Apostles of Doom

Tom shook his head. Antefalken had used the same expression just the other day. Very odd how certain cultural expressions seemed to cross the multiverse. Extremely odd, in fact; however, if he were going to start counting everything that did not add up around here, he would get nothing else done.

“Where have you been?” he asked the octopod. “No one has seen hide nor hair of you for several days!”

Tizzy blinked, lowered his cards, tilted and turned his head to stare at Tom in shock. “What? You noticed?”

Tom shook his head at the crazy demon. “Of course, I noticed!” Of course, he almost hadn’t, but… “Do you think if you simply run off and disappear for days on end that I won’t miss you?”

Tizzy put his cards down. “Miss me?”

“Yeah, you know, notice that you are gone? You are not exactly inconspicuous.”

Suddenly there was a loud clattering as Tizzy’s chair tilted over and the octopod came running at Tom. Tom was too shocked to do more than stare as the demon slammed into him and hugged him.

“You missed me! You really missed me?” Tizzy was hugging Tom tightly, burying his face in Tom’s chest. “I can’t believe this! No one has ever missed me before!” The demon suddenly let go and started spinning around, waving his arms. “Tom missed me! He missed me! Someone missed me! Happy day! Happy day!” he shouted.

Tom looked over to Boggy and Estrebrius. Estrebrius, at least, looked as surprised as Tom felt. Boggy just shrugged, shook his head and leaned in to try and peek at Tizzy’s cards.

Tom sighed, watching the demon dancing with joy. Tizzy seemed genuinely happy and joyous, yet Tom could not help but suspect that it was also sarcastic on some level. It had to be. One had to believe that a demon that was tens, if not hundreds of thousands of years old would be a bit more composed. But as everyone was quick to point out, Tizzy was not a typical demon.

“So where were you?” Tom asked.

Tizzy stopped spinning and grinned at Tom. “Gardening.”

That was not what he’d expected to hear. He had no idea what he had expected, but that was not it.

“Gardening?” Estrebrius asked. At least Tom wasn’t the only one confused.

“Yeah. Had a problem with some vermin burrowing into my garden.” Tizzy nodded enthusiastically.

“Where do you have a garden in the Abyss?” Estrebrius asked.

“Oh, the garden is not in the Abyss. Here everything is hydroponics,” Tizzy said.

“Hydroponics? Water farming? You know that’s almost as odd,” Tom said.

Tizzy tilted his head right to left and back a couple times. “Not if you have professional-grade equipment, climate control and enclosed grow chambers.”

“How did you get all that?” Estrebrius asked.

“Ahem.” Boggy cleared his throat and grinned. “I have connections — or rather, I had connections. Money talks.”

“Where did you get money?” Estrebrius asked looking back and forth between Tizzy and Boggy.

“Trading, of course. We are business partners after all,” Boggy stated as if it was obvious.

Tom just shook his head. True, Boggy had told him they were partners. At first he had thought Boggy had meant they were domestic partners; however, they had quickly clarified that they were, in fact, business partners. Tom had never thought to ask them what business they were in. As he was thinking this, something suddenly clicked.

“Wait. You said you were gardening, and you had to deal with pests?” Tom asked Tizzy.

“Uhm, yes, I just said that a couple sentences ago. You need to pay more attention,” Tizzy said, shaking his head.

“Yes, and it was not in the Abyss,” Tom said.

Tizzy nodded, not seeing Tom’s point.

“How did you get to Midgard? I thought you had to have someone summon you?” Tom asked suspiciously.

Tizzy grinned and made a gesture in front of his chest, as if tracing a cord. “I have an accursed master who owes me a favor!”

“Hey!” Boggy exclaimed, looking at Estrebrius, “he owes us a favor too! We too kicked lichy butt for him!”

Tom frowned. They were clearly talking about Gastropé and the whole cloudship thing. He really should get more details on that. That had happened at Hell Springs Eternal, just shortly before their trip to Doom, so he really hadn’t heard the whole story. He knew there had been liches on ice dragons; was there any correlation to the Storm Lords of Nysegard? That was probably something he should explore.

Appendix V: Hilda’s Saint School Notes on the Undead and the Unlife

Infected

Dhampyr:

A dhampyr is a living vampire. They are not that common, as they are extremely hard to create. Vampires and vampyrs cannot procreate like mortals. Vampires and vampyrs are, to all intents and purposes, dead. They have no pulse; blood travels through the body consciously via vascular contraction, not via the heart.