The Story of Seryth

Chapter 4: The tram arrived. Letting out a shout, Seryth jumped on it, thinking it would get him away from the imp. The imp only jumped aboard after him, still grinning as if baring feline fangs. "Hey, bud, I like you. You got spunk." It clung onto Seyth's robes and hung on as Seryth flailed around, trying to get it off. "Leave me alone!" "Nah. I can help you. You've got that kind of fire, y'see." The imp climbed up Seryth's robes and poked him in the chest. "You know the magic, right?" "I haven't the faintest idea what you're talking about--" Seryth had of course learned a few cantrips from the local hedge-wizard, mostly to do with making little flames in his hands or blinking around. He had a feeling the imp meant something else, though. "I mean you gots the FIRE," said the imp, digging a claw into Seryth's chest, hard enough to make him yelp. "I can sense it, right here. Don't believe me? Don't you ever remember a time that you just got a little..angry? And things seemed to happen, terrible, wonderful things, that fulfilled your wishes at the time?" "No," said Seryth sharply, trying not to think of his attacks on the gnolls. The tram had finally come to a stop on the Ironforge side of Deeprun, and Seryth hurriedly leapt down to the platform. The imp hopped off of him, taking a stance just a few feet away. "You should get, before some dwarf sees you and kills you," Seryth hissed. As if to punctuate the point, a gnome who had been standing nearby besides bunches of squeaking boxes, hailed Seryth and beckoned him over. Seryth side-stepped, the swish of his robes hiding the imp from sight. "Let me prove it to you," said the imp. "You help the gnome, and I'll help you." "Shut up," hissed Seryth, rubbing the clawmark in his chest. It was starting to bleed, sting, really, like a very hot fire. "I'll watch then," said the imp slyly, turning back into a cat.

The imp — or rather, the cat — said nothing as Seryth helped the gnome catch some rats. When the gnome threw the rats into a box and said something shipping them to his brother for dinner, Seryth conveniently remembered he had somewhere to be in Loch Modan, and left the Deeprun Tram.

The cat continued to follow him like a silent shadow as he walked through Ironforge. The tunnels seemed considerably smaller now than they had when he was a kid.

The gryphon master was uninterested in lending him a gryphon, and so Seryth hired out a dwarven riding ram instead. The beast snorted as he stepped it down onto the snowy cobbles of Dun Morogh. He looked back and saw the cat still standing behind him, watching.

Seryth sighed. “Oh, fine! Come along if you want, but don’t cause any trouble for me.”

The cat bared its fangs, and leaped onto the ram’s hind end, changing into an imp in midair. The ram bawled and bucked and bolted, and for a while, it was all Seryth could do to hang on.

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