Nightmare Realm Summoner

“Well?” Orchid asked. “What do you think?”

“The plants are… bigger than I expected,” Claire admitted.

The two of them stood in the Vibrant Garden. It had been a few hours since Alex had headed into the Forsaken Grounds. Claire was taking the time to make sure she was familiar with any changes that Mirrorwane had gotten in the short yet significant time the group had been traveling.

And even though Orchid hadn’t been anywhere near her garden in a while, and it was clear that she had been hard at work with the seeds they’d gotten from Shaun. It almost seemed impossible how quickly they’d taken root. At least, Claire was pretty sure it was. She really didn’t know much at all about gardening. But she did know that plants were not supposed to practically spring up overnight. What should have been no more than seedlings at absolute best were in reality shoots that had already risen all the way up to her hip.

She crouched beside one of the plants, which had already sprouted off enough branches and leaves to be called a small bush. There was a glossy purple hue to the edges of the leaves that almost seemed to shimmer as the light caught them.

“It’s the garden,” Orchid said. “I’m not doing too much. Just a few techniques I learned from my family back before I came here. The majority of the growing speed is just because the soil here is magically enriched.”

“Is it?” Claire asked, holding a hand beside the purple leafed plant. She didn’t have any idea what this one — or any of them, for that matter — could do. There was a faint but noticeable buzz in the air around it, as if it were completely filled to the brim with magical energy. A part of her was tempted to take a bite out of it and see what would happen. “I don’t have a very good frame of reference for what would be good or bad when it comes to something like this. I am unfamiliar with agriculture.”

“Why? It’s quite useful. Plants can do a lot,” Orchid said. She ran a hand along a thick, almost bark-like vine. “These are going to be incredibly beneficial to the town once they get big enough. Ingredients for food. Materials for building and medicine. Magical components for crafting and all sorts of other things.”

“I have no doubt,” Claire said. She couldn’t help but notice a faint, familiar scent in the air. It was hard to place exactly what the scent was yet. All she knew was that she vaguely recognized it.“It definitely looks like this is going to be useful. Especially given that the seeds came from an Ancestry. I’d expect them to be very useful. I just don’t know much about it.”

“Any reason?” Orchid asked absently.

Claire glanced over to the other woman and arched an eyebrow. “Most plants don’t have blood.”

Orchid paused for a moment. Then she let out an embarrassed snort. “Ah. Right. I suppose you don’t really eat plant matter. Is it can’t? Or won’t?”

“Can’t,” Claire said. “I need the magical energy stored within blood. There’s no way for me to draw it from anything other than blood. Maybe I’ll be able to do that with an ability improvement at some point in the future. That would definitely be pretty useful. But at at least for the time being, I can’t digest them naturally. An exception might be made for a purely magic material if the System recognized it, but I wouldn’t know until I tried.”

“Is that why you were eyeing up the—”

“Yes,” Claire said. “Would it give magical energy if I ate it?”

“No,” Orchid said. “But it would probably give you a serious case of diarrhea. Even more so than anyone else, given your inability to eat plants.”

Claire glanced at the bush. Then she pulled her hand away from it. “Right. Good to know. What is the purpose of this, then?”

“To be honest? I don’t have the faintest idea,” Orchid admitted sheepishly. She rubbed the back of her neck. “I’ve just been growing all the plants we got. I don’t have a magical book with all the plant info in the System within it.”

“But you knew how to raise them?” Claire tilted her head to the side. “I would have expected that different plants have to be raised differently. How are you getting such good results without knowing what you’re taking care of? Is the Vibrant Garden really that effective?”

That gave Orchid a moment of pause. Then her cheeks reddened slightly. “No. I might have underplayed my involvement a little. Some of the techniques I know for raising magical plants from my family are… fairly universal. They do wonders for accelerating growth.”

“Are you going to share?” Claire asked. She crouched beside the bush, then sniffed the air. Her eyes narrowed as she finally placed the scene she was picking up on. Dhampirs weren’t dogs. They didn’t have an insane sense of smell, but they definitely had a better one than humans.

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And now that she was close to the dirt, there was no mistaking the scent of blood.

Orchid caught the expression on her face. The Outworlder shrugged one shoulder. “It’s not exactly a well-kept secret. Not this part, at least. Life is an excellent fertilizer, and we’ve had more than enough corpses to work with. I had Mite toss the pieces he didn’t need into the garden for disposal. But this method isn’t actually meant to be this fast. It’s a little bit concerning. I’ve never seen growth at this speed. It’s at least two times faster than what we did back home.”

“Maybe because this is a Tier 1 world?” Claire guessed.

Orchid was shaking her head before Claire had finished. “No. That isn’t how they work. I mean, the area could be higher in magical density, causing plants to grow more, but things don’t just magically get stronger for no reason because they’re here. There’s always a cause.”

“Well… is the magical density higher?”

“No,” Orchid said. “That’s the odd thing. I’m honestly quite surprised. My methods are definitely a lot worse than what my family does back on our world. I’m far from an expert in this. There’s no logical reason for me to be outperforming them… other than the kind of the materials I’m using.”

The two of them exchanged a glance.

“People bringing back the bodies of Mirrorlands monsters?” Claire guessed.

“Correct.” Orchid and Claire both looked back over to the concerningly large plants.

A part of Claire almost felt like the plants had somehow managed to grow slightly larger since the last time she’d looked at them, but she was pretty sure that was just her imagination.

“Well, I can’t say I’m entirely surprised,” Claire said. “The Mirrorlands tend to do things like this. The energy in the monsters there is definitely different than the normal monsters we might have in 274-50. It’s not a stretch for them to be a lot more effective at being magic fertilizer.”

“I suppose that’s true,” Orchid said. The two of them fell silent for a moment. Then Orchid pursed her lips. “But this amount of change is even more significant than when we used stronger monsters to fertilize our fields back home. It’s not really proportionate to their relative strength. I’ve seen faster methods — but they required immensely powerful monsters. Much stronger than what we’ve been up against.”

“You have a theory as to why?” Claire asked. “I don’t think anyone else will. I couldn’t do anything other than guess. I’d imagine Alex will be the same. He’s only got a way to pass in and out of the Mirrorlands. He doesn’t actually understand how they work at a deep level. I doubt anyone does.”

“A theory? One,” Orchid said. “You recall how when a portal to the Mirrorlands open, there’s a chance to draw the attention of a powerful monster?”

Claire nodded. “Hard to forget.”

“Right,” Orchid said. She nodded to the plants. “I… think these might be Riftwarped.”

“Riftwarped plants?” Claire repeated. She arched an eyebrow. “You think they’re going to come to life and try to strangle us?”

Orchid didn’t laugh.

“Maybe.”

“Oh,” Claire said. She sent a slightly more respectful look in the direction of the purple bush. “Well. There would be uses for something like that too.”

“That’s the hope,” Orchid agreed. She blew out a small breath and shook her head. “It’s funny. Even if we did know what these seeds should have grown into, I suspect the results wouldn’t be anywhere near what I was expecting anyway. Whatever this garden creates is going to be a complete mystery to quite literally everyone. I’m sure the plants will be effective at… well, whatever it is they do.”

“Reassuring,” Claire said. “But I’m inclined to agree with you. You’ll figure it out. Or we’ll feed pieces of the plants to monsters and see what it does to them.”

“Not a bad idea,” Orchid said. “That could be a…”

Then she trailed off, turning to glance over Claire’s shoulder. Claire followed the other woman’s gaze in time to see Alex stepping into the garden. His skin was positively glistening to the point of being shiny. It almost looked like he’d scrubbed himself clean of even the memory of dirt.

“Found you,” Alex said. His voice was slightly stuffy, as if he’d just woken up with a faint cold. It seemed like his senses weren’t quite fully about him. “Got a bit lost. Had to ask Rhyss where you were, Claire. Oh. Hi Orchid.”

“Hello,” Orchid said, her eyes narrowing. “What’s wrong with you? Weren’t you just in the Forsaken Grounds?”

“Did something happen?” Claire asked, rising to her feet. “You look off.”

“Eh?” Alex blinked multiple times. “Yeah. I figured somethin’ out. You gotta sit.”

“What?” Claire asked. “Sit?”

“Yeah,” Alex said. “That’s how you get the good stuff.”

Then he doubled over. A deluge of black fluid poured out from within his mouth. It looked like he’d tried to swallow Princess. The thick sludge splashed across the ground, sizzling and hissing where it met the dirt. Alex hacked violently, staggering back upright and drawing in a gasping breath.

“My garden!” Orchid exclaimed in horror.

“Whoops,” Alex said. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and squinted at them, as if struggling to make their forms out. “My bad.”

He swayed. Claire shot forward, making sure to avoid stepping in the pool of bubbling black acid at his feet as she steadied him.

“What happened in there?” Claire asked.

Alex swayed. His hand found her shoulder, clamping onto it for support.

Her bones nearly ground together under the sheer strength of his grip.

Claire’s eyes widened in a mixture of surprise and pain. Alex didn’t even seem to realize how strong he was. He wasn’t squeezing at full strength… but she’d tempered her body along with him the last time they’d entered the Forsaken Grounds. There was no way he should have been able to injure her this easily, especially on accident.

Alex’s eyes fluttered.

“Alex!” Claire exclaimed, shaking him slightly. “What happened?”

“Huh? Oh, right. Hi, Claire,” Alex shook his head. Then he gave her a loopy grin. “I think I figured out how Blade’s room is actually meant to work. ”

Then he passed out in her arms.