Darkness. Enveloping everything around me was a darkness so thick that I couldn’t see my hand when held directly in front of my face. That was, if I even had hands. It was a darkness that deprived me of not only my sight, but every one of my five senses. I couldn’t see, feel, or hear anything at all. Only my consciousness remained, though even that wasn’t in the best state at the moment.

Huh. This is a lot less pleasant than the first time I died.

Before I had the chance to begin wallowing in self-pity, I noticed a very faint purple glow behind me. It wouldn’t have been noticeable in any light at all, but in this absolute void it was extremely out of place. The faint purple glow was the only semblance of direction I could grab onto, so I was relieved to find out that I could in fact turn around to face it.

The purple glow outlined two slanted eyes that just hovered slightly above ground level. The eyes began to move towards me, and as they did, the purple outline expanded from the eyes outward to form the shape of a cat slinking towards me. Each time one of its paws touched the “ground,” a faint ripple of violet light emerged from it, as if it was walking across a pond. The feline continued towards me, slowly raising from ground level, like wherever it chose to step, a path accomodated.

It stopped directly in front of me, its shadowy outline of eyes meeting mine.

“Isn’t this a coincidence…” the feline murmured, though its voice was comparable to the way Soleis spoke, coming from all sides into my mind as if it was a surround sound system.

“Well then, Ikarus,” It said with a wry grin that exuded distrust and fiendishness, one not whatsoever befitting of a cat.

“You come here often?”

A jolt ran through my body as if I had been electrocuted, and suddenly I could feel my limbs again. I was still in darkness, but now I could feel my back against a solid object, a feeling I never thought would bring me such comfort.

I sat up, my eyes un-hazing as blood rushed to my head.

“Aughh..” I let out a groan.

Now that I could feel my body, my first instinct was to find out where the hell I was. I created a torchlight ball of fire in my hand again, and examined my surroundings. I seemed to be in a cave the same shape as a wide hallway that stretched far beyond my vision. Piled up against the wall were various silver and gold trinkets gleaming in the torchlight. Wow. It gave the appearance I had just entered a king's treasure hall or something.

“Am I… Alive?” I muttered quietly.

“Look who’s finally decided to join us.” The same voice as earlier resounded in my head.

I whipped around, trying to locate what it was coming from, only to be faced with the same violet outline of a cat perched on top of a pile of trinkets. Now that we were out of the void, I could see that the cat was actually composed of the same darkness that I was just enveloped in. It seemed to entirely negate light, with its violet outline being the only thing allowing its form to remain comprehensible. Not only did it negate light however, the ambient mana in the atmosphere seemed to be repelled by its presence.

“Wh—- What the hell are you? Where the hell am I? What’s going o—-”

“Questions, questions, questions,” It swayed its head around with a bored look on its face.

“Say, Ikarus.” It leaned towards me with a sneer. “How about we make a little deal.”

“Hohoho, not gonna happen bud!” I immediately rejected his offer. “Even I know not to make a deal with the devil. That, like, never ends well.”

“The devil? How ruuuude.” It mocked, jumping down off the pile of trinkets and taking a seat on the ground in front of me.

“All I’m asking of you is to listen, you won’t even hear me out?”

…

“Fine, whatever.” I begrudgingly agreed, going against the instinctive distrust I had for the feline. It didn’t look like I had many other options, either way.

“But then YOU are gonna answer some of my questions.” I added.

“Yes, yes, alright. Now then, from the top, will we? You are not dead, nor am I the devil.”

I breathed out a sigh of relief at those words, although I had somewhat been expecting as much. After all, this place didn’t look like any kind of afterlife I’d ever heard of. No, it looked more like…

The bottom of the cavern.

The thought of the cavern I had been shoved into brought all of the memories flooding back into my head, along with the bitterness that had been pushed aside by confusion. I jumped to my feet, blood rushing to my head once again as anger consumed my thoughts.

“Whoa, what’s gotten you all riled up?” The cat asked, caught off guard by my sudden jump.

“Well, think about it. I’m not down here cause I wanted to be.” I replied condescendingly.

“Haha. Yes, I suppose you are not. May I continue?”

“Oh. Uh, yeah, sorry.” I sat back down, shoving down my bitterness for now.

“Good. Now, I presume you want to get out of here?”

“Yeah.” I scoffed, annoyed at my lack of information about anything that was going on right now.

“Then you’re gonna need my help. And It just so happens, you can help me!” It cracked another one of its wry grins that deeply unsettled me.

“Oh yeah? And I can help you how? Selling my soul?”

“No, nothing that extreeeeme. I just need you to visit a few places for me.”

I paused. This guy was obviously hiding more than a few things from me, but I got the feeling that no matter how much I pressed for answers, I wouldn’t get much of anything from him. I wasn’t in a particularly advantageous situation here anyway, as I had nothing to bargain with. Even I could tell that there was no way I could manage to get all the way back up, even with the short distance I could fly using wind magic.

The feline gazed around the pile of trinkets as I considered his offer, until his eyes caught on something.

“You did say you weren’t down here by your own will, yeees? I might just have something to sweeten the deal for you.”

I raised my eyebrows in curiosity, indicating for it to continue.

“That is, if there is someone you want revenge on.”

Needless to say, I certainly had a bone to pick with the Milbournes. Though it had been Braxton who actually pushed me down here, I got the feeling it wasn’t entirely of his own will. That left either his mother, the lady who had witnessed me beating him, or one of those two men who had entered the training facility earlier. The problem was, I didn’t nearly have the strength to confront those two, namely the one I believe was called Luthor.

There was always calling Elise, but I didn’t want to drag her into this. Both Elise and Luthor seemed incomparably powerful to me, so much so that I wasn’t able to gauge whether or not Elise was actually strong enough to beat him. The last thing I want to do is endanger her.

“From the look on your face, I’d say I’m right on the mark.” The feline commented with yet another fiendish grin. If he wants to make any friends someday, he’s gonna have to tone it down with those.

The cat sauntered over to the pile of trinkets, and used his paw to roll something that looked like a marble over to me. It was a pure white orb, that seemed to be a solid metal, but when I picked it up, it was almost squishy.

“What is this?”

“Inside that orb is an incredible power you’ve never seen the likes of before.” He said, sounding like some kind of insurance salesman.

“It’s in this little rock? So how am I supposed to use that power?”

“You eat it.”

I stared at him, deadpan. “You expect me to eat this rock you found on the floor?”

“It’s not a rock, numskull. It’s an elixir.”

An elixir? Now that he mentioned it, it does somewhat resemble the ones they were selling at an elixir store in Camidinne. In this world, elixir was basically the word for a potion that had healing, magical, or sometimes even poisonous properties. They were generally used for mana resupplying though, and tended to be rather expensive.

“What’s an elixir doing in that random pile of shiny things? Why’s all this stuff even down here in the first place?” I started rambling.

“It’s the riches of a civilization long past.” He said with a rather solemn look on his face.

“What? What does that even mean—”

“It means what it means”

Oh yeah, thanks for that.

“And why exactly should I trust you?” I eyed him suspiciously.

“If I wanted to harm you, I wouldn’t have saved your life.”

Now that I think about it, I guess this guy played a big role in my status of not being dead. There’s no way I could’ve survived that fall otherwise.

…

“Good point.”

I looked back over at the pile of trinkets and happened to spot many other similar looking items. “Hey, aren’t there loads more of these over there? ” I asked.

“Indeed there are. But you will only be taking two, one now in order for you to understand what I am offering, and the other as part of the deal.”

So many conditions. Sketchy. I still didn’t trust him, but it was true that if he wanted to kill me he could’ve long ago. Leaning on that logic to justify my simple curiosity, I tossed the orb into my mouth and swallowed.

I felt a searing pain flow throughout my body as if someone was individually setting fire to each one of my nerves. “Aghhh… you… bastar—-

The feline started laughing. “Don’t worry, it only lasts for a moment.”

Sure enough, after a moment, the pain subsided. What was left was an incredulous amount of mana flowing through me. The power was intoxicating, I felt like I could move mountains with a mere flick of my wrist.

“Now try using mana.” The cat said with a smirk.

I decided to release a small blast of fire with this new power, just to test the waters a little. I coalesced the new mana into my hand, releasing just a little—-

*BOOM*

A large blast of fire exploded in front of me, the force pushing me backwards onto my ass while my hair fluttered about wildly. The infernal blaze roared and flew forward for a moment before sputtering out.

Once the dust settled, only one word was able to escape my lips.

“Whoa.”

“Hahaa! Isn’t that something!” My shadowy associate exclaimed with a triumphant grin.

I flexed my fingers in amazement, as if I was trying to verify that explosion had really come from my own hand. I didn’t even put much mana into it, how was it so powerful?

“Why would I need any more of these? I’m invincible as is!” I jumped around, firing off extremely large explosions and beams of water while using barely any mana. As I played around with this newfound power, I noticed a difference between this and my usual mana. Using the mana I had absorbed from the elixir felt much more like I was using a weapon, an extension of myself. It didn’t feel like it was my own power, which made gauging and controlling the mana difficult. One little opening and the mana exploded outwards.

“Well they don’t last forever.”

“Huh.” I turned to him, my fun squashed. “Then let me take them all!”

“Not a chance, and your current behavior demonstrates exactly why. You’ll become a drug addict in no time at all.” The feline responded mockingly.

“No I won’t man, I swear! Just a few more! Pleas—-”

We stared at each other deadpan.

…

“Okay. I see what you mean.”

“Anyway, now it’s time for me to ask some questions. Firstly, what should I call you?” I asked the nameless feline.

“Khiros” It responded matter-of-factly.

It was a bit of an unusual name, but nothing about this situation has been usual, so I guess I can accept a strange name or two.

“Okay then Khiros, what the hell are you? You’re not like any monster I’ve seen, but the closest thing to you I can think of would be Soleis.”

Khiros flinched at the mention of the white fox’s name.

“You know Soleis?”

“You could say we’re… old acquaintances. How do you know him?”

“He’s my sister’s familiar—-” I stopped, realizing I might be revealing too much information.

“Familiar, huh.” Khiros grimaced. “One more condition for our deal, in exchange for the power elixirs, don’t mention me to Soleis.”

That was curious. Who would’ve thought this guy had connections to my sisters familiar. Even still, I had more pressing questions.

“So are you a talking familiar as well then?”

“Yes, I suppose so.”

That cleared things up a little. At least now I had some clue as to what entity Khiros was.

“Third question. What are you doing down here? Did you know I was going to be here?”

“I came to pick something up from that pile over there, and no I did not know you would be here.” Khiros responded.

“Finally, how did you know my na—-”

“Sorry, but you only get three questions. You know the rules.”

“I didn’t agree to any such rule—-”

“You know the rules.”

Bastard. I let out a sigh. No helping it, huh.

“So, you wanted to make a deal?” I turned to the cat, reaching out my hand for a handshake. “How about you become my familiar?” I figured that accepting his deal was the only way out of here, but if I had a chance to skew it in my favor I would gladly take it.

…

The cat stared at me with a look of hilarity, before reaching out a paw and tapping my outstretched hand. His paw felt strangely cold, and when he tapped my hand a violet glow rippled across my entire body. I guess that was a sign of him becoming bonded to me.

“You’re a bold one, Ikarus. I like that.”

“So, what powers do I get from you?!” I asked excitedly.

“Hah. Well you can start by eating the other ‘rock.’” He said as he rolled the second elixr towards me. “Don’t do it now though.”

“So I don’t even get any powers from you? What kind of useless familiar…”

“Hey.”

“Alright then Khiros, get me out of here!” I exclaimed, pocketing the other elixir.

“Your wish is no command of mine, but alright.”

A circle of darkness opened up under me, the same light-negating absolute darkness that filled the void I had been in earlier. Now that I saw it from this angle, I noticed the void closely resembled the teleportation portals in my home town and Camidinne. Since there was no longer a floor under me, gravity did its job and pulled me down into the abyss Khiros had created. In the blink of an eye, I was dropped on my butt at the entrance of the dungeon, close enough to see the sunset. The bright orange sky was a welcome sight after all of the recent darkness in my life.

A few moments later, Khiros emerged from the portal with what looked like a black compass in his mouth. “Woulph you minf puphing difh im yfour pophket,” He struggled to get the words out with the compass lodged in his mouth.

“Sorry, I didn’t quite get that,” I said teasingly. “Stoph fuphing arounf anf taph ift!” He barked back.

I took the black compass out of his mouth and inspected it. It was entirely dark except for a small violet and translucent arrow that pointed in a certain direction.

“Never mind that for now,” Khiros said as he stretched his jaw, “Your part of the deal is up first.”

“Sounds good to me,” I said with a smirk as I created a ball of fire in my palm, intending to create another ferocious blaze.

“Huh?” I remarked in confusion. This time the fire was merely half as large as the previous one, which made for a very anticlimactic show of power.

“The mana that elixir gives the user is an unnaturally powerful kind. It gradually gets siphoned out as your body filters through mana, so it only lasts for around thirty minutes and gets less powerful with time.” Khiros explained.

Fair enough, it would’ve been way too good to be true had it lasted forever. It had been around 15 minutes since I ate the first orb, so I guess I was at around half my starting power.

“I guess I need to use this wisely,” I said, tossing and catching the elixir.

“So, now that we’re out of that dungeon, where to?” Khirios asked me.

“The Milbourne Manor. It’s time to make a courtesy call.”