The Heavenly Host

Hilda had been as well, but Trisfelt had had a logical explanation, so she used it. “Well, the demon tried to grant Talarius mercy; it allowed him to surrender, whereupon the demon shape-changed into a human male.” This evoked some discussion, but not as much as she would have expected. “He then walked over and was apparently accepting the knight’s surrender when Talarius pulled Excrathadorus Mortis on the demon and stabbed him.” The room broke into a loud round of cheers. They were all, of course, familiar with the ancient Excrathadorus Mortis dagger. It was legendary and over four thousand years old.

Hilda coughed again, loudly. The room went silent, realizing she was not done. Hilda grimaced. “Okay, this is where the Pool drain comes in...” The room was deathly silent. “Apparently, at this point, the human-shaped demon began pulling mana from the priests he’d compromised and used divine mana to cleanse the wound and heal himself.” Pandemonium broke out as people began arguing about the obvious impossibility of this.

Moradel had to let this rage on for ten minutes before he got them to quiet down. “Anything more, Hilda? Where did the demon go?”

Hilda grimaced, preparing to give more bad news. “Well, that wasn’t the totality of the mana drain...” The room stayed silent. “Apparently, the demon then used the divine mana to reverse Excrathadorus Mortis.” People began yelling at this point, since this was beyond impossible.

“Enough!” Moradel shouted at the room after another ten minutes. “Hilda, we all find this hard to believe, but fine for now... Please explain why things seem so calm on the battlefield now.”

“Well, apparently after doing this, the demon opened a portal to the Abyss under Talarius and dropped him through it.” People gasped and Hilda continued quickly, “The demon then sent his minions through before leaping through himself and sealing it behind him.” She gestured that she was finished, then added, “Which is why I say the demon tried to grant Talarius mercy; Talarius refused it.” The room once again became pandemonium.

∼

Not surprisingly, the morning’s planned intercession was canceled. For one thing, the predawn meeting that was supposed to last for less than an hour went nearly two hours. Afterwards, Moradel, Beragamos and Sentir Fallon, the older archon against the wall, had taken Hilda back to a private conference room to delve into more details of what she knew.

It was, Hilda sighed to herself afterwards, exhausting. She had spent four hours with the three archons peering at her with every form of Sight they could come up with as they quizzed her on all the details of what she had told them and how she knew it.

“So,” Beragamos asked for at least the third time. “This wizard, Trisfelt, he didn’t know who he was talking to? He just thought you were a mortal woman?”

Hilda nodded, tired. “Yes, my cover was quite good. We had a very relaxed conversation over wine, meats and cheese. How many humans, wizard or otherwise, are going to have a relaxed conversation with an avatar who shows up on their doorstep?”

Sentir shrugged. “She does have a good point. Most people go slack jawed.”

“He could be extremely skilled; he is a Master Thaumaturge at this fellow Lenamare’s school,” Beragamos noted.

“Well, his cover was very good then, because he certainly knew his food and wine. Further, he was clearly intoxicated in my presence; would someone trying to fool an avatar allow themselves to get intoxicated?”

“Admittedly, someone capable of that level of power and deception is unlikely to be posted as an observer in the woods,” Beragamos admitted.

“This is all quite interesting. I have to admit, Hilda, I’m very impressed with your surveillance skills.”

“Thank you, Archon.” Hilda smiled at the compliment.

Moradel smiled a bit more grimly. “Give it a moment, and you may not be thanking me.” Hilda arched an eyebrow in question. Moradel looked at the other two archons. “I assume we can agree that there is too much unknown, and too many unknown parties here, to do a straightforward intercession?”

“I think it’s too dangerous to tip our hand at this point,” Beragamos agreed.

“Clearly, this is a very dangerous situation with archdemons all over the place, demons stealing mana from us, Oorstemothians and who knows what else. We need to understand the players better, and if we just show up in all our divine glory, the other players will know we are on to them.”

“But they will assume as much anyway, correct? How are we supposed to ignore this?” Beragamos asked.

Moradel chuckled. “Was it not you who told me that it is often better to remain silent and to be thought incompetent rather than reveal yourself through action to be incompetent?”

Beragamos twisted his mouth into a dark smile. “That sounds like me. I agree with the assessment in any case; I simply want to point out that without some reaction, we might be thought weak. We need to be aware of that.”