Apostles of Doom

Tom reached the door of his suite and opened it. He entered his suite to see Antefalken, as expected, still scribbling madly at piles of paper on the table he’d chosen to use for writing his ballad — or ballads; Tom seemed to recall Antefalken wanting to do a ballad on the Return to Nysegard. Boggy and Estrebrius were playing cards with Tamarin and Tizzy, the latter two of whom seemed to have very large piles of betting stones.

“How goes it?” Tom asked the bard as he came up to look over the his shoulder.

Antefalken looked up and sighed. “It is going; there is just so much to cover. I’ve been doing a number of interviews to get different perspectives on the battle with the knights, and on the return to Nysegard. The problem is that I just don’t have enough background material on either the knights, or for that matter, on Nysegard.”

“You, the demon bard, are short on background information?” Tom asked with a grin of disbelief. “I find that hard to believe.”

Antefalken snorted. “I know, but the thing is, so much of this goes back so much further in time than even I am accustomed to. And of course, everyone only has certain parts of the puzzles.” He grinned. “I love a challenge though. After all, the best bards, ahem, are also the best historians.”

“Eh,” Boggy snorted.

“Eh?” Antefalken asked.

“I am not sure the best ones are. I know some very good historians that couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket,” Boggy replied, not looking up from his cards.

“I did not imply any reciprocity in my statement. Good bards are good historians, not necessarily the other way around,” Antefalken said defensively.

“Eh,” Boggy said, frowning at his cards.

Tom grinned at Antefalken. “If you like to study history, then you probably want to check out the Library of Doom.”

Antefalken dropped his quill and rotated to stare directly at Tom. “The Library of Doom?”

“Oh yes, fantastic place,” said Tamarin, not looking up from her cards. “If I wasn’t having so much fun playing this game called ‘poker,’ I would be down there now. Actually, I was there most of the day.”

“This place has a library?” Antefalken asked. “I didn’t think orcs, and thus D’Orcs, had much use for books.”

“Yes, but apparently, Orcus and the others did.” Tom chuckled. “It is huge. I thought the Council Library was big, but this place dwarfs it. How far back did you say some of the items go, Tamarin?”

“Well, Erestofanes could say for sure, obviously, but the djinn estimates there are works going back about one million years,” Tamarin said, turning to grin at Antefalken.

Antefalken jerked suddenly and tipped over on his stool, wings flailing wildly to catch himself. “Where is this place? Screw the ballads for now!”

Tom had never seen the demon bard so excited. He chuckled. “Follow me. I’ll show you the way, then I have to test out Vaselle’s new portable gateway.”

Aedesin, Mount Ehiron: DOA + 8, First Period (Courts), Dawn Local Time

Aodh climbed the long and winding steps towards the top of Mount Ehiron, where his lord god Nét kept his riding eagles. His Godship liked to spend his mornings, such as they were in the Outer Planes, with his beautiful war birds. Unless there was an emergency, Nét’s avatars were required to climb the stairs; flying and teleporting tended to disturb the very large birds. They took such intrusions as threats.

At long last Aodh reached the aerie, a beautiful palace devoted to the very lovely and extremely deadly birds. He reached the outer stone patio, crossing it to the large rough-stone main building of the aerie. As he grasped the handle of the entryway, he once more took time to enjoy the nearly sensual texture of the well-worn wooden handle, noting that a fresh wave of lichen was climbing the mortar between the stone wall and the framing of the doorway. On the Planes of Alfar, such things would be lost in the constant riot of life and the natural world; in the Outer Planes, such details were signs of detailed craftsmanship and never-ending attention to detail. There was no such thing as natural in Aedesin or any of the Outer Planes.

Aodh entered the aerie, noting several of the large birds swiveling their heads to take in his presence. Nét used neither hoods nor blinders upon these birds, trusting their heightened intellect to tame their basic hunter instincts. His judgement in this was mostly right. Fortunately, when in Aedesin, lapses in their judgement could be painful, but not fatal. On the Planes of Alfar? Well, the priests and riders knew to tread carefully around the birds.

Aodh noticed his master at the far end of the aviary, near the diving platform. He was in discussion with Danu, the mother goddess of their pantheon. He had hoped to discuss this with his master alone; however, he had been instructed to bring any updates on the situation directly to his master as soon as possible.