Chapter 68

  I trudged through the streets heading back to Riaret’s building with Lanny trailing behind me. The cat seemed happy enough, flicking his tail left and right, walking beside me; if I could believe Fragnok and this bond was really what Mickey had wanted, then I supposed he had no reason to complain. I, on the other hand, had something to complain about: I had not gained a single new skill. Was it because of the 53% efficiency thing? Would I have got those skills if the number had been higher? Had I paid for the bonder’s services, I would have demanded a refund on account of his sloppy work. Though in his defense, I knew one couldn’t expect perfection when doing something for the first time, and since he had offered to re-bond the weapons for my squad members, I supposed I had got something out of the deal after all, so it wasn’t all bad. Besides, I couldn’t afford to waste time dwelling on this; I had a battle to prepare for, and Riaret was waiting.

  I hastened my steps, chasing away the memories and the questions of my visit to Fragnok’s creepy and dentist-y workshop, and focused my thoughts on the tasks ahead. Mickey kept pace with me, Lanny fell a little behind, but as I turned a corner, stepping onto the street that I was sure led to the inner parts of the city, the cat suddenly rushed ahead while becoming translucent. My immediate thought was that the big furry fellow was going to spin around and jump into my storage via my chest and soul, as he had done it on a number of occasions now, but something entirely different happened.

  Before I could take one more step, the world around me vanished. The dark, stone buildings, loitering demons following me with their eyes, the burning sky, the ground under my feet, all disappeared in an instant and without warning, replaced by a darkness that was as oppressive as the blackness of space itself. The emptiness that suddenly surrounded me was complete, endless, and likely lethal; I felt no air filling my lungs as I breathed in, I heard no sound as I breathed out. I immediately reached for my helmet hanging on its hook on my side; while I couldn’t feel the freezing temperature or the first signs of decompression yet, my mind, for some reason, was sure I had just found myself in space. How? My mind didn’t care how; it just wanted to live, and it knew that with a properly sealed SAC’s life support system, that was doable. At least for a while.

  ‘Meow!’ my cat yelled at me right as my hand slipped through my helmet as if it wasn’t there at all.

  But it was there. I saw it as I looked down. And it was … translucent.

  ‘Meow!’ Mickey reiterated his earlier statement.

  I wasn’t sure if panicking or laughing would have been the more appropriate response. A meow was a meow, a typical cat-noise I had heard Mickey make quite a few times, but this time, for the first time, I understood the meaning behind it: “You’ll be fine, you hairless lump of a cat!” Wow! Just … wow! I supposed when Fragnok said he understood the critter’s soul, this was what he must have meant.

  ‘Heh! He called you a hairless cat,’ Burning Darkness laughed.

  ‘You understand him, too?’ I asked.

  I didn’t hear my own voice, not with my ears, but I knew I had said the words out loud. It was weird.

  ‘Yeah, more or less,’ the sword replied.

  ‘So …’ I spoke, not even sure what it was I wanted to say, when the world returned to normal.

  Except, as reality as I knew it returned just as it had vanished a few moments before, it wasn’t the same view that greeted me; I was no longer in the outskirts, between the simple, utilitarian houses I’d got to know and love, instead, I was standing in front of the entrance of the tall building in which I had first met the general. This. Was. Insane. I had been at least a fifteen minute walk away from her place, ten minutes at best at a brisk pace. What had happened? The only thing I knew of that could take someone from one location in the universe to another in seconds was a jump drive, and I sure as hell didn’t have one — those were enormous machines, and as far as I knew even larger patrol boats couldn’t fit one on board. If my recollection was correct, the smallest vessels that could be equipped with a jump drive were the Balao class destroyers — anything smaller just couldn’t fit one on board. And even then, a jump drive worked with light years, not a few kilometres. Local jump or teleportation devices were impossible, even theoretically. So … how?

  ‘Meow,’ the cat said as he sat down in front of me in his solidified, material form, looking up at me.

  Of course. Mickey. The space eating, dimension hopping, storage raiding cat. This was his doing, wasn’t it?

  ‘Button, explain what just happened! How did we get here?’ I asked, and Button displayed the event log from the past half a minute on my NeuroHUD.

  [Your familiar, Mickey, attempts to share a skill via familiar’s bond.]

  [Attempted sharing of skill fails due to low bond efficiency.]

  [Skill: Unnamed.]

  [Your familiar, Mickey, activates skill: Unnamed. Control of skill remains with your familiar, but bond efficiency allows for extending skill effect to you.]

  [Skill: Unnamed costs 400 HMP and 40 RE.]

  [300 HMP is taken from you, and 100 HMP and 40 RE is taken from your familiar, Mickey.]

  [Skill: Unnamed establishes dimensional shortcut between your location and a previously visited and marked location.]

  [Skill: Unnamed temporarily immaterialises you, your equipment, and your familiar to allow passage through dimensional shortcut.]

  [You, your equipment, and your familiar arrive at designated location.]

  [Skill: Unknown reestablishes your material existence.]

  ‘Holy shit!’ I exhaled the words as I read through Button’s interpretation of events, and I just stared at Mickey in disbelief. He was still sitting on the ground in front of me, looking smug as hell. And he had every right to be smug; this unnamed skill of his was something else. My familiar, this oversized cat with one eye, was a local, man-portable jump drive known to be impossible to science. Magic sure didn’t give a crap about what science was thinking. And I had to take back any and all criticism of Fragnok’s work; if I could vanish and reappear somewhere else in a critical moment, then 53% bond efficiency was plenty. And how was this mind-bending, reality-defying skill unnamed? I looked down at Mickey again and said,

  ‘You need to give a name to this skill of yours. It’s too good to not have a name.’

  ‘Meow,’ he said happily.

  ‘Okay, if you insist,’ I said, and I let Button know what I wanted.

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  [Familiar’s skill has been named.]

  [Skill: Kitty-cat Jump Drive. Level 9.]

  ***

  Name: Mickey

  Race: Cat

  Titles: Sole Survivor / Terror of the Fifth Ring

  Level: 78

  HP (Health Points): 356

  HMP (Hell Mana Points): 780

  RE (Ring Energy): 70

  Strength: 37

  Constitution: 60

  Willpower: 68

  Soulstrength: 91

  Demonic Race Traits (Aquired):

  - Live in Hell

  - Fire and heat resistance

  - Demonic constitution

  - Demonic vision

  - Hell Mana Affinity

  - Ring Energy processing

  Cat Race Traits

  - Stealth

  - Hunting

  - Self-clean

  - Power nap

  Upstairs Skills:

  - Unnamed

  - Unnamed

  - Unnamed

  Demonic Skills:

  - Unnamed

  - Unnamed

  - Unnamed

  - Kitty-cat Jump Drive (level 9) (Skill acquired: Fifth Ring, Layer 11.)

  Familiar bond: Bonded familiar of Hellfire Lord Hyde (Ruling Demon Lord of the Fourth Ring. Human. Sort of.)

  - familiar’s bond efficiency: 53%

  - skill sharing: partial

  - subliminal communication: enabled

  Just as I had been able to look at Flamey’s stat sheet as my blood-bonded daughter, I could do the same with Mickey via the familiar’s bond, and I read through it as I walked past the guards at the entrance and into Riaret’s building.

  I was more than just impressed; even with all his skills unnamed — both upstairs and demonic — and without any explanations as to what they did, the cat was a menace. Level 78? And with higher willpower and soulstrength than me and even Flamey? This furry little bane of all demons had definitely pursued a magical orientation, although I imagined he could do some old fashioned physical damage, too, with his sharp little cat-claws. And what was that about RE? How on Earth and in Hell could a cat use Ring Energy without his soul converting it into Hell Mana first? This cat was something else.

  All this, plus his titles and other pieces of information on his sheet, were telling a story, and that story confirmed my suspicions: Mickey was of the Surface World, probably the former familiar of one of the heroes who had come down here a thousand years ago. I wondered what circumstances and tragedies had led to him being left behind as a “sole survivor” in the Fifth Ring. A thousand years was a long time; he must have had it rough in the Fifth and he must have done what he had to in order to survive. I didn’t know how he knew that a human had once again graced Hell with his presence, but my best guess was that when he’d learned of me, he must have seen a chance to reconnect with the Surface World. I couldn’t blame him for that, and since my goal was to get to the Great Upstairs, he was welcome to tag along and help.

  ‘What do you think?’ I asked Burning Darkness, who had no doubt saw the stat sheet too.

  ‘Kid has potential. Just make sure he knows I am the senior bonded partner here, alright?’ he said.

  ‘Meow!’ Mickey protested loudly as he was climbing the stairs in front of me.

  ‘Oi! I was here first, so no complaining!’ my sword shut him down.

  The cat hissed once, then let the matter go, and we kept climbing until we reached the fourth floor and stood in front of Riaret’s door.

  ***

  Riaret stood next to the table in her room along with two of her captains. She glared at me as I entered, and by the way she was holding her halberd I suspected she was in a mood to chop my head off. I knew I had taken my sweet time with the whole familiar’s bond business, and I knew she had been waiting and that she was impatient, but I wasn’t going to apologize; knowing what I knew about my cat, he was well worth the time I had spent on getting bonded. Plus, I had a secret weapon now, and I decided to deploy it right away.

  ‘Mickey,’ I whispered. ‘Can you please try to calm her down?’

  ‘Meow,’ the cat replied, accepting the mission.

  Mickey walked out from behind me and made his way straight to Riaret. He sat down in front of her, his tail flicking around playfully. Just as her two captains took an instinctive step back, their eyes widening with surprise at seeing such a strange creature, Riaret’s mouth curled into a smile. Her halberd quickly landed on the table, and she picked the furry critter up. The violent, impatient, lethal demon was no more, and in her place stood a woman who had just discovered the ultimate happiness and comfort the universe could offer, and she just stared at it with a grin on her face — it was a scary grin, but a grin nonetheless.

  ‘Meow,’ Mickey commented on this development.

  ‘Not long, just stick with her for a bit. Please!’ I told him.

  And with that I had successfully avoided some harsh words at best and outright decapitation at worst. I loved having a familiar already.

  ‘Alright, let’s get started. We have a lot of planning to do,’ I said, shutting the door behind me.

  Riaret fiddled a chair out with her leg and plonked down on it, not taking her eyes off Mickey for a moment. I took a chair as well, and after a few seconds of pondering the situation, Riaret’s baffled captains sat down at the table, too.

  ‘Gharakar and Daraan are my longest serving captains,’ the general introduced her companions, still not taking her eyes off the cat. ‘They are the only ones I’m willing to take advice from. And only if the advice is good.’

  ‘Good to know, thank you,’ I said.

  Mickey began to purr as he curled up on her lap as she started to stroke his fur. Then, finally she looked at me, which I took as a sign that we could start the meeting.

  ‘Okay. So, the plan is to break out of Orroth.’ I said, pausing to let it sink in for the two captains. It took them a few moments, but they both acknowledged it with nods. ‘We have about four days until General Reinos arrives, maybe less, so we’ll need to discuss what his role will be and how to position his forces. We’ll need to discuss my intelligence reports from Kralsen, then I’ll need to talk you through my catapult project and my plans for their deployment.’ The mention of catapults resulted exactly in the kind of reaction I had expected: all three demons sneering at me. Well, at least they didn’t protest, so I looked at Riaret and carried on. ‘We’ll need to discuss your army’s role: how to best use them, and how to minimize casualties. Oh, and I have a few things lying around in my storage that we may be able to use, even if just to create distractions.’

  ‘Distractions? What do you have for that?’ Riaret asked.

  ‘I have some of those holographic projectors they use in command centers and conference halls. I think I can hook them up to one of may spare SAC batteries and then … you don’t understand any of this, do you?’

  ‘What do you think? I told you to start talking like a demon; your Surface World nonsense isn’t helping, Hyde,’ she said, stroking the cat like a villain from an old movie.

  ‘Fine, I’ll demonstrate the equipment later,’ I said. ‘Once we succeed in breaking out of the city, we’ll need to make sure we’re not pursued so we can make our way to the gate between Third and Fourth without getting bogged down in running skirmishes. We’ll also need a plan to take and hold the gate; once that minotaur bastard king learns that I’m there, he’ll be coming to get us with everything he’s got. Any questions?’

  One of Riaret’s captains leaned forward over the table, staring at me as if I was mad — not really a surprise any more, to be honest — and he asked,

  ‘Hellfire Lord, I don’t know how your kind wages war in the Surface World, but are you intentionally trying to have us all slaughtered?’

  The guy was … Gharakar. I smiled at him and said,

  ‘No. But even if I was, you’d all get to fight minotaurs, so … are you really complaining?’

  Riaret was busy again admiring my cat, his colleague, Daraan was suddenly very interested in studying a corner of the table, so Gharakar had no support whatsoever.

  ‘No, Lord. Let’s fight those cursed Third Ringers. To the death,’ he declared.

  ‘That’s the spirit!’ I applauded him.

  ‘It will be better than sitting behind the walls and doing nothing. As long as we have a chance, we’re doing it,’ Riaret commented, her hands on Mickey but looking at me. ‘And we do have a chance, don’t we, Hyde?’

  ‘Yeah, well, we do. A snowball’s chance in hell is still a chance,’ I said, shrugging.

  ‘What’s a snowball?’ she asked.

  ‘If we ever get the chance, I’ll show you a good snowball fight,’ I said.

  It was time, and finally our planning session could begin in earnest — or that’s what I thought for a brief moment. The door swung open with a loud creak, and Lanny burst into the room in full panic mode.

  ‘Boss! You’re here! You’re back! What happened? Why did you just vanish?’ she screamed at me, overcome with total hysteria.

  Oh. I had completely forgot that she had witnessed our first collaborative effort at dimension-hopping; according to Burning Darkness this sort of thing was on the extreme side of things even in the Fifth Ring, so it was understandable why she was rattled after seeing her employer vanish, and perhaps worried about her employment prospects. And that reminded me: I needed to explore Micky’s Kitty-cat Jump Drive as soon as possible, explain it to Riaret — to a certain extent at least — and hopefully we could integrate this new ability into our strategy in some way. But before that, and since Hell’s best chef and attendant was here now, I thought maybe the general and her captains would appreciate a late lunch as much as I would — after all, Lanny’s wonderful cooking and a full belly was a prerequisite for tactical and strategic planning, and we had to be at our best for designing Operation Snowball in Hell.