Antefalken had interjected, “I’ve never heard anyone ever mention this.”
“You would not have, unless you were talking with a skilled necromancer, and even many of those do not truly understand what they are dealing with. The difference between a resurrected individual and a revenant or similar undead is that the undead was brought back negatively polarized. This is something that can fairly easily happen when trying to shortcut the resurrection process,” Phaestus said.
“And you know this because?” Antefalken had asked suspiciously.
“Because I’m a god, and it is part of my business to know such things.” Phaestus had grinned at him.
“There he goes!” Tizzy had shouted. “Playing the god card!” The octopod waved his hands in the air. “Nearly impossible to win an argument when they play the ‘I’m a god’ card. I wondered how long it would take him!”
Darg-Krallnom and Arg-nargoloth both chuckled. “He got you, Phaestus,” Arg-nargoloth said with a smile.
Phaestus had grinned and nodded. “In any event, Tommus, the Unlife are those beings that are primarily antimated rather than animated.”
“Antimated? Now I think you are just making up words!” Tizzy had yelled.
“Maybe, but I can do that because… I’m a god!” Darg-Krallnom and Arg-nargoloth both joined in the final part of the sentence, after which they all laughed.
“So you mean zombies, ghosts, ghouls, vampires and such?” Tom had asked.
“Yes. All forms of undead. Although there are a lot of gradations, particularly in terms of the spirits, that I don’t have time to go into,” Phaestus had said.
“And there is no uncertainty that they are evil? Many believe that demons are evil, as well as orcs,” Tom had said. “How do you know it’s not the same?”
“A good point, but creatures of antimus are strongly attracted to and feed on animus. They feed on the animus of others. They are thus the ultimate predators. Those they fail to completely consume are generally infected and will eventually become antimated; typically, undead of the kind that infected them,” Phaestus had explained.
“In other words, they have no interest in talking to or even subjugating you; they simply want to eat you,” Darg-Krallnom had told him. “And they are very difficult to stop.”
“Also keep in mind that, unlike a normal predator who simply kills you, and then your spirit or soul moves on, when you are consumed by Unlife, it is true death,” Arg-nargoloth had added.
“So, they could permanently kill a demon or a D’Orc?” Tom had asked with great concern.
Phaestus nodded. “Or, in theory, a god.”
That had caused others to do a double take. “A god?” Antefalken had asked.
Phaestus shrugged. “It would be extremely difficult, but in theory it is conceivable, although most likely not practical.” The smith sighed. “If a sufficiently powerful Unlife creature could trap a D’Orc, demon or being from the Outer Planes so that they could not depart the Planes of Orc, and they exhausted themselves in the fight, yes — it could kill them permanently.”
Everyone had shuddered and gone silent for a moment, and then Tom’s eyes had gone wide. “That had to be what the blackness was!” he suddenly murmured.
“What blackness?” Antefalken asked.
“Talarius’s dagger,” Tom had responded. “There was some sort of blackness, a draining sort of thing inside of it. When I was stabbed by it, I could feel it draining my animus, my soul. That’s when I started pulling mana directly from Tiernon. I used it to cleanse the blackness, to destroy it and undo the damage it had done to me!”
There had been a number of murmurs at this.
“That would make sense; the highly positive gods use their power to destroy Unlife. You basically acted like a priest of Tiernon in that respect,” Phaestus said.
“Farg’s dead eyes,” Darg-Krallnom had cursed. “And with Orcus cut off from the reserves of Mount Doom and the Doomalogues, he would have been unable to stop the darkness!”
“So that’s how Sentir Fallon killed Orcus? He used a soul-sucking dagger?” Antefalken had asked in shock.
They had fallen silent, contemplating what had to have been the horrifying last moments of Orcus’s life. Tom had shuddered; he had come close to the same fate. Way too close. He shuddered again now; simply remembering their conversation last night gave him a very queasy feeling.
The evening had not been completely depressing. Vargg Agnoth had pointed out that very few Unlife had that sort of power, that direct of a connection to raw antimus. Normal Unlife were bound by more material constraints. It was generally unheard of for a D’Orc, or demon for that matter, not being able to return to the Abyss. Orcus’s demise had been a carefully designed trap, apparently coordinated between Sentir Fallon and Lilith.
For the most part, the commanders had pointed out, Nysegard was D’Orc paradise. Not being traditional living creatures, D’Orcs and demons could not be infected by Unlife; they could only be consumed. However, once a D’Orc got severely wounded, they would dissolve to the Abyss. In order to kill a D’Orc, its animus would have to be consumed fast enough that the D’Orc could not return to the Abyss.
“The fourth and sixth regiments are staged for deployment,” Vargg Agnoth reported as he and Helga Dourtooth entered the DCC. Those regiments were Vargg’s and Helga’s, and both had majorities of D’Orcs from Nysegard. They had no idea what they would be facing once they opened the gateway to Nysegard, so they were going in armed to the teeth with two D’Orc regiments and an D’Warg regiment.
“Are we all set up here?” Tom asked, looking at the others. Darg-Krallnom, Arg-nargoloth and Völund were coming with them. Völund was going to investigate the functional capacity of the Doomalogue. Antefalken had decided to take a break from his current ballad to accompany them in hopes of getting yet another ballad out of the adventure. Boggy was also coming. The others in Tom’s normal entourage were busy with other tasks.
Tom had purposefully chosen to keep Talarius in the dark about Nysegard. He was sure the knight would want to go along, and could probably be quite useful; however, Tom did not feel up to the risk of the knight returning to the Planes of Man and contacting Tiernon. One mission at a time was his current motto. Talarius mainly stuck to his room, so they could just conveniently forget to invite him.
“We are!” Darg-Krallnom told him.
“Then let us head down to the Portals of Doom!” Tom said with a grin.
“Good luck!” Zelda wished them, standing beside Roth Tar Gorefest in the DCC.
“Thanks!” Tom called back as they headed down the hall leading to the portals. The portals were an interesting place; when he’d first surveyed Mount Doom, he’d ignored them as one more giant maze of tunnels in the mountain, due to the fact that none had been active. But they were actually a labyrinthine set of long and bending hallways, each about thirty feet wide and thirty feet high, lined with framed indentations in the natural stone of the mountain. According to Darg-Krallnom, when the portals were active, each indentation became a passage into its respective Doomalogue. Currently they simply appeared to be ornamental indentations.
On their tour last night, Helga had pointed out that the name of the world was inscribed in what would be glowing letters over each portal, when active. Currently they were simply engravings. According to those with him on the tour last night, when the portals were active, the entire region was quite disconcerting due to the curvature of the halls and the fact that there was no way all the tunnels could possibly exist side by side, particularly the ones that turned quickly on the other side.