03- The Apostles of Doom by J. Langland

Author:J. Langland [Langland, J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Appendix V: Hilda’s Saint School Notes on the Undead and the Unlife

Chapter 135

Isle of Doom: DOA + 12, Dawn

Tom watched the sun, or rather Atun, rise above the horizon from Doom’s Watch, the extremely high watchtower on a peak near the main volcano. This tower was used by the shamans, Valg in particular, to scan for potential threats. For the last few centuries it had not been continuously manned; rather, the shamans took turns coming up every few hours at semi-random intervals to do scans.

It had originally been built in the earliest days of the Doomalogue, before the full monitoring network had been deployed, and then again after the fall of Doom, when the monitoring network was down. The Storm Lords had been relatively quiescent for several centuries, at least by comparison, so they had gone to random watches. The Doomalogue was so far inland that Targh and the other elders felt that the outer watch towers and patrols would give them enough advanced information that they could be confident of the reduced schedule.

Tom really had no opinion on that. He knew very little about combat, tactics or strategy other than what he had read in fantasy novels. He was quite fortunate to be surrounded by commanders with thousands—tens of thousands, in fact—years of experience. That is just still too surreal, Tom thought to himself, thinking about being around people with tens of thousands of years of experience.

He stared intently at the atunrise, his demon eyes automatically polarizing to shield themselves. He wanted to concentrate on the beauty of the atunrise in order to suppress his own uncertainties. As he seemed to be always observing, he was in way over his head trying to lead others that were thousands upon thousands of years his elders, and soon he would be tested.

They were about to try and ascend the first orc, create the first new D’Orc in over four thousand years. If they failed, if he failed, it would be a bad omen to everyone. A sign that he was not fit to lead them. Technically, of course, no sign was needed; he was unfit, unworthy to lead them. However, he was trapped by their hope, their expectations; he had to succeed and validate their misplaced faith in him.

Tom found it more than ironic that a month or two ago, he had been wallowing in self-indulgent pity about how everyone expected him to be a horrible monster, and how their expectations were driving him to be a horrible monster. Memories of that soldier in the woods that he had “popped” suddenly raced through his mind. Today, however, he was wallowing in self-indulgent pity about everyone expecting him to be a great hero, a savior.

He shook his head. When the pendulum of expectations swung, it certainly swung far and hard. Whatever happened to just being a normal seventeen-year-old, looking forward to his junior and senior year of high school and then college?

Tom laughed, thinking about college and also thinking about the party

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