Nightmare Realm Summoner

Dying was an interesting experience. It wasn’t one that Alex was certain that he particularly enjoyed, but he wouldn’t have said it was all that unkind. Death was like the sigh that left the lungs at the end of an impossibly long day.

It was equal parts relief and weariness, a promised respite where concerns no longer mattered. His body went numb and the world fell away around him, leaving behind nothing but a gentle, comforting warmth in the center of his chest. Eternal rest — so on, so forth.

At least, that was how it was meant to work.

Alex’s eyes snapped open. His heart slammed in his chest and he bolted upright with a ragged gasp. It felt like he’d fallen a thousand feet only to land softly on a bed of slightly blackened grass.

As it turned out, dying lost a lot of the whole lot of the comforting eternal slumber bit when he didn’t actually stay dead.

The vile smell of acrid smoke and burnt flesh still hung in the air. Something deep within him throbbed as if there were a papercut on his very soul. Elusive shapes shifted all around him. There was something heavy in his hand. He could hear something. Enough to tell there was, well, something, but not enough to make out what it was. His ears rung and his blurred vision struggled to make anything out, but it pulled itself back into place like a camera finally finding its focus on an elusive subject.

His hearing finally snapped back into functional order as a hand gently took him by the shoulder.

”Alex?” It was Claire’s voice, fraught with concern. ”Are you okay? Alex?”

”I’m fine,” Alex said, swallowing and shaking his head. Thoughts twisted through his head as his mind tried to reconcile with the fact that he’d just died — and yet, was somehow perfectly alive. ”Just a tough Trial. Didn’t expect it.”

”Did you pass?” Orchid asked.

Alex blinked. He looked around. There was no town. Just the campers that had been there when he’d activated the Town Token. Features creasing in a frown, his gaze fell down to his side, where his hands still rested.

Upon his right palm was the Riftwarped Town Token.

But something had changed.

Riftwarped Town Token (Primed)

On destruction: Choose a location to set your Town’s Hall and initiate the creation of your Town. Activating this will consume the Riftwarped Town Token (Primed). You have 24:00 hours remaining to select your desired location.

”I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t pass,” Alex said. He let out a relieved breath and rose to his feet. ”It’s time. I can create the town. Could everyone make some space? This is a good area, but I don’t want to do it on top of someone on accident. I wouldn’t put it past the System to drop a fucking building on someone’s head.”

Everyone hurriedly cleared out, all moving to stand behind him and peer over his shoulder with a mixture of nervousness and excitement. The Outworlders looked on with even more trepidation than the Nativeworlders did — many of them knew just how significant this was.

Actually, they don’t have the slightest idea. Not only is this a Riftwarped Town Token, but it’s one where the trial was completed at 200%. Speaking of which, Keeper did me a real one. Does he not fully work for the System? I guess he was just like Aubrey. Forced to serve against his will, but still with enough leeway to make a few choices himself.

Alex’s jaw tightened at that thought. He could forgive a lot of things. Hell, he didn’t even try to delude himself into thinking that he didn’t like the apocalypse. He did. It was fun. But the System took things too far.

He shook his head and raised his arm, focusing on the center of the campsite.

Then he crushed the Riftwarped Town Token.

A buzz filled the air around Alex. The campers backed up even farther, nervous mutters passing between them as they stared on. He was tempted to join them. The System wasn’t exactly in his best graces at the moment. It would have been particularly ironic if it dropped a house on his head.

Fortunately, the System wasn’t in that dark of a mood.

Streamers of red and black energy swam into being around him. They twisted down his arm and lifted into the air like smoke rising from a fire. More and more power built around him, forming into a thick haze.

There was a distant rumble. Alex hadn’t quite managed to locate where it had come from when the roar of crashing thunder split the air. A brilliant flash of light tore through the campsite like a bomb had gone off at its epicenter.

Everyone’s cries were lost in the roar of wind that slammed into all of them like a battering ram. It nearly knocked Alex clean from his feet, but he managed to dig himself in at the last second. People all around him stumbled and fell back. There was a loud crunch as what sounded like a cabin was flattened.

He squinted through the light that had scorched his eyes, blinking away spots furiously. The back of his neck prickled and he drew in a small breath as he got his first look at the fruits of his efforts in the trial.

Rising before him was a two story obsidian building. Casual swirls of slow-moving rift energy traveled around it like ribbons, weaving in and out of the walls effortlessly. Pillars rose up around it to support a sloping, arched roof.

The entrance to the building was a large arched door trimmed in silver. It, like the rest of the building, was plain. It held a beauty to it, but one that came from the quality of building material rather than the method in which it had been made. The door was already opened to reveal the rectangular room beyond.

It took up the entire floor and was made of the same material as the building’s exterior, broken only by a blood-red carpet that ran down its center and up to a large counter at the back. Shimmering motes of blueish energy hung in the air behind the counter, swirling together in a misty orb.

”Bleed me,” Claire breathed, her eyes widening as she stared at the building. ”I can’t tell if that’s creepy or awesome.”

”Both is always an option,” Alex replied, stepping forward and through the open doorway. Nobody tried to follow him in. He walked alone down the carpet until he had arrived before the ball of shimmering blue light.

I feel like I’m supposed to stick my hand in there. I just can’t tell if that’s my monkey-brain telling me to poke the shiny object or if it’s the System trying to make sure I don’t somehow screw up the creation of the Town I just spent so much damn time and effort getting my hands on.

Eh. What’s the worst that could happen?

Alex stuck his hand into the ball of questionable mist.

It felt vaguely like he was trying to grab onto electrified smoke. A faint buzz ran across his skin and up his arm. He nearly jerked back, but before he could, the mist exploded out all around him. It coated every inch of the building in a faint shimmering energy.

And, before Alex, a dull screen lit.

Town Hall Creation Complete.

Initializing Town Interface.

ERROR.

Town Origin is set to [Mirrorlands]. Incompatible with current plane of existence. Relocating Town…

ERROR.

Relocation impossible. Insufficient planar barrier weakness. Attempting to set Town Origin to current plane of existence…

ERROR.

Terminating town creation…

ERROR.

Due to its position on the Global Leaderboard, town is Enshrined for a duration of [168:00] hours and cannot be terminated by forces foreign to 274-50 until the end of its Enshrinement.

Alex’s eyes flicked over the words flashing over the screen, worry and anger progressively building within him as the slew of error messages assaulted his eyes. All the new information he got didn’t even answer half the questions it gave rise to. The System almost seemed to hesitate for a moment before it finally came to a decision.

Temporary solution achieved.

WARNING: This town’s existence will be terminated if a solution to its Plane of Existence is not determined within [168:00] hours.

Continuing town initialization.

Due to [200% completion rate], [10] Legendary Boons and [2] Mythic Boons may be chosen during creation. Please select your boons for town initialization to complete.

The screen before Alex shimmered.

His eyes went wide.

Hundreds — possibly thousands — of lines appeared upon it. Many of them didn’t make the slightest amount of sense, but Alex could tell the gist of what they were. Every single option before him was some sort of town upgrade.

Mighty Walls. Orbital Cannon — a fucking orbital cannon? Seriously? For a town?

Alex almost selected that on impulse before he saw a small number at the far side of the town — a 10. The option was greyed out. He couldn’t afford it, and it didn’t even specify what kind of Boons it wanted. His eyes narrowed and he moved the scroll bar down.

Tiger-Demon Array. Star Throne. Pickling Expertise. Who the hell selects Pickling Expertise?

There were so many options that he didn’t even know where to start… and at the very side of the screen was the world’s most ridiculously tiny scroll bar. Alex gingerly touched it and the options flashed, blurring by as new ones appeared.

Oh, fuck off.

Alex couldn’t tell if he wanted to laugh or cry.

Two Mythical Boons and 10 legendries, huh? Are all of these even at that rank? I refuse to believe Pickling Expertise is a Legendary or Mythical option… which means there might be trash tossed in here that I could end up wasting what sounds like a really powerful boon on.

What do I pick?