The Heavenly Host

Reggie nodded to them. “I’m Reggie, a friend of Lord Tommus,” he said.

The taller individual seemed to ignore him until the short guy poked him. “I am Völund, Smith of Doom.”

“Oh yeah, I’ve heard of you. You make all the weapons and armor here. Cool!” Reggie held out his upper right hand to shake. Völund ignored it.

The shorter fellow harrumphed. “You’ll have to ignore my friend; he’s not much of a conversationalist.” The two glared at each other.

Reggie reached out to shake the shorter man’s hand. “And you are?”

The man laughed. “Oh, sorry. I don’t get out much. I am a homebody. People usually come to visit me, and when they do, they obviously know who they came to see. Völund is one of my best friends and about my only equal — ”

“Superior,” Völund interrupted.

“— in smithery.” The man shook his head at Völund. “I am named Hephaestus currently, but my friends call me Phaestus.”

“Nice to meet you, Phaestus. Glad we are getting some visitors, it livens things up!” Reggie said.

“Indeed.” Phaestus nodded. “And smithing is a tiring, thankless job. I need a break right now, so the party will be good. Help me get rid of some stress.” He moved his shoulders around. “I carry it all in my shoulders and upper body.”

“Well, Tizzy is making what he calls ‘magic cookies.’ If they are what I think they are, they will definitely help with the stress!” Reggie said.

Phaestus blinked. “Tisdale is here?” He looked at Völund. “Why in the name of Tartarus did you not mention this?”

“Didn’t think it mattered,” Völund said, shrugging.

“I’ve got to go see him. I have not seen him in well over four thousand years. Do you know where he is?” Phaestus asked Reggie.

“Sure, I’m betting he’s in his kitchen. I’ll take you there.”

∼

^{DOF +10}

^{Late Third Period 16-07-440}

Reggie and Phaestus were wandering lost down one of the corridors from Tizzy’s secret kitchen. Well, technically not that secret. The two of them had found the magic treasure. They were moving a bit slowly. Phaestus had quite a limp, but more importantly, they were both pretty cookied. Limps seemed to be pretty common what with Völund, Phaestus and Tal Gor. Reggie idly wandered if there was a connection.

“I wonder where Tizzy gets his weed. The Abyss is a barren wasteland; where does he dig this stuff up?” Reggie asked Phaestus.

“I don’t know about up, but I know about high.” Phaestus grinned back at him. “My me! It has been a long time! Tizzy’s cookies are the only thing that can really relax me. Drinking can sometimes relax me, but often it just depresses me and I get grumpy.”

“Grumpy! Like Snow White!” Reggie suddenly said, looking at Phaestus in realization.

“Who?” Phaestus asked.

“Not important; chick that fell asleep. Thing is, though, she had these seven buddies that were dwarfs. Are you a dwarf?” Reggie asked.

“Nah. Get that a lot. They do like me a lot, the dwarves, they do. They’ve been good to me; I try to be good to them.”

“So you are just naturally short?” Reggie asked.

“Yep. Rest of my family are normal sized, most of the time.”

“You have a family?”

“Of course I have a family!” Phaestus laughed.

“Does Völund?”

“Not that he’ll speak to. Not sure, really. He had a couple brothers. They may have gotten left on the other side of the birefrigerated bridge or whatever it’s called.”

“Oh yeah, jotuns...” Reggie remembered.

“Something like that. Pronunciation’s a bit off.”

“Wow, I’m feeling really good!” Reggie said. “I think this has got to be the best time I’ve had in the Abyss!”

Phaestus snorted. “Not surprised. This place sort of sucks! They used to toss Titans down here to get rid of them. Not into the volcano, but into the Abyss.”

“Yeah, not a great place to live. Weather is really terrible,” Reggie said.

“Yeah, I think my friend Bess was a bit wacko for building a fortress down here,” Phaestus said.

“I bet the real estate is cheap!”

“Yeah. If real estate is all about ‘location, location, location,’ then she probably got her Abyssal Palace really cheap!” Phaestus giggled. “ ‘Course, her other place has a view that is literally out of this world! Well, not this world, except that it is out of this world, but I mean that the view she has there is out of the world she has it on. Do you know what I mean?”

“Not at all.” Reggie shook his head and smiled.

“Neither do I.”

“Wah woa woo vad waah!” a voice said off to their left.

“What was that?” Reggie asked.

“I don’t know. Sounds like someone who’s really drunk!” Phaestus said. The two turned to look into an alcove, from which the voice had seemed to emanate. Some of the stone wall had collapsed and water was trickling out. Perhaps it gave way during the rain, Reggie thought to himself.

“Wah orgus dorg,” the voice said again.