Nightmare Realm Summoner

While Claire set about shopping with Finley, Alex set out on his own task. There was a certain request he needed to get started before he got on to the fun part of his day. Fortunately, Rhyss made such things trivial at best.

"You called?" the Advisor asked, materializing before Alex expressionlessly.

"Yeah. Thanks for the prompt response. As always. I need something made, and I was hoping you might know who I could direct the request toward," Alex said. He scratched the back of his neck. "I'm now realizing I probably could have just asked Finley for this… but support your local community and all that."

"What is it you need?" Rhyss asked.

"A disguise," Alex replied. "Really, just a mask and a few good outfits, I guess. We're going to be in the presence of a lot of Outworlders pretty soon."

He looked down at his dress shirt and tie. The magical clothes made by the bracelet on his wrist weren't the literal ones he'd been wearing at the start of the apocalypse, but they were a perfect rendition of them.

They were also, unfortunately, painfully hard to miss.

"You are certainly a bit… difficult to miss," Rhyss allowed. "A mask would probably be wise as well."

"Almost certainly," Alex agreed. "Do we have anyone in the town that can help? Maybe one of the non-combatants has a tailor class or something?"

"I will look into it," Rhyss said. "Will you give access to town recourses for the purposes of this request?"

"Yeah, of course. I should probably pay too. How much do you think would be fair? Five Credits?"

"That would likely be more than fair. Three would be more appropriate."

"Seems like a good round number. Let's go with that," Alex said.

Rhyss nodded. "Very well. I will investigate this matter. I assume you are planning on leaving to train in the meantime?"

"…yes."

"Then I will endeavor to have the task largely handled by the time you return. Make sure to leave at least a few hours before the time of your return and when you plan to depart for the Ancestry. It will take some time for a novice crafter to customize equipment to fit you."

"Noted." Alex grinned. He spotted Claire stepping away from Finley out of the corner of his eyes. She'd finished up right on time. "Thanks, Rhyss. You're great."

The Advisor didn't respond to the compliment. He simply nodded as if Alex had stated the most obvious fact in the universe. Then he blinked out of existence, likely heading out to hunt someone down for the task.

"You ready?" Claire asked as she drew up to Alex. She looped a plain necklace of black chain over her head, letting it fall against the nape of her neck. A ripple passed over her body like a wave through a still lake.

Her tattered clothes shifted. Dull red and black bloomed to cover her, forming into something between the suit of a butler and a dress. It was elegant in the way that would have fit into a ballroom, optimized to sit close to her body and avoid any trailing frilly bits that could get caught during a fight. The clothes weren't so tight as to be revealing or restricting, landing solidly in the middle between elegance and function.

"Is this what you normally wore back in Ayrin?" Alex asked.

"No," Claire replied with a small grin. "Getting that would have required Finley to have some kind of access to the merchants there — and I really don't need any potential extra attention from Nightmarch. This is just a ballroom enforcer gown from some other planet. It's pretty close to what the lead Broodguard would wear."

"It's nice," Alex said. "Also won't get stained by any blood you get on it. Seems very functional."

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"Just functional?" Claire arched an eyebrow.

"Er… it looks good too."

Claire just shook her head. "That was sad. I'm pretty sure it would have passed for an insult back on Ayrin. But I'm sure you'll get there eventually. No point wasting more time here. Let's get to stabbing some shit, shall we? There isn't that long until the Ancestry, and if you're going to be passing off as some kind of melee fighter, you're going to really have to work on your sword skills."

Alex grinned. "You won't get any protest from me. Let's go. I want to see just how much stronger the Cultivation Array has made me."

Without another word, the two of them set off at a brisk pace for the conveniently waiting portal to the Mirrorlands in the center of the town. Three days wasn't all that much time in the grand scheme of things… but it was more than enough to hunt a few Mirrorlands monsters.

***

Days flitted by in a blur. They were both pleased — and relieved — to find that the Forsaken Revenant wasn't waiting for them in the Mirrorlands when they arrived. Neither believed for a second that the monster had given up its hunt. That would have been too convenient.

It was still out there somewhere — but it wasn't here. Not yet, at least. And that meant there was no better time to get some fighting in.

Alex and Claire carved a path through the forest around their town, heading in a straight line as they sought out every single monster that they could realistically challenge. That wasn't a great number of them.

They had to hide just as often as they fought. A part of Alex almost felt like there were even more monsters with names blocked out with question marks than there had been the previous times he'd come to the Mirrorlands, but it was hard to say for certain.

His mind didn't really have the capacity to linger on that for long. Claire made sure he was occupied with other things.

Those other things, of course, were training.

She took her role as teacher very seriously. And while nobody could have ever said she was a kind teacher, there could be no denying that she was an effective one. She knew sword fighting inside and out — and she was doing her damned best to make sure she could hammer every scrap of that knowledge into Alex's skull.

There weren't many ways better to do that than abusing the increased healing the System granted them. When Claire wasn't fighting herself, she was yelling pointers to Alex about his footing and the movements he should have taken.

Unfortunately, those warnings tended to come shortly after a monster stabbed, ripped, or bit into him.

More fortunately, the pain was a good teacher's aid.

Between the System and Claire, Alex found his skills improving at a considerable rate. That didn't even account for all the magical energy he harvested from the fights and the Soul Flames he stuffed into his Spatial Mirrors to feed his monsters later.

Alex wouldn't have gone so far to say that he was good with a sword. That wasn't something that could be accomplished in the span of days. But he wasn't just using a sword. Even when he was only using the powers that his monsters imparted onto him, Alex had quite a few different tools at his disposal.

He hadn't used them to their fullest extent because he'd never really had a proper reason to. There had simply been easier strategies. Namely — using his monsters the way his class was meant to. But training without them turned everything around.

And, Alex had to admit, it was fun. Getting up close and personal in every fight was a thrill that didn't quite get scratched when he was relying heavily on his monsters to handle it for him.

Princess' magic let him take blows that would have normally been difficult for even the System to heal, and Glint's silver cloak blocked hits that would have taken him out of the battle or wasted all his magic as his body pulled itself back together.

To his mild disappointment, he couldn't spend too much time practicing with the chainsword. Too many Outworlders had already seen it. He instead relied on growing mirror with Glint's magic. Even if they were considerably more fragile than the alternative, they were just as effective in their own ways.

They didn't kill quite as many monsters as they had in the previous trips to the Mirrorlands. In between the fights with residents of the Mirrorlands, Claire gave Alex tips and sparred with him to push his skills even further.

The main thing those spars showed him was that he was absolutely no match for her when he was playing fair. As it turned out, learning how to fight from birth gave a considerable advantage over a shit ton of adrenaline and a death wish.

But when he started using his abilities and playing a little bit less fair, Alex's chances increased considerably. He got just a bit better with every trick Claire showed him. Every loss was another strategy that he stored away in the back of his mind.

And, by the time that they'd made their way back to the version of Mirrorwane that resided within the Mirrorlands, just a little over two days had passed. They'd only slept for a short amount of that time, instead using that time as an opportunity to meditate and advance as they rested.

Both of them had advanced up to Initiate 9. They hadn't quite managed to break through into the Adept Stage. Each step up took more power than the last, and while Alex could tell that he was only a few fights away from advancing, staying here any longer wasn't on the table.

The time to return to Mirrorwane was now. He had a disguise to pick up and some final preparations to complete before the Ancestry was upon them… and Alex was quite looking forward to every second of it.