Nightmare Realm Summoner

The Baveroth’s skull made a wet, squelching crunch as Alex’s anchor drove down on it. The top of the huge bear’s head caved in like a piece of wet cardboard. Its eyes bulged as its jaw was driven down into the ground. No matter how tough its hide may have been, slash resistance did precious little to stop blunt impact.

There was a moment of silence. Everyone stared at the anchor embedded in the Baveroth’s head. Even though it was buried several inches into the beast, not so much as a single drop of its blood had escaped.

“Damn,” Aaron breathed. “That was—”

“Guard up!” Claire’s whip cracked as it split the air and wound around one of the bear’s legs. Its thorns scraped against the monster’s fur. Though it failed to draw any blood, her weapon still bound the arm in a tight grip. “We haven’t gotten any magic from the kill. It’s alive.”

Glint accelerated, driving his sharp blade-cloak toward the scratch he’d already made on the monstrous bear’s side. There was a sharp ringing crack. Glint jerked, limbs snapping forward as he came to an abrupt stop, impaled upon the monster’s huge claws.

It had raised its hand, moving so fast that Alex hadn’t even managed to notice what had happened until it was too late.

Glint’s body cracked. He slipped down the long claws, arms dropping.

Beneath Alex’s anchor, the Baveroth’s maw twisted into a hungry sneer. Bone popped and ground. Its head inflated like a balloon, returning to its proper shape and pushing the huge chunk of white metal out of the way.

Glint let out out a snarl of fury. Silver flashed through the air as he thrust his cloak forward. A sharp screech cut through the air as his attack finally broke through the impossibly dense fur covering the Baveroth. Droplets of blood splattered across the ground.

The Baveroth thrust him backward, but it was a second too late. Glint had already transformed into a stream of magical power coiling through the air to return to Alex. Something told him that Ein’Zal wasn’t too happy about dying so early into the fight.

“Insufferable little pests,” the Baveroth snarled, wrenching its head out from beneath Alex’s anchor and letting the massive weapon crash down to the ground before it. It staggered back to its feet, shaking the damage it had just taken off like a wet dog. “The Greafather—”

Alex pulled.

The Singularity Core turned over. His anchor shot straight upward. It drove into the bottom of the Baveroth’s jaw, snapping its mouth closed and knocking its head back with a loud crunch. The force of the blow was enough to lift the bear onto its back feet and send it staggering backward.

“Oops,” Alex said. His anchor blurred through the air in a clean arc before smashing into the ground behind him with a loud crunch. “Didn’t mean to cut you off, there.”

Claire gave her whip, which was still wound around the Baveroth’s arm, a sharp yank, putting her entire body behind the attack. She pulled it off balance even further, making it spin on one foot like the world’s most ungainly ballerina.

Princess didn’t give the monster a second to recover. She drove her massive bulk forward, slamming into the Baveroth with a meaty squelch. Both monsters crashed down to the ground with a booming crash that shook the entire platform.

Black sludge splattered across the ground and the scraping screech of claws against the Baveroth’s hide tore through the air as the two monsters tore into each other. Claire yanked her whip back, grabbing onto it with her free hand and ripping her hand across the thorns covering it to stain them in her own blood.

“Partial Soul Manifestation. Hollow Court.”

Oily gray magic manifested in the air behind her. At the same time, the Baveroth let out a furious snarl. It twisted over with a roar and launched Princess into the air. She sailed over the edge of the platform, plummeting toward the twisting magical storms surrounding them.

Alex de-summoned her, drawing Princess back into his card before she could die. She returned to him in a streak of dark magic even as a torrent of flower petals howled across the platform to envelop the Baveroth. It snarled, carving at the attack, only to find that it did no damage at all.

The petals flowed back to the looming ghostly woman floating above Claire, leaving behind only a few clusters stuck to the Baveroth’s body. Hunger burned in the monster’s eyes as it rose back to stand on its hind legs. All their attacks had still barely managed to leave any lasting damage to it — though they’d definitely managed to piss it off.

It raised its arms.

Aaron flipped his coin.

The monster’s motion halted, its movement crawling to little more than half their normal speed. Claire’s whip cracked again, this time colliding with one of the bundles of petals on the side of the Baveroth. The cluster exploded with a bang.

Magic coiled away in pink smoke as the Baveroth staggered to the side. But, before the smoke had even cleared, Claire’s whip cracked once more. The white-furred monster tried to twist out of the way. But with Aaron stealing its speed, it wasn’t anywhere near fast enough to dodge.

Her whip connected with one of the petal bunches a second time. Another explosion rocked the air, and the Baveroth fell to all fours with a pained snarl. Small pieces of its hide and flesh splattered across the ground in steaming chunks.

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Alex gritted his teeth and banished the anchor connected to his wrist. He pulled on his magic the instant the limiter was gone.

The ground before him bubbled. Princess burst back into being, charging into the Baveroth as it tried to rise back to its feet. The monsters crashed together and pitched back. Black sludge splattered across the ground as the Baveroth ripped into Princess. It shattered one of her masks, but before it could deal any further damage, Claire’s whip snapped again.

Another explosion tore through the air.

The Baveroth screamed. More chunks of its body sprayed through the air. It threw Princess off it, shoving itself back upward and trying to lift its hands once more. There was no more haughty arrogance in its features. Even its hunger had vanished. The only thing that remained was panic.

“Soul M—”

Aaron stumbled. He fell to one knee, hacking, as the Cracked Coin rolled from his grip. The Baveroth’s eyes bulged as the words coming from its mouth momentarily slowed to a crawl. It could barely move its jaw.

“Don’t let it speak!” Claire yelled, her whip snapping through the air one more time. It connected with the final bunch of petals on the Baveroth, detonating them with a deafening crack. The monster screamed in rage and panic, managing to remain upright in attempt to finish calling upon a Soul Manifestation that it clearly hadn’t been expecting to rely on.

Alex summoned his anchor back. The instant the white manacle materialized around his wrist, he pulled. The Singularity Core turned over.

If the Baveroth couldn’t speak, then it certainly couldn’t move fast enough to dodge.

His anchor tore through the air in a streaked blur of white. It slammed into the side of the Baveroth’s head and killed any final chances that the words in its throat had to escape its mouth. Blood dripped from the heavily wounded monster as it stumbled to the side, growing near the edge of the platform.

Claire’s whip snapped out once more. The Baveroth raised its arms defensively, but Claire hadn’t aimed for the wounds covering its body. Her whip coiled around its uninjured leg. Then she yanked its leg out from under it. At the same time, Princess threw herself into the bear one more time.

The Baveroth was already closely matched with Princess’ strength when it had two legs out under it. With just one, it stood no chance at all. The two monsters collided — and then both pitched over the edge of the platform and plummeted into the churning storms below.

Alex didn’t let Princess fall with the Baveroth. That would have just been wasting resources. He summoned her back the moment they were both out of sight, letting her energy flow safely into the deck at his side.

Then there was nothing but silence.

Nobody said a word. They all stood, tense, ready for the Baveroth to somehow pull itself back over the edge of the platform. Alex’s blood pounded in his ears. Adrenaline pumped in his veins nonstop, making his heart beat at twice the speed it should have been.

Then there was a faint clink.

An old coin had fallen to land in the center of their platform.

A Cracked Coin.

A moment later, magical energy twisted into Alex. He drew in a sharp breath. Claire and Aaron did the same. The Baveroth was dead.

“Holy shit,” Aaron said, his hands shaking as he stared down at them. He swallowed. Then he flexed his fingers, trying to stop them from trembling. “We did it?”

Damn. No loot. We still won, though.

“Didn’t even give it a chance to use its Soul Manifestation,” Claire said, her lips curling in a smile. “That’s what it gets for being so stupid. Good lesson, though. Never forget how significant a numbers advantage is in a fight. Trying to show off and not just ending things as quickly as you’re able to can bite you in the ass.”

She sent a pointed look at Alex.

“Hey. I didn’t do anything. Don’t look at me like that,” Alex said as he banished his anchor back to his soul. “It only doesn’t work if you lose.”

“Sage words,” Claire drawled. She scooped the Cracked Coin off the ground. “And well fought, Aaron.”

“Agreed,” Alex said. “Though it’s really weird seeing you start to flip a coin and then suddenly start tripping over yourself. How does that work? Do you go to an alternate dimension or something every time you use your magic?”

“Something like that,” Aaron said. He fought for a moment to catch his breath. Then he shook his head. “I don’t know. That was the strongest monster I’ve ever fought. My magic definitely gets weaker when I’m using it on something a lot stronger than I am. I couldn’t use anything offensive. All I could do was slow it down a bit.”

“I guess the terms of your bets are limited by the power difference between you and your opponent,” Alex said. He rubbed his chin. “You think you could somehow convince monsters to bet more themselves? If your whole thing is about gambling… it feels like you could trick them into betting more, right?”

“I don’t think it works like that.” Aaron paused. Then his head tilted to the side as a thoughtful expression crossed his features. “…actually, I don’t know. Maybe it could. I’ll have to try. I haven’t really used it on that many intelligent enemies before.”

“There’s always something to improve at,” Claire said. “But—”

There was a flash of light from the center of the platform. The Baveroth dropped to the ground with a heavy thud.

All three of them leapt back.

Alex was halfway through calling his magic when he realized that the large monster wasn’t moving. Its claws were cracked and shattered. The fleshy parts of the Baveroth — basically only its maw and eyes— were charred and smoking. A jagged, lightning strike-like pattern had scarred across the monster’s body, still buzzing with Riftwarped Energy.

There was no doubt that monster was still dead.

“The hell?” Aaron whispered. “What’s going on?”

“Our reward,” Alex realized. “The reward for winning a fight in the Cracked Steps is what your opponent had. I guess getting launched off the edge of the platform doesn’t exclude that.”

“What kind of loot is a dead bear going to have?” Aaron asked.

“The skin, for one. Did you see how hard that shit was to penetrate? This is going to make like… the best armor we’ve ever seen once we get it off. And hey, look at this,” Alex replied, crouching beside the dead Baveroth as a faint glint in the monster’s mouth caught his eye. He pulled its lip back.While almost all of the monster’s teeth had been destroyed by the sheer magical force of the storms, one tooth remained perfectly intact.

He grabbed the tooth. It popped right out of the bear’s mouth as if it had never been meant to be there in the first place.

“Well, well.” Alex smiled. “What do we have here?”

A shimmer of energy twisted through the air above the tooth and the System’s words crawled into being before Alex.

Stabilized Greater Spatial Fang (Epic)

Bonded Effect: The Stabilized Greater Spatial Fang contains a 10 x 10 x 10 foot cube of extradimensional space folded within it. Inanimate objects can be stored in this space. Magical items are stabilized, though sufficiently powerful ones can erode the ring until it becomes destabilized. Upon replacing a fang, this item’s status will conceal itself.

It cannot be removed until the wearer’s death.

“Looks like the bear had a few gifts for us,” Claire said. “But we might want to save inspecting it for later.”

“Huh? Why?” Aaron asked. “I wanna see the loot.”

“Because there’s another root pathway heading in our direction,” Claire replied. “And we’ve got about a minute to figure out if we want to take another fight or get out of here before the decision is made for us.”