Apostles of Doom

I will also take this opportunity to note that on the other “side” of the multiverse (or wherever it is) flesh that is grown naturally with Unlife is perfectly stable, and over there, positively charged animus animating a body requires infusions of antimus to keep it functional. I think this is important to note. Despite popular misconception, there is nothing intrinsically “evil” in antimus or “good” in animus. Such terms are completely relative to where one resides in the multiverse. Over here, antimus is seen as evil; on the Negative “side” of the multiverse, animus is seen as evil.

Where the questions of good and evil come into play is in the methods needed for sustaining a decaying body. Such methods are typically seen as unethical, and thus referred to as “evil”; a concept which, I am sure we can agree, is quite amusing and useless.

Chapter 127

Mount Doom: DOA + 6, Late First Period

Tom slept soundly, curled in his now-common fetal position, clutching the Rod of Tommus as if it were a security blanket. It had been a long and exhilarating day. After being introduced to everyone in Krallnomton and ensuring that word was going out to the other cities and fortresses on the Isle of Doom, both by D’Orc messenger and shaman spirit message, they had all sat down to a hastily arranged feast. They had spent the rest of the day catching up and discussing plans for the Isle of Doom.

The stories of war, blood and sacrifice faced by those who had been stranded in Nysegard had been incredibly moving. Even though this had all occurred thousands of years before Tom’s birth and he had had nothing to do with any of it, he had somehow managed to feel guilty on behalf of Orcus for having left them with a skeleton crew when he’d gone to war in Etterdam.

Some of that discomfort was most likely due to the mistaken belief among some of the D’Orcs that he was somehow Orcus reborn. It was a belief that, to his own discomfort, Tom had avoided correcting. He supposed he felt some guilt on behalf of Orcus because he was technically pretending to be him reincarnated.

He had never claimed anything like this; the mistaken belief was all due to that silly prophecy from the incredibly suspiciously named prophet, Tis-Arog-Dal. He was more than a little suspicious that he might have walked into some sort of crazy plot of Tizzy’s. The only issue was that Tizzy did not strike him as someone capable of focusing on anything for more than a few minutes of time, let alone thousands of years.

Tom shifted uncomfortably in his sleep as his dreams turned to fighting the Unlife in Nysegard. He was leading a charge of D’Orcs, orcs, dwarves and humans through a Storm Lord Fury, as their regiments were called.

The mortals were focused on ghouls, zombies, skeletons and other lesser undead; the D’Orcs worked to seek out and battle the greater undead. Vampyrs, vampires, jiangshi, lich commanders, necromancers and non-corporeal undead, all of which were very tricky for mortals to battle.

For whatever odd reason, they were fighting the battle at night; this seemed very odd to Tom. One would think battling in daylight would have given them a greater advantage. His assumption, as he tried to think about it in his dream, was that they had had no choice for some reason. Greasy smoke and the smell of burning flesh dominated his sense of smell as he ruthlessly smashed lesser undead before him and moved towards a nearby vampire necromancer.

Someone shouted at him from his right. He looked in that direction to see Vosh An-Non, his most trusted general, pointing to the sky. Storm Lords! Two of them were approaching on ice dragons. The dragons were blasting super-cold sleet down on the masses below them; a breath weapon that did little damage to the undead, but was extremely damaging to mortal troops.

Tom grinned in pleasure at Vosh An-Non, nodding in agreement at his general’s plan for the two of them to take the battle to the two liches. Tom twisted to his left and shouted to one of his newest D’Orcs, Vargg Agnoth.

“Vargg! Take the vampire colonel. Vosh and I are going for the ice makers!” He gestured to the two liches on dragonback. Vargg nodded. Fuzzily in his dream memory, Tom knew that while less than two centuries old, Vargg Agnoth was well versed in slaying undead, having grown up and demonstrating great prowess here in Nysegard.

He launched himself into the air towards the two Storm Lords, as did Vosh An-Non. Tom briefly thought of blasting the liches with fireballs from the Wand — no, the Rod of Tommus — but dismissed it as unsportsmanlike. He wanted to feel their icy bones crunch beneath the crushing weight of his Rod.

As happens in dreams, he was distracted by the sight of a pale D’Orc he knew to be Vordek Deathstealer swooping down upon a cluster of vampyrs, the incandescence of his lichtshwert painting their spike-filled maws in an almost surreal red bath of light against the inky blackness of the battlefield.