I stood at the edge of the field as the sun crawled across the sky, the afternoon slowly inching toward evening as my heart beat painfully in my chest. I understood intellectually that I was not entirely at fault, that I had been under a mental effect of some sort. The fact that even now I did not know how badly I had messed up, made me worried enough that I physically hurt. I knew that part of my reaction to all this was due to the Magic Strain, with less Willpower available to me I got more affected by the shock of what had happened, but that understanding did not improve how I felt.

My memories from when I met the imp until I branched my Willpower were there, but far less clear and harder to bring into focus than even childhood memories. The imp was the obvious suspect in all of this, and the fact that my headache was gone and I could now consider how to best kill the creature without any spikes of pain gave credence to that idea. It brought further worries though, I had bonded the thing, could I kill it? Was it even physically possible to hurt your familiar? I pinched the bridge of my nose as what I hoped sincerely was an ordinary headache replaced the one I had so recently lost.

"Effects."

You are suffering from Magic Strain.

Effect: -2 End, -3 Con, -3 Wis, -6 Will. Mana Regeneration stalled.

Duration: 5 hours, 18 minutes, 29s

As my stomach growled out a protest I acknowledged to myself that I could think and walk at the same time. Some distance in front of me, a few fields away, the road turned left in what should be a mostly eastern direction judging by the sun. Following that road should bring Logate into sight. I started moving through the sludge between fields, the very route the Cleric had taken earlier, what was now some time ago. I could see that his footprints had disappeared back into the mud while I stood at the field's edge considering how to branch my Willpower and then lost in the revelations brought on by Twisting Minds.

It seemed my lack of thirst was not connected to Twisting Minds, as no craving for water emerged even though I was once more hungry and should get back to the city. If what I had inferred so far was correct, I should reach Logate before full dark and the closing of the gates.

As it sunk in that with the coin I had it was possible to not only eat well but also keep a roof over my head for some time, I felt quite cheerful, a frightfully foreign experience.

I thought back to the frustrating imp once more, I really wanted to get into the Mage Guild library to find out more about familiars and the bond. I had always trusted books more than people and recent experiences had reinforced that opinion, while a fair amount of people would no doubt object to being in the same behavioral category as an imp, I personally thought the differences was not pronounced enough to be fussed about.

I did not actually know how Twisting Minds had influenced me, bringing into doubt any deductions about the imp and our bond based on what I had experienced during my escapades. I wondered about the creature's behavior, had it tried to get me killed or had it just been uncaring about what happened to me? That did not match well with what I thought I knew about bonds though, which was admittedly not much. They were mostly mentioned in passing when familiars were spoken of, and to my recollection never with much detail.

I stopped in my tracks on the road with a frown on my face. While everything seemed so obvious, was it possible the imp was actually innocent and someone or something wanted us at odds, the goal being conflict? I shook my head, I felt almost forced to take everything that had happened at face value at this point just to keep my sanity, I could only handle so much second guessing.

The truth was, and I felt sure of this; I had never liked the imp and I had been all but blackmailed into a bond shortly after I had wanted the thing dead. While my reasoning back then still seemed mostly sound to me, I had all along doubted the truthfulness of the imp and further I even distrusted the Order; I always expected there to be a hidden meaning that was not clearly spelled out. With a sigh I started walking once more, setting out toward Logate.

**

I had walked to where the road changed directions and would soon pass into a forested area that broke up the landscape. Even before I set foot among the trees I could already see where they opened up once more on the far side, the distance being no more than fifty meters and the road ran straight ahead.

"I am not going back! You will not send me back!" The screeching voice made me wince and as I turned around to see the imp flying down toward me, I also noticed that some of the workers had stopped what they were doing and were shading their eyes and pointing towards us in the distance. I sighed and shook my head, was this creature ever anything but trouble?

"Do you hear me! I am not going back to the Emptiness!"

That made me tilt my head as I took in the obviously distraught imp, its previous blue color had darkened to a more blackish tint and its eyes were wide and frightened. As far as I knew, imps originated in the Between; a place that was quite literately between planes of existence, a concept that had been proven by the Imperial College, but was very hard to get a grip on. It was a place where the Laws were fluid and ever changing and the place itself was mutable in a way that was never the case on a plane of existence. The Between was not existence per say, according to the Scholars, it was more like potential existence, which made creatures like the imps so confounding; how did they manage to survive in a place like that? But now the imp raised a new question; what was the Emptiness?

The imp had reached me and fell to the ground, grabbing my pants just below the knees and looked up at me with wide pleading eyes.

"Please don't keep Mana from me, don't send me back, I promise I won't consume you!"

I looked down at the creature as fear settled into my stomach, while the imp spoke about consuming me its yellow eyes had changed from one blink to another and turned black. I had seen other creatures with solid black eyes before, it was not unheard of; the winter Fey and some creatures that lived out of the sun had black eyes. But not like the eyes of the imp, the darkness in them seemed to stretch on forever, it was not just dark, it was like the very nature of emptiness and I felt that my being was not enough to hold against it; I would soon be swallowed up and be no more.

I stumbled backward and the imp fell with me, banging its head against my knee as I sat down hard, jolting myself awake from the strange trance as I blinked my eyes furiously trying to get my mind under control. If this imp was not unusual, then I had no idea about what imps were like at all! I had never heard of anything like this, what did it mean by consuming me? Why would it do that? Would it not just die if I did?

I stared down at the imp which was now rubbing its head looking at me with still pleading eyes, seemingly unaware of anything strange having happened. I did not trust the creature to any degree and it was the most probable origin of the Twisting Minds effect, even all this could be a play for something it wanted, though I could not quite see how. It had said I kept Mana from it, so Magic Strain stalling my Mana regeneration also affected the imp. It further implied that without Mana the thing would return to the Emptiness, and not the Between.

"What do you mean, Emptiness? I thought imps lived in the Between?" I hoped a distraught imp might be a better source of information than it usually was.

"I tried to show I was worthy, to prove I could ascend, and what did they do!? A single mistake and they threw me out into the Emptiness! "

The imp spat out its reply, showering me and making me fight off a shudder of disgust. If the imp was acting it was so far beyond me that I might as well just lie down and give up, and so I decided to tentatively trust it for now.

"A single mistake! One! I did not mean to destroy the..."

I winced at the name of whatever it was the imp had destroyed as my eyes ran with tears and I shook my head slowly, while blinking them away as a sense of vertigo hit me. The imp looked at my antics with a grave expression.

"Even here, even now, the world itself objects to what I did. I did not mean to! It was a stupid mistake!" Very obviously it was quite a bit more than a stupid mistake, something I was not about to point out to the now wild eyed imp with snot running down its face and tears in its eyes.

"If I go back they will send me into the Emptiness again! I will never go back there! You can't make me!" As the imp spoke its voice got less nasal and turned closer and closer to a growl as its eyes turned dark once more. I very carefully did not meet the creature's eyes, once was more than enough of that experience.

"Would you not die if I did, is not that how a bond works?" The imp twitched strangely as its black eyes seemed to roam all over the area around us, but without a pupil it was difficult to discern where exactly it was looking.

"I can't die anymore, only return to the Emptiness... But if I do, you will come with me! I will drag all of you there and all you are will be mine, making me stronger! I will fight them!" The imp's words started as a whisper, but toward the end of its rant, it released my pants and raised its clawed hands into the air as it screeched out the final words head thrown backward in a rather dramatic pose. The thing had snapped, if it had ever been sane. With a sigh I admitted that while I did not think the creature intentionally deceived me, there was no reason to believe that anything it had said actually matched up with reality.

The imp's eyes and the hunger they had held made me quite certain that the consuming part of the story held some truth, a thought that made me shiver. That gave further strength to the supposition that the imp had been unbothered by any accidents that might befall me, it was quite probable that it had been hoping for my death. It had not actively tried to kill me though which might be a limitation of the bond we shared, or the imp was possibly holding on to some form of convoluted morals. The mistake the imp went on about seemed to hold some water as well, based on the reaction I had to what the imp said. Beyond that it could either be true or a delusion of a broken mind, or any combination thereof.

Which made me wonder if any imp could be called sane, they did originate in the Between after all, where the world was fluid and ever changing, without any fixed point of reference; was it possible to stay sane in a place like that? Or where the imps so different from creatures originating on a plane of existence that the concept did not even translate?

That made me more suspicious once again, was not the imp simply too normal? Too much like any other creature I had seen or met? It was strange, sure, but not that strange. I looked at the imp, it had sunk down and now sat with its feet out in front of it, shoulders slumped and head lolling to the side, eyes vacant and staring.

I could hope for delusion, but a nagging sense in the back of my head told me that I would not enjoy what would come if the imp died. I almost hoped that was a result of mental manipulation, that was preferable to it just being the stark truth. With a sigh I picked up the unresponsive creature and walked through the short distance of forested area until it opened up to fields once more, and there, far in the distance slightly to the left of where the road ran, was Logate.

It took effort to put a smile on my face, mother had always said one should smile when anything went the way it was supposed to, and rejoice in any small victory. Often I got beaten after that lecture, as mother smiled.

I could not keep the lopsided grin going and a frown took its place, even now I could not shake off the yoke my mother put on me, she still haunted my thoughts. I looked down at the blank faced imp in my arms and chuckled. Maybe we were not so different after all; that did not make us friends though, if I thought I could get away with it, the creature would be dead.

I set off towards Logate with an imp in my arms.