As the shaman, Tal Gor was one of the first two in line, along with Soo An, his sister. As they were ready to begin flying, Schwarzenfürze seemed to finally settle down a bit, almost sighing. Suddenly, from directly behind Tal Gor, a very loud series of moist, splattering explosions erupted. The D’Warg behind him jumped out of line with loud snorting noises, causing its rider, Fel Nor, to reel to the left, where he began coughing and hacking before jamming his fingers in his nostrils.
Looking over his shoulder, Tal Gor was surprised as the other second-line D’Warg began moving away as well. It was at that point that the putrescent stench struck his own nostrils. Apparently, the aim of the noxious gas cloud had been straight back, and it had taken a few moments for the cloud to drift back to Tal Gor’s nose. He gasped for breath through his mouth even as Soo An did the same.
The third line of orcs began waving their hands in front of their faces even as their D’Wargs began giving them trouble. D’Orcs standing nearby began plugging their own noses and a few were almost retching, even as they laughed uproariously.
“Lilith’s dusty udders!” Virok cursed even as he plugged his own nostrils. “I thought I’d never have to smell this again!”
“It’s been over four thousand years since she’s eaten! How is this possible?” Vespa yelled between guffaws.
“Knowing Schwarzenfürze, she’s probably been saving it, letting it ferment for four millennia!” Virok said, laughing. His two brothers behind him finally had their D’Wargs back in formation, but the D’Wargs were snarling and snorting in displeasure. The poor beasts had no way to block their nostrils. By this point, everyone was laughing at the ornery D’Wargs.
“Tal Gor,” his brother Fel Nor exclaimed, “never in my life have I smelled something so disgusting. You could leave entrails out on a rock for days and not have such a smell! I shall never ride behind that D’Warg again.”
“Relax, Fel Nor,” said Vespa, still laughing. “I am sure it will take Schwarzenfürze at least a few moments to recharge!”
Tal Gor rubbed Schwarzenfürze’s neck, truly enjoying her attack, of sorts, on his brother. This day just kept getting better!
“So what exactly is Exador proposing?” Lord Gandros asked the councilors in his room.
“That is not completely clear,” Randolf said.
“Not clear?” Damien asked. “He says he can prove he’s not an archdemon, yet he’s not clear how?” The wizard shook his head in disbelief.
Randolf shrugged. “He said he and the guests he had staying here would be more than willing to pass any test the Council decided was reasonable.”
“He sounds rather confident,” Jehenna noted.
“Too confident.” Zilquar squinted at his fingers, concentrating as he spoke.
“So we come up with a plan to test him and his colleagues, and if they pass, we know they are not the archdemons?” Davron said.
“Or they have managed to trick us,” Damien noted.
“All well and good, but what if they don’t pass? What if we expose them?” Lenamare asked drily.
“Then I am guessing we have three very embarrassed archdemons in the middle of the Council Chamber,” Gandros snorted.
Davron and Zilquar both grimaced. “I’m relatively sure that won’t be pleasant,” Davron observed. Zilquar nodded in agreement.
“In such a case, we would need to be prepared to bind them,” Randolf stated.
Damien arched an eyebrow and looked askance at the archimage, who had apparently just lost his senses. “Bind them? Bind three archdemons?”
Randolf shrugged. “Well, I admit, three is more than I bargained for, but I have been researching traps for a single archdemon.”
Lenamare looked at Randolf, giving a slight inhale of sudden understanding. “Interesting; I now see what you were getting at during our discussion the other day.”
Gandros did a double take between the two councilors. “The two of you were having a discussion? Have heaven and hell united?” Jehenna was also looking at Lenamare oddly.
“Strange situations make strange bedfellows.” Randolf grinned. Several other wizards grimaced, slightly uncomfortable with the allusion to the archimage’s catamite.
“How much more work do you have to do?” Gandros asked.
Randolf shrugged. “Thanks to Lenamare’s assistance I was getting close, but I’ll need to recalibrate to hold three archdemons.”
“Perhaps we should do them one at a time?” Davron asked.
“That would be best, but how do we schedule that? If the first one is an archdemon and doesn’t return to the Abyss, won’t the other two get suspicious?” Damien asked.
Zilquar frowned. “We could put the wards back up really fast.”
“That would get rid of all three,” Gandros noted.
“Unless they are prepared for it, under the assumption that that is the test we would devise,” Jehenna said.
“And we do need to come up with a test, still,” Lenamare noted.
“This is going to be tricky,” Gandros stated.
“Assuming we do discover that they are archdemons, and we put the wards up, how long can we keep them up and keep out three angry archdemons?” Damien asked.
“Long enough for the Rod and Oorstemoth to recall their forces, I should hope,” Lenamare said reluctantly.
“And then what? Previously, they did not use their full strength because they were in hiding for some reason. There would be no such constraint at that point,” Davron noted.
Gandros shook his head and sighed. “I would like to convene a meeting with Alexandros on this; he was not available this morning.” The Archimage rubbed his temples. “We need to buy some time, time to think this through. Time to look into bindings, time to look into banishings.” He looked back and forth between Lenamare and Randolf. “Is there a way to ban them from Astlan for a few centuries?”
Lenamare blinked and Randolf shrugged. Finally Lenamare spoke. “Well, we don’t quite know how they got here. All previous research indicated that manifesting on the material planes was very complicated and power intensive. That’s why we never expected to have to do such a thing.”
“In hindsight, a contingency plan for one of those times an archdemon did manage to manifest might have been a good idea,” Randolf noted.
Damien sighed. “I am wondering if we might need to consult with some religious authorities.”
Lenamare snorted. “I doubt such narrow-minded and opinionated mana channelers would have any useful advice to offer.”
Damien shook his head in annoyance. “They deal with extra-planar beings all the time: ghosts, vampires, undead, saints, angels. As I recall, they also like to do exorcisms; isn’t that demon-banning?”
Lenamare just snorted again and shook his head at the ridiculousness of consulting with clerics.
Jehenna interjected. “It may come to that, but perhaps we can do more research on the subject before needing to take extreme measures.” She glanced at Lenamare to make sure he was mollified.
“So what do we do in the meantime?” Zilquar asked.
“Business as usual?” Randolf shrugged.
“Business as usual?” Davron asked non-rhetorically.
Damien nodded in agreement. “We tell Exador that we are investigating testing mechanisms because we must be sure; but for now we take his word as a trusted member of the Council of Wizardry.”
Gandros nodded. “I agree. If he or his friends are archdemons, they have been that way for longer than any of us have been alive, and could have killed us all long ago. So for now, status quo.”
Davron sighed. “I guess. It seems better than any alternative.”