Norman walked up to Anna. The woman was so focused on her task, she didn’t notice his arrival. He waited until she was finished with the work she was doing before he cleared his throat to get her attention.
Anna turned toward him, looking exhausted, but she still smiled when she spotted him. The smile quickly faded when she realized Norman wasn’t smiling in return.
“If you are free tonight, I would like to invite you to the castle for supper.” He hoped she didn’t get the wrong idea, this wasn’t going to be some romantic setting. He was essentially going to grill her for information.
Going by the suspicious expression that crossed her face, she probably didn’t believe that was the case. “Why now? I’m not dumb, Norman, I know you’ve been avoiding me since our last conversation.”
Norman quirked an eyebrow, thankfully they had grown back in the last few weeks. “Can you blame me?”
“No… I guess not.”
“As for why now, I was busy before but now I’m not. Since I find myself with some free time, it's about time I learn about what is happening outside of our little chunk of heaven.”
“So you just want information. I should have known. Fine, free food is free food. I hope what they feed you is better than the slop they have been feeding me out here.”
Honestly, Norman had no idea who was going to be making the food for him. Someone had been making and leaving food for him to eat every day and he just sort of accepted it since he didn’t have time to find out who was doing it.
As for taste, Anna probably wasn’t going to be that impressed. Norman doubted his food was much better than anyone else's since things were still recovering and new crops hadn’t been harvested yet.
“I will see you tonight then. Someone will come to get you when it is time.”
The next stop for Norman was the barracks. He could have just sent someone here, but Norman wanted to speak with Eugene in person. It had been a few weeks since they had spoken and he rather missed the big fella.
Norman found Eugene in the small mustering yard behind the barracks. He was supervising a small group of Death Knights in hand-to-hand fighting tactics. It looked more like a bar room brawl than any form of combat that Norman had seen, but he shouldn’t be too surprised. Eugene wasn’t a trained fighter, but he did know how to fight. Whatever he was teaching them looked effective though. Especially with the added strength that the gron and those with physical callings could bring to bear.
When Eugene turned to walk back through the groups of fighters, he noticed Norman. The man gave him a nod before addressing his men. “alright, switch partners and keep sparing, I will return in a few minutes.
A chorus of, “Yes, Commander” came in reply as Eugene made his way over.
“Hey, Boss, what brings you by?”
“Got some time to talk?”
Eugene gestured for the building. “Yeah, let's go into my office.”
Eugene’s office was spartan, containing only two rough wooden chairs and a wooden table piled with paperwork. It was much the same as most places around town at the moment. All of the effort and focus was on getting things working again. Aesthetics could come later when there was time.
Eugene sat behind his desk and Norman took the chair across from him. “How is the new training going?”
“Eh,” he replied shaking his hand from side to side. “Could be better. But then again I never expected the reserves to be all that good. Mainly I’m just looking for them to understand how to follow orders and understand simple tactics. Most people seemed to get it, the few that didn’t I had to kick out of the reserves. They weren’t happy with my decision but that’s just more proof they can’t take orders. It's better for everyone if they aren’t there muddying the waters when orders are given.”
“You don’t have to sell me. I gave you this position because I trust your judgment, run it however you see fit. If anyone causes trouble, lock them up and we can deal with them later.”
Eugene nodded. “I assume you didn’t just come here to ask about training?”
“Nope. I’m inviting Anna to dinner tonight. It's about time we get a picture of what is happening out there.”
Eugene chuckled. “I bet she wasn’t thrilled to hear that. So you want me there to ask questions as well?”
Norman nodded. “Yeah, there are questions I won’t think to ask. I’ll need Grobert to attend as well. Have you seen him today?”
“No, but lemme look at the schedule.”
“There is a schedule?”
Eugene dug around his desk until he came up with a sheet of paper with weird writing on it. Norman couldn’t make heads or tails of the sheet, but it seemed Eugene could. Eugene noticed Norman glancing over.
“It’s in code since we don’t have any other way to secure our information, especially something that tells everyone our guard movements. I don’t track your or Grobert's movements, but someone could figure it out by looking at where the guards are going to be.”
That was probably a good idea.
“According to the schedule, the two guards assigned to him will be outside the wall. He is probably inspecting the new fields being planted.”
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Norman chuckled. “You assigned Grobert guards, how well was that received?”
“I assigned all of our key personnel guards, whether they like it or not. As for how he handled it, well, he hasn’t spoken to me since, but he also hasn’t openly complained. So I will take that as a win.”
“What about you?”
Eugene smiled. “I have two guards as well, they are just more circumspect.”
Norman stood up and headed for the door. “Well, I’m going to let you get back to training while I go bug Grobert.”
“Good luck,” Eugene called out.
Norman walked toward the brand-new gates of the city. They were much larger and much more imposing than before. The short ten-foot wall had been replaced by a thirty-foot gatehouse that extended a few hundred feet to either side. From what he had heard, the plan was to increase the height of the wall around the city to match the new gate. Norman whistled at the imposing structure.
It was three times higher, but also twenty feet thick, allowing for a significant amount of room along the parapet for soldiers to patrol and look for incoming threats. It also allowed for weapons to be placed on the wall, as soon as they got around to making them that was.
Even the single stone gate had been replaced. The inner gate was still made from thick stone that split down the middle, but now it was banded in iron with three spots for locking ties to go. After that was a portcullis. Then came the final stone and iron door that hinged outward but had twenty locking bolts that dropped into the floor and along the ceiling. Something so complex would not have been possible without the help of the stone mages. All of the gates remained open during the daytime hours and were closed at night. And it took four gron or two physical classers to move the outer door.
There was also talk about enchanting the doors to help them absorb impact or just straight-up shielding them but they simply didn’t have the time or materials to create something like that at the moment.
Was it overkill, yes. But it meant anyone who really wanted into the city was going to have to work for it.
As the trio exited the city, the four Death Knights stationed outside nodded to them. All four were fully decked out, similar to how Norman’s guards were before he made them change. Eugene had beaten it into the knights’ heads not to salute anyone with rank outside the city. It made it harder to target them directly. Not that the two guards trailing behind Norman didn’t give away the fact that he was important. But it was less conspicuous without them wearing their Death Knight armor.
Norman had made them change that at the barracks. They stood out far less when wearing the standard ash-grey breastplates that had become standard for all of the guards not part of the Death Knights. He had been told it was a sign of prestige even to wear any of the armor.
Norman would have preferred for them to just wear normal clothes on this outing. But he got shot down real quick by Lohr and Nolix when he asked that of them. Apparently, Eugene had told them in no uncertain terms, that if they weren’t armed and armored at all times while on duty, they might as well kiss their positions goodbye. Norman chuckled at that but didn’t push. He didn’t want to get the men in trouble and Eugene was probably right.
It only took a few minutes to find Grobert. There simply weren’t that many people or buildings outside the wall. And all of the people were gathered together near one of them at the moment.
He walked up as Grobert was speaking with a group of farmers holding stakes and string. When he spotted Norman he motioned him over.
“I’m glad you’re here. I was just discussing how to lay out the plots for the new farms with our intrepid farmers. It's good for you to learn this as well.”
Norman nodded and shook the hands of all the farmers. “It’ll be good to get something other than wild oats and meat in our diet. Any concerns or issues I can help with?”
The farmers looked at each other before turning back toward Norman. “We want larger plots of land to farm.”
Grobert cleared his throat. “We’ve been over this, Ulysses. You have five acres of land, which is probably more than you can farm by yourself. Why do you want more?”
“Yeah, and I told ya before, ya old fart. If we’re going to be required to give half of the crops to the city, we deserve some form of compensation.”
Norman looked to Grobert. “These men aren’t getting paid?”
“They are, the land they are farming is being given to them so long as they maintain the farming on it.”
“That’s not enough. We want to make enough money to support a family.”
This confused Norman, he knew greykin couldn’t get pregnant. And if they had a spouse, that wasn’t an issue. Just double the plot size.
“I’m not sure I follow, can someone explain to me what's going on?”
Grobert sighed, something he rarely did outside closed doors. “The farmers want to be given life so they can have kids. Once the kids are grown, they want to all go back to being undead.”
Norman looked at the farmers. “Why?”
“Because a family brings meaning to one's existence.”
Norman supposed he couldn’t argue with that. But he saw a few issues. The land part wasn’t really a problem, they had more than enough of that. It was the other thing he was concerned about.
“Let's say I agree to allow this,” Norman spoke. Although, he couldn’t believe he was saying words like ‘allow’ it felt so weird. But he was in charge now so he needed to embrace that change. “There will be a few conditions.”
“Aye, let's hear them,” Ulysses replied with a twang similar to Grobert’s when the man got angry.
Norman assumed the farmers had all chosen this man to represent them.
“First of all, I won’t even consider this until you have all proven to Grobert that you can manage your farms properly for at least five years.”
That brought a few complaints from the farmers, but Ulysses held up his hand, getting them to quiet down. “Go on, what else?”
“If Grobert is happy with your progress, you must also have a wife willing to return to life. If and when you have children, they’re not eligible to be turned into greykin until they reach adulthood. If they die before then, they stay dead. I will not negotiate or budge on that, you all know how painful the process is.”
That brought another fresh round of grumbling and a few of the men even walked away, obviously upset. But most stuck around.
Ulysses grunted. “To some that could seem rather callous… but I was there when the nomad children left the temple. I saw the dead-eyed looks they had so I understand where you are coming from. If we take on this path, we accept that if they die during childhood that their death will be final. All in favor?” The remaining men voiced their approval.
“Alright, Grobert write up an agreement and have all of these men sign it. Once they get married, double their lot size. For each child, add a single acre. Will that be acceptable?”
The men all nodded.
Norman waited for Grobert to finalize the discussions before he spoke to him again.
“Well, that could have gone better,” Grobert grumbled.
Norman raised an eyebrow. “You didn’t want them to ask for more land?”
Grobert shook his head. “I didn’t want to introduce differences into our population. The greykin have a rather suspicious attitude toward the living, thanks to the Brotherhood. Perhaps it won’t be as bad as I fear, but there will still be friction in the future. Maybe with time and effort, it will go away.”
“Well, let’s hope for the best. I came out here to ask you to join me, Eugene, and Anna for dinner.”
Grobert frowned. “Are you sure it’s wise to keep her around? I know you have a past with her, but all I see is trouble when I look at her.”
Norman chuckled. “Yeah, she is definitely trouble. But she has the information we need. I don’t want to run into the same situation we ran into with the Brotherhood. The lack of knowledge of what is happening outside Normenia is an issue we need to solve.”
“Fair enough,” he grunted. “What time did you want me to come by?”
Norman told Grobert when to arrive and left the man to his work.