Chapter 51: Chapter 51: Death becomes us

Norman stood in surprise. He had expected the gron President’s arrival, but not Brigette.

He really wasn’t sure what to say to the woman so he went with a time-honored method. “Hey…”

“Don’t you hey me, I thought you died when your house burned down.”

Shit, she didn’t fall for it. Norman paused, wait? What had she just said? “… Hold up. If you thought I was dead, then who did you come to Grothlosburg for?”

“…” Brigette looked away, embarrassment clear on her face.

Then it dawned on him, there was only one other person she could be here to see. “Seriously, you followed Eugene here? Why?”

“I don’t have to explain myself to you, Norman.” The woman crossed her arms and glared at him.

“Oh, I think you do. Unless you want me to lump you in with Eugene’s activities since he arrived. Did you know that he came here to kill me?”

“Wait, what! No. I had no idea why he came here. He was just the only person from the information packet that I was able to track down.”

Norman took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Let me guess, this information arrived anonymously?”

Brigette looked at him suspiciously, “yeah, how did you know that.”

“Fucking Toby,” Norman muttered. Even now his convoluted bullshit plans were still affecting Norman.

“Ahem, well, as interesting as this little reunion is,” the President interrupted, “I believe we have more pressing business.”

Norman turned toward the President in surprise, “You want to do it now, with her here?”

“Do what?” Brigette asked in confusion.

The President just smiled and shrugged. “It’s no concern of mine if she knows.”

“Knows what? What’s going on, Norman?”

Norman continued to ignore Brigette. Instead, he gestured the President toward the bed. The man grinned and trotted over.

“Um, I don’t think I want to be here for this,” Brigette commented.

“What?” Norman asked in confusion, then looked at the President sitting on the bed. “What, no. It’s not like that. Not that I care what two men do together, this is just a business transaction.”

Brigette eyed him sidelong. “That doesn’t make it any better.”

Norman rubbed the bridge of his nose. “This isn’t anything sexual. He came to me for some magical treatment. Tell her, please,” Norman gestured.

The President lifted an eyebrow, the smile never leaving his face. “And why would I ruin this entertainment?”

“You know, I could just let you die and be done with this,” Norman stated flatly, earning a chuckle from the President.

“You could, but I don’t think you would. I’ve met many people like you, Norman. Those driven to further their magical knowledge at any expense, even their own. I don’t think you would purposefully harm me any more than I believe you could chop off your own arm. Shall we get started?”

“Fine,” Norman let out an exasperated sigh, “drink this poison and we can get started.”

“What!” Brigette squeaked out as Norman handed the President a bottle of dark liquid. She tried to stop him, but Norman blocked her way. “Are you insane! You could kill him.”

“I would hope so. I mean that’s the whole point of this treatment,” Norman replied.

“What!” Brigette responded, looking lost and confused.

Norman took pity on the woman and explained what the President had planned. He did this while the man himself was groaning on the bed in obvious pain. Served him right for bringing her here in the first place.

This was the first time Norman got to witness a healthy and conscious person drink the poison. Norman didn’t count the former presidents as they were hooked up to all kinds of magitech apparatus. The effects of the poison were not as pronounced as he had thought they would be, almost like it was designed not to be noticed as anything other than mild food poisoning. Until it was too late of course.

“Why?” Brigette asked in confusion. “I still don’t understand. Also since when could you raise the dead?”

Norman pursed his lips at that. She had really stabbed at a sore spot for him. Technically, this wasn’t raising the dead. He didn’t even consider it a proper spell. This was a series of reactions that occurred to produce the desired result. And one he had very little control over.

The President was currently rolling around on the bed, clutching at his stomach so he wouldn’t be any help explaining this weird situation to the woman.

“You know how strange the gron are right?”

Brigette nodded.

He launched into what he knew about the gron government and how they picked their leaders.

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“…And that’s about the gist of it. Once the President is dead or undead in this case, he will be able to do whatever he wants around the city without repercussions. Or so that’s the idea anyway. Honestly, I think the whole lot of them are a bit mental but who am I to decide how they run their society?” Norman shrugged.

“And you’re just ok with this?”

“Sure, why wouldn’t I be? And you’re one to talk. You were trying to work with Eugene. I can tell you for a fact, that man is a killer. What I’m doing is nothing near as bad as what Eugene and his boss have been up to.”

“I wasn’t going to work with them,” Brigette pouted.

“Oh, then what were your plans exactly? No, don’t tell me, let me guess. Feed information to Sin’s man about Gail? That begs the question, how are you involved with her?”

That got Brigette furious and she launched off the stool and poked Norman hard enough in the chest to make him wince. “I am not involved with that woman. And don’t pretend to know me, Norman. We spent one night together and I only did that to try and use you.”

“Well… I guess that was two of us,” Norman replied coldly, ruining his angry reply by rubbing the spot she had just poked. It really hurt.

Brigette tried to slap Norman for that comment but he caught her arm. He hadn’t meant that comment but this woman was pushing his buttons and bringing out feelings he had buried for a good reason.

Norman finally noticed the tears streaming down the woman's face and let her go. Her hand dropped and he had to catch her before she collapsed to the floor. He set her back on the stool where she sobbed uncontrollably for a few minutes. She was trying to say something but it kept being interrupted by her racking sobs.

Even Norman wasn’t oblivious to this woman’s pain. Something bad had happened to her for her to end up here, like this.

Against his better judgment, he kneeled next to the stool. “Tell me what happened.”

Brigette launched into her story. It occurred on the same day that Norman and the others had fled. Some sort of gun battle occurred between Sin and Gail, with Gail winning out somehow and Sin and his men being forced to vacate the town.

That news wasn’t as impactful to Norman as he would have thought. If he had any plans to ever return to Colorado, he might have cared a bit more about that. The other part of the story was a bit more concerning.

After the fight, Gail and her cronies stormed City Hall, where they took control of the city. Brigette had even watched a public announcement given by her father – only it was no longer her father – about how Gail was now in control of the town.

Norman still wasn’t sure why Gail had it out for him. Their paths had never crossed that he knew of. Sure he helped Sin out by supplying him with those potions, but it wasn’t like he had a choice in that matter.

“I’m really sorry about your father, Brigette, but I don’t see how that gets you here.”

She wiped her eyes, then looked up at Norman, a cold resolve in her gaze. “I came to find someone that could make Gail suffer for what she had done.”

That explained it, she was out for revenge. He could understand her feelings, but he couldn’t exactly relate to her. His parents had been shitty people and he would have thanked Gail for turning them into mindless slaves. But Brigette didn’t need to hear about his troubles. Norman nodded and stood up.

“I understand your motives for wanting revenge. That being said, I am also not some white knight. Even if I was inclined to help you in this situation, I cannot return to Colorado for fear that Sin would capture me. And for whatever fucked up reason, Gail has it out for me. Do you want to know why I asked if you were in league with Eugene? Earlier I said he was here to kill me. What I left out is that he already attacked me a few days ago. It’s only through pure luck that I survived.”

Norman saw Brigette stiffen at that revelation. “I- I didn’t know.”

Norman nodded. “I believe you. But you shouldn’t involve yourself with them. They might get rid of Gail for you, but they are only going to do it if it means they get to take her place.”

“I know,” she whispered so softly that Norman barely heard her, “but I have no other choice.”

“Gah!” Norman rubbed his hands through his hair rapidly, messing it up. “Look, just wait here for a bit and keep an eye on him,” Norman jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “If this alarm goes off before I get back, just make him drink this.” Norman set the bottle of health potion on the counter. “Make sure he drinks it all.”

Brigette got a panicked look in her eyes. “What? Where are you going?”

“I’m going to retrieve something you can use against Gail. That woman is too dangerous to leave running around. And since she already has it out for me, I might as well return the favor.” And with that Norman walked out of the apartment and shut the door behind him, leaving a stunned speechless Brigette in his wake.

“What am I doing? This is dumb, I’m not some avenging angel.” Norman kept muttering these words as he headed toward the roof and one of his stashes of prepared spells.

He really didn’t know why he was arming the woman. He barely knew Brigette. Sure she was cute and had a great figure but Norman could see past the shallow exterior looks of a person now that he wasn’t stoned out of his mind. Or maybe it was because his mana was no longer being drained away. Either way, it didn’t matter. He just felt like he had to help Brigette. If not for her, then for himself.

It wasn’t any sort of magic making him do this either. He was sure if the woman had magic, she would have used it a long time ago to hinder Gail or stop her. No, what he was feeling was pity plain and simple. Plus he had no love for that Gail woman.

When Norman got to the roof, he checked to make sure nobody was hiding on it. Eugene was still on the loose so he needed to be careful. Seeing that the coast was clear, he hurried over a roof vent and reached beneath it to pull out a plastic-wrapped bag. Norman opened it up and verified the contents were still there. It wouldn’t be good to give Brigette the bag only for her to find out it was empty or something.

But all twenty of the newer orbs were inside. Norman carefully closed the bag. He had made these after his encounter with Eugene. Finding a place to test them had been a pain but Norman did find a farming area where he tested the new orbs. Which is why he was being careful with them and wasn’t carrying them on himself. These new orbs were made from gron and jorik skulls.

Norman hadn’t expected any huge difference in destructive power when he made them. That turned out not to be the case when he tested them though. The combined Orb with only two skulls was three times as powerful as the largest orb Norman made with the rat skulls. The triple Orb of Decay was way more powerful, leaving a zone of decay nearly ten feet across.

It was also the first orb that had any noticeable effect on trees, leaving them a withered husk. The weapons were completely overkill in any situation that involved humans. But Norman probably still couldn’t kill a gron outright with one of the new larger ones.

Norman hurried back to the apartment and handed a very relieved Brigette the sack. It was just in time too as the alarm beeped.

“Hold onto that, I’ll explain what they do after I finish with the President.”

The two hours had flown by while he spoke with Brigette. Norman grabbed the potion bottle from the counter where he had left it. Before he administered it to the President, he popped the top open and sniffed it, just to make sure. Not that he didn’t trust Brigette, but he had been burned before, so best to verify, just in case. Yup, it was his potion. He hurried over to the President – the man had fallen still in the last half an hour or so – and propped his mouth open. Norman slowly dumped the contents of the healing potion down his mouth. Now all he had to do was wait.

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