The orphanage in Triel was overflowing – so many parents died following the Father Abbot’s experimentation, leaving their young ones behind. Only a few children lived there before the plague started, one of whom was Eric. He was never told who his real parents were and all his questions about this topic were left unanswered. He even questioned the special treatment he was receiving – he always had better food and clothing than the other children and while they were constantly beaten and abused, no one lay a finger on him. And the one thing that really picked his curiosity was the young gentleman who always came to visit him once every year. The man, richly dressed and always carrying a magnificent sword at his waist, kept asking him how he felt, how he was treated. He even slapped one of the nurses of the orphanage on her face with the back of his hand for yelling at Eric several months earlier. Eric hoped this man, who never answered any questions himself, was his father. In his dreams he imagined the man was a king and that he was a prince and one day he would be rescued from this dreary orphanage and taken to he palace to live as royalty.

The man was in fact the king. King Nyrond the 27th to be exact and Eric was his bastard child. The result of a drunken night out, merely two weeks after his wedding, when he was but a brash prince and every poor village girl swooned before him. To avoid any difficulties, both political and at home with his queen he had to put the child away. Not so far as to completely abandon him, yet not close enough to be found out. But someone did find out, for the secrets of man are as an open book to the demon underworld. And this is how the Father Abbot learned about the king’s bastard child and a plan hatched in his evil mind.

Eric’s wish to be rescued never came to pass. They came in at night several weeks after the plague began – a heavyset man in dark robes and an elf. Without a word they gagged him, bound his hands and feet and carried him off. He awoke, tied to an altar with an old scary man hovering above him, chanting evil words. Eric was terrified but not nearly as much as in the next minute – for that was when the demon arrived.

Weak by demon-standards, the imp found the boy’s psyche easy to control and subdue. It wasn’t even a battle, the demon thought as he settled into the shell of Eric’s body. In a second the boy’s will was gone. In another the Imp learned everything about the young prince. And in the third it realized it was bound to our world and that the old man looking at him and cackling in mad glee was his new master. It didn’t really care – almost everything is better than being an imp in the underworld. There it was but a lowly servant and a slave. A disposable scout or fodder at times of war – not even a real soldier. On our world however, the imp had a chance to grow, become stronger and wreak havoc and terror wherever it went. Perfect! The fact that the old man himself did not realized he was being controlled by a demon lord made this all the more exciting. The imp, or “Eric”, was curious to see what this chaotic world had in store for him…