It took a few days but Norman did eventually come up with a plan for moving forward.
Knowing that he wouldn’t be able to resurrect his people until either Eugene or Grobert returned to the city – he needed them to help him move the slab of stone that hid the spell anchor – but not knowing when they would be revived, Norman knew he needed help.
The only person that might be willing to help him in this situation was the gron president. Even if the man wasn’t willing to help directly, Norman could hire some gron physical classers or earth mages and lead them through the fog lands. With that in mind, Norman headed over to the teleporter building. When he arrived, he wasn’t at all surprised by what he found.
“Well, It was worth a shot,” he sighed as he stared at the remnants of the teleporter building.
Even if he had the strength to remove the debris, he knew the teleporter itself would be broken. The enemy had clearly and purposefully caused as much destruction to the building as they could, why would they leave the teleporter intact?
“A long walk north it is then.”
Norman would have left right then and there, but he decided to make a batch of his potions first. This would ensure if he got delayed on his trip, that he wouldn’t run out of the life-saving elixir. Finding the clover for the potion wasn’t hard. He had planted a ton of it around the city in the year they had been there. The wildlife loved the stuff, but it grew so fast, he didn’t need to worry about them eating it all.
Most of the other ingredients he found throughout the city. Items that the Brotherhood missed during their attack and subsequent ransacking of Ashvale. The only issue Norman ran into when sourcing the ingredients came when he needed to find the milk. None of the expired stuff he came across would work for him, he needed a fresh supply.
That was when Norman remembered that the grazers in this zone were technically mammals, although not from his layer of earth. Still, he had watched them enough to know they produced milk for their young. Getting to that milk turned out to be quite a hassle though. It wasn’t like he could just go up and milk a wild animal.
He was forced to use his Plague Ray on one of the bulls, so it infected a nearby sow. Once that sow was dead, he had to quickly run over and milk the dead animal while trying to avoid the angry herd that was unsure of what was going on. Thankfully the milk was unaffected by the disease from his spell. The whole process was a nightmare that Norman hoped he wouldn’t have to repeat any time soon.
The milk worked, and Norman was able to find a few unbroken glass vials in the city to store the extra potions into. He had enough potion now to last him a few months. More than enough time to hike to Grothlosburg and back. Honestly, the trip would probably be a lot easier for him now that he was undead. He wouldn’t need to stop to use the ghost-repellant spell and he wouldn’t tire out. Which meant he could walk without even stopping to rest.
With that in mind, Norman set out toward the north at a steady jog. It was an awkward motion and Norman stumbled more than once as he wasn’t quite used to his new body yet. It also felt odd not to have to breathe. He kept sucking in breaths like a drowning man when he forgot he wasn’t breathing, only to remember he didn’t need to. He didn’t recall anyone else running into this issue when they were converted, so he chalked it up to overthinking.
It was also weird to not feel tired or have his muscles cramp up from running for so long. But he couldn’t deny how useful it was not to worry about muscle cramps or lactic acid buildup. It did make him wonder if the undead could grow or lose muscle though. He thought it was unlikely, but it might be something he should look into once he got Ashvale back in one piece.
Norman paid little attention to the land around him as he traveled. He wasn’t too worried about being attacked. The grazers would ignore him so long as he kept away from them and there wasn’t anything else that was a danger. There were certainly no signs that any people had been in the area since the town had been sacked. But even if there were, he was confident in surviving.
Before he set out, he was able to dig up the last spare orb of the original six he had commissioned and reset his spawn point for lack of a better word. Although, this time, he pre-charged the orb using a local grazer. He was pretty sure that was what went wrong with the orbs, they simply weren’t able to collect enough life energy from the smaller woodland critters in the small area of effect the orb was able to produce.
Now if he ran into trouble, he should be able to resurrect one more time. Of course, if that happened, then he would be in some real trouble after. Norman slowed, now that he thought about it, maybe he should pay a bit more attention to his surroundings.
Another thing he did before he left was to leave a note for Eugene or Grobert if they revived before he got back. Norman ended up having to use the burned end of a stick to write out his note. He hoped the charcoal didn’t wash off or fade away on the walls he drew it on. He left the same message at a few spots around town, including the castle. Hopefully, they would see it and wait for him. It wouldn’t do to have them miss each other by a day or a few miles.
The trip north turned out to be completely uneventful. Eventually, Norman entered the fog lands. The muted sounds caused by the ever-present fog did give the place an eerie feeling. But for Norman, it felt more like a comforting blanket at the moment.
For a brief instant, he thought about trying to search for the lizna but decided against that course of action. He didn’t know where they had made their homes, and even if he did, he knew finding them wasn’t always guaranteed. Assuming they had even survived without healing potions for this long. If they were smart, they would have gone back to Grothlosburg after they learned of the destruction of Ashvale.
The immati – the name given to the specters of the fog by the lizna – didn’t bother Norman as he traveled through their lands. Not that he expected they would. It was just interesting to see their behavior from a different perspective than the last time he had come through the area.
Sooner than he expected, Norman reached the end of the fog lands and paused.
“Dammit! Why can’t I ever catch a break?”
Instead of seeing the gron megalopolis of Grothlosburg as he had expected to see when he stepped out of the swirling fog, Norman found himself staring at a dense jungle filled with the constant noise of animals and insects. And he knew he was in the right spot. The marks they had left in the gas vents when they first came through were still present.
“What the fuck!” Norman couldn’t help cursing his current luck.
There was the sound of snapping trees and a loud roar from nearby as something pushed its way through the dense vegetation and toward Norman. Norman’s outburst must have awakened something big. His’s eyes went wide as he quickly spotted the culprit pushing through the jungle.
If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.
Upon seeing what was coming, Norman did the smart thing and turned tail and ran back into the fog lands as the fucking dinosaur began to chase him.
The creature was large enough to swallow Norman whole and that wasn’t a fetish Norman wished to experience. The volcanic vents and tight canyons turned out to be to Norman’s benefit as he was able to weave between them easily to keep ahead of the much faster beast. Eventually, he heard it give out a plaintive wail behind him before the entire ground shook a moment later.
Norman found a good spot where he stopped and waited. He could have probably killed the creature with his spells, but Norman didn’t want to waste what precious little resources he had when the imatti were right here.
Norman waited another twenty minutes to ensure the creature was truly dead before he headed back to see for himself.
The massive thing was laying motionless near some destroyed volcanic vents. It looked to have gotten stuck between them when the imatti descended on it. Norman figured it had panicked and destroyed the vents in an effort to try and escape, only it was too late. The curious imatti had descended on the large predator, rendering it dead in only a few minutes. It was good that the imatti were here, but Norman wished he could have witnessed the attack firsthand so he could study the effects. But at least he had a giant dinosaur corpse to experiment with.
Norman checked his pockets but he quickly realized he didn’t have a large enough bone to store this thirty-foot behemoth, but that didn’t stop Norman from claiming his prize. After a bit of effort involving a large rock, Norman managed to break off one of the creature's exceptionally long and exceptionally sharp claws from one of its feet to use as a spell anchor.
After storing the enormous creature, Norman sat down for a bit to process what had just happened.
He had actually been chased by a dinosaur, a fucking dinosaur. Sure it wasn’t one that he recognized, but it resembled what scientists thought dinosaurs might look like, feathers and all. Like some big angry chicken. The bright colors were a bit of a surprise to Norman. But then again, didn’t male birds possess more colorful plumage to attract females? Norman gave the experience a three out of ten in the enjoyment department. Slightly above getting stabbed through the heart. That he gave a one out of ten. But even that was better than the zero out of ten he gave for experiencing a magical overdose.
Life was all about new experiences, right? It would just be nice if they weren’t all life-ending ones or ones where he wished he was dead.
The jungle was a bit of a change. It seemed that Grothlosburg was no longer where it should be. That was annoying.
The only reason that Norman could think of for that was another zone descending and moving things about again. It was a bit of a surprise not finding the city where it should be, but maybe this would work out for the better.
Hell, if Norman got really lucky, the stupid zone where the Brotherhood lived might have just moved as well. It did beg the question of how often new zones fell. It wasn’t exactly a high priority for him when he was in Grothlosburg, so he never bothered asking about it when he had access to the information. Now he wished he had researched it a bit more thoroughly when he had had the chance.
So getting to Grothlosburg was no longer an option, not with the big fuck off dinosaurs lurking about, at least not immediately. Not that Norman was too concerned though as another idea coalesced in his mind. He couldn’t help it as an evil smile formed on his face. If this idea worked, the Brotherhood would get a really nasty surprise the next time they tried to attack. Or maybe Norman would visit them with the big nasty surprise.
With his new direction set, Norman got up and headed toward the edge of the zone again. He had some dinosaurs to hunt.
He used hunting loosely here. It was more like Norman was acting as bait as he drew out dinosaurs near the border. There were many more than he had anticipated. A lot of them were much smaller than that first one though, making it harder to dodge the creatures between the vents. Most of the dinosaurs, Norman flushed out after the first big one, were around the size of an ostrich. Not huge, but big enough to be deadly.
It seemed they were carrion eaters and the bastards mistook Norman for a free meal, thanks to him being undead and wearing Bone Armor. Norman sported a few missing chunks in his armor from where the slippery little pricks had managed to tear into it. They were vicious little bastards that always went for the soft bits first.
Still, Norman led them into the fog lands while being attacked until they finally died off. The small surface wounds Norman suffered weren’t much of a concern. His armor was doing its job keeping anything vital from being destroyed. Not that Norman knew was what exactly vital to an undead.
He knew the head was important but other than that, the undead could take a hell of a beating before succumbing to their wounds. So Norman was erring on the side of caution and was just going to consider any major damage or organ damage as possibly deadly. He couldn’t afford to waste his limited potion supply on anything else.
Norman quickly gathered the corpses and stored them within his spell anchors. He still wanted to collect a few more of the larger dinosaurs, but the damn bugs were driving him nuts. Norman swatted another bug out of the air that looked like a cross between a beetle and a mosquito. The damn things kept landing on him and he was pretty sure they were trying to lay their eggs in his undead flesh.
Just the thought of having these creatures eat their way out of his body made him shudder with revulsion.
The only reason Norman hadn’t just up and left was his Bone Armor. It did a good job of keeping the nasty critters off of him. Even the fog lands didn’t discourage the things fully as they would still fly at him. Most died shortly after entering the fog, but some still managed to make it to him.
With a tired sigh, Norman moved deeper into the fog to keep them at bay.
It did require a change of tactics though. Instead of using himself as bait, he just screamed at the top of his lungs until something came rushing out of the jungle to investigate.
This new approach actually worked better for Norman, as he could just hide from the smaller dinosaurs. He really only wanted the larger ones for this new plan of his anyway.
He spotted another dino coming his way and waited to draw it into the fog. As the creature neared the edge of the forest, it paused and turned its head back toward the jungle. The creature roared at something and took a step back as something else came out of the jungle.
Norman couldn’t see much of the second monster as it lumbered out of the jungle as his view was blocked by the first dino and the fog. Norman did see lots of squat legs though. The challenger gave a deep bellowing roar and the first dino took another step back.
This surprised Norman because the first dinosaur was easily the largest Norman had spotted so far, and this new one couldn’t be much larger than a rhinoceros.
Norman felt more than he heard a weird crackling sensation. It was the only way he could really describe the feeling. If he had any hair, it probably would have made it stand on end. It wasn’t like an electrical buildup though, but something else entirely. He didn’t have to wait long to find out what it was.
The larger dino gave a pitiful screech before trying to bolt back into the jungle, only for its extremities to harden and snap off as if they were made of hard candy. The massive beast fell to the jungle floor and actually shattered apart like a dropped vase.
Norman was so surprised by what had happened that he could only blink in confusion. It was the triumphant roar of the other monster that finally shook him from his state of shock. The large eight-legged lizard climbed atop its kill and began to devour the solid chunks of the dino’s body with its wide mouth.
Having a pretty good idea of what just happened, Norman made sure to make himself scarce and avoid the creature's gaze. If the animal before him was what he thought it was, Norman was done hunting. The sounds of crunching followed Norman as he hurried farther into the fog to put as much distance between himself and what he was pretty sure was a basilisk as possible. Norman was tempted to add a sign before the fog lands that read ‘Beware of large chickens!’ but seeing this new creature, he realized the dinos weren’t the alpha predators of that zone.
He was also pretty sure it was also a magical beast. Norman had read about magical beasts when he was in Grothlosburg. The gron had many such creatures in their home plane. At least before they managed to wipe them out long before they got transported here. The takeaway Norman learned was that they were dangerous. He would wholeheartedly agree after seeing what the thing had done to a thirty-five-foot dino in less than thirty seconds.
Norman didn’t even think for a second about trying to lure the dangerous creature into the fog. Norman liked to take risks. Sometimes they paid off and sometimes they didn’t. But even he knew trying to create an undead basilisk sounded like a bad idea.