Nightmare Realm Summoner

As Alex grasped Absolution’s hand, a shimmer of light lit around their palms. A faint stream of pale blue energy slithered into Alex’s Spatial Ring. It only took him a quick thought to check it and find that the other man hadn’t been lying. There were 7,000 new Credits in his storage.

He would have been lying if he’d said that he wasn’t at least a little bit surprised. While Absolution didn’t exactly seem like the kind of person who lied often, just handing someone so much money was a step beyond insane. It wasn’t like you could find Credits just lying around on the street.

Damn. He’s either got some serious faith that we’re trustworthy or he’s really damn desperate to make sure that Nightmarch doesn’t get the Bleeding Crown. Well, that or he’s so rich that 7,000 Credits basically means nothing to him.

Alex and Absolution let their hands drop.

“Tell me about this item you want us to get,” Alex said. “Now that we’ve agreed, I assume there should be no issue with that.”

“It is a meddlesome item,” Absolution replied. He wiped his hand off on his pants. “As you might expect, it is a crown. One made of pale red crystal. It can only be worn by someone with ownership over a town. Once worn, it will bind to your soul.”

“Permanently?” Alex asked.

“No,” Absolution said. He sent Alex a slightly annoyed look, clearly not pleased at being interrupted. “Your soul is yours. Not even the System can touch it. There is not a single thing in the entire universe that can permanently change your soul should you not permit it to. The Crown can be removed. Which I would have gotten to momentarily.”

“Sorry,” Alex said. “I’m impatient. Please, continue.”

“The Bleeding Crown is functionally a beacon,” Absolution said. “You are aware of Trials, yes? The presence of a town makes it considerably more likely for the System to assign a Trial in that area. The more powerful the town, the more powerful the trial. The Crown… accelerates that.”

“What exactly do you mean by accelerate?” Claire asked.

“It is a challenge magnifier,” Absolution said simply. The corners of his lips curled upward in a sardonic smile. “You are both too fresh to understand. But everything in this universe has presence. You can think of this item as a presence magnifier. And the brighter you shine, the harder the System seeks to snuff you out. When you wear the Crown, you will grant your town immense potential for growth so long as you are capable of surviving what the System throws at you.”

“Huh,” Alex said. “That’s pretty useful. I can see why you’d want to make sure Nightmarch doesn’t manage to get their hands on it. But I can’t help but notice that this item seems like it would be a hell of a lot more useful if, say, your town happened to have the backing of a major family behind it. One that could reinforce the town enough to survive what the System throws at it.”

Absolution’s smile grew wider. “Yes. That is an astute observation. A Nativeworlder town would almost certainly be crushed by the extra attention called to it. But you have proven yourself to be impossibly an resilient cockroach. There is a chance that you will somehow manage to survive.”

“Was that a compliment?” Alex asked. “Because it sounded dangerously close to one.”

“Don’t push your luck,” Absolution said. He turned to the door. “We’re done here. The deal is established.”

“Hold on,” Claire called. “This item. You know a lot about it. I’m not going to ask why. But there are two more things I want to know.”

“Ask,” Absolution said, looking back to her.

“Does it have a limit?” Claire asked.

Absolution chuckled. “No. So long as it is worn, the System will send increasingly powerful trials to the town of its owner. They may not be evenly spaced or predictable, but they will inevitably come.”

“I see,” Claire said. She watched Absolution through narrowed eyes. “Then one last question. It seems like this item would be incredibly powerful. Certainly too powerful to go for even 20,000 Credits. But you think that it’s going to sell for 15,000. So… how do you take the crown off?”

Absolution’s smile fell away. “You cannot. The moment you unbind it from your soul, the crown shatters. Then it reforms elsewhere in the universe.”

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

“I see,” Claire said. “That would explain things. No more questions from us. We’ll hold up our end of the deal.”

Absolution didn’t reply. He just watched them for a moment. Then he turned back to the door and pulled it open, striding out of the room without another word.

There were several moments of silence. Then Mite cleared his throat.

“Well. He was weird. You think he’d wear a fedora if he knew what one was?”

“Probably,” Alex said. “I still can’t believe he just fucking handed us 7,000 Credits on a promise. Who does that?”

“Someone who knows they’ll be wasted,” Claire replied. Her lips thinned. “The Crown is a curse. That’s why it can sell for so little in the grand scheme of things.”

“I don’t think curse is the word I’d use,” Aaron said. “If I followed correctly… the Bleeding Crown will basically summon Trials from the System at increasingly difficult levels until your town is destroyed or you break the crown, right?”

“Yes,” Claire said with a nod. “And you can’t take it off.”

“So you’re hoping that the value from the Trials is greater than whatever you pay for it,” Aaron concluded. He crossed his hands in front of his chest. “And chances are, anyone right now isn’t that established. Meaning there’s no way you can justify spending a shit-ton of Credits on it when you might fold well before you get your money’s worth.”

“A curse,” Claire concluded. “The System doesn’t play around. The most likely result of buying this crown is just wasting your money or your town being razed to the ground by greed.”

“I’d call that a gamble,” Aaron said. “It would only be cursed if it was stuck on your head or something.”

“You’d be surprised how effective greed can be as a prison,” Wess said. “Men will kill themselves over a few hundred dollars if they think they can get away with it.”

“I can see why Absolution was so keen on letting someone else get this,” Alex said. “Especially us. He hasn’t seen Mirrorwane, after all. He just knows we’re Nativeworlders. So if he assumes we’re not strong enough to hold onto it for long — or stupid enough to hold onto it for too long — he wins. Nightmarch doesn’t get to abuse it and we might end up getting destroyed by it. All he has to do is cover about half its cost.”

“That’s not really that small of a thing to cover,” Mite grumbled. “If I had nearly 10 thousand Credits lying around, there would be a hell of a lot more I’d be doing with it than being a petty asshole and hoping someone blows themselves up with the gun I helped them buy.”

“You just have far fewer Credits than he does,” Claire said with a shrug. “Absolution is definitely rich. Incredibly so. But the System must have somehow restricted the amount of money he could bring into 274-50 with him. I don’t know how that works, but if he’s got a million Credits sitting in wait somewhere in the Infinium, it wouldn’t surprise me that he can toss a few thousand around easily.”

“Either way, we’re sticking to the deal,” Alex said. He looked through the window and down to the auctioneer’s platform. “This is way too tempting to pass up on. I’d have tried to go for it even if Absolution didn’t pay us. I certainly don’t mind screwing Nightmarch over, but this thing could be perfect for us. The System wouldn’t make something like this without properly rewarding its user for passing the Trials it calls. So what do you think would happen if we used it on the Mirrorlands version of the town?”

Claire rolled her eyes. “I knew you were going to say that.”

“Hey,” Alex said. “It’s a great idea. Is it not? Any rewards for beating a Trial there are going to be way better than the ones for doing it on 274-50. And if the difficulty scales… the whole point of this crown seems to be getting your money’s worth from it before it destroys you. Where better to do that than the Mirrorlands? We might make our Credits back with just one or two Trials.”

“Just because I knew you were going to say doesn’t mean you’re wrong,” Claire said. A wry smile played across her lips. “Absolution has no idea how Mirrorwane works. He messed up. That crown is far more dangerous in our hands than it is in an Outworlder’s. And there’s an added benefit for doing this in the Mirrorlands you haven’t even considered.”

“What is it?” Aaron asked.

“The System won’t go and announce us accomplishing anything major to the rest of the Subsector if we’re not present in said Subsector when we pull it off,” Claire said. “When we defeated a Region Boss, it sent out an announcement for the first kill. If a Trial puts us in a situation like that again… well, we don’t need to tell literally every single Outworlder that we’re pulling farther ahead. It’s much better to do that in secret.”

“Huh,” Alex said. “I didn’t even think about that. Good point. Well, all we have to do is make sure we actually get our hands on the crown. And once we get it… it’s not like we have to use it the moment we get home. Nobody is forcing me to put it on. So we can just save it for a bit until we’re prepared.”

“That’s the smart thing to do,” Claire said. She sounded slightly impressed.

Alex narrowed his eyes. “Why did you say it like that?”

“Because I didn’t expect that suggestion to come from you.” Claire snickered.

Before Alex could get a chance to retaliate, something caught his attention out of the corner of his eye. Sofia had finished selling off another item and had pulled out a new one — a silver cutlass with a sharp blue gemstone big enough to be clear even from their room embedded in its hilt.

“Up next, a curious trinket that’s sure to reward its new owner handsomely. We were unable to unveil the true properties of this item without damaging it. However, we are confident that this item is man-made rather than System created. We believe it will bind to the first person who wields it. Who knows what powers it could hold?” Sofia raised the weapon before herself to let everyone get a good look at it. “The only thing we know for certain about this item is its name… but who doesn’t love a bit of a risk? Bidding Wind’s End will begin at 1,000 Credits.”

Alex’s eyes widened.

Everyone turned as one toward the auction window. They’d heard her as well.

His mouth twitched into a smile.

“Here we go,” Alex said with an excited chuckle. “This should be good.”

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