Underkeeper

Bernt knew long before he reached his first job site of the day that this wasn’t going to be an ordinary plumbing issue. Dayle had mentioned all the “accidents” the city’s alchemists were having lately, and this looked like another one of those.

The demeanor of the lab’s master alchemist, an iron-haired woman named Theresa, was downright giddy, in stark contrast to the words coming out of her mouth.

“We had an unanticipated alchemical spill in the lab, involving multiple uncompleted potions and unprocessed magically active ingredients. You know how it is with apprentices. The emergency drainage system protected our facility from serious damage, but I’m afraid the pipes are going to take some work.”

She sighed in feigned frustration. It sounded more like contentment to Bernt. “There’s no telling what the effects on the sewage system might be.”

Bernt glowered. She wasn’t even trying to hide it.

The stone floor of the lab was scarred with countless chemical burns—but that wasn’t his problem. Peering down into the drain, he tried to take a look at the real damage.

Predictably, it was too dark to see. Casting his torch spell, he positioned the bright flame right above the drain and tried again.

Bright, yellow gold glinted up at him from below. Maybe a handspan down, the entire pipe was obstructed with a solid plug of it.

Bernt looked up at the alchemist, who smirked back at him evilly. Behind her was an apprentice—presumably the person he was supposed to believe caused all this. He casually poured an ominously bubbling liquid from a beaker into a small flask that clinked with some reagent or other while reading from a massive tome laid out in front of him. He wasn’t even looking, and he didn’t miss a drop. Then he used a tiny spoon to pour a bit of iridescent powder in.

A silver-colored flame shot from the mouth of the flask, and the liquid turned into what looked like crystal-clear water. Bernt watched, fascinated. Silver flames. Could he learn to make fire like that?

“There were some… unexpected effects.” The lab’s master alchemist indicated the drain. “You’ll need to extract all of the material for us and repair any damage to the drainage system.”

The gold in the drain was not the only problem, Bernt noted. Jori was approaching the drain from below, and through their bond, he saw an entirely different obstacle. Two gigantic rats leapt at her, seemingly out of nowhere. She responded with admirable speed, ducking down as she gutted the other one with a lightning-quick swipe of her clawed hand. The other disintegrated in searing hellfire a moment later.

Rats had never stood a chance against Jori, no matter how alchemically enhanced they were—even before her metamorphosis.

Those rats, Bernt guessed, were the only actual accident that had happened here—the habitual illegal alchemical dumping was affecting the local wildlife. This gold-clogged pipe wasn’t part of it. No, this felt like a trap, and not a very subtle one, either. Did she think he would try to steal it?

He drew his wand and slowly heated the pipe using the spell he’d made up the last time he’d had to fix a drainpipe—at the Temple of Garrus. At least he didn’t have to work out something new.

The gold melted surprisingly quickly and dripped out of the pipe, each droplet cooling as it hit the vile sludge below. The entire process took less than fifteen minutes, and the alchemist watched him work with an almost friendly expression. It was more than a little disconcerting. She was too attentive.

When a section of pipe cracked in the heat, Bernt repaired it with a quick earth shaping cantrip, rather than digging it out and replacing it. That wasn’t strictly best practice—he wasn’t a geomancer, and his fix probably wouldn’t hold longer than one or two years. But he wasn’t about to spend any more time in this place than he had to.

As he did that, Jori gathered all the little golden beads and carried them up to the nearest access shaft in the street, where Bernt went to collect them.

Holding the mess in his hand, he noticed immediately that something was wrong. The gold wasn’t gold at all. It was too light, and the sheen was too yellow. Did the alchemist think he hadn’t held real gold before? Bernt handled his considerable savings—which were hidden behind a magically sealed brick in a sewer tunnel—almost every night, counting it obsessively to make sure none had somehow vanished while he was gone. He handled gold nearly as often as your average alchemist, even if he didn’t actually do anything with it.

If she really was trying to tempt him into stealing her “gold,” she wasn’t doing a very good job. Maybe she thought his relative youth made him naive.

Fortunately, he knew exactly what to do in this situation.

When he came back inside with both the gold and his still-dry, clean robes, she didn’t look surprised. In fact, her already disconcerting smile widened by a hair.

That… didn’t bode well.

Sensing that something was wrong, Bernt looked down at his hand. He held only the strange yellow metal, covered in the usual effluent of the sewers. But… his fingers were starting to tingle a little at the tips.

Godsdamned alchemists.

Thinking quickly, Bernt gave her his best professional smile and pressed the handful of reeking, sludge-covered beads into her hand.

“Here you go! It almost looks like gold, doesn’t it?”

With a strangled cry, she dumped them on a nearby table and looked around frantically for something to clean off her hand with. After a moment, she hurried over to a sink, which filled with crystal-clear water as she approached.

“How… how dare you!” she hissed at him, but Bernt cut her off. He needed to get out of here. The tingling sensation was spreading through his hand, and his fingertips were going numb.

He spoke in a rush. “You’ll receive an invoice for services rendered by the city of Halfbridge in the coming days. Always a pleasure!”

He heard her furiously order her apprentice to clean up the mess behind him as he marched out of the laboratory, racing toward the Underkeeper headquarters. Maybe a healing potion could fix this. He didn’t want to think about what might happen if he was too slow. What if his hand fell off? Or turned into something… else?

No, they couldn’t do something like this. It was illegal! There was even an official paper trail. They wouldn’t do anything too permanent—they couldn’t.

He’d already walked two blocks before he remembered Ed would be at the breach—not at the office. Turning, he began jogging toward the dungeon. His entire right hand was completely numb now, fingers hanging limply. The skin had turned pale, almost gray. It looked dead.

Bernt shuddered. He needed to talk to Ed. He could help him report this—it was an attack! They were destroying his career, or at least trying to force massive medical costs on him. If he couldn’t regain the use of his hand, he wouldn’t be able to cast complex spells. Worse, he wouldn’t be fit to fight! No party would take him on as an adventurer like this, and he might not even be considered fit enough to work the job he had now!

The entire way back, he couldn’t get the alchemist’s malicious smile out of his head.

At least he’d gotten back at her.

When he approached the barricades, sweating and clutching at his dead arm, the guards moved aside for him without questions. One even knocked on the door for him as he approached the command post.

On the one hand, he was grateful. On the other, he wondered just how bad he looked.

But he didn’t look down. Not yet. He didn’t want to know that badly.

The door opened, and Ed stepped out, eyes widening when he saw Bernt. He stopped dead and pulled out his pipe, looking all around as if preparing to fight. One of the guards shrugged at him. Only then did he focus back on Bernt.

“What in all the hells happened to you?!”

***

Ed sat in the magistrate’s office, squinting through his glasses as he studied the obscure document in front of him. The Halfbridge Municipal Procedure for the Disposal of Hazardous Alchemical Substances. Attached was a Job Hazard Analysis signed by one Master Alchemist Theresa, who sat beside him alongside Solicitor Lewisworth, facing Lord Magistrate Gerold.

“I assure you, Archmage Thurdred, that I provided this document in triplicate to the Underkeepers,” Theresa said. “I placed it into the archmage’s predecessor’s own hands, in this very office, just eight years ago. It was officially added to the job training requirements for the Underkeepers at that time. Surely I cannot be held liable for the Underkeepers’ negligence regarding basic job safety training?”

Ed threw an annoyed glare at the alchemist, but said nothing. He had never seen this document before in his life.

Of course, he also hadn’t ever bothered to read most of the documents in the file cabinets that decorated the head office of the Underkeepers. Considering that this document came out of the magistrate’s archive, it was more than likely legitimate.

The Solicitor pulled out another document, handed it to the magistrate, and spoke in a clipped, precise tone. “Here is my client’s incident report regarding Underkeeper Bernt’s unfortunate accident. He did not choose to bring the personal protective equipment recommended in the official procedure, and did not appear to recognize the substance from the Magical Material Safety Data Sheet that the Alchemists’ Guild provided to the Underkeepers. I can provide the proof of periodic document review for that as well if needed. I assure you that it has been regularly reviewed and kept up to date for the safety of the city maintenance workers, as required by the Magistrate’s Municipal Maintenance Worker’s Safety Standard.”

This was not how Ed expected this meeting to go. Despite the many substances alchemists dumped into the sewers, Underkeepers were rarely exposed to hazards like this for a very simple reason: sewers were filled with biological material. Anything that could react with a person’s body exhausted its potential to form either waste products or living biological horrors long before any Underkeeper can run into it. Mundane chemicals became far too diluted in the sewer water to pose a significant risk.

There was no doubt this was intentional poisoning because there was no alchemist in the city who wouldn’t know when they were making a magical toxin. They were too careful—it was inherent to the job. As far as he knew, no one had ever tried something so blatant, either. How could they expect to get away with it? Did Theresa think making this technically his fault would protect her? Did she think this would damage him enough to make him powerless to act?

She was miscalculating here, he was sure. Though she did have a Solicitor with her, so it was best to tread carefully. This was going to be an awful mess.

“What now, magistrate?” he grunted through his thick scowl. These kinds of shenanigans were not his strong suit, but war tended to create opportunities—as long as you didn’t spend too much time dawdling, that is.

The magistrate reached into a desk drawer and started rummaging around in it. “I’m afraid I must rule in favor of Master Alchemist Theresa in this case, archmage. You are responsible for both your Keepers’ training and safety equipment. You are liable for damages to Underkeeper Bernt’s wellbeing. I am also writing up your organization for a Systemic Nonconformance to your established basic safety training requirements. Expect an audit in six months. You will need to provide proof of adequate corrective actions.”

Ed grunted his acknowledgment. He’d been outplayed here. Magistrate Gerold pulled out two purses and counted out gold pieces. Nothing was said as coins clinked and the pile grew.

“Thirty. There we are.” He pushed the pile toward Theresa. “This is the rate for a potion of lesser spirit restoration established in your Guild’s contract with the city. Please inform the Guildhall that I expect it to be delivered to my office before nightfall.”

That was more money than he made in a month, and more than a common laborer earned in a year. The alchemist counted the coins and placed them into the purse Gerold provided her, then smiled questioningly at him.

The magistrate stood and offered her his hand to shake. “Thank you for attending to clear this up, master alchemist. I would like to speak privately to the archmage now.” She stood and shook his hand, and then made a long, almost pitying smile down at Ed. For a moment he thought she would say something, but she controlled herself and marched out, followed by a much more indifferent-looking Solicitor.

Gerold turned to Ed. “The gold will be docked from your pay. You will need to send your Underkeeper here to pick up the potion this evening.”

Ed grunted his assent. That was fine. Bernt probably couldn’t afford the potion anyway, and this was his responsibility as the person who’d sent him into that trap. He wasn’t going to let the alchemists get away with this, though. But what could he do? He needed time to think.

“There is another thing we should discuss…” the magistrate went on. “I was in a meeting with the count and Iriala earlier today, and there are some changes coming to your organization. Technically temporary changes, but you know how these things usually go…”

Ed nodded thoughtfully. Right. He needed to talk to Iriala. She would know what to do here.