Nightmare Realm Summoner

Alex was wrong.

He'd been convinced that there had only been two outcomes to the fight.

The first — he or Claire made the mistake.

The second — Diego did.

But, as it turned out, there was a third move. One that he hadn't even considered. Diego took one look at them, the blood painted across his body now hanging above him like the sword of Damocles. His wild eyes danced around the room like the wind that had vanished at some point during their fight. He leaned onto one leg, the muscles in it bunching. Wet ground squished beneath his weight.

Then he exploded into motion.

Not toward Alex or Claire, but toward the exit of the dungeon. Claire yanked her hand down and Alex flung his makeshift weapon. Alex's throw went wide while Claire's blood only managed to scrape him, the majority of its damage blocked entirely by the metallic gray that swam up beneath his skin.

Diego threw himself through the portal, vanishing without so much as another word. A breeze rolled through the forest and the flower petals above them. Alex and Claire stared at each other.

"He… ran?" Claire asked, stunned. Her hands lowered slightly and she took a step away from a flower that was just a little bit too close to her. Diego had taken their full attention, but neither of them had forgotten that at least one of the flowers in the room had teeth.

"I didn't think that was something you could do," Alex said, taking his breath back from the adrenaline gripping his system. He felt as jittery as a child overfed Adderall. After a steadying breath, he swallowed and stared at the exit. "Is it possible he's lying in wait? Laying a trap?"

"Could be," Claire said slowly. "How good is the human nervous system? Can you remain in a state of suspended tension for a long period of time?"

"No. Not most people," Alex said. He just wasn't all that certain that Diego qualified as most people. He looked down at the brutalized bodies scattered across the ground around them. The smell of death was rancid. It was blood and bodily fluid and sweat layered with sweet pollen and honey.

Claire was still in her shifted form. Her fingers were elongated and pointed, her features sharper and more angular. But, even as Alex watched, she shook herself off like a wet dog. Her body returned to its normal form and she shuddered.

"Staying changed that long used a lot of my reserves. I'd have tried to drain him, but…"

"Yeah. You didn't want to get close for long enough to try." Alex hadn't forgotten what Diego had done to Glint. Claire had definitely made the right call there. "Are you going to run out soon? We could press deeper into the dungeon and try to find you something to drink from."

"I'm fine. Don't need more right now, or you might end up too drained to fight. And going deeper is a terrible idea," Claire said with a firm shake of her head. "Challenge is one thing, but I don't know where Diego is or what he's planning. If he shows up while we're in the middle of a fight, it's over for us."

Alex grimaced. Claire was correct. The large Novice 6 was just too powerful. But, at the same time, he wasn't actually displeased with how the fight had gone at all. Between the two of them, they'd forced a considerably more powerful opponent to retreat.

I'm not so sure we actually would have been able to kill him. It's beyond fortunate that Diego wasn't entirely all there in the head. It all boils down to the same ironclad fact that I've known ever since arriving in the Mirrorlands.

I need to get stronger.

"What's that look on your face?" Claire asked suspiciously. "Don't tell me—"

"No, no. I'm not that stupid." Alex raised his hands in surrender. Pollen prickled at his nose. He grimaced and wiped it with the back of a sleeve. "Going deeper is a bad move. We should get back to the town. We need to recover."

And I need to come back here once I'm healed up and Glint is ready again. I still haven't given up on clearing this thing as I am. We've got a good grasp of how strong the monsters here are, and they're well within reason. I can handle it. At least, I think I can. If I'm wrong, I'll be dead. Then I won't have to worry about it.

"Which brings us right back to the first problem," Claire said. She chewed her lower lip in thought and shifted from foot to foot, eyeing the door at the edge of the room like it was about to grow teeth and lunge at her. "What do you think the chances are he's just sitting there and waiting?"

"Well, if we wait for about an hour, we can find out. I can send Glint through."

"That… might work, actually. I don't love the idea of sitting around in a dungeon room and doing nothing for an hour. It looks like the previous group that came through here cleared it out before they got killed, but you can never know. It's still safer than just strolling through and hoping that huge bleedin' bastard isn't just waiting for us to come out."

And so it was decided. Alex and Claire sat down a healthy distance away from the flowers, keeping an eye on the door and forest alike, and waited.

***

An hour later, Alex sent Glint back through the door with a simple set of instructions to return immediately if the previous room was empty. The Shardwalker stepped into the darkness, then emerged again just a few seconds later.

It looked like Diego had left — or at the very least, he wasn't in the first room of the dungeon. Alex and Claire took the portal, then sent Glint before them once more to the outside of the dungeon.

There was no way to guarantee that Shardwalker would actually return to the same entry room, but he didn't need to. Alex just gave him orders to try and kill Diego if Glint spotted him outside.

Glint would hopefully get a little more damage off before he died if the giant were sitting around in wait for them. And, if he died, then they'd know that Diego or another threat was lying in wait.

Several seconds ticked by after the Shardwalker headed through the portal but nothing happened. It didn't look like he'd had any trouble. After exchanging a glance, Alex and Claire headed out of the dungeon.

All that awaited them outside was a slight chill and a small breeze. The sun had started to make its way toward the base of the horizon and had cast the world in a yellow-orange hue. Glint stood outside the dungeon, waiting patiently beside the blank white headstone. Large footsteps led away from the entrance and off into the distance in the opposite direction of town. Several small trails of blood followed after the steps.

"Looks like he really did just run," Claire said. She crouched beside the footstep and touched a patch of blood with a finger. "Immediately, at that. It's dry."

"So I take it that means you aren't going to…"

Claire's eyes narrowed. She stood back up and brushed her hands off on her pants. "No. I'm not eating dry blood unless I've got no other choice. If you're so concerned with me getting to eat, you're welcome to rectify the situation yourself."

"Let's put that one on the backburner unless we've got no other choice." Alex's nose scrunched in distaste and he shook his head. "Come on. Let's head back to town and get some rest. We've only got two days until the system event starts."

"You don't have to tell me that. I'm more than happy to get some rest. I've definitely got enough energy to advance to the next level," Claire said with a relieved sigh. "Let's go."

***

Alex banished Glint as they crossed the last hill and drew up to the town. The sun was just minutes from setting beneath a low cover of clouds that had moved in during their walk back and it reflected off the windows from the stolen pieces of skyscrapers, illuminating the town in a sea of dancing lights.

It's beautiful, in an eerie way. Like watching a disco for ghosts.

The chill had grown stronger during their trip back, and it was now a step into uncomfortable territory. Alex shivered and rubbed an arm as they headed past the outer buildings and toward the center of town.

Unsurprisingly, the crowd from before had largely dispersed. A few people were still wandering around the center of town and speaking in hushed, scared voices, fearful to break the silence that the night had brought with it.

The only real point of any noise was a surprisingly undamaged several-story building that looked like it had once been an apartment or an office. It didn't have any identifying signage on it, but the door was open and light poured out from inside it along with muted conversation.

Alex and Claire headed toward it without a word. There really didn't seem to be much other place to go. They had to meet the residents of the town eventually. And at the very least, Alex wanted to see who his competition for the upcoming challenge would be.

They stepped into a moderately crowded lobby of what had definitely once been an apartment. White tile, stained by dirt and scratch marks, lined the floor. Faded wallpaper curled off the drywall. Men and women had gathered around several large leather couches that probably cost as much as Alex's college tuition near the center of the room. In stark contrast, the light came from several large lanterns that had been hung along the walls. They looked completely out of place.

Did the System put those here? Or did someone just have a lantern collection they were waiting to whip out?

Almost instantly, Alex realized that these weren't the same people that had been panicking just a few hours earlier. Of all the names floating before his eyes, almost everyone was at least Novice 3.

The majority of the people were on the younger side, and they all sported weapons and armor of various sorts. If they hadn't all been real, Alex would have thought he'd stumbled into a particularly dedicated LARPing convention.

They only made it a few steps into the room before a rather tall, muscled man with tanned skin and a large axe strapped to his back spotted them and rose from his spot on the couch. He looked a little older than college aged and had definitely seen the inside of a gym more than his own home. He brushed his light blonde hair out of his relatively handsome face and raised a hand in greeting.

Ben - Cleaver (Novice 3)

"New faces?" Ben asked with a charismatic grin. "You've got damn good timing. Were you in the area when the system message went off?"

"Yeah," Alex said. "I'm Alex. This is Claire. How are things looking? We were trying out the dungeon."

Ben coughed into a fist. Several other people glanced in their direction. Everyone was concentrated in a pretty small area, so it wasn't hard to eavesdrop.

"Oh, really? How'd it go? I've been mostly sticking to roaming monsters," Ben said. "They're way easier to deal with."

I haven't seen a single one of those yet. They must be way less common than monsters in dungeons. I wonder if that's because the system hasn't fully initiated yet.

"It… wasn't good," Alex said with a grimace. "We found four dead people when we got there. A massive guy called Diego killed them all."

The room went quiet. That had gotten everyone's attention. Stares bored into Alex and Claire from every direction.

"You're shitting me." Ben's smile fell away. "On your mother?"

"Why would I lie about something like this? He damn near killed us as well. He's Novice 6."

Concerned murmurs ran through the room.

"How?" one man asked.

"Forget how. Why?" A Novice 4 woman said, driving a fist into her palm. "The world's gone to hell and some crazed monster is fucking murdering people?"

"If we're being honest, it's not really surprising," a Novice 4 man with a longsword said, identified by the System as Isaiah. His jaw clenched and he went to spit on the ground before catching himself and settling for shaking his head. "It's disgusting. I knew some people went to the dungeon earlier today. I was wondering what was taking them so long. We can't afford to lose anyone right now. We needed their strength. This is going to cause trouble for us."

"Forget just trouble," Ben exclaimed. "They're more than just numbers, Isaiah. Four people are dead!"

"And a whole lot more are going to be dead by the time this event is done," Isaiah said with a sigh. "If you don't understand that, you're going to be one of them."

Ben's jaw clenched. Alex half expected him to start yelling, but Ben just exhaled heavily through his nose. "I hate that you're right, but you're right. I think we've all gotten enough proof of that. Can you describe this Diego character? I don't know anyone by that name that passed through the town."

They're… actually smarter than I thought they would be. I totally thought the people here would be completely disorganized and at each other's throats or something, but they're actually handling things logically. Maybe I was just a little arrogant with how stupid I expected people to be.

That or most of the stupid ones that were in this backwater area are already dead and the others are just biding their time.

"You can't miss him," Claire said. "He's giant, probably half a foot taller than you are. Maybe a bit more. More muscle than a gorilla and he's clearly insane. He's also got an ability that makes it really difficult to cut him. Stabbing works better. Kind of."

"Lovely," Ben said, his voice taut. "Thanks for the information, Alex, Claire. Where'd you hail from?"

"We were camping when the apocalypse hit," Alex said, sticking to his previous story. "Turns out, that wasn't the smartest move."

The corner of Ben's mouth twitched. It was clear he wasn't in much of a laughing mood. "No, I don't suppose it was. You didn't run into a bloke called Kaze, did you?"

"No," Alex replied with a shake of his head. "Why?"

"Ah. Figured you might have seen him. He's a bit reclusive, but he's damn good at killing monsters. Ran into him outside town a while ago, figured he might have been camping as well. It doesn't matter. Well, if you're planning to stick around for the event, we can use all the help we can get. Any more fighters are more than welcome."

"That's our plan," Claire said.

"Do you happen to have an extra room or two? We've been fighting pretty much all day and really need to get some rest," Alex added.

"Sure thing. I can't blame you." Ben turned to a bearded man resting on one of the counters in the corner of the lobby. He raised his hand to get the man's attention. "Timothy, could you grab me a key?"

The other man nodded and rifled through a drawer before tossing a metal key over.

"Room 221," Timothy said in a gravelly smoker's voice.

Ben snagged it out of the air and handed it to Alex. "Here. We don't really have that much room and we're trying to conserve as much space as possible. We're lucky this apartment complex was fifty years behind the times and still used normal keys. The stairs are in the back."

"Thanks," Alex said. "Trade what information we've got tomorrow?"

"Sounds like a plan. The more we can put together, the more chance more of us survive this shitshow," Ben said as he blew out a sigh. "Does anyone want to volunteer for that guard we were discussing? It sounds like we're going to need it."

Alex and Claire walked off as the people in the room started to speak once more, trying to figure out how to prepare for the approaching event and deal with the new threats cropping up everywhere.

The stairs, a small passageway that wasn't even wide enough to fit two people side by side and smelled of mildew and dust, were where Ben had indicated. But, as they started up them, Alex's mind wasn't on their room.

In a few hours, after he'd gotten a little energy back and the other people had retired to rest in preparation for the next day, his plans would finally be allowed to start.

Today, he'd nearly died. If Diego hadn't fled from their fight, either Alex or Claire almost certainly would have. The thought twisted his stomach. He didn't want to die — but the early days of anything new were always the most important. This was the gold rush for power. This was the path he'd chosen. Taking the risks now to enable him to survive in the future. To thrive in the future.

Challenge led to strength. The monsters on Earth weren't as strong as the ones in the Mirrorlands. That meant the challenge was different. It was still there — but it wouldn't come from facing an opponent with overwhelming strength. After all, Claire had said people had been able to clear the dungeon in groups before in her world, and she was Novice 3.

That meant the monsters in this world were weak enough that he could fight them as he was now. The advantage Glint gave him made that fact even more true. Stopping to get even stronger before the next dungeon would mean he also made the challenge easier… before he even saw if he could handle it as he was now. It could deprive him of potential strength in the future just to make a fight now easier, and there was no point surviving a fight today just to end up getting killed the next day.

If he wanted to truly succeed in the apocalypse, he had to take risks. Those risks could come at the cost of death, but that was a cost he had no choice but to accept if he wanted to be anything more than another body in the crowd.

Tonight, he would solo a dungeon — or die trying.