Imps

From The Fifth City Wiki

"A very junior devil or a particularly malevolent urchin? It hardly matters. His cunning is matched only by his ethical flexibility."[1]

"Far more than loathsome, now. The things he'll do to unguarded animals, if you let him! That agility, like a crawling spider! And you suspect his bite may be poisonous."[2]

Imps are chaotic homunculi who are chiefly employed as servants of Hell,[3][4] performing various errands and tasks that devils deem beneath themselves.[5][4][6] Some serve as the maintenance crew of the Brass Embassy's law-furnace in London,[7] while others can be found among the urchins of the Flit.[8] One imp is known to work for the Foreign Office as an assassin.[9][10]

As their name implies, imps are diminutive humanoid creatures[11] with beady, glimmering eyes.[12] They are nimble, unsettlingly agile, and capable of crawling across walls and ceilings like spiders;[13][14] it is suggested that some individuals also possess venomous bites.[15] Imps can consume souls, though it is not made clear whether they actually eat them.[16][17] Impish temperaments range from wryly civil[18] to gleefully infernal,[19] but most lean toward the latter.[20][21][22] They often bear an ironic, or not-so-ironic, adjective preceding their names: (e.g. Unforeseen Barnabas, Faithless Caleb, or Acquisitive Cain), each denoting their particular quirks.[23]

References[edit | edit source]

  1. ↑ Choose Trickster as your Profession, Fallen London
  2. ↑ Horrid Imp, Fallen London
  3. ↑ The Disembarked Deviless, Fallen London "Whenever she wants something – like a fresh cigarette to stick into her cigarette holder, for instance, or an unbloodied icepick – she simply opens her palm, and the Overburdened Imp at her side is quick to supply the item."
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Check in with Overseer Job, Fallen London "There are no devils in here – it's far too squalid. There are only imps, and, of all the imps, Overseer Job is the most baronial."
  5. ↑ Provide funding for the Disembarked Deviless, Fallen London "She straps the drills to her Overburdened Imp, along with more shovels, pickaxes, hammers, and one very heavy lexicon, before climbing onto the Imp herself and kicking it like a donkey."
  6. ↑ The Bloody Wallpaper, Fallen London "But the devils don't stoke the boilers. That's a filthy, unforgiving job. When the lift's golden doors finally open, you step into a pit swarming with imps."
  7. ↑ Take payment in spare parts, Fallen London "Honourless Titus and a gaggle of other imps take to the fringes of the law-furnace's workings with wrenches and cudgels..."
  8. ↑ Choose Trickster as your Profession, Fallen London "Little Albert is the first child you've met whose lisp is actually menacing. If he is a child. You ask him once how old he is, and he steals your watch-chain and disappears for a week in a fit of indignation. You don't ask again."
  9. ↑ Paisley, Fallen London "Mortimer never mattered. We don't care about little dynamite plots. But his outfit violates territorial sovereignty. Sentient non-living items fall under Polythreme's jurisdiction. For a clothes-colony to gain consciousness inside London represents a potential invasion. Too sensitive for the Masters to directly intervene. Too big for Concord Square. Too messy for even the Face or the Teeth. I'm with the Toe."
  10. ↑ Paisley, Fallen London "You tumble over the floor, wrestling with the assassin in a paisley avalanche. Buttons scatter. Shirt-sleeves whip your face. You see the dagger rise to plunge again."
  11. ↑ A Trade in Souls, Fallen London "The gas-lamp is long since extinguished, and you saw nothing until you came close: but he's not alone. A mewling thing pads back and forth in agitation, pawing at his jacket. More than a monkey, not quite a human child, filthy in nankeen waistcoat and trousers. What is it? And what does it want?"
  12. ↑ The Bloody Wallpaper, Fallen London "Other imps scuttle through the shadows. You brandish the shovel again. They jeer, but none crawl any closer. Not yet. Instead, they watch as you labour and sweat. Hundreds of beady eyes gleam in the dark."
  13. ↑ Become a Crooked-Cross, Fallen London "When the priest takes a hammer to the cross, he does so with the certainty of a saint. Afterwards, your horrid imp scampers close. "Collared and anointed, now: a missionary of the counter-church! Best part ways. Don't need me attracting attention." He scampers up a wall on spindly fingers. There was fear in his eyes."
  14. ↑ A Trade in Souls, Fallen London "[...] It scampers off down the street, bouncing with innocent joy, and vanishes up a drainpipe like a squirrel up an elm-tree."
  15. ↑ Horrid Imp, Fallen London "Far more than loathsome, now. The things he'll do to unguarded animals, if you let him! That agility, like a crawling spider! And you suspect his bite may be poisonous."
  16. ↑ Offer an imp a pair of silent souls, Fallen London "Unforeseen Barnabas, an imp with a face you could never have expected, takes the bottles from you and opens his mouth wide. Then wider. [...] The bottles disappear [...] Unforeseen Barnabas rubs his stomach, and totters off to attend to the furnace."
  17. ↑ A Trade in Souls, Fallen London "The Thing takes the soul from you, cautiously, as if afraid it might be hot: but once it has a firm grasp, it grins widely. So very widely, with so very many very sudden teeth, its head seems in danger of cracking open like a walnut. "Mine," it chants. "Mine, mine, mine!" It slips the bottle into its cheek – you are almost certain it doesn't swallow it – and smiles at you. [...]"
  18. ↑ The Bloody Wallpaper, Fallen London "Oh, hello there. Are you from the hotel? Let me guess: they're complaining about the temperature again. Quite a charmed life they're all leading upstairs, I must say. No tolerance for third-degree burns or anything. But I'll see what I can do."
  19. ↑ The Flow of Commerce, Fallen London "A Feverish Relicker struggles with his cart. Gargoyles misdirect him; an imp gives him inaccurate directions to the centre of town."
  20. ↑ Feed biscuits to her Overburdened Imp, Fallen London "Nevertheless, she relents and gives it a biscuit after its lower lip trembles, its eyes grow large and watery, and it begins shrieking in forbidden tongues."
  21. ↑ Watch her attempt to read the stones, Fallen London ""Something isn't right," she murmurs, pacing back and forth between the stones. "Trying to read these is like trying to read a book after all the pages have been ripped out and then pasted back in a random order. Not that I would know what that feels like," she says, casting a withering gaze at the Overburdened Imp."
  22. ↑ Stop her from reading the stones, Fallen London "An Unburdened Imp knows the answer as well. It sits with you on a bench beside the station, swinging its legs. It's done carrying cigarettes and alligator-skin purses and coffee pots around. Partially because it drank the coffee, ate the cigarettes, and is wearing the purse as a hat."
  23. ↑ Ceteris Paribus/Tables, Fallen London "Unforeseen Barnabas, an imp with a face you could never have expected" "Faithless Caleb, an imp wearing seven crosses around his neck" "Acquisitive Cain, an imp with pockets that clank"
Retrieved from "https://thefifthcity.wiki/w/index.php?title=Imps&oldid=22821"