They continued down the corridor for about another two hundred feet before encountering a large entryway on their right. This archway led into a portrait gallery. Large portraits of various individuals of all shapes and sizes lined the walls. There were four other hallways leading out of this room to additional rooms; one to the right and to the left in the center of those walls, and then two near the ends of the opposite wall that appeared to go to the same room.
In the center of this wall was a very large — life-sized, in fact — portrait of a very large and quite intimidating demon. Erestofanes turned and bowed, gesturing up at the painting of the demon. “My Lord Tommus, may I introduce my Lord Orcus in what is believed to be his true form.”
“I can see the family resemblance!” Tamarin said, shocking Tom. He had not seen any immediate family resemblance. Sure, it was a very large red demon with scaly red hooves like his own. And the demon had a very massive and scaled tail with a black metallic spade-shaped point; however, it was much thicker and longer than Tom’s.
The demon was also monstrously muscled, far more so than even Tom. The demon was closer to fifteen feet tall, rather than Tom’s twelve to thirteen feet. He did wear something like a kilt, but it had no pockets, unlike Tom’s. It also had something of a massively muscled roid-gut, not the relatively taut muscled abdominals that Tom had. Further, Orcus’s horns were far larger and jutted much further forward than Tom’s, although they were the same ebony black. Orcus’s face was far more wrinkled and craggy; his eyes were large and luminously black, matching his horns. While Orcus did have something of a pug-like snout, it was more pronounced than Tom’s, and his head was larger in proportion to his body than Tom’s. The jaws were huge, most likely capable of biting a man’s head off.
And sure, he had tremendous bat-like wings, as did Tom, but Orcus’s wings were far more heavily muscled along the wing-arms and his tip spikes far nastier and sharper than Tom’s. So, he supposed that in some ways, one could say they were of similar demonic form, but Tom was, as he knew by heart, far less intimidating, far less scary than this version of Orcus.
“I don’t know that I see it,” Tom said.
Tamarin and Erestofanes both glanced at him in an odd way. “You don’t see it?” Tamarin asked.
“Well, yes, I suppose we are of similar demonic type, you could say. But he is far bigger, older, rougher, scarier and infinitely more intimidating than me,” Tom replied, feeling a bit annoyed they couldn’t see that.
“Okay,” Tamarin said, making a funny motion with her mouth as she said it. “Although if demons did grow and age, could you not see yourself looking something like this in ten or twenty thousand years?”
Tom shook his head quickly. That was ridiculous! “No, I doubt it, but even so, we don’t. Look, I get it that some people might see some similarities, but you know how people think those of other races all look alike. It’s nothing more than that.”
“So, here is his favorite orc form.” Erestofanes changed the subject, pointing to a smaller painting of an orc to Orcus’s right, Tom’s left.
“That is an intimidating orc; I will admit that,” Tom agreed. It was of an orc tribe with greenish complexion and rough, slightly scaly skin. He had a huge red Mohawk atop a frightening large head with huge pointy ears and a jawline to end all jawlines, with thick jutting tusks. The lisp would have to be horrible; Tom could also imagine the snorting from the massive nostrils in the center of the face, just below two large, deep set, blood-red eyes and a truly formidable brow and forehead. Naturally the orc was massively strong, and decked out in all manner of weaponry, albeit relatively light armor. The orc’s right hand rested on the hilt of a battle hammer whose shaft was shoulder height for the orc, and the mallet was one that was typically found only in trading card game art. It was so huge that no living creature could conceivably wield it.
“Wow, now that is impressive,” Tamarin said, shaking her head.
“And the corresponding D’Orc form…” Erestofanes gestured to the other side of Orcus’s portrait. This D’Orc looked very much like the orc they had had been looking at, except it was D’Orced up. Bigger, scarier, if that were possible, and with porcine hooves, bat wings and horns.
“I believe he felt more comfortable keeping his preferred orc and D’Orc forms close for quick changes,” Erestofanes said.
“Makes sense,” Tom said, admiring the picture.
Erestofanes, meanwhile, had begun sliding across the opening to their left, heading towards the left wall. He gestured to the first painting there. “This was Orcus’s preferred human form.”
