The Heavenly Host

Both Hilda and Stevos worked to keep him moving. “Yes. That’s why we think it best to discuss these matters in private,” Stevos said. “I am Stevos Delastros; last night you sent me a Prayer of Dire Deliverance, and now it’s being answered.”

Teragdor was staring at Stevos in shock. “Seriously? You are Saint Stevos Delastros? You are real?”

Hilda snorted. “An all-too-common reaction. Oh, ye of little faith. I swear, some of the priests are worse than the lay people. Tell me, why would you bother praying to a saint for intercession if you didn’t expect to get it?”

Teragdor turned to stare at Hilda. “Are you a saint also?”

Stevos grinned. “Teragdor, may I have the pleasure of introducing the Holy Saint Hilda of Rivenrock!”

Teragdor grimaced slightly. “Sorry, Your Holiness. I’m not familiar with you or your work.”

Hilda grinned. “I’d be highly surprised if you were! I’m from Eton and we are deep in the heart of Norelon, so it would be very unusual for anyone here to have heard of me.” She patted him on the back. “Don’t you worry, though. Who we are is nowhere near as important as what you saw!”

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^{DOF +9}

^{Late Third Period 16-06-440}

Lilith entered her bedchamber planning to disrobe the old-fashioned way and take a nice cooling whirlpool bath. With a flick of her hand, she lit the lamps in her room, bringing light to the darkly curtained boudoir.

“Good day!” Lilith was so startled by the man’s voice that she nearly destroyed her bedroom with lightning bolts before realizing it was Sentir Fallon.

“What the Abyss are you doing here?” Lilith shouted at the avatar.

“Not pleasant having strangers just mysteriously popping up in your bedroom, is it?” the avatar asked in amusement. “Tit for tat.”

Lilith closed her eyes for a moment and shook her head. “You’ve made your point.”

Sentir Fallon shrugged. “You must admit, given that no one can ever be allowed to know of even the existence of these meetings, there are few better places for privacy and security.”

“Security?” Lilith asked incredulously. “You know you’ve just doomed a large number of my guards to certain horrible torture and death?”

Sentir Fallon shook his head. “It’s not their fault and you know it. You did not detect me in here, waiting in the dark. If you could not detect me, then how can you blame them for not detecting me?”

Lilith frowned and then said tartly, “Because I’m a psychotic, mean-ass, vengeful bitch?”

Sentir Fallon grinned and shook his head. “Now who is starting to believe their own press?” He wagged a finger at her. “I do recall having more than one conversation with you about the dangers of starting to believe your own lies... Do you?”

Lilith sighed and shrugged. “Fine. They’ll live.”

“Good. And besides, if you did kill them or torture them, then they and others would know that they failed to stop someone, and they would start to wonder whom they failed to stop. It might give others reason to try. In short, pretending this meeting did not happen is probably best all around,” Sentir observed.

Lilith sighed again, relaxing more this time. “You are right. But that still doesn’t explain why you are here.”

“He’s moving fast,” Sentir stated.

“Fast?”

“It has only been nine days since he defeated Talarius, and in that time, he has found the wand, started the volcano and has begun reconnecting with the orc tribes on the material planes.”

That caused her to pause. “He is reestablishing his old connections on the material planes?”

“Indeed. They were spotted in Astlan yesterday. A combined D’Orc and orc hunting party came through a village called Murgatroy, where they were purchasing supplies. We have our people looking for similar situations on other nearby planes. We expect to find more examples.”

“He’s building armies in the material planes.” Lilith shook her head.

“Or laying the groundwork to recruit more D’Orcs.”

“That should take years, if not decades or centuries,” Lilith said.

“One would think; but on the other hand, before four weeks ago, no one had even heard of this demon.” Sentir spread his hands. “Now he is rocking everyone’s boat.”

“So what do we do?” Lilith asked.

“We need to have some understanding of what is going on inside Mount Doom. I’d suggest a scouting party, or maybe rattle their cage with a raid,” Sentir said.

“And if that pisses him off?” Lilith asked.

“Better to piss him off now, before he is at full power. Don’t you think? At this point we may still be able to bargain with him,” Sentir said.

Lilith looked at the avatar sideways. “If he’s someone new, maybe. If he is Orcus reborn, there will be no bargaining. He will be pissed. Very pissed.”

“In which case we are screwed already. We might as well find out how screwed we currently are.” The avatar grinned at her.

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