Nightmare Realm Summoner

Alex wiped his face with the back of a hand as he fought to catch his breath. The hole in his chest slowly pulled itself back together, strands of black goop stretching out and linking with each other before pulling themselves shut; a nest of writhing worms.

He stood with a grimace and more than a little difficulty. His entire body felt like it had been wrung like a wet towel and his magical reserves weren't doing much better. He was completely out of energy.

Several loud pops rang out through the spacious throne room. Claire let out a groan from where she laid on the ground. "Bleed me. My fucking everything. It all hurts."

"Pain is good. Just take a nap. It'll heal you right up," Derek said. He shook himself off like a wet dog and sent blood splattering everywhere. Orchid, who had been unfortunate enough to have been walking up near him at the time, was graciously decorated.

She sent him a death glare, then broke her gaze away to look back at the fallen Night King and the green gemstone lying at its feet.

"That's quite something," Orchid said, wiping some of the blood that Derek had just deposited onto her face away with the back of a sleeve. "An Aspect Gem in a place like this… and one with a name that I've never seen. Now you're making me wish I didn't agree to stay out of the fight… not that I could have done much without my staff."

Alex studied the small green gemstone. The Ruler Aspect — that seemed quite apt for a skeleton king. It was the same kind of stone as the red Nightmare Aspect gem that was currently sitting inside his Mind Palace.

I like the sound of a Ruler Aspect. The Night King was kind of a summoner. That probably means this gem should be pretty useful for me, right? I need to try and get Derek to ask Orchid about what Aspect Gems actually are.

"It's not bad," Alex said with a small shrug.

Orchid squinted at him. "Not bad? Maybe for someone from the Starfallen family, but this would go for thousands of credits if you could even find someone willing to sell it. Is it uninteresting enough that you're willing to part with it?"

"No way." Claire shoved herself into a seated position so she could get a better look at the gem. She immediately winced and let out a curse. "Ugh. Shit. Shouldn't have done that."

"Take it easy for a little," Alex advised. "Let your body heal up. We're not going anywhere too soon anyway. I'm going to have to find the Town Token before we can head out — and then I'll have to find a way to actually reach it from the Mirrorlands. Something tells me that might take a while."

"So this thing isn't the Token?" Derek looked down at the Ruler Aspect gem.

"It's not particularly token-shaped," Alex observed. He reached down for the gemstone. As soon as his fingers brushed across its faceted green surface, a sharp cold pierced into them. There was an electric buzz — and the gem vanished.

"I'll take that as a no on your plans to sell it," Orchid said dryly. "Can't say I'm surprised. Only an idiot would sell a gem like that."

Whoops. Oh well. I was planning on taking it anyway. It just seems like it would fit me too well for me to pass up on it.

"No point putting it to waste," Alex said with a one-shouldered shrug. "I'd normally offer a fairer way to get it for everyone but — well, you did agree that we would get all the loot in exchange for finding the Token, and that was before we rescued you."

Orchid coughed into a fist. "You don't have to remind me. I know what happened. I'm not saying anything. I barely contributed anything to this dungeon other than its general location."

"That's not true," Derek said. He put a hand on her shoulder and smeared some of the blood on his palms across her sleeve. "You were a great light. And I don't mind about the gem. I'm just tagging along for fun. No need for payment."

Orchid let out a heavy sigh. "Gods above and below, I really need a new staff. That'll be my first order of business the moment we get out of here. Alex, are you certain that the trees would object to me taking a branch from them? A staff made out of Mirrorlands wood… that would become very powerful. It could be even better than my last staff after some time."

"It's something we can look into after getting the Town Token," Alex said noncommittally.

Orchid blinked. "Wait. Really?"

"The trees aren't really that huge of a threat as long as we're rested up and not preparing for another major fight. We'd probably have to be pretty fast. The last time I fought them, they tried to hold me down while they summoned a slow-moving guardian. The fight wasn't too bad. It's definitely doable."

"I — yeah. That's good to know. I just didn't think you would offer to help me after our deal was complete."

Ah, shit. That's not something that a person from the Starfallen family normally would have offered, is it? I forgot I was meant to be a raging prick with turbo-rich parents.

Claire saved Alex from accidentally digging the hole deeper for himself by answering before he could.

"We aren't out of the Mirrorlands yet, and the other families might be waiting for us when we do take a portal out. This isn't charity. We're going to need you to be useful if we get ambushed."

Orchid nodded, and to Alex's surprise, she actually seemed relieved about that revelation. It was almost as if she felt safer knowing that their plans weren't out of the kindness of their hearts.

"That makes sense," Orchid said. "In that case, I certainly won't complain. It seems the situation has rolled the dice in my favor this time around. About damn time. Thank you."

"Don't thank us until we actually get it," Alex said, resisting the urge to send Claire an appreciative nod. His gaze caught on the fallen Night King. A large Soul Flame burned above the corpse, black and white in color as if it were trapped within an old colorless television.

Alex scooped it into a Spatial Mirror. The Night King's soul was definitely going to be useful. Its use of shadows felt like it had a good chance of aligning with Spark — but he could deal with that after he had the Town Token in his hands.

He glanced around the throne room and grimaced. There was no sign of the token in question, but that didn't mean it wasn't there. "For now, just look to see if you can find the Town Token anywhere. If it's powerful enough, there might be a chance it got reflected over into the Mirorrlands and we won't even need to bother with tearing open a portal back to 274-50 here."

Everyone split up at his words. Well — almost everyone. Claire remained on the ground as her body knitted itself back together after the nasty blow she'd taken from the Night King. There were still cracks in the ground where she'd landed. Alex was pretty sure it was going to take at least an hour or two before she was able to move again properly, much less fully heal. Even though upgrading their Mind Palaces considerably increased the speed of their healing, Claire had a whole lot of it to do.

Everyone else spread through the spacious room and made their way around it in search of the Town Token. They scoured the throne, searching for levers and hidden buttons. They checked the walls and cracks between the stones. They scanned over the doors in search for hidden patterns or passageways.

And, even after Claire had healed up enough to join in and Alex's monsters had regenerated, they had still found nothing. There was no Town Token in the Mirrorlands.

"Well," Orchid said as they all regrouped in the center of the room around the throne, "Shit."

"It's fine," Alex said. "I figured this was the most likely possibility. It was worth trying just in case we got lucky, but I never planned on the Town Token just sitting around waiting for us in the Mirrorlands. It's meant to be on 274-50 after all."

"So you'll just open a portal back to Earth from here?" Derek asked. "You know, I should have asked this earlier, but I was a bit distracted. If you can just open portals anywhere, why didn't you do it when we were getting chased? That would have been a lot faster."

"I can't open portals anywhere. I can normally only open them in a location where a portal already exists."

"So there's a portal here?" Orchid asked.

Alex cleared his throat. "No."

Derek and Orchid stared at him.

"Then…" Orchid trailed off, not wanting to accidentally insult a member of the Starfallen family whilst clearly wondering if she'd tossed her lot in with an imbecile.

"Locations with high magical energy are unstable," Alex said. "Like with Disruptors. The planes are closer together in those spots — and I believe that should hold true for this dungeon. Its reflected over from 274-50, which means this area is connected to the proper plane. And if that connection is unstable and the proximity of the planes is low… I believe I may be able to forcibly rip open a portal."

"Oh. Why didn't you say that from the start," Derek asked. "We should have opened with the easy way."

"It isn't the easy way. The other families might be waiting for us, and we needed to be ready for a fight before I tried punching through the barrier between planes," Alex said.

And I'm also not completely convinced that Rift Walk is going to let me open a portal. I'm putting a lot of faith on my Qi. If it empowers the ability like it does for all the other ones… I feel like it should.

Only one way to find out.

"Do it," Claire said, cracking her neck and giving him a nod. "We're ready. Just… maybe be ready to drop the portal if someone tries to squeeze through on their own."

Alex thought back to the first time he'd tried to pass through a portal between Mirrorlands back to Earth. He'd nearly burnt his own hands off pushing his way into the portal. Sure, this wasn't the same kind of portal, but he wasn't particularly worried about someone forcing their way into the Mirrorlands without Rift Walk.

"I don't think we'll have any trouble there unless someone is trying to cook themselves," Alex said. "But no point getting excited before I actually get a chance to test the theory. It's only that. Better be ready for a fight just in case. You never know… and opening a portal does occasionally draw some nasty attention."

The others nodded their understanding and lowered into fighting stances as they readied their magic. Once they were prepared, Alex drew on his magic.

His first order of business was activating Riftsense. He was unsurprised to find that there was no existing portal already waiting for him. That would have been too simple. Alex was unbothered. He reached past the churning reserve of power within himself and down into his chest, where the warmth of his Qi swirled in wait.

Then Alex drew on the power. It poured through his limbs, traveling out into his palms and making his fingers tingle. Energy buzzed within him like a furious nest of bees — and Alex activated Rift Walk and let it free.

Crackling purple and red energy ignited and danced across his fingertips. The air before his hands thickened like jell-o. He tried to catch onto it, but his fingers passed through the air without finding purchase.

He was so close. Alex could almost feel the sensation of a portal but wasn't quite there. He stepped to the side and tried again. The sensation was weaker this time, as if he'd gotten even farther from a hidden portal.

Maybe there's a spot where the separation between planes is even weaker?

Alex's gaze landed on the throne in the center of the room. He approached it, all too aware of the energy and Qi draining out of his body with every second he wasted, and reached out.

Power crackled against the palms. The buzzing grew louder. His hands trembled against something directly in the air above the seat. He tightened his grip. Dim purple lines flickered out from around his hands as the air bent and warped.

Then, with a snarl, Alex pulled. The air creaked and bent. Qi-filled rift energy poured out into the air and licked across the throne like tongues of purple-red flame.

A loud tearing noise split through the air as a twisting portal yawned open. It burned with brilliant red energy like a weeping wound before dimming down to a dull white with crackles of rift lightning passing within it.

And, through the portal, was a staticky outline of a throne identical to the one in the Mirrorlands. But, while Alex's throne was empty, the one before him had a single object upon it. A hazy outline of a circular disk.

And even through the portal, the System's words shimmered, muted and hazy but still visible.

Town Token (Legendary)

"That's it!" Orchid breathed. "The token!"

A strained grin crossed Alex's face. It took every scrap of power and determination he had to keep the portal from slamming shut. He never would have trusted it to ferry him all the way back to 274-50 — but he didn't need it to do that.

All it had to do was let his hand through for a brief moment.

Moving as fast as he dared, Alex shoved his hand through the portal. Pain exploded through his arm as Rift energy tore into him. It felt like he was trying to shove his way through nearly dry cement.

The portal shuddered. Its edges wavered and warped as it lost cohesion.

"Alex," Claire warned. "The portal!"

A snarl pushed free from his lips as he strained — and he felt his fingers close down around cold metal.

He yanked his hand back.

There was a loud snap. The portal slammed shut, just barely missing his hand as he stumbled back. His arm was badly burnt and scorched. Pain pulsed down his entire arm from the nerves that hadn't been ravaged. And, clutched in his aching fingers, was a blackened token the size of his palm.

Alex's eyes went wide.

The description of the token had changed.

Riftwarped Town Token (Mythic)

Oh, shit.