Apostles of Doom

Valg shook his head. “No, my lord. All contact to other worlds is cut off. Neither links nor illumination streams can go off-world. They are completely cut off from Tierhallon and the other Sibling Realms. No different than a priest entering the Abyss,” Valg explained.

“You mean their priests are essentially powerless?” Talarius asked in shock.

Valg nodded. “Exactly. They cannot draw down mana from the god pools. The only mana they have access to is their own personal mana or that generated by local worship services. Nothing from off-world. The souls of the newly dead cannot travel to the Outer Planes, and are subject to capture and consumption by the Unlife. They are completely cut off!”

That caused everyone in the room to gasp, and begin murmuring. The horror of the situation was a palpable weight upon the room.

A chill ran down Tom’s spine. Those streams that he had hijacked had been cut, their priests completely cut off. Remembering that, a memory suddenly struck at him from out of nowhere.

“Vosh!” Tom screamed at Vosh An-Non. His general looked over to him from where he was battling an avatar of Nét. “I’ve lost the link to Doom!”

“What?” Vosh yelled back in shock.

“I don’t know, but the link is down to Doom. I’m trying to reroute through the local Doomalogue, but something is wrong. It should have failed over automatically, but it did not! I am trying to manually connect, but I think there is something going on at the Doomalogue — something very bad!”

“Can you try routing to another Doomalogue? Try Gormeghast, Astlan, any other!” Vosh shouted as he stabbed his sword into the diaphragm of the avatar he was battling.

“Crap! Those are not working either! I am unable to reach any of the Doomalogues other than the local one! We are completely cut off!”

Tom gasped, bending over in fear and horror at the realization hit him. No, hit Orcus! That was the moment when Orcus had realized they were cut off from Doom and all the Doomalogues. The terror, the sudden desperation! He felt light-headed and found himself hyperventilating, despite not needing to breathe. He tried to close his eyes, only to realize they were already closed. He leaned back in his chair, opening his eyes to stare up at the ceiling, and suddenly realized that Tamarin was yelling frantically in his ear.

“Master! Master! What is it? Are you under attack?”

Tom took a deep, slow breath and held it. He had to calm himself. He stretched his arms before him to force himself to relax, unclenched his fists. He was here, he was Tom. He was not Orcus. This was not Etterdam. Slowly, Tom felt the panic subside, the reality of the room overtaking the memory. He breathed slowly, closing his eyes again and then opening them.

Everyone in the room was staring at him in shock; several were standing. Darg-Krallnom and Arg-nargoloth had gotten up and moved to his side.

Tom shook his head and waved them away. “I’m fine. I’m sorry,” he said, trying to calm everyone. “I was suddenly hit by one of those memories. An extremely powerful memory of Orcus and Vosh An-Non on Etterdam, near the end. The emotions overwhelmed me.”

“Near the end? What triggered that?” Vargg Agnoth asked in concern.

“It was the issue of being cut off from all other planes,” Tom said. He closed his eyes for a moment, trying to remember the vision, the memory, but not get caught up in it. “We were in battle against Sentir Fallon and several of his fellow avatars, along with an avatar named Aodh and others who served Nét.” He shook his head. “I have no idea who Nét is, other than that I — or rather, Orcus — hated him very much and wanted him dead or in Tartarus. But in any event, at one point Orcus lost contact with Mount Doom.”

Delg Narmoloth nodded. “When Lilith sabotaged us.”