Nightmare Realm Summoner

Greenish-gray ichor sprayed across Aaron’s face. A horrid screech filled the air as the furry chest of the large, warped wolf before him split open, a huge bone blade sprouting out from within it and coming to a stop just an inch away from his nose.

Aaron laid there for a moment, staring up at the point of the blade as internal fluids dripped from it, splattering against his forehead. He laid on the ground of the Mirrorlands, multi-colored purple grass swaying around him. Blood slicked them and soaked into the ground beneath him, turning it into a thick slurry.

It smelled like carrion and dead, rotted fish.

Tasted like it, too.

The sword wiggled. Then it jerked, sawing up and down as it worked itself toward the top of the wolf. Aaron idly watched the blade continue its path all the way through the monster up until it burst from its skull in a spray of bone and gore.

A moment later, Derek’s face appeared above the monster as he pulled the two severed halves of its body apart with a roar, showering Aaron with even more gore. A rush of energy prickled against his skin as it flowed into his soul.

“I got you!” Derek said cheerfully as he tossed the halves of the beast aside like they were nothing more than — well, roadkill. “That was a close one!”

Aaron sat up. He looked down at his completely ruined clothes. There wasn’t a single clean spot left on him that he could use to wipe himself off. He sat there for a moment. Then he rolled to the side, finding a slightly less-ruined patch of grass and rolling around in it like a wet dog.

Only then did he rise to his feet and give his face one last wipe with the back of his hand, trying to get as much of the disgusting sludge off himself as possible before he spoke and accidentally indigested any more of it.

“Yeah. A close one,” Aaron said. He tasted... something. Something wretched. Before he could even process the thought, Aaron spat onto the ground. Then he wiped his mouth again. “Almost got dirty.”

Derek let out a booming laugh. He clapped Aaron on the shoulder, staggering him. “Almost. You probably shouldn’t let the monster get on top of you next time. It’s not a very good place to be. Generally speaking, at least.”

“Noted,” Aaron said. He glanced back at the two halves of the corpse behind him. “But it did distract that thing long enough for you to cut it in half. So I’d say it worked. Maybe we should just swap spots next time.”

“Mm,” Derek said thoughtfully. “Maybe. But then you would need to cut the monster up. And you still don’t have anything that can do that… unless you want to borrow one of mine?”

Derek twisted his body to proffer one of the many hilts protruding from him. Pretty much every single one of the weapons — barring a few random daggers and other small trinkets that, in Aaron’s hands, would do absolutely nothing at all to a monster — were probably somewhere near half Aaron’s weight if not more.

“I think I’m good,” Aaron said. “Don’t think I’d be able to do much at all with a weapon like that. Damn. Guess the idea is dead.”

“That’s fine,” Derek said. “Death is just the first step of something new.”

“You think?” Aaron asked.

“Yeah,” Derek said. “Just not for the guy that died.”

The corner of Aaron’s lips twitched. “I guess that’s true. Very wise. Do you have any Harvesters left?”

Derek shook his head. “No. All full.”

Aaron grimaced. “Damn. Mine are full as well. We probably should have checked that before we headed out. How are we going to get a Riftwarped Core from this thing? Seems like a shame to waste it.”

“Could just bring it back to the town,” Derek offered. “But walking around with a corpse might end up end up drawing attention. It’s a bit stinky.”

The two of them looked at the dead monster for a moment. Then Aaron shrugged. “Few more fights can’t hurt.”

“Nope. Should be fun,” Derek agreed. He lumbered over to the halves of the wolf monster and grabbed each one by a leg.

Aaron’s eyes widened. He only had an instant to raise his hands before his face before Derek swung both of them into the air, slinging one over each shoulder and sending guts and blood spraying out in two wide arcs over his shoulders. Several droplets of blood and at least three internal organs splatted into Aaron before falling to the ground before him in a rather pathetic splatter.

“Whoops,” Derek said. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine,” Aaron said. “Just watch where you’re swinging those things.”

“Right,” Derek said. He turned back in the direction that they’d come from, moving considerably more carefully this time. “I’ll do that.”

This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

“Thanks,” Aaron said, striding to catch up with Derek to make sure he wasn’t downwind of the man. He trusted the large berserker with a lot of things. His memory was not one of them. But Aaron only managed a few paces ahead of his companion before he turned to glance back at him. “And… Derek?”

“Yeah?”

“Thanks for coming out here with me,” Aaron said. “I appreciate it.”

“Oh. Yeah. Sure thing,” Derek said.

The two of them walked in silence for a few seconds.

Then Aaron caught a small frown tugging at the corners of Derek’s lips.

“What?” Aaron asked.

Derek coughed. Then he sent a quick glance at the bloody corpse-halves on his shoulders. “Uh… just to confirm, was it the monster guts you liked? Or—”

“The company,” Aaron said. “Not the monster guts.”

“Right,” Derek said. “Yeah. Makes sense.”

“Right,” Aaron agreed.

***

Orchid pivoted, twisting on one leg as she sent her other whistling through the air in a powerful kick aimed toward a child’s head.

May leaned back, letting the blow pass an inch before her nose before she leapt at Orchid with a snarl like a rabid stray cat. Orchid’s hand shot out, but May ducked out of the way and drove into her chest with a grunt. If she’d weighed much more than the crazed animal that she was currently embodying, the attack might have actually managed to knock Orchid over.

“Hah!” May exclaimed into Orchid’s side, her words muffled.“I got you!”

“You did,” Orchid allowed. A small smile tugged at the corners of her lips as she let her hands lower. “And you didn’t get hit this time. Well done. I’d say that counts as a pass.”

“Yes!” May took a step back. A huge grin splayed across her lips. The scar on her right eye had lost all its redness. It still traced pretty much across her entire face, running from forehead to chin, but there was no trace of the infection left. She was about as recovered as she was going to get right now.

More impressive was that she’d managed to retain enough of her spatial awareness to fight — even just with a single eye. They’d been training for the past few days, but May was nothing if not fast at adapting. The first day or so had been the worst as she’d had to get accustomed to judging distance with just one eye.

But then she’d adapted at incredible speeds. If Orchid was honest with herself, she wasn’t entirely certain how the young woman had pulled it off. May had just shrugged whenever questioned. Perhaps it had something to do with how young she was. The System might have been providing her with the tools to advance at a speed that would let her compete with the immense threats on a Tier 1 world.

That did feel like a bit of an avoidant answer, though. Such a degree of assistance seemed… uncommon for the System. There was always the chance that May was a prodigy. Orchid supposed it didn’t really matter at the end of the day.

All that she cared about was May was clearly recovered enough to train. And one way or another, the young woman was definitely going to train. Orchid couldn’t keep May here forever. And if she didn’t accompany her to get back to fighting monsters, then May would doubtlessly go and seek them out on her own.

“Well?” May asked. “You promised.”

Orchid sighed. Then she shook her head. “Yes. I did. I suppose we can go back to the Mirrorlands if you’re really feeling up to it. I’m genuinely not sure how you managed to regain your spatial awareness so quickly. I don’t think I’ve ever heard of someone recovering their abilities this quickly without the injury actually being healed. Nobody that wasn’t trained from birth, at least. Are you sure you don’t have a Great Family somewhere in your bloodline?”

May snickered. “I don’t think the Great Families would really enjoy the thought that their bloodline ended up running a convenience store instead of the world or something like that.”

“There are a lot of ways to power,” Orchid said. “And they’re no stranger to long plans. You never know.”

“Meh,” May said. “Come on. You can’t distract me. Let’s go kill some shit. I’ve been waiting for this for ages.”

“Days,” Orchid corrected, glaring at the other woman and pointing an accusatory finger at her. “Most of which you were laid out in bed and unconscious.”

“Exactly,” May said with a nod. “Days is a lot of time for some of us. Proportionally speaking. You might be old, but I’m not. Come on.”

Then she strode past Orchid, stepping out of the cabin and into Mirrorwane.

“Old?” Orchid muttered. “I’m not old!”

Then she hurried after the girl.

***

May could not see half of the world.

Everything felt completely askew. Even walking felt odd. So long as she was looking straight ahead, her sight ended at the left half of her nose. The urge to turn her head constantly to try and get a better look at her surroundings was nearly overwhelming.

But she couldn’t let herself do that.

If she did, Orchid would have realized the truth. She would have realized that May was no genius at all. That couldn’t have been farther from the truth. She hadn’t recovered. She hadn’t somehow gotten her spatial awareness back. And she definitely wasn’t nearly as confident as she was pretending to be.

In truth, May was terrified.

She didn’t want to die.

The mere idea of fighting another monster made her feel sick enough that she wanted to throw up. Her eye still throbbed, even though the wound had sealed over. And her face…

May didn’t want to think about it. She knew it was stupid to be sad about a scar when it could have been her life that she’d lost. But it still hurt. It hurt bad enough that a part of her wanted to hide inside Mirrorwane and never leave its walls again. The fear and trepidation simmering inside her had only grown with every passing day. If she waited much longer, May was certain that she’d never muster the strength to step back into the Mirrorlands.

And that was exactly why she couldn’t sit around and finish recovering. By the time her body recovered, her mind would be gone.

So she’d cheated.

While May couldn’t quite see, she could feel. Rubbing her fingers together was just enough to draw on the faintest parts of the powers that Snapcaster gave her. She’d already gotten quite used to using electricity before her injury, and every living being seemed to have some electricity within it.

But just vaguely sensing it wasn’t enough.

So, while Orchid had thought May to be sleeping, she’d been practiced honing her powers to feel that faint electricity. It hadn’t been easy. But, fortunately, having half the world go dark was a very good motivator. She’d managed to get a pretty decent handle over it over the first night, and she’d only honed it since then.

The magic didn’t even draw too much energy. It painted the missing parts of the world in a dull, blobby canvas across her mind. Not enough to truly see, but more than enough to tell when anything was getting too close.

It was enough to fool Orchid.

And it would be enough to kill enough monsters to break the increasingly ravenous fear that was clawing at her insides.

It had to be.