Apostles of Doom

Tal Gor glanced over his back to where the clicking noise had suddenly resumed. He shook his head in amusement. Part of Schwarzenfürze’s armor included a tailpiece with what appeared to be a spiky metal ball at the very end, and a bit further up the tail, a stone ring. The ball, he assumed, was a weapon she could hit people with, although it wasn’t particularly big. He did not know, however, what the stone ring was for; the only observable piece of information was that the D’Warg liked to click the ball against the stone ring every now and then.

It seemed like a nervous tic, or perhaps a habit. There would be periods when she would click repeatedly, and then other periods when she wouldn’t, so it was clearly intentional. If only D’Wargs spoke common, or any normal language. They clearly understood what people said, but like wargs, they could not actually speak. They did somehow communicate with each other, but it was not clear how they were doing it, as no one Tal Gor knew of had ever been able to decipher their grunts, growls and other throaty noises.

In any event, he and the rest were all looking forward to camp this evening. While at Mount Orc they had secured additional provisions, including glargh and the materials the D’Orcs needed to make x-glargh. The D’Orcs had prepared a batch last night and were letting it age overnight and today. They planned to stop a bit early, do some hunting, have a small feast and drink this evening. It was very nice to have money, or at least, gems and gold from Mount Doom.

This band had to be the richest Crooked Sticks in a century! Tal Gor grinned at the thought. Here they were on a mission as from the days of legend. They were out for the three Gs: Gore, Gold and Glory! And not necessarily in that order! Tal Gor chuckled at that. He himself would be fine with just the gold and the glory, although he knew his siblings wanted all three. That wyvern had made him a bit more cautious than the others.

To be honest, with his access to Doom’s resources, he had gold, so maybe just glory? Or adventure? Or what? If he were honest, what he really wanted was not so much glory as respect. An old, wounded or weakened orc would be respected for their service to the band and the tribe, but a young one? One who had been crippled not in battle but on his very first hunting trip? That was not an enviable position. He did not want to be looked down upon, or thought of as the slightly inept apprentice of a perpetually drunk shaman.

Lord Tommus had given him a new chance to prove himself. For the moment, he had earned new respect by bringing Lord Tommus and the D’Orcs back to Astlan and the Crooked Sticks, thus bringing great honor and pride to his tribe. Now, however, in order to keep this newfound respect, he needed to succeed in bringing about Lord Tommus’s vision.

He needed to earn the great trust that Lord Tommus had imbued in him. That worried him. This was, by any measure, a greater burden than he ever expected to bear. Given his previous successes, or relative lack of them, he did not really have the self-confidence to feel easy about this immediate undertaking, let alone the greater undertaking to restore the glory of the entire orc people upon Astlan and in the multiverse. It was this worry that sat aching in his gut, particularly at night as he lay on his bedroll.

The funny thing was, this feeling, in many ways, felt like fear, except it was not at all like the fear he had felt of the wyvern. That had been sharp, immediate. This was a slow-building, unrelenting type of fear. It was greater than a fear for simply his own life; it was a fear of disappointing and, yes, bringing shame upon his family name, upon his entire tribe. This was a new fear for him. When he had been a child, dreaming of being a great warrior, he’d had no thoughts of failure, no thoughts of potential shame.

Today, however, he was older; he had experienced defeat and shame once before. After that first shaming, he had never again expected to rise to a level of respect that would allow him to shame his family, let alone his tribe, or his people on any greater scale. He shook his head as a frown weighed his face down; his enthusiasm of but moments before lost before the gnawing uncertainty in his belly.

Mount Doom: Early Sixth Period

“Good evening!” Tom said as he entered his sitting lounge, where Boggy, Estrebrius, Phaestus and Reggie were playing what appeared to be mahjong; real mahjong with real tiles. Antefalken was working on his ballad.

“Where did you find the mahjong tiles?” Tom asked.

“In the Library of Doom!” Reggie replied. “Turns out there are a large number of puzzles and games stored there.”

Boggy nodded. “Some of them appear rather dangerous — at least for mortals.”

“Indeed; I recognized one as being a Lemarchand Counterpoint,” Phaestus said.

“A what?” Tom asked.

“It is the second half of an intricate puzzle designed to work on low-mana worlds,” Phaestus explained.