Nightmare Realm Summoner

"If you even try to suggest stabbing yourself, I'm leaving you right bleeding here," Claire said flatly.

"I'm not completely insane," Alex said. The Ent swung at Glint again, but the Shardwalker dodged out of the way once more. "But don't you think we'd get a better reward if we won this with some sort of handicap? I'm not going to do this forever, but while the apocalypse is still fresh…"

"Yeah, yeah. Extra energy can make a huge difference when everyone still only has scraps to work with. I know," Claire admitted. "But what kind of hairbrained idiot makes a fight harder for themselves, though? You do realize that your life is the thing you're betting here, right?"

"We're in an apocalypse. It's getting bet anyway," Alex replied, his gaze focused on the Ent Harvester. "Might as well up the ante. It's not like I can lose anything more, so why not make the rewards better? Even if this fight isn't necessarily the biggest threat, not getting all the power we can could lead to us finding something too strong to defeat in the future. It's about more than the present."

Glint avoided another series of strikes from the Ent, keeping just out of range. Claire blew out a breath. "Well, shit. I can't believe you're making me admit this, but you've got a point. A stupid one. I don't think we should both do it, though. We need a way to make sure we can actually win this fight if things go wrong."

Alex looked to the sky. There weren't any City-Eaters in the area. As far as he could tell, aside from the Ent, the base of the mountain was actually rather empty of monsters. There was one thing he could do that immediately came to mind.

"Do you think you could kill that if you had to?" Alex asked.

"With how fast it is? Probably. It wouldn't be easy. Why?"

Alex steadied his nerves and flexed his fingers. His heart started to thump in anticipation of the upcoming fight. "I've got an idea. I'll probably need you to back me up, though. I might not be able to handle this on my own."

"Right. Whenever you're ready," Claire said, drawing her sword and lowering into a fighting stance. "And for the record, if this gets us killed, I'm haunting you."

"Glint, stand still."

The Shardwalker froze in place. An instant later, the Ent's claws carved straight through Glint. Claire let out a series of curses as Glint disintegrated, blowing away into energy that swirled into Alex.

"You got him killed on purpose?" Claire asked in disbelief. "That's a bit more than a tiny handicap, don't you think?"

"It's slow," Alex replied. He raised a hand and a spike of glass jutted out of his palm, glistening in the dull purple light that permeated the Mirrorlands. "Now get ready. I'll try to avoid its first attack. If we sandwich it, we'll have the best chance of taking it down. Two versus 1 is worse odds than 3 versus 1, so we should get better rewards for this."

The Ent lumbered in their direction. It let out a creaking groan as it drew closer. Claire shifted to the side and Alex took a step forward, drawing the monster's attention to himself.

It barely even acknowledged Claire as she looped around behind it. The monster's attention was fully focused on Alex. He grinned and waved to it.

"Come on, then. Let's—"

The Ent swung. Alex flung himself back, hitting the ground in a roll and springing back to his feet as a wave of adrenaline slammed into him. It was a whole lot easier to watch something else dodge the monster's attack than doing it himself.

More groans escaped the Ent's mouth as it lurched toward him, swinging again. Alex jumped back, making sure to leave enough space to keep out of the way of the monster's gangly arms.

Claire dashed at it from behind and brought her sword down on its back, carving through the wood with crunch. She leapt away as the Ent howled and spun in her direction. Alex took the opportunity to dart forward and drive his palm into its back, extending a mirror shard from his palm in the process.

The blade pierced deep into the monster and he snapped it off, already flinging himself away. No matter how slow the Ent Harvester was, its arms were still incredibly long. He wasn't a moment too soon. Thin fingers tore up the ground behind Alex, just barely missing his back.

He and Claire wove in and out, effectively nipping at the towering monster. None of their attacks were all that effective with the short amount of time they had to execute them, but striking it over and over again in the same area was having an effect remarkably reminiscent of chopping down a tree.

The Ent's body creaked dangerously with every step it took. It didn't seem even slightly concerned with its own health. It just kept swinging away, desperately trying to catch one of them off guard.

Alex's mirror blade carved across the Ent's already damaged side. It dug deep through the wood. Even as the Ent turned toward him, Claire thrust her blade into its other side. Alex worked his blade even deeper, wedging it into the Ent as hard as he could.

A loud snap split the air. The upper half of the Ent's body pitched back. Alex and Claire scrambled away as the huge piece of living lumber hit the ground with a resounding crash. For a brief second, the only sound was the sound of their labored breathing.

Cold energy drove into Alex's chest like a spike. He inhaled sharply as he felt power course through his body and gather in his soul. A wisp of smoldering brown fire rose up from the dead Ent's body and a grin stretched across his lips.

"See?" he asked, wiping his face with the back of a sleeve. "Tell me that wasn't a lot of energy. There's no way we would have gotten that much if we'd just had Glint handle it himself."

Claire let out a disbelieving laugh and shook her head. "You are a menace. What kind of psychopathic Evoker kills his own summoned creature?"

"This one," Alex replied. "Don't worry. I checked to make sure Glint wasn't intelligent. As far as I can tell, he doesn't have any thoughts of his own and dying doesn't seem to really affect him that much. I'm not just going around killing a sentient creature for fun."

He pulled Glint's Spatial Mirror from the box at his side and scooped the brown flame up, pressing it into the mirror.

Spatial Mirror

Stored Energy:

Low-Mid Novice Grade (Ent Harvester) - 1

Bonded Creature: Shardwalker (Regenerating)

"It'll be about an hour before Glint is back. We should probably wait for him to return before we continue," Alex said as released the mirror and let it flow back to the box at his side.

"What happened to being in a rush?" Claire asked as they headed over take shelter by a large rock at the base of the mountain.

"I've got two days. It's about finding a balance. If we just sprint ahead the whole time, we're probably going to run into something we can't fight. You can't tell me that the energy we just got isn't useful."

Claire blew out a breath and inclined her head in defeat. "I don't understand how you're simultaneously insane and yet still somehow have a point. That energy might actually be enough for me to make it to Novice 4. You probably got a lot more than I did because you shouldered half the challenge yourself, but the System definitely registered that as a decent fight."

"Probably means we would have been completely dead if we ever got hit," Alex said. "I bet that thing would have been absolutely devastating if it had caught us while we were in the forest. Getting tripped up by a root while fighting it definitely wouldn't have gone well."

"I wouldn't be surprised if the System was counting that mad dash through the forest as part of our challenge rewards," Claire admitted. "Can you watch over me until Glint is back? I think I should be able to do this pretty quickly."

Alex nodded. Claire sat down in the boulder's shadow and let her eyes shut as she started to meditate. Her breathing stilled and her features relaxed as she sank deeper into herself. Alex studied her for a few moments.

Maybe I'm just paranoid after my best friend shoved me into hell, but she really seems to trust people easily. Maybe that's just because she doesn't have much of a choice. I had Glint to keep an eye on me, but she has nothing like that in her class.

The Mirrorlands seemed like the absolute worst place that Claire could have landed. She was so limited by having to fight enemies with actual blood that her abilities didn't even work here.

I'll need to make sure to avoid specializing into something so badly that a certain type of opponent makes me completely helpless.

Alex ran his tongue along his lips. They were parched. He'd had a little to drink before he'd fallen into the Mirrorlands, but not nearly enough. With any luck they'd make it to the mountain sooner than his deadline of two days.

He settled in to wait. It would have been stupid to push ahead without Glint and if Claire could get a useful upgrade from reaching Novice 4, the detour would have been worth it.

Minutes ticked by. Alex kept his eyes moving to make sure he didn't get lazy and miss something sneaking up on them. Fortunately, the base of the mountain continued to be as abandoned as it appeared.

Aside from him and Claire, there was nothing. Eventually, a full hour passed. Alex resummoned Glint as soon as he was able to and had the monster stand guard beside him.

It was a short while longer before Claire stirred. Her eyes fluttered open and she blinked, squinting up at him. "How long was I?"

"Pretty much on time. Just a bit over an hour. Did you make it?"

A grin crossed over her lips and she nodded, rising to her feet. "Yeah. I'm a bit stronger now. I… uh, still don't have anything new that's going to make all that much of a difference here, though. Not in most cases, at least. I upgraded the skill that lets me grow a lot stronger when I drink blood."

"By most cases, do you mean no cases?" Alex asked dryly. "No monsters here have blood."

Claire shot him a pointed look. Her cheeks colored slightly, and Alex realized what she was thinking.

"You're going to power up by drinking my blood?"

"Well, if it's an emergency… it's better than nothing, right?" Claire asked sheepishly. "Sorry. I was hoping I'd get a more suitable option, but there wasn't one. Everything I've got is just too blood related. It was that or getting better at controlling blood, and I think that would have been even worse. I won't drink your blood if you don't let me."

Alex blew out a huff and shook his head. "I mean, you're right. A powerup is a powerup. If we're in a pinch, it might come in use."

"And hey, if I drink enough of your blood, you might be dizzy enough for the challenge of whatever we're doing to go up," Claire said with a smirk that quickly faded as she saw Alex's eyes light up. "That was a joke!"

"One that I have noted." Alex wet his lips again.

"Are you thirsty?" Claire asked with a worried frown.

"A bit," Alex admitted. "Nothing to do about it."

"Are you sure you don't want to try—"

"Unless whatever you're about to offer me is water or something completely equivalent to it, then the answer is no. I'm not nearly that desperate," Alex said with a shake of his head. He looked up to the mountain rising over them. "That's one challenge I think I'm going to push off to later. If you're ready, let's just get moving and try to get up this mountain before night falls… if that even happens here."

"If you're sure. And it doesn't. Not from what I've seen so far, at least."

With that, they started back up the mountain toward the storm crackling in the distance and — hopefully — a way out of the Mirrorlands.