After Norris had finished the fight he left the dazed Lister who kept looking at the grenade while going to the Forum meeting room. He blew a horn signalling for a meeting.
Waiting for them to come and looking at them as they entered as they tried avoiding eye contact...or soul flame contact, he was amused. Lister was just unlucky. If he wasn't there, someone else would have come to challenge him. Lister was just a representative of the collective. Most likely because he was one of the strongest among them which made the mages tactically allowed him to come forward.
With the mages fully seated 56 of them including Lister who read holding the grenade ball and looking at it intently, he began the meeting by doing something unexpected.
"I'm appointing lister as my deputy", Norris announced and waited a while allowing the news to ferment. Lister turned his head sharply to Norris in confusion. Murmurs was soon heard as the crowd reacted to the sudden news but it soon subsided.
"Lister strength is obvious to well and his spell casting might seem monotonous but I'm sure we're all people of knowledge". Norris continued amongst the vague murmurs," In my perception knowledge is what really makes the mage. A mage that hates or has hard time in the acquisition of knowledge is better off being a warlock. No offence to the warlocks but it's fact. Lister has shown his expertise in summoning and also gone further. This makes him qualify to be my deputy."
The crowd agreed with him and being self aware, the mages stopped being indifferent contributing applause to Norris speech. Norris seeing this nodded satisfied. He continued his speech and stopped delaying to feel the mages, " I'm sure most of you wonder, why? Lister challenged me, why am i still giving him privileges?. Well it's simple. It's because I'm a man of results. The process while needing scrutiny can be overlooked as far as it doesn't go beyond my bottomline, respect for life. Most of us are smart people. It was obvious to almost all that I was baiting, waiting for someone to challenge me helping me establish myself. Lister took up on the challenge helping me to show myself and establish authority. Though that was unintentional, it still deserves reward.
I hope everyone can mellow down while I'm in charge. I can turn a blind eye to many things except when life isn't taken seriously. If you want to kill, kill immediately. No need for any shenanigans. If you make it feel fear for torture and you continue to do so till you starts to see it mentally breakdown in pleasure that's a problem. Of course some people love to play on words. Undead is also life in this description", Norris took this opportunity to reveal a little of what will happen under his leadership.
"Now let's see a little of what everyone is capable of. I'm going to run a project that will help in the war. It will take no more than a week. I'm also not going to group you anymore. It's basic respect to you. I hope you do the same to me too. I hope you'll voluntarily go to where you think you belong. Logistics or battle group."
"Vaguely, it's known that the mages in this room are divided into two groups. Wherever there are intelligent beings there are bound to be conflicts and factions. I can understand. Due to age and philosophy there's a gap between the two sides. This is understandable.
But I want to announce that the stand off isn't necessary. Now this two department represents equal opportunities. No matter what I do, each faction will take over one of the two departments. Except I manage to cause confusion and distrust which leads to people parting ways. This can be fine by a master instigator but I'm not. Come on! I'm young. Where do I have time to learn all this", Norris tried cracking a joke to lighten the mood but the atmosphere was tense. Norris had dug up a bomb. The mages from both factions were always trying to ignore each other now. Though intentional, it caught him off guard. This beef was deeper than he imagined.
"I don't really understand why and I'm not really sure I want to understand why the beef but I hope you know that this is war. All these are a hindrance. After death all these vanishes. Re-evaluate your priorities. I'll try my best to mediate but you guys have to be willing to reconcile unless I'll be wasting me time. "
The young evolved sentient undead mages having unfinished business in the material realm usually get around asking for help of the older mages in the territory. The older undead mages though ignore them. Whatever is left in the material realm for them who had been in the death realm for centuries was gone by now. This led to them coming together out of sympathetic resonance. Maybe they can help but don't wanna or they can't help really, they ignore the younger mages. This has led to ongoing beef with the younger mages feeling bitter at the indifference of the older mages.
Norris paused looking across the room, "I've prepared enough supplies for you to start with logistic support. I've also bought the basics of creating a mage group. The basics were bought so that we can effectively modify it according to our form reducing redundancy and overlapping. I hope you all can Surprise me!", Norris saying this felt very embarrassed, he bought the basics because he was too poor and the money allocated to him wasn't enough. Though he still had to appear confident even issuing a challenge like this was his plan all along.
This was a leader.... at least what he read online in his previous life. This was the first time he had led anything in his previous life and this life. Is he making mistakes? Well he'll find out in the course of duty hopefully it won't be fatal. Thinking along this train of thought, Norris felt heavy.
Lives were on his shoulders, compelled to say something, he raised his hand. This stopped some of the mages who had begun to leave. Seeing some people busy and not seeing his raised hand, he coughs for attention. Once again using magic to spread his voice, he said, " I hope no one is taking their life as a joke", he ignored the eruption this sentence caused. "This is war, people. It's always that deep. Never underestimate war. Anything can happen. There's a saying I'd like to share. Do more in times of peace so that you can better survive during times of war. A word is enough for the wise, Dismissed!".
And with that Norris left with a sense of urgency leaving behind the mages murmuring. His project once complete might be the only thing that can make him have peace of mind. For now, the life of the mages who were going to join the mage group was on him like a mountain. Giving himself a week was the time he calculated he could squeeze for this project. The pressure was mounting, and the clock was ticking...