Mar'kogoth was an imp with a class of , and he greatly enjoyed his job.

Most demons considered imps to be stupid, weak creatures with no skills and no talents. Their species was widely made out to be the weak link of Hellspawn, a sort of last pick on the food chain in terms of power. It was for that reason at the vast majority of imps were commissioned to be servants, assistants to the superior races.

Mar'kogoth didn't believe that imps were any worse or better than demons or even devils. He was small and relatively weak, yes, but he had trained himself over a long period of time to be exceptionally good with a crossbow.

Erin Candor was one of his first contractees. Initially, both he and the diabolist who had summoned him was confused that the wife of the Royal Champion of Keldren wanted to hire an assassin, but quickly realized that the cunning woman had her sights set on being royalty herself. She wasn't satisfied with her position, and so Mar'kogoth's services were required.

Over the past fifteen years, the imp had executed over forty different nobles in a variety of ways. He'd gotten both levels and wealth from the long-term investment, and he hadn't been back to Hell in about nineteen months. To be honest, he didn't miss it all that much. The darkness and perpetual backstabbing of his home was tiring, and besides, where else but Keldren would the imp get to rest on such an opulent bed?

His diabolist, a male orc warlock named Mauhul, had a tendency to forget that Mar'kogoth was still hanging around. Thankfully, Mar'kogoth had received a recharge on his natural Abyss-type mana quite recently and didn't need to meet up with the orc. It was an unpleasant process, and to add insult to injury, Mauhul smelled pretty terrible even by demonic standards.

This was yet another contract from Mar'kogoth's best customer. At the moment, the imp was crouched on a minuscule ledge near the ceiling of the ballroom in the castle of Keldren, patiently waiting. He had a bit of a crick in his neck at this point, but that might have just been his hunchback and his wings brushing against the ridged ceiling.

Pulling a hefty crossbow in front of him, he carefully hooked it onto the side of his ledge and leaned back, sighing loudly. He wasn't worried about anyone hearing him - he had several passive Perks that canceled out sound and camouflaged his shape into the ceiling. Those had been an incredibly helpful addition from... what, level fifty? Sixty, maybe? He couldn't remember anymore.

There wasn't an imp in Hell that didn't envy him, he thought happily. How many imps could say that they were over level a hundred? That they had a small fortune in gold? None of them. He was alone in his career, and he liked it that way. If he ever decided to go back to Hell, he could flaunt his rank to everyone he met. Maybe he'd even get promoted to a Sin.

The Sin of Murder. He liked the sound of that.

Frowning down at his target below, Mar'kogoth wondered when this guy was going take his armor off. Sure, it'd been an amusing prank, coming to a ball covered in armor and a bunch of fake blood, but all pranks had to come to an end at some point. Balls weren't exactly ground for an extended prank. Mar'kogoth knew this from long experience.

With a weary sigh, the imp started thinking about the long-term effects of staying out of Hell for too long. Was his aim going to get worse? Would he perhaps age a bit faster? As far as he knew, no demon had lasted longer than a year outside of Hell intentionally.

A sudden movement startled him. A small crowd of people were beginning to gather around his target, the Royal Champion saying something to him with a grin. The target waved a hand away in a negative gesture, and the Lepori hanging around his legs asked something to him with an excited expression. Mar'kogoth was curious. What were they talking about?

The crowd began to cheer something that the imp couldn't make out, and someone fetched a table. Setting it down and righting two chairs next to it, they eagerly watched and waited. The target looked mildly irritated from where Mar'kogoth stood, but as Galbaer and the target sat down, he realized what was going on. They were going to perform that strange human custom where they tried to pull the other's arm to a specific side; arm wrestling.

Erin said something haughtily, and his long honed instincts told Mar'kogoth that he should get his weapon ready. The Royal Champion seemed to agree with her, and even the Lepori nodded rapidly, her floppy ears dangling all over the place.

The target shook his head adamantly and placed his arm on the table. The Royal Champion followed suit, and they gripped fists. Shoving his way through the crowd, a man raised his arm and brought it down in an abrupt motion.

In a single move, the target jerked his entire body to his left, and the Royal Champion practically did a cartwheel from the force, crashing into the table and shattering it entirely. The assembled nobles and rich men seemed thrown, and perhaps even a little worried, but quickly cheered for the target. He didn't seem to appreciate the response.

Mar'kogoth raised his crossbow, aiming down the two jagged teeth serving as sights at the stock and tip of the weapon. Leveling it at the target's head, he took a breath.

This was no ordinary crossbow. It was a miniature Zlovic dual-arch handbow built for punching through armor, and it'd served the imp excellently throughout his missions. In this particular case, Erin had offered an unusually high reward, and Mar'kogoth intended to capitalize on the bounty. Putting a finger on the pale arrow, he whispered, ". . . ." The muttered Skills would ensure that the arrow would be invisible in its flight, and would even disappear the instant after it struck.

He pulled the trigger, aiming for the chink just behind the target's strange helmet. Armor was always the weakest at the neck, Mar'kogoth reasoned. The crossbow bucked, and the arrow shot away.

Hissing through the air in perfect silence, the arrow struck the target's neck and bounced away, spinning. A fraction of a second later, it vanished.

The target looked up in Mar'kogoth's direction.

A novice would have jerked away, and the motion would have instantly alerted anyone even remotely looking in that direction. Mar'kogoth was no novice. He stayed perfectly still, taking shallow breaths. Not even his eyes moved.

A moment later, the Lepori tapped the target's leg with a confused frown, and he looked down at her. Mar'kogoth immediately slunk back onto his ledge, taking a deep breath.

There were beads of sweat running down his forehead, and he tapped one with his finger, chuckling stressfully in his mind. The moment the target had looked at him, he'd felt an instant sense of impending doom. As though the world were watching him, wishing death upon his pitiful existence and judging him for his assassinations.

Shaking his head, the imp turned around and pushed at the backside of the ledge. It led out onto the roof, and he straightened the moment he was outside, popping his back with a sigh of satisfaction.

A sound alerted him, the faintest noise of metal striking metal, and he spun around, his knife leaping from his waist to his hand.

The target was on the roof with him.

The second-to-last thing to go through Mar'kogoth's head was how did he get on the roof so fast!?

The last thing to go through Mar'kogoth's head was an armor-coated fist.