Norman stared at the ceiling of the bedroom with his arm wrapped around Kalia.
She was still asleep and he wasn’t willing to wake her up just yet. It had been two weeks since the wedding and he still couldn’t believe his luck some days. He was married! And to the most wonderful woman he had ever met. And he was happy. Happier than he had been at any time in his life.
Kalia stirred next to him and he looked over to see her looking at him. “Morning, Hubby.”
He chuckled and bent over to kiss her. “I didn’t wake you did I?”
She shook her head, her long brunette hair tickling him as it brushed against his skin. “I woke up a bit ago, I just wanted you to hold me a bit longer.”
“Do you think people would get mad if we just stayed in bed all day?”
“Ow!” Norman quickly scooched away as Kalia pinched him lightly. “What was that for?”
“A preview of what I would do if cooped up in bed all day. And we both know you wouldn’t be able to sit still all day, even if it was with me. Don’t get me wrong, this is great. But I’m not wasting an entire day sitting around when there is magic to play with.”
“When you’re right, you’re right,” he chuckled. “Will I at least see you for lunch?” he asked as he threw off the covers and sat up.
Before she could respond, the room shook. Norman’s first thoughts went to an attack and reflex had him slapping at the medallion that he wore at all times. At the same time, he threw himself over Kalia as dust rained down around them.
But the shaking didn’t stop.
“A collapse?” they both echoed.
“Why is it so soon?” Kalia asked as Norman covered her in the bed.
That was when Norman recalled the Admiral’s predictions. He realized he hadn’t ever mentioned it to his wife. Then again he had sort of pushed it to the back of his mind as other more important matters cropped up.
The shaking ended after a few minutes and Norman stepped off the bed and handed Kalia a robe.
“The Admiral said something like this might happen.”
“What! When?”
Norman told her about the meeting he had with the man last year.
“You didn’t think to mention this?”
“At the time I didn’t feel like it was worth talking about. Then other things occupied my mind.”
“What happens now?” she asked worriedly.
“Now we make sure everyone else in town is safe.” The pair quickly got dressed and found a worried-looking Jacob standing outside the room.
“Grobert is waiting downstairs for you, Sir.”
Norman nodded and hurried down the stairs, Kalia and Jacob right behind him. Much like Norman, Grobert was in full armor.
“How much damage?”
The old gron grunted. “Not much. Our preparations seemed to mitigate most of it.”
Norman let out a sigh of relief, at least he hadn’t completely dropped the ball on this issue. “Can you gather everyone up, I will meet you at the Ministry.”
Grobert nodded before teleporting away.
Kalia moved up beside him and gave him a kiss on the cheek. “Stay safe. I’m going to go check on the workers and projects.”
He kissed the woman back. “You as well, my Love.”
Norman watched his wife leave along with her two Death Knight guards.
After she was safely away, he turned to Jacob. “Go to the communication center and wait for a full accounting of reports from our borders. Then meet me at the Ministry.”
His assistant nodded quickly before hurrying off.
Soon a second carriage pulled up and Norman stepped inside. As soon as Nolix and Lohr were on board, the carriage moved down the road and toward the city.
From his view inside, he got to see people out and about. Some were cleaning up the damage while others were checking on their neighbors or the buildings. There really was very little destruction and people seemed rather nonplused about the whole affair.
He wasn’t sure they would be so nonchalant if they knew what he did. Even now he didn’t want to admit the Admiral’s timeline was accurate. But he was no longer willing to wait and find out. They needed to come up with a solution to the problem.
He still couldn’t believe that he had let this issue slip his mind. Then again, the Admiral hadn’t mentioned it to him once since the time he visited that evening. Norman would have to ask the man why that was.
The carriage soon arrived outside the Ministry and Norman stepped out and hurried inside. Dozens of people he didn’t recognize hurried back and forth. It looked like a beehive had been kicked and everyone was rushing about their tasks with newfound urgency. It was good to see his people were so quick to react to the problem.
Norman skipped past the front desk, the man behind it hardly having time to stand and salute him before Norman climbed the stairs toward the meeting room. People moved aside for him and his guards as he made his way to the third floor.
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If he thought the bottom floor was a hive of activity, this floor was a nuthouse. He momentarily paused, wondering when this many people had been hired to work here. He quickly dismissed those thoughts as he strode into the open-door meeting room.
“Report.” He spoke as soon as he entered the room, quickly realizing that had been a bad idea.
All of the people stopped what they were doing and saluted him. He waved them off. “We have more important matters, back to work.”
Nobody questioned the command as they quickly went about their duties. Instead of issuing another stupid order, Norman hurried over to where Eugene was gesturing for him. It was a calm spot amongst the insanity that flowed around the rest of the room.
Most of his advisors had beaten him here. Which wasn’t a surprise considering how far he had to travel. It’s too bad he forbade teleporters inside town. Having one inside the castle would have made trips like this instantaneous. But he wasn’t about to invite a repeat of what happened with the Brotherhood.
“Boss,” Eugene stated as he pointed at a section of a rolled-out map to Garta.
Norman could see the map was one of Ashvale and its streets.
The engineer nodded. “I’ll get some men over there to clear it right away. Lord Norman,” the man acknowledged before hurrying out of the room.
Before Norman could ask, Eugene spoke up. “A section of the old wall collapsed.”
“Anyone hurt?”
“From the wall, no. But I’m getting sporadic reports of minor injuries. Thankfully most people carry a potion on them so those are quickly healed.”
“Deaths?” Norman asked.
“Two so far. Their roof collapsed on top of them. A team is already digging through the rubble to extract and revive them.”
Norman nodded. “I have Jacob at the communication building waiting for reports from the border.”
Eugene grunted. “Good.” There was a pause before he continued. “About what the Admiral said?”
“Seems like he might be right,” Norman sighed.
The big man gave a solemn nod a moment before Grobert appeared next to them.
“Any more deaths?” Norman asked.
“A few… but we need to talk in private.”
Norman looked over at Eugene but the man motioned for him to go. He nodded back before hurrying after the shorter man. Eugene was more than capable of handling the issues cropping up and Grobert wouldn’t have asked to speak in private if it wasn’t important.
***
Bertrand was busy yelling at his staff after this latest earthquake. The collapses were annoying but he had taken precautions after the last one had caused minor damage to his manor. There were no damages this time around, but expensive artwork had fallen off walls and a statue of himself had toppled over and broken apart.
That was the reason he was lambasting his staff at the moment. He didn’t care about the artwork or the statue. Those could be replaced. It was the negligence that infuriated him. Bertrand knew there was likely nothing they could have done, but it was important to remind them of their errors and not to let bad habits form.
It was during one of these vitriol-filled tirades that one of his people knocked on the door.
Bertrand whirled on the intruder. “What! Can’t you see that I’m busy!”
“Sam showed up, said he has something for you.”
Bertrand paused at that. What the hell was the earth mage doing here? Didn’t that idiot know it was too hot to be conducting business right now? With an annoyed huff, he dismissed his staff and hurried past his guard and into his office.
Before the idiot earth mage could utter a single word, Bertrand backhanded him across the face and headed to his desk where he activated the warding enchantments.
Then he turned toward the man who was now sporting a split lip from where his ring had struck him. “Are you stupid or something? You best have a good fucking reason to show up at my house today of all days.”
Instead of speaking, the man pulled a rolled-up document from inside his shirt. Bertrand snatched the document out of the man’s hand and untied it. He already had a pretty good guess as to what it was, and when he saw the seal, he knew.
“You said you wanted it boss, so when the opportunity arrived, I made it happen.”
“What did you do?” Bertrand asked, not looking up from the document.
Sam smirked. “Don’t worry, Bossman. Nobody saw me.”
That smirk fell away as a very angry Bertrand looked up at him. “Did I fucking ask if someone saw you, you dumb shit? I asked, what you did.”
The man named Sam shifted uncomfortably under Bertrand’s gaze. “I dropped a ceiling on him, Boss.”
“You killed him?”
Sam nodded slowly.
Like a switch had been flipped, all of Bertrand's anger and rage drained away and he stuffed the document into his vest before walking over to a bookshelf set against one wall.
He pulled out a book and the shelf slid sideways, revealing a tunnel and ladder leading down. “Follow me.”
The man gulped at the order but he followed Bertrand into the tunnel. He was quickly glad he brought the earth mage with him as they encountered a collapsed section. The mage forced the rock back into place with his magic and they continued down the tunnel. They had to clear four more blockages before they arrived at Bertrand’s destination.
The portal room was dark and quiet but that would change as soon as he signaled his contact.
“So I did good, right Boss?”
Bertrand smiled and turned around. “Yeah, you did. I even have a reward for you.” He walked over to a pedestal and tossed an orb to the confused mage.
“Um, what is this, Boss?”
Bertrand didn’t answer though, instead, he pulled out an enchanted wand and pointed it at the man. There was a soft whoosh of air followed by the man dropping to the ground. A huge hole was torn through Sam’s chest by the disintegration wand. A wand that had cost Bertrand a significant amount of coin.
All his hard work was wasted! All because one dumb fucker couldn’t grasp just how monumentally stupid it was to kill someone when scrutiny would be at the highest. He couldn’t simply rely on the merchant's death being overlooked. Or that the dumb ass hadn’t been spotted. It’s why he told his people never to kill inside the city. Bertrand knew Lord Norman had spies. The fact that he hadn’t ever caught one meant they were good at their job. And even if he didn’t those people would be quickly resurrected and find out their precious contract was missing. Making it useless if he ever tried to use it.
But he couldn’t dwell on that, he needed to finish up here and get the fuck out of Ashvale and Normenia before someone dug the merchant out and questioned him.
Bertrand put some gloves on before he picked up the soul trap. With any luck, some of his preparations would remain and whoever he found to take over for him here would be able to continue his work.
When he turned around to use the device to make contact with his source, he froze. There was a glowing apparition standing there. Bertrand looked down and saw one of the apparition's wickedly clawed arms was impaled in his gut. “Fuc-”
***
Shannon ripped her hand up through the man named Bertrand, ending his life. When she had been floating through the city looking for anything out of the ordinary, she hadn’t expected to stumble upon the earth mage fleeing from one of the few buildings that had collapsed. She immediately sensed something was off and followed the man, only for him to lead her to Bertrand. She had thought she was following some opportunist looter, not one of Bertrand’s flunkies.
That had been a pleasant surprise. They had been trying to find something to pin on the man for months. Only for the dead thief to gift-wrap Bertrand for her with a nice bow on top.
Normally she would have waited and gathered more intel, but the discovery of Bertrand having a soul trap changed things. The Wraiths had been informed about the device's purpose. There was a standing order that if they found one outside of Lord Norman’s, Chief Advisor Grobert’s, or Commander Eugene’s control, they were to act immediately to kill anyone involved and to secure the device. The fact that it was Bertrand was only icing on the cake.
Shannon looked around the room. She didn’t know what this room was, but she could guess going by the fact there was no other exit. The strange arch on the other end was also kind of a dead giveaway.
Before she reported her findings, she pulled the corpse of Bertrand over and dropped it on the orb that had rolled out of his dead hand. This way if the man was working with someone, he wouldn’t be able to get away by being revived elsewhere. Once that was done, she pulled out a small circle and pressed it firmly for a few seconds before someone answered.