Apostles of Doom

“Lenamare blowing up a temple?” Beragamos suggested. “As I recall, he has a penchant for mass annihilation.”

“We need to check with Reception, right now,” Moradel said. “If they all died, they will be showing up there.”

Sentir Fallon gave a small shake of his head, seeming to wake from a trance. “I just now asked Rasterus, who is on duty there. At the moment, it is business as usual. He will notify me if he gets a large influx.”

“We need to check our prayer queues. Surely, if there was any notice of something like this about to happen, we’d have some prayers,” Moradel told the others.

Baysir nodded. “I will have every saint in Astlan comb through their prayer queues. We’ve made some operational changes since the greater demon incident. We should be able to pinpoint the problem much quicker this time.”

Beragamos sighed. “I really hope this sort of thing is not becoming commonplace. However, from what we are seeing, I am not feeling optimistic.”

The Inferno

“Okay, do we have everyone here?” Barabus asked his assistant. They, the priests and Rod members were crowded into the largest space on the Inferno: the staging and deployment hold. It was a very tight fit for the fifty-four priests, one hundred and twenty-five Rod members and the three knights.

“Yes,” Terses, his personal assistant, told Barabus.

“Everyone, I know you are all quite upset and feeling lost!” Barabus’ voice echoed across the chamber thanks to his Necklace of Vocal Projection; very useful for a commander. There was much more than a little confirmation in the response of his audience.

“I have discussed the situation with Chancellor Alighieri,” Barabus continued, gesturing to the chancellor behind him, standing next to Wing-Arms Master Heron. Discussion was something of an understatement. He’d had a very heated exchange with the chancellor over why they had not been informed of this possibility.

“The situation we have found ourselves in is not completely unexpected, and it is nothing to panic about. Our links to Tierhallon are interrupted, but not broken. We have not been abandoned, nor forsaken.”

The rumblings from the audience implied that he had a hard sell.

“While the chancellor had not been certain, due to the fact that no one in Oorstemoth has travelled to the Abyss in over a thousand years and the records were very sketchy, there were hints that what we are experiencing is a simple property of the Abyss,” Barabus said. “I have also confirmed with Brother Talbot, our own historical expert on the Abyss, that there are some mentions of this in ancient Tiernonic tomes that this phenomenon is natural, and in fact a requirement for the existence of the Abyss.” He was also not amused that Brother Talbot had not brought this up; but then of course, Barabus had never met the brother until after entering the Abyss.

“What was not unexpected?” someone shouted from the crowd.

“Apparently,” Barabus told them, “it is impossible to link between the Abyss and the Outer Planes. The Planes of Man are, essentially, according to Brother Talbot, a neutral ground between the heavens and hell. Links between the Outer Planes and the Planes of Man work fine, and links between the Planes of Man and the Abyss work fine; however, these links cannot traverse from the Outer Planes through the Planes of Man to the Abyss.”

Barabus could barely contain his frustration at himself as well as other senior members of the Church and his own advisors. They should not have rushed into this so quickly, so blindly. It was a critical failure of intelligence and due diligence. However, he could only truly blame himself.

“So what does this mean?” someone shouted.

“It means that we are cut off from Tiernon and his avatars. As long as we are in the Abyss, we will have to rely on the mana we have with us, and what we can generate and maintain here,” Barabus said. He noted Diocate Temerlain nodding behind him. Temerlain was the senior member of the Church on this mission, and one of Iskerus’s most trusted lieutenants.

As expected, there were a number of mutters and groans at this news.

“Why can’t we just keep a gateway open so our links work?” one of the priests called to them.

Barabus blinked; that sounded quite reasonable. He looked to the chancellor.

“Uhm, yes,” the chancellor began. “Three issues. First, we do not have the mana resources to keep a gate open perpetually. Secondly, we can’t move the gate, so the Inferno would have to stay in one place. And finally, our gateway generator creates a hole large enough for this ship to traverse. If we were to leave such a large hole open in reality, eventually demons would find it and pour through to Astlan. As you can imagine, that would not be good.”