Nightmare Realm Summoner

Returning to Valley Ford was surprisingly easy. After spending a few minutes to catch their breath and recover a little magical energy, Alex led Claire over to the nearest rift. It was mercifully unguarded by any Riftwarped monsters, and they slipped back onto 274-50 without any trouble.

Their plan of breaking into Valley Ford had a grand total of one step.

They walked through the gate.

It worked. The city as a whole didn’t seem to be any wiser about their damaged Disruptor as of yet. All the people they passed by were just going about business as usual. Survivors wandered between shops and gathered around the Ocean’s Tide, trying to get at whatever fancy wares the city had for sale.

But below that casual air was something more. Alex could see it in the way the guards carried themselves. Eyes darted around and knuckles whitened around the hilts of weapons. They were nervous.

”Looks like they’re trying to keep things under wraps for now,” Claire said in a quiet, casual tone as the two of them made their way through the crowd.

Alex couldn’t help but feel a little nervous himself. As much as he loved a good challenge, waltzing right into enemy territory was a bit much, even for him. He preferred things he could just fight.

If the Great Tide realized who they were, the whole town would collapse on their heads. But they had bigger problems than inspecting the faces of everyone wandering around right now — and that meant the safest place he and Claire could have possibly been was in the crowd.

I guess it makes sense. After all, what kind of idiot sabotages a powerful family’s Disruptor-thingie and then goes waltzing around right in the middle of their stronghold? It’s so stupid that nobody would ever think to do it.

Claire had told him as much on the way over. Evidently, the game of Court also included infiltrating enemy groups. Alex was pretty sure that every single Dhampir was basically just a special agent in disguise.

He didn’t let his thoughts drift for long. Even though things were going to plan for the time being, they were still in a race against time. Not only did they have to actually find an engineer, but they had to convince said engineer to come back with them to his town before the Region Boss destroyed it.

”What does an engineer even look like?” Alex muttered to Claire. ”How stereotypical do you think the System is? Because I see a few people that definitely look like the guys I used to see in my classes.”

”Yes,” Claire said in distaste. ”I see the ones you’re looking at. I smell them too. Are engineers in your world marked by an… odor?”

”Only the good ones.”

Claire sent him a horrified look. ”Seriously?”

”No, I’m pulling your leg. They just forget to take showers a fair bit. College is rough. But you’d have to actually choose engineer as your class from a list of options, right? I was doing computer science, but none of my options had anything to do with that. So most of these guys probably didn’t get engineer as an option.”

Claire chewed her lower lip. She shifted the egg — which she’d covered with a scrap of trash they’d found lying around in the Mirrorlands — then glanced around the ever-shifting crowd again. ”We’ll just have to keep walking and see if we can find anyone interesting. If someone has a class meant to build stuff, surely they’ve got something similar to your Riftsense, right?”

That’s a good point. And as far as powerful items go, this egg has to be pretty damn good. The Disruptor is what lets the Great Tide pull their really powerful people over to 274-50 without breaking the System’s rules. That means it definitely has a pretty damn good energy source, right? It would be weird if it didn’t.

”I’d assume so,” Alex said with a slow nod. ”It feels pretty prudent. Why have an engineering class if you can’t find materials to work with? But maybe we’re a bit too in the middle of the crowd. If I was going to try to approach you, I wouldn’t do it here.”

”Good point,” Claire said with a small nod. ”Let’s move to the edge and see if we can sit in an alleyway.”

Alex nodded. They worked their way through the crowd and over to the edges of the market. Walking casually, the two of them slipped into an alley and continued on until the sounds of the market were a distant buzz.

He didn’t miss the one thing that neither he nor Claire had mentioned — though he was certain they’d both thought of it.

If someone has an ability to detect powerful magical items, we better hope they aren’t working too closely for the Great Tide. If they are, this is going to be a real big pain in the —

”Hey. You there.”

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No way. That fast?

Alex and Claire spun. Standing in the alley behind them was a tall, thin man wearing a long cloak that obscured his features completely. The cloak was clearly too large for him. It hung well below his arms and dragged on the ground behind him like a child in his mother’s bathrobe.

”Me?” Claire asked, tilting her head to the side.

”You,” the man said with a sharp, jerky nod. ”How much do you want for that thing under your arm?”

”Depends. What are you offering?” Claire asked, tilting her head to the side and raising an eyebrow.

”I wasn’t talking to you,” the man said. Their posture shifted to look in what Alex presumed to be his direction. It was a bit hard to be certain when he couldn’t see the person’s eyes. ”He’s the leader. You do what he says.”

Where’d he get that idea? Is this someone that overheard the bullshit we were feeding Orchid? That doesn’t seem likely. We would have seen them.

”What makes you think that?” Claire asked. ”That’s a rather odd assumption to make for someone trying to buy something from me.”

”The leader wouldn’t be carrying the goods,” the thin man said simply. ”They’d want their hands open. So he’s the leader. He tells you what to do — and I want to buy the thing you’ve got under your arms. And I’d reckon that’s why you’re here, isn’t it? You wouldn’t wander into an alleyway with that if you weren’t trying to pawn it off or get robbed.”

This person was definitely watching us from the crowd somewhere. They found us way too fast for it to be a coincidence.

”Interesting observation,” Claire said, tapping a foot against the ground. ”But if he really was my leader, then there’s no reason for him to talk with the likes of you.”

”We are on equal ground. Buyer and seller. You are merely a—”

”Puppet?” Claire finished. Her brow arched up and the corner of her lip twitched. ”Maybe you were going to use a different word there, but I think I like puppet. What about you?”

There were a few long seconds of silence. Alex glanced from Claire to the thin man in befuddlement. He was pretty sure he was missing some subtext to their words here. A lot of it. It wasn’t hard to tell Claire was implying the man was a puppet, but he didn’t have the faintest idea why.

Then the thin man slumped. At first, Alex had thought it was in defeat — but the man kept slumping until he leaned forward at an impossible angle. His body poked up against his cloak in sharp angles that a human really shouldn’t have been able to make.

A soft footstep tickled Alex’s ears. He turned to the other end of the alley as a brown-haired boy probably around sixteen years old walked into it. The boy was thin and carried a smooth orb made of blue metal in one hand.

”You got me fast,” the boy said with a sheepish grin. He looked down at his feet. ”That’s really embarrassing, actually. Sorry for being rude.”

Alex looked from him to the slumped figure at the other end of the alley — and then to the orb in the boy’s hand.

Oh, goddamn it. Claire meant a literal puppet. Not a metaphorical one.

”You did make it pretty easy for me,” Claire said. ”When you give hints, it should probably be a few small ones, not a massive landslide.”

”I’ll keep that in mind. I’m Mite. You are here to sell that thing, right?”

”I’m Claire. And not exactly,” Claire said. ”We’re here looking for someone. That someone might be you.”

”Walking around with something like that without plans to sell it is probably a bad idea,” Mite said. ”Someone might try to take it from you.”

”They’re welcome to try,” Claire said with a dry smile. ”I don’t think they’d be very lucky.”

Mite’s gaze flicked to Alex. ”What, he your bodyguard or something?”

Damn. I got demoted from leader to bodyguard real fast.

”No,” Alex said. ”Our bodyguards aren’t somewhere you can see them. Revealing everything we’re capable of would be stupid.”

Mite gave Alex a once over, then nodded slightly. ”True. So you aren’t here to sell that? I’m not going to rob you. I’ve already done enough of that, and I realized I don’t have much fun doing it. I’ll just find a different—”

”What’s your class?” Claire asked.

Mite blinked. Then he shook his head. ”Sorry, no. I’m not saying that. I think we’re done here.”

”You made this, didn’t you?” Claire asked, sending a glance to the hunched figure behind her. ”Impressive. This couldn’t have been easy. You must be really talented. You were probably working with sub-par materials as well, weren’t you? Getting something like this is impressive with what you’ve got to work with.”

God, that’s just the most blatant flattery I’ve ever heard. There’s no way—

Mite reddened. He coughed into a fist and did his best to give Claire a collected nod. ”Thanks. It wasn’t easy. It also isn’t for sale. You couldn’t use it anyway.”

”So you can control it. Some sort of building class, then?” Claire pressed.

”…yes. You aren’t getting any more than that, though.”

”Bummer,” Claire said with a shrug. She turned on her heel so her back was to Mite. ”Let’s go, Alex. I took a wrong turn. This isn’t where we were meant to meet the Great Tide’s prize engineer to talk about the weapon. We don’t want to keep him waiting with a contract of this size. He’s one of the best in the business, after all.”

Just about none of that was true, of course. If Mite had made the puppet in front of Claire and had an engineer class, he was basically exactly what they needed. The chances of finding anyone else with his abilities, especially in the time they had, were basically zero. They needed him far more than he needed them.

But Mite didn’t know that.

”Whoa,” Mite said, his eyes narrowing. ”Weapon? Hold on. What are you talking about? And don’t be in such a hurry to talk to the idiots here. They aren’t that good. Anyone could build what they have when they have the resources of a giant rich guy behind them.”

Claire’s eyes glinted. She turned back toward Mite.

And even though Claire was on Alex’s side, a shiver ran down the back of his spine. She’d hit his buttons perfectly. Mite didn’t know it yet, but he was already caught in her web.

”Yes?” Claire asked sweetly.

”Maybe you should tell me a bit more about what it is you’re looking for,” Mite hedged.

Claire’s lips pulled up into a thin, controlled smile. ”Well, if you insist, I suppose we can spend a little more time here. I’d hate to pass up on a promising applicant when the job hasn’t been filled yet.”