“There is a link on us, you guys!” I exclaimed, rather loudly.

“What are you talking about?” Etragos asked, clearly high on Denubian Choco-Coffee TM.

They had started on the beverage and shifted to strong spirits that would kill an ordinary man. It was not wise, but we were celebrating that which all demons long for. The death of their accursed master, I mean we hadn’t got to kill him ourselves, but he is dead.

“This link right here.” I pointed to my chest, trying to get them to focus there inebriated minds.

The trio did so and each of them gasped in shock. They could see my link and in fact, I could see they had links of their own. How was this possible? We all felt our accursed masters death, the links were severed only a moment ago.

“This makes no sense, he is dead, how can the links be back up?” I asked the three, not really expecting an answer.

“Maybe he is not really dead.” Etragos replied.

“Could be, he went lich on us.” Kalrun suggested.

“Maybe we got so drunk, we forget someone else bound us?” Jelmak suggested, more as a question.

“No, we haven’t even got to the black out drunk state yet. We only just started our bender.” I corrected little Jelmak, he always had the weirdest ideas.

I pondered the situation, trying to discern an answer. When none arrived I decided to do the only sensible thing. I traced the link, narrowing my focus, I tried to project my mind across the chasm between myself and whomever bound us. It took some time but eventually an outline of something came into focus.

From the little I could see, whoever was on the end of this link was not a wizard. An image of red skin, horns and cloven hooves painted an obvious picture. We were not bound by a wizard, this was worse, the link led to a demon.

I scanned the table, noticing Etragos and Kalrun coming to the same conclusion. Jelmak remained oblivious, he was nursing his drink and clutching that journal he stole from our deceased master.

“Is that what I think it is?” Kalrun muttered, shocked.

“That’s a demon, we are bound to a demon!” I collapsed into my hands, trying to will reality away.

“I don’t know what’s worse, being bound to some wizard, or being a slave to a demon lord.” Kalrun added, not helping the situation.

“But how did we get bound?” I demanded, noting Jelmak about answer. “I’m sure we weren’t that drunk.” I stopped him.

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“Perhaps our dearly departed accursed master bit off more then he could chew. It wouldn’t be the first time.” Kalrun explained.

“What do you mean?” I asked, puzzled.

“Think about it, we all know our accursed master was a bit crazy. He probably tried to conjure a demon lord, screwed up and got himself dismembered.” He explained as if it was obvious.

“But how does that explain our binding.” I gestured to our shared predicament.

“The Demon Lord probably tortured our true names out of the Wizard before distributing his parts across Etterdam.” Etragos explained as if that to were obvious.

“That does sound plausible.” Jelmak shook his head sadly. “Poor accursed master, that would likely have not been pleasant.” He added.

“Well what does this mean for us? Is this good, bad or worse?” I put forth the question to the table.

The three thought it over, each focused internally, trying to find the bright side of this predicament. To be honest I didn’t see one, becoming a demon was just one train wreck after the other. Not that dissimilar to my life on earth, I suppose.

“Maybe if our demon lord is not to bad, he could let us on to the planes of men to snatch stuff we can sell.” Jelmak suggested.

“You and your kleptomania, I’m amazed our accursed master never caught you stealing his stuff.” I said with a chuckle, the little imp always had sticky fingers.

“My kleptomania had kept us afloat for many years. How else do you think we can afford all the Denubian choco-coffee TM?”

“He has a point, in fact stealing stuff from the planes of men is how we made most of our money.” Etragos chimed in.

My fellow comrades in slavery had a point, I didn’t want to admit that our summonings offered opportunities to make some coin. If I did I would have to admit to the positives of being bound to that stuffy wizard.

“How powerful do you guys think our new demon lord is?” Kalrun asked.

“Well if our accursed master could bind second order demons, he would have to be on par with a third order, major demon.” Etragos explained. “And if our new lord killed him, that means he must be more powerful.”

“A fourth order, a greater demon?” I suggested, shocked to have even considered that.

The table nodded in agreement, equally shocked at this speculation. Such demons were just below an archdemon, they were the big shots of the Abyss. How would even comprehend dealing with such an unfathomable being, so far above us.

I got chills just thinking about it. What form would this horror of the Abyss take. He would have to be twelve feet tall, covered in muscle, with claws drenched in his victims blood as he picked his teeth with the bones of his enemies.

My imagination wandered to worse horrors, how could we handle a greater demon? It was a question I had no answers for, in fact us four stayed away from big shot demons. We only came here to the Ripe Maiden Suprise to celebrate. We are country demons, the courts just don’t suit us.

“Lets switch topics, this is depressing me.” I took a swig and left the table open for discussion.

“Any gossip in the courts?” Kalrun asked Etragos, the group gossip monger.

“Not much going on in the courts beyond the typical. But I did hear Boggy killed his accursed master. I was actually hoping to see him here, but maybe we missed the bender.”

I smiled at that, good for him. I had heard that his accursed masters were horrible, at least according to Etragos. I had only met the demon once when I arrived, but we never had an occasion to share a drink.

“Another toast, to Boggy and his vengeance!” We all raised our mugs, clinking them together before downing the lot.

“How about another round for Boggy.” I suggested, riding the high.

Jelmak our resident money handler looked down at his coin purse. He frowned before placing the empty thing on the table.

“I think we are now officially poor.” The imp said, as the certainty of our dire financial situation, sank in.