[Aspirant! Welcome to the Nightmare Spell, Please hold and someone will be with you as soon as a Customer Support Representative is available.]
Verdant opened his eyes to gaze at an unfamiliar sky. The… what?
"What the–"
Below, time rewound atop a dark and brilliant landscape, but he was too distracted to pay much attention to the events below. That wasn't what the Spell was supposed to say at all! He'd watched dozens–hundreds–of webtoons about the first nightmare!
It was supposed to say [Prepare for your First Trial]. Were the webtoons lies??
"What the heck is a Customer Support Representative?"
Suddenly, he fell far to the ground. Roughly. Man, was it hot! Where in the–
A loud sound behind him pulled him out of his thoughts, forcing him to run out of reflex and instinct more than any decision making on his part. He glanced over his shoulder
"A volcano??"
The eruption behind him was a minor one, relatively speaking. More of a bubbling, slow lava flow out of a vent than anything dramatic and immediately deadly. The latter wouldn't have been fair, and Verdant had been assured The Spell was fair!
The Spell!
Verdant thought about runes, and ghostly letters appeared before his eyes.
Name: Verdant.
His eyes scanned down for the most important information.
Aspect: [Valued Customer]
Aspect Description: [Your patronage is important to the Spell, and it will answer your call as soon as it is available.]
Attribute: [Toll Free Number]
Attribute Description: [Your source element, gullibility, can prolong your calls to the Spell.]
"Answer my call?" Verdant perked up, ignoring the strange source element language. What was gullibility, anyway? No matter! The Spell would answer him if he needed it! Surely that was unique and helpful in the world! "Um, hi, Spell?? I need help!"
A faint tone of a bell rung in his mind, confusing him. It sounded twice more before changing into a strangely familiar voice.
[Thank you for contacting The Spell, your call is very important to us.]
"Us? Um, what?" Verdant had always been taught the spell was a thing, not an… 'us'.
[Please state the nature of your question or problem.]
"Oh. I'm sorry. Yes, May I please have help escaping from this volcano?" Verdant said, trying to achieve proper reverence in his voice while glancing over his shoulder. Thankfully, the lava seemed to be slowing, even ebbing, back into the volcano. As if it were being controlled…
[Please wait while you are transferred to a volcanologist.]
"A what?"
There was no answer to his question, but he became distracted by the sudden echoing of music. Where was it coming from? The Dream Realm didn't have radios, did it? A haunting man's voice echoed through his thoughts.
"I fell into a burning ring of fire, I went down, down, down, and the flames went higher, and it burns, burns, burns…"
"A ring of fire?" Verdant demanded. Was this a song about his own nightmare, or someone else's? The music stopped and a voice resounded in his head again.
[Spell Volcanologist Here, to whom am I speaking?]
"Um… I'm Verdant," The teen stuttered, still confused. "Who is this?"
[This call may be recorded for quality assurance, how may I help you today, Verdant?]
"I'm on a volcano," He responded lamely.
[Volcanoes are found in several parts of the Dream Realm, including–]
"You know where I am?" Verdant leaned forward. "What time period is this? What do I do to defeat the nightmare??"
[Please choose one question at a time for the best Customer Service Experience.]
"Oh, Sorry," Verdant looked around, deciding to just go for his biggest question. "How do I defeat the nightmare?"
[A Nightmare is completed when the central conflict is resolved.]
"Sure, I know that much," Verdant acknowledged. "But how do I complete THIS nightmare? What am I supposed to do?"
[Please hold while you are transferred to a Nightmare Specialist.]
"What? Transferred again?"
The music resumed, and Verdant began to get frustrated. Perhaps he should have just stuck to questions about how to use his Aspect. If only he'd gotten something more straightforward! A rustling off to his left drew his gaze, and he saw a bizarre bubbling glob. Glowing red, it looked like a simple pool of lava until it opened two searing white eyes to stare at him.
"What the heck is that thing??"
[Please hold while you are transferred to a Nightmare Creature Specialist.]
"No–Stop! I don't want to do that!" He blustered, but then paused. Maybe that's what he did want? "Sure, give me the creature specialist!"
The music echoed in his mind once more, seeming to mock him.
"We didn't start the fire, it was always burning since the world's been turning…"
Who chooses this music?? He wondered silently, finally learning better than to say his thoughts out loud and risk another transfer to some sort of ancient music specialist. Kneeling, he picked up the sharpest, heaviest rock he thought he could adequately wield and threw it at the creature.
The blob opened a gaping maw and swallowed it whole.
That wasn't good.
Maybe it couldn't move? It had no visible legs, after all.
[Hello, Nightmare Creature Services Speaking, how may I help you?]
"Hi!" Verdant cheerfully greeted, and pointed towards the thing. "What is that?"
[That is a Dormant Beast: Gobsmack.]
"How do I kill it?" Verdant felt some relief that it wasn't something more dangerous. A Dormant Beast was the least dangerous kind of Nightmare Creature, in theory. He picked up another rock to defend himself.
[Killing it by traditional means is exceptionally difficult due to its lack of internal organs. It must be cooled until its core solidifies.]
"Anything else I should know about it?" Verdant cringed.
[Gobmacks are known for the way they surprise their victims, by leaping suddenly at their faces—]
No sooner had the last words resounded in Verdant's mind than the creature launched at him like a bullet from a gun. Instinctively, Verdant dropped to his face on the ground as he'd been taught in combat practice.
"Why didn't this body come with a sword or anything?" He complained.
[Please hold while you are transferred to a Nightmare Specialist.]
"No, wait!" He called. "Help me kill this first!"
[Unfortunately, the nearest Field Technician is on the other side of the Hollow Mountains and will take approximately 2,150 hours to reach your location. Would you like me to schedule you for aid during the time window of August between the fifteenth and eighteenth of the month?]
"You have in-person aid? How–wait, stop, nevermind, that sounds useless right now. Please talk me through the nearest way to kill this Dormant Beast. Where can I cool it, please?" Verdant had pushed to his feet and begun running, hoping the thing only had one good leap in it.
[The nearest adequate means of cooling is in a stream at the base of the slope.]
Finally, something really helpful!
Changing direction, Verdant ran downhill, looking back to see that the unfriendly glob of lava with eyes was rolling after him.
It was blessedly slow at first, but things tend to pick up speed as they roll downhill. And things made of sticky molten lava apparently pick up rocks and lava dust along the way! It was growing in size by the minute, and Verdant was already puffing for breath in the dense, volcanic air.
"How much further is the stream?" He asked.
[Three-quarters of a mile.]
He blinked. A mile? In school they learned kilometers, was that about the same?
A sharp, stabbing pain between his shoulders killed whatever optimism he had about his chances of making it unscathed.
"OUCH! That hurt! What was that??" He cried, not daring to break his stride to check on the searing that was only increasing in intensity.
[I'm so sorry to hear that you're experiencing pain! It appears the Gobsmack has thrown one of its lava barbs and hit you in the back, setting your shirt on fire. Would you like help removing the burning garment? I can put our Field Technician on a Priority Rush and have him there in 1,015 hours.]
"I don't need help from a field technician to remove my clothes–" Verdant reached down to rip the buttoned shirt open in the front and cast it off behind him. "Why don't I have armor or anything?"
The last sentence was muttered to himself, but the Spell answered anyway.
[Please wait while I transfer you to the Armor and Weapons Department.]
"Just how many departments are there?" Verdant gritted his teeth, lamenting the loss of his Creature specialist while the Gobsmack was still on his tail.
The music resounded once more in his mind, threatening to drive him mad. It was a song about some awful, lava-related Nightmare Creature that doubtlessly haunted his portion of the Dream Realm.
"I set fire to the rain…"
That sounded like at least a Tyrant. Maybe higher! Hopefully Verdant wouldn't run into one.
Running all out was a challenge as the slope became steeper. Verdant didn't want to trip and fall, but he didn't want to slow down enough for the Gobsmack to catch him, either.
[Armor and Weapons Department, how can I assist you today?]
"Can I have some armor to protect me from the lava creature?" Verdant huffed, his voice cracking.
[I'm so sorry, I didn't catch that. Would you mind repeating your question?]
"Armor. Please!" Verdant's foot struck a loose rock, and it slid out from under him, throwing off his balance.
[Memory Armor is obtained by slaying a nightmare creature. I can put in a request so that the next nightmare creature you slay will have a higher chance of spawning an armor-related Memory for you, does that sound satisfactory?]
Verdant couldn't answer as he was so busy trying to keep his footing. He failed. And tumbled. At least he was moving faster? Something sharp struck his head as he spun, and something else ground into the burn wound on his back. Suddenly, he was plunged into a lukewarm liquid.
Coming up for air, he spluttered violently and kicked against the current. This was the stream that was supposed to cool down the Gobsmack! He managed to grin, satisfied that he'd made it, then frowned.
"This is more like bathwater than anything," He said aloud. "This is supposed to cool the core of the Gobsmack enough to kill it?"
[Please hold while you are transferred back to the Nightmare Creature Specialist.]
"What's with these transfers??" Verdant turned back to look up the slope of the volcano towards the pursuing creature. It had started the size of a melon, but was now at least as tall as he was, and still growing as it rolled towards him to the tune of an upbeat song where someone was yelling "Ah! Puh tuh!" as if falling suddenly into a stream and sputtering with water. The Spell must be mocking him.
[Nightmare Creature Specialist, how may I help you?]
"This stream, you said it's cool enough to kill the Gobsmack? The thing doesn't seem afraid…" Verdant felt a pit of anxiety growing in his stomach. Something wasn't right.
[No, the stream is not cold enough to kill the Gobsmack.]
"What??" Verdant began to panic. "Then why did you send me here??"
[The Awakened Monster that lives in the stream is cold enough to kill the Gobsmack.]
"THE WHAT??"
[Would you like more information about the Awakened Monster?]
"YES, I WANT A LOT OF THINGS!" Verdant snapped. This aspect had to be the worst one in existence!
[The Awakened Monster is known as Glacierspawn. It is unusual for this region of the Dream Realm, but this particular one seems to have been injured and fled downstream to avoid predators.]
"Injured?" Verdant moved to the side of the stream furthest from the oncoming Gobsmack. "Then I have a chance of beating it?"
[The chances of you beating Glacierspawn while in the water are approximately 213:1. Should you kill Glacierspawn, your chances of surviving Gobsmack's ensuing attack will be considerably reduced.]
"Great, great, so what should I do??" Verdant climbed out of the water and onto the shore of the stream just as he spotted something–something large–swimming towards him.
[The decision is up to you.]
"Any recommendations on how to kill both at the same time?"
[Unfortunately, I am prohibited from directly advising your actions. We deeply apologize for any inconvenience this may cause you.]
"Sure, fearing for my life is quite inconvenient." Verdant snapped. "How do I get them to kill each other instead of me?"
[I'm so sorry, that information is unavailable, would you like me to make a note for our researchers to look into this question for the future?]
"No, I want to know right now what would make them attack each other! What does Glacierspawn like? What would distract it? How is it injured?"
[Glacierspawn has an infected wound just behind its right third leg.]
"Would a sharp rock be enough to turn that wound fatal?" Verdant looked around at his very limited options.
[I'm so sorry, I didn't catch that–can you repeat your question?]
"Are there any vital organs near that wound such that I could quickly end its life with this rock?" Verdant rephrased, picking one up as the Gobsmack came to the edge of the stream. If only the Spell would answer all his questions immediately instead of one at a time!
"And please no more transfers! All of your voices sound the same, I'm pretty sure you're just one person trying to waste my time with pretend transfers!" Verdant gritted his teeth.
[This call has been disconnected. Please try again when you have replenished your source element.]
"WHAT??"
Verdant's startled yelp was enough to earn what seemed like a contemptuous glare from the Gobsmack's glowing eyes. The Beast plunged into the stream, rolling towards him just as the Glacierspawn closed the distance. As the Monster broke the surface of the water, an icy chill rent the air, freezing Verdant's soaked pants into place. The droplets glistening on his chest crystalized into tiny balls of ice, startling him. At least he was on the shore and not in the now-solid water!
Still, he wouldn't be able to fight with stiff, frozen pants constricting his ability to run.
His body heat would take time to melt the supernaturally frozen garment, but shedding them also seemed too difficult. The Gobsmack cried out with a gurgle of either rage or alarm, and turned to flee the scene as it tried to melt through the constricting ice.
The Glacierspawn had other ideas, turning and snapping its serpentine jaws at the ball of solidifying rock.
Verdant fell to the ground and rolled, hoping the combination of the ground's geothermal warming and the beating of the rocks would be enough to render his pants more flexible in time for him to respond to the Glacierspawn's imminent attack.
The creatures' battle came to its swift, inevitable conclusion as he returned to his feet. The Glacierspawn's jaws eroded the Gobsmack's outer layers and froze the core within, killing the Dormant Beast.
The Spell announced no kill.
"Hey, I lured it this way, shouldn't I get credit??" Verdant cried. But the Spell did not respond. The Glacierspawn, however, did.
Two long forelegs emerged from the stream, then two more, and finally, the third set. How many more were there? Verdant didn't wait to count.
The wound was apparent, since he knew to look for it. The Monster on the whole was a startling, pure blue, but one small section was a deep lavender that seemed angry and inflamed by comparison. A long, wafting mustache around the creature's mouth reminded Verdant of cold days when he could see his own breath.
"Hi there, Glacierspawn," He greeted nervously. "Wasn't that nice of me to bring you a meal?"
The Monster opened its jaws in response, and Verdant dove to one side, rolling as his injured body protested the rough treatment. The studying he'd done in school would have to see him through this combat!
Glacierspawn rose up, at least twice as tall as Verdant, and struck at him, but the young man had been taught passingly well. He managed to change direction instead of moving predictably, which for now was enough to keep him alive.
When he rolled to his feet again, he moved the large rock to his left hand and pelted sharp stones towards the festering wound on the Monster's side, managing to hit it with one or two of them.
Glacierspawn roared and lunged in response to the pain. Verdant was hit in the chest with an icy blast, and bemoaned the searing feeling of the ice. Lava burns on his back and ice burns on his chest seemed too cruel! Why couldn't they both hit in the same place and cancel each other out somehow?
There was no time for whining yet. Ducking the swipe of a foreleg, he took the chance of running directly at the monster. This was probably a terrible idea, but this creature was already injured, and Verdant badly needed to kill something to try and get a memory, or a soul shard, or ideally both, to help him complete the nightmare!
He dodged the first set of legs, and narrowly the second, though he paid for it in the form of a frigid gash across his left arm. At the third set of limbs he thrusted the sharp rock directly upward into the lavender, festering wound of the Awakened Monster.
It shrieked in pain, convulsing like a pill bug pulling in on itself. And Verdant was in the center.
Though its legs were obviously reacting more on reflex than an intent to kill, the young man was caught nonetheless. With no chance of escape, he had little choice but to push the rock deeper. As far as he could. Kill the creature before it squeezed the life out of the man!
Bare-chested and with half-frozen, tattered pants and bleeding from multiple places, Verdant knew his death would be less than dignified… but he wouldn't die alone. Would the creature who spawned in the Waking World from his body be this one? Or Gobsmack? Or was it random?
He had no way of knowing. If he had more of his source element, perhaps he could have asked the Spell, not that it would make any difference to him now. He pressed until his arm, almost up to his elbow, sank into the Monster's wound, and miraculously, its tensed muscles began to give, little by little.
[You have slain an Awakened Monster: Glacierspawn]
"Yes! There you are, Spell!" Verdant rasped, trying to push free. "What do I do now?"
For a moment, there was no answer.
[You have received a Memory: Icy Promise]
The strangely familiar voice was somewhat more detached, and Verdant belatedly realized he wasn't using his Aspect. It was just the same Spell announcement others had, like in the webtoons. But at least he had a Memory!!
With effort, he pushed himself free of the Monster's curled corpse. The new runes glittered subtly in front of his eyes.
[Icy Promise: In response to your request to Customer Support, we crafted this Armor to meet your current needs. We hope you will remember this in your satisfaction survey!]
"Survey? What survey?" Verdant mumbled as he summoned the Memory. It was a suit of armor, light but thick, and according to the rest of the runes, had a resistance to heat and fire.
That was helpful.
Incredibly helpful considering that he was on a Volcano. He regretted snapping at the Customer Service Representative. They clearly cared about Verdant quite a bit!
"Hi, um, Spell?" He asked. "Thank you for all your aid earlier. I'm sorry I was short tempered. I know you're here to help."
The strange intonation of a bell rang in his mind three times before the Spell answered.
[Source element replenished! Your call is very important to us. Please hold while we connect you with one of our Customer Support Representatives.]
Verdant sat down and looked up at the volcano. It rumbled slightly as if in response, and the ground shook. Music filtered through his head as he stared. The singer lamented some great cosmic disaster that must have reaped millions of lives.
"Goodness, gracious, great balls of fire…"
"What sad songs," Verdant mumbled as the lyrics suddenly cut off.
[Thank you for your patience! How can I help you today?]
"I need to know the central conflict of the nightmare, please," Verdant requested humbly.
[The central conflict of this nightmare is the impending catastrophic eruption of the volcano.]
"Welp." Verdant jumped to his feet. He must have to try to run far enough away to survive or hide? "How do I defeat it?"
[There are approximately 13,252 known possible ways to complete this nightmare.]
"Wow!" Verdant perked up. "There are that many ways to live through this?"
[I'm so sorry for the misunderstanding! No. Over 13,000 of those possible ways of completion involve your death.]
"Ah. So… there are almost a couple hundred ways I can survive this?"
[The exact number of ways to survive is minimal.]
But not nothing! There were ways out!
"What's the greatest way to survive, the one that gets me the best appraisal?" Verdant squinted at his runes again, wondering if his armor would be enough to help him endure the onslaught of lava. It might, but volcanoes had ash, and poisonous fumes, too, didn't they? Keeping from burning wouldn't do Verdant any good if he couldn't breathe…
[The best appraisals are obtained by doing something the Spell does not foresee as possible. To change the original course of events in an unexpected way. For more information, I will transfer you to an Appraisal Specialist.]
"No! No need to transfer," Verdant frowned. "You're telling me, that if I just do one of the ways you already know of, and survive with instructions that you predict I will follow, I won't get as good of an appraisal?"
[That is an accurate summary.]
"Well then," Verdant weighed his options. Greatly increased survival chances with minimal other reward, or an enormous risk of trying his own way... "I guess I'll use you mostly for other questions, then."
[How else can I help you today?]
Verdant glanced up at the towering slope of the volcano before him and considered his words carefully.
"How insulatory is the hide of the Glacierspawn, and can its claws cut through stone?"
[Please hold while I transfer you to our Nightmare Creature Specialist.]
This was a risk. A huge one, and Verdant knew it, but… he came from a good family, and he couldn't disappoint them. Besides, unlike everyone else, he would never be alone. The Spell assured him that he was Valued. That was his Aspect: Valued Customer. His patronage was important to the Spell. It had told him so! There was no way it would let him die easily.
Verdant smiled as he sat back down on the ground to patiently wait for the next Specialist as the Spell sang soothing words of promise in his mind.
"Never gonna give you up, Never gonna let you down…"