Norman enjoyed the quiet ride south. This trip was the longest he had spent inside a car since his flight from Colorado. And he would prefer to forget that ordeal entirely.

Unlike that time, this trip was a small oasis of downtime in his frantic life. Time well spent as he chatted with his wife about any number of things.

As with everything, this little moment of freedom ended too soon and their convoy arrived outside the sprawling university campus. Armed personnel guided their vehicles through the streets and onto walking paths. It appeared making them walk to their destination was not in the books. Which was fine with Norman.

The mounted Death Knights easily kept pace and also kept any curious onlookers away. He was glad for that as there appeared to be quite a few of those. This surprised Norman. He would have thought the college would have shut down after the collapse, but that didn’t seem to be the case. If anything, it was bustling with activity.

“It’s a wizard college!” Kalia exclaimed.

Confused, Norman leaned over and looked out her window where he saw a group of students off in the distance. They stood outside a glittering barrier of blue that contained a twenty-foot-tall lava creature.

The creature slammed a glowing fist against the barrier, causing the students to take a step back. Even from a hundred feet away, the car shook slightly from the tremor. But the barrier held and the teacher went on with whatever weird lecture he was giving.

Norman could only shake his head and smile. “If school had been like this I might have stuck around.”

“It's amazing. I wonder why the Admiral never mentioned it.”

He could think of a few reasons why the Admiral had kept this to himself. Probably for the same reason Norman hadn’t mentioned the breakthroughs his enchanters had made. Knowledge is power after all.

The cars eventually came to a stop outside a large group of buildings and Norman saw they were hardly the first to arrive.

As they stepped out of the vehicle, he spotted a group of two dozen or so jorik, led by Custodian Marlinik, Nolia’s great-grandfather.

They were in an animated discussion with an ooraki matriarch. He could tell she was not a normal ooraki by the fact that she was here at all. The fact that a matriarch was here caused Norman to pause.

“What is it?” Kalia asked as she felt Norman stiffen.

“Sorry, it’s nothing. Seeing the ooraki brought up some bad memories.”

She squeezed his arm reassuringly as they continued toward the group.

The ooraki female was the first to spot their approach, causing Custodian Marlinik to glance back to see what caught her eye.

“Ah, Lord Norman. Is this your life mate?”

“This is my wife, yes. Kalia, this is Custodian Marlinik, Noilia’s great-grandfather.”

Kalia lit up at this. “So you’re the gigi she told me about.”

The man smiled. “Are you perhaps friends with my great-grandchild?”

Kalia nodded.

“That’s wonderful. I am glad she is making new friends.” He gestured to the ooraki woman. “This is Oomaku. Sovern of her people, the ooraki.”

Norman didn’t shake the offered hand. “I have met your people before.”

The woman lowered her hand and her lips curled up at the edge. “You have met part of the ruling class? How surprising. I have many daughters, but most are accounted for.” She tapped an immaculately manicured finger against her silvered lips in thought. “Who could have soured you against us? The only one that comes to mind is Noorani. But she died during the collapse of our world. Or so I thought.”

Oomaku glanced at the Death Knights then back at Norman. “So the rumors I’ve been hearing aren’t all lies I see.”

Norman didn’t bother elaborating which caused the woman to chuckle. “I assume you have heard only bad things about us. Or how we hoard magic and keep our people obedient to us? It’s all true.”

That statement surprised Norman.

His surprise got a tinkling laugh out of the large woman. “What? Did you think I would sit here and deny it? Why would I need to do something so petty?”

“What is she talking about?” Kalia asked him.

“He probably doesn’t know either, Dear. Fed only one side of the truth.”

“Why don’t you enlighten us then,” Norman replied coldly.

“Can you say your people came up with a perfect way to govern?” She didn’t wait for a reply. “No, I doubt you could. We created a system that would ensure the ooraki didn’t destroy themselves. It’s as simple as that.”

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“And that justifies enslaving people?” He retorted.

“Yes.”

Norman was brought up short by the single-word response. It gave him time to reflect and let his anger boil away. He had to remember, they were a completely different species. One he knew very little about.

Before this conversation could devolve any further, there was a crackling boom. Everyone looked into the sky to see a strange vessel approaching and slowing down.

The large vessel deployed landing gear and settled into an open area off to one side. Once settled, a landing ramp descended to the ground. It very much reminded Norman of some first encounter movies.

“It appears the Gorfan delegation has finally arrived,” Marlinik said with disdain as he was the first to spot the uniformed soldiers stomping down the ramp.

Norman and the others watched quietly as two dozen soldiers moved down the ramp in rigid formation and formed a corridor on either side before a very delicate ratar seemed to glide down the ramp with grace and aplomb. Unlike any ratar he had ever seen, this one’s scales were a light shade of pink. It made her stand out all the more among her more earth-toned counterparts.

Nolix came up beside him and whispered. “I know her.”

“What? Like personally?”

He shook his head. “No. She was sort of like your human version of a superstar. Only in the science community. She shouldn’t be here.”

“Why?” Norman asked in confusion.

“She vanished a decade before the collapse. Everyone assumed she was murdered by a jealous lover or fan. It was huge news and a major scandal back in my world.”

“What sort of science did she study?” Norman asked, already guessing the answer.

“Bioengineering.” Norman could hear the disgust in Nolix’s tone as he made the same connection he had.

This woman was probably the driving force behind the Gorfan’s extreme advancement as well as their disgusting practice of turning their own people into bioengineered weapons.

The whole entourage began heading in their direction, with this Gorfan scientist smack dab in the middle.

As the group neared, one of the soldiers shouted and broke rank, sprinting forward and pulling his weapon. The crackle of defensive and offensive magic being readied was enough to make Norman’s hair stand on end. But the man was halted by the female scientist.

“Stand down, Soldier.” The words were barely more than a whisper above the shocked silence. But they clearly had an effect.

“Ma’am! These are the people that attacked the capital!”

Norman glanced away from the stopped soldier to see who he had been sprinting towards and spotted one of his own Death Knights, spear raised and ready to accept the man’s charge.

“Fuck,” he cursed under his breath. He should have realized his Death Knights would be recognized.

As the tension between the groups began to rise, the man started to slowly draw what Norman recognized as the acid throwers. But another quiet command from the woman froze him.

“Soldier.” Norman had been around Nolix long enough to recognize certain emotions in the ratar face. What he saw from this soldier was pure unadulterated fear. But not of his Death Knight.

He looked over to the woman who was now staring directly at him and approaching in an unhurried manner.

Eventually, the man released his weapon and returned to his line. Only after did his Death Knight retract the deadly spear.

“Well…” the small pink ratar woman spoke in what sounded like a slightly southern accent. “So you’re the one responsible for decapitating the Principality and not the Council. It makes much more sense now.” She smiled slightly, exposing a bit of her pointed teeth.

Nolix hissed beside him and leveled his spear at the woman. “You can’t be her, you’re too young. What are you!”

She turned her placid gaze on the man. “And you have a pet ratar. And a feisty one at that. How quaint.”

“You’re a clone.” Norman blurted, not sure why he suspected that, but it made sense.

She turned back toward him, seeming to mull over the term before replying. “Hmm. I suppose you could call me that. Although it’s not an accurate description. If I were a clone, I wouldn’t have all my memories would I?” The smile she gave him sent a chill down his spine.

Despite how creepy this woman was, Norman was curious as to why someone would clone themselves. His thoughts were thankfully interrupted when the air off to the side split open and the final group arrived.

Donovan was the first to step out of the portal followed by his son Vincent. Kalia instantly gripped his arm tighter as her eyes landed on the man.

Following them were a group of twenty unknown individuals. This time around neither brought guards or a host of undead. Which Norman found surprising.

“Ah, Mylara, how good to see you again,” Donovan spoke.

The Gorfan scientist turned toward the Council Leader. “Council Leader Donovan. Come to try your luck at killing me again? I hear your people have a saying, third time’s the charm?”

Donovan laughed at that as she strode up and kissed the woman's hand. “Perhaps some other day. We have some more important business to attend to today, do we not?”

What the hell was going on? Norman wanted to shake his head and pinch himself to see if he was dreaming. Before he had a chance to do that, someone cleared their voice. Everyone looked over toward a man in a United States military uniform.

“If you all will follow me, we can get started.”

The crowd started following the man, but Norman spotted Vincent trying to make his way over to Kalia. Thankfully, he didn’t have to intervene as the Death Knights stepped between them, causing the man to stop short of his goal.

The man looked incensed by being stopped, but the moment he glanced at Norman, he quickly looked away and continued toward the building.

“I want everyone to keep a close eye on Vincent.” He said to Nolix.

The man nodded and began passing on his order.

Before heading toward the entrance, he couldn’t help but think this whole assembly was a recipe for disaster. Having this many strong personalities contained under one roof would not end well.

Norman pushed those thoughts to the back of his mind as he passed through the doors and into a large building with smaller rooms off of a main hallway.

As he glanced into the rooms, he saw all manner of strange machines and people working on them. Other rooms contained groups of people jotting down notes on whiteboards and arguing over the validity of the results. From the quick glances at the notes, most of the work seemed to be aimed at stopping the earthquakes. But some of the research seemed to be about preventing more of them.

He could already tell that none of the magical diagrams would function thanks to his intuition. The feeling flickered in the back of his mind on small snippets but not for the whole. It was strange feeling his intuition function for the first time on non-necromantic spells. Then again he hadn’t ever seen any other human magic. All of his experience with other spells came from the gron and the jorik.

He leaned over and whispered to Kalia. “It seems like Admiral Barnes wasn’t just sitting idly by waiting for everyone else.”

His wife startled a bit, pulled from her intense gaze at the strange machines within the rooms. Norman chuckled quietly at that, earning an embarrassed pout from Kalia. Oh yeah, this was gonna be interesting.