Underkeeper

Bernt cursed loudly. Was Torvald alive? He was still glowing – that had to count for something, right?

It wasn’t just the light shed by the thousands of floral vines that grew around the cavern that had dimmed, but also that coming off of the white flames that still flickered from many of the dead. Bernt had lost count of just how many he’d cast, but he could sense their mana – his mana.

To Jori’s eyes, though, the cavern blazed with light. A glowing mist filled the room, spinning in a vortex around the spot where the glowing stone had been. They were on the periphery of it, but he could sense it as she drew in some of the power.

They were souls. Hundreds of them, maybe thousands. Not the fragmentary residues that Jori had been drawing from corpses, but actual, entire souls. And they were being drawn into the Duergar leader who was now standing on the ground, next to the cart. The cart itself was missing a wheel and lay awkwardly on the ground, broken. There was no sign of the stone.

“Nuros!” Jori hissed as if it were a curse, unconsciously digging her claws into Bernt’s shoulder.

With a colossal boom, rubble exploded outward and down from above the Beseri soldiers, cutting a swath through the duergar lines. This was followed by a barrage of fireballs that further compounded the effect. As impressive as it looked, though, Arice’s war mages couldn’t end the battle then and there. While they cut a gap into their formation, most of the Duergar forces were protected by their own mages. Within moments, the tide of gray dwarves had changed direction, engaging the enemy at their rear.

“Go get ‘em!” Dayle roared, punctuating the statement with a spell that sent a head-sized rock flying into the remaining forces in front of them – those too close to turn their backs on the Underkeepers. The stone was deflected off of an enemy force barrier, but bounced at an oblique angle so that it still tore a soldier messily in half before exploding with a loud crack behind their lines, catching several from behind with flying bits of stone.

The Underkeepers advanced on their demoralized foes. Bernt, though, was worried. He tried to keep an eye on the duergar general. He was actually a demon, or a dwarf possessed by a demon, or a duergar prince who’d turned into the worst sort of warlock. It wasn’t clear, but it also didn’t matter right now. That demon was trying to make a feast for itself from the souls of Halfbridge’s dead.

Within a minute, the duergar were pushed back toward the center of the room. Despite this setback, Nuros did nothing to intervene, and neither did the group of guards and warlocks around him. The enormous dark vortex of souls just spun faster and faster, pouring down into the dwarf’s mouth like water into a drain. Most of it was already gone.

He had to try something. Bernt backed up a step and cast a banefire at the general, but he was too far away. The spell disintegrated before it reached him. Considering the problem, he sighted on Nuros once more and visualized the spellform for a fireball. Then he held out his right hand and cast it. The white fireball manifested just as it had so many times during his recent practice sessions, but this time he’d meant for it to come out like this.

The flaming missile shot toward his target, drawing eyes as it arced gracefully over the mass of soldiers. One of Nuros’ guards, a stout duergar woman, saw it and raised her staff, but she was too late. The white fire struck Nuros square in his armored chest.

The fire flared brighter, feeding on the enchantments layered over the breastplate, and the dwarf screamed with rage.

He pulled at his armor, bending it like paper as he tore it off of his body and threw it to the ground.

He roared so loudly that the cavern shook, and then turned toward the oncoming Beseri army. Bernt had hit his target, but he hadn’t managed to burn the demon-possessed general at all. The breastplate was destroyed, but the armor had still done its job.

Shit. Bernt cursed and raised his wand to try banefire again but was interrupted by inhuman, hollow-sounding wails and screams that echoed through the cavern. Black shadows erupted out from the demonic dwarf general in a tide, roiling through his own ranks and into the Beseri army that was pushing back his forces.

High-pitched screams of terror and pain joined those created by the demon’s spell. The noise grew louder, closer, and Bernt realized that the shadows were still moving, sweeping around through the Beseri army’s ranks toward them. Bernt’s mind raced, trying to think of something, anything he could do here, and his eyes fell on a flickering white flame that burned merrily just a few steps away.

Seizing on the idea, Bernt swept his gaze along the battlefield taking in all of the fires he’d made. Some were no larger than the flame of a torch, while others – those that had struck mages – still burned like large, white campfires. They would shrink eventually – there was only so much mana around for them to burn – but it would be enough for this. It had to be. It wasn’t really that complicated. They were all his spells, his fire.

Raising his pyromancer’s wand in his left hand, he cast a control flame cantrip and seized the fire – all of it at once. He tried to shape the flames, but it was too slow, his control wasn’t good enough with this much fire. Desperately, he raised his right hand and cast another spell – the widest heat barrier he could manage, nearly fifteen strides. Then he pushed the fire all in one direction, directly toward it. The flames splashed against it, finally cohering into a curved wall of nearly translucent white fire that completely covered the Underkeepers’ left flank. It wasn’t a proper fire shield, and it took a lot of concentration to hold so much energy in such a haphazard way, but he didn’t have to wait long.

The fiery plasma flared as the perpetual flame fed on the incoming demon lord's spell, the glare so bright that it interrupted the fighting, forcing both the Duergar and the Underkeepers to turn away and shield their eyes.

Jori hissed, jumping off Bernt’s shoulder and scrambled up the wall behind him. She’d come to the same conclusion that Bernt had – someone needed to do something now, or they were going to die.

Bernt didn’t fully understand what Jori planned to do, but the impression he got from her was more than enough to alarm him. She was going to get herself killed! He considered trying to call her back, and opened his mouth to shout after her, but then closed it again. She was right. There wasn’t time for anything else, and they were all going to die anyway at this rate.

***

Jori scrambled across the ceiling among glowing vines, watching as a tide of black shadows burned up in Bernt’s wall of white fire.

That would show him!

But she knew it wouldn’t be enough. A demon lord could cast spells like that all day. Somebody had to do something. Torvald had the right idea, but he was still lying on the ground across the cavern, almost all the way to the tunnel that led up to the crafter’s quarter. Besides, she was somebody, too, and there was a lot to work with here.

Inhaling deeply, Jori drew in the tasty essence that swirled through the cavern. The mist nearest to her took on a silvery sheen as she drew it in, pouring into her with a pure, icy flavor. It was almost like she couldn’t even feel just how thirsty she’d been until she tasted the water of life, but now that the souls were at her lips, she was ravenous.

She drew the power in, slowly at first, but then faster and faster.

The mist spun around, thinning a bit as she drew it in. After just a few seconds, though, her intake stopped. She felt the pressure mount inside her veins, just as she had in the dungeon, though much more clearly. There were no blockages to clear this time. No, the power running through her was just more than was meant to fit. That was fine. She wasn’t totally clueless about what was happening this time, and she had her own ideas about how she wanted to grow, regardless.

Seizing what she could of the souls around her, she pulled them into herself, trying to find that all-important breaking point.

She wasn’t like Bernt or the old fire wizard. She didn’t know what the veins were supposed to look like when it was done. But that didn’t matter. She wasn’t a human, and she wasn’t a mortal, born helpless and without even the most basic instincts. Jori knew what she was – what all of her kind and those of her plane were. Some fed on the souls of the dead, while others drank the blood of other demons, and still others bathed in the burning hellfire that ran through the land in rivers. Souls, blood, and fire.

Feeling something give inside her, Jori concentrated on what she wanted as a horrible burning sensation worming its way through her body. Soon her skin began to feel stretched and her head itched as her horns grew out and curled backward.

Nuros was a shade – an incorporeal thing. Nothing like her. He sat inside that squishy dwarf like a worm in an apple. He was a master of the soul, and he could cast some pretty scary spells, but how carefully would something like that consider its own safety?

Jori had realized something when she’d fought her first two possessed warlocks. The demons that possessed those dwarves had to sacrifice something to get direct control of their summoners like that. They hadn’t brought a body. Instead, they had to share their host’s. A demon from the third hell, like the one she’d fought in the plaza near the Undercity gate, would naturally ensure that its host was well-equipped to fight, with fire and with regeneration to restore it when it was injured. The one from the first hell wasn’t well-suited to fighting at all, though. It could incapacitate people, sure, but it was practically useless in every other regard.

Shades didn’t have real bodies, and from what Jori could tell they didn’t fight physically, either. Sure, the demon was vastly more powerful than she was, and she couldn’t possibly scratch it if it was here in its true form… but it wasn’t. Would it remember to protect its host properly? Could it, even if it wanted to?

She was going to find out.

***

Bernt felt Jori change as his wall of fire continued to absorb the demon lord’s attack. She was in a lot of pain, but the mixed sense of satisfaction, thirst and determination made it clear that this was something she was doing to herself. Jori had scrambled in closer toward the center of the cavern to get better access to what remained of the souls that Nuros was consuming. The Solicitors would come for her when all this was done. If they lived that long.

It was too bright to see with his own eyes, but he caught a glimpse as Jori opened her eyes and looked at what he’d done. The screaming shadows didn’t disappear instantly when they hit his awkwardly shaped wall of white flame. Instead, they boiled in the flames, catching fire and whirling in a tight circle as they burned up. It gave the wall a striking roiling effect, and he feared what might happen if he extinguished the fire before they were fully destroyed.

As it was, though, the flames kept growing, feeding on the powerful spell and baking his skin from ten paces away. Thinking quickly, Bernt worked to raise another heat barrier on the near side of the wall of fire, trusting the Underkeepers around him to keep him safe from the duergar. It took nearly another minute before the white fire finally calmed.

Finally daring to look, Bernt realized that the flames had reached the cavern ceiling and were busily devouring the vines that lit the underground space. At this rate, the flames wouldn’t just overheat the cavern, they’d wipe out their lighting as well. Instead of holding it in place any longer, Bernt drew the flames down and then pushed them outward and away from himself, bathing the massed duergar soldiers in a torrent of white fire.

***

Jori shifted, changing her grip on the vines and rough stone of the cavern ceiling, and nearly fell as her foot slipped. She was heavier, and her limbs and hands had grown, making her prior grips awkward and small. She caught herself and readjusted.

Her reactions felt smoother and more sure than before. It was as if her body just knew what to do. It felt great.

Determined not to waste any time, she ghosted forward, doing her best to stay out of sight from below until she hung directly above general Nuros. He had stopped attacking again, resuming his work of absorbing the souls that still orbited around him in the cavern. The demon lord must have maintained his control over them even while launching his attack. Souls didn’t just stay put in the world without their bodies.

The enemy general’s guards were an assortment of powerful demons, robed warlocks and duergar wearing armor that was very different from the other soldiers’. Some of them were casting spells toward the cavern entrance, where Jori could see new Beseri soldiers pouring in alongside mortals who didn’t wear a uniform – adventurers, most likely. They were moving more cautiously than before, probably intimidated by all the dead uniformed bodies in front of them.

Most of Nuros’ guards, though, were looking toward the Underkeepers. They’d seen Bernt strike their master with fire, and were on alert for further attacks. As she watched, one of them sent a bolt of shadow toward the defenders, but it changed direction partway there and struck one of their own. Just then, Bernt’s wall of white fire collapsed and poured down into the duergar forces like a river of death.

Nobody was looking up.

Folding her wings in tightly, Jori let go of the ceiling and plummeted straight down like a stone. As she fell, she poured hellfire out in front of her, aiming as best she could for the demon lord.

Flinging the viscous fire as hard as she could, she extended her claws and shifted her wings slightly to adjust her fall. The duergar general was spattered with hellfire a split-second before she came down directly behind him, bringing her clawed hands down on his head and shoulders.

A claw on her right hand caught in the fabric of his cloak and tore free with a horrible wrenching sensation, and she felt a horrible popping sensation in her left leg as she landed. Her left hand glanced off his helmet with no effect at all. Jori snarled in pain and stumbled. Whatever had broken in her leg was already healing, but she couldn’t move it right and nearly fell.

A gauntleted hand caught her by one ear and hauled her up painfully. Jori stared up into empty black eyes set into an old, white-bearded face. Her hellfire had marred his helmet, but whatever enchantments were on it had protected him from the worst of the attack. There were deep burns on one shoulder, but it wasn’t enough. The demon was in control, and it simply ignored the pain. Maybe it couldn’t even feel it.

“Clever.” it said in an odd, penetrating voice that seemed to echo in her mind. “But foolish. A little cockroach, nibbling at the crumbs. You should remember your place. Seek out my servant Zijeregh when I have freed you from your bond. I may have a–”

The remaining claws of Jori’s left hand sank into the skin of the possessed dwarf’s unprotected chest, finally giving her what she needed – a taste of the host’s blood. And just like that, she could feel it, coursing through the mortal’s body. More specifically, she could feel the tiny bits of the mortal’s essence that it carried, the very soul residues that she’d first drawn from to fuel her first metamorphosis. They carried with them the pain and discomfort that the dwarf felt, his exhaustion and the pleasure he’d felt unleashing the power of an almost-greater demon on his enemies.

It was a heady sensation, and for the first time, she recognized it for what it was, even as the dwarf’s grip tightened, threatening to crush her in his unnaturally powerful grip.

It was fuel.

Making a fist with her left hand, she ignited it.