Apostles of Doom

The ranger frowned. “You must have been heavily warded. You were probably mirroring with Justicia. At this distance, you’d need to be heavily shielded to get a good connection.”

Iskerus frowned. How could this ranger — soldier — thief, know this? “Again, who are you and what are you doing? Speak now before I summon guards!”

“You are inside our Holy Silence and I’ve just extended it so you can’t easily run out of it to wake anyone up,” the young man said.

Iskerus did a double take. This man was a priest? Iskerus didn’t recognize him; he wasn’t one of his own. Who was he? He needed answers, and if he was inside a Holy Silence, it would be difficult to wake anyone short of running up and kicking them.

Before he could demand more information there was a slight ripple, the sound that comes when two Holy Silences merge. A woman’s voice, an oddly familiar voice, suddenly spoke.

“Have you two found the barding yet? We think it would be easiest to take it to War Arrow and have her wear the gear before we leave,” Saint Hilda of Rivenrock said as she came around the tent. She came to complete halt, staring in surprise at Iskerus. After a moment she shook her head and asked, “How are you still awake, Arch-Diocate?”

“I suspect he was warded and doing a long-distance mirroring, but he has not said,” the ranger said.

Saint Hilda shook her head, frowning, like the others acting as if she felt slightly put out by Iskerus’s presence in his own camp. “Oh, dear, this is definitely not a good thing.”

Iskerus should have been in awe, standing as he was before a saint, but it had been a long and frustrating day. “This time I recognize you, Saint Hilda of Rivenrock. What are you and your agents doing here?”

Saint Hilda nodded in response to his identification. “You are, of course, correct — I am Saint Hilda of Rivenrock — but unfortunately, your recognizing me is even more problematic.”

“What do you mean, problematic?” Iskerus demanded, suddenly feeling extremely uneasy.

“Well, meaning you were not supposed to be awake and see us doing our work.” She shook her head, as if trying to figure out what to do. “We can’t have you telling the rest of the church what we are up to.”

The ranger sighed. “Nysegard?” Hilda looked at him in surprise and then tilted her head as if considering.

“Nysegard?” Iskerus asked, not at all sure what they were talking about. Were they planning to kidnap him to another world?

There was another ripple in the Holy Silence as another bubble merged with theirs.

“Hilda, have you found them?” came the voice of an older man from around the tent.

Iskerus looked up as the person whose voice it was came around the corner of the tent, then blinked in surprise and stepped backwards as he saw the man. It was as if the statue at the entrance to the cathedral in Tiern Anon had come to life, in full color, and walked around the edge of the tent and into the Arch-Diocate’s reality. Beragamos Antidellas, Supreme Archon of Tiernon, was now standing not six feet from him!

Iskerus felt the world begin to spin and then tilt, and then darkness.

The Inferno

Arch-Vicar General Barabus sighed, closing his eyes and rubbing the bridge of his nose. They were sitting in the Captain’s mess. XO Stevensword had just read, at great length, an overly detailed report on the ship’s status. It was not good.

At least, that was the obvious takeaway. He had rather lost track of the details, something he found himself doing often when listening to Oorstemothians. He shook his head and looked around the table at the morose faces of the others.

“So, sounds like you need to do a lot of repairs?” Sir Samwell noted from the doorway to the mess in which he was standing; the mess was jammed full as it was.

Stevensword gave the knight a somewhat caustic glance for his overly simplified repetition of what the executive officer had just said.

“That is the simple answer,” Captain Cranshall said drily.

“So perhaps it would be best that we now return too Oorstemoth for repairs?” Sir Samwell suggested.

Chancellor Alighieri sighed before replying, “If you had been paying attention, you would have realized that our trans-dimensional vortex manipulation engine was damaged and several runes were cracked, along with forty-three other issues in regards to the engine. We are not able to shift planes until we resolve all of those issues.”

“And there are numerous other related issues that also have to be repaired before we can travel the multiverse again,” Captain Cranshall added.

“Not the least of which are our geomantic drives,” Stevensword stated. “You must admit, Sir Samwell, the Abyss is a very precarious place and without our full mobility, we are but perched pigeons.”

Sir Samwell twisted his lips and grimaced. “So, we are stuck here for a bit.” He sighed. “Well, I’ve been stuck here for fourteen hundred years; I suppose another hundred or two won’t be that bad.”

Barabus’s stomach clenched at the knight’s disturbing assessment.

Mount Orc: Dawn