Valg nodded. “I have been surveying the lands around the volcano from the watchtower and have not sensed any Unlife; not within the range of my perceptions.”
“We need to increase our vigilance. I will also contact the other villages to see if they are noticing similar increasing levels,” Targh said.
Karth frowned. “A wise precaution, but if we have an enemy, presumably the Storm Lords, capable of this sort of attack… Well, if they can do it simultaneously in multiple locations, we are in very serious danger.”
Valg gritted his teeth. This was not good. He had not felt anything particularly ominous about these sensations until now. He still felt nothing directly, but this discussion was unsettling and caused his stomach to clench with dread.
Rumble.
Everyone in the room looked startled as the ground, and thus the entire house, shook with a tremor.
“What was that?” Valg’s mother asked.
“A groundquake?” Karth said, puzzled.
“There have been no quakes since the volcano went dormant,” Targh said, a note of concern in his voice.
“Let us get outside, in case there are more,” Karth said.
Rumble.
Rumble.
Several more tremors shook the ground as the four left the house, Eldebra pushing her husband’s chair. As they exited the house, they could see that everyone else in the village had come outside as well. People were looking around.
“In the air — we need to look around!” Targh commanded.
Valg, Targh, his mother and the other three D’Orcs currently in the village launched themselves into the air, fanning out around the village’s palisade, all scanning with D’Orc sight for threats.
Rumble.
Rumble.
Rumble. CRAAACK!!
A tremendous cracking noise came from above them, up near the dome of the volcano. The D’Orcs and everyone in the village turned to stare up at the cone of the volcano in shock.
“What in the Abyss?” Targh bellowed.
Rumble.
CRAAACK!! CRAAACK!! CRUNCH!!
Rumble.
RUMBLE!
RUMBLE!!!
Horrible and violent cracking noises came from inside the volcano as the tremors came faster and more violently then before. Suddenly a large belch of soot burst from the cone of the volcano, followed by an overpowering stench of sulfur and brimstone.
“The volcano is becoming active!” Valg’s mother shouted.
“How in the Abyss is that possible?” Targh exclaimed. Everyone in the village was pointing and shouting in excitement and fear.
“If that thing blows its top, we are going to need to evacuate, fast,” Karth said via shamanic distance speak.
“It has control vents and defined lava troughs that historically controlled and channeled an eruption, modeled after Mount Doom,” Targh replied, albeit with a note of concern in his voice. His concern was for the mortals in the village; obviously, D’Orcs would barely notice a bit of lava.
Valg felt his hair stand on end. It suddenly felt as if the entire village, the entire mountain was crackling with energy. It was a very disconcerting. He had never felt anything like this.
The ground shook again, causing a few small chicken fences to collapse in the village.
“I need to get up there and see what’s going on. Everyone else, start gathering together and prepare to be evacuated to higher ground,” Targh ordered.
“Karth? Is there anything you can do to ward the village from any mudslides or falling rocks from the mountain?” Targh asked the shaman.
“I will see what I can do,” Karth said, and started murmuring.
Valg recognized the chant for strength; his father was summoning strength to walk and do combat. Valg grimaced. Such chants always needed to be paid for at a later time. He hoped his father was strong enough to pay the cost when it came.
KRAA…AAACK!!!!
KABOOM!!!
A giant fireball exploded into the sky from the cone of the volcano after the loudest cracking they had heard so far, even as the ground shook with renewed fury.
Suddenly a huge plume of fire and lava sprang from the mouth of volcano, along with the most terrifying screech that Valg had ever heard.
Darg-Krallnom gave Tom a big grin. “As we predicted last night, monitoring systems indicate that mana levels at Nysegard’s Doom are now sufficient to reopen the connection to Nysegard.”
“Excellent!” Tom said, grinning back. This was exciting; they were about to reopen the portal to the Doomalogue in Nysegard. Last night they had been looking at the power levels and Darg-Krallnom had predicted they should be able to open the portal by midday today. If all went well, and if — a huge if — the people at Nysegard had been able to hold out, then they would be able to expand their resources.
Resources on multiple fronts. Darg-Krallnom had reported that when the connection had gone down, there were still several D’Orc shamans in Nysegard; that was huge. Tom needed more skilled shamans in order to make contact with the other planes. They had a lot of inter-plane travel they wanted to do, and he could not be the only person opening portals and gateways.
The second possible resource was that there was a slight, very slight, possibility of using the generators in Nysegard to help charge Mount Doom. Of course, this depended on who, if anyone, was at Nysegard’s Doom. In the past, it had been heavily populated, and there had been a lot of battles with Unlife, resulting in significant mana generation. That was something quite exciting. There had been some interchanges with them for the first thousand or so years, but they had not heard anything recently.
The third was the possibility that they would get some more D’Orcs as well as other allies that were possibly versed in Doom Lore. Again, this was all most likely wishful thinking. Vargg Agnoth and Helga Dourtooth, both of whom were actually from Nysegard, were not optimistic, given the odds that would have been against the D’Orcs and their allies on the Isle of Doom.
Darg-Krallnom, however, was much more optimistic. He was from Astlan, but he was one of the oldest living D’Orcs; he and Arg-nargoloth were some of the very first D’Orcs ever incarnated. Darg-Krallnom had spent considerable time reinforcing Nysegard when they had created the Doom there. Apparently there were cities there named after all four of them.
According to his commanders, Nysegard had been greatly favored by D’Orcs. This was due to the fact that the situation in Nysegard, for a very long time, had been very clear cut. There had been no questions of politics; no one tried to distract them from battle using senseless diplomacy and negotiation; no chance of peace short of outright victory. In Nysegard, it was a pure battle for survival. There were no wishy-washy labels of good or evil, no FOG or FOE; there was only Life and Unlife.
This had confused Tom the previous evening. “Unlife? What do you mean?” he had asked.
“That which is diametrically opposed to Life,” Tizzy had quipped.
“That seems a bit circular,” Tom had snapped back.
“Technically,” Phaestus had interrupted, “it is a form of life that is based on antimus instead of animus.”
“Antimus?” Tom had never heard of that before.
“Negatively polarized animus,” the god had informed him. “Not many individuals are even aware that animus can be polarized, but it can be. By its nature, animus has what I would call a positive polarization, at least in the parts of the multiverse that we exist in, but there do exist regions of the multiverse where the animus, or much of it, is polarized in the opposite direction.”