A couple of weeks passed since Gabriel and his team had encountered their new British neighbors. And today was the final day of transporting people through the teleporters and into Ashvale.

Turns out it took quite a bit of time to transport three thousand people through a device designed to only handle two or three at a time.

Housing the people, even temporarily was a bit of an issue as well. But they lucked out. With all of the delegates from the talks gone, those residences were sitting empty. It may not have been the most comfortable living arrangement. Having ten-plus people per house was not ideal, but it was all they had at the moment.

Norman could have had more temporary housing created for the refugees but he decided against that. Going by the expressions on most of the refugees' faces, the majority would not be sticking around long.

Even though the people were thankful for the rescue, most seemed to be put off by the fact that Ashvale was mostly made up of undead. They hid their distaste well, but Norman saw it in the furtive glances, or when parents hugged their kids tighter as they passed greykin on the streets.

He didn’t blame them. This was all new to them. But he suspected most would leave for California as soon as the opportunity presented itself. The person working on that transition was Stewart. They couldn’t just dump a bunch of new people on Admiral Barnes.

Not all of the refugees felt that way though. There were some that had taken to the people of Ashvale with gusto and were actively mingling with the populace. He was glad to have them as they would make a fine addition to the city. Most of the stigma against the living had faded with the increase in trade and the influx of new people from California.

With the civilian issue sorting itself out, that left the SAS forces. Norman decided to tackle that himself. The General seemed curious but hadn’t really confirmed one way or the other on what he preferred.

“Have you decided?” Norman asked the aging General as they toured the barracks and training ground. He had wanted to impress the man to see if he would join Ashvale.

“Your offer is intriguing. And I must say, I’m surprised.”

“By?”

“Everything. You, your people, what you’ve built. When I first met you, I knew you were a powerful mage. Just not so…young. I guess I pictured someone around my age for some reason. The undead were a surprise as well, even though I already met your Chief Advisor. Somehow I still thought I would see rotting zombies and skeletons wandering about. I think my prejudices there stemmed from pop culture though. Even the fact you built this entire city from scratch leaves me baffled.”

“A little bit of luck and a lot of hard work.”

“I know it isn’t that simple. We worked hard as well and look what happened to us. And I knew my government wasn’t slacking yet they still fell.”

“Are you sure? They could still be out there.” It was an empty platitude and he regretted it as soon as it left his mouth. He hadn’t heard from many other countries in the previous ten years. That fact alone was telling.

The General shook his head sadly. “What I didn’t tell my people, was that the last message we received contained a coded message specifically for me. It indicated the country had been overrun. The message didn’t indicate who they were overrun by. Even if I could somehow save my former home, I have no idea where to start.”

That was a rough thing to keep from people.

“What are our options?” The man asked, changing the subject.

“Well, you could stay. We could always use someone with your skills. You could go to California. I know Admiral Barnes wouldn’t say no to having more trained people at his disposal.”

“More fighting,” the man sighed.

“It's always a possibility, no matter where you end up. But fighting isn’t your only choice.”

“No offense, Lord Norman, but I’ve spent over half my life as a soldier, I don’t know anything else.”

“You would have plenty of time to figure something else out.”

“As an undead?”

“That is one option. The other is we could regress your age.”

The man paused and looked at him with surprise. “You can do that?”

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Norman shrugged. “Yeah, but it isn’t really something most consider since being undead has more perks. And if you don’t want to lead troops you could always train them.”

“It’s not that. I would prefer to be on the front with my men, not sitting behind a desk doing paperwork and ordering people to their deaths. Honestly, I think I just need time away from all the fighting to figure things out. It might be much the same for my men, I’m not sure how many of them will jump at the change to continue fighting. They are tired. Many lost their families due to the collapse or haven’t heard from them since. As for the ones you are reviving, I will speak with them to see.”

Norman nodded. He would love to have the remaining SAS join Normenia, they could always use more soldiers. But he understood if they chose to go live a quiet life somewhere else. It was hard to blame them after losing nearly two thousand men over the last decade. Work was starting on the revival process but it was going to be a slow process. He hadn’t ever tried reviving people who had been dead and buried for so long without a stored sample of blood.

The British weren’t his only option for new troops. He had tried reviving some of the Empire forces, but the ones he had tried it on were not very cooperative. It seemed they were well and truly brainwashed to believe whatever nonsense the Golatian Empire spouted. And nothing you said would change their minds.

It didn’t mean he would stop trying though. With eighty thousand dead, there was bound to be a few worth saving. Or technically twenty-five to thirty thousand that could be recovered.

Those consumed by the nether fire could not be brought back. Like the poor slaves tied to the palanquin. They had died during the fighting, something Norman wished he could have avoided, but his spells had been indiscriminate. It wasn’t that the fire destroyed their souls, it was that it left nothing behind to use as the soul's anchor to resurrect them.

He suspected he would have a similar issue if he used Lingering Death. In the future, he would need to be much more careful with how he deployed those two spells.

With Gabriel’s team finishing up their assignment, they were given some time off while another team was tasked with scouting a different neighboring zone. So far they hadn’t come across anything interesting. It was barren of all life, save some lichen and other plants.

With nothing new coming out of that front, Norman turned his focus back toward the Council and what they were up to, specifically the Council leader. Donovan had been too quiet recently.

Even their war with the Gorfan had come to a lull after the Council had pushed them back deep inside the Principality’s territory. It seemed neither side was willing to risk it all against the other.

Norman would have preferred they wipe each other out but a stalemate would have to suffice. But the Council as a whole wasn’t much of a concern to Norman, it was what Donovan was cooking up. He couldn’t quite shake the feeling that Donovan was up to something. The Council Leader did not seem like the type of man to take losing easily.

That being said, his spies hadn’t uncovered anything of note. The man had even been seen outside his estate on numerous occasions recently. It even seemed he was genuinely making an effort to improve his people's lives per the agreement he signed with Admiral Barnes.

This could certainly be one of Donovan’s pet shapechangers going about acting like him, but there was no way to verify this without getting a hellhound over there. Which wasn’t going to happen.

The other news of note was his scouts were nearing the Empire’s border finally. In another few days, he might have more news on that front.

Instead of dwelling on stuff he had no control over, Norman switched his focus back to his research.

Over the years he had perfected his testing methods. Now he had what he liked to call his spell primer. It was a simple spell consisting of a few basic symbols required to function. From there he would add the new unknown symbol and work through its function by rotating the symbol’s orientation.

This approach allowed him to breeze through most of the symbols he had in record time. And while it was still time-consuming work, he was getting close to deciphering all of the symbols he had access to.

There was a stretch of time where he kept finding symbols that did the same old thing. He was starting to fear he had run out of discoveries on that front. But when he finally made a new discovery, it put a smile on his face. And more than one in the same week made him itch to test new combinations.

The first was the discovery of the Amplification symbol. As you might imagine, it amplified the effect of a spell, or the range, depending on where it was placed. Considering most of Norman’s attack spells were designed to kill, amplifying that trait wasn’t all that useful. But it still came in handy with amplifying the range a spell covered, or the distance it could be cast at. The mana cost increase seemed to be directly proportional to the amplification though. Which was a bummer, but something he should have expected.

But that was only the first new symbol he came across. The next symbol Norman discovered was the catalyst or battery symbol. It was only useful for constructs, but it allowed him to create a replaceable source of mana storage. This was much preferable to relying on the siphon symbols to power the golems. With enough of the catalyst, a golem could run forever, unlike the siphon that required the funneling of external mana to keep going.

The discovery of this symbol didn’t mean Norman was going to remake his current golems. They were designed for short stints of action to defend key points. But it did open up the possibility of creating sentries to help assist the guard.

That was going to be a long-term project though as the coding, for lack of a better term, behind the golems, needed a lot of work. Right now, they were driven by simple instinct. It's why his crown was so difficult to control sometimes.

With that came the final discovery this week. The Oscillation symbol. He was a bit vague on what it could be used for. All he knew was it allowed you to set a pulse rate or frequency depending on how you oriented it in the spell.

It could be used as a sort of timer he supposed, although he already had a symbol that allowed that. There was also the ability to fake an actual pulse. Again not sure why he would need that as he could just restore people to life to bypass any weird defences aimed specifically at the undead.

With some work, he was sure he could find a use for the symbol.

Norman finished up his research for the day and headed to get dressed. He had a date.