Escape from the Mirror
Fire descended from the upper ramps.
The first ray struck Kaylor’s armor and spread across the metal. The old enchantment woven through the plate swallowed part of the heat, but enough reached the flesh beneath to make him stagger.
Two more rays followed.
One passed beside Hexen.
The other struck the mirrored floor and scattered flame across every reflection in the chamber.
The small creature above them spread its wings.
It was scarcely larger than Gygax, though the comparison ended there. Horns curved from its head. A cruel spear burned in its hands. More creatures waited higher upon the zigzagging glass ramps, partially concealed by darkness and their own distorted reflections.
Kaylor looked at the steep climb between them.
The surface was too slick for a charge.
He disappeared.
Misty Step carried him from the bottom of the ramp to the first creature’s side.
The winged fiend had enough time to turn.
Kaylor’s Sword of Sharpness struck before it could use the spear.
The first blow missed as the creature twisted away.
The second opened its side.
Unlike the mirror men, it did not return the force of the attack.
The creature screamed and took flight.
Another swooped down from the ramp above, landing beside Kaylor and attacking twice with its fiery spear.
Both thrusts missed.
Below, the other heroes started upward.
Each step required care. Their boots slid across the angled glass. The chamber offered no railing and no protection from the open drop beneath the ramps.
Isamu moved as though the surface were ordinary stone.
Hexen’s Freedom of Movement still surrounded him. The magic ignored the treacherous floor and allowed the monk to run at full speed while everyone else struggled for balance.
He reached the crowded lower ramp.
Kaylor and two winged creatures blocked the path above.
Hexen, still shaped as a massive earth elemental, occupied most of the passage below.
Isamu did not slow.
He planted one foot against the rising glass, leapt over the elemental’s shoulder and landed between the winged fiends.
His blade struck the nearest.
A focused blow followed.
The creature’s body locked beneath the Stunning Strike.
“Move,” Isamu said.
The stunned fiend did not.
“That was not a request.”
He hit it again.
Fendor fired from the chamber floor.
His first arrow passed beside Kaylor and struck the stunned creature.
A second climbed at a sharper angle and found another fiend circling above the ramps.
The winged creatures answered with fire.
Rays crossed the chamber from several heights. Their reflections multiplied the attacks until it became impossible to know which flames were real and which existed only upon the mirrored walls.
Grazim raised his shield against one ray.
Another struck beside him.
The war-priest continued upward.
Hexen climbed behind him in elemental form. Each immense hand found purchase where ordinary fingers would have slipped. His stone body moved slowly, but every step shook the ramp.
Nethnarel remained below long enough to see the creatures gather.
Then she released a Fireball.
The sphere passed beneath the first ramp, rose through the open center of the chamber and exploded among the fiends waiting above.
Flame filled the mirrored world.
The reflections made one explosion appear to become hundreds.
Several creatures emerged from the fire with their wings burning. One did not emerge at all.
The others descended.
Their spears struck Kaylor, Isamu and the earth elemental. Fire followed each wound.
Grazim reached the first turn in the ramp.
He planted one hand against the glass and invoked a prayer.
A wall of spinning blades appeared across the open space above him.
The winged creatures tried to climb around it.
One almost succeeded.
A bolt of force struck it in the chest.
The creature flew backward through Grazim’s Blade Barrier.
Its body came apart inside the storm of steel.
Burning pieces fell through the open chamber and vanished into the reflected darkness below.
Isamu looked down after them.
“That seemed unpleasant.”
“It was not intended to be pleasant,” Grazim said.
The heroes fought their way upward.
Kaylor held the narrow ramps wherever the creatures tried to descend in numbers. The Dancing Sword moved independently beside him, cutting at wings while the Sword of Sharpness guarded the path.
Isamu used the freedom Hexen’s spell gave him to move from level to level. He jumped gaps, ran along steep glass and reached enemies who believed height made them safe.
Fendor’s arrows crossed between them.
Hexen absorbed spear thrusts that might have killed a smaller creature.
Nethnarel placed magic wherever the open structure allowed it, forcing the winged fiends from their perches.
The final creature attempted to retreat toward the ceiling.
Fendor’s arrow struck one wing.
The fiend dropped.
Kaylor met it on the ramp.
One blow ended the fight.
Silence returned to the chamber.
No more fire came from above.
No wings moved among the reflections.
The ascent had nearly exhausted what healing the party still possessed. Kaylor gave Nethnarel the last strength remaining in his restorative touch. Grazim divided another prayer among the most injured.
They continued to the top.
Another mirror waited there.
It did not reflect the ramp chamber. Beyond it stood a smaller antechamber and another expanse of polished glass.
Gygax crossed first.
Nothing attacked her.
The heroes followed.
Isamu entered last.
Before he crossed, he remembered the small painted mirror recovered from the copper-filled cavity beneath Joraya.
Magic had radiated from it, but none of them had discovered its purpose.
He removed it from his pack.
Nethnarel looked at the object.
“You have been carrying that?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“No one else wanted to look into it.”
“That was sensible.”
Isamu held the hand mirror away from his face.
He angled it toward the larger gateway.
Light from the flaming edge of his weapon crossed its surface.
The reflection changed.
When Isamu looked directly into the next chamber, he saw a broad, empty room.
When he looked through the small mirror, pale walls appeared.
They had no substance in the ordinary reflection.
Through the hand mirror, they became a maze.
Invisible barriers divided the chamber into narrow passages and sealed compartments. Openings appeared where the naked eye saw only continuous space.
Within several compartments stood corpses.
They remained upright.
Rotted bodies crowded together behind the unseen walls, motionless but not collapsed. Some wore remnants of armor. Others had little clothing left. Dark fluid marked their mouths and hands.
Isamu lowered the mirror.
The walls vanished.
He raised it.
The maze returned.
“I know what the mirror does.”
The others gathered around him.
“What?” Kaylor asked.
“It shows things that are hidden from ordinary sight.”
“Everything hidden?”
“I see the walls.”
“That was not my question.”
“It is the answer I have.”
Grazim looked into the apparently open chamber.
“The dead?”
“Visible without the mirror.”
“Then the walls are the deception.”
“Or our sight is.”
Isamu moved forward.
He carried the mirror in one hand and guided the others through the first invisible turn.
Kaylor followed immediately behind him.
More than once, the dragonborn struck a barrier that appeared to be open space. Isamu redirected him around a corner only the mirror revealed.
The room became a silent exercise in trust.
“Left,” Isamu said.
Kaylor moved left.
“Stop.”
He stopped before walking into another invisible wall.
“Right. Then forward.”
The remaining heroes followed the route as closely as the cramped passages allowed.
Hexen’s earth-elemental form made that difficult.
His shoulders scraped barriers no one else could see. At one narrow opening he became lodged between two force walls.
Isamu looked back.
“You are blocking the passage.”
“I am aware.”
“Can you become narrower?”
“No.”
“Can you become less solid?”
“Not while remaining an earth elemental.”
Isamu considered this.
“Then become a ramp.”
Hexen stared at him.
Isamu climbed over his shoulder.
Beyond the next turn stood the first group of dead.
They remained inside a transparent prison Isamu alone could see.
Kaylor examined them through the invisible wall.
“They are waiting.”
“For what?” Fendor asked.
The barrier disappeared.
Air escaped from the sealed chamber.
The smell struck first.
Rot.
Old blood.
Something sweet enough to make the throat close.
The dead opened their eyes.
They came through the vanished wall.
The first creature slammed into Kaylor.
Its fists carried more than strength. Necrotic decay entered through every impact, spreading numbness and corruption beneath the skin.
Another attacked Grazim.
A third opened its mouth and expelled a stream of diseased filth.
Kaylor stood inside the spray.
The corruption washed across him.
Nothing took hold.
He wiped the worst of it from his armor.
“That will not work.”
Isamu drew a small bead from his equipment.
He had intended to launch it through a blowgun, but the angle through the maze was wrong and the weapon proved unnecessary.
He threw it.
The Bead of Force struck near one of the creatures and exploded.
Invisible pressure filled the passage.
The dead thing staggered beneath the blast but remained standing.
Isamu looked at his empty hand.
“That was less impressive than expected.”
“It moved,” Fendor said.
“Slightly.”
The invisible barriers changed around them.
A wall appeared behind Kaylor.
Another sealed part of the group inside the narrow passage with the attacking dead.
Isamu lifted the hand mirror.
The maze had rearranged itself.
“Do not move without me.”
Nethnarel raised one hand.
Through the route visible in Isamu’s mirror, she could see another sealed compartment holding six of the rotted creatures.
The barrier around them had begun to fade.
Stone erupted before it could disappear.
Nethnarel’s Wall of Stone enclosed the entire group.
Rock replaced the temporary force barriers, sealing all six creatures inside a prison of her own making.
Their fists struck the other side.
The wall held.
“How long?” Kaylor asked.
“Ten minutes.”
“And then?”
“If I maintain the spell, it becomes permanent.”
Kaylor blocked another blow.
“Maintain it.”
The narrow corridor filled with fighting.
Grazim summoned Spirit Guardians. Radiant figures circled him, moving through the maze walls even when the heroes could not.
The guardians tore through the rotted creatures wherever the invisible passages brought them close.
Fendor fired over shoulders and between bodies.
His arrows struck dead flesh, though several targets endured wounds that should have dropped living enemies.
Isamu ran through any opening Hexen’s bulk did not completely block.
Kaylor’s weapons cut into the creatures at the front.
The dead continued coming.
One struck Grazim hard enough to drop him.
The war-priest disappeared beneath the crowded passage.
Isamu reached him first.
No prayer would pass easily through the press of bodies. He removed a healing potion, forced it between Grazim’s lips and dragged him far enough from the creatures to breathe.
Grazim’s eyes opened.
“You nearly died,” Isamu said.
“I noticed.”
“You should avoid that.”
“I will consider it.”
The maze shifted again.
A new wall appeared between Kaylor and the others.
The dragonborn found himself alone with two of the creatures.
He attacked before they could take advantage of it.
The Dancing Sword struck one.
The Sword of Sharpness struck the other.
Behind the invisible wall, the party could see Kaylor fighting but could not reach him.
Fendor tried to find an angle for an arrow.
Every path collided with a barrier.
Nethnarel drove a Thunderwave into the mirrored floor.
The blast spread through the glass.
Cracks appeared.
The force walls remained.
She struck again.
The cracks deepened.
Hexen understood.
The earth elemental lowered both hands and hammered the damaged floor.
Glass shattered.
The section beneath him collapsed.
The invisible wall continued downward, but it was anchored in the material of the chamber.
Hexen dropped into the broken surface and began digging.
Stone and glass parted before the elemental.
He burrowed beneath the barrier.
The passage was low and sharp-edged, but it connected the separated sections of the maze.
Kaylor saw the earth elemental’s hands emerge beneath the wall.
“You took your time.”
Hexen tore the opening wider.
“You were not the one digging through mirrored stone.”
The heroes crawled through.
One of the dead followed.
Isamu met it inside the narrow space and drove his blade into its skull.
The creature continued moving.
His next blow stunned it long enough for Kaylor to destroy it.
The battle continued through the invisible maze.
Walls appeared.
Others vanished.
Groups of dead were released whenever the heroes crossed particular points. The smell of escaping air became their only warning that another sealed compartment had opened.
Isamu guided them with the hand mirror.
Grazim’s radiant guardians moved ahead where possible.
Hexen broke sections of floor whenever the maze divided the party.
Nethnarel used controlled bursts of force rather than risk collapsing the entire chamber.
Fendor found firing lines no one else could have used.
The final creature fell near the broken passage Hexen had created.
For several moments, no new wall moved.
No further corpses awakened.
The heroes waited ten minutes.
Nethnarel maintained her concentration.
The Wall of Stone became permanent.
Six rotted creatures remained sealed within it.
Their blows continued for a while.
Then stopped.
Grazim caught up with the others after recovering from his wounds.
Isamu raised the mirror again.
The maze continued.
Beyond the cleared passages waited more sealed compartments.
One held several corpses.
Another contained a broad mound of coins, gems and objects whose shapes suggested weapons, armor and stranger prizes.
The treasure did not persuade Kaylor to forget the bodies guarding it.
“Find the exit.”
Isamu followed the reflected walls.
The route bent around another sealed group.
Kaylor saw two of the dead standing on the opposite side of a barrier.
Thirty feet separated them.
He could see both.
The invisible maze required a much longer path to reach them.
“I can cross.”
Isamu looked at the hand mirror.
“The passage does not go directly there.”
“I do not need the passage.”
Kaylor vanished.
Misty Step placed him between the two creatures.
He attacked the nearest with everything he had.
Sword.
Dancing blade.
Dark power shaped through the oath he had broken.
The rotted creature came apart beneath the assault before it could move.
Kaylor looked back toward his companions.
Isamu held up the hand mirror.
Through it, he saw something beneath Kaylor’s boots.
“Do not—”
The floor opened.
The trap dropped Kaylor and three nearby creatures thirty feet into a mirrored pit.
A wall appeared above them.
Another sealed the pit from the surrounding chamber.
Kaylor landed hard.
One of the creatures fell beside him.
Two more struck the floor on the opposite side of the pit.
Above, the heroes saw only the sudden disappearance of the dragonborn.
Isamu saw more.
The hand mirror showed the pit, the new walls and a narrow route curving around them.
“Kaylor is alive.”
“How do you know?” Grazim asked.
“He has started hitting things.”
The sound of Kaylor’s axe rose from below.
Isamu ran.
Freedom of Movement carried him across the maze at impossible speed. He followed the route visible in the hand mirror, crossed more than a hundred feet of twisting passages and leapt the open pit where the floor had fallen away.
He reached the opposite side before the others had moved halfway through the maze.
Kaylor fought below.
Isamu looked for a path down.
“There is no door.”
Kaylor blocked one of the creatures’ fists.
“That is unfortunate.”
“The wall changes when the trap activates.”
“More useful.”
“The route bends around the pit. The others are coming.”
“They should hurry.”
Kaylor destroyed the nearest creature.
The remaining two closed from opposite directions.
Grazim, Fendor and Nethnarel followed Isamu’s instructions through the maze. Hexen burrowed beneath another obstacle rather than wait for the walls to release them.
The chamber shifted again.
A bypass opened around the pit.
Isamu found the descent.
The heroes reached Kaylor before the dead could overwhelm him.
Fendor’s arrows struck first.
Grazim brought the Warhammer of Disruption down upon one creature.
Isamu stunned another.
Hexen emerged through the pit wall in a storm of shattered glass.
Kaylor finished the final enemy.
The path above reopened.
They climbed out.
Beyond the pit, the hand mirror revealed the treasure chamber.
A large horde waited within it.
Coins formed uneven hills around weapons, chests and partially buried objects. More rotted creatures stood among them, motionless behind invisible force walls.
A mirror portal waited in the far corner.
The exit was visible.
So was the treasure.
The heroes were exhausted.
Kaylor looked at the dead guardians.
Then at the mirror portal.
“We rest.”
They chose the most defensible section of the maze and settled against the mirrored floor.
The attempt lasted less than a minute.
Shapes moved beneath the glass.
Two mirror men surfaced beside them.
“Leave us alone,” Isamu said. “We are trying to sleep.”
The creatures fired shards.
Glass struck Isamu and Hexen.
Everyone came to their feet.
They remembered the rules.
No Smites.
No elemental magic.
No powerful enchantments.
Isamu used a plain light crossbow rather than one of his stronger weapons. Fendor accepted the small reflected sting of the Oathbow’s enchantment and relied upon the arrows. Kaylor used only the physical edge of the Sword of Sharpness.
The first mirror man shattered beneath their attacks.
The second fired twice at Hexen before Kaylor cut it down.
The pieces sank into the floor.
The heroes looked at one another.
The rest had not begun.
The realm had interrupted it immediately.
“It will not allow us to sleep,” Fendor said.
“Perhaps it does not like snoring,” Isamu replied.
Hexen looked toward the treasure chamber.
“We could leave.”
No one moved toward the portal.
The mound of wealth remained behind the force walls.
Magic shone among it.
“Or,” Nethnarel said, “we could remove the creatures protecting that.”
Kaylor stared at her.
“We can barely stand.”
“Yes.”
“There may be more rooms beyond the portal.”
“Yes.”
“And you want the treasure.”
“Yes.”
Isamu nodded.
“So do I.”
Grazim looked through the maze toward the motionless dead.
“You are all aware this is a trap.”
“The entire realm is a trap,” Isamu said. “That does not mean we should leave the useful parts behind.”
They formed a plan.
The force walls had dropped whenever the mirror realm reacted to movement through its maze.
Hexen believed he could tunnel beneath them.
If the barriers remained, he would create a narrow passage and force the dead through one at a time.
If they dropped, the others would be ready.
Nethnarel prepared fire.
Grazim summoned what protection remained available to him.
Kaylor and Isamu waited at the front.
Fendor chose an angle from which he could shoot into the chamber without striking his companions.
The six undead sealed inside Nethnarel’s permanent stone prison remained contained.
Everything else waited behind the invisible walls.
Hexen returned to his earth-elemental form.
He placed both hands against the mirrored floor and began to dig.
The force walls vanished.
All of them.
Air escaped from every sealed compartment at once.
The stench of death rolled across the chamber.
Dozens of rotted heads turned toward the heroes.
The creatures standing within the treasure mound opened their eyes.
More rose from passages the heroes had not yet explored.
The entire invisible maze had been a collection of cages.
Now every cage was open.
Nethnarel released a Wall of Fire across the advancing horde.
Flames rose through the mirrored chamber.
Nethnarel placed a Fireball behind it.
The explosion swallowed the creatures farthest from the wall and drove those in front directly toward the heroes.
The dead continued through the flames.
Kaylor raised the Sword of Sharpness.
Isamu stepped beside him.
Behind the fire waited the treasure.
Beyond it waited the mirror portal.
Between the heroes and either stood an army of things that did not know how to die.