"Kikinnin... I think that last one did something... the light has changed and it is normal now. At least where I am. "
Kikinnin looks about the floor for a coin, half-expecting to find it, only because the experience of the rooms repeating themselves, has addled his brain a little.
"Wait right there, JJ. Whatever you do, don't move forward. Yet. Let me try to get there, to where you are, alright? I'm going to do what you're suggesting. We'll see what happens, ok?"
For the order JJ suggests, Kikinnin follows it to the letter- Orange--->Blue--->Yellow--->Orange--->Yellow--->Blue--->O range...
He speaks out loud, on the off-chance that he and JJ might not be the only ones able to hear him speaking.
"I mean, when I went through. And I left a coin in the orange room, but it was gone when I came back. I wonder if someone else is in here with us... or if there are multiple rooms with the same colour and this is some type of mirror maze... like in the funfair that came to Cauldron a couple of years back."
"Nope. Only lucky to hear your voice. I have no real understanding of why we can't see each other through the mirrors, but we can hear each other. It's no wonder Alek lost hope in here..."
Maxim keeps a hard eye on the mirror as the others mull what to do next;
"All o' us headin' in ain't savvy... Iffen they find Alek my concern is he's addled like Zenith an' one or two o' them won't be able to handle him - even with Surabar giddy on god-gifted strength."
The gun-mage grimaces and looks to the others who sojourned in Cauldron again;
"Anythin' you lot read suggest that whatever is on the other side on that mirror is a prison or a dead-end journey? We could pair up and set through, but Ah'm a mite concerned we're just walkin' into a donjon without tools to pick the cell lock..."
After a moment or two he adds
"Could you see me through the mirror, like we could Alek? I wonder if I can be seen in here?"
JJ peers into the uncoloured portals, wondering what would happen if he tried one, but not wanting to risk it.. or perhaps not wanting to risk Kikinnin's wrath from getting even further ahead.
He takes out a piece of paper and writes down on it.
Started in an orange room. Then went through portals coloured blue, yellow, orange, yellow, blue, orange.
Once written he holds it up and slowly turns around, displaying it to each portal in turn.
You look for a coin to no result.
Then you try JJ's combination. One color after the other you end in a room like the other ones. When you lastly enter the orange one, the room grows dark, illuminated only by dim light streaming in from the five portals on the walls. The light is normal, colorless.
JJ is not here but you still can hear his voice from nowhere in particular.
When you look through the portals at this time, you see Alek Tercival sitting on the ground of a dark, windowless room lit only by the faint light of his glowing sword. An iron door blocks an archway nearby, and Alek looks sunk in despair.
"W-well...we c-can't sit out here forever...if we g-go in, we can t-try going in pairs. The r-rope K-Kikinnin had didn't work b-but maybe if two hold hands and st-step through at the s-same time..." Marigold responds, sounding a bit scared but also determined as she considers Maxim's idea.
Ryan shakes his head as the rope falls slack when Kikinnin steps through the mirror. Watching for a moment he realizes he can still only see Alek within the mirror, where are JJ and Kikinnin?!?!
thinking back to what he'd learned in Cauldron.....Spell weavers never speak, They speak only with their own kind, through a silent combination of telepathy, sign language, and the shifting colors and patterns of the chromatic disks that all spell weavers possess, allowing them to convey hours of conversation in mere moments. The only communication spell weavers make with other races is the occasional cryptic, rambling written message left for other races to find after their raids are complete.
"Well this mirror according to the information the Marigold, Juraan and JJ found is a spellweaver artifact, and from the information Jenya found the spellweavers only communicated in whistles and clicks. perhaps this will work." Taking a moment to consult his memory of his studies..."Abadar grant me the tongue of the spellweaver" Cast Tongues - 90 mins
Moving over towards the throne he sits and while holding the chromatic disk a series of whistles and clicks issued from his mouth.
he watches the mirror intently
He pauses to think.
"If you can find your way to the non coloured room I am in, we can work out some communications path. I can hold up a sign for the others and you to see, so I can communicate with you all. When in the colour maze you can help guide the others through. What do you think?"
"You remember how we found Dakved, right, JJ? His brain addled, and his mind belligerent. I'm not sure how wise it is to confront your uncle, alone. Now, you haven't been the most reasonable, and you might just move ahead like you've been doing, and I certainly can't put my hands on you to stop you. I only have my words. The only reason I stepped through the Starry Mirror was to stop you from doing something foolish."
Kikinnin pauses. "If we hear the others finally enter, one of us will have to be in here, somewhere, eh, otherwise we'll both end up in a place with Alek, where we won't be heard. Alek would have heard us by now, and called out, I'm thinking. If you move forward, you move forward alone. You have your own life in your hands, JJ, you best consider your actions."
He does pause for a moment however thinking about Dakved.
"Alek is a paladin. He's made of stern stuff. Dakved could face any physical challenge sure... but tht is not what defeated him.
Alex... surely is made of sterner stuff."
Several seconds go by, after JJ speaks, before Kikinnin finally speaks up. "You never knew Zenith, never heard his stories, so do not judge the dwarf we found in Ball-Hamtuggin."
More silence, then more words. "For all you know, that man staring at the floor is a shadow of his former self. Sterner stuff, eh? I'll not judge your uncle until I've laid eyes on him in person, spoken with the man, heard his story."
"Even paladins fall."
For a second it would seem the artifact would react to Ryan words. Ultimately only Alek can be seen into the mirror. Only if you look intently.
If the mirror ever worked that way it seems it long away broke when the catastrophe came to the artifact and it's builders.
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As Ryan sits on the throne and issues a series of clicks, chirps and whistles that a goblin with Tourettes would be proud of, Maxim shakes his head in dismay;
"Sublime to the ridiculous - we got Surabar and my anvil headed bror off in the realm o' mirror-mirror an' Taskerhill is chirpin' at the magic mirror like a song-bird..."
He looks to Marigold and Juraan;
"Tell me you two ain't about to dance or sumthin'? Then'll know Ah'm knee deep in a nightmare!"
The dwur puts out his stogie and focusses;
"Two should go and two should stay. Can't leave the only portal unattended by my reckonin'. Question is who? Taskerhill is the only one o' us that can git to Cauldron an' back, so makes sense fir ye to stay. Lil Miss an' the Professor both got scholarly links so one should step through an' one stay...."
Maxim sighs and strokes his beard wistfully;
"Which leaves me steppin' o'er the mirrory threshold. My bror drained the rum stocks so I've a notion to do somethin' against my better judgement an' step in after them..."
Ryan sighs as the mirror fails to change it's view. "Well it was worth a try" he says standing back up from the throne. "in it is, suggestions?"
Listening to Maxim's plan of attack, Ryan offers....
"Guess it depends on what scholarly help you wish to take Maxim. One that can melt your opponents the Professor, or Lil' Miss who can patch you back up afterwards while who is no slouch herself in the mix."
A pause and then "I don't know if it will work, but you may be able to write to me and push the writing through a portal. Oh wait a moment, I should try that first."
JJ, somewhat nervously, pens a note "Hi Uncle Alek, this is JJ. We are here to help. Can you wave to me please?"
And pushes it through the portal. He looks closely to see if he can spot it arrive.
"I can g-go in. It's s-safer out here than it is in there, s-so whoever stays here sh-shouldn't need my h-help," Marigold remarks, looking resolute.
Maxim looks to Ryan with a wry smile;
"Honestly I'd prefer to be suppin' my flask an' watchin' the whole puzzle unfold. But active par-tici-pation is required..."
He offers his arm to Marigold with a nod and slight bow;
"Lil' Miss... Would you do me the honour o' accompanyin' me on this darned folly o' a journey?"
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She's not sure why but Maxim's rather gentlemanly gesture actually makes Marigold snort-laugh rather loudly in spite of the situation. "And h-here I'd always p-pictured something a lot m-more romantic for the f-first time s-someone offered me their arm!"
"St-still, how can I resist an invitation from G-Garthûn's Gun?" Marigold continues, still grinning as she returns the bow and takes Maxim's arm. "L-let's see what d-damage we can do, sh-shall we?"
Marigold and Maxim cross arms then jump through.
You appear in a pentagonal room. The room is empty and you cannot see anyone here. The ambient light is yellow color.
On each of the five walls there is a mirror exactly like the one you trespassed in the Starry Mirror. Each mirror reflects a room exactly like yours but the ambient light is blue, orange, red, violet, or green instead of yellow.
There is no trace of Maxim or the others.
You appear in a pentagonal room. The room is empty and you cannot see anyone here. The ambient light is yellow color.
On each of the five walls there is a mirror exactly like the one you trespassed in the Starry Mirror. Each mirror reflects a room exactly like yours but the ambient light is blue, orange, red, violet, or green instead of yellow.
There is no grace of Marigold or the others.
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Kikinnin maintains his current, colorless position, and waits to move forward, looking for Alek in any of the mirrors currently at his disposal. He looks for the appearance of JJ, also.
"You tell me when you've figured it out, JJ. I'll keep looking through the mirrors, to see what I can see. Then I'll go and wait until I hear signs of them having crossed over."
The black beard debates what he might make in terms of noise, for others to detect, should they also enter the Maze of Mirrors. He decides on something repeatable, like a march song, or its like. He settles on a childhood rhyme.
"Got a stone, keep it whole, and one's all you'll know."
"Tap your one, chip it clean, and two's what you see."
"Tap your two, split 'em both, and four's the growth."
"Tap your four..."
The black beard slows down considerably after several verses, as his mind struggles to keep up with the exponential increases...
"Yeah, no. Go ahead then. Wave to the others. Just not sure how we get Alek free from his current room. Wouldn't he have already searched for a way out? Unless we're pulling him back into the Mirror Maze?"
"There is that door that he was standing in front of. I wonder why he doesn't open it?". Then a pause. "I guess we will soon find out."
"Just the two of us here and the five are gods-know-where.
"Do you think that code might work in those clicking sounds you tried?
"Fat lot of good my spells will do unless something nasty comes at us.
"Which is always a distinct possibility `round here!"
Marigold feels a brief sense of vertigo as she and Maxim pass through the mirror and then a flash of alarm as she feels the dwarf's arm vanish from her grasp.
Then she blinks as the room materializes before her. "Oh...th-this is going to b-be a pain..." she groans aloud, to herself. Then she stops as she realizes that she can hear Kikinnin and JJ from...somewhere.
"H-hey! JJ, K-Kikinnin! Are you t-two okay? M-Maxim and I just st-stepped inside; R-Ryan and Juraan are st-still outside!"
"Oh...th-this is going to b-be a pain..."
"H-hey! JJ, K-Kikinnin! Are you t-two okay? M-Maxim and I just st-stepped inside; R-Ryan and Juraan are st-still outside!"
Then JJ "There is that door that he was standing in front of. I wonder why he doesn't open it?". Then a pause. "I guess we will soon find out."
"Ah, alright, there's company. JJ is about to not wait again, and press through what we think is a final Mirror, to arrive in the same location as Alek, and the boy's reconsidering before he leaps. If anyone back at the original mirror is still looking on Alek, they may soon see JJ, and JJ is wondering what he should do at that moment. He might wave the rest through, or he might stop us from proceeding any further, if he finds himself equally trapped."
"At least, that's what I make of it, so far."
"Now, I've followed JJ's path, as he's put together some of the color glows, and made sense out of the 3-4-5-1-2-3 pattern. When you eventually select the first color as Orange, you follow this path..."
Kikinnin goes on to explain the path he just took to arrive at the colorless room.
"Now, I'm waiting to proceed, wondering if any of you would also enter the Maze, and you did. So, I'm glad I waited. Now, we just have to understand if we're all meant to cross over to Alek, or wait for JJ to figure out how to move forward."
When he realises that the paired up gambit has failed the gun-mage curses to himself;
Hell's Teeth. Now Ah'm here alone and so is LIl' Miss... Darn it - gone and got us all down the mine without a ladder!
When he hears the others voices, particualrly the reassuring voice of his bror the gun-mage refocusses;
"The lightin' where I am is yella-like bror... does that mean I need to enter Orange to start the sequence... or am I already dropped into the middle o' this puzzle?"
He scowls in frustration;
"Lil' Miss you alright? Sorry we got parted an' the plan fell flat... What colour o' lightin' you bathed in?"
"Hmm, I can't see the coin I put though to Alek.. Oh Marigold.. MAxim? What about Jurran and Ryan are they here too? I worked out the way though. I think.."
He then quiets down as Kikinnin explains it in more detail.
"I can see Alek, if you are almost here then I'll wait before going in. Odd about that yellow light though, Kikinnin and I had orange. Maybe it cycles through as people enter."
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"Yeah, it was confusing at the start. I wandered a bit, before we paid attention to a pattern. If I followed JJ's rules, I got his result, which is what you should be shooting for, as well. You can do one of two things, I think. You can pass through Orange, and follow our pattern, or you can begin your own pattern from Yellow. Remember the circle with arrows on the floor? Red moves to Orange, moves to Yellow, moves to Green, moves to Blue, moves to Purple, moves to Red?"
"If you're Yellow, and I think that's appropriate in more than one way, you should jump to Purple, then to Green... then to... then to...Yellow, then to Green, then to Purple, then to Yellow, and you should arrive at your own personal colorless room. That color pattern sounds pretty similar to our pattern, just depends on the color you start with, I guess. And you're about to prove it, I think."
Kikinnin is glad to be alone, while he counts his fingers like a schoolboy, making sure he picks the right color after the right count...
Just the two of us here and the five are gods-know-where.
Do you think that code might work in those clicking sounds you tried?
Shaking his head Ryan thinks on what Juraan said "Dunno, can't hurt to try I guess." Moving towards the center of the floor within the design Ryan tries both numbers in the Spellweaver language followed by the actual colors, trying it a third time as numbers and colors said from the actual circles around the design.
If none of that seems to work....
Sir Alek Tercival, this is Ryan Taskerhill. It's time to come home. Help us to help you, tell me how to release you
If Alek is on another plane of existance
Ryan starts to sing in the language of the spellweavers. Nothing happens.
A while later the cleric starts a litany trying to contact Alek Tercival. An instant later Ryan receives a response by Alek's voice in his head. The tone is troubled and depressed, as low as a whisper "When the final cage is shackled the burning doom shall rise"
"Well, it doesn't hurt to try. Usually."
Juraan sighs when he Ryan tells him about Alek's response.
"Why does everyone in dire straits have to be so damn cryptic?"
Marigold listens intently as Kikinnin explains what he and JJ have sussed out the pattern to be, the numbers coordinated to their respective colors in the sequences.
"D-don't worry, I'm f-fine," Marigold calls out. "And I g-got yellow too! You s-said we should g-go...purple, green, y-yellow again, g-green, purple, and yellow, Kikinnin?"
She pauses for a moment, awaiting confirmation. Once received, she calls out again, "Okay! I'll t-try it and see wh-what happens..."
Okay, Marigold will try the sequences Kikinnin suggested, based on the starting color of Yellow: Purple to Green to Yellow to Green to Purple and then Yellow.
Neither JJ nor Kikinnin are not here but you still can hear their voice from nowhere in particular.
"H-hey! I think it w-worked!" Marigold calls out excitedly. "I'm in a r-room with colorless l-light now!"
Maxim listens mulling o'er the choices and conundrums of colour that are presented.
He stalls, rubbing his temple with a scowl, then hears Marigold confirm that the sequence works.
Not quite understanding the logic behind it, the gun-mage follows the suggested sequence;
"Alright I'm gonna follow Lil' Miss' lead and step lightly through the purple, green, yellow, green, then purple again and finally yellow once more..."
The dwur moves through the portals, hoping to arrive at the same colourless chamber that Marigold now announces herself in.
"It w-worked for me so it sh-should work for you," Marigold calls out encouragingly. "B-but once we all r-reach the colorless room, wh-what then? Sh-should we all t-try to go through our p-portals at the s-same time?"
You try the suggested combination. One color after the other you end in a room like the other ones. When you lastly enter the yellow one, the room grows dark, illuminated only by dim light streaming in from the five portals on the walls. The light is normal, colorless.
Neither JJ nor Kikinnin or Marigold are here but you still can hear their voice from nowhere in particular.
When you move over the mirror, you feel somehow like passing through a sheet of water. Differently to the others that seemed easy, this one somehow offers some kind of resistance. You loose the notion of time and space during a second and suddenly you find yourself in a totally different environment.
You step out of a pentagonal, five-foot-wide mirror set into a wall of this square room. Twelve seven-foot-tall clay urns stand against the walls to either side, and an iron door, its face covered with countless scratches and chips, blocks an eight-foot-tall archway in the wall opposite the mirror.
Alek lays against the scratched iron door, sit down and broken. His red eyes show that he has been weeping for a while, and the bleeding blisters on his hands testify to his frantic attempts to escape the chamber. He remains there even after your greeting, as if he had not noticed your arrival. The paladin of Abadar seems to be muttering something over and over.
Inside the mirror in the colorless room you suddenly see JJ appearing as if coming from out of the mirror itself. He seems to greet Alek, although you cannot hear him, but Alek remains sit next to the iron door in the chamber.
All of a sudden a couple of copper coins are expelled out of the mirror and tingle in the Starry Mirror's ground.
Gently JJ approaches Alek, keeping a wary eye in case his uncle, caught by surprise, might spring on him with a sword.
He reaches out a hand to touch the mans shoulder. "Uncle Alek, it's me, JJ! I'm so glad we have found you. But...What is the matter?"
Then, remembering, he turns to face the mirror and gives a thumbs up.
Why does everyone in dire straits have to be so damn cryptic?
Ryan chuckles darkly, "Why then it would be just too easy to know what the heck we need to do." Staring at the mirror for a moment he's about to ask what they should do when a couple of coins fall from the mirror to the floor. Raising an eyebrow at Juraan, Ryan steps forward and picks up the coins before staring intently into the mirror at the section Alek has been in. "Something changed....the mirror finally gave us something back."
"O-oh! There he is!" Marigold gasps as she sees JJ emerge into the same chamber that Alek is in. "JJ r-reached him! Sh-should we f-follow now?"
"I'm going to wait in the Colorless, until we know more from JJ's pantomime. If you want to join him, you go on ahead. You, too, Maxim. There might be magic afoot, and you'll be an asset to the investigation. I'll listen for Juraan and Ryan, if you all come to decide we should all join Alek. I'm still unsure."
Kikinnin looks through whichever Mirror might demonstrate JJ and Alek, and eventually Maxim and/or Marigold, and he waits.
Maxim hears Marigold's words, and his bror's wisdom as he watches JJ approach the paladin.
The gun-mage scowls with a nod, loading his double barrelled pistol with bullet and powder;
"If he's a madman like Zenith then we'll need strength o' arms too bror. Surabar will likely be loath to put him down... I won't."
Once readied the dwarf announces his intent;
"Hell's Teeth... Am goin' in..."
Maxim then pushes through the mirror - mimicking the action he presumed JJ took...