Underkeeper

“We need to find him, now!” Fiora insisted to the exasperated guard officer. “He might be carrying an alchemical device like the other one, there’s no way to know – and no telling how much damage it could do if it was used in the wrong spot.”

“Yes, I’m aware of that,” the officer said through a long-suffering sigh. “But we have strict jurisdictional boundaries. I can’t just let you run around fighting and arresting people up here. I’ve passed your report along already, and they’re setting up checkpoints to intercept and stop any duergar as we speak. They might have passed for normal dwarves at first, but that’s not going to work when our guards are actually paying attention.”

“That’s not the point!” Fiora fumed. “He’s a warlock, not just any duergar. Who knows what he could do if he just hid somewhere for a while? A hostile summoner in a city full of civilians? This is a disaster waiting to happen!”

“Ma’am, I am not underestimating the threat. We’ve informed the Mages’ Guild's scryers and the Paladins’ Hall and I’d expect that a bounty will be up on the intruders’ head with the Adventurers’ Guild within a few minutes. You have your own area to worry about. Go make sure that you don’t have a team like that bursting into your shiny new district while you’re up here talking to me.”

Fiora paced in agitation for a few seconds, then she spun and walked toward Bernt – and right past him to face Josie, who he only then realized was standing right next to him. His eyes widened a little at the sight of her. The Underkeepers’ Solicitor had, apparently, gotten her new gear. It was a long, open coat in dark gray to match her new colleagues. Underneath she had a sturdy armored vest made of artfully overlapping layers of heavy gray and dark red canvas. The entire thing was so heavily enchanted that Bernt could sense it from two steps away. It would probably stop a berserker, and it was much lighter than what he was wearing.

“Josie, you’re free to go for the day.” Fiora announced before pointedly looking westward. “I’m sure you have other responsibilities to see to anyway. Go!”

Josie blinked in surprise, but then simply nodded and started walking.

The guard officer, whose eyes had been on them the entire time, watched her go a bit skeptically and grimaced slightly, but he didn’t interfere. Bernt could practically see him decide that this wasn’t his problem.

“Alright, everybody, back down to Headquarters,” Fiora said. “We need to cover our end, and we need to get in contact with General Arice – I doubt he even knows that his lines have been compromised.”

Bernt whipped his head around in surprise. That was it? There was no way. Ed probably didn’t even know what happened yet. He got up, testing his hand, and then moved to join the others. It felt as if he’d never burned it in the first place. Syrah, he saw, was still working on a few of the other injured underkeepers. Her healing abilities were really quite something.

Something hard poked him in the chest and Bernt stopped. He looked down and found the knobby handle of Fiora’s staff planted there.

“Bernt,” Fiora chided, eyes narrowed. “What are you doing at work on your day off?” She gave him a little push and he fell back a step. “Go home.”

Taking the hint, Bernt turned to follow Josie. As he did, he reached for Jori’s mind with the familiar bond to nudge her to follow, only to realize that she was already gone. A quick glimpse through the bond revealed her racing along rooftops in a dizzying series of running leaps. She was already shadowing Josie from above and watching the streets for their quarry.

Feeling a little unsteady at the transmitted sensations, he drew back his senses and hurried after.

–-------

Josie jogged through the temple district toward the Solicitors’ Office, being careful to give the temple of Balarian a wide berth. The god of storms had lost an entire congregation to an especially foolish orcish warlock about a century earlier. He’d wiped the warlock from existence in retaliation, but his wrath wasn’t satisfied – he’d still lost well over a hundred souls to the hells. Balarian had harbored more than a little ill will toward warlocks in general since then. It was best to steer clear of his temple whenever possible. Most warlocks avoided ship voyages for the same reason.

Josie walked on the opposite side of the plaza, passing rather close to a few other temples that she was fairly sure no warlocks had specifically offended in recent history, when she saw it – a dwarf was pushing through a small group of people who were just… standing around, staring at nothing in particular. He had that same odd, gray aura around him.

She rushed after, trying not to lose sight of him behind the taller pedestrians that stood between them. When she reached the group, they were just starting to look around in confusion – the first sign of recovery from having their will drained. The demon had to be fairly powerful to affect multiple living people at once, class 4 at least.

Fortunately, the denizens of the first hell weren’t especially dangerous as demons went. They could incapacitate almost anyone, but a minor or lesser demon couldn’t cause any lasting harm. As she pushed past them, she caught sight of the dwarf again as he stepped around a corner into a side street.

She ran to catch up. If she could reach the other warlock before he got where he was going, she could probably stop him. Her own abilities wouldn’t affect the demon, but the dwarf himself would be vulnerable.

Turning the corner, Josie saw that the dwarf had stopped – apparently he hadn’t seen her following him. He’d lifted a grate over a window well next to a large building and was trying to climb down into it.

“Hey!” Josie called out. “Stop right there!”

She needed to get closer. Just a bit.

The dwarf stopped and looked at her, eyes widening. Then, just as he opened his mouth to speak, Josie screamed. It was a penetrating, hollow sound, like a windstorm tearing through a canyon. She didn’t feel it’s supernatural effect herself, except as a painfully cold liquid sensation that froze her throat as the sound escaped and instantly gave her a headache.

The dwarf froze, an expression of horror and deep despair written over his features. It only lasted a moment, then he shook his head and gritted his teeth. She was closer now, almost close enough to reach him. Josie summoned her claws and closed the distance.

In the space of a heartbeat, the dark color bled out of the dwarf’s eyes completely, leaving them completely gray. His face relaxed and he said, in a completely dead, toneless voice.

“Stop.”

Stop what? Josie wondered. What had she been doing, exactly?

“It is done. You need not be concerned.”

She stared at the dwarf and, right now, she just couldn’t remember why he mattered. Rather, she couldn’t work up the effort to think about it. Why bother?

There was a hissing sound up above her, but she didn’t look. It didn’t mean anything. Nothing did.

Something bright and hot seared into her vision before slamming down into the window well with a sizzling noise and an awful smell. It was hellfire, she knew, but the dwarf was gone. A small figure dove down after it.

An imp.

She watched it go by, disappearing down the hole.

The imp’s name was Jori.

Jori was hunting the warlock. The warlock was bad – an enemy. That meant that someone needed to stop him.

As Josie began stringing concepts together into ideas, and ideas into the beginnings of a purpose, a hand landed on her shoulder. She looked up and found Bernt standing there. What was he doing here?

“Are you alright?” he asked, staring at her as if he was trying to see into her head.

She nodded a little tiredly. “Go. Don’t let it talk to you. I’ll be fine in a minute.”

He looked unsure, but moved toward the window well as if he already knew where to go. Bernt already knew where Jori was, of course, or at least where she’d been.

There was a lot of information out there regarding what exactly a familiar bond was and what it enabled a mage and their bound familiar to do, but most of it was just based on rumors or badly outdated. Familiars just weren’t very popular these days, so few people actually got to observe them. Besides, the Mages’ Guild kept a tight lid on what they considered proprietary information, so existing publicly available records had a way of disappearing.

Idly, Josie considered writing up a report on familiars based on Jori and Bernt. The Solicitors could surely use a reliable eyewitness report for their own local library. She would have thought that any constant telepathic connection to a demon would drive a mortal completely insane in a matter of hours. She’d seen into the mind of a midnight hag for only a moment when she’d received her third eye, and that was enough for lifetime. But Bernt wasn’t insane - he was just crazy.

That alone was enough, now that she really considered it. She should write a report about it.

–-------

Bernt swung himself down through the broken window into the basement of the building, landing in a plain-looking hallway. Without hesitating, he ran forward to the third door on the left and stepped through – following the path that he’d just seen Jori take in pursuit of the strange dwarf.

The dwarf had Jori by the throat, her feet kicking at nothing in the air as her claws gouged deep bloody furrows into his beefy forearms. She was panicking – not thinking straight, or she would have simply melted the dwarf’s face off with hellfire.

Bernt wasn’t sure how the dwarf had managed to catch her, but he was ready. He’d begun casting the moment his feet touched the ground five seconds earlier and this time, he’d even remembered to cast the spell correctly. Being careful not to hit Jori, Bernt unleashed cold fire at the dwarf, who’d already started to turn to react to the new threat.

As he did, a burning pain shot up his arm, radiating out from his hand and forearm. He flinched and hissed in pain as the spell fizzled and failed – mostly. A thin wisp of fire licked across the duergar warlock’s face and he gasped, dropping Jori as he drew what remained of the sorcerous flames right down his throat.

His eyes bulged and he let out a wet and raspy sounding cough. Blood ran from his mouth.

Bernt barely noticed. He was focused on his aching hand. What in the hells was going on? It felt almost like when he’d strained his mana network during the battle against the kobolds a month earlier, but this time there had been no warning at all. Had he bungled the spell so badly? Or had it been that other warlock’s hellfire back at the Undercity Gate?

Bernt wasn’t any kind of scholar, but he was sure that hellfire wasn’t supposed to be able to do that – at least not to a living person.

When hellfire kindled in Jori’s clawed hand, Bernt’s heart almost seized in his chest. If she threw that around in here, she could easily set the entire building on fire – never mind if the dwarf had another one of those firebombs on him.

Jori let the fire go out and he breathed out a sigh of relief – she’d sensed Bernt’s concerns and interpreted them correctly.

The dwarf looked back and forth between them now, backing away and trying to say something, but nothing intelligible came out. His tongue and throat were both damaged. Jori advanced on him with an angry hiss, murderous intent radiating off her every movement. Her body tensed as she prepared to leap at him.

“Stop!” Josie gasped, standing in the doorway before pointing a finger right at the dwarf. “Get down on the ground and keep your mouth shut tight! You’re a prisoner of the Halfbridge Solicitors.”

The dwarf glared at her and backed up another step, his back hitting a wall.

“Uh…” Bernt said, “Can you do that?” He hadn’t been thinking in terms of taking prisoners, but even if they did, they would have to bring him to the city’s dungeons. He was an enemy combatant, after all.

Josie smirked smugly. “According to Beseri law he’s a rogue warlock, so yes. I’m not on duty as an underkeeper, and I’m pretty sure you aren’t either. We couldn’t arrest him on the Count’s authority if we wanted to.” Her smirk bloomed into a feral smile. “Which I don’t. Also, if he doesn’t cooperate we can just turn him over to the paladins in their primary training facility right up above us. I’m guessing that was his target. They have jurisdiction in this area as well.”

Gray, emotionless eyes flicked back and forth between the three of them. Then the dwarf reached a bloody hand down to a gap in his armor, pulled out an odd-looking vial and flung it down at the ground.

Jori was faster. She’d begun to pounce on the man the moment he started moving and extended a wing to adjust the jump in mid-air to go right past her original target. Bernt didn’t see exactly what happened, but there was no gigantic fireball, toxic gas cloud or other indication of an alchemical attack.

Jori rolled to her feet, revealing the undamaged vial clutched in one clawed hand and grinned, revealing needle-sharp teeth. She’d caught it.

Bernt glared angrily and drew the long knife at his belt. Josie just stood there expectantly, as if she’d planned the whole thing.

The dwarf dropped to his knees and lay down on the ground.