Apostles of Doom

Trevin chuckled at Gastropé’s remark. “You may be right, although I am willing to go up to two thousand years. Normal demons, yes, but remember that these are D’Orcs which were once orcs; they are bound to have some seriously pent-up revenge fantasies they will want to enact.”

“However, it’s a moot point. It’s the threat, the possibility that they will do so, and the psychological effect it will have both to boost the orcs and to unnerve the alvar,” Elrose said.

“So when are you going to take the offer to Ariel?” Jenn asked.

Trevin shrugged, drinking the brandy that Maelen had brought her. “Later this evening. I want time for the orcs to get the word out.”

“If they use their shamans, word could spread faster than you might expect,” Gastropé said.

“Use their shamans?” Elrose asked.

“Yes, you know how orc shamans do their dream walking and talking. They can communicate nearly instantly across vast distances and even across planes,” Gastropé said, setting his now-empty wine glass down.

“Across planes?” Elrose asked.

“Yeah, it’s basically astral projection. That’s how they know where to open portals between the worlds, for example.” Gastropé said as he poured himself another glass of wine.

“The orcs plane travel?” Elrose asked in shock.

“Actually, they do.” Trevin nodded in agreement. “As much, or perhaps more than humans. Their shamans are much more spread out and intermingled among their people than wizards. Shamans are sort of a combination of priests and druids. Therefore, they are much less concentrated, more spread out, and they communicate regularly with each other. I had forgotten this.” She looked to Gastropé and smiled. “Someone has been doing their reading in the library.”

Gastropé blushed. “Uhm, yeah… I can’t stare at the ground”—he gestured to the viewport—“all day.”

Jenn narrowed her eyes. She suspected Gastropé’s knowledge was much more firsthand. He had probably been observing Tal Gor and the other shamans working for Tom. She shook her head. She was going to need to talk to him. One glass of wine and he had seriously overshared. She did not want them to end up in some alvaran prison for colluding with the enemy.

Mount Doom: Late Fourth Period

Talarius, with Ruiden on his back, marched down the hall towards the demon suite, as he called it: the suite of rooms in which Tom’s demon coterie was quartered. He and Ruiden had been going around in fruitless circles in regards to the question of demons and such all day. There were no good answers.

However, in the process of trying to figure out some way to verify what they fearfully suspected, he had recalled the conversation with the coterie and the two gods after the battle with the Knights of Chaos. Phaestus had referred to Reggie as a recent incubus arrival. At the time, Talarius had taken him to be a recent addition to Tom’s associates. However, going back over the conversation with this new context that had been forced upon his consciousness, it made far more sense that Reggie was a brand-new, freshly made demon.

Talarius opened the door to the demon suite and looked around. No one was in the sitting room, but Reggie’s door was shut. Talarius marched over to the door and pounded on it. He heard a loud gasp and then what sounded like a deep-throated giggle. That made no sense.

“Who is it?” Reggie’s voice called out.

“It is I, Talarius. Ruiden and I have some critical questions for you.”

“Uhm, can it wait? I’m a little preoccupied at the moment,” Reggie said.

Talarius heard what sounded like a couple other people whispering in the background. He frowned, trying not to imagine what sordid things might be happening in the incubus’s room. This was very frustrating. “Very well, I shall be waiting in my room in Lord Tommus’s suite,” he informed Reggie. “Please join me as soon as possible.”

~

Talarius was sitting on a chair in his room, Ruiden leaning against the arm of the chair, when Reggie came through the open door. Talarius looked up and gestured for him to close the door, which Reggie did with a puzzled look.

“You had questions for me?” Reggie asked, sounding puzzled.

“Indeed; thank you for joining us.” He gestured to Ruiden before gesturing to a larger chair that Reggie could sit in.

Reggie sat down.

“After the battle, when you returned from your mistress while we were drinking, the god Hephaestus stated that you were a newly arrived incubus,” Talarius stated.

“Uhm, yes,” Reggie said, clearly not knowing where he was going with this.

“What exactly did he mean?” Talarius asked.

“Uhm, that I was new here. You remember when I arrived, back at the cave,” Reggie said, clearly uncertain as to what Talarius was getting at.

“Yes, but where did you arrive from?” Talarius asked, shaking his head.

“Uhm…” Reggie hesitated. “Did Tom not tell you?”

“No, and the D’Orcing ceremony has raised serious questions as to where demons actually come from when they are — newly arrived, so to speak,” the knight said.