Underkeeper

“Look, I'm sorry. I’m afraid I can’t offer you a lease at this time.” The sweaty, balding dwarf said with a professionally pained expression on his face. It was warm and muggy in the property manager’s little office and it smelled like he hadn’t cracked the room’s tiny window in weeks.

“Ah. That’s… too bad," Bernt sighed tiredly and tried not to let frustration leak into his voice. "Why is that?"

He already knew the answer. He’d heard it often enough in the past few weeks. But, he figured it was worth making him say it to his face.

“Well. We checked your references, and the building’s owner felt that you aren’t a good fit.” The man fidgeted with his pen, flipping it over his thumb and accidentally spraying a bit of ink onto his desk. “We have a strict pet policy, you see…”

“And you heard that there was an underkeeper running around with a pet demon.” Bernt finished for him, losing his patience. “Yes, yes, I understand the situation.”

Another morning wasted on one of his rare days off, and he’d spent it filling out paperwork, waiting pointlessly while the property manager processed his application and pretending all the while that he didn’t notice the unpleasantly musty scent of damp, unwashed dwarf that filled the room.

The damned little man had had the nerve to wrinkle his nose at him when he came in. As if he hadn't just sanitized his stained Underkeepers' robes and boots.

Rising, he nodded a little ungraciously at the man and made for the door. It’s not that he didn’t understand their reluctance. A fire-slinging demon could admittedly be considered a real risk – never mind that neither demons nor the people who associated with them were generally celebrated in polite society.

But he needed to live somewhere, and it wasn’t as though he could just put Jori out on the street.

Stewing in his frustration, Bernt made his way back to the inn where he’d been staying for the past month – ever since he’d been evicted from his old home near the docks. The Minotaur’s Head was located near the Adventurers’ Guild and run by a retired mid-ranking adventurer. It was a fairly nice establishment that served traveling adventurers and foreigners of all kinds and it regularly housed people who were much more dangerous than a lowly lesser demon and a half-baked pyromancer.

Word had gotten around about Jori and him. He’d known it would happen, of course – she wasn’t incognito anymore, now that Ed and Iriala signed Jori’s official paperwork. It was inevitable, and he’d been prepared for the dirty looks from strangers out in the street. Unfortunately, he hadn’t really considered the more literal cost.

Living at an inn was not affordable and he was cutting into his savings just to keep a roof over his head. He needed to find a solution soon, but he had precious few places left to look. Bernt had briefly even considered creating his own home from scratch. He could tunnel out an entire complex of rooms under the city if he wanted. But, that wasn’t a real solution. It would be illegal, for one, and he was a government employee. Worse, living in what amounted to a lair in the sewers would make him the walking stereotype of a rogue warlock and ruin whatever credibility or goodwill he ever managed to build for himself and Jori. But, most importantly, he just didn't feel comfortable in enclosed, underground spaces since he'd been trapped inside the dungeon a month earlier. He would get over it, he was sure. Eventually. But he wasn't ready to sleep like that, buried in stone.

No, he needed to do this right. And that meant he would have to find a landlord who genuinely didn’t mind having a demon under their roof.

Bernt sighed. He’d just have to keep trying.

For now, though, he had another appointment to keep, as much as he would have preferred to go home and crawl under a blanket. He absolutely wasn’t in the mood to get his ass kicked right now.

–--------

Holding his wand out to the side, Bernt began humming under his breath, shaping a spell. Therion was standing across from him in the small training arena in the Upper District, a small metal wand held at the ready. Hopefully, the other mage wouldn’t be able to hear him. On the sidelines, Oren and Elyn were betting whether he’d land a hit this time.

Bernt had stopped trying to fight fair weeks ago, once he finally understood just how wide the skill-gap between the two of them really was. Therion wasn’t any older than him, but he’d been learning to fight since before he’d even learned to touch his own mana. Compared to him, Bernt was a rank amateur.

Without moving a muscle, Bernt finished casting his first spell. His burning rain investiture didn’t have much of an effect on his whispering wind cantrip, but it did do something. Instead of a simple whisper carried on the wind, Therion was treated to the sudden and disturbing sound of someone whispering nonsense into his ear, accompanied by the sensation of hot, humid breath on the back of his neck and his left ear, where he knew nobody should be standing.

He flinched, half-turning, and Bernt savagely pressed his advantage. He flicked his wand forward to cast a fire dart, followed by a glue cantrip to try to lock his opponent in place. He didn’t fully load the spellforms with mana – they wouldn’t seriously injure anyone, but a direct hit from a fire dart would still burn and raise blisters. Anything less and the spells wouldn’t manifest.

He was much faster than he’d been just a few weeks ago, but it didn’t matter. Nothing landed. Therion turned his startled flinch into a step, avoiding the fire dart that struck the spot where he’d been standing before. At the same time, he whipped his own wand in a quick circular motion, casting a magic missile in an arc to force Bernt to move. He stepped to his left and raised his focus, but felt something grab his ear and pull up savagely.

With a yelp, he dropped the wand.

“Agh, shit!”

The spell released him, and he turned his head just in time to see the conjured phantom hand disappear. Therion was a terror with that mage hand, even if it was embarrassing more than actually painful.

Oren passed a coin to Elyn, glowering at Bernt.

“Come on, Bernt! This is the second time he’s done that today.” he groused.

Therion waved a hand at the thief. “Oh, leave him alone,” he said. “Bernt, that was pretty great! That wind spell was insane, I thought you had backup for a second there. That one can definitely work in a fight if you use it at the right moment.”

“Yeah.” Bernt said, trying not to sound as disappointed as he felt. “It didn’t do much to you, though. I need to come up with something better.”

Therion scoffed. “No, you don’t. You’re doing fine. You have all the spells you need, and you’re being creative with what you have. The rest of dueling is mostly about anticipating your opponent. That’s something you can only learn with practice–”

“–and by getting my ass kicked over and over again, yes. I remember.” Bernt finished.

“Right!” Therion nodded, smiling. He looked over to where the spectators were sitting. “Oren”, he called. “You want to have a go?”

Oren stood up, drawing a wooden practice dagger and poking it down into a small bag at his feet to dust it with red chalk along the blade. “I thought you’d never ask.”

Moments later, Bernt stood facing the thief with his wand held out in one hand and the other behind his back, tracing a spellform. “Thief”, of course, was a bit of a misnomer. People in Oren’s line of work were generally called thieves because they were responsible for getting their party into places they weren’t supposed to be. According to his friends, a surprising amount of adventuring involved going places where one wasn’t technically allowed to be, even outside of dungeons.

In actuality, though, any “thief” in the Adventurers’ Guild also doubled as a scout, trap-maker and disassembler, and assassin. While Oren wasn’t as dangerous in a straight fight as someone like Furin, he was shockingly fast. Worse, he had a way of breaking his line of sight and then disappearing in ways that couldn’t possibly be natural.

Usually, Bernt wouldn’t see him again until that stupid wooden dagger was drawing a red line of chalk across his throat. So far, Bernt had never even come close to landing a spell on Oren, but that was going to change today.

As the lesser fighter, starting the fight was up to him. Sweat beading on his forehead from trying to hold up the mental image of one spellform while casting another, Bernt cast a fire dart toward Oren. It wasn’t well-aimed, and Oren didn’t even try to dodge.

With a slight frown, Oren exploded into motion, but he wasn’t faster than the speed of thought. Bernt had prepared his response ahead of time. He released mana into the spellform, activating it. With a rushing whomp of displaced air, heat erupted outward from him in all directions. This low-power version of a fire-nova was practically invisible, but at close range it was still hot enough to sting and singe eyebrows. He wasn’t sure if Oren had any resistance to fire, but he was pretty sure that would count as a win.

If Oren had been standing close enough, that is. Bernt looked around, but didn’t see the thief anywhere.

Oh no. Did he escape somehow? How could he have possibly moved so quickly? The last he’d seen, Oren was advancing on him at speed. Now, he was just gone. Out of the corner of his eye, Bernt saw something flicker. He threw himself to his side, down onto the ground and heard a soft whistle as something cut through the space above his head. He rolled over and pushed himself up. Oren would be on him at any moment.

“Agh!” Oren shouted in surprise and stumbled forward into Bernt’s field of view. He’d been right behind him, of course. Not for the first time, Bernt wondered how he did that. There was magic involved, he was sure, but not anything like what mages used. When he asked, the thief always just told him it was “trade secrets”.

What was more interesting right now was the imp clinging to Oren’s head and hissing at him threateningly. She stood on his shoulders and held onto his head with both hands, one long, clawed finger poised right in front of his eye.

“Stop, stop!” he called out, and slapped at Jori in annoyance. “You little shit. I had him!”

Jori hopped off, spreading her wings for a short moment before landing next to Bernt.

“I win!” she gloated, jumping up and down excitedly. “I outsneaked the sneaky thief. You didn’t see me coming!”

Oren frowned sourly down at her. “You cheated! This was supposed to be a duel, not a free-for-all. If you want to try that again, I’ll show you how much your sneaking is really worth.”

“No time!” Jori replied, grinning triumphantly. “I’m here to get Bernt. We need to see the Great Ed! He called for us.”

“Why?” Bernt asked.

“I don’t know.” Jori said, shrugging her shoulders. “He said he had a job for you.”

“On my day off?” Bernt groaned. “We need to form a union.”