Nightmare Realm Summoner

Alex's feet pounded against the dry vines, grinding them beneath his heels as he raced alongside the others down the winding corridor. He kept his ears peeled for any sounds of pursuit, but he could barely even hear over the sound of blood rushing in his skull.

His heart pounded furiously in his chest, beating three times between every step he took. It wasn't just adrenaline making it pump. He hadn't run this fast — or hard — since the beginning of the apocalypse.

Derek was just too damned fast.

He'd been at the back of their group when they'd started running a few minutes ago. Claire had been at the lead, with Alex, Alyssa, and Wess taking up the middle. But this corridor showed absolutely no signs of coming to a stop.

Derek had quickly raced past everyone else, soon taking the front of the group from Claire. It was little surprise. She'd completely spent herself on the impressive showing back in the Triscorption's room. The fact that she was matching their pace at all at this point was respectable.

"Can… we take a break?" Alyssa wheezed. "I'm going to have an asthma attack!"

"No," Claire hissed. "Not yet. We need to get farther. Do you want to get torn to pieces by all the Outworlders behind us? There haven't been any branches in the path. I doubt your trick is going to work on them for long. That means they'll find us the moment we stop running if we don't find some other way to lose them."

Alex was mostly just impressed that Claire still had the air in her lungs to manage such a long answer. She did have to pause every few words to gather enough air to keep speaking, but he wasn't sure that he'd have been able to do the same.

Derek abruptly skidded to a halt as he turned a corner. Alex nearly bowled straight into him — which would have had the unfortunate side effect of impaling himself upon one of the many weapons protruding from the larger man's body — but managed to stop at the last instant.

The others all did the same. They'd arrived in a small, circular room, and they weren't alone.

Two knights stood before them. They wore tarnished silver armor covered with wide patches of greenish-brown oxidation. Full-plate helms covered their faces, leaving only a grid of tiny dots to see and breathe through. Rancid-looking plants protruded from gaps within the old armor, winding beneath the metal like flesh. They would have been identical if not for the plumes upon the tops of their helms.

The knight on the right had a plume of what seemed to have once been red feathers. They were now closer to a faint, brittle pink — which was just enough of a contrast to the dim blue feathers sprouting from the other knight's helm to tell them apart.

Behind each of the knights was a dim passageway. There were no apparent differences in either path. As far as Alex could tell from a very brief glance, they were exactly the same. There was no way to tell them apart aside from the knights standing before them.

Alex stared at them. His eye twitched.

There's no way, right? Isn't this an Earth—

"One of us speaks only the truth," the red-plumed knight said.

"The other speaks only lies," the blue-plumed one said.

Oh, you have to be fucking kidding me.

"Enemies," Derek growled, ripping an axe free from his chest and raising it before himself.

"No. It's a riddle," Claire said, her irritation clear. "That's just perfect. Just what we needed."

"No! I know this one," Wess said. "I was in puzzle-club back in high school. Been a hot second. Just give me a second to remember what—

A loud clang echoed through the room.

Alex watched in disbelief as the red-plumed knight sailed through the air to slam into the wall at the far side of the room with a meaty crunch before falling to the ground in a pile of metal-covered limbs. His compatriot followed suit just an instant later with another clang, slamming into the very same location before collapsing on top of the first.

Derek lowered the axe he'd just used to send both of the knights flying like ill-shaped baseballs.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

"I solved the riddle," Derek said.

"What is one plus one?" Wess asked, his eyes lighting up. "That was it! You've got to ask them a math question!"

"I'm pretty sure you're only allowed to ask one question for this riddle," Alyssa said, glancing down at the crumpled heap. Neither of the knights moved again. They remained crumpled in a heap on the side of the room. It seemed neither of them were going to say much of anything anymore.

"I don't think this counts as a solution," Alyssa said. "Which one do we go through? We didn't even hear the whole riddle yet!"

Alex pulled his compass out. The needle bounced between the two pathways indiscriminately. His eye twitched.

Useless piece of shit.

"This one," Derek replied, sprinting into the corridor on the right before anyone could say anything else.

The rest of them were left with no option but to chase after him.

The dry vines thinned out, transitioning to pale gray stone as they all ran. It seemed they'd reached the next segment of the Ancestry — or perhaps they were getting closer to the reward room of the one they'd just completed.

Interestingly enough, his compass had decided they were now going in the right direction. It was pointed forward once more. Then again, there was a chance this compass just magically pointed the direction they had chosen rather than toward anything at all.

How ironic would it be if this stupid thing was just some kind of magical confidence-booster? Like an 8-ball that approves of any decision you make?

"Why this path?" Claire asked as they all fought to catch up with the impossibly fast berserker.

"Maybe it had good energy," Wess offered up. "I've always been partial to things on the right. Could be the same—"

A silent snick cut through his words. Derek stumbled, missing a step, as a bolt pierced into his ear and carried right through his skull. It burst from his other ear in a spray of blood before embedding itself in the wall to his side.

His leg buckled beneath him — but his next foot fell before his body could even realize it was dead. Derek's mind re-booted itself and he somehow managed to keep both his balance and pace.

At least, he kept it for long enough to take five more steps. A huge axe blade sliced out from one of the walls and slammed right into his chest, lodging several inches into him with a clang.

It had struck one of the other various weapons Derek had lodged in his body. But, instead of stopping to pull the axe free, Derek just grabbed onto the haft connecting it to the wall. There was a loud screech as he tore it out of its fixture, racing forward and taking his new adornment with him.

"I think this was the right path!" Derek called over his shoulder.

A hammer swung down from the ceiling.

It struck him right as he was turning back to face the proper direction, catching him on the chin with a bone-shattering crack. His head snapped back, blood spraying into the air as his neck was literally ripped halfway open.

Derek grabbed onto his head and slammed it back into place with a wet squelch like his body was made out of playdough.

"You think?" Alex asked from where he and all the others had taken up pace several safe, healthy paces behind Derek.

A dozen spears exploded up from the ground before Derek. Nearly half of them shattered against the various weaponry on his body, but the remainder drove into him. He charged right through them, shattering their hafts like they were made out of paper and picking up a few new ornaments in the process.

"Yeah!" Derek called back. "I mean, think about how dangerous the other passage must be—"

The ground opened up beneath Derek, and the rest of his sentence was lost in a curse as he plummeted into the darkness. A wet crunch rose up from the pit half a second later. By the time they had all raced up to the pit, Derek was already clawing his way out, a dozen new holes riddling his body.

"You were saying?" Claire asked.

"Think about how dangerous the other passage must be if this one is this safe," Derek repeated without a hint of sarcasm. "Come on! We're making good time!"

Then he was off again.

The rest of them hopped over the pit and ran after him. There really wasn't much other option — and with Derek at the lead, the passage really was quite safe. That tended to happen when he triggered every single trap for them.

It was actually somewhat impressive. Hitting a lot of the traps would have been realistic. Derek was hardly subtle. But hitting all of them felt like it took skill. Even though they were all on guard for something to slip past Derek, it never did.

The large man plowed right into every single blade, weapon, and injury that possibly could have been sustained within the passage. He didn't leave a single one behind to share with anybody else.

Not, of course, that they were complaining.

And then the passage widened. The thin hallway grew wider, gradually at first, then abruptly as they turned the corner and bursting out into a huge room.

A familiar one.

Empty stands lined either side of a large hall overlooking a giant-sized podium.

A giant-sized podium with a thirty-foot tall giant behind it.

Alex skidded to a halt, his eyes going wide as he found himself staring up at Shawn for the second time that day.

The huge giant had donned a ratty, powdered wig upon his large head. It looked like it had been sitting in a storage room for a few too many years and moths had done a number upon its surface, but it was still largely in one piece.

"Welcome to the Great Trial, grave robbers! You have come a great distance…" the giant's booming voice trailed off as his eyes landed on them and widened in recognition.

"Shawn?" Alex asked in disbelief. "What are you doing here?"