A head of curly brown hair pokes slowly around the box. Tear-stained eyes get wider when they see you. "Who... who are you?' You're pretty sure you recognize the boy from the inn but he doesn't seem to remember you from the many customers who come through each day.
The young boy hesitantly rises to his feet. You see some dust smudged on his face as well as a bruise. "I got stuck. I came downstairs to get some pickles. I was bored so I started climbing on the barrels and crates. Just for a second! I was going to take the pickles right up! But then I tripped and fell back behind the big cabinet." He starts to tear up again a little bit. "That's when I saw the..." his voice catches a couple times. "...the mirror. I'd never noticed it before so I touched it but my hand went right through! I fell through the mirror and ended up here!" He breaks down sobbing. "Take me home now, oh please!"
She lets him go and ushers the party out of the side room and down the hall to the larger room at the end, with the shining icosahedron floating far away across a chasm full of floating glass shards.
The boy doesn't let go after Mel hugs him but tries to cling to her as she walks toward the room with the chasm. Seeing the giant drop, he yelps in fear and retreats back into the hallway, unwilling to stand on the ledge. "Um... I'll wait here..."
You detect tiny pieces of the spell that are moving in the gaps between the platforms. You're not sure what they do, at least not without a good spellcraft check.
On the ledge with Mel, he looks out over the chasm. "There's some part of the spell moving around between the platforms."
"No clue what it does."
"But see, the way the platforms overlap it looks like there would always be one above or below us from here to the round thing. So I could levitate you up to one, you could slide yourself over, and then I could bring you back down to the next." Frowning, Perrin reaches into his bag of holding to make sure it still works. "If I climbed in this bag with my head sticking out, I could even come along."
Mel has a sudden mental picture of herself carrying Perrin around in a pouch like those weird kangaroo things that live on those small islands off the southwest coast of the world. Shaking her head slightly to clear it of this mildly disturbing image, she says "There's a problem with that. Had you forgotten that I am not willing to be the target of your magic?"
She looks around at the surreal room full of glittering bits of magic mirror shards. "Besides, I don't know what use I'd be in fiddling with the internals of a spell, anyway. I'm no magician -- I learned to see auras and decipher arcane scripts and listen in any language, and that's it. Here." She extracts a fishhook from her belt pouch and ties it firmly to the line, and then hands it to Perrin.
"You go on. You're the only one in here who stands any reasonable chance of figuring out what's wrong and fixing it anyway."
"Right, sorry." Perrin peeks over the edge, then quickly steps back. "I'm just kinda iffy on the whole climbing thing. Ladders are fine, but this - " He shakes his head, dismissing his own concerns. "No, sorry, that's stupid. It's not like I'd be able to fall."
Perrin accepts the hook and line with a nod of thanks. "Maybe you could keep an eye on David? I'm worried about him running into that man from the other room." He draws a small loop of leather from his component pouch and takes a deep breath, then starts choking and growling as he works his magic.
David looks up and nods hesitantly. "Ok. That sounds good."
Fishing line wrapped around his hand, Perrin floats up to the platform above and tries to pull himself along it.
"Actually, I think we should go watch him. I know the ledge frightens you, but I'd rather not be split up. You can sit down to be extra safe. All right?"
David nods hesitantly to Mel and follows her into the large mirror, sitting carefully far away from the edge. Perrin begins floating across the open space. As he does so, however, he feels a sharp stab of pain as if from a shard of glass and blood runs down his armor. He hears a slight whistling through the air as something rushes by him then he is struck again.
Mel, watching Perrin's progress, sees him suddenly twist as if struck, a pair of small wounds appearing on him. "Perrin!" she calls out. "What is it? What's happening?"
Mel hears objects whistling past and around through the air. One seems to be coming right for her! It hits slices through the edge of her shoulder! She catches the faintest shimmer of light as something seems to fly away from her.
Perrin feels something ding off his armor but is unharmed.
More quietly, in an aside, she says "You were right, David. I'm sorry. Could you go back to the hiding spot where we first found you while we deal with this? I don't want you to get hurt. By the way, there's another man in here -- I think he's crazy, but he didn't try anything mean when Perrin and I talked with him. Best avoid him if you can."
David inhales sharply and nods. "Ok. I'll go back. Please hurry! I'm scared..." He slips back through the large mirror.
Perrin glances over his shoulder at Mel's exclamation. "Mel, get out of here!" Clutching tightly to the rod he drew just before entering the mirror, Perrin rattles off the words to a spell.
She keeps her blade out, ready to parry any attacks.
Perrin feels like he did something helpful. Then he feels something ding into his armor.
Perrin follows Mel's advice, running forward again and stumbling as much as jumping from the edge. But his momentum carries him forward, and he floats down within reach of the final platform. Sprawling onto its glassy surface, Perrin peers up at the strange icosahedron.
Perrin and Mel no longer hear any whooshing around. Looking up, Perrin sees a small crack running through one of the mirror panes that makes up a face of the icosahedron.
Perrin turns back to the shape, then slowly circles around it, inspecting for any sign of further damage - magical or mundane. If he sees only the crack, he reports back to Mel: "There's a crack on one of these panels. I think I can fix it, but it'll take at least ten minutes."
Perrin reaches into his spell component pouch, feeling for the pearl he found on Ukar's corpse. "My levitation spell will end, but I can cast another."
You notice two other cracked panels on different faces of the polyhedron.
David is huddling in the hall and breathes a sigh of relief when you come out. A minute later, the crazed looking man steps out of his mirror, heading toward the foul-smelling room. He sees you two and starts "You're still here? Usually you hallus don't last this long! Leastways not without botherin' me the whole time..." He looks quite confused.
"Don't worry," Mel tells him. "We'll be gone soon."
She debates internally for a moment, then adds "Would you like to leave the mirror? It seems like you've been stuck here a long time."
David nods gratefully at Mel's words of reassurance. He tenses up some when the man comes into the hallway and stays behind Mel.
The man waves a hand dismissively at Mel. "Ah you hallus are always promising a way out. Hasn't gotten me anywhere in fifteen years!"
The man doesn't think you are real.
"Fifteen years? Sounds ... awful. How did you get stuck in here, anyway?"
The man eyes Mel a bit but doesn't seem to take her very seriously. "You know as good as I do, hallu, seein' as ya live in my own durned mind! I wanted out o' the Reaps! They were gettin' in too deep for me." He sighs and turns back toward the waste mirror and mumbles as he passes through it. "But nobody just leaves the Reaps."
David looks up at you, concerned. "I don't like him. He's not very nice."
I hope Perrin can fix the spell, she thinks. Otherwise we're all going to end up crazy. Unless we die of thirst first...
David looks at you curiously, not sure how to process your talk of this criminal organization and the state of this adult man's character. He just nods slowly when you talk about hope.
A minute or two later, the man exits the mirror. As he walks casually back to the mirror he seems to reside in, he pulls two objects from his pocket. One is a berry which he pops into his mouth. The other is a cracked cup. He says a word and wiggles his hand and the cup fills with water. He takes a swig and strolls back into his mirror while scratching his side.
The broken mirror panes are knit back together by Perrin's magic. As he fixes one, the floating shards move closer together. The same happens when he fixes the second. After he finishes repairing the third, the floating shards have reformed into a smooth glass bridge back to the large mirror.
Perrin comes rushing out of the big mirror at the end of the hall with a big grin on his face. He nearly trips over Mel and David waiting just outside the big mirror.
So saying, Mel moves to the exit mirror, ushering the group along. Then she takes a deep breath. "See you on the other side!" And she attempts to step through the exit mirror.
While all of this was going on, Kazador sat and stared at the mirror. Did they get his message? Should he go in? He decided against going in after them. Mel and Perrin were capable. They knew what they were doing. What was he going to do in there to help them? He didn't know anything about spells! Sure, he could activate runes, but that wasn't the same. It was like...the difference between piloting a ship and building one. Two very different skills. So what was he going to do in there? Hit the spells with his hammer? No. He had brought in an expert from the church, and the only thing he could do was wait. Wait, and pray.
Mel steps out of the mirror into the basement of the Cozy Badger, followed shortly by David and Perrin. Alice happens to take a peak downstairs a few seconds later and sees her disheveled younger brother. "David!" She hurtles down the stairs and nearly tackles her younger brother, both crying but trying not to.
After a few minutes, Alice chokes a thank you to you and heads upstairs with David.
The first thing Perrin feels upon stepping through the mirror is intense frustration. His brain scrambles for a moment to rationalize it before he realizes it's coming from Ev, their empathic link suddenly reactivated. She flaps up from her resting place and flutters around his head in irritation, and Perrin gives her an apologetic look. "Sorry I took so long!"
The doctor then turns to Kazador with a smile. "Your note really saved us. There's a whole hallway of rooms in there, and we couldn't get out until we found that core thingy you mentioned." Perrin sits down on a barrel and winces, pressing a hand to the puncture wounds on his side.
He glances over to Mel. "There's also a man in there. I think he's been there a long time, and he's a bit... delusional. But I'm hoping we can get him out safely."
"Yes, the note was very helpful, Kazador," Mel says. "And this must be the priest you mentioned?" she asks, raising an eyebrow at the brown-robed stranger.
"Brother Thomas, at your service," the priest says with a polite nod. "Can you tell us what you found in there?"
"Yes, of course. Let me tell you all about it..." And she goes over everything from the moment she stepped into the mirror, looking to Perrin for occasional confirmation of details. Alice has to go deal with customers half way through, but Mel promises to fill her in on the rest later.
Once Alice has taken David upstairs, Mel wraps up her story for Kazador and then responds to Perrin's final comment.
"I had a brief conversation with the man in there while you were repairing the spell," Mel says. "He's definitely delusional. In fact, he thought he was hallucinating us. But he did reveal something of interest -- he's a Reaper agent. Or he was. I gather that he got spooked and decided to flee from the Reaps. But, as he said, 'no one just leaves the Reaps.' This whole mirror hideout was his way out. He vanished into it with a cup that fills full of water on command, some supplies, and those magic berries you spotted on him. He must have planned to hide out until the Reaps gave up looking for him, and then pop out and flee, leaving them none the wiser."
"Unfortunately, something went wrong, and the spell got damaged. I have no idea how that happened. But he's apparently been stuck in there for fifteen years, going slowly crazy from forced solitary confinement."
"I think we should go back in and capture him. I mean, anything he knows about Reaper activities is undoubtedly fifteen years out of date. But who knows? He might still have some useful info. Also there might be outstanding warrants for his arrest. I feel kind of sorry for him though -- fifteen years of solitary confinement is a horrible sentence. Even if it was self-inflicted."
When Kazador's friends...and more...came out, the dwarf threw his arms in the air. "Thank the forgefather! Oh thank...ye blasted fookers! Worried the hell out of me! Perrin, ye're wounded! And ye, Mel, what were ye thinking going in there like that! I nearly died out here. Fookin' hell...tell me everything. What happened in there?"
----
Later on, Kazador nodded. "Aye. Should drag him out of there. A bad fate to leave anyone in, stuck in that mirror. That, and we should get his information out of him, dated as it may be."
Brother Thomas nods seriously. "This will make a fascinating report for my superiors. I can suggest leniency for this man but much will depend on his level of cooperation and specific deeds."
"Naturally," Mel says to Brother Thomas.
"It occurs to me that this man wanted out of the Reaps, and that he will not want them to find out that he's back. He may be more cooperative if we can assure him his presence will not be revealed. Kazador, you've got the ability to teleport people short distances, do you not? The guard house is not far away -- once we have him out of the mirror, do you think you can move us directly from here to there? That way we can get him straight into custody with no one the wiser."
Her brow furrows. "Assuming the guard house is not warded against teleportation magics, that is. Also, Brother Thomas -- perhaps you could let them know to expect us? The guards may take alarm if a bunch of people suddenly appear out of nowhere in the middle of their headquarters. We wouldn't want any misunderstandings with large numbers of heavily armed guards."