Apostles of Doom

Of course, that had also meant interacting with the AII. That pretty much had to be where these creepy Orcus memories were coming from. He hoped having had another training session today would not lead to more foreign dreams tonight. Or right now, for that matter, Tom thought as he lay down on his bed for a short nap before the Council meeting scheduled for fifth period.

The Abyss, Melted Castle: Fourth Period

“I will give the captain this,” Sir Samwell said as the thunder of multiple large lightning bolts rained down upon the Inferno on the other side of the keep. “He did manage to attract their attention.”

They could not see the battle from their current location, scaling the wall of the castle. They were climbing the rough stone wall towards a lowered region that was out of sight of the watchtowers. Flying, which all could have managed, would have been too obvious. Most demons flew, so someone flying over walls was a high priority for monitoring. Someone scaling walls, and crawling through a low point on the walls that happened to be obscured to watchtowers — that was one of the weak spots that had been identified.

Of course, given that they were all in full armor, it was not a trivial task. Sir Samwell and Sir Lady Serah had the most difficult go, being in full plate. Gaius and Gadius wore chainmail, which was far more flexible and, in fact, quite light, given its supernatural qualities. However, neither Samwell nor Serah were willing to concede any hardship.

Sir Samwell, in fact, had boasted that he often went mountain climbing in his plate armor to test his skills. The other knights were skeptical of this, but being an Oorstemothian, they could not be entirely sure that the knight might not actually be that crazy.

They finally reached the top of the wall, or at least the lower-level target that they were aiming for.

Sir Gaius peered over the wall, scanning the inner courtyard near their location. “No one is present in the courtyard. There are demons hovering in the distance, but they are all facing the other direction, watching the battle,” he reported.

“How is the path to the entranceway we identified?” Gadius asked.

“Clear!” Gaius replied.

“Upsy-daisy, then!” Sir Samwell said, motioning Gaius to get up and over the wall.

“That is a very odd expression,” Sir Lady Serah said beside him.

“It actually comes from the phrase ‘up-a-daisy,’ which is the antonym of lackadaisy, as in lackaday or someone who is lackadaisical. One would presume that someone who is very energetic would be upadaisical, but I don’t recall having ever heard someone use that,” Sir Samwell informed her.

Sir Lady Serah shook her head inside her helmet. “You are quite the linguist.” She sounded amused.

“Yes, well, when one grows up in Oorstemoth… the artful use of language is something of a national obsession,” Sir Samwell said.

“I bet you are quite the charmer,” Sir Serah said.

“Perhaps once we succeed in our quests and are back in Astlan, you will do me the honor of dinner so that you might test your hypothesis?” Sir Samwell asked.

“Perhaps,” Sir Lady Serah replied cheerfully She turned to look up and saw that her way was clear to ascend and climb over the wall.

~

“This place is something of a maze,” Gadius exclaimed, looking down at the tracking device he was carrying. They had had no difficulty descending and crossing the courtyard to the passage they hoped would lead them to the tower where they believed Talarius was being held prisoner.

“Something of a maze?” Sir Lady Serah questioned. “It is a maze. I am not sure I have ever encountered so many branching corridors in so many different odd directions: right, left, up, down and every conceivable angle. It’s like some sort of giant ant colony.”

“With an amazing number of dead ends,” Sir Samwell added. He suddenly stopped, lifted his visor and peered at the rough wall of the corridor, sniffing it. The others noticed and looked at him oddly.

He shut his visor and said, “It’s also quite new. These corridors were, I believe, bored out, and given the lack of wear, I would say very recently.”

“Is that typical of Denubian Demons^TM?” Gadius asked.

Sir Samwell shrugged. “To be honest, the Denubian Dungeons^TM that I’ve been in were not made of this material. This is some sort of stone or melted ground.” He shook his head. “The Denubian Dungeons^TM I have been in were also quite non-angular, if you will, but were typically made out of some strange metal. Either that or they were more conventional dungeons that just happened to have Denubian overlords.”

“What, no ^TM on Denubian overlords?” Sir Lady Serah asked.

That stopped Sir Samwell in his tracks. “You are correct. I had been simply using the term for a generic overlord of a dungeon, but as far as I know, they have not trademarked it.”

“I am not really familiar with this trademark thing that you and the other Oorstemothians talk about,” Gaius said.