by J. Langland
Tierhallon
Hilda made her way through the halls of Tierhallon towards the meeting room as quickly as was seemly. As soon as she’d gotten free of the city’s wards, she’d blasted off an alert to the others that a major event had happened and that they needed to meet.
She opened the door to see Moradel already there and looking concerned. As she started closing the door, Baysir Tomgren, the Prophet of Astlan, stopped the door from closing and entered.
“Hilda.” He nodded to her. “I am sure you must have felt it as well?”
“I have, Prophet. It is quite troubling.”
“What is it? I got your message first, Hilda, and then not a minute later, word from Baysir,” Moradel said.
At that point Stevos and Beragamos entered the room.
“What’s up?” Beragamos asked.
“What is missing is the better question,” Baysir replied, even as Sentir Fallon slid in through the door.
“Hilda?” Beragamos turned to the saint.
“A few moments before I notified you, I lost contact with several of my illuminaries and followers. I am trying to sort it out, but about half of my people that were with the Rod in Freehold have suddenly gone dark.”
Baysir nodded. “I’ve gotten the same reports from other saints, and have verified it myself.”
“How many?” Moradel asked worriedly.
Baysir shook his head. “It’s hard to count, particularly with followers, but I am thinking at least fifty priests, possibly more. All had been somewhere in Norelon.”
“How could fifty priests and who knows how many followers, presumably Rod members, all go dark at the same time?” Stevos asked.
“Lenamare blowing up a temple?” Beragamos suggested. “As I recall, he has a penchant for mass annihilation.”
“We need to check with Reception, right now,” Moradel said. “If they all died, they will be showing up there.”
Sentir Fallon gave a small shake of his head, seeming to wake from a trance. “I just now asked Rasterus, who is on duty there. At the moment, it is business as usual. He will notify me if he gets a large influx.”
“We need to check our prayer queues. Surely, if there was any notice of something like this about to happen, we’d have some prayers,” Moradel told the others.
Baysir nodded. “I will have every saint in Astlan comb through their prayer queues. We’ve made some operational changes since the greater demon incident. We should be able to pinpoint the problem much quicker this time.”
Beragamos sighed. “I really hope this sort of thing is not becoming commonplace. However, from what we are seeing, I am not feeling optimistic.”
The Inferno
“Okay, do we have everyone here?” Barabus asked his assistant. They, the priests and Rod members were crowded into the largest space on the Inferno: the staging and deployment hold. It was a very tight fit for the fifty-four priests, one hundred and twenty-five Rod members and the three knights.
“Yes,” Terses, his personal assistant, told Barabus.
“Everyone, I know you are all quite upset and feeling lost!” Barabus’ voice echoed across the chamber thanks to his Necklace of Vocal Projection; very useful for a commander. There was much more than a little confirmation in the response of his audience.
“I have discussed the situation with Chancellor Alighieri,” Barabus continued, gesturing to the chancellor behind him, standing next to Wing-Arms Master Heron. Discussion was something of an understatement. He’d had a very heated exchange with the chancellor over why they had not been informed of this possibility.
“The situation we have found ourselves in is not completely unexpected, and it is nothing to panic about. Our links to Tierhallon are interrupted, but not broken. We have not been abandoned, nor forsaken.”
The rumblings from the audience implied that he had a hard sell.
“While the chancellor had not been certain, due to the fact that no one in Oorstemoth has travelled to the Abyss in over a thousand years and the records were very sketchy, there were hints that what we are experiencing is a simple property of the Abyss,” Barabus said. “I have also confirmed with Brother Talbot, our own historical expert on the Abyss, that there are some mentions of this in ancient Tiernonic tomes that this phenomenon is natural, and in fact a requirement for the existence of the Abyss.” He was also not amused that Brother Talbot had not brought this up; but then of course, Barabus had never met the brother until after entering the Abyss.
“What was not unexpected?” someone shouted from the crowd.
“Apparently,” Barabus told them, “it is impossible to link between the Abyss and the Outer Planes. The Planes of Man are, essentially, according to Brother Talbot, a neutral ground between the heavens and hell. Links between the Outer Planes and the Planes of Man work fine, and links between the Planes of Man and the Abyss work fine; however, these links cannot traverse from the Outer Planes through the Planes of Man to the Abyss.”
Barabus could barely contain his frustration at himself as well as other senior members of the Church and his own advisors. They should not have rushed into this so quickly, so blindly. It was a critical failure of intelligence and due diligence. However, he could only truly blame himself.
“So what does this mean?” someone shouted.
“It means that we are cut off from Tiernon and his avatars. As long as we are in the Abyss, we will have to rely on the mana we have with us, and what we can generate and maintain here,” Barabus said. He noted Diocate Temerlain nodding behind him. Temerlain was the senior member of the Church on this mission, and one of Iskerus’s most trusted lieutenants.
As expected, there were a number of mutters and groans at this news.
“Why can’t we just keep a gateway open so our links work?” one of the priests called to them.
Barabus blinked; that sounded quite reasonable. He looked to the chancellor.
“Uhm, yes,” the chancellor began. “Three issues. First, we do not have the mana resources to keep a gate open perpetually. Secondly, we can’t move the gate, so the Inferno would have to stay in one place. And finally, our gateway generator creates a hole large enough for this ship to traverse. If we were to leave such a large hole open in reality, eventually demons would find it and pour through to Astlan. As you can imagine, that would not be good.”
Barabus inhaled deeply. That certainly answered the question. “However, do not fear! Chancellor Alighieri has generously opened the treasury on board the Inferno to provide us with gemstones from which to create Holy Mana pools. Furthermore, to ensure the success of our mission, Wing Arms Master Heron has asked the crew to join us in worship services in good faith, so that we may accumulate mana from more sources and store it in mana pools for use by our priests.”
That seemed to cheer the priests up a little bit.
“We will now take questions; please raise your hands if you have a question,” Barabus told the audience, and sighed at the sea of hands that shot into the air. He gestured to a Rod member near the front.
“If we are cut off from Tiernon and his avatars, and links do not work, then are we not also cut off from Tierhallon?” the soldier asked.
“Yes, I think that is implied,” Diocate Temerlain confirmed tersely beside Barabus.
Barabus started to move onto the next question when the soldier spoke up again. “So if we get slain by a demon down here, how are our souls supposed to get to Tierhallon?” The room went deathly quiet for a few moments before utter pandemonium broke out.
Courts of Chaos, The RMS: DOA + 4, Mid Fifth Period
Zargoffelstan set his empty mug on the bar of The Ripe Young Maiden’s Surprise and grimaced. He nodded to the bartender, the boy-demon Tut, to refill his mug. He really should not be drinking another. His purse was rapidly emptying; he had not been to Astlan much lately and so had been unable to snag things to sell in the Abyss for cash.
Tut set a new mug down and smiled at Zargoffelstan. “Zarg, I’ve been se
eing a lot of you lately. Did you off your accursed master? I thought you liked him.”
Zargoffelstan frowned. “No, he’s still alive, but he’s trapped in Freehold on Astlan behind these anti-demon wards so he cannot summon me. Consequently, I have no work and no opportunities to snag stuff from Astlan to sell here, so I’m drinking my money away!”
Tut shook his head in sympathy. “Freehold? They still have the wards up all this time after expelling the demons?”
“No, they went down, and I got back in for a bit, but apparently one of the Councilors of Wizardry—Lenamare’s archenemy, Exador—was exposed as an archdemon pretending to be a wizard, and there was a big battle and Freehold put the wards back up. Sent me scrambling again!”
“An archdemon posing as a wizard? That is so bizarre!” Tut said.
Zargoffelstan nodded, it was unheard of and completely irrational.
“That greater demon has set off a whole chain of events,” Tut observed.
Zargoffelstan nodded. “Tell me about it. You know I’ve met him?”
Tut did a double-take. “You’ve met the greater demon that stole the knight?”
Zargoffelstan took a drink from his mug before replying. “Early on, I had to protect my accursed master from him.” He did not fail to notice the look of skepticism on the bartender’s face; he was used to it. “Yes, my accursed master works for the wizard Lenamare, who is the greater demon’s accursed master.”
Tut shook his head and suddenly seemed much more interested in Zargoffelstan’s story. “Oh, this is juicy. You need to tell me the whole story!”
Zargoffelstan smiled sadly. “I can tell you a bit, but as I said, I’m going broke quickly, so I can’t stay for too long.”
“Not a problem!” Tut said, grinning. “This is killer detail on the most talked-about thing in the Abyss in centuries! Drinks are on me!”
Zargoffelstan was surprised by the offer, but one didn’t look a gift basilisk in the face! He grinned and nodded, making a toasting gesture towards the bartender.
Tierhallon
“Well, they don’t seem to be dead, just cut off,” Sentir Fallon told the others at their reconvened meeting several hours after their first hasty meeting on the new crisis.
“I’ve been tracing who I have left in Norelon and who is missing,” Hilda said. “As far as I can tell, all my remaining illuminaries and their flocks are still camped outside Freehold. The ones that are now missing are the ones that left on ships for parts unknown shortly after the demon expulsion.”
“Where did those ships go?” Moradel asked.
Baysir shook his head. “Not completely clear, but I suspect Oorstemoth.”
“Oorstemoth?” Beragamos asked.
“Once we began to suspect they were in the contingent that departed, I queried our saints with the most illuminaries in Justicia to see if there were any clues. We are still working on it, but there seems to have been a great deal of thought and prayer surrounding some agreement with Oorstemoth,” Baysir said.
“A deal with Oorstemoth? That seems exceedingly unusual,” Moradel said.
“Indeed,” Sentir Fallon agreed, frowning.
“Further,” Baysir continued, “the Arch-Vicar General of the Rod was apparently leading the team that left Freehold.”
“He has been confirmed missing as well,” Sentir Fallon said, nodding. “I have a long history of being a patron of the arch-vicar generals. In my prayer queue, I found a brief prayer for protection and guidance from Arch-Vicar General Barabus; it seems to have been but minutes before they were cut off.”
Hilda shook her head; this was not good. Their principal problem was that, unless a priest did a chant or ritualistic prayer, such as used in a blessing or benediction, they did not get clear messages. Ad hoc, silent prayers conveyed emotions; sentiment with no really solid details. Oddly, there had been no prayer rituals regarding whatever had happened; at least, none that they had identified so far. There were quite a few saints that still needed to report in.
“Have you been able to identify any illuminaries in Oorstemoth?” Beragamos asked. “It would be exceedingly unusual to find one of our priests there, so if we did, that would tell us where they went.”
“We suspect there are,” Baysir replied, “but you know how hard it is to track specific individuals and their location if they are not actively using mana. And at the moment, since we started looking this afternoon, we are seeing nothing other than minimal routine rituals in all of Norelon. Presumably, eventide or morningtide might present some opportunities.”
Moradel nodded. “Have everyone who had illuminaries with the Rod in Freehold keep a very close eye out. A morning worship service will be our next best opportunity.”
The Abyss
Sam finished hammering his most recent piton into the side of the cliff. As a rule, he preferred to use camming devices, which were non-destructive to the mountain face; however, there were some spots on a good climb, particularly in the Abyss, where only a piton would work, and this was one.
The few subordinates he had that were willing to speak their mind to him thought that his clean-climb philosophy was a bit superfluous in a plane like the Abyss, where there were essentially infinite numbers of mountains to climb and relatively few mountain climbers. Sam’s standard response was that he considered the Abyss his home, and he had no desire to deface and damage his home by pounding random, unnecessary giant spikes into the walls. That sort of destructive activity was, as he liked to point out, what the Planes of Man were for.
After attaching the carabiner to the piton and looping his rope through it, Sam paused to take a breath. He glanced down below his footing on the wall at the sheer five thousand foot drop he had been scaling. An incredible sight. Such views were so much more satisfying when secured to a cliff face by fragile ropes and climbing anchors, rather than simply flapping one’s wings in the air or using magic. Rope, muscle and metal—that was where the challenge was, where the sport came from.
As he rested, listening to the sound of his own breathing, Sam suddenly noticed a loud thrumming sound coming from overhead and behind him. He twisted his body and craned his head to get a view of where the sound was coming from. In doing so, he suddenly felt a vibration in the rock to which he was clinging. That vibration seemed keyed to the thrumming noise.
Sam blinked at the sight above and behind his position. There was a very large semi-cylindrical metal object floating through the sky above him. He phased his demon sight in to get a better look at this truly odd spectacle. The object was made out of metal; what appeared to be iron, steel, mithral and adamantite as well as a few others. Every inch of the surface was engraved with runes, pentacles and other arcane spellcraft. Many of the runes were glowing, throbbing with light and power in time to the thrumming noise.
He shook his head. The object was at least a thousand feet long, perhaps two hundred feet wide and eighty or ninety feet tall. It looked like nothing so much as a giant Typhoon-class submarine from one of the Earths. However, this monstrosity was at least twice the size of the one of those Soviet-era nuclear submarines. The other difference was that this thing had what appeared to be three conning towers. The main tower was in the middle and was proportional to a Typhoon class conning tower. There were two others of about half the size of the central tower; one at the front, another at the back.
The vessel was flying over the top of the giant mesa he was climbing, about five hundred feet to his right. Sam frowned in consternation. What is this thing? Where did it come from, and how in the Abyss did I not know about it? His mental alarm bells were now going off. Which of his numerous enemies was responsible for this thing?
Sam adjusted his eyes to focus on the side of the main conning tower. It was at a pretty steep angle, but he could make out a flag painted on one of its sides. He brought the flag into focus. It was not that large, so it took only demonic magnification to read it. He blinked. He looked again and shook his head.
It was the fl
ag of Oorstemoth in Astlan. He would recognize that sign anywhere; there was only one Oorstemoth in the multiverse, thankfully. Sam had to admit this was truly dumbfounding. Knowing the Oorstemothians well—or at least, he had known them well—he could imagine the purpose. They were interested in extending the rule of their law into the Abyss. They were clearly planning to arrest or subpoena demons that they felt had broken their rather byzantine and, quite honestly, arbitrary laws.
Sam sighed. So much for the climb. He needed to investigate and get a handle on this before things got out of hand. Or more precisely, into the hands of one of his enemies.
Tierhallon: DOA + 4, Mid Sixth Period
“We have a priest in Oorstemoth,” Baysir told the quickly reassembled Astlanian response team.
“Excellent!” Moradel said, pleased.
“Actually, we had a few priests conduct small worship services along with some ritual prayers for fellow priests and Rod members on some sort of sacred mission,” Baysir told them.
“A sacred mission?” Beragamos asked with a worried note in his voice. “Given that they are in Oorstemoth on a sacred mission, I am more than a little concerned.”
“Particularly since none of us in Tierhallon seem to know anything about this mission,” Moradel said, grimacing.
“Any idea of what the sacred mission is?” Hilda asked.
Baysir shook his head. “No, but we are reasonably sure it is some sort of joint mission with the Oorstemothians.”
That caused a number of indrawn breaths. A joint Church and Rod mission with Oorstemoth? That was quite unprecedented.
“Given that their first convocation or alliance with Oorstemoth was in Freehold and they left the city together, I have to believe this concerns Lenamare’s demon,” Sentir Fallon said.
“I do not see how this can be good.” Beragamos shook his head.
“I think we may need to ‘visit’ one of these priests and get more information. Is there one who would fit a good profile for a Dream Sending?” Moradel asked.
