Norman knew it wouldn’t be long before this new unknown enemy showed up after the fourth death knight died. And he had been correct. It was only a few months after that date that his new security measures pinged him.

Having a decent idea of who he might face, Norman worked with other crafters within the city to build the undead detector. It was simply designed to detect any undead not linked through Norman’s blood.

Since all of the citizens of Ashvale had been revived using his blood, that was an easy task. He could have added a detector for living things but chose not to. With the Alacala Merchants coming and going now it would constantly be going off. The same went for setting up a sensor specifically for humans. If an unknown human entered the city, everyone would know about it in short order. Especially since there were only two humans in the entirety of the city that weren’t merchants.

Norman didn’t know if this new enemy was a human. Technically he didn’t know if the necromancer was undead either, but he was more than likely to have undead with him. Either way, the sensor would get triggered, alerting him to the new presence. Which it had just done.

After about ten minutes, Norman got another ping on the little receiver unit. Then it just started pinging constantly. He ran up to the second floor and the window that overlooked the city entrance to see what was going on. All he saw was a black line spreading into the distance. All of it funneling into the city. His eyes widened at the sheer mass of undead.

There had been no alert from his guards about the approaching tide. That possibility had been figured into his plan. He was after all fighting another necromancer. Undead would have very little chance against a prepared one.

While he had expected undead, this was ridiculous. There must be over five thousand of them. A trickle of nervousness ran down his spine. Were his preparations enough?

He straightened up. He couldn’t second guess himself now, his preparations should still work. While the enemy army was larger than expected, the number of undead shouldn’t affect the spell. He couldn’t tell from this distance but the mass of undead flowing through the city gate didn’t appear to be acting on their own. Their movements were too uniform. It meant plan A was still a go. This was good because plan B was going to take Ashvale a long time to recover from.

Pushing the problem of the massive undead army aside, Norman hurried back downstairs to await his visitor. He checked his appearance in a mirror at the bottom of the stairs. He made sure his snazzy new suit wasn’t ruffled before he made his way over to the throne. He wanted to make a good impression on his uninvited guest. After Norman sat on the new throne, he glanced up to ensure his staff was ready if he needed it.

It was where he left it, which was good. While Norman was willing to try negotiating with this unknown necromancer, he was prepared for the most likely outcome. Which was a fight to the death.

Norman got comfortable on the wooden throne and waited. He was glad they hadn’t rebuilt him another one of those bone thrones. While intimidating, he felt it was just too much.

After another fifteen minutes of waiting, Norman was surprised to see the front door open. A skeleton wearing a black robe stepped through the open doorway. It was surprising because he hadn’t heard his guards announce the man or any sounds of combat from outside. Then Norman spotted the glowing pendant around the man’s neck. While he couldn’t make out the symbols from a distance, he had a good idea of what it might be.

He hadn’t taken a look at the spell since he began cataloging the symbols. But based on the fact that his guards hadn’t reacted to this man’s presence, he assumed the altered spell hid him completely from any undead. Even sapient ones. It would also explain the lack of alert from the guards at the wall.

It was difficult but Norman suppressed the urge to gush at the skeletal man and ask him about the spell. He needed to be professional and intimidating. This man had come here with ill intent and was likely behind at least four greykin deaths already. Probably more since the man had walked through town without a worry. That sobering thought doused Norman’s enthusiasm to converse amicably with this man. But he would try nonetheless, for Grobert’s sake.

With a calming breath, Norman spoke up as the man entered the throne room. “You come into my kingdom-”

That was as far as he got before the man hit him with a very recognizable beam of black energy. Two things went through Norman’s mind at that moment. One, OW! And two, damn, that guy cast that spell so quickly and smoothly. Norman didn’t even see it coming. And then Norman exploded.

***

Vincent would have blinked in surprise if he still had eyelids or eyes. He hadn’t expected it to be this easy or for the first spell he cast to actually kill the man. None of the nearly dozen magical duels he had been in ever went this smoothly. Especially if his enemy knew he was coming and was also a necromancer. Obviously, this man had known he was coming since he started monologing instead of defending himself properly.

The guy wasn’t even wearing armor. Just some cheap knockoff-looking black suit with red accents.

He was about to send a mental command to his forces to purge the town when he stopped. Vincent’s moment of victory was burned away as he saw the blood and guts coating the chair wall and ceiling begin to reform. He tried to stop it, but a magical barrier prevented any interruption. Cursing, Vincent began to prepare other spells. He suspected this was going to be a tough fight.

***

Norman felt his consciousness return to him as his head reformed. Well, that sucked. Exploding was not a fun way to die. Then again, he hadn’t yet found a good way to die, they all kind of sucked. At least his spell had worked. So long as Norman was inside his city, the array he built would prevent him from dying, and it would instantly reconstitute him. It wasn’t quite as good as a permanent phylactery, but it was on the right track. Despite the area it covered, the array didn’t require an enormous amount of power, since it only targeted Norman.

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‘Grobert, I tried, I really did.’ Now it was time for scorched earth. He cracked his neck and stared at the skeletal attacker, watching as the man prepared spell after spell. He supposed he should call the man a lich, but he didn’t feel like the man deserved that vaunted title.

Norman stood from his throne, spinning up a Bone Shield to intercept the spell that the necromancer tried to throw at him as soon as his protection from the spell ended. Not that the man’s spell would do much good anymore. Norman was now undead himself. But the man probably couldn’t tell since Norman had donned his full armor after being reconstituted.

He snapped his fingers and his staff flew into his hand from its hiding spot. A neat trick he learned from the jorik that helped craft it. During this time the necromancer hadn’t stopped trying to hit him with spells. All of which were intercepted by Norman’s much-improved Bone Shield.

Now that Norman looked like a veritable badass, he spoke. “As I was saying before I was rudely interrupted. You come into my kingdom, then into my city and you didn’t think I would notice?”

The man actually hissed at him, seriously who does that? Or maybe it was less of a hiss, but just an aspect of not having lips? “If you give up now I will let your people live.”

Norman paused to blink at the man, before breaking out in a guttural laugh. “Holy shit, does anyone actually fall for that bullshit?”

Norman shook his head. “Don’t bother answering that I don’t actually care. I already know your undead horde is inside the city. The only reason you would do that is to kill everyone here.”

The skeletal man laughed, which was creepy. “Oh, I won’t kill them. I will just force them to join me. But as mindless undead and not these uncontrollable abominations you created.”

Sheesh, what a hypocrite. Norman was pretty sure an undead sapient skeleton wasn’t normal.

While the two had their little back and forth, the room strobed in malignant colors as spells flew back and forth in rapid succession.

The man dodged all of Norman’s spells easily as he laughed at Norman. “You think your paltry necromancy can harm me?”

“No,” Norman answered, making the man pause.

“What?”

“I said no. I was only using it as a distraction, and to get you to move.”

Norman tapped the bottom of his staff in a specific spot on the floor that he had maneuvered to while the man was occupied. A fireball struck the barrier that had sprung up from his action. He did note that the fireball spell that the necromancer cast was much weaker looking than Noorani’s version. It gave him a good estimate of this man’s strength for non-necromantic magic. Norman wished he had more time to learn non-necromantic spells. It would really help in a fight like this.

“Your first mistake was killing off my Death Knights I sent to California. It gave me all the time I needed to prepare for your arrival, and you haven’t deviated from my expectations a single time. I’m actually a bit disappointed.” Norman tapped his staff down on the same spot a second time, producing a flash of magic that raced out from that point.

“What are you doing? Stop that!” The man demanded.

Norman laughed at him. “I asked myself. What would some evil necromancer do? He would have an entire army of mindless undead at his beck and call. A bit cliché if you ask me, but it was the most likely outcome. And I wasn’t wrong. Thanks for that by the way, it won me a bet.”

By this time the man was throwing all sorts of spells at the magical barrier. But Norman ignored him as he continued monologing. He now understood why criminals and supervillains liked to do this, it was extremely empowering. Not that he would make it a habit, but today was a special day.

“I will answer your question with another. What is the best way to eliminate an entire host of mindless zombies? …You give up? Easy, simply give them their humanity back.” Norman smiled and slammed his staff into the ground for a third and final time.

From outside a huge dome of energy erupted covering the entire city and miles around it. All of the mindless dead dropped to the ground as their link to the necromancer was forcefully severed. In its place, Norman shoved their original souls. It was a crude way to go about creating greykin, but it worked.

Norman watched as the necromancer in front of him dropped to the ground screaming in inarticulate rage. Or was it pain? Eh, didn’t matter, the guy brought it on himself.

He whistled and twirled his staff as he stepped out of the fading spell circle. “I should thank you. But I won’t. You don’t deserve thanks, you deserve to die for coming here. This is my kingdom, my city…my people. What gives you the right to come here and try and take that from me? To try and harm them? To try and kill me?”

The man leaped to his feet. “You think this is over? I will return and destroy this city, you cannot stop me. You cannot stop the organization behind me. Rogue elements like you will not be left to fester and corrupt the rest of us.”

What the hell was this man talking about? Norman could question his ghost later. For now, he needed to end this fight.

Norman tossed what looked like an Orb of Decay at the man. The skeletal man scoffed and batted the item away, where it shattered in the corner. He thought the man would have caught the item. But this worked too. Norman removed his helmet, a huge smile on his face. “Oh, you thought you were going to escape by fleeing to your phylactery?”

It was impossible to read emotions on a skeleton, but Norman was pretty sure the man would be frowning at this moment. The skeletal necromancer glanced once more at the broken orb, it was made from stone, and not the magical crystal that normally composed the Orb of Decay. It was only painted to look like one.

“My father will avenge me,” he vowed, tossing more magic Norman’s way.

Each spell was intercepted by Norman’s shield as he chuckled at the man’s threat.

It was easy to see the man was running out of steam.

“If your father was anyone to fear, he wouldn’t have sent his idiotic son to try and kill me with my own spells.”

The man stiffened at those words. “What!”

Norman smirked. “Oh, you didn’t know. Pity. You should have done a better job searching the memories of my knights. That book that you have strapped to your side. I was the original creator of those spells until it was stolen from me. Not that it matters. Our little conversation has dragged on long enough.”

The man tried to flee like the coward he was, but he slammed into a wall of force. When he turned to try and go another way, he found yet another blocking his path. By then it was too late. Norman had conjured the six walls, trapping the man inside.

The spell wasn’t Norman’s but he had been taught it by the grateful Saliu. While the necromancer raged inside the prison of compressed air, Norman pulled out another soul trap. He shoved the object through the cage to touch the unsuspecting necromancer. Norman had designed the spell not to trigger by his touch, so it was perfectly safe for him to interact with the items. Not so for anyone else though. The item did as its description stated, it trapped the soul. As long as the item wasn’t broken, the soul would remain trapped.

Norman pulled his arm and the soul trap back out before he collapsed the spell construct, turning the unfortunate necromancer inside into a pile of broken bones.

He placed the trap inside a magical bag. The bag would prevent impacts from damaging the contents within. Then he sifted through the broken corpse and retrieved the grimoire. He shook his head upon seeing it. Noorani had duplicated the entire book, not just the material inside. It looked exactly the same as his old book. When he opened it up and flipped through the pages, he found quite a few new spells he hadn’t known. It did piss him off seeing some of his warnings crossed out or scribbled over. Norman tucked the book into his satchel. He would look at it in detail later.

Once that was done, Norman turned around and surveyed the room. There were scorch marks from spell impacts, broken paintings, and even a shattered chandelier. He sighed, Grobert was gonna be pissed when he saw this.

Cleaning up the mess could wait until later though. He should probably go and greet his new subjects.