Apostles of Doom

Stevos shook his head in disbelief. “Are you saying that D’Orcs and orcs fought alongside elves? Their mortal enemies?” Hilda was left reeling by this; it was unheard of.

“As they say, Nysegard makes strange bedfellows.” Sentir sighed.

“Wow!” Stevos exclaimed. “Talk about unintended consequences!”

“Yes,” Beragamos said drily, glancing at Sentir Fallon, who was staring into his wine glass.

“So if Talarius is in Nysegard, does that mean he escaped to there, or that this Lord Tommus has returned to Nysegard?” Stevos asked.

Baysir shrugged. “So it would seem; although why he would allow Talarius to visit and thus alert us is a mystery.”

“A trap?” Sentir Fallon asked.

Beragamos seemed startled by the suggestion. “That would be incredibly audacious.”

Baysir nodded. “He will likely have enough on his plate once the Storm Lords realize he is there. Why would he want to add us to the mix?”

“Strange bedfellow?” Stevos asked.

“What?” Moradel asked in response, not comprehending.

“Perhaps he is trying to attract our attention, trying to get us to pay more attention, invest more resources in Nysegard to fight these Storm Lords,” Stevos suggested.

“Hmm, that would be bold, and make far more sense than acting as a trap to lure us into combat,” Moradel agreed.

“I am not sure… I still favor a trap. Perhaps he wants to steal more mana?” Sentir Fallon asked.

“That seems like a risky play,” Hilda replied. “If the Forces of Darkness have driven us into small pockets on the world, then they are clearly dangerous. Surely he could figure out a smaller-scale distraction without such extreme risks. He did the previous time.”

Sentir Fallon shrugged. “Perhaps. All I do know is that we have already lost too many resources on that plane; trap or strange bedfellow, I’d prefer not to invest any more resources.”

“If we want to recover Sir Talarius — and I think we all agree that allowing demons to kidnap our Knights Rampant is a bad precedent that should not go unanswered — then would not it be easier to rescue him from Nysegard than from the Abyss?” Moradel asked.

“Well, since none of us can actually go to the Abyss, and it is not safe to send mortals there, I would agree.” Beragamos said. “However, I am also loathe to try to engage both the Unlife and a demon prince at the same time.”

“Further, such a direct engagement to rescue a Knight Rampant on our part would set a bad precedent. They are supposed to be fairly self-sufficient,” Sentir added.

“So a more mortal intervention?” Stevos asked.

“Given our level of trust of the Church in Astlan?” Baysir asked, shaking his head. “We are already keeping them in the dark as to our involvement there.”

“Do we trust the Church in Nysegard?” Hilda asked.

“I believe so. They are about as battle hardened against the Forces of Darkness as one can be,” Beragamos answered, looking to Sentir for confirmation.

Sentir Fallon shrugged. “True; however, their resources are very limited, even as we’ve scaled back our resource allocations here in Tierhallon for Nysegard.”

Stevos frowned. “Well, we just set up Fort Murgatroid as an independent operation with Torean’s Rangers and priests. We trust them, and their mission is to track the D’Orcs. Well, we now know where the D’Orcs are.”

“Interesting idea, Stevos.” Beragamos nodded his head. “Sentir, correct me if I’m wrong, but have we not had half-orc and even orc priests in Nysegard?”

Sentir blinked, thinking about it. “We certainly did. I have no idea if we do currently. Dashgar or Inethya would know.”

Beragamos nodded. “I would think Dashgar as Attendant Archon might know, but the Prophetess Inethya would definitely know.”

“So, we would use Fort Murgatroid as a staging point to Nysegard and the Church of Nysegard and the rescue of Talarius?” Moradel looked to the others to see their reactions.

“I think we should consider this,” Baysir said.

“Given our only priest on this at the moment is Teragdor, is he of sufficient rank to be leading this effort?” Hilda asked.

“Well, we can certainly approve him for larger mana withdrawals on our side. He’d have to be tutored in higher rituals as well. We can’t officially promote him within the Church though,” Moradel said.

“The one promotion we can give him, as I think you are alluding to, is the title of Apostle of Tiernon,” Baysir said.

“In many ways, that is how he is working now,” Stevos noted. “He’s got the attention of Tiernon and is talking to and working with his avatars, and we are asking him to be our emissary to Nysegard. That is an apostle, pretty much by definition.”

“Apostle of Tiernon is a very high honor for someone whose main quality was being in the right place at the right time,” Sentir said frowning.

“Isn’t that how destiny is supposed to work?” Beragamos asked, chuckling.

“Yes, but no one up here worked to set him up to be in the right place at the right time,” Sentir groused.

“True, but no one has to know that,” Baysir said, smiling. “Going forward, we just tell everyone that this was our plan all along.”