Edwyrd spun gently as the lyrics continued in his head, his heart filled with the music. Time to leave the mirrored room! He left, nearly flinging himself into one of the vast aisles of books. He placed his hands gently on the opposing shelves of books in one aisle and closed his eyes as he let the shelves guide him down the long hallway. He would let his mind travel the symbols of the robes.
Edwyrds’s mental fingers roved over the robes, touching, exploring every layer, every pattern. His mind wove through the fabric; yet at the same time, visions of tonight’s activities also flashed through his mind — the hundreds, perhaps thousands of people at the ceremony. He began running down the aisle with his eyes closed, guided by the books.
Edwyrd grinned. He felt good. For once, in what seemed like a very long time, he actually felt happy and extremely content. He opened his eyes to stare into the future, imagining a young Roger Daltrey running down the next aisle along with him.
Tom grinned even more broadly, realizing it was only fitting that his mind would be playing music from a rock opera about someone with his own name.
Hilda shook her head in disbelief after Stevos and Timbly finished recounting their experiences from today. She stared briefly into her wine glass, pondering what she had just been told. Inethya was looking down at her hands, which were wrapped around the stem of her wine glass. Dashgar simply sighed.
“So is their view of Orcus considered heresy?” Stevos asked the others. Hilda, Dashgar, Inethya and Baysir had joined Stevos and Timbly this evening at the request of the on-site saints.
“We have been somewhat aware of their feelings for some time,” Dashgar said, looking at Inethya.
“If heresy this is, it is not new,” Inethya agreed.
“We’ve tried to look the other way, and to be fair, since he took over the localverse, Sentir has made it much easier for us to look away,” Dashgar said.
“Why look away?” Timbly asked.
Inethya sighed. “Orcus was perhaps our most important ally on Nysegard. With his assistance, we were slowly beating back the Unlife. He committed much more supernatural support to fighting the Unlife than any of the Five Siblings.”
“More supernatural support?” Stevos asked, puzzled.
“Immortal feet upon the ground, if you will. He deployed thousands of D’Orcs on the ground, easily two orders of magnitude compared to the number of saints or archons we kept on the ground. Even when the Five deployed avatars in Nysegard for major confrontations, there were still more than one order of magnitude more D’Orcs than avatars,” Inethya told them.
“Perhaps,” Hilda cautioned, “yet I am not sure I would discount the amount of mana that the various off-plane avatars would have deployed through their illuminaries. An avatar working through priests can be in many places at once; priests, as proxies, can greatly magnify an avatar’s ability to exert influence.”
Dashgar nodded in agreement. “That is, of course, the argument that has been made by Sentir Fallon.”
“And is certainly true on an ongoing basis. However, during major battles, D’Orcs and avatars are far more potent than mortal priests. Also, Orcus had shamans, wizards, and druids working with him,” Inethya said.
“As you know, the Five Churches are not easily persuaded to bring alternative mana wielders to their bosom. Orcus would work with any ally that proved true and trustworthy,” Dashgar said.
“In any event, once our people here began figuring out that it was Sentir Fallon, an archon of Tiernon, who permanently slew their ally — things got complicated,” Inethya said.
“They were not happy,” Dashgar told them. “And they were quite vocal in their prayers.”
