Put On Your Best Face

An arc of electricity shorted whatever communication device the void-eyed figure was wearing as Seltyiel’s sword slid through it, cutting yet another one down. Black shadows clung to his blade, dulling its shine. His face morphed into a mask of disgust for a moment before the sound of shattering glass drew his attention.

“I’d like to ask again—where are we and what the hell are these things?” He hissed.

“Whenever we have a moment to breathe, I’ll work on an answer.” Kyra’s voice was cool and calm with an edge of humor to it—Seltyiel could tell from the curve of her mouth that she was teasing him in that friendly way of hers. But there was worry in her expression too as she burned a hole through another of the empty-eyed creatures, leaving a smoking, shimmering ember in its core as it fell.

“Tsk.” With a snort and a click of his tongue, Seltyiel accepted her answer. The creatures’ faces were identical, and while their bodies seemed solid enough, they melted into shadow when he cut them down. “Copies are never a good sign.”

“Neither is this.” Kyra gestured down the hallway the creatures had slunk down, drawing his attention to the path of draining color everywhere they had touched, the imprint of their footsteps growing by inches and degrees. “Especially not if we are where I think we are.”

“Oh, you’ve got that answer? That might be the best news I’ve heard since we got here,” Seltyiel quipped. He adjusted his grip on his sword, watching the door at the end of the hall, hearing the distant crashes of destruction.

A sigh escaped Kyra’s lips as she uttered a quick prayer, watching the bleached skin melt off one of the foes she’d blasted, revealing a shadowy mass underneath. “Normally, I would agree with you. This place is special—if I am right—and I would be thrilled to find myself here. But to see what these monsters are doing to the Radiant Palace of Possibility? It makes me sick.”

The words brushed against a thread of memory: a book on a table years ago, candlelight barely warming the words on the page. A mythological place, said to have been spun into existence by the Radiant Prism themselves, an intersection at the point where all threads of reality met and reflected each other. A boundless demiplane ruled only by love. A horrible place to be shattering under the invasion of same-faced undead.

“Divinity’s not much my business—I’ll leave that to you. But I agree that this needs to be stopped.” Seltyiel was not entirely sure how to stop a seemingly endless onslaught of copycat ghosts, though.

Find their source and rout them out.

The whispers on the edges of his consciousness urged him forward down the hall, closer to the source of the sounds. Gritting his teeth, Seltyiel gestured with his blade. “Something’s happening over there.”

Following the trail of sapped color as panes of iridescent crystal turned dull, murky gray, Seltyiel led the way further into the palace, Kyra watchful at his back. As they approached, the sounds of destruction grew louder, crashing off the walls.

So focused on hunting the trail that the whispers were guiding him toward, Seltyiel bit his tongue in shock when Kyra pulled him back behind a pillar of crystal as hurried footsteps approached. She hid them just in time. A priestess, garbed in robes of rainbow silk that seemed to be losing color with each step, streaked out from behind cover and ran for the doorway. She stumbled and was caught by the two ghosts behind her. Her starknife clattered to the floor and she screamed.

Before either Seltyiel or Kyra could react, the undead pulled her face from her body, her skin slithering up the figure’s arm to settle atop its own skull, framing the void eyes with the priestess’s final expression of terror.

“Join us. Welcome to the fleet. We are one, we are all,” the monster wearing her face said in a thousand voices.

The voices that came from the creature’s mouth spoke in unison without feeling. The priestess’s stolen face turned empty and blank as the monster reached down, shadows and void energy pouring into her corpse. The void slid over her body, consuming her and erasing the marred flesh of her face into an empty space.

The two creatures pulled her to her feet, one of them handing her another mechanical device—a firearm, but not like one Seltyiel had ever seen—and marching her back to the central chamber. She was now a member of their ranks.

“Everlight, keep us safe while we rescue the servant of your beloved Starsong.” Kyra’s prayer was quiet and whispered, her hand gently touching Seltyiel’s shoulder and carrying with it the soft warmth of sunlight. He knew she meant to fight. But first they needed to know more about the enemy.

Taking a breath, Seltyiel drew a sigil with his free hand, his body shimmering out of view as he snuck into the central chamber, scoping out the field. A large airship—far more technologically advanced than anything he had ever witnessed—dominated the center of the room, surrounded by dozens of uniform-clad undead wearing the same masked face over empty eyes. Closest to the ship, presumably giving the orders, were several floating heads in glass baubles held aloft by a tiny propeller, with no bodies save for the spindly metal limbs that hung down from their chassis. Strange, angular runes shimmered down one of their limbs as the floating head hissed a spell in a language that sounded suspiciously like Necril, the tongue of undead on his world.

The faceless creatures awaited their orders, some platoons already set on destroying the shaped crystal and mirror glass, leaving colorless clutter in their wake. Blood splattered on the floor was the only sign remaining of any resistance, their corpses recruited to join in the very destruction they hoped to prevent.

Seltyiel returned to their hiding spot behind the crystalline pillar, expression grim. “I don’t like our odds. Two of us, hundreds of them—and they can just keep making more.”

“The surest way to lose is to give up before we’ve started. We are in a holy place—there is power here those creatures cannot hope to understand. We need only reach out and tap into it.”

Seltyiel bit back a snarky remark as a shockwave rattled the chamber. One of the crystalline chandeliers collapsed into millions of shards—crushing an entire squad of faceless troopers. None of them flinched. After all, units were expendable in pursuit of the overall goal.

“Don’t let those things take my face when I die.” Seltyiel shifted his weight back and forth, adjusting his grip on his sword and waiting for Kyra’s nod before hurrying into the room, leaping into a platoon of the faceless.

The glowing arc of Kyra’s scimitar cut through a line of undead as she followed suit, each of them now surrounded by encroaching hordes of empty-eyed, hollow masked creatures with blank smiles on their faces.

“Abandon yourself. Become one. Become us. You are nothing. We are all.”

The words came from nowhere and everywhere and made Seltyiel’s stomach turn, anger flaring up in the pit of his stomach as he feinted left and swung right, slicing directly through one of the creatures and watching it dissipate into nothing.

They were wrong—he wasn’t nothing. But two individuals against a sea of endless copies could only hold out so long.

“Looks like we’re late to the party!”

An unfamiliar voice sounded from a balcony above. The faceless turned to seek out the new life force, giving both Seltyiel and Kyra an opportunity for a quick series of blows and a moment to breathe.

A human woman in sleek diamond armor and a catfolk figure dressed in wildly colorful garb stood on the balcony. Somehow, Seltyiel knew the catfolk wasn’t an amurrun from his world, but a pahtra from somewhere else. The human pointed another strange firearm down at the faceless horde and the pahtra cracked what appeared to be a ribbon made of fire. The glee in their catlike face was unmistakable, sharp teeth flashing in a grin. “Come and get me, Corpse Fleet clones! First one to the mirror gets an autograph!”

The pahtra jumped off the balcony with a graceful flip, landing on their feet in front of a trio of mirrors. The moment they landed a rainbow aura surrounded them, making it almost impossible to look away as thousands of different reflections appeared in the mirrors’ faces.

Beams of red fire streaked down from above as the human shot her gun—a laser pistol, Seltyiel thought, but how did he know that?—and pointed at her ally’s position with her free hand. “Get over there!”

Under the cover of laser fire that singed the air like a spray of blazing bolts, Kyra and Seltyiel dashed across the room past dazed faceless to the mirrors where the pahtra stood. “I’m Dae, that’s Navasi. You look like hot garbage, but I love your ‘fits,” the pahtra said cheerfully. “Are they vintage? Oh, and I hope you don’t mind, but I’m recording right now.” They beamed at a tiny mechanical device hovering overhead that Selytiel had only just noticed.

Seltyiel faced the mirror to see what Dae was talking about. He and Kyra were panting, cut up, and bloody. Color had been sapped from their torn clothing. His hair was disheveled and not in a fetching way. Their reflections looked a mess for a moment, but then the images in the mirror began to change.

“My name is Seltyiel,” he said. “We appreciate your intervention.”

“I am Kyra.” Kyra clasped Dae’s hand. “I can see the Everlight shining in you. Thank you for your help.”

The warping visions of himself pulled Seltyiel’s eyes back to the mirrors, and he didn’t notice Navasi dash over to the group, pursued by more faceless undead.

“The mirror—” he started to say, but it was already too late. As each hero turned to face the multifaceted, multidimensional crystal wall, they were shocked by what they saw. The mirrors showed more than just their reflections. Infinite versions of themselves borrowed from memories and dreams and other realities fractalized in the shining crystal.

Navasi watched herself cock her gun with a wicked smile in one facet, clench bloody credsticks in a robotic fist in another, and press a kiss to a blue-skinned woman’s cheek in a third. In yet another facet, she walked beside a handsome diplomat dressed to the nines as his security detail and date all in one. The many versions of Navasi were all equally complicated and stunning, and she watched with delight as a troupe of her other selves talked their way into—and out of—infinite situations.

Every Dae was in the spotlight. They performed old-timey canticles clad in spectacular costume at Golarion World, backflipped into a ribbon spiral in front of a cheering audience, sunned themself in the viewport of a solar yacht, and seamlessly rescued a crowd of fans from armed attackers without missing a step of their dance routine. And of course, Dae’s kaleidoscope included their moody bestie. In one mirror, the two piloted a mech together cutting down colossi with a gigantic chainsword and powered glaive.

Seltyiel bit back a sneer as he made eye contact with the many broken, beaten versions of himself—past, present, and future. But there were more facets behind that. He saw a proud man holding an ornate blade, electricity arcing up and down its length; there was a cozy candlelit chamber, Seltyiel’s reflection bent to a book as a beautiful yet unfamiliar man fell asleep beside him, snuggled against his side; Seltyiel stealing a last sharp kiss from a lover turned enemy, her dagger gleaming across his cheekbone as he pulled away to toss a ball of gleaming magic, its trail pointing directly to the heart of the devil it struck. Power, magic, anger, affection, and more feelings than Seltyiel had words for coursed through him as he grappled with his many reflections.

Kyra’s mirrored selves were all limned in fire. The Everlight illuminated a glimpse of every world that she had the luck and joy to live in: simple, humble Kyra who served a rural temple in threadbare robes; a radiant woman touched with godhood, fire in her hair and sunlight pouring from her eyes; her scimitar cutting through a ghoul just as Merisiel’s blade found its head, pulling the creature’s body in two directions; Kyra as a blushing bride in ceremonial robes joining hands with the same, now her wife. Though the images had no sound, Kyra could hear Merisiel’s precious laughter in her memory. “Here, you are all infinite. Now you can become every version of yourself.” Kyra recognized the Voice speaking—her goddess Sarenrae, the Everlight, who formed the Radiant Prism with goddesses Desna and Shelyn as a divine expression of their romantic relationship.

Curious and compelled, Seltyiel watched Dae, Kyra, and Navasi touch the crystal mirrors. Rainbows swirled around them and their forms blurred. He’d rather die alone than become part of the shadow army pillaging this palace, but those weren’t his only choices. He reached for the mirror. For a moment, all witnessed a sight most mortals could only dream of. The reflections melted away and were replaced by a trio of goddesses, fingers intertwined as they held hands. Anyone in the Universe would know them—Sarenrae, a burning star forged into a woman’s form; Desna, a moth-winged alien with elfin ears and a fickle smile; Shelyn, beauty made flesh with rainbow hair and a tender smile.

They blew the heroes a triple kiss that floated on butterfly wings, exploding into a visual cacophony of sparks and mirrors. All the reflections of the heroes poured into them, filling them with light and power.

Illustration by Mirco Paganessi

The Radiant Prism was gone but their power thrummed in Seltyiel’s veins. He and his allies turned from the mirrors feeling stronger than ever before. Where their footsteps fell, the gray, conforming magic of the invaders was pushed back, replaced with radiant color.

Defiant grins on their faces, Seltyiel, Kyra, Navasi, and Dae held their weapons aloft, free hands ready to cast or block. Their very silhouettes seemed to shift and morph, vibrating with the power of their alternate selves as they clashed with the faceless troops, tearing through them with ease. Copies are never a match for the real thing.

Seltyiel grinned as the last foe dissolved in a wisp of smoke. Only the bodies of the doomed priestess and siblings of her order remained, slumped on the floor and already stirring as color leeched back into their garments and their faces reformed from emptiness. The airship—or starship, as Dae would correct him later—had blinked out of space, leaving a hole in the palace wall that was already starting to repair itself. Gentle music replaced the harsh sounds of battle and conquest.

Seltyiel’s eyelids fluttered as the same music soothed over his mind, returning him to sleep where his body and spirit could slip out of the Radiant Palace of Possibility back to his own home, his own time. Later he’d ask Kyra about the dream, and she’d remember it the same way, down to the last detail. He couldn’t ask Dae and Navasi, but he was sure they were out there somewhere, changed by their adventure.

He was sure they must feel it too—the echo of the encounter lingering, a thrumming mantra in his mind.

In the face of conformity, there is no greater power than being yourself.

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About the Author

Rue Dickey is Paizo’s Marketing & Media Specialist, as well as an award-winning freelance tabletop game designer, author, editor, and cultural consultant. Their independent work is driven by a desire to see more queer joy, rage, and power on the world stage.