Underkeeper

Jori waved to the guard as she made her way back down into the Undercity – it was a human man that she'd met before, but she couldn’t remember his name. He inclined his head at her in response.

Today was a good day. People were finally getting a little friendlier, or they were getting used to seeing her and Gnugg in the street, at least. A nice woman in the Crafters’ District had even tossed a dead rat to her as she passed. How nice!

Traffic was still light in the tunnel, but it wasn’t empty anymore. A trickle of people trailed in and out alongside the ever-present military traffic coming from the former dungeon, some pulling carts or carrying heavy loads as they moved in. As she passed by the intersection where the soldiers branched off toward the army, though, she felt a shiver trail down her neck and into her wings.

Jori glanced around, trying to find the source of the uncomfortably familiar sensation. Something was watching her, she was sure of it.

Her heart started to beat faster and a jumble of frantic memories flashed through her mind. Running alongside other spawnling imps as fiends chased them, trying to bring one of them down. Surviving chase after chase as their swarm of spawnlings slowly shrank into a mob and then a pack. Finally, hiding in a small hole and watching as those who remained bowed under the horrible pressure of a lesser demon’s gaze as it bound them into its service.

Fighting, running, hiding. An existence of pure terror.

The paralyzing fear gripped her for only a fraction of a second before it burned up in a rising sea of anger. She was not helpless. Not anymore. Growling, she looked more closely, whirling around to check every nook and crevice.

Some of the passersby were looking at her a bit apprehensively, but they weren’t stopping to stare. Many were just ignoring her and going on by. An older dwarf glared balefully at her as he went by, but he didn’t slow down or stare either.

They didn’t sense it. She turned back toward the intersection just in time to see a shadow flicker across the ceiling, briefly darkening the glowing vines that were spread across it to illuminate the thoroughfare below.

Nobody else had noticed.

Shivering again, Jori picked up her pace and hurried down the tunnel toward Headquarters. She needed to tell someone.

–--------

Josie picked up the very last thumb-thick stack of random memos and procedural documents and scanned each page before filing it in one of the folders laid out in front of her. She’d spent the entire day shuffling papers around in the back of what was supposed to become Ed’s office. While Fiora had apparently made an effort to organize some of the Underkeepers’ recent paperwork, the vast majority of their records were “organized” only in the sense that the boxes containing them were dated by year.

The magistrate had no interest in pursuing any kind of complaint leveled against the order or fining them, considering that their budget was drawn directly from the Count’s own coffers. Still, Ed and apparently his predecessor, had leaned very hard on their status as a government organization. If the crown ever actually decided to audit the Underkeepers, they would be faced with incomplete and jumbled records. The head of any normal organization would fear for their job!

Of course, Ed and many of his people were already in their posts as a form of punishment. Firing them would be doing them a favor. If anything, it might free them from whatever coercion the nobles who had put them there were using to keep them from leaving.

But all that didn’t matter to Josie as she filed the last memo and began systematically organizing the folders, placing each one on the massive stone shelves that Kustov had erected for her hours earlier. It was about the principle of the thing. Any organization, but especially a government agency, should have well-kept records of their activities. It was just the right thing to do.

As she turned to pick up another folder, something small ran into the room at breakneck speed. On reflex, Josie took a step back, gritting her teeth and manifesting her claws, but the intruder didn’t attack.

Jori stood in the doorway, head swiveling left and right as she checked the room. Her demonic soul radiated a phantom reddish light into the air around her that flickered slightly as if it were on fire, like all of the denizens of the third hell.

“Warlock!” she said, eyeing her warily, “have you seen the Great Mage?”

“The archmage is on the surface, at the old headquarters, I think.” Josie looked at the imp, mirroring her careful attitude. “I don’t really know for sure. What’s going on?”

“I sensed a predator in the tunnels.” Jori explained, gesturing animatedly behind her. “Another demon. A shade, I think. I saw a shadow move, but I can’t be sure exactly.”

“Huh. Um... Solicitor Radast has a pacted shade.”Josie said a little doubtfully. “Maybe he sent it out to take a look around…”

She knew Radast’s pacted shade made for an excellent spy, but what would it be looking for in the tunnel of all places?

Jori apparently didn't believe it either. The little imp scoffed.

“Your master doesn’t need to send an invisible spy into the Undercity. He has you here.”

Josie didn’t react to the implied accusation. Jori’s tone had been matter of fact and besides, any intelligent demon would consider such behavior to be simple common sense.

“Alright, so the duergar are sending demon spies,” Josie considered. “That’s not ideal, but it’s not necessarily urgent. We don’t have a counter-espionage protocol, but we should tell someone in authority and let them deal with it.”

Jori rolled her eyes. “Yes, obviously. That’s why I am here. I need to find the Great Mage Ed.”

“Nonsense,” Josie shook her head. “Come on!”

Being careful not to touch her, Josie squeezed past the little creature and crossed the hall, where a door had already been installed in a smaller office. She knocked politely three times and waited.

“Come in, Josie,” said a tired voice from inside. She opened the door and gestured to Jori to follow.

“How did you know it was me?” she asked as she stepped inside. Fiora was bent over a desk and filling out paperwork of some kind or other. Like all ranking mages, the woman’s soul had been reshaped. She could see the woman’s mana network like an intricate abstract sculpture that wove its way through her body, shining too brightly for her flesh or clothes to hide and extending down all four limbs and into her head.

It was distracting and Josie suppressed the ability with a thought, closing the phantom third eye that her pact had granted her.

The older woman snorted. “You’re the only one in this damned place who knocks. What do you need?” Looking up, Fiora finally caught sight of Jori. Her eyebrows went up in a small expression of surprise. “Uh. What’s going on?”

It only took a moment to catch her up. The previously tired-looking woman practically bolted from her chair, snatched up her short staff and shot past them out the door. Both Josie and the demon stared after her lamely for a moment before hurrying to catch up.

“What’s going on?” Josie asked, disturbed at Fiora’s sudden urgency. “What does it mean?”

“You don’t send spies out to lurk at intersections.” She said shortly. “That’s where you would put a scout. Unless the thing just happened to be passing through, the enemy is making a move.”

Gesturing with one hand as she walked, Fiora emerged into the courtyard area at the front of the complex and slammed her staff into the ground with an unnaturally loud, hollow booming noise. About ten guards were training there under Palina’s watchful gaze. Off to one side, Yarrod, the gnome underkeeper, was facing off with a knife against a short human man. Everyone stopped at the loud noise and turned to look.

“Potential contact up toward the gate!” Fiora barked. “Everyone with me. Move!”

The guards exchanged uncertain glances for a moment, then Palina began bawling orders at them at the top of her lungs. They hadn’t been in training long, but it was enough to get them lined up and moving. Yarrod caught up just a few moments later, carrying his new staff.

It took them only a few minutes to make their way up toward the intersection, the main tunnel curving off toward the right and to the surface, and the smaller left-hand tunnel to where the army was stationed. Fiora called a halt and they looked around nervously. A few of the guards started muttering to each other, but Palina shushed them.

Everything looked… completely normal.

Fiora turned to Jori.

“Anything?”

The little imp’s wings twitched and her needle-teeth were bared in a snarl, her eyes locked on the leftward tunnel. But nothing was moving there.

A little hesitantly, Josie opened her third eye again. Was someone hiding in plain sight?

She didn’t see anything right away, but they all heard it. Steps approached, marching in unison. A few moments later, a small group of soldiers emerged, wearing Beseri uniforms and carrying spears. At a glance, nothing was wrong with them. Nothing except that they were all dwarves, that is.

That, and Josie could clearly see the demonic souls riding along in two of them. Warlocks throughout time had attempted a wide range of different kinds of pacts and arrangements with demons, but sharing a body with one was, in Josie’s opinion, by far the most foolish.

A demon’s soul didn’t strictly need its own body to function on the material plane, so long as it resided in a body. A warlock who chose to accommodate a demon in this manner could gain full access to the creature’s abilities. Of course, the demon would also gain access to the warlock’s body to some degree. It was practically unavoidable. That alone made the practice illegal in Besermark, but the Solicitors further had their own internal policies against it.

One of the dwarves had a fiery red aura, similar to Jori’s. The other’s was a muted gray, which meant she was looking at a demon from the first hell. These robbed souls of their will. If it was at least a class 3 demon, it could effectively paralyze living people into total complacency – though probably only one at a time.

None of them looked their way. Apparently, they didn’t expect to be stopped.

Taking a quick step, Josie tapped Fiora on the shoulder and explained what she was seeing. The older underkeeper had, of course, already noticed the dwarves and was already watching them with suspicion. It was remarkable that they'd made it past the army camp without raising any alarms – probably the work of the demon with the gray aura.

“Which one is the most dangerous?” Fiora asked calmly.

“That one,” Josie replied, pointing at the one with the red aura. “I'm guessing he’ll probably try to set fire to the city. With hellfire.”

Without wasting a second, Fiora leveled her staff at the offending dwarf. A brilliant lance of light shot out of it, but didn’t strike the target. Another dwarf saw the motion and stepped directly into the attack, shielding him. He went down, his chest caved in unnaturally as if he’d been crushed by a massive hammer. Blood ran from his mouth.

Then, everything happened at once. Palina roared at her guards to move, the normal duergar soldiers turned to fight, and the two demon-possessed dwarves sprinted up the tunnel, disappearing around the bend.

Josie summoned the claws of her midnight hag, trying to think of some way, any way, to stop those damned demons from getting up into the city when, up on the ceiling five paces above, she saw Jori scuttle after the offending creatures faster than a man could run, hissing in rage like a boiling kettle.