The workers went about laying out the array with rapid but precise movements. It wasn’t the first time they had completed an array, not even close. Norman had lost track of how many arrays his people had set up over the last three months.
He wasn’t even sure where he was at the moment, or at least where his golem body was. Just some random zone that was proving to be extremely dangerous. The technician teams had been attacked over a dozen times trying to place the arrays here. His people had moved locations a few times inside this zone to try and avoid whatever was attacking to no avail.
After the attacks, everyone had been revived back in Ashvale, but nobody had gotten a good look at what had attacked them. The only thing he knew was that everyone died quickly and then the threat left. Even a team of Death Knights hadn’t been able to survive an encounter with whatever was killing his people. It's why he was here.
Eugene thought it was overkill, but Norman disagreed. Even Parker, their resident tracker, wasn’t able to determine what had killed them or where it had come from. It was time to stop screwing around.
The lack of tracks did hint at a possible airborne enemy though. He glanced at the sky, not seeing anything but clouds.
Norman checked the time. The technicians had been working furiously for over an hour, but he wasn’t about to rush them. Screwing up the array would waste their entire time here, forcing them to start over. They knew the risk and what was at stake.
A flicker of light caught his eye. He turned toward where he saw the disturbance, but nothing stood out. He still sent a cone of Plague Ray in that direction. His diligence was rewarded by an angry screech. The black boils forming across the bird were the only visual indicator it was there.
Norman was forced to duck as the massive bird flew past him, kicking up a storm of dust and debris as it barely missed its attack. He was nearly knocked over by the gust of wind that followed in the massive creature's wake but the enchantments in his armor were working. It still felt like standing behind a jet engine during take-off.
Just how fast were these birds flying?
He jerked his head around just in time to see the beast bank for a second run at him before its body burst apart from the spell. Whatever ability it used to conceal itself must have been canceled out by its death. It was no wonder no one knew what had killed them if the damn things were invisible and faster than most agility classers.
A scream from behind him made him swivel back toward the technicians. He had only taken his attention off of them for a moment, but another bird had swooped down and grabbed one of the technicians in its massive talons. The man screamed as the creature crushed him and gave a massive flap of its wings, sending it shooting into the sky like a rocket.
He swore and sent out a Death Ray at the invisible bird as it attempted to flee with its now-dead prize. His shot landed and the bird tumbled from the air. Before another could tear its claws into his people, he cast Lingering Death centered on the array.
The ash cloud didn’t stop the flock of massive birds from trying to score an easy meal, but none survived contact with the deadly substance as they tried to flee with their prizes.
After the attack was over, he counted twenty of the creatures. There may have been more, but it was hard to tell when the bodies were reduced to piles of ash to join the spell and were completely invisible before that.
Only three of the technicians survived the encounter with the magical creatures.
Before reviving them, he made sure there were no more of the mana beasts lurking about. He did this by standing out in the open and making himself an enticing target. Nothing came to collect his bounty so he assumed the threat was neutralized.
These birds were just a reminder that there were many unknown dangers out there and he hadn’t yet scratched the surface of what this world could offer.
Having the attack come from mana beasts was a bit of a letdown. When people kept dying, he assumed Donovan or his son were behind the attacks. Well, mostly Donovan. Vincent was a blunt instrument and Norman couldn’t picture him being able to orchestrate something like this. But it wasn’t Donovan. And here he had fully prepared for a knockdown drag-out fight with the former Council leader.
It pissed him off that the man had simply vanished after their encounter in the Empire.
If the former Council Leader had attacked, that would have told Norman he had run out of other options. That didn’t seem to be the case though. What was also worrying was the fact that along with the father and son, the portal mage slash councilor had vanished with them. So he could be anywhere.
What the three of them could be up to was unknown. And as much as he wanted to get rid of that family, he couldn’t simply spend his time trying to locate the wayward trio. The whole world was at stake and Normenia was working at a frantic pace to build out as many arrays, sensors, and mitigation towers as possible. And time was not on their side.
Going by Admiral Barnes’ people’s estimates, the next collapse could happen anywhere from three months to five months from now. There was no way they could deploy enough mitigation towers in Normenia to protect everyone in such a short time. They may have enough for a single layer around Ashvale, but even that was going to be close.
If the devices were more powerful, they wouldn’t have needed to place them so far from the city border. But adding that sort of complexity to the devices would mean increasing the cost as well as the time it took to create them by a significant degree. No, the enchanters had the correct approach. Cheap and easy, that way more earth mages could assist in the manufacturing effort.
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Norman quickly resurrected the fallen technicians. They nodded their thanks and rushed to complete the array. He watched while they inspected it for damage before they got back to the assembly process.
It was going to be a long day.
***
The collapse alarm jerked Norman and Kalia awake. The sensors must have picked up the seismic activity and relayed the alert as they were designed to do. It was Kalia’s idea to tie the alert into a local alarm system to pick up the sensors' warning.
They quickly jumped out of bed and got dressed.
“It’s earlier than anticipated,” Kalia spoke quickly as she pulled on her pants.
He paused with his leg halfway into his own pants and almost fell over at her statement. Shit, she was right. The earliest the Admiral’s people had predicted a next collapse was still two weeks out.
“Once we survey the damage, I will go speak with him and see if his people have updated their projections.” Originally they had projected a fifteen-year minimum timeline before the quakes would be happening daily. By that point, any efforts to save the planet would be useless. Two weeks might not seem like a large change, but if this shortened timeframe compounded… just how much time were they losing? The arrays weren’t even completed yet and they needed a minimum of nine years to charge.
The quake hit as they were exiting the castle. He noted it felt stronger than the last one as well. Not a good sign of things to come. The pair gripped the carriage as the entire world shook and swayed maddeningly for about thirty seconds.
There was a loud crack and crash as something in the city below gave way, but soon the quake ended and the power flickered back on.
“I don’t think we’re going to get much sleep for the next few weeks.” He handed Kalia a pill, which she quickly swallowed.
He caught her as her eyes went glassy before clearing again a moment later.
She groaned. “I still don’t like doing that,” she muttered as Norman helped her stand again.
“You’ll be thanking me later when you don’t have to eat or sleep while working.”
She sighed and gave him a kiss on the lips, hers already losing their warmth from her transition from living to undead. “Your turn.”
He sat in the carriage before taking his. The ‘pill’ was just a Death Ray spell made into physical form. A little trick he had learned after making his Elixer of False Death potion that was used to oust the remnants of the Empire from the insectaur zone. Once swallowed, the pill activated and released the spell. The amulet Kalia wore automatically revived her. Norman could have had his amulet do the same thing, but it was superfluous in Ashvale since he had the array that always resurrected him.
And if for whatever reason, they were separated from their amulets or arrays, they both had permanent phylacteries that now boasted a one-hundred-mile range. There were always trade-offs when using the amplification symbol though. In this case, the new phylacteries took much longer to charge. Nothing nearly as bad as his first mishap though. There would be no waiting for a decade to be revived, these would take a day at most instead of the hour they normally took to charge.
The carriage dropped Kalia off first. She had a lot to check up on. First and foremost was the manufacturing line for the arrays, followed by the line for the sensors, and mitigators. Then she would likely want to check on the power facility. Having the power drop out during the quake wasn’t a good sign. There may have been some damage to the plant.
He would need to check on the other cities to see how they faired with the dampeners in place.
Ashvale was actually the only city in Normenia without an active mitigation layer so far. The reason for that was simple. Since Ashvale had other ways to weather the quake, he had ordered the other cities protected first.
Checking up on those other settlements would need to wait though. He gave Kalia one last kiss before the carriage hurried toward the Ministry.
The streets were packed with people, as everyone had been drilled on what to do when the alarm went off. Thankfully, most of the buildings looked fine. They did come across what caused that loud cracking sound. The arch that used to serve as the city entrance from the old wall had collapsed.
People were already clearing away the rubble but Norman didn’t have time to wait or help. Instead of going around, Norman simply flew over the wall. His two guards joined him moments later and the three of them hurried through the streets.
The Ministry was just as busy as last time, but the chaos was more organized this time around. He only stuck around to get a quick report from Eugene and Grobert before heading to an office and activating a homunculus. Since Norman was free to travel, while still remaining in Ashvale if needed, this was a responsibility best suited to him. Although he would have done it anyway even if that wasn’t the case, these were all his people.
He used the surrogate body to visit the teleporter and check on the other cities. New Cali faired quite a bit better this time around. There had been no collapsed buildings this time, and the new mayor he spoke to said the quake felt relatively minor. He did praise the alarm for preventing quite a few injuries though. Kalia would enjoy hearing that.
Norman thanked the man and did his rounds to the rest of the cities. He even visited the underwater ones, something he could only do as an undead or in his homunculus form. The bagu were on edge and spooked by the quake. The semi-fishlike species hadn’t heeded the warning to leave the water before the quake hit, unlike the narasi.
An earthquake underwater did not sound like a fun experience. He couldn’t imagine how disruptive it was to the native life. He reminded the creatures to heed the alarm for next time, if they failed to follow the instructions and got hurt again, that was on them.
The rest of his rounds went quite fast. He stopped at the border outposts to check on the guards. Nobody was injured and the fortified bunkers were more than up to the challenge of a bit of shaking.
He was surprised to find that the teleporters to both the Commonwealth and the Alacala were still functional.
More annoying was the fact that the teleporter to Grothlosburg was cut. They were going to need that fixed right away so they didn’t fall behind on production.
He left the body and popped back into his to tell his Chief Advisor of the issue.
The man grumbled and cursed under his breath before vanishing with a pop of air.
Norman turned to Eugene, “You got everything covered here?”
“Yeah, most people know what to do now, so it's easy enough for one person to handle. Why?”
“First quake after the arrays were laid down, I want to inspect them.”
“All of them?”
Norman nodded.
“You want me to come wake you if anything crops up?”
“Yeah, might as well. This is gonna take a while.” The big man nodded while Norman returned to the room and reactivated the body he left. After his foray with the birds, he decided to get an accurate count on the arrays once and for all. There were forty-two arrays that Normenia had placed so far. And he knew they were much slower than the other nations. The last time he spoke with the Admiral, they had over one hundred arrays placed in the Commonwealth and nearby zones. Although it wasn’t a contest, they still tracked all the arrays assembled and running. It was important because there was a minimum threshold they needed to reach to ensure the spell covered the planet.
And while Ashvale was one of the fastest producers of arrays – thanks to Kalia’s discovery – they traded most of their production to people like Oomaku, Matron Astyria, and Custodian Valadin since those countries had larger groups of skilled people who could place the arrays. Normenia’s qualified people were already stretched thin keeping up with their current workload.
There wasn’t anything that could be done about it though.
He quickly headed for the teleporter to begin the inspections.