Apostles of Doom

“He has been confirmed missing as well,” Sentir Fallon said, nodding. “I have a long history of being a patron of the arch-vicar generals. In my prayer queue, I found a brief prayer for protection and guidance from Arch-Vicar General Barabus; it seems to have been but minutes before they were cut off.”

Hilda shook her head; this was not good. Their principal problem was that, unless a priest did a chant or ritualistic prayer, such as used in a blessing or benediction, they did not get clear messages. Ad hoc, silent prayers conveyed emotions; sentiment with no really solid details. Oddly, there had been no prayer rituals regarding whatever had happened; at least, none that they had identified so far. There were quite a few saints that still needed to report in.

“Have you been able to identify any illuminaries in Oorstemoth?” Beragamos asked. “It would be exceedingly unusual to find one of our priests there, so if we did, that would tell us where they went.”

“We suspect there are,” Baysir replied, “but you know how hard it is to track specific individuals and their location if they are not actively using mana. And at the moment, since we started looking this afternoon, we are seeing nothing other than minimal routine rituals in all of Norelon. Presumably, eventide or morningtide might present some opportunities.”

Moradel nodded. “Have everyone who had illuminaries with the Rod in Freehold keep a very close eye out. A morning worship service will be our next best opportunity.”

The Abyss

Sam finished hammering his most recent piton into the side of the cliff. As a rule, he preferred to use camming devices, which were non-destructive to the mountain face; however, there were some spots on a good climb, particularly in the Abyss, where only a piton would work, and this was one.

The few subordinates he had that were willing to speak their mind to him thought that his clean-climb philosophy was a bit superfluous in a plane like the Abyss, where there were essentially infinite numbers of mountains to climb and relatively few mountain climbers. Sam’s standard response was that he considered the Abyss his home, and he had no desire to deface and damage his home by pounding random, unnecessary giant spikes into the walls. That sort of destructive activity was, as he liked to point out, what the Planes of Man were for.

After attaching the carabiner to the piton and looping his rope through it, Sam paused to take a breath. He glanced down below his footing on the wall at the sheer five thousand foot drop he had been scaling. An incredible sight. Such views were so much more satisfying when secured to a cliff face by fragile ropes and climbing anchors, rather than simply flapping one’s wings in the air or using magic. Rope, muscle and metal — that was where the challenge was, where the sport came from.

As he rested, listening to the sound of his own breathing, Sam suddenly noticed a loud thrumming sound coming from overhead and behind him. He twisted his body and craned his head to get a view of where the sound was coming from. In doing so, he suddenly felt a vibration in the rock to which he was clinging. That vibration seemed keyed to the thrumming noise.

Sam blinked at the sight above and behind his position. There was a very large semi-cylindrical metal object floating through the sky above him. He phased his demon sight in to get a better look at this truly odd spectacle. The object was made out of metal; what appeared to be iron, steel, mithral and adamantite as well as a few others. Every inch of the surface was engraved with runes, pentacles and other arcane spellcraft. Many of the runes were glowing, throbbing with light and power in time to the thrumming noise.

He shook his head. The object was at least a thousand feet long, perhaps two hundred feet wide and eighty or ninety feet tall. It looked like nothing so much as a giant Typhoon-class submarine from one of the Earths. However, this monstrosity was at least twice the size of the one of those Soviet-era nuclear submarines. The other difference was that this thing had what appeared to be three conning towers. The main tower was in the middle and was proportional to a Typhoon class conning tower. There were two others of about half the size of the central tower; one at the front, another at the back.

The vessel was flying over the top of the giant mesa he was climbing, about five hundred feet to his right. Sam frowned in consternation. What is this thing? Where did it come from, and how in the Abyss did I not know about it? His mental alarm bells were now going off. Which of his numerous enemies was responsible for this thing?