The Heavenly Host

Vaselle looked at the list and blinked. It was in his own handwriting! How totally bizarre! “But not as bizarre as this list,” he muttered. And the quantities? He shook his head. Freehold was one of the few places all of these things were available, but in these quantities, this would be expensive! He tugged on the sack string to open it and see what the rough stones were; hopefully some marble or malachite something worthwhile. The sack opened and rough-cut rubies, emeralds, sapphires, diamonds and other gemstones spilled out. “Holy saints in their graves!” Vaselle exclaimed at the wealth spilling out of the sack. Who said selling one’s soul did not pay!

∼

Tom headed immediately back to bed. He needed to curl up again. It was too much — way too much! He shut the door behind him, to the surprise of the others, saying only, “I need to rest some more.” He really did not need to rest; he just needed to curl up and freak out!

How had he kept himself together while possessing Vaselle? He was amazed he had been able to do some simple tests of flame in the man’s body and then write out the list in Vaselle’s hand. He had then released the wizard, sent everyone back to the parlor and closed the link while making a beeline to bed.

When he had possessed the soldiers, he had been in a hurry, with a burning anger and a crapload of mana. He had basically flattened the minds of the people he’d possessed. Here, he had come in and Vaselle had opened himself up to Tom completely and utterly. The wizard had exposed everything about himself — his fears, his frustrations, his loneliness, his despair, his longing, his love, his self-loathing, his pettiness, all his foibles and just said “take me.”

Tom tried his best to tolerate it, but it was too much. To see someone else exposed that way was painful in a way he could not explain. It made him ache; ache in his heart, his mind, his soul. It brought forth a very complex wellspring of emotions that he could not even begin to process. When someone did something like that, it was very hard not to reciprocate or resonate or something. Tom did not have the words for it.

He did not want to reject the wizard, but he did not want to meld with him at that level of intimacy. He was torn on so many levels that he could not even process them at the time. He had done his best somehow, mentally, spiritually or something, to “pat” the wizard and welcome him, give him some affirmation. But it was a bit too much. A lot too much. He had not been prepared for it. Therefore, he merely gave him a mental hug and tried to push him gently down and take control of his body to establish a solid link within the wizard. He certainly did not want to go as far as he had with the Rod of Tommus. Nope. Not going to happen; but that was what Vaselle had seemed to want.

Christ, that wizard was lucky he had done this with Tom. He had to imagine most demons on seeing that much vulnerability would be tempted to exploit it. To think of the damage one could do to someone so open and vulnerable. It made Tom shudder. It made him ache. He did not know if he felt embarrassment for Vaselle, pity, love, despair or what? All of the above?

Tom opened his eyes. Was this the sort of thing God saw when people prayed to Him/Her? In this case, he meant the god he had been raised with on Earth, but he supposed it was the same for the local gods. How could they take this, worshippers opening themselves up like this? It would be a living hell, it would take a level of... of he had no idea what to handle this day in and day out.

Fuck! He just wanted to cry, or maybe scream. Or both.

∼

^{DOF +5}

^{Late Morning 16-02-440}

Lilith stood beside Darflow Skragnarth looking Abyssal Southwest (ASW) from Doom’s Redoubt, her secret fortress built to keep an eye on Mount Doom and its occupants. She had originally had it built about ten or twelve thousand years ago as a base station for her spies to keep an eye on Orcus and his machinations. After his demise, she had repurposed it to be more of a garrison to ensure the D’Orcs did not get too out of control.

“How long has it been since you’ve performed a D’Orc culling?” Lilith asked her commander. A culling was what they called the periodic raids they performed on the D’Orcs to whittle down their numbers, test their defenses. It was expensive, in that she generally lost about as many soldiers as the D’Orcs; however, it would have been more expensive if not for her troop’s greater magical resources. Their arcane devices and mana-wielding demons were more than enough to neutralize the D’Orcs home field advantage.