Apostles of Doom

“It was, he assured me, a minor setback.” She chuckled. “It was obviously Lord Tommus who prevented him from getting the book.”

“You do not currently seem that upset with me,” Tom observed.

Bastet chuckled. “I am not. It was Exador’s problem, not mine. We had not expected Lenamare and Jehenna to so easily misplace the book. It was their error, and given that we now know that Exador was competing with you for the book, how could he have succeeded?”

Bess shook her head with a smile, and took another sip from her bottle. “In fact as someone who has spent the last one hundred and fifty-some years pretending to be someone less powerful than she is, I must compliment your own performance. A truly masterful strategy to get the mana you needed to relight Doom on such a short timeline. No, I cannot be upset; I can only applaud.”

“Thanks.” Tom nodded his head while taking a sip. Obviously, he had had no strategy, no plan; he had bumbled into all of this. However, he was certain that was not something to be revealed. He chuckled out loud at this thought.

Bess raised an eyebrow at his chuckle, as did a few of the other gods.

He grinned. “I had absolutely no idea the book was valuable at the time. I thought it was a diary belonging to Jenn, Lenamare’s student who I escorted to Freehold. It wasn’t until near the end of our journey that we discovered it was not her diary. Which is why I say it was not exactly an impressive book.”

“It looks like a girl’s diary?” Usiris asked intently.

Tom shrugged. “A small leather-bound book with leather wrappings, typical of a journal or perhaps a merchant’s log.” He was struggling a bit to come up with an analogy. Books like Jenn’s or Lenamare’s were rare where he came from, but some hipsters and back-to-nature types liked them.

Usiris raised an eyebrow, looking to Bess. “Rather unusual for a book containing so much powerful information.”

Basted snorted. “I point out that as far as we know, or can tell, Lenamare still can’t open it. He is not an idiot. Lenamare has been competing against Exador for his entire life, and typically gets the better of an archdemon who is several thousand years older than himself. If he cannot open it, then it is clearly the book we are looking for.”

Astet and Sekhmekt nodded in agreement.

Usiris sat back, his hands in the air. “Fine. However, I still think this is a dicey proposition. For one thing, the book is hidden behind impenetrable wards.”

“Not truly impenetrable. Just inconvenient,” Bess replied. “We could easily breach them and go searching for the book, but it would set off alarms and Lenamare would flee with the book to some unknown location. At least for the moment, we know where it is.”

“I seem to recall you being driven out by the wards, just like Exador and Ramses,” Usiris remarked dryly.

Bess glared at him. “You know very well that I was not. They were admittedly most unpleasant, but I could have overcome them; any of us here could have. However, that was not the role I was playing. The wards were more than capable of banishing an archdemon, and most likely a lesser prince. However, both Lord Tommus and I were playing roles, and our roles required us to flee.” She looked at Tom for agreement.

Tom nodded, agreeing with her even though he really had been forced to flee. He had not even considered trying to resist. The thought had not crossed his mind. However, once again, he was, as Bess stated, playing a role. This time it was that of a mighty demon prince about to overthrow some gods.

Fort Murgatroid: DOA + 10, First Period

“Well, this afternoon was surprisingly productive,” Baysir said to the assembled group. Baysir, Hilda, Stevos and Timbly had reassembled this evening at Fort Murgatroid to discuss their thoughts on the afternoon’s debriefing with Iskerus. Baysir had had another appointment after the deposition and the other three had decided to do some additional research on Astlan’s history so they could correlate information from Iskerus with other events.

“Truly,” Timbly said. “At first I was a bit surprised by your focus on doctrine versus dogma, but thinking upon it, it made far more sense to discuss that. We know very well what happened with the demon and Talarius; what we did not know is what motivated the Church and Rod to escalate the events.”

Hilda nodded. “Well, to be honest, I had not really planned on delving so much into the history of Church doctrine and the timelines, but for some reason I found the path we accidentally started down quite interesting and wanted to pursue it.”

“I think it was a wise choice.” Baysir nodded in agreement. “We have been aware of certain lapses on the part of the Church in this localverse for some time. None of it enough to warrant an Intercession, but certainly worth investigating and this, I believed, proved to be a good opportunity.”