Apostles of Doom

Völund shook his head. “The consoles up here are not yet functional. We haven’t rekeyed the links to the Rod of Tommus. There has been no time, and quite frankly, no immediate need.”

“Of course,” Phaestus replied in the mirror. “It was keyed to the Wand and Orcus, and the signatures have now changed. Well, no time like the present to rekey it. Changing course to the Oubliette — meet you there!”

Völund put his mirror away and looked at Tom and a few others. “You heard him, we’re off to the Oubliette!”

“Fun!” Tizzy exclaimed. The octopod had been hanging out in a corner, smoking his pipe during the meeting.

“What’s the Oubliette? And what is that gonging?” Tom asked.

“The gonging is the cloister bell,” Darg-Krallnom said, shaking his head. “Haven’t heard that thing in close to seven thousand years!”

“The cloister bell?” Tom asked incredulously. “What? Is the TARDIS in trouble?”

“The what?” Zelda asked Tom. Tom shook his head, indicating it was of no importance.

“I met that guy once,” Tizzy observed. “Seemed a mite unstable if you ask me; kept backtracking on himself.” Tom glanced back at Tizzy and just shook his head.

“Let’s get moving, we don’t know how bad it is!” Völund snarled impatiently. He led the way through a door and down a long corridor, Tom and all the commanders following.

“So what is the Oubliette?” Tom asked again.

“It’s a deep dark dank pit into which you throw things you do not wish to ever come back out,” Tizzy replied as they hustled down a corridor that Tom had never taken before.

“It is that,” Arg-nargoloth said, whapping Tizzy on the back of the head. “But in this case, it’s also the control center and access point for the basement.”

“The basement?” Tom asked. He thought he had explored almost all of the Doomplex; he had not encountered a basement. “We live in a volcano, underground. How can there be a basement to an underground lair, which is basically a basement to begin with?”

Up ahead, Völund shook his head in annoyance. “You just dig deeper!”

“But there are lava flows, chambers and all sorts of hot primordial goo underneath this place!” Tom protested.

“Well, you pretty much nailed it with the primordial part,” Tizzy said as they hurried along, going deeper and further downward at a quick pace. “That was a key ingredient. Takes primordial goo to trap and contain primordial beings.”

“Contain primordial beings?” Tom asked. “You mean like a prison or something? A dungeon?”

“No, the dungeon is off of the DoomSpa! For obvious reasons!” Tizzy said shaking his head at Tom for missing the obvious.

“ ‘Prison’ is a mostly accurate term, although truly accurate would be ‘containment facility,’ ” Phaestus said, appearing from a side corridor and joining their trek.

“A containment facility?” Tom asked, concerned. “What are we containing?”

“Those whom the gods never want to see again!” Tizzy exclaimed.

“Amazing that you’ve avoided the place for so long!” Arg-nargoloth snorted.

Phaestus shook his head. “Trite, but basically true. It’s a prison containment facility I and a few others designed and built here several thousand years before we built Mount Doom.”

“And there are prisoners in it?” Tom asked, very puzzled. Who was maintaining it? Feeding the prisoners? The place had been unpowered for millennia!

“Yes, in a suspended state. Actually, several different types of suspended states, depending on the prisoner,” Phaestus replied.

“Why didn’t they escape when the volcano went to sleep?” Tom asked.

“Different power source. Completely independent and redundant,” Völund stated.

“So there is a super-secret prison underneath Mount Doom, and no one has mentioned this to me?” Tom asked in frustration. This was the sort of crap he needed to know! Hello!

“Well, it’s not exactly a secret. Just about everyone knows about it, but very few people know where it is,” Tizzy stated.

“So are you saying its famous? It’s a well-known prison?” Tom asked.

Phaestus nodded. “Yeah. Most people refer to it as Tartarus.”

“Tartarus?” Tom exclaimed. “You mean like the place where Zeus trapped the Titans?” He was nearing a small freak-out. “And now one of the Titans is trying to escape?”

“See, and you said you had never heard of it!” Tizzy said, grinning.

Tierhallon

Hilda finished unloading the picnic basket of meat, cheese and wine she had quickly gathered from her home for the nightly meeting in Tierhallon. They were meeting a bit early this evening, shortly after Beragamos, Hilda and Stevos had departed from Murgatroy for the night. They had taken a small break to clean up and let Moradel and Sentir Fallon finish up other business they had been working on.

Beragamos sighed with pleasure as he surveyed the night’s refreshments. “My dear, this is such a relief from that nasty food and drink in Murgatroy.”