“I just don’t know what to do.” Torvald pined. “We’re fighting a powerful enemy here, but I’m still just a guy with a sword. I don’t uand why I haven’t gotten a calling!”

  Bernt shrugged nonittally. “I don’t really know anything about the gods, Torvald. ’t you just ask the priests? They talk to them directly, right?”

  They’d been assigo haul supplies down from the surfad the two of them were hauling a heavily den cart through the tuoward a designated guarded ste chamber. Someone, probably the magistrate, had decided that the Uy was a safer pce to stockpile food and various fmmable goods than the warehouses at the docks up on the surface. It made sense – if anything, Bernt was surprised they hadn’t do sooner.

  The timing robably down to the general’s pnned assault on the duergar. They would want the city as well equipped to haself as possible before they sortied. With the army outside their fortifications, they would be left retively vulnerable. That shouldn’t matter, sidering that the enemy should be busy with the army, but only an idiot went to war expeg things to go to pn. Or that’s what Ed had said, anyway. The old war mage would know, Bernt supposed.

  “No! I meahey , but they wouldn’t do it over something so petty. Priests who abuse their access to their god’s ear suffer terrible sequences. Sometimes they get demoted, but in more extreme cases they get exunicated entirely. It’s not worth it.”

  “Alright.” Bernt said, nodding. “Fair enough. But you said you wao bee a padin of Ruzinia, right? I mean, maybe you’re just not qualified yet. She’s the goddess of hopeless situations. How many of those have you been in?”

  Torvald gruhoughtfully. "I guess it’s possible. There aren’t any padins of Ruzinia in Halfbridge, that I know of. The only ones serving right now are in the military, in the garrison at Fort Albh on the border. But there isn’t supposed to be a formu. It’s not a simple ritual that you do to gain access to a god’s favor. You have to develop a retionship and gain their favor as you would from a king. It’s a personal process, not a ritual.”

  Bernt shrugged. “Sure. I mean, just keep trying, I guess. I’m sure there will be plenty of opportuo prove yourself, no matter what happens with the Duergar.”

  Whatever happened, Halfbridge now sat directly on top of a massive warren of tuhat they knew for certain ected to the greater Depths beloce that teemed with monsters, including at least one elder dragon and his horde of kobolds – wherever they had disappeared to. Somewhere down there was the Duergar Empire proper, where their attackers had e from as well as other mysterious peoples. Dark elves, lizardfolk, and if the rumors were to be believed, even stranger creatures who never ventured anywhere he surface.

  ***

  Josie patrolled dowunnel in the Goblin Quarter with Jori on her shoulder, the little imp snapping her fingers as she summoned small sparks of hellfire that were extinguished almost as quickly as they formed.

  The fire fred every two or three seds o Josie’s head, a tiny, smelly dle fme of destru. After perhaps the fifth time, she cleared her throat.

  “Jori, stop that! Yoing to set my hair on fire.”

  The imp lowered her hand with a sigh. “I’m trying to turn the fmes gree cast green fire when he wants, but mine is always red!”

  “Alright, do you have to do it right o my head?” she asked irritably. “e down and walk on your own two feet if you want to py with fire!”

  With a little chirp, Jori plied. Leaping from her shoulders, she spread her wings to glide forward a few steps and nded smoothly on her feet.

  “Are you even sure that you modify your fire like that?” Josie asked as the demon began juring tiny fshes of fire again. “I know Bernt said sorcerers could modify their spells, but is that what you are? Warlocks ’t do it, and we’re using your abilities, right?”

  “Sure – I already did!” Jori excimed proudly and snipped her fingers in demonstration in a small burst of fire. “’t you see how tiny my fire is? I squeeze down on the el right at the top and it makes the fire go smaller! I’m going to be a real demon sorceress. Just wait and see!”

  Josie frowned, trating on the looping formation in her hands. She could sort of “squeeze” down on it, sure, but that just activated the ability. She hummed sideringly. “I ’t do it. Do you think it might be part of the pact? It describes ower I should get from the midnight hag exhaustively. It’s for my prote, but it might also limit what I do with it.”

  “No idea.” Jori said, trying again. This time, the tiny burst of hellfire shot straight up into the tunnel ceiling, cutting through one of the glowing vio send a few softly glowing leaves tumbling down. Jori caught one and jumped up and down iement. “Wow! That was different. See? Who knows what I do!”

  “I guess it makes sense,” Josie mused. “Minor and lesser demons are pretty well uood, you all have the same basic abilities. Ohey reach css 6 or 7, though, they start developing unique power profiles. I mean, that’s why greater demoheir own cssifiaybe that’s all they’re really doing – learning to manipute a sorawork.”

  Jori shook her head. “No. New, different abilities need growth – new els. I don’t know how to do that, exactly. I would have to grow to try, and your master would send me back to the hells. He said he would do it.” She cast another quick burst of hellfire into the air. “Squeezing a el is easy. Anyone learn it with a little time. I’m going to start with that!”

  “So why don’t all demons do it?” Josie asked, voig the obvious question.

  “Maybe they don’t know they should try,” Jori said, sounding a little sad. “Nobody teaches us. We have to learhing by ourselves.”

  Josie saw the little demon grimad smiled at her. “Hey, maybe most demons, but you don't. You have friends!”

  More than any demon she'd ever heard of, in fact. It was really a uuation. Jori looked up at her and nodded seriously.

  “I do. Yes.”

  –-------

  “Damn it, Iri.” Ed grumbled, “Old Pollock? Really? Your timing could have beeer. He was just starting to make himself useful. I had to take him off the interception team and start sending Fiora out. Says he thinks he get proper trol of his fire spells again ‘soon’, but who knows how long he’s going to be id up.”

  Iria kept her eyes fixed on General Arice, who was describing the tactics he inteo use to break through the duergar defeo the assembled stakeholders for the city’s defense. Much of these pns were based directly on Iri’s own sg, so he supposed maybe she actually found it iihought a windbag like Arice shouldn’t be expining this sort of thing in the first pce – he should have just let the tacti that made the damned pn give this talk.

  After a moment, Iri o herself and turo fix him with a ral stare. “He was dabbling iing his own fire spells, Ed. He was going to meet him sooner or ter. Bernt needed some pruidand Magister Pollock is ahusiastid petent teacher, if a bit reckless. If you’d sponsored his guild membership, you might have deyed the iable a bit, but not by much. He did it to himself, you know, and it was his own idea. Without Pollock he would have probably killed himself with that experiment.”

  Ed hummed irritably. “I told him to wait until he was a magister himself before he started pying around with his mawork. A little experience go a long way.”

  Iria sighed and rolled her eyes at him. “Yes Ed, you always listeo the wisdom of your elders when you were young. At least we got that banefire spell from him. You should have seen the fa Arice’s Pyromancer el when I gave it to him. They’ve been stu heat shielding duty this whole time, just trying to keep the demons from cooking their troops down in those kobold tunnels."

  Ed pulled the unlit pipe from his mouth and scowled down at it for a moment. Then he khe dead ash out of it onto the grouo him and reached for the bag of tobacco he always kept in his left sleeve. “Good for them, I guess.” It was embarrassing that they , really. The military should already have effective does and tools for dealing with an enemy like this in the Depths. In fact, he wouldn’t be surprised if they did, and Arice just didn’t know what he was doing.

  That asshole rubbed him the wrong rang around over there, trying to look smart in front of the t instead of doing his job. Everyone could see the damactical map oable. What did they need him talking for?

  “How is that dwarf’s project going?" Iria said, ging the subject. "He showed up in my office with Janus yesterday, asking for one of my engineers – a hydromahey were awfully hush-hush about it.”

  “Ah.” Ed nodded, rexing a little. “Yeah. That’s a tingency I set him on. I’d rather not talk about it too much, if you don’t mind. You never really know who or what’s listening, and we’re sitting a little too close to all the most iing people in this city, as far as those damned dwarves out there are ed.”

  –-------

  “How did you do it?” Bernt asked, opening the window shutters to let the stink out of their living room. Jori had just cast a broad, diffuse cloud of hellfire into their living room. It evaporated almost immediately, leaving the room hot and reeking of sulfur.

  Jori shrugged. “It’s not really that hard. I just think about what I want it to do and then try it out. It’s like learning how to fly!”

  “Thanks, that’s very helpful.” Bernt said sarcastically. Jori had described the way she modified her casting as squeezing or pushing on the els. To Bernt, that sounded like she was essentially restrig mana flow in some areas or cutting them off from the rest of the work, maybe even ging the shape of the mawork slightly. The problem was he had no idea how she was doing that. It didn’t feel like much through the bond.

  He could feel the iure there, sure. He could even sehe mana c through it, something that proper sorcerers couldn’t do as far as he'd read. But squeezing it physically with his muscles didn’t do anything at all as far as he could tell.

  That made se was his spirit, after all. Even if it was physically maed, why would pushing on it physically do anything?

  But then, how was he supposed to manipute it? Bernt growled in frustration. If only he could cast his spells normally through his right hand – maybe figure out a way to sort of disect parts of the structure as he cast mana through in a mostly straight lihen maybe he could at least cast his spells almost normally. Then he could work bits of the new iure into them as needed and take his time.

  He held his hand up to cast aorch spell o the three already hanging in the air in front of him. Unlike his normal version, these spells would stay lit indefinitely – drawing mana from the enviroo sustain them. He supposed if he cast enough of them, they should eventually drain the power from their surroundings and create a sort of ma in the house, choking out the perpetual torch spells. Not an ideal enviro for a mage, either.

  With a thought, he extinguished two of the lights before tinuing, dispersing the mana that it burned bato the enviro while abs the mana that defis structure bato himself. It was slightly more plicated than g a “normal” spell, which was done simply by withdrawing his mana from it, but it didn’t take more than a momeher way.

  He just wanted one el, the shortest path through the iure, skipping as much of its plex structure as possible. trating on his goal, he cast the spell. As he did, he felt an odd proddiion in his arm. Then the els warmed as the spell maed, and fire poured from his palm, rolling into a ball.

  He stared at it. “Did it work?”

  Jori shrugged.

  Frustrated, he cursed himself for not chalking a rune circle down on the ground before he started. Except for the way it maed, his orch spell looked almost exactly like the old oo the naked eye. He had no way to tell if he’d mao ge anything.

  Bernt focused on the air around the spell, trying to sense if it was abs mana from the air around it. It didn’t feel like it. Not like the older spell hangio it.

  “Hey, I think I did it!” he said, sounding surprised, even to himself. He’d done something.

  Jori looked up at the light, squinting skeptically. She reached up and lobbed an uneven glob of liquid fme up into the air, where it hung awkwardly, rotating crazily around its own axis and giving off an unpleasant smell to go with its reddish light. It didn’t form into a ball.

  Jori it proudly. “Mine’s better,” she opined.