1st August 2026

Part 7 of the How He Got Here series

Part of the arc: The Making of Unclegrumble

Warlocks keep company differently than most people. UG has had Azkin at his side for twenty-one years now, an imp who’s been through the fall of Gnomeregan, two continents, one very confusing decade as an orc, and every single fight UG’s picked since — and Azkin has never been optional. He’s the whole point of the profession, not a decoration on top of it: something small, something summoned, something that goes into the fight first and does the parts of the job UG would rather not do himself. There have been others over the years too, called up and dismissed as the work required — a voidwalker for the fights that needed a wall more than a blade, a succubus UG has always insisted, with a completely straight face, he keeps around purely for the conversation. Nobody in the coven ever quite believed him. He’s never much minded that either.

None of that has anything to do with Francois.

Francois doesn’t fight. Francois has never fought anything, has no combat training, no offensive capability whatsoever beyond an unsettling willingness to peck, and would be actively worse than useless in the sort of situation Azkin exists specifically to handle. He’s a chicken UG owns for exactly one reason: because he wanted to, and because Francois, once satisfied of UG’s finances, agreed to be owned.

Francois never actually cost UG a coin. Owning the money is the whole test — a coin purse with one million gold sitting in it, jingled convincingly enough, and Francois decides for himself that he’s found the right owner. UG has never had that kind of gold sitting around doing nothing, and had no intention of starting, so he borrowed the full million from Nobbybanks for exactly as long as the jingling took and handed it straight back the moment Francois made up his mind.

Nobbybanks got his million back within the hour. What he didn’t get was the interest on it, a detail UG has managed not to mention and Nobbybanks has managed not to forget. The statement about it arrived before UG had even worked out how to explain what had just happened, itemized and pointed in a way only Nobbybanks’s letters manage. UG read it once, folded it twice, and added it to the stonework same as all the others.

Francois settled into the tower the way Francois settles into anywhere — immediately, and with the unmistakable air of a creature who believes the building has been improved by his presence rather than the other way around. He is, by any honest description, an extremely self-satisfied chicken, carrying himself the way old money carries itself, with no visible interest in how new the money actually was. UG doesn’t mind the attitude. If anything he finds it reassuring — proof that somewhere in the tower, something is even more pleased with itself than he is.

Between the two kinds of company, there’s never been much overlap. Azkin fights. Francois judges. UG has never managed to get the two of them in a room together without Azkin looking faintly insulted by the whole arrangement, which UG also finds reassuring, for reasons he’s never quite explained to either of them.

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More in the How He Got Here series

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