Apostles of Doom

Tom nodded and took off into the air. As soon as he got to a good position above the fray, he reached towards the kilt pouches on his arm. Crap! The arrows would be too small for him at this size. Tom returned to his normal size and began fastening his kilt on his waist, his tail holding the Rod of Tommus. Finally, he got one of the arrow-darts of Tiernon out and he began looking for Inethya’s link. He was going to have to drill into her link and then go through Beragamos to get to Tierhallon. He was not sure what that would take. He could see her link; it was quite wide and strong compared to what the priests had had.

He tossed the arrow, funneling himself through it as he’d done several times now, and locked it into the stream. Don’t panic! I give you my oath, my word of honor, that no harm shall come to Tiernon, nor his avatars! Tom told Inethya, who jerked in surprise as she felt his intrusion. He could feel her shock — horror even — at his violation. I am very sorry, but I need to do something drastic if we are to defeat these risar, he said. He winced as the wind giant pounded her face with his fist. Her guard was down; she was distracted by Tom’s actions. He hoped she wouldn’t fight him; he wanted to get in and out fast.

Tom swayed suddenly with massive vertigo. What was happening? Was Inethya fighting back? He shook his head as he felt links shifting inside the Rod of Tommus. “The interdiction is broken!” he shouted. “We are all at full power!” That was the vertigo! Inethya’s link now went straight up to the Outer Planes without routing through Beragamos.

Tom raced up the link with his mind, up into the sky above, going where he had not previously gone. He blinked, reeling as he suddenly found his astral self in a very strange place. It was like being in some sort of house of mirrors. That was the only way he could describe it, but he had no idea what that description actually meant.

He had very little time; he was certain his intrusion would be detected. He felt for Excrathadorus Mortis, allowing his mind to expand, willing the link to activate. Where is it? There it is! The blade was in some sort of bubble of stability. In a non-mirrored area, if that made sense. Actually, nothing made sense here; the mirror thing was simply a metaphor for how he experienced the place.

He reached out to Excrathadorus Mortis and solidified the link. He could now understand the bubble a bit better. Excrathadorus Mortis was a physical object in a non-physical place. The bubble was some sort of pocket universe or something. This was more instinctive rationalization than anything he actually knew. But what was clear was that he could open a true gateway into the bubble to bring the dagger physically through to Nysegard.

As Tom did so, a small ring of fire appeared before him on Nysegard. Tom reached his free hand through and grabbed his dagger. My dagger! he suddenly realized. It was his dagger. It had slain Orcus, had nearly slain him, and he had remolded it, he had remade it in his own (and admittedly, Tiernon’s) image. It had been Tiernon’s mana after all, wielded by himself.

Tom pulled the dagger through the hole in reality even as he let his mind race back down Inethya’s link. He closed the hole to find Inethya staring at him in anger from about five feet away.

“What in creation’s name did you just do?” Inethya yelled at him in fury.

“I retrieved my dagger from Tierhallon,” Tom said matter-of-factly.

“You cannot invade my link and ride it to Tierhallon to steal things!” Inethya was definitely pissed.

For some reason, perhaps guilt at his invasion of her link, Tom also got angry. “Why not?” he snapped. “It’s my dagger. My stepbrother had it, and he seriously owes me one! I’ve known him longer than you’ve been an avatar. This is between him and me. If he has a problem with me doing this, well, he knows where I live.”

Inethya blinked in shock, not fully comprehending what Tom had just said.

Tom grinned at her despite his anger. “Now, I have work to do. I’m about to fix this situation.”

He dove down towards the frost giant, the Rod of Tommus wrapped in his tail, Excrathadorus Mortis in his right hand. Keep him distracted, his back to me at all costs! Tom instructed Roth Tar Gorefest.

Tom once again linked the two Fire Portals in Nysegard to the two Fire Portals in Doom. He then connected them to Excrathadorus Mortis, causing the blade to burst into flame. He shifted the blade into a two-handed stabbing position and crash-landed onto the frost giant’s back. Tom plunged the large, glowing, fiery blade into the giant’s back, right between the shoulder blades. The fire of four Fire Portals concentrated on a single, relatively tiny spot, burning through the icy armor.