Apostles of Doom

If he, as a warlock, could use his dark master’s power to open the gateway, that would be the simplest; otherwise he would have to try a couple of different spells that he had researched. Vaselle relaxed, allowing himself to focus on the brazier in the Temple of Doom. In the back of his mind, he felt himself… well, enfolded was the only expression he could think of, in his dark master’s mental embrace. This was sort of weird, touchy-feely animage-like stuff, very different from normal wizardry, so it had taken some getting used to. In his mind, he could feel his dark master’s presence all around him, not intervening but passively watching, supporting. Vaselle focused on the flame there, and then on the portable portal link in front of him; he willed the link in front of him to trigger its flame spell. The flame flared up about a foot before returning to a more modest six- to eight-inch flame.

Bracing himself in his lord’s presence, Vaselle superimposed the two flames in his mind, willing them to be the same flame. In his mind, he was using the Laws of Contagion and Similarity to blend the two flames into a common portal. Doing this raw, without the normal entrapments of wizardry, was quite challenging, but also quite thrilling.

The flames were mirrors of each other. If he simply reached out his hand through the mirrored flames, he could bend himself through to the other side, become his own reflection in the Temple of Doom. He felt Tommus’s mind, like a giant mental claw, reach out and guide his hand, showing him how to make a small tear in the flame to allow the reflection through. There it was — suddenly a hole appeared in the flames and he could see both sides. With a gentle prodding from his lord, he imagined his being flowing through the portal to the other side.

Suddenly he was there, in the temple beside his master, staring back through the flames to the rocky region from whence he had come. He sighed and allowed the flame spell on the portal link to expire, closing the portal.

“Well, that was interesting,” his master told him. “That’s not at all how I visualized it, but it seems to have worked. You are here!” His master gently patted Vaselle on the back, sending a thrill of excitement through his body.

“Yeah, doing things the animage way is a bit weird,” Vaselle said. “I’ve never really worked that way before and so was sort of improvising, trying to mix my understanding of wizardry and some of my religious training.”

“As far as I can determine, improvising seems to be the way animagic works.” Lord Tommus unleashed a deep, dark chuckling noise within the temple; the sound reverberated off the stone walls.

Vaselle shuddered in both awe and a bit of unease at his lord’s humor. Being linked to him, Vaselle completely understood the good-natured manner in which the chuckling was meant, but the physical effect was very different.

“So, master,” Vaselle asked, “where shall we plant these first portals?”

“Tal Gor is heading into the dungeon below a fortress called Mount Orc, where he will contact me and we will plant one portal link there. Beya Fei Geist is scouting out a good location in a city called Orcopolis; she will also contact us shortly.”

“Farsooth, Ragala-nargoloth and Trig?” Vaselle asked about the other shamans.

“Farsooth and Ragala-nargoloth will be in place late this evening, so I thought we would do them after I finish the oath-taking in Nysegard later tonight,” Tommus told him. “Sometime after, Trig will be in a good position; however, we are not completely sure that the devices will work in his universe. It’s pretty high tech.”

“So after the first two, will you contact me to come back, or should I leave them with you, or…?” Vaselle asked, hoping for an invitation to hang out at Mount Doom.

Lord Tommus must have sensed his intent, because he chuckled again. “If you wish to wait here at Mount Doom, I am pretty sure that Tamarin would be more than happy to show you around the Library of Doom.”

Vaselle had never heard of the Library of Doom. Even as the thought entered his mind, he could see an overwhelmingly large library in his mind’s eye; memory remnants of conversations between Tommus, Tamarin and Erestofanes, also filled his mind. This communication method was very strange and oddly disturbing, yet very much the sort of thing Vaselle had always dreamed of. They had used it on more than one occasion and it was both useful and incredibly efficient.

“Definitely. Think of all the knowledge there!” Vaselle replied in wonder and excitement.

Noajar, Nimbus: Mid Third Period

“So absolutely no sign of Bastet or other Nyjyr Ennead activity?” Captain Ehéarellis asked. The captain, Trevin, Maelen, Elrose, Jenn and Gastropé, along with first mate Aêthêal, were gathered in one of the Nimbus’s conference rooms to decide their next course of action.

Elrose shook his head sadly. “Absolutely nothing. No extra-dimensional activity. The Nyjyr Ennead appear to be as dead as ever.”