The cellar air tasted of wet lime and iron shavings, cold enough that Noll Vey’s blue core-light cast long, ice-tinted shadows across the lower foundation ribs.
Prit sat cross-legged on an upturned nail-keg beside the core plinth, the grey audit chalk clamped in his three middle bone fingers. Across the surface of his slate, the imp had laid out seven separate columns of debt accounting, each entry marked with the date of inception, the initial witness weight, the maturation period, and the material manifestation cost.
“Review the rat adder again, Prit,” Noll said, his voice echoing softly through the cellar flues. “Read the initial parameters.”
Prit tapped the top row with the blunt edge of his chalk. “D-01. Inception: Night One. Witness: single adult sewer rat. Claimed entity: Northern pit-adder residing within frayed bell-pull. Base credit harvested: one-quarter point. Maturation window: six hours.” The imp looked up, his hollow sockets steady. “Result: at dawn, a living, three-foot colubrid snake appeared upon the south lime shelf. Settled without backlash. But observe, master: the rat’s intellect was incapable of imagining a dragon. The rat imagined only what a rat fears in a dark cellar. The debt took the precise measure of the vermin’s dread.”
