38. An Informal Agreement/Breach

Hi all, I've gone and revised chapter 38 to move something up that was going to happen later in the story. I had a lot of grumbling and impatience on this issue on RR, so I decided to do a bit of rearranging to change the pacing of this particular story thread. The new content is effectively the first half of the chapter, after the first Jori POV.

Jori flipped through the papers as they left the warlocks’ lair. They were covered in human writing. She could understand it, if she took the time to concentrate on it, but why bother? This kind of writing couldn’t make a properly binding contract. You might as well just make a deal verbally.

She scoffed to herself. Ridiculous. Demons made verbal agreements all the time, just as humans did, but those were only truly reliable as long as the power dynamic involved was great enough to ensure that betrayal wasn’t an option for the weaker party. Human contracts were just silly.

Finally, near the back of the stack, she found what she was looking for. It was a circle of symbols – formed out of five smaller circles. A pentagram sat in the middle, each of its five points resting at the center of one of the circles. Beneath were a bunch more human scribbles, but those didn’t matter.

Finally, a real contract. These were the terms the Solicitors required for what they considered a valid pact for all citizens of the realm. She understood them instinctively just by looking at it and frowned in disgust. 

They were:

• Immediately self deport upon the termination of the pact

• Cause no harm of any kind to any Beseri citizen, even in self-defense and without exception

• Obey the laws of the Kingdom of Besermark and the commands of any qualified officer of the Solicitors Organization without delay

• Share no unauthorized information and enter into no further pacts or agreements of any kind until after the pact is terminated

• Refrain from the consumption of any mortal souls unless they were deliberately granted by her pacted warlock

She assumed that the actual pact with the warlock about sharing power would have to be inscribed elsewhere, probably in place of the liens that made up the Pentagram. She was fairly certain that the shape was completely unnecessary – but she’d never had a pact, so what did she know?

“Jori?” Bernt asked, looking down at her, bewildered. “Are you reading that? How?”

Jori shook her head at him and rolled her eyes. “It is a contract! I know its intent.”

Needless to say, these terms were just terrible. She would, essentially, be a helpless tool – not just for one warlock master, but more so for the Solicitors as an organization. It was remarkably similar to how agreements worked in the third hell, the place she had spawned.

There, the more powerful demons forced those weaker than themselves into service, usually in order to serve even more powerful demons who had, in turn, pressed them into service. The lower down the chain of oppression you were, the more difficult it was to grow in power. Most demons never progressed past their spawnling forms, and those who did usually had to rely on deception or luck to get the water of life they needed to grow. Many never got a taste of it at all – she hadn’t.

Jori didn’t realize that the “water” was what made up the souls of mortals until she’d actually tasted it and seen where it came from. That, and it had just been a lot harder to think back then… 

She was not going to be put into that kind of position again. Never!

–------

Bernt watched Jori read, feeling a fluttering sense of shame wind its way through his stomach. He’d been forgetting something important, and it had taken a calculated insult from a warlock to offer him the needed shift in perspective.

“So… uh.” he began awkwardly. “I’ve been kind of trying not to think about it too much. And… well, you just started talking a few days ago, I hadn’t really considered what it meant. I mean, in a bigger sense. But then, he gave you the paperwork just now. I mean, he gave the paperwork to you. So, I wanted to ask…”

Jori cocked her head at him. “What?”

“Well… what do you want?”

Jori cocked her head at him and looked at him consideringly. Through the bond he could feel a boiling sense of frustration. Finally, she held the stack of papers up to him.

“Look at it!” She said, hissing slightly as she said it. “They want to make me into their slave!”

“What?” Bernt bent down to pick up the papers and looked over the top page. He didn’t recognize the runed pattern at the top, but he could read the text underneath. Then he saw it. The third point would make her a tool of the Solicitors, essentially just on loan to the pacted warlock.

He exhaled slowly. It made sense, he supposed. The solicitors weren’t just there to control demons, after all. They policed warlocks as well. What better way to do that than to directly control their pacted demons?

“I don’t want these choices!” Jori hissed, boiling fury now lighting her eyes with red fire. “I don’t want a master. I want to be free, and I want to grow!”

“But, you don’t have to take a pact.” Bernt said carefully. “What about the guarantor option? We can just talk to Ed and Iriala. I’m sure we can work something out.” 

Jori grimaced. “Maybe for now.” she allowed. “But it’s still a bad choice – I didn’t do anything wrong! And they will ‘deport’ me when I grow, no matter what I do.”

Bernt sighed. “Then what choice is there? You need a pact sooner or later.”

“No, I don’t.” Jori said firmly. “They cannot kill me. I’m not a mortal. And I have friends. You, and maybe Therion, the nice flute woman and the sneaky man.”

Bernt swallowed as he understood the crux of her plan.

“You want me to summon you back.” He said, trying to keep the unease out of his voice, but failing. “Like that rogue warlock did.”

Jori nodded once.

“Will you?”

It was risky. Extremely illegal, actually. He’d be an illegal summoner. Still not a warlock, technically, if he didn’t form a pact. But he would have to learn their craft – and he had to do it without getting caught, which was going to be a problem considering that he barely had access to a single demonology text. It was still in Ed’s desk – and he couldn’t even read it. Botching a summoning could easily get him killed.

But, this was Jori. And that Radast guy had been an ass. It wasn’t that Bernt couldn’t understand why the solicitors worked the way they did – he just didn’t like them. Jori was right. They were polite, sure, but all the choices they offered essentially treated Jori as a monster.

Of course, that was exactly how they saw her. And it wasn’t as though demons weren’t dangerous.

“What if you become too powerful?” Bernt mused. “All these rules exist for a reason. If you eventually became a greater demon, you could be as dangerous as a dragon. Worse, maybe. And you wouldn’t be able to stay in the city – not after you’ve been deported once. It would be obvious that I was involved. And learning how to summon will take me… well I don’t know. Years, maybe, if I need to learn to read Duergar.”

Jori put her hands on her hips and glared up at him, though he knew that she was actually feeling a little smug. “Then all the bad dragons will stay far away! We are friends. You have to trust me!”

That was… a lot to take on faith.

But, Bernt found that he did. Somehow. He looked down at her for several seconds, trying to picture her as a kingdom-tier threat. 

He couldn’t. But he could still picture her the way she’d been when he found her, covered in filth and protectively clutching half of a rat that she’d caught, looking up at him with terrified eyes.

She wasn’t scared now.

“Alright,” he said. ”But don’t grow too fast – we need time. We need to get you a guarantor first, and you can’t afford to get deported for a long time yet..”

He also needed time to advance himself. He could understand Jori’s desire to choose her own path, but that didn’t mean he was ready to just get left behind. And if he wanted to keep up, he needed to get more serious about his augmentation.

Rolling the rest of the papers up, Jori handed them up to Bernt and nodded, a warm, fierce approval radiating through the bond. “There will be time, I think. There are not so many dead here as in the dungeon.”

Then she was gone, scampering down an access shaft into the sewers.

Bernt sighed. And he’d thought he had problems before.

As he walked home, he flipped through the other papers, reading through the guarantor contract. Ed had made it sound like there was no way that the Solicitors would allow Jori to stay in Halfbridge unless he formed a pact with her, but that clearly wasn’t true. Did he just not know?

Or, maybe that chief solicitor was making an exception of some kind… but why? Bernt figured that the paperwork was going to be the best place to look. He wasn’t sure what he was looking for exactly, but the Solicitors – or at least Radast – had to be getting something out of this.

The language that the contract was written in was extremely dense, which didn’t make it easy. But, when he was already in sight of his tenement, he finally found something.

“Consignee agrees to, within two days of signing this agreement, make public their status as sponsor and guardian of the relevant entity, leaving no doubt as to the Solicitors’ continued association or responsibility for said entity.”

So… they wanted Ed to announce that he was sponsoring a demon. Specifically, they wanted to make sure that everyone knew the Underkeepers – or the Mages’ Guild with Iriala, he supposed – was doing it.

It made sense, he supposed, from their perspective. If Jori went crazy and started murdering people and devouring their souls or something, it would show that allowing non-solicitors to sponsor unbound demons was a bad idea. Maybe the count, or even the king himself, would make sure that only the Solicitors could be trusted to control them.

On the other hand, if everything went well, then making sure that Jori’s presence was public knowledge would show the public that demons could be safely controlled. It would make people more comfortable, and probably make life a little easier for all warlocks in Halfbridge.

So much for Radast’s claims that he didn’t care what common people thought about him. Still, it looked more like a consolation prize. Bernt guessed the warlock was hoping for the first scenario.

Entering his building, Bernt tried to put it out of his mind. He had to find a way to convince Ed to sponsor Jori. Or Iriala, but he doubted that was ever going to happen. Ed… well, he might. Maybe. But, Bernt figured, he’d be more amenable if he asked after doing what his boss had already asked of him. 

Bernt sighed as he entered his room and locked the door behind him. He went to his shelf and picked up a stack of loose papers that he’d stashed on top of his books with the enthusiasm he usually reserved for handling Jori’s… fuel contributions….

Before he did anything else, he needed to study the Underkeepers’ Health and Safety procedures.

–----------

The next day, Bernt found himself working one of the breaches alongside Kustov – a fresh one that had opened underneath a guard station on the north side of the city the night before, breaking into the basement that served as its armory. Apparently they killed several guards and nearly made it into the city, but Iriala had arrived and, with the help of a handful of the survivors, drove them back. Civilian deaths had been prevented only because of the archmage’s prescience. 

As far as Bernt knew, he wasn’t meant to be in the fighting rotation, but Ed had gruffly sent him to the front that morning with no more explanation than “Damned kobolds could use a face full of fire. Stay back and out of trouble, alright?”

He’d looked worried.

Maybe they were just that short-staffed. Not that that was exactly a reassuring prospect

Not that he really minded. This gave him an opportunity to watch another mage fight – and Kustov had some very unorthodox methods. He was a geomancer, but he wasn’t originally from Besermark. Rather than a classically trained mage, the dwarf was a stoneweaver from Silvercrag Hall who’d been sent “on loan” to the Beseri government. Apparently, the count hadn’t appreciated the gesture very much, putting him in the Underkeepers as a calculated insult to the dwarven city-state.

Kustov seemed to take the entire thing with good humor most days, but today he’d shown up ready to go to war. Instead of his customary robe, he wore mail armor with a broad leather belt and a sensible steel helm. Most surprising of all, he was carrying a weapon – a large stone hammer, bound in runed metal bands.

Bernt had never seen it before, but it was clearly Kustov’s focus.

The dwarf was friendly enough, but not very talkative. They barely exchanged more than a greeting before he settled down with a good view of the breach, sitting in comfortable silence and examining the hasty barricade that some of the guards had presumably erected the night before. After a few minutes of silence, he got up, eyed the opening critically, and then slammed his hammer down on the ground with a heavy thump. The runes light up briefly with a gold light.

Inside the tunnel, the ground broke. A portion of the stone floor tilted and sank down on the near side, bringing the far side up at an angle. This created a low wall, perhaps knee high. It would slow down any attackers, Bernt supposed, reinforcing the protection provided by the barricade.

Doing his best to imitate the more experienced mage, Bernt sat on the other side of the dark hole. Jori was nearby, perched in the sewers next to the guard station’s basement. She had no way to reach them, as far as Bernt knew, but he supposed she was just checking to be sure. After a few minutes of hunting for a way in, she scampered off, frustration leaking through the familiar bond. 

The ten guards who were meant to support them stood directly in front of the opening behind the barricade, looking more than a little uncomfortable. Bernt supposed that was fair, considering the blood stains that hadn’t quite been cleaned off the floors where they were standing.

When the first shouts came from the tunnel, followed by signs of movement in the dark of the ragged tunnel, Bernt reacted quickly. He slung a fireball directly into the opening, illuminating the faces of several ranks of kobolds for a moment, just before it hit.

It clipped one of the kobolds in the side before striking another in the second rank. The first reeled back with a strangled shout, while the second went down, half his body burnt to a crisp. While the rest flinched away from the heat, they kept coming and leapt at Kustov’s makeshift barrier. Hot air rolled back into the room as if he’d just opened an oven. To his left, Bernt heard a shout from the guards, and then Kustov was there, leaping right into the tunnel like a madman.

His hammer came down on the ground again, which tore open in front of him with an ear-shattering crack. Kobolds were thrown off their feet and fist-sized rocks fell from the tunnel ceiling above them alongside a larger boulder that nearly blocked the opening a few strides in, crushing at least one of the attackers underneath.

Then, he stopped, peering into the dusty mouth of the tunnel. A rune glowed brightly on his helmet, directly over his forehead.

“Sorcerer!” Kustov bellowed, stepping back and to his left, out of sight of anyone in the tunnel and behind the barricade. He shook his head, as if trying to clear it. “Pretty powerful bastard, too.”

At the same time, Bernt cast a torch spell and sent it into the tunnel to try to get a better idea of what was going on inside. The kobolds were picking themselves up warily, but the survivors were already moving toward them again. Why did they do that? They had to know they couldn’t survive just blindly rushing in like this, even with a sorcerer to back them up.

“Potions!” called one of the guards, and each of them pulled out a tiny purple vial, popped the cork and downed the contents. Kustov set the faintly glowing head of his hammer down on the ground, staring at nothing. He was casting, Bernt knew, and might need a few seconds.

As the first kobolds emerged into the basement and came up against the barricade, the guards repelled them with short spears while Bernt peppered them with fire darts – he didn’t want to heat up the room too much.

Several went down, but more kept coming, crowding into the semi-circular area between the tunnel entrance and the shoddy barricade. Then, Kustov finished casting and the tunnel collapsed.

Dust and bits of rock were hurled out, knocking down kobolds and peppering the barricade. Something slammed into Bernt and knocked him down. Claws scrabbled at him, and Bernt activated his thorn skin amulet, pushing back as hard as he could, feeling scales under his hands as the creature went flying. He sat up, casting a fire shield in front of himself, but found that it wasn’t necessary. A guard was ramming a spear into the kobold, who had apparently jumped over the barricade in panic.

A few seconds later, the dust that had been hanging in the air fell like rain, drawn down to the ground by another of Kustov’s spells and revealing the results of the dwarf’s spell.

The tunnel was just… gone. The kobolds closest to the entrance lay dead or dying, crushed by falling rocks, while the few who remained were desperately trying to get over the barricade. They weren’t going to make it. As Bernt watched, the guards cut them down, including a staff-carrying kobold who tried and failed to cast spells at various guards right up to the moment that a spear took it through the chest.

“Why didn’t you just do that in the first place!?” demanded a guard, gesturing at the rubble with one hand as he pressed down on a wounded leg with the other.

Kustov shrugged with a dour expression. “With an open tunnel, we knew where they would be coming from. Now they’ll probably open a new breach nearby – and we’re probably not going to find it till they start spilling into the city. But there were too many of them.”

“Uh…” Bernt said, “so, that isn’t normal? If they’re coming in numbers here, what about everywhere else?”

In the distance, Bernt heard the faint sound of trumpets sounding an alarm, then another and another.