Apostles of Doom

The room was silent as everyone thought. After a few moments, Reggie coughed, causing everyone to look at him. “Uhm…” he said hesitantly.

“Idea, lad?” Boggy asked.

“Well, I have, and we”—he glanced to Phaestus—“suspect that Völund may have a stash of cookies we could use,” Reggie said rather hesitantly.

“As I recall, he did not eat any cookies at the party,” Boggy said.

Phaestus nodded. “As I told Reggie, Völund does not ‘officially’ eat cookies; millennia ago he used to complain that cookies were slowing people down, making them lazy. However, at the party I did notice him pocketing a good number.” The god grinned.

Tom grimaced and shook his head slightly, not understanding. “What do you mean? How would cookies help?”

It was Phaestus’s turn to cough, and Tom turned to look at him.

“Tizzy’s cookies are made with demon butter,” the god said.

“What?” Tom asked, still not understanding.

“They are edibles,” Reggie said. “You know, Colorado Cookies?”

Tom’s head went back in surprise. “You mean they’re pot cookies?”

Phaestus shrugged. “Demon pot cookies.”

“Yeah, they are to pot what x-glargh is to glargh,” Reggie said. “X-pot, I guess.”

“We are already calling it demon weed. So I would stick with d-pot, or d-weed,” Boggy suggested.

Reggie made a thoughtful expression. “I suppose, but then why don’t we call x-glargh, d-glargh, to be consistent?”

“Because the D’Orcs started calling it x-glargh first, and it’s too hard to get them to change their habits,” Phaestus explained.

“So x-glargh predates demon weed?” Reggie asked.

Phaestus shook his head. “No, demon weed came first. Orcus needed it to make D’Orcs. However, in the day we didn’t call it demon weed. It has had other names. Remember, these things all sort of evolve naturally over time, linguistic habits and such.”

Tom shook his head. He liked his friends, but their ability to go completely off topic was extremely frustrating. Perhaps he was spending too much time with the D’Orcs. He sighed out loud. “Fascinating discussion,” he interrupted. “Reggie, round up all the cookies you can find. I have no idea how much we’ll need.”

“Do you want me to check with Rupert and Fer-Rog as well?” Reggie asked.

Tom furrowed his brow, wondering what Reggie was talking about. Suddenly, Tom remembered the oath taking celebration and Rupert and Fer-Rog sitting in the corner, eating a giant pile of cookies! Tom closed his eyes and carefully pinched the bridge of his nose. He supposed it was a good thing he really wasn’t Rupert’s father, because he was clearly very bad at being a dad.

Citadel of Light: DOA +12, Mid First Period

Hilda followed the Ranger of Torean through the labyrinthine halls of the Citadel of Light. Hilda held her tongue from making the observation that for a “Citadel of Light” the place seemed rather dark, gloomy and oppressive. Admittedly, it was the middle of the night, even later in the Citadel than in Freehold. What with being completely different planets, locations on planets and whatnot, it was probably more surprising that it was only a few hours later. Of course, given also that years and dates were completely different, perhaps it wasn’t that odd.

She shook her head; it was a bit confusing. Obviously, she was well schooled in the nature of the multiverse and was a resident of Tierhallon and such; however, she actually had very little experience with traveling to different worlds. All her life, her work, her mission, had always been focused in, on and around Astlan. Tierhallon, of course, had no night, no day, no real fixed schedules. Night and day were generally arbitrary and varied from location to location. Avatars had no actual need to sleep, either; however, most did when they could just to break up the day and give themselves some down time so that they could refresh themselves. However, when working in Astlan, or for that matter, anywhere on the material planes, one tended to resume thinking in terms of fixed night and day; and given how much time she was spending in Astlan, her mindset was tuned to its cycles.

It was actually quite refreshing to be temporarily entrenched within the trappings of mortality and the concerns of night and day. Which brought her to one of the more interesting things about the Citadel of Light. The Citadel was actually as active, if not more active, at night than during the day.

The hallways of this giant fortress were bustling with people, a truly amazing variety of races actually, going to and fro on their daily, or in this case, nightly business. The Ranger leading her, while Astlanian, had been here for about a day and a half and as a scout, had quickly figured out the lay of the land and informed her that the Citadel of Light worked in three shifts, around the clock. “Eternal Vigilance Against the Night” was their watch phrase.