Chapter 54

  I spent the rest of the day casting one Hades Heal after another, taking breaks only to let my soul replenish its Hell Mana supply, then doing it all over again until the first signs of exhaustion started to kick in, and the next thing I knew it was evening. It was easy to lose track of time in the Fourth Ring if I wasn’t looking at the tiny clock somewhere in a corner of my NeuroHUD display; the place had no sun or moon or moons, the burning sky bathed the realm in uniform light day in day out, and demons — despite having an innate sense for knowing when a day ended or new day began — were kind of workaholics and didn’t necessarily stick to sleeping at “night”, so I couldn’t always rely on observing them to know when it was bedtime. The good news was that the last of the injured demons had just run away to re-join the army, and with that my role of a combat medic was done, at least for now. Which meant I could finally have dinner and rest a bit before getting my squad together once again and embarking on a five-day journey to Orroth. So, I beckoned Grashon, the squad and Lanny to follow me, and we made our way through the streets back to Krasharak’s house that served as my temporary residence.

  I wanted to slump onto the bed as soon as I entered the room, but my retinue filed in after me, and as the great and awesome demon lord I was, I didn’t want to put on such a shameful display. Instead, I watched incredulously as the squad — Grash, Vik, Sur, Zag and Iska — took chairs and sat down around the table, not taking their eyes off me. Well, this was new.

  ‘So, dinner for seven?’ Lanny asked with her usual cheerfulness.

  I just nodded, scowling at the squad, and the ice-demon rushed out of the room, the jars and boxes rattling in her large rucksack. I pulled the last free chair for myself and sat down at the head of the table, placing my helmet on it, five pairs of demonic eyes following my every movement like hellish bloodhounds. And I kept quiet, looking each of them in the eye one after another, utilising the most menacing stare I could muster — although as a human I didn’t think I could ever look as intimidating as demons. But that was just my own perception; to demons I might have been the scariest thing they could think of.

  After almost a minute, it was Grashon who lost his nerve and spoke up first.

  ‘Boss, we need to talk,’ he stated, the others nodding in agreement.

  Oh hell! Grashon wanted to talk. At least he didn’t sound threatening, and I really, really hoped I wasn’t going to have to deal with a mini mutiny.

  ‘Talk!’ I said.

  ‘Well, it’s about the catapults.’

  ‘The catapults? What’s wrong with them? Do you not approve using siege weapons?’ I inquired, raising my eyebrows at him, curious to see where this was going.

  ‘No, Boss, we don’t have a problem with catapults, but … it’s just …’ he said, obviously looking for the right words.

  ‘We don’t want to be put on catapult duty.’ Iskaret took over from the big grunt.

  ‘There’s no real fighting involved.’ Vik inserted herself into the conversation.

  ‘And not much EXP to be had, even if you pay some.’ Sur joined in.

  ‘Yeah. That.’ Grash nodded vigorously.

  I didn’t know what else to do but sigh loudly as I saw the serious looks aimed at me.

  ‘Ooohkay! What makes you think I want to put any of you on catapult duty?’ I asked them.

  ‘Well, whatever your reasons are, Lord, catapults seem important to you,’ Zag said.

  ‘Okay, I’m following so far.’ I nodded.

  ‘And as it’s important to you, you would obviously want your best and highest-level demons on it. To ensure success,’ the scout continued his explanation.

  ‘Not counting General Reinos, that’s us,’ Grashon delivered the conclusion of this presentation.

  And I sighed again, long and loud. What a humble bunch of demons.

  ‘Guys, I’m not putting any of you on catapult duty. It has never even occurred to me,’ I said. Their relief was palpable; they all exhaled as if they’d been holding their breaths, their scrunched up, scowling faces smoothed out and went back to normal. ‘I’m sure you’ve heard me talking to Reinos. We’re leaving for Orroth tomorrow, so instead of worrying about stupid things, get some rest because we’re gonna have to make time.’

  ‘Sure thing, Boss,’ Grashon said and the gang was about to rise from their chairs.

  I motioned them to sit back down.

  ‘Well, Lanny is making food for all of us already, so eat first and then you can go get some sleep.’ I instructed the team.

  And on cue, my freshly hired attendant and personal chef waltzed back into the room with the first platter of grilled meat and mushrooms, the appetising smell reaching all of us before she could put the food on the table. Well, the squad was in for a treat, so was I, and I had no doubt that we all deserved to enjoy it before another journey and another battle.

  ***

  Lanny didn’t disappoint; the squad had eaten their fill, and while they were a little too proud to openly acknowledge that they liked the ice-demon’s cooking much more than the bland, magically roasted meat they would make for themselves, I caught a few, satisfied smiles as they marched out through the door. And that left me and my attendant in the room. I watched her clean the table, collecting the wooden platters, and waited for her to leave before I could finally get out of my SAC. I was looking forward to one last night of comfortable sleep, being able to sprawl out on the huge bed without the humming and whirring of servos and the occasional tugging of synthfibers — the coming days were going to be hectic, and there was no way to tell when I’d have the opportunity to sleep comfortably again. So, as soon as she left, I put Burning Darkness on the table, got out of my SAC, noted that my coverall needed a wash — or if I could find a replacement, burned — laid back on the bed with a cigarette in my mouth and fiddled around until I got comfortable. Oh, bliss! Right until, for a reason I couldn’t fathom, Lanny returned.

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  ‘Everything’s cleaned up, and I …’ she began to say as she barged into the room along with her rucksack. ‘Uh … you’re smaller than I’d thought you’d be, my Lord,’ she commented as she screeched to a halt in the middle of the room, staring at me in my unSACed glory — she clearly wasn’t impressed by my human physique.

  ‘Hey, size doesn’t matter, it’s skills and levels!’ I protested immediately.

  Burning Darkness burst into a laugh, his guffaw echoing in my head louder than I’d like at any given time.

  ‘Eh, okay.’ She shrugged, letting the topic go and thus depriving my stupid sword of fuel for further laughter at my expense.

  ‘Is there something you still need to do here?’ I asked, not getting up from the bed.

  ‘Yeah. Sleep,’ she said.

  ‘Here?’

  ‘Where else, Lord? I’m in your employ now, I belong here,’ she said, shrugging again, and without waiting for a reply or permission she fished out a leather sheet from her bag, put it down next to my bed, put out the non-magical lantern on the wall and made herself comfortable.

  ‘Fine then. Good night,’ I said to her and turned around in the bed to face the wall, closed my eyes and tried to sleep.

  As awkward as this little exchange was, I couldn’t say I was surprised that Lanny, who had quite literally forced her way into my employ, would be this straightforward and barge in here without any reservations to spend the night. I supposed this was in line with her personality — or what I’d seen of it so far. Or did she perhaps have a human fetish or something? I hoped not. Whatever the case was, I needed to get my sleep, for tomorrow was a big day, the beginning of a new phase of our campaign against the Third Ring invaders.

  ***

  I woke up feeling cold — which was strange given the average temperature in the Fourth Ring — and a quick glance at the clock on my NeuroHUD display informed me I’d only slept two hours so far. It took me a few seconds to notice an even stranger sensation lingering in me or around me. A tugging or pulling, but not the kind that normally happened when sleeping in my SAC and the NeuroHUD picking up on a few unconscious brain signals in my sleep-state here and there, making synthfibers twitch a bit. This was different; I wasn’t in my SAC, my limbs weren’t twitching, and I couldn’t really place the source or the direction of the pull I was feeling. Regardless, it was there, in my brain, in my mind. Oh. Was this something psychic? I decided to open my eyes, and the moment I did, my attention flicked to the sleeping form of Lanny on the floor, my body almost on autopilot, turning and moving to sit on the edge of the bed, looking down at her. This was definitely something psychic. Thoughts rushed through my mind, starting with the possibility that it was simply some stress catching up with me all the way to the idea that my new attendant could be a member of the Kralsen Hive Mind and this was my Psychic Riposte and Remediation skills trying to warn or protect me.

  ‘Hohoo, my man, you’re staring at the girl!’ Burning Darkness’ mind-voice intruded on my thoughts.

  ‘No, I’m not,’ I muttered quietly.

  But I knew I was staring at the demon woman, even though I didn’t want to.

  ‘I know that look,’ the sword continued, sounding way too gleeful for this time of night.

  ‘There is no look,’ I whispered, trying to figure out what it was that kept me from tearing my focus away from the sleeping demon.

  ‘Alright, listen! No shame in this, okay? She’s easy enough on the eyes,’ he chuckled in an amused way.

  ‘Be quiet. I’m trying to figure this out,’ I tried to hush my sword.

  ‘What’s to figure out? Your body is level 17, she’s level 13 at best. I’m sure you’ll be able to satisfy her in a way that …’

  ‘Just shut up, will you? Shut up!’ I growled at him.

  ‘Oh, come on! All you’ve been doing is running, fighting and healing ever since you got here. You’re in Hell, my man, she’s a good-looking demon, so have some fun! And Flamey needs a stepmom, right?'

  ‘Absolutely not!’ I protested the idea. ‘And it’s not that.’

  ‘No? Why not? You wouldn’t be the first human to have a thing for a demon.’

  ‘I … what?’

  ‘You know.’

  ‘No, I don’t know.’

  ‘Well, my former human owner, that hero, he was quite smitten with a particular fire-demon-lady at that time. Let’s just say if it wasn’t for her exceptional beauty as well as her calm, rational way of negotiating with him, there’d be no fire-demons running up and down in the Fourth Ring today. She was quite the woman. Very unlike most fire-demons.’

  As interesting as this little piece of historical information was, I wasn’t in the mood to entertain my idiotic sword’s notions and fantasies about me “having a thing for my attendant”. The longer I was looking at Lanet-Sadak, the more I felt this strange, psychic pull. And I wanted to figure out why, otherwise I wouldn’t be able to catch as much sleep as I had planned and needed. As Burning Darkness began to regale me with the unsolicited story of the ancient hero and his adventure with a fire-demon, I shut his voice out of my mind as best I could so I could dive into the weird, tugging sensation that was pulling my mind towards her.

  It took me a minute, but despite the incessant droning of my sword, I realised that a small amount of Hell Mana was being claimed by not one but two of my skills as they were reaching out to the ice-demon with tendrils of psychic power.

  ‘She’s dreaming,’ I whispered.

  ‘… and that’s how she convinced the hero to … what? Dreaming?’ My sword finally stopped telling his story, which probably would have been an interesting one to listen to under any other circumstances.

  ‘Yeah, she’s dreaming, and my new skills are picking up on it somehow.’

  ‘Oh, okay. What were they again? Master of Nightmares and …’

  ‘Dreamscape Architect.’

  ‘Right, sooo … she’s dreaming, and your dreamy skills want to … what?’ he asked.

  ‘To intrude on it, I think.’

  ‘Alright, that sounds like just what those skills would be good for.’ Burning Darkness said. ‘Are you going to do it?’

  ‘Should I?’ I asked.

  I was unsure about this. I had a good idea what the skills were about — Zeneth’s intrusion into my own dreamscape had been a powerful illustration of it — and this was a good opportunity to see what they could do in practice. I’d been too busy with post battle planning and healing to have given any time and attention to these new skills. But did I want to subject my enthusiastic attendant to something I myself decidedly disliked being subjected to? Then again, I simply couldn’t tell when Hell would throw me into a situation where my dream related skills would come in handy, and if that happened, the more I knew about their workings and the more levels the skills had, the better off and safer I’d be. And that decided it.

  ‘Alright, I’m doing it,’ I announced as quietly as I could, and amidst my sword’s approving cheering, I called on Master of Nightmares first. Oh, poor Lanny. I hoped she’d find it in herself to forgive and forget in the morning.