The Heavenly Host

Trevin looked sharply at Bastien. “You said they wandered about the town, so it was not an invasion? No massacre?”

Bastien shook his head. “While I was there, things were peaceful. Another messenger is hopefully a few hours behind me with more news. The rangers will be sending messengers every few hours with updates until there is a resolution. Hopefully, they leave.”

Trevin nodded. “So while they were there, they were not causing problems.”

Dresdech spoke up. “Murgatroy has an even larger orc population than Murgandor. It would be uncharacteristic for D’Orcs to make an unprovoked attack against a town with significant numbers of orcs.”

“So what were they doing?” Treyfoêr asked.

“Well, they stabled their D’Wargs in the wargtown and then they came into town and appeared to be shopping.”

“Shopping?” Jenn asked incredulously.

Bastien shrugged. “Again, others will have more information, but they seemed to be purchasing supplies.”

Dresdech was pacing. “I was young at the time, not even a millennia old, but as I recall, it was not unknown for the D’Orcs to mount hunting parties with local orc tribes.”

“You think they were out hunting and wanted to get some salt and glargh for their roast?” Darowin asked rather sarcastically.

“It does seem farfetched. But then there are many extremely odd things happening right now,” Trevin said.

∼

Hilda and Stevos arrived at the conference room at about the same time. Hilda had come directly from her not-exactly-relaxing dinner with Trisfelt. Leaving Murgatroy, she had been looking forward to it as small point of sanity, a means of touching base with reality that would quite welcome. Something one needed after spending the day hearing stories of D’Orcs and half-dead deities trying to rise from the grave. However, to come home and find the wards up and that the main entry hall that one had become accustomed to passing through each day had been thoroughly demolished by an archdemon? That was not relaxing. Especially when it then turned out that your houseguest had accidentally provoked the archdemon into attempting to obliterate most the Council of Wizardry. She shook her head; she would love to have gotten Ruiden’s take on the battle, but he had not returned to the hotel until after she left. She had touched base with Danyel via their link to make sure Ruiden had come home.

“How is your priest doing?” Hilda asked, trying to get her thoughts back to more neutral ground. Neutral ground that before returning to Freehold had been the insanity she had thought to escape.

“Sleeping comfortably now. I cleansed him enough to sleep well. I’ve also placed a ward on his room in the event our actions may have caused unforeseen repercussions,” Stevos told her.

“A wise precaution. There seem to be a lot of unforeseen repercussions happening lately.” You never knew when a few questions might set off an archdemon, for instance. Hilda smiled at Stevos.

The door opened and in walked Moradel and Sentir Fallon. “Stevos, may I introduce Sentir Fallon, the other member of our small task force who was not able to join us at our last meeting,” Moradel said. “Sentir, this is Stevos, whom I have told you about.”

Stevos rose and bowed deeply. “It is an honor to meet you, Your Holiness!”

The young saint was obviously more familiar with Sentir’s work than Hilda had been. To be fair, she thought, he did work more with orcs than she did, so there was a good excuse.

Sentir Fallon smiled beatifically at him and made a relaxing gesture with his hand. “At ease, my friend; we are all comrades in the service of Tiernon here. No need for titles or honorifics.” He grinned more normally. “Not when the fate of the multiverse may be at stake!”

“Oh, my Tiernon!” Beragamos exclaimed, walking in behind them and hearing Sentir Fallon. “Are we not being just a tad dramatic?” He grinned at the assembled avatars. Hilda twisted her mouth to avoid commenting.

“Down to business!” Beragamos said, shutting the door with a wave of his hand.

Hilda reached down into the bag she had brought with her and retrieved two very nice bottles of wine. “Since we are dealing with Astlan, I brought some better Astlanian wines this time.”

Moradel laughed. “Who else is for abandoning our predawn meetings for these new late-night meetings so we can drink more wine?”

Beragamos chuckled and waved five refleca wine glasses into being.

Sentir Fallon shook his head. “Is this what I missed last time? I miss one meeting and everyone starts drinking!” He laughed and sat down. “Here, I have a corkscrew!” A refleca corkscrew appeared in his hand.

“So can a refleca corkscrew open a material bottle?” Stevos asked.

Moradel shrugged as he opened one of the bottles with Sentir’s corkscrew. “It can if we believe it can. It’s all about faith, my lad.” He grinned. “Remember, faith is our core business!”

“So that we may all try both, I will pour slightly smaller glasses for each of us,” Moradel said.