Twenty year earlier, Goldport, trade city within Celine:

A seamstress walked down the street, heading home from a long day of making dresses. While she was in her thirties, she had no husband, as he had been a sailor and had died when a storm came through last year, presumably sinking his ship as he and the rest of the crew were never seen again. As she entered the trade district, one of the more run-down parts of town, she heard a baby’s cry from an alley. While this part of town wasn’t as poor as the slums, the people here still struggled, so it wasn’t unheard of for them to abandon a child. Still, any temple would accept a child if you gave it to them, so it made no sense to abandon them like this. She entered the alley, keeping an eye out for anyone who might be using that sound to ambush people, and saw a newborn laying on a pile of garbage, what looked like discarded clothing that would probably be recycled into toilet cloth once someone from the slums came to gather it.

She lifted the baby up, and when the cloth fell away from its head she noticed that it had horns coming out of its temples. As the baby was still crying she felt of its head. It felt warmer than she would expect. Did it have a fever? She couldn’t leave a baby here in a trash pile, especially when it was sick, so she took it to a clinic.

The doctor was about to close up for the night, but upon seeing the baby he decided to take one more customer. Upon seeing the horns he asked what race the baby was, but when she told him she didn’t know as she found him abandoned in an alley, the doctor nodded and sent a detection thread into him and used Race Sense. “Well, it’s a boy. Half human, half something else I’ve never detected before.” he said.

“So, is he part ogre? Troll? Ogres have horns, and sometimes so do trolls.”

The doctor shook his head. “I’ve seen Ogres and Trolls before as patients. I’d recognize that feeling.”

“Beastfolk, then? Many of them have horns, and since his are curling forward I’d guess goat or sheep people.”

Again, the doctor shook his head. “No, I’ve treated a lot of beast folk, and many animals when I was in training. I’d recognize that too. I think he’s a devil.”

“Devil?” She asked, looking at him. That kind of made since. From what she’d heard, mostly rumors surrounding the merchant ships that visit the city from the Demon Empire, Devils are on possible result when a demon mates with a humanoid.

“Could be a Demon beast, but I doubt it. From what I’ve heard, demon beasts obsessively go after their demonic Overwhelming Desire. While the behavior of children might be different from the adults, they are still almost impossible to control. And he seems too well behaved for that.”

The demon races are born with an Overwhelming Desire, which guides their actions, but also have a very strong willpower which lets them control when they pursue it, allowing for delayed gratification. When a Demon mates with a humanoid, though, there are three things that can happen. The child can inherit both the desire and the will from the demonic parent, and will be accepted as a Demon even if they have humanoid blood. The child can also inherit the desire, but not the willpower, causing them to become obsessed with fulfilling that desire, with no concern for their well being or that of the people around them. These are called Demon Beasts, due to lacking reason, and are generally executed for the sake of safety if they don’t learn to control themselves before causing serious injury or death. The children can also not inherit the desire, and may or may not inherit the willpower or racial traits of the demonic parent. Those are called devils.

“There are several brothels near where you found him. My best guess is that a human woman that works at one of those accepted a merchant from the Demon Empire as a client, and got pregnant. But after having the child, she decided she didn’t want it and abandoned it.”

“Why wouldn’t she just leave him at the temple, then?”

“She probably didn’t want anyone knowing that she had a devil for a child. Even though we’ve been trading with them for thousands of years, some priests still like to act like demons are evil. In my experience, they aren’t any worse about sinning than the other races, they just don’t bother hiding it.”

She thought for a little while. “So, is he sick?”

The doctor shook his head. “Some Demons just naturally have a slightly higher temperature than humans, as do some children. He’s fine. In fact, now that you’re holding him, I haven’t heard him cry once.”

She nodded. With many members of the church feeling that way about demons and judging devils based on that prejudice, it probably wouldn’t be safe to hand him over to the church. That was probably what his whore mother thought, and she had hoped someone would find him. “I can’t imagine there are many devils in the city.” She said.

“I only know of three. There’s a half cambian that’s indentured to a brothel in the red-light district. There’s a half Vampire, a dhampire, that’s been a business woman in this city since it was founded two hundred years ago. And there’s the boy.” Cambians are the race which Incubi and Succubi are part of, and those are their words for Male and Female.

“He isn’t one of those, is he?”

Once again the doctor shook his head. “Nope, I’ve met both of them, as part of my business as a doctor you understand, and he isn’t either of those races. My best guess is that he’s part Noble Demon.”

Unlike with humans and other races, Nobles were a specific race on the Demon Continent. The had the Overwhelming Desire for power, and that desire leads them to control everything they can while seizing all of the resources they can. The captain of the merchant ship was most likely one, as many of them become merchants in order to acquire things.

The woman nodded. “So, how much do I owe you?”

The doctor shrugged. “I’m not going to charge you. After all, he isn’t your child.” The woman nodded and left, then took the boy home.

Stolen story; please report.

Thankfully, demons require a less strict diet than human children, because he was fine with goats milk. Tomorrow she would see if he could eat mushed vegetables. As she had no family in the city, she took him over to her neighbor’s apartment and showed him to the woman before explaining the situation.

“Let me get this straight, Bee. You found an abandoned devil child and decided to adopt it, even though you are a widow and have to go to work every day?”

Beatrix nodded. “I just couldn’t abandon him.”

The neighbor sighed. She had to quit here job at the shop where Bee worked when her daughter was born, and hadn’t been back yet. But she, at least, had a husband to bring home money. “And I assume that means you want me to watch him during the day.”

“I can watch your daughter some nights in exchange. That way you and your husband can have some alone time.”

The woman sighed. “Fine, but you are buying his food.” Bee nodded and, after the children got used to each other, she grabbed the boy and started to leave. “Wait, before you go, can you tell me his name? I can’t just call him ‘boy’.”

Bee thought about it for a little while and smiled. “Lawrence, after my husband.” With that she held Lawrence close to her as she returned home.

As she was putting Lawrence to bed, he smiled at her and she felt that he liked her, and wanted to form a contract with her. She had to sign a magical contract when she got a job at the shop, mostly agreeing that she wouldn’t disclose their secrets, so she knew what this felt like. Without a text with the terms written out, though, she didn’t know what he was asking for. Still, he was just a baby, and he likes me, so he was probably just trying to formalize the adoption. She accepted.

When she woke up the next morning, Lawrence asleep beside her, she felt stronger somehow. It didn’t seem to be physical, though. After feeding him and eating something herself, she took Lawrence to her friend and went back to work.

When she got started, she discovered what was different. Today she was assigned to mending clothing. When mending garments, you needed to clean the garment first in case something on the fabric was weakening it or might interfere with the stitching. This was done with the basic Cleaning spell that most people learned as a child, and when she started to use it on the dress she had been given casting the spell was much easier than before and didn’t drain her as much. She was able to clean five dresses today instead of her usual three.

When she got off of work, she knew she had to learn about why she was able to do magic so much better. Before going home, she went to Library and found a book on Contract magic. The Library allowed anyone to read the books there, as long as you treated them properly, obeyed the rules of the library, and didn’t need to take them home. Only certain people were allowed to do that, and they had to pay to rent them. The book had a special chapter on Demon contracts. It explained how demons used contracts far more than other races, since they trusted each other less, and that sometimes they would try to work in clauses that were in their favor, so you should always look over a contract with a demon.

It also covered a special situation. Noble demons had the ability to naturally form a contract with other beings, intelligent and not, that made the target their servant. In exchange for loyal service, the servant would get a share of the demon’s abilities and the demon would get a share of the servant’s, though this didn’t work on abilities the demon got from other followers unless they used the ability enough to make it their own. Bee put the book back on the shelf and went home. Due to their high willpower, demons tended to have larger mana capacity that humans, and the skill with which you can use magic is determined by experience and willpower. She had literally just been using the gifts of her master. Well, if that’s how he wanted things to be, so be it. Parents pretty much were the maids and caretakers of their children until they got older, so such an arrangement would be fine for now.

She returned to her friend’s home only to hear the woman gushing about how he had seen her scrubbing the floor, and had managed to copy her by using the Cleaning spell on a small area. Bee just smiled, said that he must be a gifted child, and took him home.

For the next several years he continued to learn at a rapid pace. She had taught him the basics of magic from a children’s spell book when he was three, even though most children learned it when they were four or five. He quickly picked up the concepts and soon learned Telekinesis, a simple spell that Beatrix had never bothered learning. It was only a few weeks before he had the concentration to hold a spell for minutes, no doubt because of his high willpower, and only a month before he could hold it for hours. He then learned to make light come out of his palm and to cast the basic healing spell, adding those to his list of spells that included Telekinesis, Telepathy, Ignite/Extinguish, and Cleaning.

When he was five a man from the mages guild offered to take him as an apprentice. Usually that wouldn’t happen until the child was seven or eight, but, because Lawrence liked the man, she agreed. The man taught Lawrence all of the basic things that children needed to know, like history, religion, science and math, as well as magic and soon Lawrence was able to use several basic spells. It was two months later when Beatrix learned that Lawrence had made a second contract with his teacher, which is why he could learn so quickly. It didn’t matter, though, as Lawrence could make that decision for himself.

He received his first certification when he was seven. Soon after that he started running into a nine year old boy from the slums. The boy was half elf, half imp. While the boy always bullied him, he continued to want to hang out with the boy because he was the only other devil in town. The boy’s name was Trax, and every time that Lawrence would do a job for someone with his magic, Trax would insist that he should help his ‘family’ out by giving Trax some of the money, which Lawrence always agreed to.

By the time Lawrence was sixteen he had become a master at combat magic, an average summoner, an average enchanter, and an intermediate healer. Trax had become a pickpocket, catburgler, mugger, and arsonist. Lawrence still tried to help his friend and, after Trax was indentured to the docks as a cargo hauler, Lawrence got him a training manual for a swordsman. Trax loved the gift. He studied it every day, and when his contract ended he got got Lawrence to pay for his certification test and passed. He joined the Adventurer’s guild and used the money he earned to become a magic swordsman, putting to use the fire magic that he inherited from his Demonic parent.

Lawrence got a job working in the Duke’s court, instructing the Duke on magical matters and teaching the Duke’s son combat magic and his daughter summoning. Trax found his dad on a ship in the harbor and they reconnected.

Two years ago, a fleet from the Demon Empire Navy pulled offshore and demanded that the city surrender. The Duke refused and the ships fired on the city, using magic weapons built on the Demon Continent and spells from their mages. Once the city was softened up, they sent ships into the harbor to land troops. The gate to the rest of the city was locked and barred, and the guards at the docks fought bravely to the death. Lawrence supported them from the wall, hurling spells down on the invaders. He didn’t know why but, despite the fact that most adventurers jumped at the chance to defend the city, partially because it paid so well, Trax hadn’t joined them. Lawrence assumed he must be conflicted. Since he met his father he’d been learning everything he could about his family, culture, and the Empire. He probably didn’t want to have to fight ‘his people’. Lawrence, on the other hand, didn’t care that he was a devil like many of the troops he killed. He had people he had to protect, like his mother, teacher, and the duke’s two children. Something inside him told him that they were important to him, almost like they had a special bond.

After a few minutes, however, the guards inside the gate came under attack. Assuming that the enemy had managed to get someone inside, he went to deal with the situation. He saw Trax cut down a guard, then bring his burning sword down on the wooden beam that held the doors shut. Around him were his adventuring party as well as several members of his old gang, all of which had gotten inspired by Trax to get their certification, most of them joining the adventurer’s guild afterwards.

Seeing Lawrence, the thugs attacked, and Lawrence had no choice but to fight. But soon, as the Demon Army entered the city, Trax called them off and tried to talk to Lawrence. He explained how they didn’t belong among humans, how they could become heroes of the Empire. For some reason Lawrence had never felt a bond form with Trax like he had with the other four, and he was grateful for that fact as he threw a fireball into the middle of the invading army before casting a teleport spell to return to the castle. Now that the enemy was inside the gate, it was only a matter of time before they seized the city. He would find his mother and teacher, and they would escape the city with the Duke’s children and any refugees they could safely take. Surely the capital would be safe.

Modern day:

A wooden carriage bearing the mark of Duke Goldport pulled in front of the offices of the Great Oak Mercenary company. A hooded man carrying a fine wizard’s staff stepped out of the seat and his apprentice, a fifteen year old blonde man, jumped out of the other side. “So, this is the Mercenary company we’ve been sent to recruit?” The apprentice rested his right hand on the hilt of his sword and rubbed the pommel with his thumb in thought. As a noble, the boy had been encouraged to learn to use a sword, but he had only started on the path of a magic swordsman two years ago when he had to flee his home.

“Yes. The son of the count of this city, Viscount Starshine, started it a few months ago to train the locals and has been having them fight monsters and bandits since. Your father has ordered us to recruit as many fighters as we can, and I think this group fits the bill.”

The two stepped inside the office, not even bothering to tie up the horses. The horses were the master’s subjects, after all, and would never disobey him. “Hello.” said the Master, bowing slightly to the muscular woman behind the reception desk, “My name is Sir Lawrence Faststaff, and this is Peter Goldport, son of Duke Marcus Goldport. We wish to speak with Viscount Starshine about hiring your group.”