Underkeeper

Bernt leaned over a backed-up toilet and flourished a shabby wand. Casting an all too familiar spell for the fourth time that day, he scolded the wooden throne’s owner.

“You can’t just pour expired healing potions down the drain! They interact with the living matter in the pipes and down in the sewers to form slimes by the dozen, and those little bastards will latch onto every pipe in the street to feed on what comes washing down.” He knew that from experience, having spent the last week working his way up to the source of the problem—the back room of this man’s workshop.

The middle-aged alchemist really should have known better.

The toilet gurgled as the water, sewage, and living congealed matter in the pipes boiled. A few droplets spurted out the top, spattering on Bernt’s already filthy work robes. Then the whole mess began to drain down and out into the sewer.

Of course, the culprit, who didn’t look chagrined so much as annoyed, did know better. Expired potions were controlled substances, meaning that they had to be destroyed by trained professionals at specialized facilities—for a fee. While dumping them down the drain was illegal, the man would only be fined once per proven violation. So, as long as he’d dumped a lot of potions down the drain at once, he’d likely saved a bit of silver in the bargain. That it came at the expense of the entire neighborhood and his own clogged-up toilet didn’t seem to concern him overmuch.

He didn’t even try to deny it. Instead, he pinched his nose and made a shooing gesture at him.

“Mind who you’re talking to, Underkeeper. You couldn’t afford one of my potions even if I bottled it on your end of that drain. Just do your job and get out of my shop. Your smell is going to drive away the paying customers.”

Bernt sighed. What was the point in arguing? Pulling out a sheaf of damp papers, he filled out a citation for illegal waste disposal, imbued it with his mana to sign it, and cast a minor duplication charm for the alchemist’s records.

In his first year, he’d repeatedly written to the city magistrate to make him aware of the ineffectiveness of illegal dumping penalties, but the magistrate didn’t care. The citations brought in a bit of revenue, and the city had more urgent issues to deal with. Monster incursions, political tensions with neighboring states, organized crime, and the occasional rogue warlock left little time for things like updating city sanitation regulations. Besides, the problem was already solved. After all, that was what city maintenance and, more specifically, the Underkeepers were for.

Swallowing his irritation, Bernt handed the man his copy of the citation and turned to go. He’d finally tracked the slime outbreak to its source and made the neighborhood drains safe to use again. It wasn’t glamorous, but it mattered to everyone who’d woken up to find sewage backing up into their homes over the past week.

Behind him, he heard the alchemist scoff. “I don’t know why you filthy crap-crawlers even bother with the paperwork. Just send me a bill next time.”

Bernt hesitated, jaw clenching.

Next time.

Without answering, he stepped outside and closed the door just a little too firmly, feeling the blood pulsing at his temples. Before he could think better of it, he whipped out another sheet of paper. A quick duplication and an adhesion charm later, the citation was posted to the alchemist’s door. Word would get around, he was sure.

“Hey, that’s a pretty good glue cantrip!” came a friendly voice from behind him.

Bernt’s momentary sense of satisfaction withered and died.

Pasting a neutrally friendly expression on his face, he turned to greet the newcomer.

“Hello, Therion. Nice to see you.”

Therion was Bernt’s former classmate at the Mages’ Academy. He was also a painful example of what Bernt could have become with the right kind of backing—a fairly successful adventurer, already rank 3 after just two years in the business. Unlike him, Therion was the scion of an adventuring family, born with connections and money that Bernt couldn’t even begin to grasp.

Of course, anybody could become an adventurer. Quests were posted publicly by the Adventurers’ Guild. But that didn’t mean that just anyone could survive adventuring. Even low-ranked quests were dangerous, and people who didn’t come prepared with expensive equipment and healing potions were unlikely to live very long.

“Excuse me, I need to—”

“Hey, wow, what’s this?” Therion was peering over Bernt’s shoulder, reading the citation with an intensifying frown. “Old Julian’s been dumping his old potions down the drain?!” His eyes snapped to Bernt, then back to the citation, and then back to Bernt. “Wait a minute, what? You’re a muck mage?”

Bernt sighed.

“Underkeeper,” he corrected. “I’m an Underkeeper.”

Underkeepers, more casually referred to as muck mages, sewer sorcerers, or waste wizards, were the dregs of magery everywhere—the ones who didn’t have what it took to make it as a real mage. Specifically the connections and resources to become an adventurer, the raw talent to be sponsored as a war mage, or the funds to purchase membership in the Mages’ Guild, which allowed one to practice any number of arcane professions privately in the city.

This was the conversation he didn’t want to have.

“What happened?” Therion asked, wide-eyed.

He didn’t get it. People like him never did. As far as he was concerned, the startup costs of a freshly graduated mage were an afterthought. Even if he hadn’t personally had money to launch an adventuring career, he could simply have borrowed from his family. Alternatively, he could have leveraged his connections to have the guild licensing fees waived—not that he needed to. He was always going to be an adventurer.

Bernt sighed.

“Nothing happened,” he said, trying not to sound too defensive. “I just can’t afford adventuring equipment yet. I’ll be out there soon.”

Therion’s facial expression became painfully awkward.

“Oh… Uh… Do you need… I mean, you want me to see if I can—”

“No!” Bernt interrupted, scowling now. “I don’t need charity!”

Help from some rich adventurer princeling was the last thing he needed. He knew the way the world worked. Accepting a favor like that would come back to bite him later. Even if the man was just being nice, it would cost Bernt something more important—his autonomy. People like Therion built small crowds of followers that way, bought and bound to live in their shadows.

That wasn’t going to happen to Bernt. Nobody was going to rope him into service—no matter how congenial they were about it.

He was saving what he could and it was adding up. Slowly. A few more years, if everything went well, and he could wash off the stench of the Underkeepers once and for all—both figuratively and literally. And he’d do it himself, so that when the time came, he couldn’t be pushed in any direction he didn’t want to go.

“Right, right, I remember. Relax, I didn’t mean anything by it.”

Therion eyed Bernt’s wand with more than a little skepticism. The magical focus looked like something that a goblin enchanter might have cobbled together while drunk. It might have been, for all he knew. Bernt had found it in a clog in one of the city’s storm drains. But it was serviceable, and that was all that mattered to him. Every copper he didn’t blow on mediocre equipment today was money he could spend on reliable adventuring gear later.

“It’s just… you’re wasted here!” Therion went on, clearly unable to help himself. “Pyromancers don’t grow on trees, you know? It would hardly even be charity, I bet my father could have a word with the guild—”

He stopped as Bernt’s expression darkened further, and held up his hands, palms out.

“Alright, alright, easy! It was just an idea, no need to take offense. I’m sure you have it all handled.” He glanced back at the citation again, changing the subject. “Looks like you handled old Julian pretty well. We fought a bunch of those slimes downriver a few days ago, you know? They’ve been a menace for months, harassing nearly every party to come up the road. They crept up on us while we slept, and one nearly got our healer. She’s still waiting for a specialist to arrive from Teres to help with the scarring. Those chemical burns are brutal.”

His jaw clenched and he met Bernt’s eyes. Bernt actually saw purple fractals of arcane energy flickering in Therion’s suddenly intense gaze. “Thanks for catching him. I’ll make sure word gets around.”

Mollified, Bernt nodded.

“Well, I really do need to get going.” He turned away. “I’ll see you around.”

As he left, he felt Therion’s eyes on him, considering. Moments later, the feeling went away with the sound of the door exploding off its hinges into the shop, and then Therion’s voice boomed down the street with exaggerated cheer, magically amplified for the benefit of the public.

“Oh, hi, Julian! Would you believe what I found posted on your door?!”