Apostles of Doom

Rumble.

RUMBLE!

RUMBLE!!!

Horrible and violent cracking noises came from inside the volcano as the tremors came faster and more violently then before. Suddenly a large belch of soot burst from the cone of the volcano, followed by an overpowering stench of sulfur and brimstone.

“The volcano is becoming active!” Valg’s mother shouted.

“How in the Abyss is that possible?” Targh exclaimed. Everyone in the village was pointing and shouting in excitement and fear.

“If that thing blows its top, we are going to need to evacuate, fast,” Karth said via shamanic distance speak.

“It has control vents and defined lava troughs that historically controlled and channeled an eruption, modeled after Mount Doom,” Targh replied, albeit with a note of concern in his voice. His concern was for the mortals in the village; obviously, D’Orcs would barely notice a bit of lava.

Valg felt his hair stand on end. It suddenly felt as if the entire village, the entire mountain was crackling with energy. It was a very disconcerting. He had never felt anything like this.

The ground shook again, causing a few small chicken fences to collapse in the village.

“I need to get up there and see what’s going on. Everyone else, start gathering together and prepare to be evacuated to higher ground,” Targh ordered.

“Karth? Is there anything you can do to ward the village from any mudslides or falling rocks from the mountain?” Targh asked the shaman.

“I will see what I can do,” Karth said, and started murmuring.

Valg recognized the chant for strength; his father was summoning strength to walk and do combat. Valg grimaced. Such chants always needed to be paid for at a later time. He hoped his father was strong enough to pay the cost when it came.

KRAA…AAACK!!!!

KABOOM!!!

A giant fireball exploded into the sky from the cone of the volcano after the loudest cracking they had heard so far, even as the ground shook with renewed fury.

Suddenly a huge plume of fire and lava sprang from the mouth of volcano, along with the most terrifying screech that Valg had ever heard.

Mount Doom: DOA + 5, Earlier Third Period (Shortly Before Previous Scene)

Darg-Krallnom gave Tom a big grin. “As we predicted last night, monitoring systems indicate that mana levels at Nysegard’s Doom are now sufficient to reopen the connection to Nysegard.”

“Excellent!” Tom said, grinning back. This was exciting; they were about to reopen the portal to the Doomalogue in Nysegard. Last night they had been looking at the power levels and Darg-Krallnom had predicted they should be able to open the portal by midday today. If all went well, and if — a huge if — the people at Nysegard had been able to hold out, then they would be able to expand their resources.

Resources on multiple fronts. Darg-Krallnom had reported that when the connection had gone down, there were still several D’Orc shamans in Nysegard; that was huge. Tom needed more skilled shamans in order to make contact with the other planes. They had a lot of inter-plane travel they wanted to do, and he could not be the only person opening portals and gateways.

The second possible resource was that there was a slight, very slight, possibility of using the generators in Nysegard to help charge Mount Doom. Of course, this depended on who, if anyone, was at Nysegard’s Doom. In the past, it had been heavily populated, and there had been a lot of battles with Unlife, resulting in significant mana generation. That was something quite exciting. There had been some interchanges with them for the first thousand or so years, but they had not heard anything recently.

The third was the possibility that they would get some more D’Orcs as well as other allies that were possibly versed in Doom Lore. Again, this was all most likely wishful thinking. Vargg Agnoth and Helga Dourtooth, both of whom were actually from Nysegard, were not optimistic, given the odds that would have been against the D’Orcs and their allies on the Isle of Doom.

Darg-Krallnom, however, was much more optimistic. He was from Astlan, but he was one of the oldest living D’Orcs; he and Arg-nargoloth were some of the very first D’Orcs ever incarnated. Darg-Krallnom had spent considerable time reinforcing Nysegard when they had created the Doom there. Apparently there were cities there named after all four of them.