“Teragdor? That is an odd name,” Beragamos interrupted.
“Yes, Your Lordship. He’s half-orc, half-human,” Stevos acknowledged awkwardly.
“Half-orc?” Beragamos blinked. “We have half-orc priests?” Hilda was shocked herself.
“Yes, Your Lordship. He was a child of rape, naturally, and his human mother abandoned him with one of our priests,” Stevos said. “It’s a long story, but eventually the boy entered the priesthood and has done quite well. Given the difficult circumstances of the region, I would say quite well indeed.”
“And you are sure of his devotion?” Beragamos asked.
“Yes,” Moradel interrupted. “I am aware of this particular priest and he has been thoroughly vetted, as you can imagine. He is sincere, and to be honest I would probably trust him more than some of our people surrounding Freehold.”
Beragamos chuckled. “Verigas?”
“Of course,” Moradel said. Stevos looked back and forth, not understanding.
“Go on then, Saint Stevos.” Beragamos nodded with a smile.
“Well, Your Lordship, this evening he began a very urgent and relatively sophisticated set of ritualized prayers to ensure he contacted me,” Stevos said.
“Something more than a bedtime prayer, I take it?” Beragamos joked.
Stevos nodded. “The Prayer of Dire Deliverance.”
“The PDD?” Beragamos blinked as Moradel nodded.
Hilda shook her head in amazement; none of her illuminaries had ever tried that. Very few did; in fact, it was usually only done by a high priest.
“So what information did he want to relay?” Beragamos said.
Stevos exhaled and then took a deep breath. “Today, in broad daylight, a band of twenty orcs entered the city with another twenty large, winged, orc-like beings. In the wargtown, they stabled twenty large and very mean winged wargs which the orcs had flown in on.
“Winged orcs?” Beragamos was looking quite pale.
“And winged wargs...” Moradel sighed.
Stevos nodded. “Teragdor reached out to some of his alvaren contacts — ”
“A half-orc with alvaren contacts?” Beragamos shook his head at the nearly incomprehensible thought. Hilda found it odd herself, but certainly no odder than a half-orc priest of Tiernon.
“Indeed. As I’ve said, he’s been quite useful.” Beragamos nodded and gestured for him to continue. “They told him that these winged beings are D’Orcs.”
“Dorks?” Hilda asked, not sure she’d heard correctly.
“No — D’Orcs. You need to stress the D, a slight pause and then the O, trailing with the rest: D(uh) O(rcs),” Beragamos said softly.
“What are D’Orcs?” Hilda asked, puzzled.
“They are the unholy warriors of the demon lord Orcus,” Beragamos said softly. Moradel nodded confirmation.
“Orcus? As in the supposedly dead demon lord whose warlocks I am supposed to be on the lookout for?” Hilda said with a feeling of incredible despair.
Beragamos shook his head in disbelief. “To be honest, I thought Sentir was being ridiculous, exhibiting paranoia from one of the most difficult battles any avatar of any religion has ever faced. I never seriously thought that Orcus had returned.”
“How else do we explain the D’Orcs returning to Astlan?” Moradel asked. “We sort of assumed there were scattered remnants left somewhere in the Abyss. However, they had never had the ability to enter the material planes without powerful shamans attached to Orcus.”
“So could the orcs have summoned these D’Orcs directly?” Beragamos asked.
“Ahem,” Stevos interrupted. The two avatars and Hilda looked at him.
“Sorry, sirs, but I got a few more things from my illuminary. There was a young shaman with them; he seemed, however, to be crippled.”
“A crippled young orc?” Moradel looked surprised. “Old, crippled orc warriors might go on if they can continue to fight, but young ones born deformed or maimed early are almost always left to die.” Beragamos nodded in agreement.
“Be that as it may,” continued Stevos, “he seemed to be one of the leaders, along with a large female D’Orc and a tall, but very skinny grayish-white orc with blood-red eyes. According to my priest.”
“A skinny gray orc?” Moradel looked puzzled.
Beragamos nodded. “Most likely a Soulwrecker, Soulstealer, Soulsmasher, Soulslayer or similarly named clan of space-faring orcs from Visteroth.” He shook his head. “They are particularly unpleasant, even for orcs.”
“Space faring?” Hilda asked puzzled. Beragamos shook his head and gave her a small gesture, meaning that discussion was for another time.
Stevos continued, “Also, the orcs said they were from the Crooked Stick tribe.”
The avatars shook their heads, not getting the significance.
Stevos explained, “According to Teragdor, the Crooked Sticks were once one of the largest and most feared tribes of orcs, but today are but a very sorry remnant of their former glory. They are often used as an example of the failing of a weak tribe. They’ve been reduced to only two small bands of nomadic orcs.”
Beragamos nodded. “So unlikely to have a shaman powerful enough to summon individual D’Orcs. Assuming they knew any true names.”
Moradel nodded. “That is what I am thinking.”
Beragamos sighed and closed his eyes. “Hilda, you cannot know how grateful I am for your wine locker.” He reached out and took a sip of wine. The others all did the same. Hilda tasted it. Ahh... perfection. It would have been the end of her if it had soured after all this drama.
Stevos’s eyes went wide in surprise upon taking a sip; likely he had never experienced such a fine wine. She was pleased that both senior avatars seemed to appreciate it.
“This came from your stock, Hilda?” Moradel asked. Hilda nodded. “I am going to need to start inviting you to more meetings.” The avatar grinned, and Hilda chuckled.
“Ahh, I have to admit this helps immensely,” Beragamos said. “I am going to alert the attendant archons of the Astlanian localverse and other nearby realms that were historically plagued by Orcus. We need to know how far-flung his machinations are.”
“Indeed.” Moradel raised his glass in agreement and took another drink.
“This passing-out-drunk thing seems to have some advantages,” Fer-Rog said to Rupert. “If we stared at a D’Orc like we are staring at these passed-out orcs, we would be pounded into meat coins.”
“Yeah, it’s really helpful to have a model to stare at to practice a new form,” Rupert said.
“There are a few mirrors in Mount Doom, but if I stared at myself, I’d see my wings and I think that would be distracting as I try to make them disappear,” Fer-Rog said.
“Probably. I find it easiest to change to a form I know well, but I think if the two forms are too similar it would be hard to keep them apart,” Rupert replied.
“Yeah, that’s about it. What do you think?” Fer-Rog asked Rupert.
Rupert stopped working on his own form and looked at the large, older-looking orc sitting naked next to him. Fer-Rog had been wearing clothes, but had taken them off to practice shifting. Many of their models were a lot bigger than they were. “That’s pretty good. You need to work on the wrinkles, though. It’s the details that get you. That would be one benefit of shifting to a young orc; you wouldn’t have so many wrinkles, scars and other details to remember.”
“I have to think clothes could hide a lot too,” Fer-Rog said as he relaxed and shifted back to himself.
“And being closer to our own age, we would not have to worry about acting old,” Rupert added.