Nightmare Realm Summoner

There was silence. Nobody else was left in the running for the sword. All that remained was the man, who was left saddled with a 1100 Credit sword worth a few hundred at best — and he no longer had a way to pass the debt off onto anyone else.

“Sold!” Sofia called. “To Room 7!”

Claire turned back to Alex, shaking her head as she returned to the table. “That was easy. What an idiot.”

“What was that?” Aaron asked. “I thought you wanted it!”

“No,” Wess said. “Goddamn. You sly woman. You never wanted it in the first place, did you? That whole thing was to… what, make him waste money?”

“No,” Claire said. “That was just a bonus. It was to make people think about us. To make them realize we have capital and aren’t afraid to use it. If my bet didn’t pay off, we’d have been the ones that were saddled with a huge waste of money. Anyone with a brain knows that was a 50/50. If the guy in the other room hadn’t been a complete idiot focused on defending his honor, he’d have given the sword up.”

“Wait,” Aaron said. “You mean you didn’t have some genius plan to make sure that didn’t happen? I thought you were manipulating him or something!”

Claire sent him a look. “You can never perfectly control someone. Not through words. All you can do is nudge. Never make a plan that relies on somebody doing exactly what you want. There was a very real possibility we’d have gotten landed with the sword. That would have been fine too. It would have shown people that we were filthy rich and a poor choice of a group to fight with. But this is the much preferable option.”

She glanced over her shoulder. The man from Room 3 wasn’t saying anything else. He’d definitely realized that he’d been made a fool of at this point, but it looked like he was smart enough to keep from crashing out over the chat when literally everyone could hear him. He was taking his “victory” in silence.

Sofia had already started pitching the next item to everyone, and bids were ringing through the air. Alex couldn’t quite bring himself to focus on them. He was still trying to figure out what Claire had just done to the poor bastard in Room 3.

Mite let out a small laugh. “That was cruel. You just basically slaughtered that guy to make us look smart and rich.”

“I’d have done worse for less,” Claire said with a shrug. “That should be more than enough to keep us in people’s minds for a little while. But memories are short. We’ll be largely forgotten if someone else does anything impressive. And it’s an inevitability that they do. We’re not the richest ones here. But so long as nobody knows that but us… we can leverage it.”

“Never knew you were so good at stuff like this,” Mite said. He let out a quiet curse, then pushed his arm even farther up his back beneath his cloak. There was a loud click. Then, with a pop, a cloth-wrapped package dropped away from him. It landed on the ground with a very heavy sounding thud.

“You snuck a hairball in?” Wess asked, peering at the package.

There was a faint click from within it. Mite didn’t even reply to Wess. He just watched as the clicking noises grew louder. Thin slivers of metal sprouted from the package, coiling through the air before lowering like the legs of a spider. Then the package started to expand.

The cloth rippled and slithered as more and more pieces of metal clicked and snapped into place. What had been no bigger than a lunchbox just moments before had already quadrupled in size and didn’t seem to show any signs of stopping.

It took Alex a few seconds to recognize what it was. It had been a little while since he’d last seen it, but there was no mistaking the hunched, cloaked construct before him. Mite’s puppet. The one he’d brought with him back from Valley Ford.

“What’s that for?” Aaron asked.

“Analysis,” Mite replied. “I was just waiting a bit in case someone walked into the room. That Edward guy was coming and going a lot. Better to be safe than sorry, you know?”

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

The puppet turned to face the auction. Faint clicks echoed within its body.

“Analysis? For what?” Claire asked. “Can it somehow determine what the items that Bleak Night is offering are? I was under the impression that they were concealed.”

“They are,” Mite said. “And no. It can’t.”

“Then what use is it?” Wess asked.

Mite sent him a flat look. Then he rapped his knuckles on the side of the puppet’s head. “Hey. Connect, yeah? Ring really loudly. The idiot is probably just slacking off or on the toilet or something. Wake him up.”

Before anyone could ask what Mite was talking about, a crackling buzz and a distant voice came from within the puppet. “Wha — hello? Mite?”

Mite grinned. “Ha! It works! I knew it would work!”

“Mite!” the voice said again. And, this time, Alex recognized it through all the staticky fuzz.

Finley.

No way. Did Mite just…

“Behold,” Mite said with a huge grin. “My puppet-phone. Direct connection between two places with no signal whatsoever. Revolutionary technology. A connection made by two fully separate wholes both relying on the same energy source for power. By using certain amounts of energy and then analyzing the loss on the other side, they can connect with each other basically anywhere. I don’t think an equivalent for this existed even back with the knowledge that the old Earth had.”

“None of the System did,” Wess said. “I didn’t see anyone with magic before the System.”

“Shut up,” Mite said. “I’m monologuing.”

“It’s pretty neat,” Finley said, his voice crackling from within the puppet. “There are many remote communication options, but this one seems quite unique. It’s certainly—”

“Would you put the other one on the line, please?” Mite asked. “You’re interrupting my monologue. This isn’t going to hit right unless I get the full reveal all at once.”

Finley sighed. “No appreciation. None at all.”

Then there was another buzz. A new voice replaced Finley’s.

“What is it you desire?” Rhyss asked.

And just like that, Alex realized what Mite was going for. The bioengineer hadn’t mentioned this while they’d been strategizing. He’d been holding onto it just so he could flex on them — and Alex couldn’t even complain. Access to Rhyss and Finley while they were remote…

“We have some questions to run by you both,” Alex said, looking back to the auction as a grin spread across his lips. “What do either of you know about a Ice Rake Potion?”

“That is unrelated to the town,” Rhyss said. “I cannot answer.”

“Don’t worry,” Mite said proudly. “You’ll get your chance. You can give it to Finley for this one.”

There was a crackle.

“It’s a one-use item,” Finely said. “Basically a slash of frost that comes out of a stone when it breaks. They’re very dangerous when used en masse. Not really something I’d be concerned about as a single item. Why do you ask? Are you at the auction already? Is one for sale?”

“I need to figure out how to mute the other side,” Mite said. “But aside from that, I’d say this is a pretty useful invention. I was thinking it was quite a waste to have all the knowledge and power that Rhyss does and not have an opportunity to access it during an auction during which we might see something good for the town that none of us would recognize.”

“It’s brilliant,” Claire said. “Not even most Outworlders will have the knowledge that Rhyss has. There’s no guarentee we find anything… but you outdid yourself, Mite. Well done.”

“Thank you,” Mite said. “You can continue. Flattery will gain nothing, but I am more than happy to accept it freely and graciously.”

“Mentioning the fact that you want more flattery is probably about as close as you can get to the opposite of gracious,” Wess drawled. “But I’ll give it to you, it’ll be nice to at least poke the advisor about some of this stuff. Never know what might show up.”

“I’m here too, you know,” Finley said. “I’m useful.”

“Sure you are,” Mite said in a tone that sounded a little bit too much like the way an adult would speak to an optimistic child. “You know, I still haven’t gotten that energy source I asked you for.”

“I’m working on it,” Finley said irritably, his voice crackling through the magical connection. “Do you have any idea how hard it is to get those? You can’t just hold a grudge against me because I don’t shit solid gold.”

“Maybe not, but you’d definitely be cooler if you could,” Mite said.

“You think?” Aaron asked, tilting his head slightly to the side.

He sounded way too sincere.

Everyone looked over to him. Aaron wasn’t even looking in their direction. His eyes were firmly affixed out the window as he watched the auction unfold, ignoring them completely. He’d just been speaking to try and avoid looking rude. Alex supposed that was probably actually the smartest thing to be doing.

They weren’t here to screw around.

The others all realized it as well. Mite coughed into his fist and tapped his puppet on the shoulder. The voices crackling from within it went silent.

“I can re-activate it whenever we need,” Mite said.

Alex nodded. Then he and all the others turned their attention back to the auction. A grin tugged at the corners of Alex’s mouth, but it wasn’t even because of Mite’s invention or his eagerness to get his hands on items. Those were great benefits. They’d be a huge boon for increasing the strength of the town and a number of other things.

But what Alex was really after was petty and entirely personal — and he wasn’t afraid to admit it.

I wonder just how much more we can screw the other Outworlders over before this whole thing is over.