them like people. You wouldn’t believe how some of the rich treat their help back in California. It's despicable.” Going by the vitriol in her words, she included herself in that treatment.

“I grew up dirt poor, I know how hard it is to struggle to make ends meet. Besides, it doesn’t cost me anything to be nice. That’s something those hoity-toity fucks seem to forget once they become rich and powerful.”

“And you’re different?”

He shrugged at Kalia’s question. “I would like to think I’m more grounded in reality. But I am also a necromancer, so my judgment may be a bit skewed.”

She laughed at his joke and the two ate the delicious meal before getting to the meat and potatoes of why she wanted this face to face.

“So,” She said after wiping her mouth on a napkin. “You know I was working on adding enchantments to the Bone Armor, right?”

“Yes?” he asked excitedly. Having built-in enchantments in the armor would propel his forces to a whole new level.

“Well… I’m going to have to disappoint you. That isn’t going to happen.”

Norman realized he had been leaning forward in anticipation and promptly fell back into his seat with a disappointed sigh.

“At least how I originally was trying to do it.”

“Dammit, woman! Don’t tease me.”

She giggled at his fake outrage. “Sorry. I probably should have started with that. The problem is I can’t permanently alter the Bone Armor. Every time I tried, it was just healed away. Well, that got me thinking. Permanent enchantments need gold. We haven’t found any way past that requirement, even though we’ve tried. And I hadn’t even gotten to that stage of the process because I was stuck on the first. So I tried embedding gold into the armor.”

“Embedding the gold? Did it work?”

“I’m getting there, hold your horses.”

Norman made a zipping motion across his lips and waited as patiently as a toddler at Christmas when a present was in front of them.

She gave him the evil eye but continued. “As I was saying, I tried to embed some gold on the surface of the armor. That didn’t work, the bone just pushed it out. Then I tried something similar to when Eugene impregnated the armor with coal. That man’s little trick was a stroke of genius, by the way, you better treat him well.”

“I will,” Norman spoke quickly, before closing his mouth again and smiling at the woman.

She let out an exasperated huff and continued. “After a few failed attempts, I managed to get the gold impregnated into the armor using nanoparticles. Which is just a fancy way of saying I ground the gold up into fine dust.”

He managed to restrain himself from asking the obvious question as she continued her explanation.

“After the armor was resummoned on the guard, I carved in the force redirection enchantment. I could tell something was different right away as the edges of the enchantment took on a golden luster. Somehow the gold nanoparticles congregated into the design. It worked!” she responded in excitement.

The next words, she spoke, came out in an excited jumble. “So it works but it's not perfect the armor is a little weaker but I think the enchantment makes up for that also if the enchantment is damaged all of the gold kind of bleeds back into the armor.” She stopped to take a breath.

Norman got up from his chair and lifted the woman out of hers. She squeaked in surprise as he spun her around while laughing. “No, that’s amazing! You’re amazing!”

He set her down, and their eyes met. For a moment they both leaned in toward each other before Kalia turned away.

“I’m sorry… I like you.”

“But,” Norman added, his excitement cooling slightly.

“I don’t want to make a rash decision here. I like how things are right now. What if we don’t get along?”

He felt the woman’s anxiety and released her.

“I would never expel you from the city so long as you haven’t broken a law. Or force you to do something you didn’t want to. We can take things slow, we have all the time in the world.”

“Thank you, she smiled,” before getting on her tiptoes and giving him a peck on the cheek. “Oh, before I go, I’m going to need more gold to enchant the rest of the Death Knights.”

Norman chuckled at the woman’s rapid change of subject. He could hardly blame her for her enthusiasm toward this project, it was huge. If she could imbue the armor, it meant all of his bone constructs could be similarly enchanted.

“I will speak with Nolia and see what we can provide.”

She smiled one last time before thanking him for the meal and leaving the castle. He really wished he could spend more time with her before these talks. Or at least walk her home. He didn’t need to worry too much about her safety though. He had sent one of those horseless carriages along with four Death Knights to bring her tonight as well as escort her home.

While Norman liked her and wanted to get to know her better, that was still second to her importance as an enchanter. He knew Donovan would like nothing more than to try and get her back or prevent Norman from using her skills. Already Princess and the gang had killed two of his spies snooping around her workshop.

Thankfully Saliu had enchanted that place nearly as heavily as the castle. And it always had two dedicated Death Knights guarding it.