Apostles of Doom

“In other words, standard operating procedure.” Beragamos laughed before taking another swallow of wine. “Is there another bottle? We should discuss this a bit more.”

“Indeed,” Baysir agreed. “I am fairly certain our friend Teragdor will be the first half-orc Apostle of Tiernon in the history of Tierhallon.”

“Strange bedfellows indeed,” Sentir Fallon agreed glumly.

Mount Doom: Late Second Period

Tom lay in his bed. He wished he could roll over and lay on his back and stare up at the ceiling, but his wings made that difficult. He had tried it and it was quite uncomfortable. The two pillows he was sleeping on were actually not against the headboard, but further down on the bed so that he could rest his head in an elevated position, keeping his horns from tilting his head at an uncomfortable angle and giving him severe neck cramps.

He had previously thought of assuming his Edwyrd form to sleep in, although he was not at all sure he wouldn’t pop back to demon form in his sleep. He had never actually slept as Edwyrd. He had, however, stared at many a ceiling as Edwyrd.

However, he was not so sure he wanted to change into Edwyrd now that he had seen Orcus’s human form. He had no idea how to parse the paintings. Hell, he had fainted! He was only out for a few moments, but it was rather embarrassing. Dark Lords were not supposed to faint. Pretty sure that was in the handbook: no fainting! Truly bad form, particularly in front of one’s vassals.

Both Tamarin and Erestofanes had been quite concerned, but he had been able to get back up and assure them he was fine. After all, there couldn’t be anything physically wrong with him. It had just been an overwhelming shock.

A shock he still had no way of explaining. Once he got to bed, he had been able to fall asleep for a short while, his brain just feeling too worn out. That, however, had not lasted long before his anxiety had woken him. He needed to figure out some way of de-stressing.

He had a long day ahead of him; four different swearing-in ceremonies in four different cities. They would be traveling to the cities via runic gateway and do the oaths at each stop. It would take until nearly midnight Nysegard time. If he was this uptight, he would not be able to concentrate on the oath-taking. That would be a grave disservice to his vassals. He needed some way to get the tension out and unwind; a sauna and hot shower or something. Except that didn’t make a lot of sense in the Abyss.

Wait, he thought. The DoomSpa! They were restoring it; everyone was talking about it. In theory it was like Hellsprings Eternal, only better. Perhaps he should head down there before starting his day. Soak in a lava pool, have an acid steam sauna? That seemed like his best bet. Tom hopped out of bed to head down to the DoomSpa.

DoomSpa

Lesteroth Garflog finished squeegeeing the last of the excess mercury back into the pool. D’Orcs were terrible about tracking mercury and acid around the place. Of course, to be fair, it would help a lot of there were towels to dry people off with.

There were a few towels, but as a rule they were not used for the mercury pools because they were too difficult to wash. They were never allowed for the acid pools because, obviously, the acid would dissolve the towels rather quickly. So they were really only useful for the water and blood pools. Fortunately, lye basins, which were actually watered-down alkali pools, were pretty good for washing the few towels they had.

He, or more specifically, Bellyachus, who was in charge of the DoomSpa’s laundry, was hoping a shopping expedition to the Planes of Meat would happen soon to bring them more towels. During Lord Tommuss’—er, Orcus’s — absence, a lot of the former towels had been repurposed for clothing.

Why the D’Orcs insisted on wearing clothing was a mystery, but it was a habit they all had. Sort of like this sleeping business. Very weird that, but he had found himself getting sleepy and sleeping as well. He had forgotten how good it felt to sleep, to just not be, for a few hours a day. Considering how boring things had been in Doom’s Redoubt, sleeping would have been a great way to pass the centuries.

It was also, Lesteroth had to admit, nice to have an actual job with real work, not slave work, to do. He was going to be paid for his work! And soon, after a few more shopping expeditions, they would have food and x-glargh and maybe even Denubian Choco-Coffee^TM at some point.

From what he had heard from the D’Orcs, back in the day, Mount Doom had been a center of civilization in the Abyss to rival the Courts of Chaos. More importantly, however, Lesteroth and his friends would have relatively decent jobs with stuff to do, and actually have a reliable source of income! That was the problem with the Courts: having reliable, not soul-destroying, income.