The first group of balor we fought, back when we rescued Corporal Belker and the others, had been a dangerous challenge. Now? Now we had learned more about them and their weaknesses, and we had heavy magical support. Annette's god made it such that the guardsmen's weapons could hurt the enemy. Aerith's barriers tripped them up or pinned them in place. Master Hethok stood ready to burn them to ashes if necessary, although we told him to conserve his strength as much as possible. Suffice to say, these six were no match for us.

I finished killing the fifth—I had jumped on him from behind, smashing him into the ground and biting through his neck—and turned to find that the rest were dealt with. Four were dead on the ground, already starting to dissolve, and the last was captured.

When I say 'captured', I'm being a bit generous. The guardsmen had knocked it down, lopped its legs off at the knees and its arms at the biceps, and Master Hethok had cauterized the wounds so it didn't bleed out. Private Garcia's left greave was shoved into the balor's mouth and tied around its head with a leather strip so that it couldn't use its fangs. The metal was squeaking and groaning with the force of the demon's bite, but it was holding.

I looked from the demon to Corporal Belker.

He shrugged. "We needed to capture one of them, remember? You mind if we strap him on you? He's still a heavy bastard."

I minded. I minded a lot, because this seemed wrong. On the other hand, it was already done so I let them sling the monster over my hips. Private Funter and Private Smith walked beside me on each side, holding the demon in place so it didn't slip off. If it started thrashing too much one of them would smack it in the head with the flat of a god-reinforced sword and it would go obediently limp again. It seemed to like the touch of the divine energy no more than I liked the touch of scorching asphalt on my pads back home.

We made it to the Magisterium Sympathetique without further encounters—well, without serious further encounters. There were a dozen more minor demons that the guardsmen dispatched without effort, an animated hatrack and armoire that ran away as soon as we saw them, and a water elemental that fled when Master Hethok spurted a scrap of fire at it.

The Magisterium was a walled compound containing a trio of massive Gothic buildings filled with deep time, sweeping windows with stained glass like spun candy, and billowing arches with and without bulkwarked oaken doors. Colonnaded porticoes whispered about generations of stately professorial promenades and freshmen furiously arguing philosophical questions that had been old before the first spark in the eyes of their great-great-grandparents. The flooring was grey slate and for the first time since coming to Hellsport the scent of brimstone was muted and the sunlight trickled warmth into my fur.

"Patched ground," Master Hethok murmured as we stepped through the gate. "I hadn't realized. When did it arrive?"

"Six, seven years ago?" Sergeant Carpenter said. "Something like that."

"Did it substitute or insert?"

"Substitute. There used to be a primary school here."

"And a spa," Annette said sadly. "It was a high-end school, only for the children of Citizens. The nannies would drop the kids off in the mornings and then go to the spa until the schoolday ended. It was open to the public, too. Some friends clubbed up to buy me a session for my naming day."

"What happened to the people when this place Patched in?" I asked. "The kids, and the people in the spa?"

Annette shrugged. "They went away to another Realm? They ceased to exist? No one knows for sure."

"I think they merged with the place!" Sergeant Smith said. "See, there's this book series, Adventures of the Wanderer, and it explains how when something Patches in, whatever is on the spot before can get melded into it. There could be people wandering through the walls of this place right n—"

"Shut the fuck up," Corporal Belker snapped. "Melting Talani, Smith. They were fucking kids."

Smith looked abashed and stopped talking.

"Good afternoon," said a man in a black silk robe, stepping out from behind one of the pillars that lined the atrium we were standing in. "I am Professor Baratos. How may the Magisterium help you today?"

"Good afternoon, Professor," Sergeant Carpenter said from where he stood beside me, one hand on my neck. He nodded politely. "I am Sergeant Carpenter of the City Guard, and we're here about the demon invasion."

"And you are welcome," the Professor said. "Messenger imp service is experiencing interruptions right now, but your Commander Selb managed to get a message to us via the heliograph." He gestured upwards to the spire that topped the building. "Hence why we had taken down the wards and opened the gate for you."

Sergeant Carpenter chuckled. "I was wondering about that. I didn't expect a Magisterium to be stupid enough to be undefended in the midddle of a city-wide emergency."

"No indeed. I see that you brought the necessary?" He waved towards the slightly dismembered demon draped over my butt. "That should do nicely. With a live subject from which to calibrate we will be able to start building antipathy fences around the city in order to hem the demons in." He turned and led us to the portico attached to the smallest of the three buildings.

"That will help," Master Hethok said, nodding. "My understanding from what I heard back at the Bastion is that the demons have an annoying habit of being everywhere and nowhere. Usually in small units that slaughter and then move on, and sometimes temporarily gathering into hordes to annhilate a difficult target before breaking up and dispersing again. Tell me, might you be able to locate their leaders? Commander Selb was almost literally tearing his hair out trying to deduce it." He smiled, showing a mouth full of too many molars. "I grant you, he would appear far less unsettling with a few handfuls less, but I gather that humans disprefer being smooth-pated. Silly creatures."

"Yes, well, perhaps we can discuss the Commander's barbering preferences later?" Sergeant Carpenter asked drily. "Professor, can you find the leaders or not?"

"Not I, perhaps," the man said, smiling. "Fortunately, we find ourselves blessed with help from without."

He must have intentionally timed the words for the right moment, because just as he spoke we came around a corner to find a happy sight: Estelle, Eugene, and Marcus standing in the hallway. Deimos stood beside them, still in his shapeless carmine crushed-linen outfit with the bird on his head.

"You're here!" I pounced forward, bulldozing into my friends with excited wigglies of lurrrv.

I had forgotten two things: I was carrying a balor and pouncing would drop him on the flagstones with a pained grunt of I-don't-care. Also, I was a lot bigger than I used to be and wigglies of lurrrv sent my friends tumbling. Still, that was okay because it let me get in a very comforting bit of face-slurping. I decided to start with Marcus because he was handy.

Well, the face-slurping was comforting for me, anyway. They were still pretending not to like it because humans are silly.

"Nice to see you too," Marcus said, laughing even as he struggled to push my snoot aside and wiggle out from under me. I put a paw on his chest to keep him steady because I wasn't done cleaning his ears yet.

"How did you find us?"

"That would be me," Deimos said, puffing himself up proudly. "Brand new theoretical framework proving out. There's an Atolu Prize in it, I'd say!"

Estelle snorted. "Yes, because finding half the dogs in the city was definitely an effective demonstration."

"Hey, it's not my fault! He kept moving around, and your thoughts kept wandering. How am I supposed to—"

"Whatever," Eugene said. "Hey, buddy. Good to see you again." He held out a fist and I bumped it.

"Hey, Athos," Estelle said, climbing to her feet with a smile. "Glad to see you're okay." I hurried over to lurrv on her. She laughed and caught me around the neck, hugging tight and giving scritches. I leaned on her a little bit and she braced, her body at a 45-degree angle to the ground.

"My framework really did prove out!" Deimos said. "It's been fascinating! Social accord is a quantifact of accordant interactions. It turns out that there are more than three usable chords on a Talakao wheel, just as I expected, which means that the harmonic interactions can move through an N-space instead of only a nine-space. And that of course implies that—"

"Thank you for finding us," I said, turning away from Estelle and giving Deimos a slurp. I didn't know him as well as the others so I settled for one lick instead of holding him down so I could do a really thorough job.

"And you would be...?" Sergeant Carpenter asked.

"Accordant Erathos Deimos, at your service!" He bowed floridly, putting one hand up to keep the bird on his head. The creature flipped its wings slightly but seemed largely unbothered.

"He's a student, not an Accordant," Eugene said with a snort. "Doesn't have his papers yet."

"A minor quibble! I'll be testing out of the rest of the curriculum once they see my new theoretical framework. Social accordance as a quantifact! Do you understand how big a deal this is? Can't have a winner of the Atolu be a mere student, right?" He rubbed his hands, smiling gleefully. "I wonder if they'll make me a senior professor right away or start me at associate? I know there's a seat open at—"

Sergeant Carpenter turned away to look at my friends. "And who are you lot?"

"Eugene de Maliyé, citizen of Ozurdati. I ran the caravan that brought Athos here a week ago. These are my operator and one of our security guards, Marcus and Estelle."

Marcus's lips tightened at the introduction but he said nothing. Estelle's face didn't change at all.

"Based on the greeting, I take it you all know Athos," the sergeant said, grinning.

"A little bit, yes," Marcus said, wiping his face on his elbow.

"Why are you guys here?" I asked, ceasing to lean on Estelle so that I could look at her properly.

She straightened up, patting me on the shoulder affectionately. "Not sure you've noticed, but there's a demon invasion of the city. We were worried."

"And that's how I found you!" Deimos said. "I followed the social accord between them and you!"

"Followed it to most of the dogs in the city," Eugene said.

The bird on Deimos's head squawked.

"Yes, yes, it worked better after I added in a thread to the accord of spiritual energy and yes, you're a very clever bird. Now hush!"

"Excuse me," the Professor said. "Could I prevail on someone to delay this reunion long enough to carry our research subject to the labs?"

Everyone looked at the delimbed balor lying quiescent on the floor of the hallway. Whether from ichorloss or something else, it wasn't complaining around its gag or struggling to escape.

"Wow," Eugene said. "What the hell happened there?"

"We were told that the Magisterium needed a live demon," I said. "So we captured one."

"You did a little more than just capture it," Estelle noted.

"You got a problem with that?" Corporal Belker demanded, frowning. "It's a fucking demon."

She looked at him steadily. "No problem." The words were calm but I could smell the acidic bile in her throat and see the pounding of the vein on her throat.

"Hey, hang on," I said. The excitement of seeing them had finally worn off and I could take the time to look my friends over properly and wuffle at them a bit to see what I could smell. All three of them had wet hair and were wearing clothes I didn't recognize. They reeked of soap but there were traces of demon ichor under it. And I could smell traces of the orichalcum but they weren't carrying backpacks and their pockets weren't bulging.

"What have you been doing?" I asked suspiciously.

"Nothing important," Marcus said. "We ran into a couple issues on the way here but we dealt with it."

Eugene snorted. "If by 'we dealt with it' you mean that I had to save your fool ass then yes, we dealt with it."

"Yes," Estelle said. "You fisted those big scary demons very well, Eugene. Good job."

He glared at her but didn't say anything.

"This way, if you please?" the Professor said, gesturing down the hallway.

We got the balor loaded back on me and continued down to a room the size of a basketball court. The center of the room was taken up by a massive table covered in a scale model of the city, individual buildings carved from stone or bone or other materials. Multiple other black-robed professors swarmed around it, with grey-robed students rushing back and forth with pots of ink, furiousy whittling new buildings, and bringing messages to and from from several doors.

"Ah, excellent!" one of the professors said, his dried-apple face lighting up. "Just plop it over here, please."

We dropped the balor next to the table; students promptly descended on it with knives and needles, slicing bits of flesh off and sucking up the leaking ichor before hurrying over to the table. My stomach did a flip as the demon moaned and whimpered.

"Don't worry, boss, it's cool," Murray said, patting me on the head. "Demons don't really feel pain. It's all simulated as a way ah manipulatin' mortals. Most ah youse guys are all soft an' squishy inside. A few little wimpahs, maybe even a scream ah agony, we can get ya ta do any'ting. Dey teach classes." He paused, and then hurried to add. "Imps is different. Totally different taxonomic ordah, despite some surface similarities. Us imps, we do feel pain."

Eugene nudged me. When I looked over he tipped his head in a 'come with me quietly' gesture.

I followed along quietly; everyone else was distracted by the table and the demon's protestations and it seemed impolite to bother them.

Eugene led me into the hall and around the nearest corner before turning to me with a big smile.

"It's great to see you again, bro."

I slurped him happily; he tensed up as I leaned in and then let it happen. When I dropped my chin on his shoulder he braced himself against my weight and patted my neck.

"We've got to get out of here," he said. "We need to get to Simon's shop and get into the next Realm."

"What?" I stepped back so I could see him again. "Why? We still need to save the city."

Eugene shook his head. "No, we need to get you out of here. You're what they're looking for, not the orichalcum."

"Huh? Why?"

He glanced at Murray and then back at me. "I mean, I can't be certain, but I'm pretty sure. It's that Dyadic Unity skill of yours, the one with all the stat boosts and the 'body and spirit are one' thing—"

"Actually, the stat boosts are from Supreme Exemplar, the Epic Skill," I said. "Dyadic Unity is only Legendary. "Dyadic Unity makes my body and spirit one, but Supreme Exemplar is the one that makes me big and smart and gives me all the stat boosts."

"Interesting. So it's a big package deal..." He thought about that for a minute, then shrugged. "Anyway, you are this giant well of Spirit and you regenerate it super fast."

"Even faster now that I have Enhanced Rapid Recovery!" I said proudly. "I can only use it five times a day but it restores all my mana and heals me and restores a whole bunch of Spirit and removes status effects so if I get hit with, um, another of those attacks with the, you know, the things, then I can get rid of it."

"Right. Okay, well, that just makes it worse. Demons are all about gathering Spirit, right? You're this giant well of it and you regenerate it really fast. They can mine you for the stuff forever. Plus, you broke into Gliv's weapons factory and killed all his guards and blew up all his stuff so he needs to capture you to save his rep. They want the orichalcum back, but they're going to want you even more. We need to get you out of this Realm, and we can't afford to wait. Remember, you're on a short clock to get home. We need to plow through those different Realms if we want to get you out. Come on, let's go."

"...Okay. Let me just grab the others." I started to turn around but he caught me by the snoot.

"Leave them," he said. "They'll be a lot safer here."

"But...I made a deal with them. They wanted to come."

"They wanted to come so that they could get Attunement, not so they could help you. There's plenty of demons running around the city for them to farm. This place is a richer hunting ground than anything we're likely to meet, and they've got the City Guard backing them up. They'll be fine."

"But—"

"Damnit, Athos, just trust me on this one, okay? You're terrible with understanding people, so just take my word for it. They don't care about you, they're just in it for the points." He studied me for a moment. "I'm sorry, buddy. I know they seemed nice, and maybe I could have said that a little more gently, but you're tough. You can take it. Now, let's get moving."

"But—we were friends. They got the Spirit I needed to get healed."

"They scammed a whole bunch of homeless people."

"They did set up the shelter, though. And they were going to use their share of the orichalcum to follow through on their promise..."

"Athos," he said, putting his hands on either side of my face so that he could make me look him in the eyes, "why do you always have to be this way? I love you, man, but you're so stubborn. I was your first friend in this world and I've known those two a lot longer than you have. They're street rats. They grew up together and they don't care about anyone else. Not really. Sure, they'll work together if it helps them, but they'd abandon you—"

"Everything okay here?" Marcus said from the corner, a few feet behind me.

Eugene grimaced, then let go of my face and smiled as he stepped into view. "Everything's cool. I was just reminding Athos that we're short on time to get him home and the four of us should get out of the city as soon as possible. Plus, you know, demons."

"Oh, right," I said. "For a second I forgot about those. I need to go kill the hazdahem."

"What?!" Eugene said. "Dude, you can't—"

"Pretty sure I can. I'm big and strong and my teeth are spiritual weapons, remember? Besides, I promised." I pushed my chest out to make the City Guard badge move. "I'm a guardsman now! Well, a deputy. I promised Commander Selb that I would kill the demons and apparently if I don't then it's treason. I'm pretty sure that treason is bad."

Eugene facepalmed. "Look—"

"He's not wrong about the short timer," Marcus said slowly. "And the demons are hunting us for the orichalcum we're carrying. They got the bulk of it but they want the rest."

"Also, we caused this mess," Estelle said. "We brought the orichalcum here. People are dying because of us. We need to fix it."

Eugene rubbed his face and sighed. "Fine. Let's talk to those guards and the eggheads, see what we can get for backup."