Nightmare Realm Summoner

Alex and Claire advanced through the Mirrorlands in the direction of Valley Ford’s reflection. Even though monsters tended not to show up too often away from concentrated areas of magic such as cities, they didn’t have any shortage of enemies.

The chainsword was fantastic at a lot of things. Stealth was not one of them. The weapon seemed to have two prime directives. The first was to rip through everything in its path, and the second was to do its damn best to get the attention of everything within shouting distance.

That actually turned out to be a bit of a blessing in disguise. At least, it was for the time being. Alex had some decent experience fighting at this point, but he’d only rarely actually gotten up close enough to use a melee weapon very effectively.

Sure, he’d occasionally used Claire’s sword, but only as an extension for Glint’s glass shard magic. He was by no means a swordsman.

Claire had taken this trip as an opportunity to fix that. Alex hadn’t been too optimistic about his chances of learning much at the start. The elegant fighting style of a Dhampir didn’t seem like they would even slightly mesh with the brutal, violent, techniques that felt like they would work well with a makeshift chainsaw.

He was pleasantly surprised to be completely wrong. As it turned out, Claire knew how to fight with more than one kind of weapon. The Dhampirs trained their young to do combat with a wide variety of weapons. And, while they didn’t have any chainsaws, that didn’t seem to stop Claire from quickly picking up a few dozen ideas on how he could improve.

What should have just been a trip through the Mirrorlands ended up being a surprise learning experience. Claire and Alex alternated their fights. Whenever it was Alex’s turn, the Dhampir called out suggestions and corrections every time he made a misstep in her eyes — which, even though he won the fights handily — turned out to be quite often.

”Your feet,” Claire insisted as she walked up to join Alex, who stood over the corpse of a particularly unfortunate bug monster that had accosted them near the edge of the forest. ”You fight with your feet. Not your arms.”

”I don’t swing my chainsword with my feet. I use my arms.”

”And that’s the problem!” Claire exclaimed, poking him in the chest with a sharp fingernail. ”You shouldn’t use your arms. You should use your whole body. Focus on the arms and everything else becomes an opening. A swordsman does not only use their arms. They use everything. That starts with the feet.”

Alex scrunched his nose in annoyance. ”I know, I know. It’s just difficult to remember everything.”

”Nobody learns sword work in a bleedin’ day,” Claire said, flicking him in the forehead before turning and starting back off. ”It takes years and years of practice. I’m trying to squish that all down as much as possible.”

Alex followed after her. ”Well, for what it’s worth, I appreciate it. Even if I’m not getting any better.”

”You are,” Claire said. ”Quite quickly, actually.”

”I am?”

”Don’t get too excited. If you were a prodigy, I’d have said that. You’d probably lose a swordfight to a 5 year old Dhampir. You’re just going from utterly abhorrent to eventually having potential. I doubt you’ll get anywhere insane anytime soon.”

”Hey, baby steps. Getting better is getting better, right?”

”Definitely,” Claire agreed. She gave him a dangerous smile. ”So get back to it. There’s still a ways to go before we make it to Valley Ford and have to start getting more serious with the monsters. Most of the things out here aren’t really that dangerous, but we can’t play around when we get near the Disruptor.”

They exchanged a serious nod and set back off without any more delay. There was a lot of ground to cover, monsters to kill, and an Outworlder town to rob before they could let themselves slack off for too long.

***

Time slipped by quickly. It was difficult to keep track of exactly how much of it passed while they continued on through the Mirrorlands. He couldn’t tell if the weariness setting in on his shoulders was from the long trip or the constant combat.

There was no way for him to know if the Region Boss had arrived yet. He couldn’t sense its awakening when he was here, so all he could do was press on and hope that they would return fast enough.

Sometime after they’d left the twisted forest that marked their town’s location in the Mirrorlands and continued on through the rolling hills and deserts, the warped walls of a city rose in the distance.

They’d arrived at Valley Ford.

”It definitely hasn’t been a few days. It’s been one at most,” Claire said, raising a hand to her face to block the twisting red and purple light pounding down through the twisting streams of mist far above them. ”I think you were right.”

”How do you know? I can’t keep track of time here.” Alex asked. ”Were you counting the minutes or something?”

”Blood,” Claire replied as the two of them started back off toward Valley Ford’s walls. ”I’d be really feeling the burn if I hadn’t had a chance to eat for several days. That goes doubly so considering we’ve been fighting most of the trip. Not against anything all that strong, but it’s still been enough that I’d be really worn out if that much time had passed.”

”Convenient. Dhampirs come with a built-in clock.”

”And humans come in with a built-in snack.”

Alex grimaced. He was pretty sure she’d gotten the better of him there. Both of them fell silent as they grew closer to the city and the massive, twisted white trees that sprawled throughout it.

He summoned his monsters, who had all long since recovered in the Spatial Mirrors, and the group traveled down familiar streets. Monsters occasionally tried attacking, but the majority of the ones that lived in this area were smart enough to avoid trying their hand against them.

Alex and Claire paused as they passed by a hollowed-out white trunk. Twisting within it was a green portal. It had a certain pull to it, almost as if it were trying to drag Alex into its depths.

He hadn’t forgotten what laid beyond the portal. The Cracked Steps. He’d met a member of the Empty Court within them. That was probably the only reason he and Claire had actually survived. If he’d run into anything else in the odd dungeon — or whatever it was classified as — he was pretty sure they’d have been dead.

They hadn’t been anywhere near ready to challenge it at the time. Even now, Alex was pretty sure they didn’t stand so much as a flicker o fa chance. Zeal had said he’d suppressed his strength all the way down to the Adept stage.

I’m not going back in here until I get a Domain… or at least, a partial one. But I’m definitely coming back. This is clearly an incredible location to train. I don’t know why it’s just randomly sitting in the middle of Valley Ford, but I won’t complain. It’s not like the Offworlders can do anything to stop me from getting in here. They can’t even get into the Mirrorlands.

”You better not be thinking about going in,” Claire warned Alex, grabbing his wrist and sending him a pointed look. ”We don’t have time.”

”Do you really think I’m that impulsive?”

Claire arched an eyebrow.

He coughed into his other hand. ”Okay. Fair enough. I’m not that insane, though. After all the damn effort we put into getting the town, there’s no way I’m just going to get distracted while it’s in imminent danger of getting smushed.”

”Doesn’t hurt to make sure,” Claire said.

They continued past the hollow tree trunk. The Disruptor wasn’t far, now. The silver ship was perched at the top of the massive white tree looming above them, the purple, flesh-like substance showing through the cracks its metallic exterior pulsating.

”What part of the Disruptor do you think we’ll need to take?” Alex asked. ”I mean… it’s huge.”

”You didn’t have one in mind?”

”I was kind of hoping you knew something about them and just couldn’t say because of your Trial thing.”

Claire’s nose scrunched and she shook her head. ”Not enough to know the engineering of how one of those things is made or what bit is its power source… but it probably won’t be that hard to guess. We’ll just have to rip it apart until we find something that looks powerful.”

”Very precise. Were you a caveman in a past life?”

”Do you have a better idea?”

Alex scratched the back of his head. ”How strong are you?”

”You think I could pick the whole bleedin’ ship up?” Claire’s eyes widened. ”I’m flattered.”

”I didn’t say that.”

”You implied it.”

”Does that mean you can’t?”

”Definitely not,” Claire said with a small laugh.

”Then I guess we’ll be cavemen. A better question might be what to do after. Once we rip the Disruptor up, we’ll have to hop back into 274-50 and get into Valley Ford as soon as possible. Then… what? We just run around asking if anyone knows an engineer? That’ll have Invictus breathing down our backs in no time.”

”Going with a decoy is probably the best strategy,” Claire said. ”If you run off and distract Invictus, I should be able to locate someone easily enough. Trust me on that.”

Alex nearly asked how before he saw the look in Claire’s eyes. This had something to do with her class — which meant she couldn’t say anything else without risking getting strangled.

Goddamn it. I really hate this stupid Trial. I hope she manages to finish it sometime soon. I want to know just how strong she actually is.

”I’m with you,” Alex said with an annoyed but understanding nod. His thoughts were already drifting once more. It was hard to think about much else with the massive tree looming above him. A mixture of trepidation and excitement prickled within him.

Before them rose a massive tree. They’d arrived at its base. And, within its branches far above, surrounded by crackling purple fissures, was the Disruptor.

Alex licked his lips and quickly drew on Riftsense. Energy slithered across the ground, but it didn’t have to travel far. There was a portal out of the Mirrorlands close to them.

”You realize this is definitely going to be a shitshow, right?” Claire asked.

”Oh, absolutely. Have our escape route planned already.”

”And you know there’s definitely going to be something guarding the Disruptor? I doubt the noble families would put something this important in the Mirrorlands without some form of insurance.”

”I’m counting on it.”

Claire snorted. Then she cracked her neck and drew her sword. ”Figured. Just thought I’d ask. No more talk. Let’s do this.”