Apostles of Doom

“Well…” Darg-Krallnom paused and then said, “That was the original idea, but we eventually realized that it wasn’t that practical of an idea, since it would be doubtful that we could lock up all the gods before some of them started coming for us. So we decided to build a prison for the gods to lock up other people and make a fortune doing so.” Darg-Krallnom chuckled. “Enough to build Doom on top of Tartarus and along with it, the mana engines, so that we could deal with them on a level playing field.”

Tom shook his head in awe, seeing in his mind how the plan for Doom must have unfolded.

“What you dreamt about was probably one of our brainstorming sessions. The nine of us gathered regularly like that both during planning and construction,” Darg-Krallnom said, grinning with fond memories.

“The nine of you…” Tom said, things suddenly clicking in his head. “…the Tartarvardenennead!”

“Hah!” Darg-Krallnom bellowed with a laugh. “That name! See, you are remembering things! That is what we called ourselves. I had forgotten that word — it is very hard to say.”

Tom let out a small whoosh of air. “Well, actually Tamarin mentioned it. She discovered it doing research on Tartarus in the library.”

Darg-Krallnom nodded. “That’s the good thing about having a djinn; they are really good with all that book nonsense. They can read it all, put it together and just sort of zap you a summary. Very handy.”

“Zap me a summary?” Tom asked.

“Yeah, sort of like the way shamans communicate with each other without words. They somehow send ideas, concepts, images — all sorts of things that would take forever in words,” Darg-Krallnom replied.

“Interesting,” Tom said. It was very interesting, indeed. It was similar to how he and Vaselle could communicate; actually probably identical, since Tamarin and he were linked in a similar manner.

Fort Murgatroid: Mid Afternoon

Arch-Diocate Iskerus sat nervously in the small conference room at a very fresh-looking wooden table. Everything in this place seemed quite new, or perhaps newly reconstructed, he corrected himself. He could see that there were older sections and walls that had been repaired very recently. The chapel itself appeared to have once been the main hall of a fort that had been recently upgraded and added onto. The entire rectory, where he currently sat, was all new.

It was a bit strange here, to say the least. Teragdor had allowed him free rein over the entire fort, including the main gate. Considering he had been abducted, this seemed a bit odd. Teragdor had not said anything, but had left his room with the door wide open, and no one had hindered his movement about the complex.

Of course, having walked out the main gate, he could understand why. They were essentially in the middle of a large grass plain, a semi-arid one at that. Quite a few wild grasses and various strains of wild wheat covered the land for as far as the eye could see. Perhaps the oddest thing to note was that there were no well-worn paths or trails to or from this fort. None, at least, that went very far. While the grounds immediately outside the gate were flattened and trampled by construction supplies and, he assumed, workers, while wandering the perimeter he saw no sign of a road leading to this fort. There were a few areas that looked like they might have been minor paths that a few horses had traveled, but that was not particularly conclusive.

To put things simply, it appeared that the fort had just sprung up out of nowhere, or perhaps been resurrected out of nowhere. The main walls were quite old, and newly patched. It was as if the angels had descended from the heavens and decided to rebuild the fortress — an observation that Iskerus was fairly sure was accurate, given the extremely high Grace levels of nearly everyone in the fort. He had no obvious way of knowing, but he suspected most of the inhabitants were saints or avatars; it was a suspicion he was deeply uncomfortable with.

Iskerus shook his head, trying to clear it of such thoughts. He had enjoyed a surprisingly pleasant, if reserved, lunch with Teragdor and his Torean counterpart, Rasmeth, Apostle of Torean. They were both friendly but reserved, obviously due to his impending deposition. The deposition which he was now awaiting in this conference room.

A knock came at the door, which was shut. “Hello, may I come in?” Hilda’s voice asked quite pleasantly.

Iskerus quickly stood. “Of course, Your Grace!” he called back. He was suddenly having trouble remembering the appropriate term of address for speaking with a saint. It was not something that he had any formal experience with.

The door opened and in walked Hilda, carrying a large picnic basket. Behind her was the other saint from last night, Stevos Delastros, who carried a small velvet bag.