“So, do you think she’s going to pull it off?” Nirlig asked as he took a sip of the pu, earthy-tastihat he’d brought over. Bernt turned from his stoh and held out a pte for him—fish, potatoes and cabbage. The goblin accepted with his crippled, three-fingered hand and dug in.

  The quality of the food avaible had improved some sihe siege had broken, though the prices were still high. Fortunately, Bernt’s financial situation had improved a bit, since he’d had the presenind to participate in looting Duergar corpses after the battle, despite everything that had happened.

  “Josie’s smart,” he said, shrugging as he sat down opposite the goblin on a sto in front of his coffee table—essentially just another regle of magically-shaped stone. “It could work. She told me if the accepts Jori’s employment tract as valid, then she has a pretty good case. Most likely, the Solicitors’ Offi Teres will argue that it isn’t. As arapy, Jori isn’t teically cssified as a person, so she ’t really enter into legal tracts. Oher hand, there’s no w that says she isn’t a persoher.”

  Nirlig scoffed and rolled his eyes as he shoveled food into his mouth. “Insane. Do they evehemselves? Holy! Only humans would argue about who’s a person.”

  “A legal person.” Bernt crified. “It’s not the same thing.”

  To be ho, Bernt thought it was a stupid, hair-splitting argument to have, too. But Josie had been adamant that the distin was important. Govers had to draw a line somewhere, or something.

  “Oh, I know.” Nirlig said darkly. “Vael Dirin was a dungeon until the accords were signed, you know. My dad wasn’t a legal person until he was about my age.”

  Bernt did know that. In fact, most people here iy still called it ‘Goblins’ Delve’. All of the majoblilements that had been folded into the try during the accords had two names. Goblins used their endonyms while most “traditional” Beseris tio call them by whatever he Adventurers’ Guild had given the various dungeons over turies of raiding.

  “Well,” Bernt said, “let’s hope it doesn’t take them turies to make the right decision, this time.”

  “Please.” Nirlig said, crag a sardonic smile. “They sighe Kallrixian Accords because they didn’t have a choice. “Rightness” had nothing to do with it. Jori doesn’t have aire try bag her cim.”

  “Yea, well. We’ll just have to trust Josie.” Bernt said, grimag. He didn’t want to hang all his hopes on her, but it robably for the best if people thought he did. Josie had warned him that the Solicitors would be watg him.

  “Did you hear that Fiora opened up recruitment again?” he asked, ging the subject.

  The versation turo work as they fiheir meal, and Nirlig excused himself soon after, no doubt sensi’s subdued mood.

  When he was finally alone, Bernt cast several more torch spells to banish any shadows in the room. He doubted that Radast—or his shade—could spend all his time monit him, but a bit of paranoia now might save him a lot of trouble ter.

  He pulled a book down off of a stone shelf on the far wall and flipped it opeing it down oable. The “Summuide to Elementals” described various kinds of elementals iail, as well as the various methods that could be used to bind oo service. Most importantly, it also included methods for summoning, though Bernt was losing hope that they would be directly useful.

  That wasn’t to say that he hadn’t learned anything, of course. He’d spent days p over the book, trying to grasp not just the text, but the underlying theories that it referred to.

  Elemental summoning arently retively simple, if ly easy. A simple rune circle could pierce the veil, though it had to be drawn using an appropriate material that resonated with the target phat alone wasn’t enough, though. The inscribed pebble Bernt had in his bag could open a portal to the elemental pne of fire, but it wasn’t stable. It wouldn’t tain the energies oher side properly, and it would colpse a fra of a sed after opening.

  To actually summon something from aal phe portal o be properly stabilized and keyed to allow only a certain kind of entity to move through it. And ohat was dohe summoill o find a way to draw whatever they were hoping to bind to the portal.

  It was all very fasating, but the problem was that the diagram describing a plete summoning ritual looked nothing like what Bernt had seen in the warlocks’ ritual chamber when they’d summoned Jori. It was made up of three trie circles, each with a different fun. Critically, none of these circles affected the stability of the portal. To stabilize a portal, the summoner o pce it at a natural fluence point—where aal pne’s influence bled into the material realm.

  As far as Bernt khese kinds of fluences were uo the elemental phe hells simply didn’t intersect with the mortal world – at least not in the same way. That was almost certainly why the Solicitors couldn’t simply open a portal to the hells for Ed to e back through—there was no appropriate pake one.

  All of this informatioo the same clusion. While demon summoning might be a part of the same school of ritual magic, the process warlocks used was pletely different than the one described here. Aill had no idea where to start.

  Frustrated, Bernt flipped back to the se on fire elementals. Eae came with an illustration, a short description and a sequence of five ruhat could be used to key a stable portal to the pictured entity. The first was something that just looked like a simple dle fme, beled a “Lesser Fme Sprite”, but it quickly got more iing from there. Bernt skimmed through the list, reading the descriptions. There were quite a few different types, and they weren’t purely fire, either. There inning pilr of fme called a Fire Whirl, a snake made of liquid fme, a tree with fmes in pce of leaves, and an odd golem-like humanoid that appeared to be made of molten rock.

  Fire elementals would be a fasating topic to study, if he could. How did they manipute their energies? Would they have some kind of mawork, or were they directly made of mana? Would it work like sorcery, or was it another, pletely different branagic?

  In the end, though, it didn’t matter. The flueh the elemental pne of fire—and the only ohat Bernt knew of—was the Phoenix Reaches, nearly a month’s travel away and uhe trol of a fn try.

  ***

  Ed blinked his eyes against the bright light in front of him as crity returo his mind. The creepy demon that had been keeping him tained was still leaving, but he wasn’t quite sharp enough to start casti.

  The archmage couldn’t quite remember how he’d gotten here, but he knew he was thirsty. Patting at his robes, he fished out his old tin cup and stared at it dumbly for a sed.

  Then, pulling his wits together, he boriously jured water into it, drai, aed the process ain.

  Feeling a bit more sane, he looked around, doing his best to ighe hollow emptiness in his belly. How long had it been since he’d eaten something?

  He was standing on bare basalt, surrounded by a high stone wall in an oval shape. Above it were stands, packed with deme and small. He was standing in some kind of ridiculous arena.

  Shit. Did demons have blood sports? Whatever the hells for?

  “Serve, mortal, and you will be granted sustenance,” a voice said from nearby, and Ed jumped. He whirled to find a man-sized tentacle wriggling behind him where it had apparently burst from the sto some point before he’d regained his sehe damhing had a mouth.

  “Pass,” he replied, scowling furiously, and cpped his hands together sharply, instantly eling a spellform in front of himself as he did. The haure was a mnemonic devid one he didn’t really need—but old habits die hard. The tentacle exploded messily, spattering bck blood and worse all over.

  If there was ohing Ed liked about getting dumped into a literal hellhole, it was that he didn’t have to worry about colteral damage.

  Drawing on both his augmentations, Ed maed an otherwise very simple spellform and ed it up to produce the effect he wanted with speed and efficy honed over decades. For an archmage, he had a retively simple architecture—a favorite for the military. It bined a cssic military force build with a more advanced sonomancer’s architecture. The result was a tightly focused aremely internally patible build that excelled at exactly ohing—breaking things.

  He activated the spell, and saw the air in front of him as it maed with a deafening rattle that stole his breath, even though it ointed away from him.

  The wall in front of him shook and cracked. Then it started to sag. The Demons in that se of the stands fared er. Ed couldn’t see them very well—he didn’t have a good a he heard the screams. He knew what that spell did tur folks. Demons were a lot tougher, but he imagihat they wouldn’t enjoy bleeding from their brains much, either.

  “Servants of Druz’erub,” a colossal voied out over the screams, “a servant of servants, who dared to turn her hand against Varamemnon—king of kings. She ,whose fidelity crumbled uhe first whispers of K’Thanizar, the skulking, forked-tongued deceiver, soiled my treasures with her unworthy hands. Today, her life is forfeit, and yours with it. See the fate that lies before you!”

  Ed stopped, unsure what was happening. Or rather, he could guess what was happening—he just wasn’t sure what to do about it. Varamemnon was using him as some kind of cat’s paw. Like when a kings would toss their prisoners into a den of lions. Except, if he uood this right, he was the lion in this sario.

  Why? Couldn’t the demon king take out his own trash?

  A se of the rock wall on the far side of the arena moved. Light glinted in the darkness beyond for a split sed, then something rge came hurtling out. Ed raised his hands, ready to fight. But his oppo wasn’t ing at him—she had been thrown. The creature hit the ground hard and rolled, the delicate bones of her wings breaking audibly.

  He held back for a moment. Dissension in Varamemnon’s ranks wasn’t really a problem for him. Should he really be killing this one for him? She was smaller than he would have expected from some kind of demon lord. Or dy.

  Whe up, Ed’s blood froze. She was tall and proportioned almost like a human. Unily so, actually, except… uh… exaggerated. If that wasn’t obvious enough, the vestigial wings and deep, te bck eyes gave it away. Druz’erub was a succubus.

  Well, shit.

  Hurriedly, Ed sent a magic missile arg toward her, even as he backed away. He couldn’t afford to let her get close. She had to be, what, css four, maybe five? Never mind physical tact, he o avoid even smelling her or he was dead.

  The demon dodged the first attack, but bounced off of the force shield he’d raised right in front of her a moment ter. Furiously, she tried to first feel around it, then she simply jumped over it, clearing the ten-foot high barrier easily. She was ing at him now, but the dey had givehe sed he o think of a solution.

  The mage hand trip activated, and invisible force cmped down around the creature, holding it in pce. Ed tried to simply crush her, but the damhing was to. She screamed so loud his ears rang, and the crowd up above answered. g his jaw furiously, the archmage followed up with a magic missile so dehat it looked like a solid object – appropriately so. The succubus’ head nearly came off, and what was left wasn’t head-shaped anymore.

  Ed looked away. He already had enough nightmare fuel to give his nightmares nightmares. Absentmindedly, he patted at his robes. Where was his pipe? He needed a smht now.

  “Look on, and see what befalls those who would raise their hand against me.” Varamemnon’s voice rumbled. “See Druz’erub, who was sin by mortal cattle. Weep, you who were servants of one who was sin by cattle, and beg for the magnanimity of Varamemnon.”

  Something hit Ed in the back of the head, aumbled forward, falling to one knee. What was that? Where—?