Apostles of Doom

That battle! It was absolutely insane! Vaselle could barely understand much of the magic that had been used. What was a gravity cannon? Sekhmekt’s super-heated breath? He laughed when he remembered Gastropé’s shock at discovering that Tom had battled alongside an actual goddess. The funniest part was that when they’d explained who she was — the Nyjyr Ennead goddess of war — Gastropé had almost fallen over. It turned out that they had been, and in fact still were, searching for signs that another Nyjyr Ennead goddess, one Bastet, was active in Astlan and possibly working with Exador. Vaselle shook his head. What an amazingly small multiverse!

Gastropé had filled them all in on what he was doing, what the Nimbus was up to, and how the alvar had all been freaked out by a simple shopping trip. The shamans had nearly split their sides laughing at the overreaction of the alvar. Those alvar were seriously paranoid. Vaselle shook his head in amusement, but then he tried to shove all of that to the back of his head. It was time for a drink, and he didn’t want to accidentally blurt something out while tipsy.

He entered the tavern room, which was not crowded but still busy enough at this time of night. There was an open spot at the bar, on the end next to a priest of some sort. As he got closer, Vaselle easily recognized the rather shabby robes of an itinerant priest of Tiernon. He’d certainly spent enough time with them to recognize one.

Up until he’d met his master, Vaselle would have studiously avoided being anywhere near a priest. The reminder of his personal shortcomings made the situation too uncomfortable. However, now that he was the servant of a great master capable of defeating the greatest Knight of Tiernon and able to steal Tiernon’s mana at will, he felt no shame. In fact, he was on a first-name basis with his master and the master’s avatars. There was no way this ugly priest would have gotten with a thousand leagues of one of Tiernon’s avatars, let alone Tiernon himself. So Vaselle was actually feeling pretty good about pulling up a bar stool next to the priest.

Vaselle sat down on the stool and gazed at the very sorry back bar. While he really couldn’t afford to go the fancy taverns in Freehold, he could afford, and did visit, good upstanding middle-class taverns. This tavern, with its serious lack of selection (there appeared to be only two ales, “light” and “dark,” if the symbols were correct, plus a single barrel of wine of the day) was decidedly not up to his normal standards.

He assumed they must have some bottles in back, but there were none up front, nor did there appear to be any hard liquors. Of course, those could also be hidden; he wasn’t really sure of dive bar protocols and inventory security. He did understand magical retail security, of course, being a merchant himself. However, the vast majority of his work was bespoke; his inventory was primarily example devices. Rarely did he sell prefabricated items; the cost of creating and maintaining such an inventory was expensive, at least for his specializations. Not that there weren’t plenty of merchants that did, but then they were generally only retailers and not craftsmen as well.

Hmm. That got him thinking. With access to Doom’s gems and precious metals, he would have the resources to make more arcane devices than ever. Of course, his service to the master came first, but with the need to provision shamans, warriors and others with arcane devices, he could be of great service with his skills in arcane device construction.

And thinking of inventory security, he would have to ramp up security if he were going to have lots of gems and metals around. Perhaps he should relocate to Mount Doom? With Phaestus and Völund around, surely there were going to be excellent laboratories there.On the other hand, Vaselle thought to himself, working out of Mount Doom would make it difficult to be the master’s servant in Astlan. Clearly, I need to discuss this with the master, so that we can determine the best way for me to serve.

Vaselle shivered with happiness, thinking about the joy of serving his master, of being his master’s tool in the upcoming restoration project. A loud cough woke him from his reverie. He discovered the barkeep staring him in the face.

“You toasted already? Or can I get you something?” The barkeep growled.

“Light ale, if you please,” Vaselle said.

The barkeep grabbed a clay mug from below the counter, turned and stalked to the light ale barrel without saying anything.