“I would hire a professional if I were you.” Kustov said with a shrug. “There’s really no way around it. An improperly installed door is a nightmare – the kind of minor nuisahat will ruin your peaind just a little more every day. Don’t worry too much about the cost. You save on the furniture if you practice your stone shaping – tables, shelves, a stove, a broad bench along a wall for a bed. You make all of that stuff yourself, just as long as you pad the seats and the bed properly. Maybe some decorations, shaped right into the stonework oside. It’ll be a good exercise for you. You be a pyromancer all you want, but a mage living underground should at least have passing petency at geomancy.”

  Bernt sat across from the dwarf in the break room, sipping on a cup of hot tea. Within the past day, someone had found the time to move a few tables and chairs of various heights and sizes in, and now several of the new underkeepers sat scattered around the tables, awaiting their assigs. There was a small kit in one er with running water and a stove, though there was nothing to light it with. One of the goblins, a cheerful older woman named Lin who wore a broad belt hung with an untable number of pouches of various sizes, had brought in a bag of some kind of herbal tea. Curious to try it, Kustov had helpfully shaped a rge teapot and aire cupboard's worth of cups directly out of the wall. After that, they'd just o heat the water, a could hahat easily enough.

  Jori, as far as Bernt could sense, was already on the surface to pick up her interns. They were on a regur schedule and would be going to clear out the grates at street level in the Upper District today. Today was actually Bernt’s day off, but he'd e into the new Underkeepers’ Headquarters anyway. He still had a few hours until his appoi at the Mages’ Guild and aire empty stone shell of a home to make livable. Not knowing where to start, he’d decided to swallow his pride and go looking for advice. Kustov, as it turned out, was not only knowledgeable, but also happy to chat about what was clearly one of his personal is.

  He was learning that homeownership, while solving the rent issue, came with a whole host of other problems to solve and things to pay for.

  “Uh. I’m not sure I bsp;do that kind of stoneshaping.” he admitted, feeling more than a little embarrassed at the fact. “Do you think you might be able to help me out?”

  “No, no,” Kustov chuckled cheerfully. “I’d be cheating you out of an important learning opportunity. Learning for its own sake is b, and here you’ve got yourself some excellent motivation to get better in an area of magecraft that you’ve previously ed. It would be rude to take that away. Just start with the easy stuff. A bench for a bed, a shelf, that sort of thing.”

  “Motivation…” Bernt grumbled a little grudgingly. “I suppose. I’m still going to start with the door, though.” It just didn’t feel right to sleep somewhere that he couldn’t close up properly. It made him feel exposed, like he was camping in a stru site.

  “Do you know a carpenters?”

  –--------

  Two hours ter, Bernt walked into the front office of the Mage’s Guild. It was a tall building, a squat tower that sat straddling the er where the Upper, Temple, and Lower Districts met and overlooked the Mage Academy.

  The Guild housed offices for various funaries within the guild structure, overseeing the professional activities of mages all over the region. There were offices fricultural water ma, stru, dungeon security and tai, sg services, warding, are research, and a few more that he couldn’t remember off the top of his head. Anyone who wao sell their services to citizens on the open market or publish any research had to do so as a guild member and in accordah guild standards – uhey were w for the gover or another powerful entity like the Adventurers’ Guild.

  The front desk was manned by a thin, balding man who was busily duplig forms or memos of some kind or ahe inals were written on a flexible cardstock, which was thiough that the mages’ duplication trip left two normal-looking paper copies.

  Bernt walked up to him and waited for a moment, but the man didn’t appear to notice him. He picked up a stack of copies and held it out o him. Two little hands reached up from behind the desk, accepting the stack, a just barely caught a glimpse of a knee-high monkey as it carried them off into a room behind the clerk – probably where they kept their records.

  It was the first time he’d seen ane’s familiar since his academy days. Familiars had fallen out of fashion a geion or two earlier, though Bernt never really uood why. None of the underkeepers had one, so far as he knew.

  Not sure what to do, Bernt stood there awkwardly for a moment and looked around. If he hadn’t lost his apartment down by the docks, he might have used his savings to finally buy a guild lise. Guild mages rarely went into pyromancy, but that didn’t mean there was no work to be found. A pyromancer and a geomancer w together could, for example, single-handedly rep ey’s brickworks, firing and gzing roof tiles, bricks and pottery more quickly and evenly than any natural fire.

  Bernt made a face at the thought of firing cy all day, every day. Sure, it was a lot safer than sewer work and not nearly so smelly, but there was a reason most cities didn’t have a mage-dominated bridustry. Some things were just to to sider.

  “Ahem. I help you?”

  Bernt started and looked back toward the desk. The secretary was giving him a skeptical stare that suggested that whatever reason had brought him in here had better be goht. The status of the Underkeepers might be shifting somewhat iy in general, but that would hardly the Mages’ Guild. Their order’s history alone marked them as the dregs of their profession and it would take more than a few new responsibilities to ge that.

  Now that he really thought about it, it was remarkable that the Underkeepers enjoyed so mual support from Archmage Iria and the guild, even sidering that she and Ed were personal friends. That had to be causing some real tension within the guild itself.

  “Uh, yes. I have an appoi with Archmage Iria…”

  The man’s skepticism visibly deepend at his words.

  “Name?”

  “Underkeeper Bernard” Bernt said calmly, doing his best to pretend that he didn’t notice the man’s attitude.

  “Ah, the warlock.”

  Bernt took a breath to refute the statement, but then just let it out in a soft, resigned sigh. What was the point? Nothing that he said here was going to get this man’s respect. And what exactly did he hat for, anyway?

  “Which way is it?” he asked shortly.

  “Stairs on your left to the third floor, then all the way down the hall to yht.” The secretary said, as he marked something down on a clipboard that he had sitting in front of him and turned back to his paperwork. “You ’t miss it.”

  –-----

  “Enter!” Iria called, putting down her pen as she gnced up at the dwarven water clock she had installed on her wall.

  The underkeeper boy was te.

  The door opened aepped inside, scowling in a distracted mahat reminded her oddly of Ed. The old goat was rubbing off on him.

  “If you go on scowling at people like that, they’re going to think you’re carrying a grudge. You should be mindful of what your face is unig to the world.”

  Bernt blinked with surprise and schooled his features.

  “Better,” Iria nodded. “Now, what do you want?”

  “Uh…” the young mage floundered for a moment, clearly trying to work out the right way to start. “Sorry, Archmage. I’m w on an Illurian naval pyromancer’s mawork architecture, on Ed’s reendation.”

  Iria frowned slightly. She’d never liked that Ed let his subordinates address him so casually. It undermined his status, and that wasn’t really something he could afford in his position.

  But it was his anization, and it wasn’t as though he was going to start listening now.

  The underkeeper noticed her expression and swallowed nervously. She knew which architecture he was talking about – it might be rare in Besermark, but it was also famous. Not a bad choice for underground usage, at least pared to traditional Beseri pyromancy. It was a tricky augmentation to master when it was plete, and powerful enough to justify its use despite its high failure rate – at least to the Illurians. This could be more iing than she’d expected.

  “So, I’m currently trying to source the material for my sed iure – a perpetual fme. I was hoping you might be able to help me, sihose arely avaible on the open market.”

  Iria nodded. “We do have one in tai. You could, perhaps, propagate another one from it for your iure.”

  Bernt’s expression rexed and he opened his mouth to talk, but she cut him off.

  “Of course, I’d say that the guild has already done you quite a signifit favor with regard to your demon familiar.” She said, staring at him over the top of her gsses. “And you’re not even a member. I don’t know that it’s appropriate for me to i in you in this manner. Have you spoken with Archmage Thurdred about this?”

  She emphasized Ed’s title a little. She couldn’t help it. Hierarchies mattered, gods damn it.

  Bernt swallowed. “No. Should I have?”

  Iria shrugged. “He’s your direct superior – nobody has a stronger i in seeing you grow. Granted, he doesn’t have what you need.”

  This ointless, why was she dragging this out? She had another meeting in ten minutes and way too much paperwork to deal with. The boy could learn to think strategically on his own time.

  “If you’re part of the guild, then an iment in you is an iment in ourselves. You use the fme if you bee a member. You should have dohat as soon as you could afford it in the first pce. You’re an academy-trained professional, not a hedge mage or a fner – there’s nothing to disqualify you, as much as people might s your choice of vocation. Besides, you’re never going to get anywhere without access to a proper library.”

  He wouldn’t be the first young mage to chafe at the restris the guild pced on them. It wasn’t terribly unusual for someoo try to find a way to get around it. But those who did had to find some other way to access the resources they needed. Even most of those who turo adventuring would buy a guild membership eventually, if only to access the library. Independence was only practical for so long.

  She expected Bernt would try tue with her, but he only nodded, watg her expetly.

  “Good. In addition, I want you to keep an eye on that solicitirl that Radast sent to the Underkeepers. Just… let me know if she does anything unusual or iing, or if you learn anything of note about the solicitors’ activities.”

  “You don’t trust them?” he said, eyebrows rising slightly in faint surprise. “I thought we were all w together now…”

  Iria smiled humorlessly at him. “I trust them just fine, young man. The Solicitors are always good to the letter of their tracts and I expect that they are reliable allies. But this is a political retionship. We ’t expect them to take our is into at any more than they absolutely have to. I’m not going to waste all my time looking into their affairs, but it would be foolish not to at least keep some eyes and ears open.”

  Bernt swallowed, apparently a little unfortable with the idea of spying on his new co-worker. But, after a few moments, he nodded again.

  “Okay. I’ll need a bit of time to e up with the funds for the membership…”

  Iria waved dismissively. “Take all the time you need. You know where to find us.”

  If she could get Bernt to join the guild, it could simplify a few problems for her. It would give her more direfluence over him, for ohe young underkeeper and his imp could be quite useful if they were properly directed.

  While Iria was juggling a variety of other s and is, she o help both the Underkeepers and the Solicitors build more popur support for themselves in the near or medium term. It was a necessary step iimizing them as real political pyers and building a power base for them, which they would in turo support Iria’s er goals – chiefly, developing a broader base of support for the Mages’ Guild, which was overly reliant on the good will of the . That was mostly due to an obsolete, calcified bance of power between various guilds, the nobility and the most powerful temples, but the irritati was that building up new political pyers was simpler and quicker than attempting to refigure old alliances.

  Their close retionship to the political elite had historically made the Mages’ Guild one of the most powerful institutions in the realm, but it also robbed them of the ability to pursue their own political is where they flicted with those of the .

  That was going to ge.

  –------

  Bernt breathed a sigh of relief as he left the Archmage’s office.

  That could have gone worse. He’d already known that he would o bee a guild member eventually, which made it a retively small price to pay, ign for a moment the very signifit amount of gold he would be spending on it. Her other demand didn’t sit as well with him.

  It wasn’t as though he trusted the warlocks. No, it was more that he felt unfortable with the idea of spying on Josie. It just didn’t feel right. But, oher hand, it wasn’t as though they were going to do anything to her personally. The guild was just watg its own back, and probably that of the Underkeepers as well.

  This wasn’t going to get him his iure immediately, but it was achievable and he wouldn’t have to anger any uilds or delve into any dungeons. All things sidered, things were looking up.