Apostles of Doom

“Well, we hailed them, as I said, and found out who they were. I told them you guys were not there, that we had not seen you and that they needed to leave. They refused me a couple times. Told me they wanted to stick around and search,” Arg-nargoloth said.

“Probably using their priests to look for Talarius.” Darg-Krallnom nodded.

“And conveniently,” Arg-nargoloth smirked, “he happened to be here in Nysegard — so they were unable to locate him.”

“Well, at least something is working out for us,” Tom said. “So did they search and leave?”

Arg-nargoloth looked at Tom as if he was crazy. “No. I told them to leave or else. They said else; I said fine and gave them the thanks of our engineers. We needed to test the restored gravity cannon turrets anyway, so we blasted them. Their shields were down so we damaged them pretty damn good. They had come charging in at twelve hundred klicks per period, they went limping out at about two hundred klicks.”

“Hah!” Darg-Krallnom high-fived Arg-nargoloth. Both were wearing shit-eating grins.

Arg-nargoloth continued, “As I mentioned, Roth is monitoring their very slow retreat. We think they got the message.”

“Impressive,” Tom said with a grin. Very impressive. This made him feel quite pleased. “The only thing that bothers me is how they thought to look here.”

“I would have to assume that Sammael pointed them towards us to test them out. Clearly, he would want them destroyed, or eliminated as a threat, and he would not want to risk testing on the Courts or any of his palaces. So he probably decided to test against us.”

“That seems a bit annoying.” Tom shook his head. “It makes sense, but I find it a bit rude.”

“Demon princes are not known for nice house-warming gifts,” Arg-nargoloth stated.

“I am sure,” Tom agreed. “But that means he knew Doom was back in business.”

Darg-Krallnom nodded. “He would certainly have learned of Lilith’s defeat. Very little she does escapes his notice. He’s more than mildly obsessed with her.”

“And she with him,” Arg-nargoloth noted.

“True. However, he is much subtler,” Darg-Krallnom said.

“How big a risk is he to us?” Tom asked.

Arg-nargoloth shrugged. “The fact that Lilith is trying to destroy you, and that we kicked her butt, probably means he’s amicably disposed to us. Anything that weakens her or keeps her off balance is a net plus for him.”

“We always got along much better with Sam than Lilith,” Darg-Krallnom said.

“Sam?” Tom said. It occurred to him that the name Samwell was a close-sounding name to Sammael, and Sam would simply be the short form. “What does his default human form look like?” Tom was suddenly quite suspicious of his climbing buddy.

Arg-nargoloth shrugged. “There really isn’t much variance among human forms as far as I can tell; they all look about the same. This one is rather pale, reddish hair with a tightly trimmed beard, average human height and weight.”

“Does he wear mountain climbing gear and like to climb mountains?” Tom asked.

Darg-Krallnom and Arg-nargoloth both looked surprised. “So you’ve met him?” Darg-Krallnom asked.

“I have,” Tom said. “He had been mountain climbing near my old cave, shortly before we came to Doom. We talked, and he invited me to go climbing with him.”

“That’s a good sign.” Arg-nargoloth grinned and nodded his head affirmatively.

“It is?” Tom asked.

“Yes. There are only two types of people he invites to climb with him,” Arg-nargoloth said.

“Either they can fly on their own and he likes them,” Darg-Krallnom said, “or they can’t and he wants to push them off the mountain to their death — or, in the Abyss, their severe pain.”

“Preferably on a very high mountain with a very jagged, rocky fall line off the mountaintop,” Arg-nargoloth agreed.

Ithgar, Orcopolis: Late Fifth Period

“Wow, this place is impressive,” Rupert said to Fer-Rog as the two of them wandered down the streets of Orcopolis.

“Yeah, I’ve never been to a city before. Or at least an above-ground one. Everyone says that Mount Doom was a city in a volcano back in the old days, but for all my life it’s been basically a giant, mostly empty, house that we lived in,” Fer-Rog replied.

“I’ve been to several small towns and two big cities: Gizzor Del and Freehold,” Rupert said. “Gizzor Del was much smaller than this. I think this place is probably about the same population as Freehold, but it’s physically larger. It is nowhere near as cramped. This place has all these really wide streets and — what did Beya call them? Avenues?”

“Yeah, avenues were what she called them. Very broad streets for troops to march down, parade in.”

“Plus, the buildings are all much bigger, but of course that’s probably because orcs are bigger than humans for the most part. But they are also much sturdier here. Lots of heavy carved stone with ornate carvings,” Rupert continued.

“Yeah, all these stone gargoyles are pretty cool. I think gargoyles must be really popular here; I’ve spotted quite a few wandering around.”