Norman read over the scroll for the third time, surprise still etched on his face. With a disappointed exhale, he tossed it negligently to the table where the ornate wooden caps cracked, sending the gems encrusted into them scattering across the table and floor. He didn’t even care.

“These people are fucking delusional,” he finally said.

“So what do you want to do about it?” Eugene asked.

“When did you say the knights caught this man?”

“Little over two weeks ago. He’s still sitting in lockup if you wanna have a chat with him.”

“Fuck that,” Norman responded. “I’m sure he would just try to shovel more bullshit at me. Toss him back where you found him.”

“Any response to go along with it?”

“What? And let them know when to expect me? No.”

“You’re still going to go, even though it’s a trap?” Eugene sounded upset by this choice.

“Of course. Even if that second prince didn’t warn us. But knowing it’s a trap, gives us options. And not showing up will likely get them to muster an army against us. I would prefer to nip that issue in the bud before it can get going.”

“But you can’t just go alone, that’s beyond dumb.”

Norman smiled. “It would be dumb if I played by their rules. But fuck that. Give me a week, then I will be ready to meet with them. I just have to prepare some stuff first.”

Eugene still didn’t look happy with his decision, but the man nodded. “What about the research into saving the planet? I assume it was successful since you’re back?”

“We found a solution that should work. It's going to take time to deploy all the arrays though. Have you seen Grobert? We’re going to need his help to get these up and running as quickly as possible.”

“He’s been hanging around with General Roberts since they returned.”

“Returned?” Norman asked in confusion.

Eugene told him about how his Chief Advisor just up and vanished for a week. “He’s been tight-lipped about what he and Roberts were up to during that time, so if you want to know, you’ll have to ask him.”

“You sound upset by this?”

Eugene slammed his fist into the table, cracking the surface. “Of course, I’m fucking upset! The bastard just ran off without even notifying anyone.”

Norman waited a moment for the big man’s anger to cool. It didn’t take long and Eugene looked chagrined with his own outburst and the damage to the table.

“I’ll have a word with him, thank you for letting me know.”

Eugene nodded and rose, “I need to get back to work. Some of us respect our positions.”

Norman nodded and watched the man walk out. He didn’t know what could cause the man to feel this strongly. Certainly, Grobert vanishing had something to do with it, but that couldn’t have been the only thing. The two butted heads occasionally, but they had learned to work together over the years. That last comment could be a clue as well.

He would have to do some digging to see if anyone knew why his Commander was in such a foul mood.

***

It took a few hours to locate Grobert. The man was not in his office or his normal spots. Norman eventually found him, and Roberts at a small lake a few minutes from the city, fishing.

When he couldn’t find his Chief Advisor, he had tracked down some of the Generals’s men. Thankfully, Roberts actually told people where he was going.

When he finally found them, he watched from a distance, not disturbing the pair as they fished and talked. Eventually, he turned back toward the city, deciding to wait to speak with the old man until later.

After he returned to Ashvale, he went straight for the enchanters' workshop to see how they were doing. And to see his wife, who he hadn’t seen in weeks. Saliu, Varter, and Kalia were taking on a huge task with the mitigation work, but he was about to dump even more work on their plate with the creation of the permanent arrays.

As he walked through the town, he was surprised to see just how much had changed since he had left for California. The biggest change was the electric lighting that was showing up in more and more homes, although that wasn’t the only change he saw. One change that bothered him the most was the modern style of housing that was being built. It was just so ugly. But he allowed people the freedom to build what they wanted as long as it met the civil codes. And those were the purview of Garta, his civil engineer.

The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

He was a bit sad to see the rustic beauty of Normenia changing. He knew some of the changes, like the electricity, were for the best though. At least there weren’t ugly power poles and electrical conduits marring the beauty of the town. Magic made those relics of the past obsolete.

As he entered the workshop, he had to step aside as a cart holding three pyramids rolled past him. The entire building was filled with frenetic activity as people moved around completed sensor pyramids as well as what he assumed were the nullification ones. They had a slightly different look to them.

Norman could have quickly crossed the shop by having his guards move people aside, but he didn’t want to disrupt the flow of production. He could see where the main manufacturing was done so he slowly made his way through the crowded building until he made his way over there.

Five earth mages were working like automatons to complete the designs. He was glad they had found more than the original three gron earth mages. Although two extra wasn’t much, it did help. Especially since they were all undead and didn’t require any downtime.

He watched for a few minutes, gauging how long it took to complete one pyramid. The gron were quicker at it but it still took them around fifteen minutes to construct the two-foot-tall devices from the sand and dirt that was being carted in by the wagonload.

Once the devices were completed, they were pushed along a series of stone rollers that formed an archaic-looking manufacturing line. The line stopped at a small area where he spotted his wife, who… was undead!

With a confused expression on his face, he made his way over to where Kalia and Saliu were inspecting the latest pyramid to enter their area.

His wife was the first to spot him. “Norman, you’re back!” she rushed over and gave him a hug, which he reciprocated.

After the hug, he held her at arm’s length to get a good look at her. The grey cast of her skin wasn’t better or worse, it was just different. Especially since he hadn’t expected to see her like this. “What happened?”

“Oh, this,” She motioned to her face. "I realized I couldn’t keep up with the rest of the team while I was alive. So I decided to change that. You’re not mad are you?”

He shook his head and pulled her in for another hug. “Of course not. I’m just surprised. Ho- How did you do it? It wasn’t too painful, was it?”

“No,” She muttered as she pressed her face into his chest. “I just took a sleeping potion and when I woke up, it was all done.”

“I made sure she didn’t suffer unduly,” Saliu spoke up as he wandered over. “I wouldn’t have even considered allowing her to do this if we weren’t so pressed to complete this project as soon as possible.”

He released his hold on his wife and turned to Saliu. “Why are you two even needed now that production is up and running?” Norman would have thought they had more important tasks to complete on this project, like determining where the pyramids needed to be placed for the best effect.

The jorik man sighed. “We are forced to test each device that comes off the line. For whatever reason, some are failing. It's mostly the dampeners. About one in ten doesn’t work properly.”

“What? How is that even possible?”

“It's an issue with their resonance,” Kalia added. “Any small deviation in the stone is causing resonant backlash. So we have to test each device to determine if this is occurring before we can release it. If we used a higher-end material, we probably wouldn’t run into this issue, but the cost would skyrocket.”

Having one in ten fail certainly wasn’t ideal, but they were working with untested magic. There were bound to be some hiccups along the way. “Were the other teams notified?”

They both nodded.

“We made sure to alert Admiral Barnes of the issue as soon as we learned of it,” Saliu replied.

“Alright, that’s good. Unfortunately, I need one of you for the array project. Will that cause too much of a disruption?”

“No, not really,” Saliu spoke. “I can pull Varter off production to assist with testing if I get too backed up.”

“Wait? You want me to head up the Array project?” Kalia asked in surprise.

“Why wouldn’t I?” Saliu asked. “It was originally your idea that brought about the material reduction for arrays. While it’s true any of us enchanters could do it, you are the expert,” he said with a smile as he patted the stunned woman on the back. “Besides, You’ll get to work on it with your husband. You two should spend more time together.”

Then he laughed and pushed Kalia into Norman. She gave out a squeak of surprise as he caught her. For his part, he just rolled his eyes at the laughing jorik as the man returned to work.

“It's been a while since we worked together. Sure you’re up for it?” He asked with a grin.

She slapped him lightly and huffed. “I think it’s you who’s going to find it hard to keep up.”

The pair chuckled quietly as they moved off to an empty section of the warehouse to set up the new production.

It was slow getting the array production off the ground. For one, they needed a lot of room to produce the arrays. So a new area had to be built to accommodate just that aspect of the project. Thankfully, they could make do with any flat surface.

Norman worked with Kalia to design the spell array that would eventually start spitting out the components of the main spell.

The bone scaffolding eventually took shape as the spell drew in ambient mana to power the ritual as well as to convert it into the bone required for the spell. He was certainly glad for his conversion symbol. If it wasn’t for that, he would be stripping the entire kingdom of its wildlife just to provide enough bones to create these arrays.

Once the spell finished, he examined the interlocking white blocks of hollow bone. His sense told him everything was good and he nodded to Kalia who administered the final step in the process. She quickly moved through the blocks, flipping them upside down and using a stamping machine she had created to stamp the enchantments into the bottom of each block.

It took about twenty seconds for the gold nanoparticles infused into the bone to form a thin layer across the surface of each block. But once Kalia was done, there was a stack of golden blocks lying on the floor. It was likely someone would figure out the enchantment they were using, it wasn’t exactly complex. But even if they did, they wouldn’t be able to recreate the process unless they had Norman’s spell.

She walked over to him and looked at the result. “Well, the process works. Now that we know for sure, I can probably get some workers over to speed it up.”

He shook his head. “For now, I would prefer if only you, Saliu, or Varter worked on it.”

“Are you sure? It’s going to be a lot slower if we do it that way.”

“Better a slow process than one I have to come and check on constantly. I have a pressing matter that I need to deal with and can’t afford the time to inspect these.”

“What? Can’t it wait?”

He sighed. “I wish it could.”

“Ok… Well, stay safe.”

He kissed Kalia on the lips. “You have a few more days with me, but don’t worry, I will.”