Mavier had lost count of the amount of time he had spent staring at that disgusting human city. It was all he could really do in this waiting game he had set himself up for. He had known that eventually there would be results from his latest order. Either the half-elf would be found, or one of his followers would spot Dimitre’s body displayed on the battlements ran through with a pike like a pig on a skewer. Fortunately, that had not yet come to pass. Instead, for the first time in what felt like years, they had found success. For the first time, Mavier gazed towards the city with a cunning smile instead of a face full of troubled contemplation.

“And you made sure to confirm Dimitre’s information is correct?” Mavier questioned. It always paid off to do that. With such limited forces that the demons had, it would not do to waste them on a different half-elf.

Behind the demon hero kneeled a similar looking, albeit smaller demon that held the letter Dimitre had smuggled out of the city. “Yes, my lord. Dimitre saw the halfling lead a small raid on the wizard hero Kevin’s mansion. The halfling and his companion threw two strange barrels into the hero’s bedroom. An explosion followed, which Dimitre notes as ‘impressive in force, considering he could not feel any magic emanating from it’. The hero attempted to give chase, with Dimitre making the decision to intervene in an attempt to save a possible asset and foster some goodwill. Dimitre escaped with minor injuries and confirms that the target did see him saving his life from the hero. The halfling was tracked by him to a building in the slums, and later to the city library.”

Mavier absentmindedly nodded, ignoring his brothers-in-arms gathering to hear the tale of Dimitre’s heroics. “Was there any mention of rats in his letter, Santet? I remember those being a key component in the halfling’s escape from that accursed Bastille.”

Santet, still kneeling respectfully behind Mavier, shook her head. “No, there was nothing out of the ordinary that Dimitre noticed about that. But,” she shrugged, “this is a large city. I imagine that rats would be an ordinary occurrence.”

Mavier frowned slightly at her response, but waved his hand in acknowledgment nevertheless. “Then there’s nothing that can be done. Send word to Dimitre to contact the target. See if he is willing to come to a mutual understanding with us over a common enemy. If he’s willing, then that brings us one step closer to crushing those despicable heroes that assassinated our king and murdered our people. If he is not…” Mavier paused, gripping the hilt of the scimitar hanging from his side. “If he is not, well, the elves have never been friends of our people anyways. Dimitre will know what to do.”

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Several days later.

Tim leaned back in the wooden chair he had lugged over to the archives break room, the wood creaking as he tipped it further and further back on its two legs. “In the name of everything that’s still good in this world! Why does phosphorus have to take a fucking week to be ready!” The first day hadn’t been too bad. Tim, still high off the adrenaline from surviving yet another violent encounter with a hero, had spent most of the day rearranging the furniture in the break room to his desires. In fact, the only furniture that hadn’t gotten moved was the rat king’s Frankenstein couch. The creature still lounged around on it, a swirling mass of rats conglomerated into the shape of a larger rat, simply staring at anyone with the balls to get close enough to move the couch. After a few seconds of that, not even Tim dared to move the piece of furniture.

The second day wasn’t too bad either. Tim explored the archives as much as he had the patience to and found a few books that led to many inspiring ideas. One of them, named ‘The Geneva Convention’, was particularly useful to Tim. After finding that one, he grabbed a piece of paper and made a list as fast as he could. Two of the entries were checked off immediately.

The third day led into the fourth, and the fifth. All very dull. And that led to Tim’s current predicament. The wooden chair he had liberated from one of the library offices creaked and groaned, just like Tim’s mind under the effects of sheer boredom.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

A few hours later, and a hesitant knocking at the breakroom door broke Tim out of his own little purgatory of tedium.

“Hey boss, sorry to uh... bother you,” Bert hesitantly said as he opened the door to the sight of a rearranged breakroom.

“Hm? What do ya’ got for me Bert?” Tim questioned as he turned to face a very nervous-looking dwarf.

“Well, you remember that demon who tried to fight the hero when we were running for our lives? Well…” Bert muttered as Tim impatiently motioned for him to get to the point, “he’s waiting on the roof of the library. I don’t even know how he got there! One moment I’m heading here to do the usual reports, and the next moment a paper bird hits me on the side of the head, with instructions to look up and then ask you to meet him on the roof!” Bert shook his head in disbelief. “I tell ya’ boss, that fucker was just standing up there, waving at me!”

Tim simply sat in place for a few minutes, his eyebrows raising higher and higher as he processed the strange turn of events. “You mean there’s one of those grey-skinned lizard fucks on the roof, right now,” Tim said to Bert with a hint of confused tone in his voice.

Bert rapidly nodded his head. “Yeah boss, he really is! He hit me with a paper bird too!”

“Well then. That is a bit… unexpected.” Tim rubbed his chin in thought as he stood up from his chair, turning around and whispering to the trusty advisor in his pocket. “Well, friend Philbert, it isn’t hard to imagine what that thing wants. It’s probably an alliance, the whole ‘enemy of my enemy is my friend’ shtick that the hero Tansmith penned in his book. It… makes sense, but still…” he muttered as Philbert poked his nose out of Tim’s pocket. “His people are the main reason I lost everything.”

Still near the door, Bert took a seat as his boss furiously whispered to himself on the other side of the room, the dwarf’s expression revealing the simple look of resignation. He was certainly getting used to this.

“Tim, you must decide, decide the priority,” The rat’s monotone voice answered, “the demons, or the heroes. From what you have told, told me, you have reason to hate them both. But which one do you want to strike most? To tear at with your teeth? To strike one for burning your home personally, or to cast down the other for not being there when they should have?”

Tim took a few shuddering breaths. “Yes, you make a good point. Then,” he straightened up, once more burying the memory of sweet Maria’s face deep under his other stresses in life. “I already had a plan, but I admit that if that demon hero we saw at the Bastille were to help with it, our odds do improve.”

In his pocket, Philbert’s nose nodded in understanding and the rat curled back up. There was nothing more that needed to be said.

With his mind made up, Tim turned around to Bert, who hastily straightened up.

“Bert, prepare yourself. Gather your gear and follow me to the roof. We have a demon to meet.”