Apostles of Doom

The quest for Talarius was quickly proving to be every bit as tedious as Sir Samwell had indicated earlier, when they had first started searching. They had covered a logical grid around their original location on the mesa with no luck. Finally, Sir Samwell suggested they look near the most likely locations; large demon population centers. The Courts of Chaos was the only such place that any of the Astlanians knew of; however, Sir Samwell had thought the Courts a bit too obvious and high-profile of a place for a rogue demon to hide his hostage. He had argued that it would be more likely for him to have gone to one of the smaller cities. Of course, “city” was a very loose term in the Abyss, apparently. Ahead of them, highly magnified on the viewing mirror, was an extremely large volcano that was sitting at the edge of their search radius — not an actual city. According to Sir Samwell, there were a large number of demons that lived in the volcano. It sounded rather absurd, but then this was the Abyss, so demons wading through lava made as much sense as anything.

Sir Samwell was shaking his head, quite vexed that they had been unable to find Talarius in the volcano. It was as if he had known, or thought he had known that the knight was being held there.

Gadius was still not completely sure of this Sir Samwell. Yes, Temerlain and his priests had performed every form of test and exorcism they could think of on him; however, without access to Tierhallon, the priests did not have their full resources. A very powerful demon could likely have withstood the scrutiny they were able to provide. The only good consolation Gadius had, and he presumed this was true of the others, was that Sir Samwell did seem to have a very good understanding of Oorstemoth and its laws, or those that it had had when he claimed to have lived there. The minutiae of legal detail that Sir Samwell and the Chancellor were continually debating was so tedious that the Knights Rampant had taken to avoiding the two whenever possible.

He noted with amusement that Captain Cranshall also seemed to find other duties as soon as those two showed up. It was quite nice to know that not all Oorstemothians were insanely boring and tedious, or at least that there was a limit to how much even they could handle.

“What is this place again?” the captain asked Sir Samwell.

“I noticed it is only place in the Abyss that we have found so far that actually seems to have weather,” Chancellor Alighieri said.

“Yes, it’s as if every cloud in the Abyss gravitated to that site and started dumping rain,” Barabus agreed.

“And it’s the only moisture we’ve seen except for snow on some very high mountains,” Dante added.

Sir Samwell nodded.

“And you know this how?” Temerlain asked, sounding a bit suspicious.

Samwell shrugged. “As we’ve discussed, I’ve been here for some time and I’ve been the prisoner of multiple demon lords. I’ve been tortured here, as well as the Courts and a few other places.”

“I actually find it interesting that the Courts, and the — what are they called, the ‘Co-Factors’? tolerate a rogue outpost,” Dante noted.

“Tolerate, can’t get rid of — mainly a matter of semantics, I suspect,” Samwell said with another shrug. “As I understand it, Lilith, one of the Co-Factors, did recently try to have these folks exterminated.”

“I take it she failed?” Barabus said.

Samwell chuckled. “Miserably,” he said. “In fact, the vast majority of her forces defected after their very resounding defeat.”

Temerlain looked puzzled. “The lord of this volcano didn’t kill her soldiers?”

Samwell shook his head. “No, not as I heard it. For one thing, killing anyone down here permanently is a lot of work. While it can be done, typical clashes between demon armies are more about dismembering and immobilizing the other side and, if you can, scattering those remains over wide regions so it takes them quite some time to regenerate.”

“I still find it very odd that they would switch allegiance,” Wing Arms Master Heron said.

“Yes, I know. Not particularly loyal, but you get what you pay for, and Lilith is not known for her generosity. She relies on low wages and fear of torture and reprisal. I am sure many of her soldiers were dreading returning home after failing her so spectacularly,” Samwell told them.

Barabus shrugged with one shoulder as he looked at Temerlain at his side. “That does sound consistent with what we would expect.”

Temerlain nodded. “Indeed.”

“So, then,” Dante said, changing the subject. “Where do we look next?”

Everyone looked to Sir Samwell.