Apostles of Doom

“Farg’s dead eyes,” Darg-Krallnom had cursed. “And with Orcus cut off from the reserves of Mount Doom and the Doomalogues, he would have been unable to stop the darkness!”

“So that’s how Sentir Fallon killed Orcus? He used a soul-sucking dagger?” Antefalken had asked in shock.

They had fallen silent, contemplating what had to have been the horrifying last moments of Orcus’s life. Tom had shuddered; he had come close to the same fate. Way too close. He shuddered again now; simply remembering their conversation last night gave him a very queasy feeling.

The evening had not been completely depressing. Vargg Agnoth had pointed out that very few Unlife had that sort of power, that direct of a connection to raw antimus. Normal Unlife were bound by more material constraints. It was generally unheard of for a D’Orc, or demon for that matter, not being able to return to the Abyss. Orcus’s demise had been a carefully designed trap, apparently coordinated between Sentir Fallon and Lilith.

For the most part, the commanders had pointed out, Nysegard was D’Orc paradise. Not being traditional living creatures, D’Orcs and demons could not be infected by Unlife; they could only be consumed. However, once a D’Orc got severely wounded, they would dissolve to the Abyss. In order to kill a D’Orc, its animus would have to be consumed fast enough that the D’Orc could not return to the Abyss.

“The fourth and sixth regiments are staged for deployment,” Vargg Agnoth reported as he and Helga Dourtooth entered the DCC. Those regiments were Vargg’s and Helga’s, and both had majorities of D’Orcs from Nysegard. They had no idea what they would be facing once they opened the gateway to Nysegard, so they were going in armed to the teeth with two D’Orc regiments and an D’Warg regiment.

“Are we all set up here?” Tom asked, looking at the others. Darg-Krallnom, Arg-nargoloth and Völund were coming with them. Völund was going to investigate the functional capacity of the Doomalogue. Antefalken had decided to take a break from his current ballad to accompany them in hopes of getting yet another ballad out of the adventure. Boggy was also coming. The others in Tom’s normal entourage were busy with other tasks.

Tom had purposefully chosen to keep Talarius in the dark about Nysegard. He was sure the knight would want to go along, and could probably be quite useful; however, Tom did not feel up to the risk of the knight returning to the Planes of Man and contacting Tiernon. One mission at a time was his current motto. Talarius mainly stuck to his room, so they could just conveniently forget to invite him.

“We are!” Darg-Krallnom told him.

“Then let us head down to the Portals of Doom!” Tom said with a grin.

“Good luck!” Zelda wished them, standing beside Roth Tar Gorefest in the DCC.

“Thanks!” Tom called back as they headed down the hall leading to the portals. The portals were an interesting place; when he’d first surveyed Mount Doom, he’d ignored them as one more giant maze of tunnels in the mountain, due to the fact that none had been active. But they were actually a labyrinthine set of long and bending hallways, each about thirty feet wide and thirty feet high, lined with framed indentations in the natural stone of the mountain. According to Darg-Krallnom, when the portals were active, each indentation became a passage into its respective Doomalogue. Currently they simply appeared to be ornamental indentations.

On their tour last night, Helga had pointed out that the name of the world was inscribed in what would be glowing letters over each portal, when active. Currently they were simply engravings. According to those with him on the tour last night, when the portals were active, the entire region was quite disconcerting due to the curvature of the halls and the fact that there was no way all the tunnels could possibly exist side by side, particularly the ones that turned quickly on the other side.

Today, however, it was very straightforward. Tom could sense the active runes above the Nysegard portal. The runic name was active, but the portal was closed, indicating that it could be opened. Of course, Tom did not actually need to use his senses to find the runes, as there was a very long line of D’Orcs and D’Wargs lined up and ready to charge through the portal. The team from the DCC made their way to the front of the line, Helga dropping off to join the front of her regiment.

Tom reached the Nysegard portal. He was not completely sure what to do, but he assumed it would be rather self-evident if he used the Rod of Tommus. He held the Rod up next to the lit rune, willed himself into the rune and quickly felt his being traversing the link to the Doom of Nysegard. As expected, there was a runic network of very similar design to Mount Doom. Unlike Doom, however, it was mostly unlit. The only portion of the network that was lit was that leading to the reserves, which they had been charging.