Bernt descended back down into the sewer at the next tunnel on his list, still chewing that last bite of his pickled fish sandwich. He knew some rats would already be back in the sewers he’d just cleared, and he didn’t want to stay away too long. The more he managed to clear out of this neighborhood, the better. If the population here recovered too quickly, Ed might decide that he hadn’t done the job right.

  His boss was generally grumpy, and greeted even good news with a heavy scowl. So far, he’d been pretty reasonable and easy to work for, but Bernt wasn’t eager to find out what happened if he disappointed him. The other Underkeepers interacted surprisingly casually with the archmage, but Bernt hadn't missed the fact that nobody ever challenged him. They did as they were told, and they seemed dedicated to doing their jobs as well as they could.

  Ed didn’t lord his position over other people, but he still commanded respect. Bernt could appreciate that. It was the opposite of how things had worked at the Mages’ Academy. There, students had been mostly separated by social hierarchies. Wealthy students could secure early guild membership and well-paid positions even before graduation and did their best to separate themselves from the rabble. The poor would join the military as war mages.

  There was always some crossover, of course. A few gifted students could get a sponsored apprenticeship with a master who would loan them the gold they needed to purchase a guild license. Bernt hadn't been such a student, and he wasn't sure he would have accepted a debt like that even if he had been. In the other direction some of the rich students were just so aggressively sociable that they wouldn’t let even class barriers stand in their way. For the most part, though, it had been a rigid sort of place, where people like Bernt were expected to know their place. That place being in the back of the classroom, preparing for a career in the military.

  But Bernt didn’t want to join the military. He wanted to become an adventurer, and now he was torching rat nests and garbage in the sewers as an Underkeeper. But that was what it was going to take. This was just his first step – adventuring was expensive. A year of this, maybe two and he should be able to afford everything he needed – an armored robe with a protective enchantment, traveling supplies, a proper focus, medical supplies and at least one expensive, high quality healing potion. Then he could really start his adult life on his own terms.

  Nearly fifteen minutes later, Bernt reached the T-junction at the southern city wall. This one hadn’t been too bad – he’d managed not to smoke himself out of the tunnel, at least. There was no access shaft here, so he turned right to get back to the same one he’d taken last time. He sent his torch spell out ahead of him, looking for any large rat nests that he might have missed in this perpendicular tunnel, and stopped dead in his tracks.

  A small pile – what had looked like a dead animal or maybe a wet, crumpled bit of leather, moved. Huge, yellow eyes blinked open, reflecting the light of his torch spell. It shot up, heaving half of a dead rat off the ground and retreated backward a few steps, staring at the light.

  The thing was definitely not a cat. It was smaller, at least by mass, and its hairless skin was a splotchy gray, brown and black that blended in well with the surrounding sewer. Long, sharp claws tipped its equally overlong fingers and leathery wings poked up from its back.

  This was what had been killing all these rat men? It didn’t look very strong, but Bernt could recognize a demon when he saw one, even if it was tiny and staring right at him with wide, terrified eyes. It was an imp, he thought, looking a little closer.

  Shit.

  Bernt sighed in disappointment, raising his wand. Demons, at least according to the priests, were devious and a danger to all of human civilization, along with the warlocks who made pacts with them for their infernal powers. He’d never really put much stock in priests, personally, but he still had a job to do. Demons were to be killed on sight. Size didn’t really matter.

  Carefully, Bernt started to shape the spellform for a fireball. The imp didn’t try to attack or run, though. Instead, it took a step closer, peering up at him curiously. Bernt finished the spellform, but… he couldn’t do it. It was awfully cute, in a grotesque kind of way, with its big eyes and ears, and the way it clutched at the remains of the dead rat like some kind of demented approximation of a teddy bear.

  He lowered the wand with a sigh, letting the spell fade. Moving slowly, he reached down into the small pouch at his belt and dug out a bit of his spicy jerky. Then he crouched down and held it out, waiting.

  The imp shuffled forward, but didn’t take the jerky. Instead, it stared up at Bernt’s torch spell, which was still hovering in the air above and in front of him. It cocked its head at the fire curiously, before finally looking back at Bernt and then at what he was holding.

  Faster than the eye could follow, it snatched the dried meat and stuffed it into its mouth, chewing energetically and never taking its eyes off of him. Its expressive face flashed through a range of emotions, from annoyance at the tough texture, to consideration at the savory flavor and salt, to wide, bulging eyes as the spice finally hit. It jumped up and down, dropping the rat and flapping its hands.

  “Sorry, little guy.” Bernt said. “I don’t really have a mild version of that.”

  After dancing in a little circle for a few seconds and hissing at odd intervals, the imp finally got control of itself again and scuttled up to him. Bernt looked down at it warily. It didn’t look dangerous… the creature held out a long-fingered hand, palm up and made a high-pitched chittering sound.

  Bernt snorted. “You want more?”

  Wide, pleading eyes stared up at him. Suppressing a smile, Bernt dug out another piece and handed it over. The little demon scarfed it down, and the show repeated itself.

  Well, shit. Now what was he supposed to do? He didn’t want to kill it – it was adorable! And it hadn’t actually done anything. It had just helped him do his job. If anything, leaving the imp down here would permanently solve the rat man problem in the neighborhood, if not all of Halfbridge.

  The little creature came back, begging for more jerky.

  Well. At this rate, it shouldn’t be too hard for him to find the thing again. It was practically addicted to jerky after a single taste. Handing it another piece, he climbed up into the street, heading north and east toward the next sewer tunnel on his map. He’d decide what to do with it later. For now, he still had a job to finish.

  ***

  “I’m pretty sure it was just a cat.” Bernt said, handing Ed his report for the day. “There were a lot of regular rats, and just a few rat men. There was evidence of new nest-building, but all the ones I ran across were already dead. The way they were killed points to an overzealous house cat, or maybe a mutant. I heard some hissing and squeaks at one point, but didn’t see anything. My best guess is that it went out the drain near the end, or escaped back into the cleared part of the neighborhood while I was aboveground, heading to the next sewer tunnel.”

  Ed frowned at the paper and grunted, laying it down on the table.

  “Fine. I suppose that’s not too serious. I’ll tell the others to keep an eye out for potential mutants. You’re back with Dayle in the morning, I want him to show you the rounds in the Upper District. Always need two people there anyway – one to get the work done and the other to entertain the fancy rich folks. They always come out yapping about the weather and the latest scrap of garbage they saw as if we didn’t have anything better to do with the day.”

  “Ah.” Bernt said. “So… am I supposed to do the working or the yapping?”

  This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

  Ed barked out a laugh. “Dayle’s your mentor, so whichever he tells you. Knowing him, it could go either way.”

  After washing his boots and socks in the river again, Bernt made his way home, trying not to feel nervous about the fact that he’d just lied to his boss. It was what he would have said if he hadn’t actually seen the demon, so it wasn’t that unbelievable, right?

  He hadn’t seen the creature again, but he’d have to go and check in on it now and then. Demons were supposed to be dangerous. If he didn’t kill it, then it was his responsibility. He was the only one who knew it was there, after all – he couldn’t just ignore it.

  The room Bernt lived in was located in a large tenement building just north of the docks. It smelled bad and it had a problem with criminal activity, but it was cheap. Besides, nobody robbed a mage in the street if they knew what was good for them. Pickpockets were a separate issue, but it wasn’t as though he carried significant amounts of money around.

  Unlocking his door, Bernt took off his boots and entered, immediately lighting a fire in his little stove with a quick cantrip. Then he crossed to the far side and opened his small window to let the cool evening air in. The sun had been shining through the west-facing window all afternoon, heating the place, but he needed steady heat to cook with and make himself something hot to drink.

  He busied himself with dinner, replacing his robe with his much lighter sleeping tunic a few minutes later to help manage the heat. He chopped onions into a greased pan and mixed together a half-hearted dough that he could cook up into a sort of flatbread in the same pan when the onions were done. Then he’d stuff the whole thing together with a pickle and call it dinner.

  Twenty minutes later, as he flipped the bread out of the pan onto his small table, there was an odd scratching noise at the window. Frowning, Bernt turned to look and nearly jumped out of his skin in surprise as he saw what it was.

  The little demon was climbing into his room with the agility of a monkey – if a monkey had wings and long, sharp claws. How had it gotten in here? How had it even found him? Had anyone seen it?

  Quickly, Bernt strode over to the window and looked out. The street was empty.

  “You can’t come in here like this!” he berated the little creature. “What if somebody sees you? They’d kill you for sure!” Belatedly, Bernt wondered just how intelligent an imp actually was. Could it understand him? Hell, even if it was smart, would it speak his language?

  With a light jump, the imp hopped up onto the hot stove. Bernt flinched, anticipating a yelp, but the demon just sat down and made a happy squeaking noise.

  For a second, the mage just stared at the imp. It had followed him home, and it had climbed up the wall in broad daylight. Was it going to start following him to work? What would happen if it just walked into the Underkeepers’ Headquarters, like it had done here?

  It was clear that he needed to do something, though he wasn’t sure exactly what. He couldn’t just lock it up here – he doubted it would quietly accept imprisonment, and his landlady would absolutely notice a trapped tiny demon in his room.

  Bernt’s eyes wandered over to his bookshelf. He still had his notes on familiar bonds over there. He could try that, maybe. Warlocks were a danger to society, sure, but they made deals for power. Bernt didn’t need anything from this little thing. He was just trying to keep Ed or one of his colleagues from blasting it into paste.

  If it wanted to help him find a few sewer clogs and kill some rats, then that was totally voluntary, right? No infernal pact needed. Hells, he didn’t even know how to form one of those. Warlocks had their own strange rituals, and all that had nothing to do with him.

  Making a decision, Bernt pulled his old notebook down and began flipping through the pages. Familiar bonds were something he’d thought about a lot – and something he’d been considering lately, for that matter. He had a lot of theoretical knowledge about it. But he didn’t want to mess it up.

  Finding the right section, Bernt put a carefully drawn out diagram down on the table in front of him. It was a two-dimensional representation of a hideously complex spellform. Even worse, it contained elements of both scrying and spiritual magic – both branches that he had little talent in.

  Still, he’d been preparing for this a long time, and he’d practiced shaping this spellform many times before. Taking a deep breath, he let it out and looked over to the imp, who hadn’t moved. It was still sitting on top of the burner of his stove and had its wings spread wide now, slowly flapping them in the warm air. Its eyes were closed and it was making little happy noises.

  Well, at least it was going to be a low-maintenance familiar.

  Gathering himself, Bernt drew his crappy wand-stick and began to cast. Unlike with most of his spellcasting, he traced out the entire spellform rather than just outlining a few main points. There was no room for error here, and he had to make sure he didn’t miss anything on a rushed casting. A failed spell probably wouldn’t harm him, but he absolutely did not want to have to try this twice tonight. Even now, he could feel a headache starting to form.

  It couldn’t have taken more than a few minutes, but by the time he finished the spellform, the imp was curled up on the stovetop, asleep. Bernt’s head was predictably pounding as he tried to hold the enormous spellform together in his mind. He let mana flow through, sensing the mana take shape and activate as he channeled it out through the wand. The complex, three dimensional net of runes and glyphs was primarily aimed at him, not the imp. Only a single cluster of glyphs reached out from the whole like an overlong finger. As it touched the imp’s head, the entire thing flashed, becoming visible to the naked eye for a split-second

  Was that it? Had it worked? Bernt didn’t feel anything.

  Then everything went black.

  He was wedged into a crack so hard that the bones in his wings creaked, but he was trying to wriggle down even deeper. The dark sky above was blocked by something big, with disgusting, glistening skin. Long, thin arms reached down toward him, swiping with sharp claws. He pressed back even harder and felt something snap with a shock of pain. The monster strained, growling in frustration, but it couldn’t reach.

  He was crawling on all fours, looking left and right and staying low to make sure nothing could see him. It was cold, but this was the best time. It was raining. The black water would help to block any predator’s line of sight. Normally, they traveled in a swarm, or at least a pack. Now, his cousins were gone. He was the last of many – alone.

  Carefully, trying not to make noise, he started turning rocks. He hadn’t eaten in days, and his stomach was starting to growl. Finally, minutes later, he found a nest. Bugs skittered out as he turned the rock over, and he reached in with both hands, stuffing the find into his mouth before they could escape. They tried to bite back, but he was the bigger one this time. They tasted bitter.

  The hideous taste jolted Bernt awake. The vile, bitter flavor of the odd-looking beetles was slow to fade from his senses. Bright yellow eyes looked back at him, nearly as startled as he was. The imp was sitting up again and watching him with intense curiosity. Bernt wasn’t guessing at its emotions – he could feel it. Hells, he could even see himself as though he were looking through its eyes.

  It was the familiar bond, Bernt knew. He’d read about it, of course, but a simple description just couldn’t do it justice. The secondary sensory information was disorienting, but the real prize right now was the link to the little creature’s mind. It was wary, curious, and above all confused.

  That was fine, though, because the familiar bond was two-way. Now that she could glimpse into his mind in turn, they should be able to communicate.

  Experimentally, Bernt tried to think calming thoughts at it. It was safe here. He wasn’t going to harm it.

  It cocked its head and settled down a little more comfortably, emotions settling a little. Then, something came back.

  It was warm here. Nice and cozy.

  “Yeah,” he agreed, “It’s warm here. A little too warm, really…” he was sweating, and his head still hurt.

  “So, what’s you name, little guy?” Bernt asked. He raised his wand again and cast a simple aeromancy spell to push some of the hot air out of the window. Then, for the little demon, he relit the stove – though this time with a lot less wood to keep the flame smaller.

  Her name, Bernt felt with clear emphasis after nearly a minute, was Dzhorianath. He straightened, meeting the little demon’s eyes. How smart were imps?

  “Ah… well. I can’t pronounce that. What if I just call you Jori?”

  That, she felt, was going to be just fine.

  Bernt looked around, unsure what to do next. Finally, his eyes landed on his uneaten bread, the fried onions in a small dish next to it. It was all cold by now, but it would still be good.

  “So… do you want some dinner?”