Underkeeper

“Three, two, one, now!” Kustov barked and backed away from the fist-sized hole he’d been making in what looked like a random spot in the tunnel connecting the Undercity to Halfbridge proper.

Bernt stepped forward and activated a new spellform that he’d been working on for the past two weeks – ever since the duergar had begun sending tunneling crews. He’d spent a lot of time trying to come up with a good name for it before he finally settled on Banefire. Josie had insisted that “cold fireball” was simple, descriptive and sounded better, but how could he let a spell like this carry such a boring, mundane name? Nirlig, at least, had agreed with him. A goblin of impeccable taste, that one.

Jori understandably hadn't wanted anything to do with the spell or its naming.

The liquid grey mass of roiling flames spun in front of his outstretched hand for a split second, then shot down the hole. There was a woosh, followed by agonized inhuman screams that echoed weirdly through the narrow pipe in the rock. This was a lot better than the diffuse flames that he’d used the last time they tried this maneuver. It wouldn’t kill all of the tunnelers – only their demons, or maybe some of their warlocks if there were any in this group. Those who bound themselves too closely to their demons made themselves vulnerable, as he'd found out a few weeks earlier.

“Down!” Kustov yelled and Bernt ducked, but nothing happened. He rose and rolled his eyes at the dwarf. “It’s not normal fire. It doesn’t burn hot, alright? I was going to be fine.”

Stepping back, he shook out his hand to banish the achy tingle that was spreading up his lower arm. He’d need to avoid casting for a little while or it would get worse. Jamming his fingers into his ears, he backed up further as Josie stepped up to the hole, leaned toward it and screamed. Then, without any further prompting, Kustov lightly dragged his hammer down along the wall next to her. A massive rumbling sound accompanied the motion and the ground shook slightly as the fresh tunnel collapsed on top of the dwarves, still paralyzed and unable to act.

It was routine by now – one developed during weeks of playing whack-a-mole with the few teams of incoming sappers that made it past Arice’s defenses. There had been some proper fighting out there, but specific news were hard to come by, even here, relatively close to the front lines. Unable to keep everyone on alert all the time, Ed had put together a few specialized teams to stop duergar incursions while everyone else went mostly back to their regular duties.

They’d had to modify their approach a few times – once by bringing in Josie to counter enemy geomancers who were good enough to resist Kustov’s attempt to collapse their own tunnel onto them, and again just now, by using cold fire to kill or at least preoccupy the demons that they had started to send to counter Josie’s abilities.

Their team still included a small contingent of regular guards, just in case, but those stayed well back to protect themselves from the warlock’s blood-curdling scream.

Kustov held his hand to the wall for a moment, then nodded to himself and turned around to give the fighters a wave.

“All clear. We can head back.”

The sigh of relief wasn’t explicit, but Bernt could sense it as everyone relaxed just a bit. Someone murmured something and another voice laughed in reply.

“That’s a good spell.” Kustov said, slapping Bernt on the shoulder. “You really made it up yourself, in just a couple of weeks?”

“Sort of.” Bernt said, “I found a scroll with the base spell for cold fire in the dungeon. It just took me this long to turn it into a proper fireball. If I’d known how useful it could be, I would have started working on it a lot sooner.”

“Foresight is a mark of intelligence, but wisdom mostly comes in hindsight.” Kustov chuckled. “Next time, you’ll be quicker to recognize potential when it falls in your lap. Still, that’s pretty fast even just to modify an existing spell. You should keep practicing it. My old mentor always said that the best way to grow is to lean into your strengths. Have you brought it to the guild yet? They might buy it from you if they don’t have something better, already.”

“I showed them the base spell.” Bernt said. “But I really should bring them this version, I think.” He’d brought the scroll by the guild back when he was still trying to figure out what it did, but they hadn’t seemed interested in it then. Now that he knew what it did… well, Kustov had a point. The Mages’ Guild hoarded all kinds of magical knowledge. Now that he’d modified the cold fire into a proper weapon that they could use against the current threat... Well, he was sure Iriala would be able to use that for something. He might be able to afford his guild membership sooner than expected – and that could mean finally getting his next investiture.

Kustov reached up to pat him on the back and then moved up to chat with Glim, who immediately pulled out a flask of something to share. Bernt slowed down a bit to get some distance. Dwarves distilled alcohol, to be sure, but that couldn’t be the only thing in their spirits. A drinking dwarf’s breath alone could make your eyes water if you were too close. Ironically, they rarely seemed to get drunk, despite their best efforts – dwarves were powerfully resistant to poisons of all kinds.

“Uh. Hey, did you do that on purpose?”

Bernt flinched slightly, only then realizing that, by slowing down a step, he was now walking right next to Josie. The warlock stared down at his right arm with a frown.

He raised his hand as if to look at it.

“What do you mean?”

“Your soul looks weird there,” she replied, pointing. “The lines are sort of uneven, thicker and then thinner in parts, and not completely straight – I mean like little tiny bends back and forth.”

Bernt stared at her as if she’d suddenly grown a second head. Then he looked back down at his hand. “What? My soul? How do you… what?”

“So… not on purpose, then?” Josie said. "Hey, don't look at me like that! I don’t usually keep my third eye open when I don’t need it – it’s distracting, but I was using it to watch for shades earlier when you were casting. Does that mean you messed up your advancement process?”

Bernt stopped walking, stunned. “Wait, wait. You can see my entire mana network? Everyone’s?”

Josie turned around and squinted at him in annoyance. “I told you that I could. I think that was on my first day, even.”

“I knew that you could sense spirits, or souls or something” Bernt spluttered. “I didn’t know that meant you could look right into a mage’s entire architecture! I mean, could you draw one from what you see?”

“It's all the same thing, basically,” Josie said. “And no, of course not. Not unless one held still for me for a few hours at least. Do you have any idea how messy a mage’s spirit looks, even compared to some of the other magic users? Yours isn’t too complicated, I guess, but you aren’t very advanced yet.”

“Yea, I mean, I only have one investiture,” Bernt said, looking down at his arm again in concern.. “And no, I didn’t mess up the investment process. I got burned by that warlock a couple of weeks ago, up by the gate. I thought it was healing okay. I can cast almost normally again…”

It had been getting better. He’d told himself that it probably wasn’t that big a deal. Now, though. What could he do if it just… didn’t? What if it got worse?

Cold fear quivered in his belly. Josie was watching him with what looked like actual concern. He carefully schooled his expression.

“Thanks for telling me.” he said sincerely as he started moving again. “I’ll get it checked out. Come on, we need to get back – wouldn’t want to miss out on all that waiting around we have waiting for us back at headquarters.”

–------

Bernt stepped into the Mages’ Guild and pulled a scroll out of his sleeve as he shut the door behind him.

He hadn’t been up on the surface in nearly a week, when he’d come up to seek out Grixit at the Gateside Market. All in all, the defense was going well, but fear was still spreading. The situation in the city was getting worse, as one might expect during a siege – prices had surged on basic goods and a lot of supplies were running low. There weren’t as many people in the street, and those that did kept their heads on a swivel, always on alert.

It made the atmosphere inside the Mages’ Guild all the more jarring. The place was completely calm, just as it had been the last time he was there. The same mage as last time was still copying papers at the front desk and handing them to his monkey familiar to file. Didn’t he ever leave? Every now and then, a mage would pass by at a comfortable, leisurely pace going from one part of the building to another.

Shaking his head to banish the thought, Bernt stepped up to the desk and put his scroll down on it. He’d spent most of the afternoon creating it from memory – most of his days on counter-tunneler duty really were spent just waiting around. Josie hadn’t been able to tell him anything further about his arm, and none of the other mages on duty had ever heard of anything like what she described.

So, Bernt had decided to try the Guild. If he could sell his Banefire spell here, he might be able to buy his membership. That would give him access to the library and, probably more importantly, the guild librarian. If they didn’t pay enough to afford him membership, maybe he could get a meeting with Iriala – she should at least know who he could talk to. He’d wanted to ask Ed first, but the archmage wasn’t at the office. But he could always ask him later if this didn’t pan out.

The short man snatched the scroll from the desk and unrolled it, eyes scanning the paper in seconds.

“What’s this?” he asked, voice clipped and hard. “Spell scrolls aren’t to be removed from the library!”

Bernt scowled. “It’s not from the library. I developed a spell to kill demons and I want to sell it to the guild. Can you tell me what it’s worth?”

“You developed it,” he repeated flatly. “One of the archmage's pet Underkeepers. To kill demons.”

“Yes.” Bernt said, unable to keep his voice entirely neutral. “It’s a fire spell. Would you like me to demonstrate it here?”

The other mage’s eyes narrowed and he glanced to the side at the papers stacked all around. “I would recommend that you watch your tone, young man. Also, that won’t be necessary. Assessments are done by relevant specialists, not here at the front desk. I’ll tag it for review and have it sent to Magister Pollock. You should have a reply within the week.”

Bernt tried not to grind his teeth and moderated his tone. “I was hoping to expedite the process, if possible, considering the current situation outside. Is Magister Pollock here? Maybe I could talk to him…”

“No.” The man said bluntly. “There are proper procedures for this sort of thing. Those procedures exist exactly for times like these to ensure that the business of the guild continues to get done without the gaps in quality control and legal review that the chaos of a crisis might otherwise enable.”

Bernt scowled at the man for a few seconds, trying to think of anything he might be able to say to the man to change his mind. He was about to turn and leave, defeated, when inspiration finally struck.

“Ah! I need to speak with Archmage Iriala.”

The receptionist rolled his eyes and asked sarcastically. “Do you have an appointment?”

“Yes.” Bernt said, trying to keep the grin off of his face. “I do.”