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

The quality of the food available had improved some since the siege had broken, thought the prices were still high. Fortunately, Bernt’s financial situation had improved a bit, since he’d had the presence of mind 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 stone seat in front of his coffee table—essentially just another rectangle of magically-shaped stone. “It could work. She told me if the crown accepts Jori’s employment contract as valid, then she has a pretty good case. Most likely, the Solicitors’ Office in Teres will argue that it isn’t. As an extraplanar entity, Jori isn’t technically classified as a person, so she can’t really enter into legal contracts. On the other hand, there’s no law that says she isn’t a person, either.”

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

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

To be honest, Bernt thought it was a stupid, hair-splitting argument to have, too. But Josie had been adamant that the distinction was important. Governments 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 in the city still called it ‘Goblins’ Delve’. All of the major goblin settlements that had been folded into the country during the accords had two names. Goblins used their endonyms while most “traditional” Beseris continued to call them by whatever names the Adventurers’ Guild had given the various dungeons over centuries of raiding.

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

“Please.” Nirlig said, cracking a sardonic smile. “They signed the Kallrixian Accords because they didn’t have a choice. “Rightness” had nothing to do with it. Jori doesn’t have an entire country backing her claim.”

“Yea, well. We’ll just have to trust Josie.” Bernt said, grimacing. He didn’t want to hang all his hopes on her, but the fewer people knew about that, the better. He needed to change the subject. “Did you hear that Fiora opened up recruitment again?”

The conversation turned to work as they finished their meal, and Nirlig excused himself soon after, no doubt sensing Bernt’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 monitoring him, but a bit of paranoia now might save him a lot of trouble later.

He pulled a book down off of a stone shelf on the far wall and flipped it open, setting it down on the table. The “Summoners’ Guide to Elementals” described various kinds of elementals in detail, as well as the various methods that could be used to bind one into 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 poring over the book, trying to grasp not just the text, but the underlying theories that it referred to.

Elemental summoning was apparently relatively simple, if not exactly easy. A simple rune circle could pierce the veil, though it had to be drawn using an appropriate material that resonated with the target plane. That alone wasn’t enough, though. The inscribed pebble Bernt had in his bag could open a portal to the elemental plane of fire, but it wasn’t stable. It wouldn’t contain the energies on the other side properly, and it would collapse a fraction of a second after opening.

To actually summon something from an elemental plane, the portal needed to be properly stabilized and keyed to allow only a certain kind of entity to move through it. And once that was done, the summoner still needed to find a way to draw whatever they were hoping to bind to the portal.

It was all very fascinating, but the problem was that the diagram describing a complete 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 concentric rune circles, each with a different function. Critically, none of these circles affected the stability of the portal. To stabilize a portal, the summoner needed to place it at a natural confluence point—where an elemental plane’s influence bled into the material realm.

As far as Bernt knew, these kinds of confluences were unique to the elemental planes. The 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 come back through—there was no appropriate place to make one.

All of this information led to the same conclusion. While demon summoning might be a part of the same school of ritual magic, the process warlocks used was completely different than the one described here. And he still had no idea where to start.

Frustrated, Bernt flipped back to the section on fire elementals. Each one came with an illustration, a short description and a sequence of five runes that could be used to key a stable portal to the pictured entity. The first was something that just looked like a simple candle flame, labeled a “Lesser Flame Sprite”, but it quickly got more interesting from here. Bernt skimmed through the list, reading the descriptions. There were quite a few different types, and they weren’t purely fire, either. There was a spinning pillar of flame called a Fire Whirl, a snake made of liquid flame, a tree with flames in place of leaves, and an odd golem-like humanoid that appeared to be made of molten rock.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

Fire elementals would be a fascinating topic to study, if he could. How did they manipulate their energies? Would they have some kind of mana network, or were they directly made of mana? Would it work like sorcery, or was it another, completely different branch of magic?

In the end, though, it didn’t matter. The nearest confluence with the elemental plane of fire—and the only one that Bernt knew of—was the Phoenix Reaches, nearly a month’s travel away and under the control of a foreign country.

***

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

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 second.

Then, pulling his wits together, he laboriously conjured water into it, drained it, and repeated the process over again.

Feeling a bit more sane, he looked around, doing his best to ignore the 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 demons large 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 stone at some point before he’d regained his senses. The damned thing had a mouth.

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

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

Drawing on both his augmentations, Ed manifested an otherwise very simple spellform and cleaned it up to produce the effect he wanted with speed and efficiency honed over decades. For an archmage, he had a relatively simple architecture—a favorite for the military. It combined a classic military force build with a more advanced sonomancer’s architecture. The result was a tightly focused and extremely internally compatible build that excelled at exactly one thing—breaking things.

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

The wall in front of him shook and cracked. Then it started to sag. The Demons in that section of the stands fared no better. Ed couldn’t see them very well—he didn’t have a good angle—but he heard the screams. He knew what that spell did to regular folks. Demons were a lot tougher, but he imagined that they wouldn’t enjoy bleeding from their brains much, either.

“Servants of Druz’erub,” a colossal voice boomed out over the screams, “who dared to turn her hand against Varamemnon—king of kings. She allowed herself to be corrupted by the whispers of K’Thanizar, the skulking, forked-tongued deceiver, and sought to take what belongs to her master. 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 ancient kings would toss their prisoners into a den of lions. Except, if he understood this right, he was the lion in this scenario.

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

A section of the rock wall on the far side of the arena moved. Light glinted in the darkness beyond for a split second, then something large came hurtling out. Ed raised his hands, ready to fight. But his opponent wasn’t coming 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 lady.

When she got up, Ed’s blood froze. She was tall and proportioned almost like a human. Uncannily so, actually, except… uh… exaggerated. If that wasn’t obvious enough, the vestigial wings and deep, too-large black eyes gave it away. Druz’erub was a succubus.

Well, shit.

Hurriedly, Ed sent a magic missile arcing across toward her, even as he backed away. He couldn’t afford to let her get close. She had to be, what, class four, maybe five? Never mind physical contact, he needed to 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 later. Furiously, she tried to first feel around it, then she simply jumped over it, clearing the ten-foot high barrier easily. She was coming at him now, but the delay had given Ed the second he needed to think of a solution.

The mage hand cantrip activated, and invisible force clamped down around the creature, holding it in place. Ed tried to simply crush her, but the damned thing was too strong. She screamed so loud his ears rang, and the crowd up above answered. Clenching his jaw furiously, the archmage followed up with a magic missile so dense that 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 smoke right now.

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

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