A nice hot bath in the phosphorous pits with a toasty jug of ... something that vaguely resembled alcohol, and a relaxing flip through the latest edition of 'Corrupting the Innocent Weekly'. Soothing brimstone and the soft crackling of toys pilfered from that orphanage burning in the pit below the tub... such a nice evening.
The boys and I had been out playing a game of Shins with the locals when I'd felt it. That buzzy, itchy, kind of annoying pull that hits ya like a bloodcurdling scream in the middle of the night?
I was so surprised that I almost missed clubbing the little girl in the leg with my board (upgraded with a rusty nail!). After a few seconds to gloat, my buddies giving me their best smirks and scowls, I did a little back flip and completed the summoning on my end.
A little cloud of sulfurous smoke, a quick pinch of brimstone to make sure I was presentable and WOOMP! Right into the middle of a summoning circle.
I was beside myself.
Not only had my first 'master' decided to summon me without protective wards, but she was already dead!
I could roam around causing mayhem and never have to worry about a dam.... um.... the dead chick was moving?
Oh heck.... undead.
Great.
Summoned.
'Master" is some undead warlock nobody with enough sense to beat me senseless within seconds of the summoning.
Great.
At least her contract, and I use the term very lightly, is pretty loose.
Heh... ok. For a normal demon, it'd still be pretty tight, but for us imps there's a lot of wiggle room.
I love her. She's great!
As far as Malchim told me about his first master, the first few weeks are really just one string of torture after another. Long days of threats and longer nights of slaving away. I mean, yheah, I get it that we're only low level demons in the greater scheme of things, but we imps have a great turnover and conversion rate.
We're small, 'helpless' and 'easily controlled' enough that just about any idiot with a few pints of blood, the right tools, and a grudge can summon us up. The free labor and lack of civil rights just sweetens the deal for them.
But wow, did I ever luck out with this crazy little ball of spite.
Malchim's first month: cleaning out lavatories with his face.
MY first DAY: slaughtering wildlife, pillaging farms, looting corpses, and - get this - being summoned into a pitched battle against a troop of prissy flower tossing lily-loving tree huggers with some delusional attraction to a blacksmith forge on an island in the middle of a valley just large enough for idiots to fight over.
I mean, seriously? This place shouldn't even exist. There was a little cottage with a garden, a 'gold mine' only about 40 feet deep, a 'lumber mill' with a whopping half dozen trees and NO WOODS, and a little stable for the animals the valley clearly couldn't sustain.
I was in hell.... the good kind. These idiots were so desperate to wipe each other out that BOTH sides were summoning demons! I mean, I SAW Gildrim giving me the thumbs up when he popped in and started throwing fireballs!
Yheah, drinks were going to be good tonight.
And then, out of nowhere, this gluttonous ball of fat in a goofy black and white rug wearing a bear mask plugs my adorable little undead chick in the face with sword... on a chain.
I mean... WHO DOES THAT?
Sure, she kind of just pulled it out and hissed, but that's just rude.
And then some little keg swilling ham-for-hands midget wiggled his fingers and I found myself being forcibly ejected from that world.
Dimension.
Whatever.
I'm an imp, not some stinking mage with a library of self-important, personally irrelevant, notes of the nature of magic.
But, you see, the thing is that being banished with a loose contract kind of leaves you open to a few other possibilities.
Like someone with a better grasp of magic... or a better contract.
...
Or something.