Apostles of Doom

Horrgus had been exceedingly vague on how one actually acquired, or, he supposed, revealed or discovered one’s totem. So he had no idea how to acquire an animal spirit guide. He was pretty sure he needed to do that in order to become a full-fledged shaman. Again, his drunken master had been extremely unforthcoming on that.

So what was he supposed to do? Wander around until some dead animal spirit walked up to him and started following him around? Or, he guessed, leading him around, because that’s what totems did. At least he thought they did that; again, Horrgus was not the ideal person to learn from.

Obviously, he could ask some of the other shamans working for Lord Tommus, but talk about humbling! They were his peers; they were not supposed to be his teachers. In some ways, he very much envied Rupert and Fer-Rog, who were learning from someone he suspected was one of the great orc shamans. Although Ragala-nargoloth was no slouch either. As far as he’d been able to tell, both Beya and Farsooth had been shocked and impressed by her ability to smoke cigars and drink glargh while in a trance. Now, that would be a skill worth learning. Of course, he’d already had more than enough experience with one drunk teacher, so even though Ragala-nargoloth was clearly far better than Horrgus, he was pretty sure Farsooth or Beya would be better teachers.

Except, he couldn’t ask them. It would be too humiliating. They assumed that he was a full-fledged shaman like them. He had carefully avoided referring to himself as an apprentice shaman. Which was probably not a good idea, given that he was now likely in over his head and doomed to fail.

Doomed to fail? He chuckled. He was certainly doomed. Hopefully, he was doomed to success with Lord Tommus. He shook his head. He needed to find something else to think about on their long journey or he’d be riven with anxiety and depression about his own natural shortcomings.

Zargvarst had done measurements using the stars last night. He had said that the heavens were a bit off after more than four thousand years, so he wasn’t precisely sure where the camp was relative to the Doomalogue, but he had rough idea. He said that it was literally impossible to miss the Ring of Doom, as he called it, as it was visible for more than fifty leagues. In any event, he suspected they were between two hundred and fifty to three hundred leagues from it.

Based on his trips to Murgatroy, Tal Gor estimated that a loaded D’Warg could probably travel fifty leagues in a half day; a hundred if they did not stop. However, the orcs needed to eat, drink, relieve themselves, sleep and resupply, so they were planning on camping. While D’Orcs outside of Mount Doom didn’t have to sleep, they’d all gotten back in the habit, so were planning to do some sleeping. The D’Orcs would, however, stand watch since, again, they did not have to sleep. Neither Tal Gor nor his brother and sister had complained about that. Like everyone in the tribe, they regularly took turns at watch, and it was not fun.

Actually, they hoped they would be spending their first night at one of the semi-permanent tribal camps surrounding Mount Orc, assuming they could locate people they knew before it got too late in the evening. Tal Gor had at first suspected Mount Orc to be the Doomalogue; however, according to Zargvarst, it was too close to where he believed the tribe currently was. Unfortunately, the maps he had from Mount Doom were seriously out of date, particularly since orc tribes didn’t spend a lot of time in one location. Even the semi-permanent tribes around Mount Orc moved every decade or so. They stayed within the region of course, but they relocated to fresher hunting grounds and grazing land.

Tal Gor shrugged. He was pretty confident that someone at Mount Orc would know the place Zargvarst was taking them and would be able to give them better directions. Lob Smasher had spent quite a bit of time around Mount Orc and so knew many of the tribal leaders in the region, so obtaining hospitality and directions should not present a problem.

Mount Doom: End of Second Period

“Good morning, master!” Tamarin greeted Tom as he exited his bedroom into the sitting room.

“Good morning, Tamarin!” Tom smiled at the buxom genie in her blousy pink costume. “I’m heading to Nysegard, of course; what are you up to today?”

Tamarin shrugged. “As always, I am at your command, master. If you had nothing for me to do, I thought I’d spend the day in the library.”

Tom nodded. “Excellent. I’m just going to be taking oaths. I am sure you will find the library much more interesting.”

“I could spend decades at a time there.” Tamarin shook her head in amazement at the library. “I was just going to browse, but if there is any research I can do for you, I’d be glad to do so.”