Apostles of Doom

Exador’s eyes soon widened in surprise as Lenamare’s flunky quickly proved him wrong. He would have to seriously reconsider his opinions of those disciplines. As a master of water, Elrose had melted and steamed the ice dragon without heat, and then he dispersed the ice dragon using a high-pressure region. But the truly inspiring piece of wizardry was tossing a vial of water at the dismounted lich and using it to open a portal to Water, then allowing the lich’s own frozen nature to turn that outpouring of Water into ice, thus entrapping the lich in a giant ice cube plunging towards the ground.

Exador had to restrain himself from clapping in admiration. It was truly inspired. He really should have recruited the man. Argh. Hindsight!

“That wizard was dangerous and annoying, the other one even more so,” Praelgeis hissed.

“The other one?” Exador asked. He wasn’t aware of any other master-level wizards of any sort within the group, other then Trevin D’Vils. Praelgeis nodded and let the scrying expand to its full scope before focusing in on one of the marginally more effective, if smaller, flying carpets.

“The one in the turban,” Baba Smert' hissed.

Exador took another look as the scrying zoomed in. He blinked. It was that imbecile Gastropé, who had escaped with the girl, the book and the greater demon. He gritted his teeth. He should have vaporized his former employee immediately, rather than having toyed with the idea of polymorphing him into something unpleasant. In the future, no more mister nice guy.

Exador shook his head. “I know this wizard; he is barely qualified to be a wizard. I hired him as a low-level combat wizard and he failed quite spectacularly!”

The scrying stopped as several liches snickered. “If so,” Praelgeis hissed, “then you are a terrible judge of talent. Watch.”

The scrying resumed. Several carpets were in trouble, going down. The one with his former employee was zooming around and being somewhat effective, but they were clearly outgunned and going to wear out soon. Gastropé stopped launching attacks and seemed to go into a trance. He sat out at least one pass against the lich and ice dragon. His colleagues were all staring at him; clearly the nitwit had panicked and frozen.

Suddenly Gastropé said something and used his Wand of Fire to create a short, sustained blast, as if lighting wood in a fire pit. Exador blinked and Ramses coughed beside him. That moron was somehow using a Wand of Fire and mere verbal components to summon not one, but three demons while on a wildly veering flying carpet! Exador had known the boy was simple-minded, but insane?

Three fiends, type II demons, suddenly appeared and instead of eating the occupants of the carpet, they sped off and attacked the nearest lich and ice dragon. Exador’s jaw dropped. There was no way in the Abyss even a truly talented wizard of Gastropé’s experience should have been able to pull that off.

All three would have to have been previously bound to Gastropé and even then, no pentagrams, no protection? The level of bindings on those demons needed to make this safe would likely be more than even a master conjuror could easily cast. Someone like Damien? Yes. But he was one of the most gifted conjurors in Astlan, and thus the multiverse.

They all continued to watch the rest of the battle. It was, quite frankly, humiliating for the Storm Lords. Between Elrose, Gastropé’s demons and the Grove’s normal fighting prowess, the Storm Lords were clearly outmatched.

The scrying ended. The room was silent.

“To be clear, Exador,” Praelgeis hissed ominously, “this looks to us to be more of a setup, a trap, than information from our ally.”

“Ah,” Exador said, slightly taken aback, but he could see their line of thinking. Ramses was frowning beside him. He knew Ramses well enough to know the Time Warrior was preparing for battle.

“I think you are right,” Exador said suddenly.

That caused several of the Storm Lords to blink their eye sockets. A rather odd thing for beings without eyelids, Exador thought. “A trap for both of us, set by my arch-nemesis, Lenamare!”

Baba Smert' shook her head. “We’ve all heard your rants about this Lenamare, but I don’t see how you can spin this against him.”

“Ahh, but you see, all of the guests on the Nimbus work for Lenamare. Elrose is one of his key wizards — the demon conjuror turned traitor and joined with Lenamare after leaving my service. And I know from the roster that the rest of the passengers were all working for or with Lenamare!”

“I think we are going to need a better explanation, perhaps some proof,” a Storm Lord Exador did not recognize hissed.

“Very well. I have plenty of time, and I think it very important that we understand our common enemy here.” Exador smiled brightly at his “allies.”

Courts of Chaos, Exador’s Penthouse

“Ugh,” Ramses sighed as he sat down in an overstuffed chair in Exador’s penthouse den in the Courts.