Nightmare Realm Summoner

A few minutes of walking later, Alex and Claire crested a hill of gossamer grass and got their first look at the whole of the crooked city. It would have been more accurate to think of it as a rather oversized town. A healthy smattering of houses dotted the ground in ill-planned city blocks that reeked of hasty construction and poor planning.

The city wasn't exactly small, but nobody would have considered it big. If Alex had to guess, he would have said it had once possessed a dollar store that never had a single car at its front but always remained in business, an old big box store, and a ratty baseball field where parents got far too invested in the game because there was absolutely nothing better to do.

There were a mixture of one and two story houses in the city, as well as several dozen that had forgotten that their foundations were meant to remain in the ground and currently floated two dozen feet in the air, suspended in space and time.

A concrete road led a few feet out of the city before abruptly coming to a stop at the grass. It was covered with large cracks that ran all the way back into the city and along many of the buildings, splitting some of them clean in half.

Tall, askew towers pierced into the sky, easily fifteen stories high. They carved through the swirls of purple and pink smoke that flowed through the air like the world's largest failed gender reveal party.

Directly before the town was a towering sign. More accurately, there were about sixty of them. They'd just all somehow melted into each other and stacked like an odd totem pole of green and white metal. All the words that they'd once borne had twisted and melted together until their original meaning was warped beyond recognition.

A small — relatively speaking, as it was still about the size of two school busses welded together lengthwise — City-Eater Centipede slipped from a crackling portal above the city. Its many legs rowed, propelling it through the air and into another portal.

The city had somehow managed to take the faint smell of oil and livestock manure with it into the Mirrorlands. It was probably the last real identifying part of the city's former identity. Alex and Claire exchanged a glance.

"Lovely place," Claire said. "Do we have a plan here?"

"I can get a new monster to summon," Alex replied. "I just don't exactly know how yet. The plan is to get one."

"Right," Claire said. "And how are you going to do that?"

"I've got a running theory, but the last monster was unique. I need to fight something else to verify anything," Alex replied as he gave her a one-shouldered shrug. "None of our plans change either way. I want to kill everything I can and then go from there. I'm 90 percent sure I get my new summon by doing… something to the energy of the things I've defeated."

"When you put it that way it sounds like you should be on a list," Claire said with a snicker. That only lasted for about a second before her foot hit a patch of slick grass and she slipped with a curse.

Alex's hand shot out and he grabbed Claire by the front of her shirt before she could hit the ground — and, to his disbelief, he held her there, suspended. Alex had never been weak, but he also hadn't been anywhere near strong enough to hold an entire other human in the air with a single hand.

He pulled her back to her feet and they stared at each other in mute shock for a second.

"What was that?" Claire asked in awe. "Did your class give you some sort of strength augment?"

"No, I don't have anything like that. I just grabbed you."

Claire looked down at herself. Then she grabbed his arm and gave it a squeeze. Alex stared at her and she cleared her throat, releasing him.

"Sorry."

"What are you doing?"

"I was checking how much muscle you have. No offense meant, but you don't look anywhere near bleeding strong enough to carry me around with one hand," Claire said. "How did you do that?"

I felt like I was a lot faster when I was in the dungeon as well. Is this not happening to everyone?

"I was under the impression the system was making us stronger when we leveled up," Alex said hesitantly. "Is that not the case?"

"I don't think so. Arms out," Claire said, gesturing to Alex. He blinked, then followed her request. The Dhampir grabbed him beneath the armpits and gritted her teeth as she leaned back, trying to lift him into the air. She got his feet off the ground by about an inch before letting out a grunt and dropping him back down. "Bleeding — why are you so damn heavy?"

"I don't feel heavy," Alex said. "Maybe you're just w—"

Claire glared at him and he coughed into a fist before he could finish the sentence.

"Did your class really not give you anything?" Claire asked. "I'm not kidding about you being heavy. You look way lighter than you actually are. You haven't been eating rocks or something, have you?"

"No rocks as far as I'm aware," Alex said dryly.

"Then what are you doing? If it isn't your class, how come you're so much heavier and stronger than you should be?"

"I don't know!" Alex shook his head helplessly. "I haven't been doing anything that you…"

Claire's eyes narrowed as he trailed off. "That I what?"

"You know that class tutorial you got, yeah?" Alex asked slowly as a memory nipped at the back of his mind.

"Yeah," Claire replied. "Why? Did it tell you about some fancy way to get stronger?"

Alex hadn't gotten a proper tutorial. The closest thing to it had been a rather odd chat with Meiderly, who had given him about a quarter of the information that everyone else had gotten — but perhaps the eyeless man had also given him some information that nobody else had.

He taught me about drinking the magical energy before using it to level up to make my Mind Palace grow. Could it also be making my physical body more powerful?

"When you meditate, what do you do with your power?" Alex asked.

Claire blinked in surprise at the sudden shift in topic. "What do you mean? I just draw it into myself and then use it to make my abilities grow stronger."

I was right. I can't think of what else could be causing this. Other people didn't get told about drinking the water — or, at the very least, Claire didn't.

Alex hesitated for a second. Every piece of information was an advantage when the end of the world had happened so recently. Advantages only lasted when other people didn't have them.

He'd only known Claire for a short time. Before the apocalypse, that would have been nowhere near long enough to consider someone a friend. She'd have been an acquaintance at best.

But things were different. They'd escaped the Mirrorlands together. They'd saved each other's lives multiple times. Even though they hadn't known each other for long yet, as far as friends could be concerned, it was pretty much impossible to ask for more.

No point keeping anything from her at this point. We're in this together. If she ends up deciding to betray me, then that'll be on her. If anything, it'll give me a new challenge to deal with. I win either way.

"Have you ever tried drinking the water in the basin of your Mind Palace?" Alex asked.

"Drinking it?" Claire stared at him. "No. Why would I do that? Did you do that?"

He nodded.

"Why?"

"My tutorial was a bit… odd. I didn't really get one because of how I fell into the Mirrorlands before getting assigned a class. It caused a few issues, but the person that did tell me what little I know basically guided me to drinking the water first. The basin in the middle of mine was originally all cracked up, but drinking the energy fixed it."

"Huh. I directed some of the energy into fixing up my basin because I noticed it leaking, but the System didn't say anything about drinking any water. I didn't even realize you could put more energy into it. I thought it was all fixed up. Are you telling me…"

"There's definitely more to it than that. I don't know the extent of it, but there's a lot more."

Claire rubbed her eyes. "Are you serious?"

"Dead serious."

Blowing out a breath of disbelief, Claire ran her hands through her hair. Her gaze snapped back to Alex as another thought struck her. "And you think drinking the energy makes your body stronger too?"

"That's my best guess."

"Bleed me. That's ridiculous. Almost feels unfair.," Claire muttered. Her gaze sharpened and she squinted at Alex. "You've known about this the whole damn time?"

"I had no idea it made me physically stronger. I thought it just improved my Mind Palace, which would be important at some point in the future."

Claire crossed her arms in front of her chest and her eyes narrowed. "Even if you didn't know it made you stronger, why didn't you tell me? If it's important in the future, then it's better to start early."

"To be honest? Because I wasn't sure if I could trust you yet. I don't have the highest opinion of people on a normal day, let alone when the world ends. It took me a bit to warm to you. Also, I had no idea how much the System had already shared."

A few seconds passed in silence as Claire studied him. He met her gaze without flinching. He didn't regret playing his cards close to chest. It hadn't had a huge negative effect on her and he didn't need people too suspicious of him. Undue attention was only useful when you were strong enough to deal with it.

Claire blew out a breath. "You're a little shit, you know that?"

"More than aware of it."

"Not that I'm complaining, but… I honestly expected you to be a little more annoyed about this," Alex said slowly.

"What, holding back information?" Claire snorted. "This isn't anything new to me, Alex. This is just how Court was back in Ayrin. Nobody gives up information. Even to your closest friends. I'd have been pissed if permanent harm done, but I can still catch up. It's not like my Mind Palace is closed off to me."

Alex nodded slowly, but he was even more curious about Claire's home planet than he had been before.

Are all Dhampirs really trying to constantly backstab each other? How'd Claire end up so… well, nice?

"I see," Alex said. "Well, in the spirit of things, make sure you finish upgrading your Mind Palace before you go up a Stage to Initiate. I think advancing stages locks in your progress."

"Good to hear," Claire said. "And don't mistake me. I haven't forgiven you. That'll cost some extra blood."

"Does me telling you now do nothing? As far as I can tell, not many other people know about this yet."

"Of course it does." Claire crossed her arms in front of her chest and arched an eyebrow at him. "It shows that you like me now. I still need to do something to get back at you for holding back on me, though. That's just how things work. Might as well get a snack while I'm at it. Your blood is delicious."

"That's… fair, I suppose. Also slightly unsettling. It does seem like you're kind of just using this as a chance to drink more blood."

"Damn right I am," Claire said with a smug nod. "Do you know how bleeding hard it is to get something that tastes good? You're literally the only thing I've had a chance to eat since arriving in the Mirrorlands. I'm not going to pass up on a chance to get more when I don't have to feel bad about it."

"Maybe we should find you some chickens or something back on Earth."

"I guess… but it's the energy I drink that matters. And, compared to the monsters I drained back in my world, you taste a lot better," Claire said, rubbing the back of her neck sheepishly. "I think we know why now. You're filling your body with magical energy."

"Are you telling me that I'm literally turning myself into a snack for Dhampirs?"

"Bleed that. I'm not sharing," Claire said, her eyes darkening. "Just me. You don't have nearly enough blood to go around, and it's not actually all that easy to stop drinking once we start. There generally isn't a reason to. Don't let any other Dhampirs get their fangs on you if you want to have any blood left when they're done."

Well, that's not concerning at all.

"Noted," Alex said. He looked out to the city, which laid before them as if in wait. "We're killing daylight… or whatever kind of light there is in the Mirrorlands, but the only thing I want to be killing is monsters. Shall we?"

"After what you just told me? Absolutely." Claire started past Alex and down the hill in the direction of the city. "I need to get even more energy if I'm going to catch up to you. I think it's time to take a page out of your book."