Nightmare Realm Summoner

Alex took a glance at the Bleak Night Golden Pass as he and Claire made their way back toward the town hall. The ticket still didn’t have any information about when the upcoming auction would begin. That was quite the relief.

It was good to know that they still had time to gather up resources. If they were going up against a bunch of Outworlders, then winning much of anything would be impossible if they didn’t come absolutely loaded. Alex had zero hopes of earning enough Credits to compete with any of the powerful families that would be present. The Families had only God knew how much time to gather up resources, not to mention all the people within them. There was also no guarantee they’d only be using wealth they’d gotten on 274-50.

They probably had a way to bring some extra resources in. Alex doubted that amount would be impossibly large. The System would interfere with stuff like that. But it would still be enough to mean that a small Nativeworlder town, even backed by the River King’s significant hoard, wouldn’t be able to win anything important at all if they didn’t show up prepared.

It was fortunate that they had access to the Mirrorlands. Alex hadn’t forgotten just how interested Great Tide had been in the resources they’d brought back. For whatever reason, most of the Great Families still didn’t seem to have proper access to the Mirrorlands.

And that meant if they showed up with a bunch of rare materials, they’d likely be able to make a pretty hefty amount of earnings from the Auction. The plan was a solid one. There was really only one major issue with it.

Rare resources in the Mirrorlands tended to come in the form of powerful monsters. Getting the core from a strong monster with a Harvester would let them sell it for quite a bit of money. But in order to get those cores, they had to actually find monsters strong enough to really be worth a lot. Something told Alex that random monsters weren’t going to be anywhere near precious enough to get them a really significant amount of money during the auction.

And while they could have used a Harvester on the dead Baveroth, Alex was pretty sure the bear wasn’t that rare in the grand scheme of things. What they needed to get was the core of a powerful Riftwarped monster. One that even the Outworlders would salivate over.

In short… they were going to have to go hunting.

He and Claire spent a few minutes discussing their options once they reached the town hall. But there really wasn’t all that much to work out. They both agreed that finding a strong monster in the Mirrorlands and taking its core with a Harvester was the best chance method they had to make money in the Auction.

“The question is,” Alex said, chewing his lower lip, “should we be taking anyone with us? Some of the people of Mirrorwane have gotten pretty strong. Aaron proved that. Even though he didn’t have a ton of experience fighting yet, if we had people working with us, we could probably take out a much stronger monster than what we could handle on our own.”

“Derek for certain,” Claire said. “His ability is ridiculous. He’s probably the best frontliner that the town has. It wouldn’t be a bad idea to bring Orchid either. She’s got more knowledge about the System than most other people in the town, and she’s got some impressive destructive force. She’s also one of the few other people with a Partial Soul Manifestation.”

Alex nodded. “I was thinking along the same lines. What about Wess? He’s pretty damn strong too.”

“Maybe.” Claire thought for a moment. “We should still leave the town well defended. I don’t want to take all of our most dangerous people out on a trip all at once. I’m confident in Mite’s defenses… but that doesn’t mean I want to tempt fate.”

“Good point,” Alex said. “Orchid and Derek, then. That leaves Wess. Mite too, I guess. I don’t really know what Mite is capable of in a fight. Probably not a whole lot, but he does have that suspicious puppet of his. I get the feeling he can take care of himself.”

“Between them and everyone else in Mirrorwane, the town should be safe from most threats. Especially if we don’t take too long,” Claire agreed. “Orchid has done a good job of making sure everyone pushed themselves and took advantage of the Mirrorlands. And we won’t be gone long. Who knows when the ticket will activate. It would be smart to aim for a target within a few days’ travel at most.”

“It’s the mirrorlands, so I doubt that should be too hard,” Alex said with a dry smile. “There are powerful monsters literally everywhere. I’ll try to see if I can use my boss-hunting Title to track something down, though. I think it should be possible.”

“The one that lets you locate Region Bosses?”

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Alex nodded. “Ascending Forerunner. Yeah. I’m pretty sure it functions in the Mirrorlands. It’s just a lot harder to use because there are so many powerful monsters at that level that the invisible threads directing me toward Region Bosses kind of cancel each other out.”

Claire shrugged one shoulder. “It’s better than just randomly wandering out and hoping we get lucky running into something good. That works for me. Finley will be happy. We’re going to need to buy supplies for this. If we’re going up against a Region Boss in the Mirrorlands, we would be pretty damn stupid to show up without at least some tools to tip the scales in our favor.”

“I’ll find Derek and Orchid,” Alex volunteered. “You want to buy the stuff? You can use the town resources. This feels like an appropriate application of them.”

Claire shrugged. “Works for me. Meet back up at the town hall in… what, an hour? Do you need to prepare or meditate?”

“No. No point right now, and it’ll end up wasting 4 hours that we could instead be using to hunt something. You were right when you said we don’t know how much time we have,” Alex said. “And it’s not like we can use the Forsaken Grounds yet either. I think we have to wait a bit longer.”

“Unfortunately,” Claire agreed. “Then I’ll go find Finley again. Bring Orchid and Derek with you when you come back. We’ll head out immediately.”

***

It was taking Alex a bit longer than he’d expected to track Derek and Orchid down. He did a quick loop around town in hopes of running into them at random, but he didn’t have any luck. May was also nowhere to be seen — which probably just meant they were all within one cabin or another.

Alex didn’t exactly want to go knocking on every single door in his search, so he gave up and took the easy way out.

“Rhyss?”

The Advisor popped into being at his side no more than an instant later. A part of Alex wondered if Rhyss was ever midway through doing something when he got summoned. Having to show up the moment someone said your name sounded rather annoying.

“Yes?” Rhyss asked.

“Sorry for the bother. I didn’t really want to waste your time with this, but I searched for about five minutes and then got tired. Do you know where Derek and Orchid are?”

Rhyss inclined his head, then pointed to a nearby cabin. “Yes. Orchid is in the cabin over there, with May. They are eating. Derek is on the other side of camp. He is currently together Mite, though I am unsure if Mite is aware he has company.”

“Perfect,” Alex said with a grin. “Thanks. That was it.”

The Advisor gave him a brief nod before vanishing.

Alex didn’t waste any time in making his way over to the cabin that Rhyss had indicated and knocking on the door. He heard someone shuffling inside it. A moment later, the door swung open. Alex had to adjust his gaze downward several feet to locate May.

“You came back. Where’s Aaron?” May asked. Orchid sat at the table behind her.

“Still in the Mirrorlands,” Alex said, stepping around May and heading toward the table. “He’s getting some more practice in. But he did good. His skills are really impressive, honestly. There’s nothing to worry about. He’ll be fine.”

“I know,” May said, rolling her eyes. “I wasn’t worried about that. How many monsters did he kill? I’ve gotten fifteen today.”

Orchid and Alex exchanged a glance.

“I don’t know,” Alex said. “I wasn’t keeping track of it.”

May pouted. “Lame. What was the point of going out if you weren’t tracking how many monsters you killed? Now he’s going to lie and say he killed way more than I did! Orchid, can we go practice some more?”

“Not right now,” Orchid replied. She pushed her chair back and rose to her feet. “Why don’t you go find Rhyss? I heard he wanted some help checking on a few things.”

“While you’re at it, do you think you could get Derek for me?” Alex asked. “He’s—”

“Kay,” May said, without giving Alex a moment to even finish his sentence. She darted out the door without another word.

Alex and Orchid both glanced at it. Then Orchid snagged her staff from where it laid against the wall and stepped past Alex, pushing the door shut with the end of the pale white wood.

“Children,” Orchid said.

“Hilarious,” Alex said absentmindedly.

“No,” Orchid said. “Terrifying. Capable of at speeds impossible to those who are already set in their ways. It is proving harder than I expected to allow her to retain some semblance of her childhood. I do not want the girl to turn out like…”

Orchid trailed off. Her knuckles turned white as her fingers tightened around her staff.

Alex didn’t press the matter. He wasn’t dense enough to miss every single social cue. There were some things that were best left unspoken.

“I hate to pull you away from your duties, but Claire and I are prepping for the upcoming auction,” Alex said. “And we were thinking it might be smart to bring you along. There aren’t many people with as much experience with the System as you here. It’s not mandatory or anything. I wouldn’t want to screw up anything you’re working on. But even if you like it, I can’t imagine you plan to just sit around in Mirrorwane forever, right?”

Orchid hesitated for a moment. “What exactly will you be doing?”

“Hunting a Region Boss in the Mirrorlands. That’s the plan, at least.”

To Orchid’s credit, she didn’t look too surprised at that revelation. She just remained silent for several seconds. Then she nodded. “I see. I suppose you’re right. I can’t just stay in Mirrorwane forever. You believe we’ll be able to do this?”

“Can’t hurt to try.” Alex paused. Then he cleared his throat. “Well, it can. But you know what I mean. We’ll have Derek along as well, if you haven’t guessed by now. I think we’re a lot stronger than we were just a short while ago.”

“That’s not a very straight answer.” Orchid squinted at him. “Do you think we can do it or not? If this is just some scouting mission, there are better things I can do with my time.”

“Yeah. We can do it. Especially if you and Derek both agree to come along.”

“Do you know Derek?” Orchid arched an eyebrow. “He’ll come.”

“And you?”

Orchid smiled.

“I suppose I can’t let my self get complacent. And I’m admittedly curious to see just how much stronger you’ve gotten since the last time we fought. So… yes. I’ll come. This should be enlightening.”