Nightmare Realm Summoner

Alex and Claire escorted Vil out of her wooden golem and walked alongside her back on their way toward Mirrorwane, leaving it behind them temporarily. Neither of them were about to bring a massive bomb right into the middle of their town no matter how useful it could be when dismantled.

“Whoa,” Vil breathed, craning her neck back to look up at the many eyes covering the Mirrorlands version of the Veil of Stolen Confessions. The eyes looked back down at her. They traced her path as the three of them continued into the town, only giving up when the eyes on the other side of the wall were able to take their place in staring. Vil swallowed. “That’s… uncomfortable.”

“Our engineer is a bit of a nutjob,” Alex said. “But you’ll find he does good work.”

“Are the eyes just for decoration?” Vil asked.

“No,” Claire said. “It’s a good way to keep watch over the town. Make sure nothing happens that we can’t be aware of. There’s no room for risk when the System is involved… and we don’t want somebody to have an unfortunate accident. The observation helps discourage such things.”

Does it really do that? I’m pretty sure it doesn’t. If it does, Mite hasn’t said shit about it. That said, Rhyss is definitely aware of just about everything that happens in the town. I guess the end result is no different.

“A bit Orwellian, isn’t it?” Vil asked.

“We’re not spying on what people do in their free time,” Claire said. “We’re making sure Outworlders don’t sneak a spy into our town and that nobody gets ambushed by some kind of special monster that managed to get past our defenses. Some things are lost in the process of that.”

“Not to mention that this is hardly any different than what was happening on Earth before the Apocalypse,” Alex said with a snort. “Or do you think literally everything you were doing on your phone wasn’t tracked? We’re just more overt about it. And nobody’s actually using the information.”

“You a conspiracy theorist or something?” Vil asked, squinting at him as they continued past the warped houses on the way toward the Embassy.

“No,” Alex said. “But I was under the impression that this was just common knowledge. Didn’t your phone ever start marketing something to you the moment you mentioned it? I mean, it’s not like it matters anymore.”

“Guess not,” Vil allowed. She shook her head. “Good riddance. I missed my phone at first, you know.”

“Seriously?” Alex asked. “You liked the internet that much?”

Vil sent him an odd look. “No. I wanted to get back in contact with my family. My friends. I was off at college when everything went down. That included the airports. There was no way for me to get home.”

“You couldn’t just walk?” Claire asked. The three of them came to a stop at the entrance of the Embassy. The guard gave them a nod. Alex returned it, but they made no move to enter the building yet.

“Walk?” Vil snorted. “No. I don’t think crossing the ocean would have gone very well. It’s a bit hard to get from New York to Indonesia on foot.”

“Damn,” Alex said. He grimaced. “That’s rough.”

Vil just grunted. “It’s life. I didn’t even manage to get my damn thesis finished. It’s bullshit, you know? Spending 8 years on a degree and getting fucked out of it at the finish line because the world goes up in flames all around you. I almost had a doctorate.”

“You were a doctor?” Claire asked, her interest piqued.

“No,” Vil said. “I was studying architecture.”

“Huh,” Alex said. Vil sounded a lot more torn up about not being able to finish her degree than he’d expected. Then again, some people had to have enjoyed college. He couldn’t imagine that everyone had found it as soul-draining as he had.

“I take it you weren’t too thrilled with the end of the world,” Alex said.

“No,” Vil said dryly. “I was not. My family is probably all dead. My brother and sisters as well. I just joined up with my uni friends. The ones that survived the initialization, at least. They were the only ones I thought I had left. They—”

Vil’s jaw clenched. She looked away. There was no need for her to finish the sentence. Alex and Claire were already aware of exactly how well that had gone.

“That’s rough,” Alex said. He jerked his chin toward the portal. “Shit happens, right?”

Vil let out something between a snort and a laugh. “Yeah. Shit happens. What to do. At least I’m alive to be pissed off about it. That’s better than most.”

Claire shot Alex a flat look.

“What?” Alex asked.

“Nothing,” Claire replied with a shake of her head. “Come on.”

“What’s in here?” Vil asked.

“You’ll see in a moment,” Alex replied. “Just come on. We’ll be back in a second to dismantle the bomb in your wood dude, so there’ll be time to look around later.”

Vil’s brow furrowed, but she shrugged and nodded.

The three of them entered the Warped Embassy.

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Alex stepped out onto packed dirt a moment later as he found himself returned back to 274-50. Claire and Vil emerged alongside him. Claire was already watching Vil like a hawk by the time they set foot in the normal version of Mirrorwane — but the other woman was too busy gawking at her surroundings to notice.

“Another town?”

“Same town, actually,” Alex replied. “Welcome to Mirrorwane.”

Their arrival had drawn some attention. The System’s announcement about the completed Trial must have been sent to everyone, because there were already quite a few people milling about the inside of the town, and a number of them were already making their way over.

“Whoa,” Wess drawled, shifting his hole-ridden hat back with a finger and squinting at them from beneath the brim. “I don’t think I’ve seen the lass before. Did you find a straggler in the Mirrorlands?”

More surprised murmurs rolled through the growing crowd around them. Vil shifted uncomfortably at the rapidly increasing attention directed toward them.

“Your town is a lot bigger than I thought it would be,” she muttered. “How many people do you have?”

“Dunno,” Alex replied. “A few dozen?”

“How’d you get it this big so quickly? And the buildings… they’re so… big. Do you seriously not have an Outworlder family behind you? How did you manage to get all of this?”

“Got lucky,” Alex replied.

Vil’s eyes narrowed. “Somehow, I doubt that.”

The crowd shifted. Orchid stepped out from within it, coming to a stop a few feet away from them. Her gaze locked on Vil and a frown crossed her features. “Who’s this?”

“This is Vil,” Alex said. “And she was the final boss of the first wave, best I can tell.”

That only furthered the murmurs.

“A human?” Wess asked in shock. “The System sent a whole ass human at you? Just… a normal human?”

“Yeah,” Alex said. “We were as surprised as you. She got shoved into the Mirrorlands a while back. That somehow led to her becoming part of the Trial. The requirements never actually said we had to kill all the attackers, so when she surrendered, it counted as a victory.”

“Is sparing someone who was trying to kill us really the best move?” Abby asked from where she stood alongside Aaron and May. “Couldn’t she try again?”

“We don’t believe that she had any specific desire to kill us,” Claire said with a small shrug. “The System just threw her down and fogged her memories. She was only trying to survive. I find it difficult to fault anyone for that under any circumstances.”

“And she wouldn’t be the first person who tried to kill me that joined the town,” Alex said with a chuckle. “Derek’s done that a few times.”

“I hold no ill will toward anyone here,” Vil said, taking a step forward and setting her jaw. “I appreciate the opportunity to prove myself. I won’t let any of you down. I’m no pushover, and I’m certainly not stupid enough to blow the chance that was given to me. You’ll have no trouble from me.”

A few murmurs rolled through the crowd. People shifted out of the way until Mite popped out at the front, visibly irate. There were a number of cuts on his clothes and he still had a few wounds along his body. It looked like he’d done his best to join in on the fight — though it didn’t seem that his efforts had gone all that well.

“Forget that,” Mite said. “I’m sure we’ll all be thrilled to get to know the new addition later. But where are the rewards? I was promised rewards.”

“The leaderboard rewards?” Claire asked. She glanced up. “Rhyss?”

Vil jerked and nearly leapt into the air, a startled curse slipping from her lips as the gray-skinned advisor appeared in the air before them. His lone eye bore into her for a moment before turning to Claire.

“Yes?”

“Did you manage to keep track of all the kills during the fight?” Claire asked. “Could we get a report on how it went? Start with the bad.”

Alex’s stomach clenched slightly. The fight had gone pretty good as far as he could tell, but he and Claire hadn’t been there for the whole thing. Even though they’d obviously survived, that didn’t mean nothing had gone wrong.

“There were no casualties,” Rhyss said.

A cheer rolled through the crowd, even as Vil’s eyes widened slightly.

“None?” she muttered, mostly to herself. “Seriously?”

“The town sustained zero damage from the first wave,” Rhyss continued. His voice was as emotionless as ever. But, if Alex hadn’t known better, he might have thought there was a note of pride within it. “Our defenses were not impacted in any manner. We repelled all attacking forces completely and utterly. There were no significant injuries either.”

“Good shit,” Alex said with a relieved laugh. “That’s what I love to hear.”

Mite looked down at the cuts covering him. Then he cleared his throat. “Can we jump to the rewards? Nobody cares about—”

“The most significant wounds were suffered by someone who tried to jump into a fight largely unarmed and got cut up before he was fortunately saved from further injury by another combatant,” Rhyss said.

There was a short pause.

Several gazes turned toward Mite.

“What?” Mite asked. “Why are you all looking at me? That wasn’t me. I just tripped. Nobody saved me.”

“You’re welcome,” May said.

Mite winced. He held out for a moment longer. Then he visibly wilted.

“Yeah. Thanks.”

“Moving on to rewards,” Rhyss said, deadpan, “Please report to the town hall to spend your points. For the time being, I will announce the top three scorers. We should implement a physical scoreboard in the future to make checking positions easier.”

“Can do,” Alex said.

“In third place was May,” Rhyss said, nodding to the young woman. “She amassed 16 points, including one extra point for the rescue of another combatant.”

Shit, seriously? May? Not Wess or someone else? Goddamn. She’s really been locked in, huh?

Aaron clapped May on the shoulder. He didn’t seem surprised about her score at all. Instead, he just grinned at her. “Good job.”

“Thanks,” May said proudly.

“In second place, with 25 points, was Wess,” Rhyss continued.

“What?” Wess exclaimed, his eyes going wide. “You kidding me? I defeated way more than 25 monsters!”

“He was not awarded the 8 kills that he stole by shooting the monsters that other people were fighting at the last second,” Rhyss continued.

Wess’ shoulders slumped. “Damn it.”

“But he was rewarded an extra two points for the assistance of other townsfolk that were actually in trouble,” Rhyss said.

Wess cleared his throat. “Ah. Yeah. You’re welcome.”

Alex couldn’t keep a grin from his lips as he shook his head.

Something tells me he didn’t even realize he had helped. Greedy bastard was just trying to steal the kills.

“And, finally, in first place was Derek,” Rhyss finished. “With 50 kills.”

Murmurs rolled through the town, and the majority of them were in approval. It seemed everyone had seen Derek at work at one point or another.

“Makes sense,” Claire said with a nod. “Where is he now?”

“Looking for more monsters,” Wess said. “I don’t know if he’s registered that the trial is over. He’s just killing things in the woods.”

“Sounds about right,” Alex said through his grin.

“How many points did I get?” Mite asked.

“One,” Rhyss said.

Mite sighed. “Oh. What can I buy with one point?”

“Nothing,” Rhyss replied. “We don’t have anything worth that little yet.”

Mite sighed again. “Ah. Well. Cool. Thanks. Anyone happen to get their hands on a giant energy source that they’d be willing to hand over so I can actually do something worth my time?”

Alex cleared his throat. “Mite, this is Vil—”

“Don’t care,” Mite said, holding his hands up and shaking his head. “I’m here for the loot, not suspicious people that you found wandering in the Mirrorlands.”

“…and she has a giant magical energy source strapped into a golem back in the Mirrorlands,” Alex finished.

Mite froze. A sinking expression crossed his features all too late as he realized what Alex had said, but that didn’t stop the words from slipping out of his mouth.

“What did you just say?”