Chapter 16: Chapter 16: Rock, paper, scissors, shoot!

Bonus chapter!

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Norman stopped his bike on some out-of-the-way trail, well outside of town. He checked around to make sure nothing was hiding nearby. This was unfortunately a good place for a rycor to jump out and attack him, or even just a mountain lion. But he didn’t see anything.

He was out here to test the bone and see what it did. He could have just done this in town but there was a good chance someone would stumble across the site and ask questions Norman didn’t want to be asked.

Making his way off the trail, Norman moved further into the woods, keeping an eye out for any trouble. For whatever reason, Eugene had left the dead man’s gun behind.  Norman, not one to overlook a valuable opportunity, when it was presented so readily, had snatched it up and stuffed it in the waistband of his shorts.

Norman had never shot a gun before and never felt the need to own one personally. He didn’t much like the idea of escalating violence to that level. While he didn’t know how to operate the gun he could figure it out. How hard could it be? Stick the open end toward what you wanted to shoot and pull the trigger.

“Alright, this should be far enough,” Norman stopped in a slightly less tree-filled area a bit of a distance from the trail.

He looked back toward the trail and he could barely see the bike parked next to the tree. Norman decided this was far enough. He didn’t want to go too far from the trail he had come in on for fear of getting lost in the woods. That would be a really dumb way to die.

Norman unwrapped the bone from the cloth and looked it over. He still couldn’t quite believe it was real. Magic! Even though he had been exposed to magic for almost two years, it wasn’t the same. This was his magic.

Taking a deep breath, Norman tossed the bone about ten feet away and onto the ground where it was lost amongst the dead leaves and rotting vegetation of the forest floor.

Nothing happened, so he waited. After two minutes of nothing happening, he cursed.

It took Norman ten minutes to find the bone among the forest litter. The damn thing hadn’t broken when he threw it because the leaves had cushioned its fall. He went to pick it up and the stupid thing decided that was the perfect time to shatter.

“Ugh!”

Norman was tossed backward as a wall of bone and muscle shot up from where the bone had been.

Thankfully, Norman landed in the soft leaves and pine needles of the forest floor and not a rock.

Norman brushed himself off and got back to his feet. Luckily he only had a few scrapes. He went over to inspect the results of the spell, referred to on the forum as a bone wall.

It certainly wasn’t a bone wall, although bones were used in its construction. It looked more like a bramble patch made from bone and muscle, instead of plants.

Sharp spikes of bone stuck out at odd angles, making the wall impossible to scale unless you wanted to slice yourself up.

As Norman got closer, he saw that the muscle in the wall pulsed as if it had a heartbeat and gave off the stench of a rotting corpse. Norman jerked back and immediately pinched his nose shut. He breathed through his mouth as he continued inspecting the results of the spell.

The wall itself wasn’t all that high, maybe three feet tall.

High enough to be annoying for anyone without improved strength. The wall also covered about fifteen feet in length, although, Norman wasn’t sure if that was because the ends were anchored in some nearby trees or not. He would love to test it in a clearing or a hallway to see if the height changed depending on the distance covered but he only had one other prepared bone and he didn’t want to waste it.

Although, now that Norman knew how this spell worked, any bones would do. He just needed to do the legwork to gather them up.

Satisfied with the result of this test, Norman scribbled some more notes in his notebook, to be transferred later into his actual grimoire. He was almost done when he heard a twig snap nearby.

Slowly, carefully, Norman set his notebook down and drew the gun. Or that’s what he would tell people if they ever asked.

What actually happened was Norman screamed like a little girl, threw his notebook into the air, and pulled the pistol from his pants, almost shooting himself in the process, only to watch as a deer bounded into the distance at the noise.

That was the point when Norman decided guns were not for him.

***

“Mistress Gail, our spy inside our rival’s organization failed to report in.”

Gail lounged in her seat trying to recall who her servant was referring to as another one of her manservant thralls fed her a fruit slice. The man was buff and fully nude with a light coating of oil to accentuate every ripple and curve of his body.

The scene was as close to her base desire as possible but it wasn’t perfect. Her fantasy had the man feeding her grapes while she lounged on a pile of other naked men who massaged her with sensual oils. But laying atop a pile of naked bodies turned out to not be as comfortable or relaxing as she had imagined and none of the local farmers grew grapes. So she settled for what worked.

Despite that, she was having the best time of her life and she mattered now. Unlike before the fall, when everyone was judged on their looks or how rich they were. She still had neither of those things. What she did have was power, and that was all that mattered in this new reality.

“Who was that again?” she finally asked, not entirely caring.

The man looked down at a sheet of paper, using his finger to mark where he was reading. She rolled her eyes, this man must have been of little consequence if even her underling had forgotten his name. He read the name off and she didn’t recognize it so her mind immediately forgot the name again. Although, it did tickle something in her mind.

“Wait… was he the one dying from lung cancer?” her thrall nodded.

“Ha, I knew it,” she snapped her fingers, “what about him?” This was the downside to her thralls, they were dumb as bricks and only capable of simple tasks so you had to know to ask the right questions sometimes.

“Uhh…”

She sighed again and sat up, throwing her legs off the arm of the very expensive couch she had been laying on.

“What task was this spy completing?” she asked, motioning the man to hurry up.

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“Oh, uh, you asked him to remove the guy that was supplying the bikers with potions.”

“Huh.” She did vaguely recall hearing about Mr. Sin – a completely absurd name by the way – having gotten a supplier of healing potions.

“Oh right,” she chuckled. She had promised the lung cancer idiot that she would heal him if he took care of that little problem. Not that it seemed like much of a problem. The healing potions couldn’t be all that good if they couldn’t cure a simple disease.

Honestly, the whole plan was little effort on her part with no risk to herself, so why not sick the traitor on the task?

“Have the men located his body yet?” Gail did not doubt that the man was dead if he hadn’t checked in. Not much of a loss on her part but it would be good to know what happened.

“No, Mistress Gail. We found signs of blood in the warehouse where he said he would be, but no signs of any of the bodies that should have been there.”

“That’s right,” she remembered the man saying he was going to lure his target there with another corpse. She hadn’t bothered asking about that bit, mostly because she didn’t rightly care.

“Go on, what else.” It was possible Sin had figured out what she was up to, she couldn’t discount the man as ignorant. You didn’t survive this long in the criminal world without being crafty and ruthless.

“Uh, well, we assume the necromancer had help because there were two sets of tire tracks in the gravel outside the warehouse.”

She shot to her feet, “Necromancer! What necromancer?” This was the first time she was hearing anything about someone like this, how had she not been informed about something as crucial as this?

“Um, the one you asked him to kill, Mistress.”

She screamed grabbing the bowl of fruit from the thrall that had been feeding her and chucked it at the head of the one who was relaying this information to her.

There was a satisfying *THWONG* as the bowl hit him square in the face and the man collapsed to the floor crying like a child.

She had a momentary pang of regret at what she did but she quickly hardened her heart. Nobody ever showed her any mercy over what she couldn’t control, why should she show them any now?

“Get up and stop blubbering. I want to know everything we know about this Necromancer.”

The big lummox of a man slowly got to his feet and she had to pinch the bridge of her nose in exasperation as the man wiped away snot and tears with the arm of his shirt. This wasn’t the first time she wished her thrall spell worked differently.

After the man-child collected himself, he began to tell her what they knew about the necromancer.

“We know he is supplying Sin with potions, these potions used to be available only at the Guild but now he seems to be the only one with a supply.”

She cursed softly. The Guild was another group of idiot man-children, all about saving humanity's way of life and protecting the innocent, blah, blah, blah. In a way, they were worse than her thralls. At least her thralls were useful to her but she hadn’t been able to enthrall any of the real choice physical classers of the Guild.

Her spell wasn’t strong enough, or they were just too dense to fall for it. She had other ways but they required direct contact.

Gail waited for her thrall to continue speaking, when he didn’t she glared at him and he flinched back.

“What else?” she demanded.

“That’s all we know mistress.”

She took a few deep breaths to calm herself as her eyes scanned her surroundings for something else to throw at the man. Eventually, her temper calmed down enough for her to respond without screaming.

“Get Franka on the phone, I wish to have a chat with our local Mayoress.” It seems she had been too trusting with the high-society woman.

Perhaps a reminder of what would happen if she didn’t do her job properly. Gail turned her head to the buff specimen that had been feeding her fruit and smiled. “Yes, I think a family reunion is in order. I know if my husband was gone for so long, I would miss him ever so dearly,” she chuckled cruelly.

Her evil laughter was cut off as the other thrall handed her a phone, only it was on video mode and a perturbed woman was glaring at her from the other side.

“What are you cackling about, Gail? And why have you called me, I told you not to call me during the day, this better be important.”

Gail snapped the phone out of the hands of the idiot thrall and slapped him across the face, pointing to the time-out room, then zipping her fingers across her lips when he began to cry again.

Once the man was out of sight, she pulled the phone back up so she could see her old friend's face.

“I thought we had a deal, Franka. I would remove your husband from your sight and you would provide me with information to deal with the criminals that are taking over the city. I can’t do that if you are holding back from me.”

“What are you talking about, what information did I hold back? And you best keep my damn husband out of sight. I see the idiot in the background. If anyone finds out the old Mayor is still alive, there will be split loyalties and we are at a delicate time where we can ill afford that.”

Gail ground her teeth. “I can hold up my end of the bargain. But why wasn’t I told that Sin had a necromancer on his payroll? If it’s one thing we can’t afford to have, it's someone who can reach beyond the grave and uncover what we’ve done.”

Franka scoffed. “You’re worried about that buffoon? My last intel report says the only thing that kid was capable of was a shotty healing potion. He is a stoner and a wastrel, nothing you need to concern yourself about. But if you’re so worried, I can task my man with digging up more intel. In the meantime, just watch some of the videos that his previous boss posted online. They are rather pathetic but amusing nonetheless. Now, I have to go, Gail, before our new Mayor gets ideas of his own. Don’t call me at the office again.” The screen went black as Franka hung up.

Gail screamed and hurled the phone against the wall, shattering it.

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