The Heavenly Host

The sitting room was opulently furnished, if dusty. There were a few formal chairs and a sofa for his size, and another set that was perhaps small D’Orc or large humanoid size. The three demons were sitting on high stools around a table suitable for Tom’s height. It was near a large set of French doors with actual glass panes.

The French doors opened onto a balcony overlooking the volcano platform. If he were to guess, it was just inside the upside-down pentagram. The light from outside was rather unusual for the Abyss. Tom moved to the doors to look out and up at the sky.

Black and purple storm clouds were starting to swirl around the top of the volcano. That was very strange; he had never seen clouds in the Abyss before. Actually, how would you even get clouds in the Abyss? It was too hot and dry. There was no real moisture.

“You guys notice the clouds?” Tom asked.

“Yep,” Boggy said, still scribbling away.

Antefalken looked up briefly. “Tizzy says they were extremely common back in the day.”

“Really?” Tom asked the octopod.

Tizzy nodded. “Sure. Only place in the Abyss I’ve ever seen it rain.”

“It rains here?” Antefalken looked up in surprise. He finally stopped scribbling.

“Yeah, and when it does it’s like a giant steam sauna. Water sizzling on lava. Gets downright chilly here, in fact. Sometimes drops to a third of the boiling point of water.”

“You mean like 33 Celsius?” Tom asked incredulously.

“Not often, but on occasion as I recall,” Tizzy agreed.

“So humans could actually survive here,” Tom said.

“Not sure about the acidity of the rain, but presumably,” Tizzy said.

“Actually, that would be a very comfortable temperature for orcs,” Antefalken mused.

“Do you know, that would be helpful with the refreshments,” Boggy suddenly added, looking up from his paper. “We’re not likely to be able to get our hands on any Denubian Choco-Coffee^TM, nor any blood wine, so we’ll probably need to whip up some x-glargh, which boils somewhere near the same point as water. It’s best served cold, around a quarter of the boiling point of water.”

“X-glargh?” Tom asked.

“It’s an extra-potent form of glargh, a favored intoxicant of orcs according to Hezbarg, the quartermaster.” He gestured to Tizzy. “X-glargh has some extra ingredients that increase the potency so that it affects demons.” Boggy frowned. “It’s nowhere near as potent as blood wine or Denubian Choco-Coffee^TM, though, so we are going to need a lot of it.”

“Anyone know what the X is?” Antefalken asked the room. “I know how to make glargh, but I’m not sure about the X part. We are going to need to let it sit and ferment for a while.”

“I do,” Tizzy said. “It is mainly nightshade and arsenic. The amount is sort of to taste. Oh, and a good bit of nitro-glycerin — that’s what gives it a kick — plus a few other slightly more esoteric things, like a splash or two of mercury.”

“The fermentation is going to be a problem,” Antefalken said.

“Not if you can find a thaumaturgist to speed it up,” Estrebrius said.

“I don’t suppose Vaselle is a thaumaturge?” Boggy asked the smaller demon.

“No, don’t think so. But he could probably hire one for a gem or two,” Estrebrius said.

“Jenn’s a thaumaturge,” Rupert said, entering the room from a side chamber.

“Something tells me she might not want to play cocktail waitress at a D’Orc party,” Tizzy said.

“Okay, here’s my count, assuming x-glargh,” Boggy said. “If we assume two quarts per demon times 2,000 demons, that’s 4,000 quarts or 1,000 gallons or about seventeen barrels. I think we should really assume at least twenty barrels in case the count is off. So I think a nice two dozen barrels should be perfect.”

“I don’t know that we can make that many barrels,” Antefalken said worriedly. “If I could get a hold of some of my Denubian contacts, that would help. No one could possibly drink two quarts of Denubian Choco-Coffee^TM. A quart and you’d be well beyond passed out.”

“Plus, the Denubians are equipped for mass production and distribution of the stuff. You can get it by the barrel, and you do not have to keep it cold. Just heat it up when needed,” Boggy said.

“Unfortunately, Hezbarg has said that it’s not safe for D’Orcs to go to the Courts, where we could, with enough cash, buy what we needed,” Antefalken said. “And I don’t know how the rest of us could lug everything we need.”

“Speaking of which,” Boggy said, turning to look at Tom, “we are going to need you to pop open some gateways for some cattle, goat and pig raids for the food.”

“Huh?” Tom asked, puzzled.

“Well, it will not be a problem for a D’Orc hunting party to round up the groceries, so to speak, if you can open a portal to a plane that has the aforementioned grocery items,” Boggy said.

“And how am I to do that? I need someone summoning me, or some other summons I can intercept,” Tom said.

“Well, your predecessor used to contact orc shamans all the time to do that sort of thing, according to Hezbarg,” Boggy said.