Grobert laid out his reasoning for Norman to take charge and finally declare himself the leader of the village. It was the same argument Norman had heard time and time again from Grobert.
“I told you before, I don’t want that kind of responsibility. And who in their right mind would want me leading them anyway?”
Grobert slapped a stack of papers on the table and slid them over to Norman. “These people.”
Norman flipped through the sheets, seeing the names of many greykin he recognized.
It had to be over half of the town.
“Nobody thought of asking me what I want?” he mumbled.
“Aye, we did. But nobody wanted to give you the chance to dismiss their opinions again. Face it Norman, you’re already the leader here whether you accept it or not. And this attack has only cemented those feelings in the citizens.”
“What about the people not represented in these sheets?” Norman waved the papers at Grobert like an accusation.
“Those names represent over seventy percent of the people in the village. The rest were either busy or out of town when I went to collect signatures.”
Norman pinched the bridge of his nose. “Don’t tell me you wasted two days getting signatures from people.”
Grobert barked a harsh laugh. “Hardly. I simply handed out the sheets to Nolix and told him to spread them around town. The fact that I didn’t have to do anything else should be enough proof that everyone wants you to lead.”
“Why? Why me? What happens when I inevitably screw up?” Norman tried to rub away the headache he felt forming.
It was obvious the people were sick of him dithering about and Grobert had come prepared to fight any argument Norman had brought up in the past. Hell, before he would have just walked out of the room and ignored the man for a few days until he got his point across. That was a viable option when there was no threat to the city, but now, not so much.
He knew he was running out of excuses but wasn’t quite ready to throw in the towel and agree to this madness.
“Because you care,” Grobert replied. “Nobody even had to ask you to try and resolve this issue with those Brotherhood people, yet you never once hesitated to go. That’s the mark of a true leader, someone that will put their people above themselves. As for screwing up,” Grobert shrugged, “everyone screws up from time to time. The trick is to learn from those mistakes and not repeat them. Let me ask you this, Norman… what have you been doing since we returned?”
Norman grumbled, not wanting to answer this trap of a question. It only earned him a grin from Grobert.
“Fine, you caught me. I’m trying to improve my magic to help the village, so what? That doesn’t mean I want to run the whole damn thing.” Norman knew this was a paper-thin argument, but the thought of running a city made him break out in a cold sweat.
“Yeah, running a whole village by yourself would be a monumental task.” Grobert declared.
Norman was about to thank the man for finally seeing reason but Grobert continued before he could get a word in.
“It’s a good thing you don’t have to do it alone. You have people to help. Eugene is capable enough to run the security.”
“Thanks,” Eugene grunted.
Grobert ignored the comment and continued speaking. “And I can help you with running the town and the political side of things. I’m sure there are plenty of other people in town that can assist as needed, you only have to ask. You won’t have to do this alone.”
Norman decided to pull out his last card, hoping to change their minds. “Doesn’t that make you a better candidate?”
Grobert shook his head. “I’m done being in charge. And besides, the people in this town don’t have the same trust in me as they do you. Everyone here, Eugene excluded, owes you their lives, literally.”
“All I did was bring them back from the dead,” Norman slouched down in his chair in defeat.
“Quit moping, we got shit to do, Boss. Besides, you know you’re gonna take the position.”
Norman gave Eugene the finger, earning a chuckle from the man.
“Fine, if it means getting you two off my back about this every week, I’ll do it. But if I fuck this up, I’m blaming it on you two. A king has gotta have a few sacrificial pawns.”
“Whatever, just don’t expect me to call you my liege or any other such nonsense,” Eugene drawled.
“That’s it then?”
“What did you expect, the sky to come crashing down?” Grobert smiled.
Norman rolled his eyes at the man and nodded toward the covered item. “So, what’s that?” Norman asked, changing the subject.
“Your new throne, obviously.” Grobert approached the covered object and removed the sheet.
“…” Norman stared at the object, at a loss for words.
“Well, what do ya think?”
“You’re kidding, right? Please tell me this a joke, Grobert?” Norman asked seriously.
“No, we thought it was quite fitting.”
“There is no way I am sitting on that, it's ridiculous.”
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
“Why not?” The man asked, looking slightly offended by Norman’s comment.
“For starters, it’s gonna make me look like some cliché villain.”
“I don’t know, I think it would give you a sense of gravitas and your enemies pause,” Eugene cut in.
Norman glared at the larger man, who seemed on the edge of bursting into laughter. At least he now knew who was responsible for this thing.
“Also it looks extremely uncomfortable. Bones don’t make for the best padding.” And that’s what the entirety of this throne was made out of. There were even skulls for where the hands were meant to rest, and lining the bottom, facing toward the room were skulls meant as a footrest, human skulls.
“Where did you even get these?” Norman asked, not sure he wanted an answer.
“When I found out you couldn’t use the zealots for your spells, I thought this might be a better use for them than just cremation. As for comfort, I suppose we could get you a padded cushion. I forget how tender you humans are.”
Norman sighed. While the chair was over-the-top ridiculous, it did make you pause and think. He certainly wouldn’t want to sit opposite the person in the chair. It clearly oozed intimidation and a clear threat of what could happen if you pissed the person sitting in it off.
The chair was just so out of character for Norman. He wasn’t trying to be the stereotypical necromancer, at least not anymore. If he wanted to do that he would have just gone straight toward making undead he could control. Not that that turned out to be an easy path, but still.
Seeing no other choice, and not wanting to throw away all the time Grobert had spent crafting this… well it certainly wasn’t a masterpiece, Norman stood from the table and approached the chair. He supposed he should call it a throne, but he wasn’t quite there yet.
The chair felt cold and rough under Norman’s hand as he ran his fingers across the arm. He wasn’t sure what he expected, it felt just like every other bone Norman had handled before. Not wanting to drag out this nonsense any longer than he had to, Norman sat in the chair.
‘Dammit!’ The chair was surprisingly comfortable, despite it being made out of bone.
Eugene scratched at his face, “Eh, I think it’s missing something.”
“Hmm, I think you’re right. Oh, I know, put this on.” Grobert produced a crown from behind his back.
Where the man had been hiding it, Norman couldn’t say. And of course, it was made from bones as well.
Grobert plopped the crown on Norman’s head and stepped back. Norman just sat there quietly as the crown slid down his forehead, pushing his glasses down to the edge of his nose before it stopped.
“Hmm, guess I need to resize it a bit. Not a big deal.”
It seemed this was enough to get Eugene to finally burst out laughing. “I need to get a picture of this."
“Don’t even think about it,” Norman jerked the crown off his head and tossed it at Grobert before Eugene managed to pull his phone out.
“Bah, you’re no fun,” Eugene harrumphed.
“If I have to suffer, so do you. Are we done with this nonsense yet?”
“Almost,” Grobert added.
It was about an hour later and Norman sat on the throne again. This time he was wearing his full armor and the stupid crown. While he sat there, people from the city came in groups and pledged their fealty to him.
He was extremely uncomfortable sitting there while everyone came through but at least the crown fit better with his armor on.
As for the people, Norman didn’t know what to think. Every time someone said they would serve him and the town faithfully, it made him cringe a little inside. It also didn’t completely get rid of his misgivings about fucking up the lives of these people or somehow not living up to their expectations.
It was a lot of pressure for someone that was a self-absorbed, selfish, and completely worthless asshole only a little over a year ago. Still, there was something about the trust these people were showing him that made Norman want to do better, to be better.
As his first act as the leader, lord, king, or whatever title the people eventually decided to give him, Norman asked the citizens what to call the village. Mainly because he was sick of calling it the village. They had named themselves but thought nothing of naming the place they lived.
Considering the majority of the city was revived gron, Norman hadn’t expected to get so many silly names, but he did. He was forced to reject ones like Towny McTownFace… just why? A few others he rejected were Deadsville and The Crypt as well as anything that included his name. Eventually, someone did come up with a good name.
Norman nodded happily at the carved and painted sign that would be hung over the city gate. In big bold letters, it read ‘Ashvale’.
It was both a nod to the greykin and to the lush valley that the city resided in. Although calling the area a valley was stretching the definition of a valley by quite a bit, Norman still liked the name though.
Having a name for the city seemed to really energize the people and Norman got to watch as the wall quickly took shape around the town. Although not everything was as easy as watching work being done.
Grobert had filled him in that there were plans to include a second wall around the castle, with the ground level being filled in to create a sort of plateau instead of the short hill the structure now resided on.
The pair were alone on the top floor – Norman wanted to call it an observatory – watching people go about their work in the distance. “You knew, even from the start, didn’t you? That I would take the mantle of leadership.”
Grobert arched an eyebrow but otherwise remained silent.
“Of course you did,” Norman grumbled, turning back toward the window. “I feel useless just standing here, isn’t there something more constructive I could be doing?”
“There is plenty. We could start with a draft of rights, or laws. Then we could move on to how to pay people.”
Norman bonked his head into the window and sighed. So it begins. “Fine, let's go work on those things. But I don’t want to spend every day doing this nonsense. I need time to work on my magic.”
Grobert nodded as the two walked back toward the desk. Someone in the city had carved it out of a honey-colored wood and inlaid it with ivory and some darker material as accents. It was well crafted and sturdy, letting Norman know it was probably built by a gron craftsman. This was the first time Norman had seen the desk but according to Grobert, it had been here for months. Norman just never had any reason to come into this particular room so he never got to see it. He would need to thank the local craftsman for building it for him.
Ashvale didn’t have much in the way of manufacturing, so Norman knew the desk must have been carved by hand. Uplifting the city so they weren’t stuck in the pre-industrial age was an important goal for Norman. But that was likely years away.
Once seated, the pair got down to crafting a bill of rights for the people. Although, he did steal quite a bit of what he could remember from the Constitution. Not everything though. What Norman couldn’t remember, or didn’t factor in, Grobert helped with.
He wanted people to be as free as possible, so he needed to keep things simple. He also wanted to avoid some of the issues that cropped up in the US over the decades. Then they needed to add a provision for magic and people with callings in general. That was a sticky area since humans hadn’t fully come to grasp the ramifications of those changes yet.
That was where Grobert came in clutch. Since the gron people had been around for thousands of years and had always had magic or others with callings, they had designed laws with those in mind. Grobert also helped Norman understand the laws needed to deal with those sorts of people.
The last hurdle they tackled that day was whether or not to have separate laws governing the greykin vs the living. It boiled down to taking the life of a living person. Since Norman could easily resurrect them, could it be considered a crime?
In the end, Norman decided that yes, it was still a crime. Unless the person you murdered attempted to harm you physically or psychologically and you had no other alternative. Norman could imagine being stuck resurrecting idiots that got themselves killed all day every day once the city started to grow. He wanted to stop that in its tracks before it became an issue. If you died because you broke the law, well then you were shit out of luck.
For now, he had the final say in any broken laws. But hopefully, that would be taken over once a judicial system could be implemented. Norman may have agreed to lead these people, but that didn’t mean he wanted to be stuck listening to people whine and complain all day. If it came down to that, he might just pack up and leave.