Nightmare Realm Summoner

The world changed around Alex once more. A wave of sky blue crashed down from above, driving down onto his shoulders and washing him away like a leaf adrift in whitewater rapids.

He didn’t even have time to register the air being knocked from his lungs. His surroundings had rebuilt himself once again. For the second time that day, Alex was no more. He was nothing but a dim consciousness observing the memories of another.

Alex — Pygil, the new thoughts corrected, interjecting the name of the body whose memories he was currently sifting through, stood on a beautiful field of flowers. Colors from the rainbow danced in the grass around him to the tune of an invisible breeze.

And there were other colors, too. Ones that Alex couldn’t even begin to try and describe beyond the fact that they were not colors that could fit upon the spectrum of light visible to the human eye. They were painted with the flowers across the field in broad, sweeping strokes.

The field wasn’t all too different from the kind of garden that one might have seen when visiting their grandmother’s house. There was no impressive foliage or monstrous power hidden within the plants around Pygil.

They were just flowers.

And yet they were beautiful.

But Alex couldn’t bring himself to focus on the field or even absorb the surroundings to figure out what it was that this Memory Crystal was going to show him.

Thoughts jerked across his mind like the raking talons of a claw. They bumped into his consciousness violently, sending coursing rivers of electrical energy arcing through his entire body. His head spun as he tried to orient himself properly.

This was different than it had been the last time. There was no seamless merge into the new world; the new mind that his consciousness now temporarily resided in almost seemed to reject him. He couldn’t properly make all of the foreign thoughts rolling against his head. They were there, like waves lapping at the distant shores of a beach.

A few of them managed to slip through and brush across his mind. But the rest were beyond his reach, swallowed by a thunderous ringing in his ears and a painful throb in his chest. Alex would have thrown up had his thoughts possessed any control over the physical form it had temporarily taken up residence in. Something was wrong. Very, very wrong.

And then there was the blood.

There wasn’t so much as a droplet of it on the ground. He was surrounded by a beautiful field that should have smelled of roses and the inviting, sweet fragrant call of flowers.

But the only scent that reached his nostrils was the acrid, metallic smell of blood and the rot of death. Its thick stench burned in Alex’s nostrils with such intensity that it would have brought water to his eyes had the eyes he looked through been his own.

Alex’s thoughts were suddenly yanked away from him. There was a sharp pop, and then he found his sense of self evaporating. He didn’t even get a chance to be surprised. Shock could not exist without something to actually bear it, and there was no more Alex.

Until the Memory Crystal ran its course, there was only Pygil.

And the only emotion that Pygil felt right now was disgust.

Sitting before him was a man in plain, unadorned clothes. The man was clean shaven and bore nothing of worth upon his body. He sat with legs crossed and fingers splayed out through the grass behind him. There wasn’t so much a single thought on the man’s face.

He may as well have been completely empty in the head. A spear could probably pass in through one ear and out the other without finding so much as an instant of resistance in the man’s brain.

”This is how I find you?” Pygil asked, his hands clenching into fists. ”Fifty years. For fifty years, you led me on a wild goose chase. I have been chasing you for half of a century. And when you finally stop running like a coward, you cannot even be bothered to sit straight and greet me?”

The other man didn’t reply for several long seconds. His eyes, closed in apparent euphoria from the delicate sunlight illuminating his features in a halo, didn’t even flutter. It was like he couldn’t even hear Pygil.

Pygil’s jaw tightened in fury. He was being ignored. The man sitting before him was more than capable of hearing his words. It would have been impossible for him not to realize that someone of Pygil’s strength was coming.

You think you can disrespect me? After everything you’ve done? After everything I’ve gone through to make it here?

”Quinn, you arrogant bastard,” Pygil snarled. ”Get up! Stand. Stand and fight! If you don’t get to your feet, then I’ll lift you by the hair and put you down like the dog you are.”

I will not let him steal this from me. He will not ruin the death that I have worked so hard to earn. The agony of training for years on end. Of tearing my body asunder over and over again in the pursuit of power.

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All so I could kill the bastard who sits before me, unwilling to even opening his eyes in my presence. What am I? Nothing but a worm to him? Is that what he means to imply? That I am not even worthy of so much as a glance?

Quinn’s peaceful expression didn’t so much as twitch. If Pygil didn’t know better, he really might have thought the man was deaf. But even if Quinn’s ears had magically stopped functioning, there was no chance in all the hells that his senses were this dull.

You don’t reach this stage of power and make as many enemies as Quinn has without having more awareness than a dead hamster. He’s looking down on me.

White-hot anger seared through Pygil. He had seen cities fall. He had carved his way through so many monsters that their names had long since faded into his mind. Kingdoms would have given every scrap of wealth in their coffers to borrow his powers for a mere day.

And Quinn couldn’t be bothered to look into the eyes of his killer.

”You will not ruin this for me,” Pygil snarled. ”I take no pleasure in this, but I will not allow you to take the coward’s way out. Even if I have to flay every nerve from your body, you will fight!”

Pygil’s senses plunged deep into himself. He found the immense reserves of power that lurked deep within his soul. His will flowed into the mighty gate at his very core — and he willed it open.

”Soul Manifestation,” Pygil snarled, his fingers clawing into the air before him as he pulled it apart like shreds of ratty cloth. Trails of swirling silver-gray mist trailed after his fingers as power poured form him and into the world, bending it to his will. ”Necropolis of the Ashen King.”

The wind rustling through the grass went still.

A chill took the world in its grip as a gray hue swallowed the meadow around Pygil. Motes of ash twisted into being, borne from nothing but sheer power, falling like snow. The warm light from the sun was gone.

All that remained was pallid, empty gray.

The world was still and silent. It obeyed a new set of rules, now. Rules that would not tolerate disobedience. Rules that would not tolerate Quinn.

Pygil clenched a fist. He drew on his soul, and he felt the very world respond. Reality warped as he imposed his will upon it, forcing it to bend to his will.

Swirls of ash twisted around Pygil’s arm. They wound between his fingers to form into the rough hilt. More and more ash gathered around him until an entire blade hung by his side, its tip digging into the ground.

The weapon was of average size. There was nothing remarkable about its appearance, and its blade was worn rough and ragged as if it had gone for thousands of years without being sharpened.

And, through the endless gray pallor that now ruled the world, the scent of blood grew stronger still. Pygil would have thought that he’d have grown used to it by now. But, for some reason, the cloying smell still made his nostrils twitch.

I will not kill him immediately. An arm should be suitable. Forget fighting him. It was never worth my time. A coward like this does not deserve a warrior’s death. He needs to be put down. Yes. I will carve him to pieces. And, only when he begs for release and screams until his voice is long gone, will I grant it to him.

Pygil took a step forward. Falling motes of ash twisted around him, parting to make way. A single mote fell from the sky to land on the ground near his feet.

The grass flattened. A wet crunch rang out as a several-foot wide indent formed in a split second. The sheer Qi within every single mote of ash surrounding him was enough to flatten a boulder instantly. It would only take Pygil a single thought to will them toward Quinn, crushing the man to death before he even realized what happened.

Pygil couldn’t keep a savage grin from forming across his lips. This was the power he had cultivated over the past years. Indomitable, unstoppable power.

Quinn’s eyes opened.

”That is a distasteful weapon,” Quinn said.

Pygil smiled.

”And now the great warrior opens his eyes,” Pygil mocked. ”It’s too late, Quinn. I gave you an opportunity to die like a man. Like a warrior. I would have given you peace. A worthy death. But now? I will piss on your corpse and leave you in an open grave.”

”Have we met?” Quinn asked. ”I don’t believe I recall your face.”

Pygil fought the urge to let his eye twitch. Quinn was trying to anger him. To make him lose concentration and let control of his domain slip. But that would not happen. While Quinn had wasted his years away, Pygil had trained. He had prepared.

And now Quinn would pay the price for his arrogance.

”For years I have hunted you,” Pygil rasped, stalking forward as the ash continued to swirl around him. He didn’t let any of it touch Quinn. It was too early. He wanted to see the man suffer for what he had done. ”You thought you would deny me the honor of killing you with my own hands? You will take nothing from me. Not anymore. You may be mighty, but your power is nothing in the face of a god.”

Quinn tilted his head to the side. For a moment, he seemed to consider speaking.

A cruel sneer crossed Pygil’s lips. He lifted his sword. The time for talk. There was only one thing he wanted to hear right now, and it was screaming—

Something wet splattered across Pygil’s chest.

He blinked, then looked down — but down was up and up was down. The sky spun overhead, only to be replaced by the ground and then the sky once more.

His head hit the ground with a muted thud. Pygil looked up to the sky, lips parted, and found his vision blocked by the now headless body swaying above him. Blood coursed down his neck in rivers, soaking into his clothes and pooling at his feet.

A shadow passed overhead. Quinn reached out, pushing Pygil’s body back with a single finger. It pitched to the ground, landing with a thud that never reached Pygil’s ears. Then the man crouched, his indifferent gaze boring into Pygil’s skull. Motes of ash gathered on his shoulders, but he didn’t even seem to notice.

”I was going to explain that there’s far more to power than a mere domain,” Quinn said. ”But then I realized I couldn’t be bothered.”

For a brief instant, his gaze met into Pygil’s. But he wasn’t looking into the dying man’s eyes. He was looking past them. Quinn’s head tilted ever so slightly to the side.

Then he stepped over the head.

The world went black.

And, with a snap, Alex found himself back in his own body. His hand shot to his chest, where his heart hammered furiously within. Cold sweat prickled against his back. And even though he was back in the safety of his own Mind Palace, the hand of death stull lingered at his throat.

What the fuck was that?

It had only been a Memory Crystal. Nothing more than event that had long since passed. But, for some reason, Alex couldn’t shake the feeling that Quinn had been staring straight at him.