03- The Apostles of Doom

by J. Langland

  “There, I shifted back, and I’m still—still here. This is very odd. I have never encountered this, nor heard of it.”

  “Thinking back to school, was there not some philosophical speculation that the Outer Planes had no aether? Similar to the Astral Plane?” Gadius asked.

  “Hmm. Good point. Let me think.” Gaius went silent for a few moments. “I do think you may be correct. Although there were different arguments about the why of this. But perhaps that is the answer.”

  “The Abyss is an outer plane?” Gadius asked. That seemed to go against everything they had been taught.

  “I am not sure I would go that far, but it would appear that the Abyss is something different. It is not one of the Planes of Man. Perhaps only the Planes of Man have aethereal realms?” Gaius said.

  “Well, given that the aethereal realms are distinct with each Plane of Man, that would make some sense. They may be an aspect or dimension of the Planes of Man.”

  “I am now wishing I had paid more attention to those philosophy classes,” Gaius said, “or taken some advanced ones.”

  Appendix II: Introduction & Overview of Time, Space and the Multiverse

  Chapter 126

  Isle of Doom (Nysegard): DOA + 5, Late Third Period

  Valg Death Cheater slowly rotated clockwise, scanning the horizon for incoming threats. He had been getting odd premonitions of something building for the last day or two. Something was coming; he just could not define what it was. Neither his shaman Eagle Sight nor his D’Orc sight saw anything unusual on the horizon. No dragons, no undead pterosaurs winging their way over the plains of the Isle of Doom.

  Valg smiled tightly, as he always did thinking of his homeland. He, his family and his ancestors had lived on the so-called Isle of Doom for thousands of years; its name was a source of rich irony for Valg. First, the “island” had an area of nearly two hundred and fifty thousand square leagues, which should qualify it as a continent. Secondly, for most of its history it had been one of the safest continents in Nysegard thanks to his ancestors, many of whom were still alive. Such as his great something-or-other grandfather Targh Bowelsplitter.

  Of course, keeping it safe had gotten exponentially harder several thousand years ago, long before his time. According to the stories of the Oracle (as Targh Bowelsplitter was known), the volcanic fortress in which they lived, the Doom of Nysegard, was once connected to Mount Doom in the Abyss. It was from this legendary place that the D’Orcs had come to protect and save the various peoples of Nysegard from the predations of the Unlife.

  For thousands of years, the Isle of Doom had been a safe haven for all those seeking to escape the Storm Lords and their minions. It had not been completely clear what had happened, at least not at first, but their volcano had started losing power and eventually shut down. It started with the links to Mount Doom being severed and ended with the magical defenses shutting down, leaving the fortress and the island in rather dire straits.

  The Storm Lords had not discovered this immediately, but when they had, they wrought devastation on the Isle of Doom. The D’Orcs and their non-D’Orc allies had fought valiantly and eventually, after several centuries, managed to once again repel the Storm Lords. However, it had been an uphill battle ever since to keep the island safe. It was not clear how many more centuries they would be able to hold out.

  After a few D’Orc warriors were slain and then summoned back from the Abyss by shamans, they had eventually learned the fate of Orcus and Mount Doom. That had been extremely demoralizing for the D’Orcs on the island; that demoralization had probably hindered their efforts. They had struggled on, however, and a few D’Orcs from Mount Doom had agreed to be summoned to Nysegard to aid them, but Mount Doom had suffered even greater losses and had not had excess forces.

  It took a lot to kill a full-blooded D’Orc, and fortunately, none had died in the last two thousand years. While those that died could be summoned back, the dead D’Orc would need to fully regenerate in the Abyss before a shaman could bring it back. That would be time they very seldom had. Their D’Orc resources were stretched thin over the island. There were currently about one hundred full-blooded D’Orcs in Nysegard.

  That was actually up from what they’d had when the volcano went down, thanks to volunteers from Doom and full-blooded D’Orc children. When Doom had fallen, there had only been about eighty D’Orcs, due to the fact that over two-thirds of the D’Orcs stationed in Nysegard had been pulled to Etterdam and perished with Orcus. There were another forty or so half D’Orcs like Valg himself, as well as another thirty-plus with some D’Orc blood. They relied heavily on their larger armies of orcs, humans and dwarves to keep the island safe, but Unlife was a plague and on such a large “island,” it could sneak in and start spreading corruption, converting living creatures into Unliving creatures at every opportunity. Fortunately, the D’Orc’s goblin engineers had been doing great work at creating makeshift technology to replace the magic and high technology they had lost with Mount Doom.

  Valg completed his second rotation and sighed. He could just feel a sort of tingling, this bubbling in the air and spirit that he had never felt before. He was fairly young as D’Orc shamans went, only fifty-two years old—a babe by D’Orc standards, but up there for an orc—but something that he’d never experienced was now gnawing at his stomach. He would need to consult with Targh. Following his link to the Oracle, Valg noted that Targh was in the henge at the base of the volcano.

  Valg stepped up on the railing of the watchtower and dove off, his wings whistling in the air as he dove down the side of the watchtower’s peak towards the henge. It was odd for Targh to be in the henge at this time of day; others did the gardening and maintenance, so one would really only expect him there for ceremonies. Or looking for portents, Valg suddenly realized.

  After several minutes of extremely rapid descent, Val spread his wings to break his descent and rotated to come in for a landing on the walkway leading to the henge. Crunch went the gravel under his hooves as he landed.

  Targh looked towards him and nodded before returning to whatever he had been looking at or doing. Valg approached him quietly and stood waiting for the elder D’Orc’s attention.

  “You have questions, child?” Targh asked.

  “Yes, grandfather,” Valg replied. Targh preferred that all his descendants simply call him “grandfather.” He said he was too old to try to remember all the generations of his progeny. As a child, Valg had marveled at his grandfather, who was over twenty thousand years old. Such a time was inconceivable to him then, and for that matter, now.

  “Something is off,” Valg said.

  Targh paused and nodded. “I am no shaman, but I feel it as well. Something has changed, whether for the better or worse I am not sure. It does not feel bad, per se—in fact, more like a distant memory—but for the life of me, it is a memory I cannot recall.”

  “It has been bothering me now for more than a day. It is like the energy in the air before a thunderstorm, yet there are no clouds in the sky,” Valg said. “And as a shaman, I feel a premonition that something is about to happen, yet I cannot say what.”

  Targh nodded. “Your senses on this are better than mine. But from what little I can feel, I would have to agree.”

  “There you two are!” Valg’s mother’s voice called to them. Valg turned to where his mother, the most beautiful of D’Orcs, was just coming up the walkway.

  His mother, Eldebra Death Cheater, at only five hundred and forty-two years old was one of the most renowned D’Orc warriors since the first generation that had come from the Abyss. She had more undead slayings under her belt than D’Orcs four times her age.

  Valg was reasonably certain she was coming up from the village and her hut, where she cared for his aging father. His father, Karth Death Cheater, was a great shaman, perhaps the greatest in a thousand years, but he was an orc and at only one hundred and twenty years of age, was feeling the pangs of mortality.

  “Child,” Tar
gh said, beaming at his granddaughter, “what brings you up this path?”

  “Karth is sensing some sort of disturbance; one that he does not understand, but that he feels might be extremely important.”

  Targh nodded. “We were just discussing this. Even I feel something; Valg here has confirmed it for me. Let us return to your home, where we may discuss this with Karth.”

  All three of them headed down the path and into the nearby village of Krallnomton. The village was due south of the old city of Krallnomton, which had been destroyed during the War of Recovery over three thousand years ago. The memories of the dead were such that when they rebuilt the much-smaller village, they had done so south of the original city, rather than within the old city boundaries.

  They had to take a small detour around one of the village wells, where three young orcs were battling it out with wooden practice axes. Valg chuckled at their youthful exuberance and joy while whacking away at each other. One of these days he would like to have children of his own, but he needed to win a girlfriend first.

  An orc his age would have been married and had children and possibly grandchildren, but with his D’Orc blood, his first duty was to all the people in their charge. So training, vigilance and battle took precedence over his personal life. He could also expect to live considerably longer than an orc. It wasn’t exactly clear how long a half-D’Orc or anyone with D’Orc blood could expect to live. There were not that many after all, and most of them pushed themselves so hard that eventually an honorable death in battle claimed them. If not, they were still around and fighting after multiple centuries.

  The oldest living half-D’Orc was about a thousand years old. D’Orcs and orcs hadn’t started intermarrying until about two thousand years ago, and the first several over-extended themselves in combat and perished. Shamans had not had any luck in summoning them after death, so presumably only full D’Orcs returned to the Abyss.

  They reached Valg’s parents’ home, where he had grown up. Valg had moved into quarters within the volcano complex about two decades ago. His father had always felt too removed from nature and the spirits of the world within the volcano, so his mother had moved out to the village with him.

  His father was sitting at his worktable in his wheeled chair, meditating; the strong smell of incense filled the living room. He opened his eyes as they entered, nodding respectfully to Targh, his son and giving his wife a tight smile.

  “Ah, you come for a visit?” Valg’s father asked softly. He no longer had the fierce energy that Valg remembered from his youth. His physical health had been declining ever more quickly over the last one to two decades. His mind and his powers, however, remained as strong as ever.

  “Indeed.” Targh’s strong voice reverberated around the closed space. He nodded to Valg. “Your son has confirmed the feelings I have been getting. Something is changing.”

  Karth nodded. “Indeed; the very air is charged beyond anything I have ever experienced. I am feeling an overall increase in ambient mana, and I have no idea what could be causing that.”

  “That is what it is!” Valg said, suddenly recognizing the sensation he’d been feeling. That feeling, as if before a storm—it was an increase in the surrounding levels of mana!

  Targh nodded. “But what would be the cause of this?”

  Karth shrugged. “Unfortunately, the most obvious would be that mana is being focused here in preparation for a large spell.”

  “As in an attack?” Valg’s mother asked.

  “That would be the most obvious,” Karth agreed.

  “Are you sensing Unlife?” Targh asked.

  Valg’s father shrugged. “I am basically stuck in this village. Around here, I sense no darkness, nor any with the mana; however, that does not mean it is not nearby.”

  Valg nodded. “I have been surveying the lands around the volcano from the watchtower and have not sensed any Unlife; not within the range of my perceptions.”

  “We need to increase our vigilance. I will also contact the other villages to see if they are noticing similar increasing levels,” Targh said.

  Karth frowned. “A wise precaution, but if we have an enemy, presumably the Storm Lords, capable of this sort of attack… Well, if they can do it simultaneously in multiple locations, we are in very serious danger.”

  Valg gritted his teeth. This was not good. He had not felt anything particularly ominous about these sensations until now. He still felt nothing directly, but this discussion was unsettling and caused his stomach to clench with dread.

  Rumble.

  Everyone in the room looked startled as the ground, and thus the entire house, shook with a tremor.

  “What was that?” Valg’s mother asked.

  “A groundquake?” Karth said, puzzled.

  “There have been no quakes since the volcano went dormant,” Targh said, a note of concern in his voice.

  “Let us get outside, in case there are more,” Karth said.

  Rumble.

  Rumble.

  Several more tremors shook the ground as the four left the house, Eldebra pushing her husband’s chair. As they exited the house, they could see that everyone else in the village had come outside as well. People were looking around.

  “In the air—we need to look around!” Targh commanded.

  Valg, Targh, his mother and the other three D’Orcs currently in the village launched themselves into the air, fanning out around the village’s palisade, all scanning with D’Orc sight for threats.

  Rumble.

  Rumble.

  Rumble. CRAAACK!!

  A tremendous cracking noise came from above them, up near the dome of the volcano. The D’Orcs and everyone in the village turned to stare up at the cone of the volcano in shock.

  “What in the Abyss?” Targh bellowed.

  Rumble.

  CRAAACK!! CRAAACK!! CRUNCH!!

  Rumble.

  RUMBLE!

  RUMBLE!!!

  Horrible and violent cracking noises came from inside the volcano as the tremors came faster and more violently then before. Suddenly a large belch of soot burst from the cone of the volcano, followed by an overpowering stench of sulfur and brimstone.

  “The volcano is becoming active!” Valg’s mother shouted.

  “How in the Abyss is that possible?” Targh exclaimed. Everyone in the village was pointing and shouting in excitement and fear.

  “If that thing blows its top, we are going to need to evacuate, fast,” Karth said via shamanic distance speak.

  “It has control vents and defined lava troughs that historically controlled and channeled an eruption, modeled after Mount Doom,” Targh replied, albeit with a note of concern in his voice. His concern was for the mortals in the village; obviously, D’Orcs would barely notice a bit of lava.

  Valg felt his hair stand on end. It suddenly felt as if the entire village, the entire mountain was crackling with energy. It was a very disconcerting. He had never felt anything like this.

  The ground shook again, causing a few small chicken fences to collapse in the village.

  “I need to get up there and see what’s going on. Everyone else, start gathering together and prepare to be evacuated to higher ground,” Targh ordered.

  “Karth? Is there anything you can do to ward the village from any mudslides or falling rocks from the mountain?” Targh asked the shaman.

  “I will see what I can do,” Karth said, and started murmuring.

  Valg recognized the chant for strength; his father was summoning strength to walk and do combat. Valg grimaced. Such chants always needed to be paid for at a later time. He hoped his father was strong enough to pay the cost when it came.

  KRAA…AAACK!!!!

  KABOOM!!!

  A giant fireball exploded into the sky from the cone of the volcano after the loudest cracking they had heard so far, even as the ground shook with renewed fury.

  Suddenly a huge plume of fire and lava sprang from the mouth of volcano, along with the most ter
rifying screech that Valg had ever heard.

  Mount Doom: DOA + 5, Earlier Third Period (Shortly Before Previous Scene)

  Darg-Krallnom gave Tom a big grin. “As we predicted last night, monitoring systems indicate that mana levels at Nysegard’s Doom are now sufficient to reopen the connection to Nysegard.”

  “Excellent!” Tom said, grinning back. This was exciting; they were about to reopen the portal to the Doomalogue in Nysegard. Last night they had been looking at the power levels and Darg-Krallnom had predicted they should be able to open the portal by midday today. If all went well, and if—a huge if—the people at Nysegard had been able to hold out, then they would be able to expand their resources.

  Resources on multiple fronts. Darg-Krallnom had reported that when the connection had gone down, there were still several D’Orc shamans in Nysegard; that was huge. Tom needed more skilled shamans in order to make contact with the other planes. They had a lot of inter-plane travel they wanted to do, and he could not be the only person opening portals and gateways.

  The second possible resource was that there was a slight, very slight, possibility of using the generators in Nysegard to help charge Mount Doom. Of course, this depended on who, if anyone, was at Nysegard’s Doom. In the past, it had been heavily populated, and there had been a lot of battles with Unlife, resulting in significant mana generation. That was something quite exciting. There had been some interchanges with them for the first thousand or so years, but they had not heard anything recently.

  The third was the possibility that they would get some more D’Orcs as well as other allies that were possibly versed in Doom Lore. Again, this was all most likely wishful thinking. Vargg Agnoth and Helga Dourtooth, both of whom were actually from Nysegard, were not optimistic, given the odds that would have been against the D’Orcs and their allies on the Isle of Doom.

  Darg-Krallnom, however, was much more optimistic. He was from Astlan, but he was one of the oldest living D’Orcs; he and Arg-nargoloth were some of the very first D’Orcs ever incarnated. Darg-Krallnom had spent considerable time reinforcing Nysegard when they had created the Doom there. Apparently there were cities there named after all four of them.