Apostles of Doom

Phaestus and Arg-nargoloth stopped their discussion, noticing Tizzy’s faces. “What is the matter with you?” Phaestus asked Tizzy.

“Ick. Stinky cheese! Nasty, horrible stinky cheese, left to rot in a smelly sweaty boot!” Tizzy answered, looking very annoyed. “Ack, ack. Unpleasant, unpleasant.” He shook his head back and forth and waved air into his face with all four hands, as if trying to clear the smell. “Anyone got a handkerchief? I need to blow this smell out of my nose!”

“Sorry,” Tom said.

Phaestus shook his head, reached into a pocket and handed Tizzy a handkerchief.

Gods blow their noses? Tom thought bemusedly.

Tizzy took the handkerchief in both hands and proceeded to deliver what had to be the most noxious, squishy, slimy-sounding nasal explosion Tom had ever heard.

“Whew!” Tizzy exclaimed, pulling the handkerchief back from his face and looking at the mucus before folding the now-soggy handkerchief up. “Much better!” He tried to hand it back to Phaestus, but the god grimaced and gestured for Tizzy to keep it.

“What was that all about?” Arg-nargoloth asked.

Tizzy shrugged. “Not sure. Just smelled this terribly rancid odor. Seriously unpleasant.”

Tom became alarmed. Tizzy could smell newcomers to the Abyss. “Have you ever smelled this odor before?”

Tizzy shrugged again and scrunched his face. “No — or at least not this bad, or complex. I mean, there were some odor components that reminded me of your tin can”—he pointed upwards towards Doom, where Talarius was—“but far worse. There was also another scent that I have no idea what it was, and it rather overwhelmed everything.”

“So can we expect visitors?” Tom asked.

Tizzy once more shrugged, but this time to indicate that he didn’t know.

“Ugh.” Tom shook his head. “Well, let’s worry about that later tonight. We’ll have to see if there is some way to get more information.”

Freehold, Havestan Gardens Inn

“So that’s what we know,” Hilda finished, summarizing for Trisfelt her and Gamos’s adventures down in Murgatroy. For consistency’s sake, they had gone with the same story that they had told the Nimbus crew. There was no question that Trisfelt and Jenn would eventually compare notes.

“Amazing — and disturbing.” Trisfelt shook his head. He started to pour more wine before realizing they had emptied the bottle.

“It is…” Hilda trailed off, frowning. Something, suddenly, was not right. After the incident outside the walls here, she had set up notification alerts if any of her illuminaries suddenly went offline, and her HALO was notifying her that a good number of them had just done exactly that!

Trisfelt noticed Hilda’s sudden silence and disquiet. “Are you okay?”

Hilda tilted her head to the side, frowning. “I am not sure… ” Noticing Trisfelt’s concern, she shook her head. “Sorry. I myself am fine. I just have some links to some of my patients and those links were just broken.”

Trisfelt raised an eyebrow in concern, clearly hearing the concern in Hilda’s voice. “Do you need to go investigate?”

Hilda grimaced. Something was seriously wrong. “I am so sorry, but I think I need to investigate. It may be nothing. It is certainly nothing I would have expected, so perhaps it is simply a glitch, but I fear I must check on them.”

Trisfelt nodded in understanding. “Then by all means, go,” he said, standing to see Hilda out.

Tierhallon

Hilda made her way through the halls of Tierhallon towards the meeting room as quickly as was seemly. As soon as she’d gotten free of the city’s wards, she’d blasted off an alert to the others that a major event had happened and that they needed to meet.

She opened the door to see Moradel already there and looking concerned. As she started closing the door, Baysir Tomgren, the Prophet of Astlan, stopped the door from closing and entered.

“Hilda.” He nodded to her. “I am sure you must have felt it as well?”

“I have, Prophet. It is quite troubling.”

“What is it? I got your message first, Hilda, and then not a minute later, word from Baysir,” Moradel said.

At that point Stevos and Beragamos entered the room.

“What’s up?” Beragamos asked.

“What is missing is the better question,” Baysir replied, even as Sentir Fallon slid in through the door.

“Hilda?” Beragamos turned to the saint.

“A few moments before I notified you, I lost contact with several of my illuminaries and followers. I am trying to sort it out, but about half of my people that were with the Rod in Freehold have suddenly gone dark.”

Baysir nodded. “I’ve gotten the same reports from other saints, and have verified it myself.”

“How many?” Moradel asked worriedly.

Baysir shook his head. “It’s hard to count, particularly with followers, but I am thinking at least fifty priests, possibly more. All had been somewhere in Norelon.”

“How could fifty priests and who knows how many followers, presumably Rod members, all go dark at the same time?” Stevos asked.