Malek D. Nico's page

Mission. Accomplished.

You know how they say that judo consists of a push and a pull and long wait? This job consisted of a whisper here, a couple of words about an obscure way to defeat demonic possession there, and the wayward child goes running home to Uncle Boris. Damn, I'm good.

This is going to be a long story so I’ll drop the accent.

First off, my name isn’t Salacious. Creatures like me have names that are intentionally unpronounceable by most races, and for good reason; you can get in lots of trouble if every Tom, Dick and Harry starts throwing your true name about. I’d rather just not get into that kind of mess.

So anyway, Sam’s family knows this; they have considerable experience dealing creatures like me, and hide their names as well. Sam’s name isn’t really “Sam”, just as his uncle Boris isn’t really named “Boris.” Don’t ask me to tell you what they really are, I’m not privy to that kind of information. And if I ever do find out, there are plenty of entities farther up the chain that will pay handsomely for it. Nevermind about that, it’s completely beside the point.

I’m an Imp, a minor devil. I’ve been out on contract to Sam’s family for a REALLY long time. Nothing wrong with that; I do the same sort of stuff here that I did in the Hells but the climate is decidedly more congenial and I have far fewer superiors making sure I stay busy. There are a few of us working this particular contract, which is currently held by Sam’s uncle “Boris.” I do the little things; run messages, spying on rivals and friends, giving advice, that sort of stuff. I met Sam when he first came to stay with Boris in Cheliax to learn how to be a proper Sorcerer. It was clear to Boris from the start that Sam was going to be a problem (his family actually prefers things that way; they have a convoluted method of dealing with relatives, even by my standards), so I got assigned to be the kid’s friend and confidant. It just happened that I actually like the kid; he and I had some interesting little adventures together (along with his sidekick and paramour, Felu), and he didn’t rat me out to the higher-ups and get me flogged all the time, like some of my other assignments have. Maybe a little soft, but that was my job to fix in a subtle and round-about way. Since that mostly involves talking, and that’s what I’m best at, it was going pretty well until SOMEBODY higher up the chain overplayed their hand and Sam and Felu flew the coop.

Ok, so maybe that was the plan all along (I told you they were convoluted in dealing with relatives? You really have NO idea) and “Boris” kept tabs on the kid because he’s a pretty talented guy. So anyway, he decided recently that the kid was getting in over his head and sent me to keep a closer eye on him. I caught up with him in Magnimar, and since I have some discretion about how I go about my job, I decided that Sam needed a new familiar. Yeah yeah, Sorcerer’s don’t really do the familiar thing but Sam has this tattoo stuff happening in his head, along with all that human teenage rebellion malarkey, so he had this snake. Never did much with it, and it must have been pretty boring being a tattoo all the damn time, so I sent the poor thing off to a better life. Or at least another life on some other plane of existence so that when he calls up another one, who should appear but yours truly? Then all I have to do is hang out and watch and wait.

Well, the kid and his reprobate friends all go and jump in this carriage, and the driver yanks them all completely out of time! Let me tell you, I had to do some fast talking and string pulling and favor calling to track him down, let alone get back to him. But fortunately for me, demon carriage drivers aren’t the only ones who can jump around in time if they really need to. So after getting out of the carriage, the kid and his hoodlum friends go out walking in the woods, up hills, dodging monsters and demons while they looked for a portal they were supposed to close. This must be some weird kind of portal, there are demons and devils and all sorts of unusual critters crawling around. I did manage to help them out a bit by bargaining with a bearded devil to fight some demons. That was fun. Anyway, they finally find this cave (I know it’s the right one cause I can FEEL the whatever it is thrumming away inside there), and they go inside. First they run into a shapeless little demon-blob (really just a little self-repeating chaos nexus, but who’s keeping score?) and Sam somehow tells it to go away and it slinks off. Weird, I had no idea he could do that. Farther in, they come to a big lit chamber with a bunch of weird stuff inside. The group splits up and goes after what they’re best at; Sam and Felu and Kelyn and Nina take on a couple of undead flaming skulls (hey, excuse me for not knowing all the damned names off the top of my head; I have better things to do with my time), and start eating fireballs for their trouble. Not too worried about Sam, he has the bloodline after all. I caught the edges of them too, but I’m immune. Growing up in Hell does have SOME advantages. Felu was a different story, but Sam did his best to protect her with a spell, and she is a nimble little minx let me tell you. Some of the gymnastics that she and Sam get up to at home, well… Nevermind.

Anyway, they eventually blow the skulls away, and the muscleheads took on an owlbear, and all the while there’s about a bajillion of these little demon-blobs lurking around out of sight. Most of those wind up eating each other and exploding, which is pretty damn funny if you ask me. So the group winds up stepping into this obviously supernatural wall of fog, and I can tell right away that the other side of the fog is “elsewhere.” First one through (Kelyn) comes right back out saying, “two more of those hulks in there.” The big one (the one they call “Huge.” So very original, these humans. I suppose it could be worse, most humans would have named him “Tiny” or something) grins like an idiot and trots through, and the rest follow as they can. I took a second to activate a fire-trap in the cave, and bask in the comforting warmth of a little hell-fire. Maybe it would wash off some of the lingering chaos-stench from this place.

So, I go through the wall of “fog” with little lightning bolts tingling off my skin. No one noticed, they were too busy fighting the war-hulks. Interesting sensation on the other side of the fog; I could tell that I was totally cut off from Higher. Looks like no divination or communing for me in the near future…

Oh, goody! I thimply cannot wait to thee how thith turnth out!