by J. Langland
Beragamos chuckled and waved five refleca wine glasses into being.
Sentir Fallon shook his head. “Is this what I missed last time? I miss one meeting and everyone starts drinking!” He laughed and sat down. “Here, I have a corkscrew!” A refleca corkscrew appeared in his hand.
“So can a refleca corkscrew open a material bottle?” Stevos asked.
Moradel shrugged as he opened one of the bottles with Sentir’s corkscrew. “It can if we believe it can. It’s all about faith, my lad.” He grinned. “Remember, faith is our core business!”
“So that we may all try both, I will pour slightly smaller glasses for each of us,” Moradel said.
After the four glasses were poured, Beragamos reached out and raised one up. “My friends, let us toast to faith! Toast to our faith in Tiernon and that his will be done!”
“His presence be known!” Sentir added.
“His foes be vanquished!” Moradel said.
“His will be done!” Stevos continued.
Beaming brightly, Hilda finished, “His glory and light to shine throughout the multiverse forever and ever!”
“Amen!” They all finished in union before drinking simultaneously.
~
Tal Gor had wandered off from the room to explore a bit more, get his bearings. He somehow found himself back in the Temple of Doom. It was weird to physically be here, so different yet similar to being here in his dreams. To see one’s dream made physically manifest! It was amazing. The proof it demonstrated—all of this demonstrated—in his and his people’s faith.
Gods were real! Orcus, the lost god of the orcs had returned as Lord Tommus, stronger and more powerful than before. Lord Tommus would set things right for the orcs and the D’Orcs and vanquish those who had sought to thwart his will and harm his people.
The temple was empty now, the normal watchers out at the ceremony. It was highly unlikely that anyone would try to contact the temple at this time. Other than the shaman from Gormegast, everyone who would try to contact Lord Tommus was already here. He, Tal Gor, apparently was the only one to come uninvited, so to speak. Uninvited, but not unwelcomed. Tal Gor grinned to himself. It felt good to be a part of something so much larger than himself, larger than his tribe or the orcs on his own world. This was a venture that would span the multiverse, bringing redemption and renewal to orcs everywhere. No more would humans and elves be able to treat his people as refuse, as garbage. With Lord Tommus to lead them, those who had shunned and spurned them would have to respect their strength once more.
Lost in thought, he almost did not realize that someone else had entered the temple behind him. The scraping sound of a boot against stone alerted him. A sound he knew well, the sound of someone with a limp. Tal Gor turned to see a very unusual figure in the room behind him, staring at him.
The individual was about the same height as Tal Gor; however, he was quite hunched over. He appeared to be quite old, although at one time quite handsome, Tal Gor supposed. He was also quite muscular. He had no wings, so was not a D’Orc, and certainly not an orc, but he was clearly jötunnkind.
“Hello,” Tal Gor said cautiously. The man did not appear threatening, but he was looking Tal Gor up and down quite seriously.
“You are Tal Gor of the Crooked Sticks?” the man asked abruptly.
“I am,” Tal Gor replied.
The man nodded. “You came to this temple on your own? Not called?”
“I did.” This was a rather odd conversation, or inquisition.
“That miserable fartbag from the depths decided you were a worthy rider and finally left the rest of us in peace?”
“Schwarzenfürze came to live with me. She took over my entire tent, in fact.” Tal Gor shook his head.
The man shrugged. “Sounds like her. Going to miss the bitch. Might have to visit.” He looked down at Tal Gor’s bad leg. “You a cripple?”
Tal Gor frowned. “I am not crippled. My leg was damaged fighting a wyvern, but I hold my own and provide value to my tribe.”
The man chuckled. “Me, I’m a cripple and proud of it!” He started turning around. “Come with me, boy, I have something for you!”
He started limping out of the temple.
Tal Gor frowned and followed. “Who are you?”
“Völund,” was all the odd man said.
Tal Gor frowned and thought for a bit as they went out into the corridor. He had heard that name. He blinked as memories of the stories came back to him.
“The smith?” Tal Gor asked.
Völund snorted. “Of course.”
“The smith who forged Caliburn? Arthur of Avalon’s sword?” Tal Gor asked.
“Called by humans Excalibur. Yes. You know human history as well as orcish?” Völund asked.
“When it comes to great weapons. And Durandal?”
Völund sighed. “And that.”
“And Gram? Destroyed by Odin and later reforged by Regin for Sigurd to slay Fafnir?” Tal Gor continued.
“Do you simply wish to recite my back catalog, or will you follow me quietly so I can remember the path?” Völund asked.
“I am sorry. But I am honored to meet you,” Tal Gor said. Völund shrugged, apparently not caring.
The two wandered down multiple tunnels, going deeper and deeper. Tal Gor began to be concerned about finding his way out. Eventually they came into a very large and complex chamber. The chamber was easily one hundred feet tall and thousands of feet in each direction, with large ducts crisscrossing the room to and from various holes in the walls and into giant buckets with what appeared to be large furnaces or lava pits below them.
It was quite warm in here and he could feel his amulet growing colder as it kicked in to compensate. The smith motioned Tal Gor to follow him towards one wall. Tal Gor had to work to keep his eyes on the smith. This workshop was absolutely incredible! There were tools whose function he could only barely guess at. Many of the furnaces appeared cool. He assumed that prior to the volcano’s restarting, this place had been largely inactive.
“No. Not completely,” Völund said suddenly. The old man had turned and was smirking at him.
“What are you saying?”
“I am saying,” the smith said, “that I know what you are thinking. You are thinking that this place was dead while Doom slept. I am saying it was not completely dead. This is the Abyss. Fire is not in short supply here, nor are noxious combustible gases for forging and welding. My forges have not all been quiescent for millennia. Most, yes. But not all.”
The smith continued on towards the wall. “It was more work, not having already molten metal. I had to dig up solid metal and melt it. But mining here is still easier and better than mining anywhere in Midgard.” He chuckled as they came up to a set of shelves and the old man began scanning them.
Tal Gor waited patiently for the smith to finish scanning the shelves until he found what he wanted. Rather spryly, the smith grabbed a ladder, and propping it against the shelving, he swiftly climbed up about fifteen feet. He quickly reached in and began pulling out a very long, narrow wooden box.
Tal Gor blinked. Given how hot it was here, how could that wooden box survive? He would have thought it would have dried out quite quickly. The smith managed to wrangle the box down and then carried it over to a large table nearby.
“It’s Denubian wyrmwood. Compared to where it grew, this place is quite chilly.” The smith seemed to be able to anticipate Tal Gor’s questions. The smith grabbed a cloth from under the table and quickly wiped the dust off the box, which had three latches along one side.
“In the old days, Orcus issued staves of power to each of his shamans, each one with a mechanism for mounting the shaman’s contact stone. I expect Lord Tommus will want me to create new ones for his new shamans. We shall see.” The smith turned to look at him. “Call me an old softy. But when I see someone who shares my impediment, and yet still outperforms all the traditionally abled, I get sentimental.” Tal Gor did not know how to respond
to this. Völund simply smiled and turned back to the box and began unfastening.
“Now, I have one shaman staff left. I was constructing a rather different staff for one of Orcus’s most trusted shamans. Unfortunately, he bought the farm before I finished it. As did Orcus, for that matter.” Völund shrugged again. “So I finished it and put it on the shelf. I think you should have it, as the first new shaman and one who has overcome much to be the first, and perhaps one day, the best.” Völund opened the box, and Tal Gor moved forward to look at it.
The box was velvet, or some similar material that was heat resistant, and lying in the box was a… staff? It was not like anything Tal Gor thought of as a staff. Yes, it was a long, rod-like device, longer than he was tall. At the base was a large ball, similar to the head of a ball mace. The shaft was intricately carved wood—wyrmwood perhaps?—with metal strands wound about it. At several points there were smooth areas. One was at what would be hand height, so Tal Gor assumed they were grips. At what he surmised was head height, the rod split into two paths, bending into a circular frame before rejoining.
Inside the frame were what appeared to be metal claws or teeth, presumably for mounting the summoning stone. The outer edge of the loop had sharp-looking metal teeth, aligned for slicing an enemy. Above the circle was a large blue sapphire set through another loop in the shaft, and then the shaft continued perhaps four more inches before melding into a large, double-edged metal blade of about two feet in length.
Tal Gor blinked. The “staff” was actually a pole arm with a double-edged glaive at one end and a mace at the other. “Is it a staff or a very unusual pole arm?”
“Both. Use it both ways. The gem there is a mana pool that you should link to; it is designed so that you can bind it as a true shaman’s staff in the traditional ritual sense. The large loop holds your summoning stone. With the blades, teeth and ball, you can stab, slash, eviscerate and crush your enemies,” Völund explained.
“It’s unbelievable! For me, really?” Tal Gor asked breathlessly.
“Yes. Just do not tell the other shamans. I will be making them staves, I am sure, but it will take time. I will put this with your bitch’s gear. I got a harness for the box, and a holding cup for the base, and saddle ties for the staff itself. I will tell the D’Warg handlers to keep it safe.”
“Thank you so much.” Tal Gor bowed deeply to the smith.
“Use it to protect my girl and her rider.”
~
Lilith entered her private sitting room off of her bedroom, planning on curling up with a good book for the remainder of the evening. She waved the table lantern on near her favorite reading chair. The sudden light revealed Sentir Fallon. She was mildly startled but refused to show it. His shielding skills were truly amazing. She had not detected him in the dark with her demon sight or any of her other senses.
“So you’re back with more news, I guess?” Lilith asked.
“I am. I came indirectly, of course, from a meeting with our Astlan ‘Incident Response Team’ and have more news,” Sentir Fallon said.
“And that is?” Lilith pulled up another chair from a corner into the light of the lamp.
“First, Beragamos has ascertained from the Ithgar archons that D’Orcs have appeared in a trading city there, doing much the same thing as in Astlan.”
Lilith nodded. “As we rather feared.”
“And according to our on-the-ground agent who interviewed a large number of orc witnesses—”
Lilith interrupted Sentir. “You have an agent on the ground who actually speaks with orcs? Is actually willing to even be in close proximity with them? That doesn’t sound particularly Etonian of you.” She shook her head suddenly. “Wait—how do you get orcs to talk to one of your agents?”
Sentir smirked. “Yes, our principal field agent for Astlan is quite industrious and is very good at gathering information discreetly. They didn’t even know they were talking to an avatar.” He chuckled. “But beyond that, we actually have a half-orc priest who reported this.”
Lilith slowly shook her head and grinned rather mirthlessly at the avatar. “Things are changing, even within the never-changing world of the Etonians.”
“Not that much. We have simply realized that coming down to the material world in all of our celestial glory can sometimes be detrimental to information gathering. So our intelligence services are branching out.”
“You have ‘intelligence services’?” Lilith asked skeptically.
“Well, yes. Now. We are starting it with this incident,” Sentir said. “However, we need to do something about this. We need to stop this demon in his tracks. During her interviews, our agent discovered that the D’Orcs have openly said they will be paying a lot more visits to all the material planes, that their master, Lord Tommus, was planning on reestablishing all the old connections and raising the orcs and D’Orcs back to their former glory.”
“So were you two ever planning on sharing this with me?” a very calm tenor voice asked from the still-darkened corner on the other side of the room.
Lilith jumped at the sound of the voice behind her and angrily hopped her chair around to stare into the darkness. “What the Abyss? Aodh? Why are you lurking in the shadows of my private study? Did someone relocate the entrance to the Abyss into my private chambers?”
Aodh, the Hand of Nét, stepped out of the shadows. His silver wings were, as always, a striking match to his long, silver hair. He was dressed in his typical reddish-silver chainmail and crimson tabard emblazoned with the symbol of Nét, the El’adasir god of war. “I believe I have the outstanding question, which should take priority.”
“Yes, we just wanted to make sure of the facts on the ground before worrying you. We realized that if the rumors we had heard were true, you and your liege would be quite interested. But we didn’t want to cause alarm if none is justified,” Sentir replied calmingly.
Aodh stared impassively at the other avatar.
“It’s the truth, relax,” Lilith told the El’adasir avatar. The high elves were notably moved by little; their gods and avatars even less so.
“A personal illuminary of mine just this evening alerted to me to the events in Murgatroy, having received this information from very high up in the principality.” He crossed his arms. “Who is this Lord Tommus that threatens the alvar?”
“Well, that’s a long story,” Sentir Fallon said.
“All of us in this room are immortal. We have time,” Aodh said with no trace of humor.
~
Beragamos sighed. He had been summoned to the Palaestra. It was not the summoning that bothered him—there was nothing unusual about that—it was the location. The Palaestra was the training studio for the Holy Knights of Tierhallon, and to be fair, Tiernon was often there in the mornings, watching his knights train.
The problem was that Tiernon’s form in the Palaestra was very similar to his judgement form. It was not Beragamos’s favorite way of talking with his deity. Which, of course, was the point of the form when passing judgement. If he were simply acting as an observer, that would be one thing, but in this case he would have to explain a rather complicated situation and as such, would be the brunt of this form’s eyes.
Beragamos in his outdoor, winged form flew over the rolling meadows surrounding the five-hundred-foot-tall, refleca-marbled building. The scent of flowers was strong on the air. From a long distance, the Palaestra resembled a fairly standard rectangular building girded in Corinthian columns. Only as one got closer, which took some time, did one begin to realize exactly how huge the building was.
Once more, as he had so often done, Beragamos smiled as he thought about how lucky they were that the outer planes only obeyed those laws of physics that pleased their owners. Otherwise, this building would be completely unstable from an engineering standpoint. The weight of a real marble ceiling of the size of the Palaestra’s would need much more support than it had. Fortunately, refleca objects only weighed what they needed to weigh.
Beragamos passed through the antechamber and into the main arena of the Palaestra. This floor was a large training field, lined inside as well with more columns. Along each of the sidewalls were doors of various heights, all at least fifty feet high, leading to training studios, baths and ancillary chambers.
The avatar walked around the outside edge of the arena, behind the inner columns to avoid the sparring Holy Knights, all of whom were twenty feet tall and armed to the teeth. He purposefully avoided looking toward the far end of the hall, his destination, where Tiernon sat upon his throne.
Even at a fast walk, it took Beragamos’s human-sized legs some time to traverse the field. He finally stopped at the right approach to the throne. This was the waiting area to the right of the throne, where those wishing an audience could wait until they were acknowledged and motioned forward.
It was only upon reaching the approach that Beragamos dared look at his god, trying to judge his mood. This was one reason why he did not like this form; it was very hard to judge demeanor and reactions. The scale probably had something to do with it.
Tiernon’s form in the Palaestra was one hundred feet tall when standing; sitting on the throne, he was still over sixty-five feet tall. Tiernon was seated in the very ornately carved Palaestra throne; he was clad in sandals with golden leg wrappings that crisscrossed his truly enormous and muscular calves to tie just below the knee.
He wore only a single shoulder toga with three layers of refleca silk. Each sheet was probably a hundred and fifty feet or more long. A wide belt with very a large, golden buckle carved with Tiernon’s own face kept the toga tight. Tiernon’s form was that of a human man of great but not excessive muscle. The perfection of the human form, without the bulk of a barbarian.
