Alpha3 – Chapter 144 – Mount Doom: Council Chamber
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Yes, and whether or not they died at that time, they’d have been de-powered and eventually died of old age by this point.
Well, that’s an interesting question.
I think they will deduce that after finding out what’s going on at the COL.
But before that…they probably had no idea that there was a big Unlife army in Etterdam. I need to check, but I think Sentir said that the Unlife didn’t “show up” until after things were locked down, so that information would not have gotten back to Doom.
The thing is, they were fighting Net and the Alvar. You would not normally suspect the Los Alfar of working with the Unlife. That would come out of left field.
They would have been in the trap with Orcus cause the dome came up during a battle.
Sentir and adoh would have had to plan it that way so it wasn’t immediately known what was going on. This made sentir able to manipulate information after the fact to be like “Orcus was muh supur evillll” and what not. And I toats didn’t use monstrosities to kill him. Nothing suspicious here.
I was thinking that the only mortals with links at the Etterdam battle would have been the Doom-sworn mana wielders, warlocks and shamans-of-doom, nobody else.
So, I have a couple of problems with this section:
[quote]Tom raised a calming hand towards Targh. “No one is saying that we are abandoning them to their fate. [h]We are considering what we can and should do. That is what we are doing for now.[/h]”
“Agreed.” Morok said. “Karmic justice aside, we do have free will. I was simply noting the irony.”
“This situation requires great caution.” Arg-nargoloth said. “We cannot walk into the same trap that befell Orcus.”
Tom nodded. “I think what they are seeing now is the same thing Orcus saw. Although I will note that Nét and Sentir Fallon did have access to the Outer Planes, since they had plenty of mana to draw upon.”
“Perhaps they built in an exclusion for themselves.” Phaestus mused. “We still do not know exactly what they did then, or are doing now.”
“It would behoove us to find out.” Völund said.
“Indeed. But most carefully.” Phaestus agreed.
“Agreed.” Tom said, drawing attention back to himself. “[h]Let us break for the moment and begin determining our options. Before we decide whether or not to help.[/h]” He noticed Talarius looking rather agitated, “[h]We must know what we can put together in terms of a force, [/h]and what we can do in terms of ensuring that we do not repeat Etterdam.[/quote]
[quote][h]“I have not made any decisions yet, Talarius.”[/h] Tom looked to the knight. He was fully armored due to the heat so he could not see his face, but his voice was definitely strained with emotion.
“I understand there is much history, bad history between my god and you, and your predecessor; but I beg of you to consider that they, these people, on Nysegard have kept their oath to your people here! Talarius said.
“I’m well aware of that. That is very important.” Tom said as they moved briskly down the corridor towards Tom’s room. “[h]But the situation is dangerous and we must evaluate what we can do safely[/h].”[/quote]First: I feel that Tom is being very non-committal here. Quite a bit of this book has been buildup to this battle. Things are now at the final pre-battle stage. It seems like a very bad time for Tom to be sitting on a fence about whether or not he should join in.
Tom already knows that fighting the Storm Lords is not a matter of ‘if’ but rather a matter of ‘when and where’ (allegiance ceremonies, thinking about his new responsibilities, Hephaestus working on getting portals working etc…).
Second: This line bugged me “We must know what we can put together in terms of a force” . The D’Orcs are the greatest warriors in the Multiverse, in particular Arg and Darg. There is no way that they wouldn’t have all necessary info at their fingertips, no need for a break to figure it out.
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I tried a few modifications to increase Tom’s decisiveness and ramp it up a little. What do you think?Targh shook his head. “No. They, their ancestors are not responsible for what happened on Etterdam. That was Sentir Fallon and Nét! The followers of the Five Siblings on Nysegard honored their oaths!” Targh was shaking his head. “They honored them then, they have honored them since. It is not just that they befall the same fate. They have been true to their word.”
[h]Tom raised a calming hand towards Targh. “I agree with you Targh, and no one here is saying that we should abandon them to their fate. What we need to do now is consider what we can, and should, do. That is what needs to happen now.”
[/h]“Agreed.” Morok said. “Karmic justice aside, we do have free will. I was simply noting the irony.”
“That said, this situation requires great caution.” Arg-nargoloth stated. “We cannot walk into the same trap that befell Orcus.”
Tom nodded. “I think what they are seeing now is the same thing Orcus saw. Although I will note that Nét and Sentir Fallon did have access to the Outer Planes, since they had plenty of mana to draw upon.”
“Perhaps they built in an exclusion for themselves.” Phaestus mused. “We still do not know exactly what they did then, or are doing now.”
“It would behoove us to find out.” Völund said.
“Indeed. But most carefully.” Phaestus agreed.
[h]“Agreed.” Tom said, drawing attention back to himself. “Let us break for the moment and begin determining our options. We can meet back here to put everything together in 15 minutes (or something like that)” He noticed Talarius looking rather agitated, “We must know what we can put together in terms of a force, and what we can do in terms of ensuring that we do not repeat Etterdam. We also need a plan for getting there”[/h]
“Uhm. Lord Tommus?” Valg raised his hand as Tom stood to leave, allowing his commanders to plan.
“Yes Valg?” Tom asked.
“One more, rather important detail.” Valg said.
“Yes? We need all the information we can get.” Tom said.
“Apparently, there are something like fourteen different avatars of the Five Siblings there. Including the prophet of each of the Siblings, and the head archons for Nysegard for each of the Siblings, as well as four others.” Valg said, causing indrawn breaths from those assembled. “They too are completely cut off. [h]It seems that once the wards went up, the Storm Lords did a fast-strike trying to decapitate the leadership. The Avatars were able to hold them off but several were severely damaged in the process.” (would need setup in a previous section)[/h]
Tom closed his eyes, shaking his head. “Great, so if we break the siege, restore their access, they immediately try to arrest me.”Hmm… I guess the problem is that I didn’t correctly take into account the fact that as a reader I know a bunch of stuff that team Doom doesn’t.
After re-reading the chapter I realize that they literally have almost zero reliable intel on what is going down at the COL (we know because we got to read about it)(same for the five sibs). All they really have is some hear-say from a talking rock. In light of this, I suppose an abundance of caution is called for.Speaking of who knows what, could someone on team Doom deducted the presence of Storm Lords in the Etterdam battle? With that vision and the deconstruction/deduction done by phastus and volund along with the knowledge that there are avatars trapped in the COL. That leaves only Storm Lords who could have put up those wards which means: they were in nysegard.
Yes, people are shitting bricks, both sides are fearing a trap.
I’ve upped the stakes in the Council room, spelling out the death toll, having Tom and the others talk about it, and reupping the concern that it is a trap.
Remember, the Siblings do not know what is going on in Nysegard, they know nothing of how Sentir Fallon did what he did. They have not seen this plane blocking spell before, they are going to think it is Orcus.
Oh I am definitely liking this, I’ve been waiting for the other siblings to show up and get there reactions to everything that’s been going on. Can’t wait for the next update.
I am going to ponder them in a moment but I want to quickly get into some background that may not be completely obvious as to why Tom (and the D’Orcs) are hesitant.
This is actually a big part of the “vision” and tying it out to what he’s been told.
Until now, the D’Orcs had no idea how Sentir Fallon permanently slew not only Orcus, but also 20,000+ D’Orcs.
Yes, D’Orcs are an incredible fighting force, but somehow, Sentir Fallon and Net PERMANENTLY killed over 20,000 D’Orcs, non of whom returned.
Now, they know, it was something exactly like what is happening at the Citadel.
I think it’s best said by Namora and Krinna in a later scene:
[quote]
Tiernon shook his head. “Enough beating around the issue. The truth is that the knight and the demon showed up on the Isle of Doom when the demon restarted the Doom of Nysegard.”
“I’m sorry what?” Namora asked in shock. Krinna and Hendel had equivalent expressions on their faces.
“How did this demon manage to start one of the Doom satellites?” Krinna asked.
“I thought they were tied, and controlled via Mount Doom in the Abyss.” Hendel said.
“They are. The demon started that a bit before this.” Torean replied somberly.
That caused all three siblings to stare at Torean, and then Tiernon in shock.
Hendel sighed. “Exactly who is this demon?”
Tiernon gave Hendel an awkward smile. “We are fairly certain it’s you know who.” Namora’s face fell like a ton of bricks placed within a silk hammock. She was not pleased.
“You are telling us that the demon who stole both your mana and your knight is the god whose name literally means ‘Sacred Oath’; who has spent his entire existence punishing oath breakers? A god with whom we share an oath of loyalty and fraternity?” Namora asked scathingly.
“An oath which, as I recall, you broke!” Krinna said equally angrily.
“That this god is now, back from the dead?” Namora finished. She shook her head in anger at her brother.
“Yes.” Tiernon said. “We were trying to get a read on how angry he is.”
“A read?” Krinna asked incredulously.
“Oh, I don’t know?” Namora said. “Your idiot archon only permanently slew him along with over twenty thousand of his avatars and who knows how many hundreds of thousands of his followers!”
“You were not sure if he was going to be angry?” Hendel asked softly. “I think this is one of those situations you need to ask yourself, what would you be doing in his position?”
“And then get the hell out of town. Fast.” Krinna added vehemently.
[/quote]
So the point being, Tom and the Mount Doom D’Orcs do not want to have a repeat experience, particularly when they are at 1/10 the strength.
If I recall correctly, Sentir was saying that ‘Orcus’ clearly knows what we did and is moving for revenge and then Aodh says “not possible, he and all the D’Orcs were all dead when I opened the portal for the unlife armies”.
Yes, that sounds correctly
However, I may alter it to say “he was dead” before I opened the portal for the Unlife armies. Killing 20000 some D’Orcs even under these circumstances is a huge task; even if they are completely demoralized.
It was, however, the Dark Apostles magic that helped them, and it was the DA that gave Sentir Fallon Excrathatoris Mortis.
[quote]“Because he knows.” Lilith said, sounding angry.
Sentir closed his eyes, even as Aodh locked his on her stating emphatically. “There is no way he could know. The Dark Apostle blocked off access to Doom for Orcus and his army. You cut the link to the Nysegard Doom, so they could neither use mana, nor return upon death.”
Aodh shook his head and continued. “Sentir slew Orcus permanently and infected the D’Orcs with the Blackness before I even opened the gateway to Nysegard outside the Dark Apostle’s wards. No one, other than our own servants were left alive.[/quote]
This indicates that EM was somehow able to soul-suck the D’Orcs through their links to Orcus. I think that this also came up in HH but I am not sure exactly what was said.
The above extract doesn’t say whether ‘the blackness’ actually killed the D’Orcs or just weakened them a lot.Correct.
That is actually the operational theory that people have been working on. I need to look at that paragraph.
Please remind me to check it around Beta 1 time. I may want to unwind it a little bit make it more ambiguous. They may have been weakened, some killed, but 20K is a lot for one little blade to suck, presumably it needs mana to do that…of course if SF was fueling it mana
Found the spot in HH where this was mentioned:
[quote]“Which is why this cannot be Orcus reborn!” Sentir stated vehemently. “I saw him die— I saw his entire being engulfed by that negative energy, watched it follow his links to the D’Orcs in Etterdam, watched it devour them as well. As, for that matter, did you! [/quote]
This pretty clearly indicates that EM took out Orcus and ALL the D’Orcs.
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