037 Mirror Security, Arenea

[theseus]

“Wait a minute!” Anna says. “I’m worried this is still too dangerous. One mirror will only protect us from the front. The way this is set up, a beam could hit one of the mirrors behind us, and then be reflected onto our backs….”

“What would happen if you opened all the mirrors at once? Wouldn’t every beam then pass harmlessly into mirror space, instead of bouncing back and forth, and possibly hitting one of us where we aren’t defended?”

[erichenry]

"That would be ideal" Arenea replies. "I've never attempted to open that many mirrors at the one time, but I can only try."

"However, to do so I'm going need to be inside the chamber. This..." she says indicating the mirror D'gall had fetched "...should protect us long enough to get in. So long as we are directly in front of the door, this mirror will absorb any beams coming straight at us and there won't be any mirrors directly behind us to reflect the beams. If we are only just inside the door, the angle of reflection should be too shallow for beams reflected off any of the other mirrors to catch us."

"Once in, I'll try to open all of the other mirrors to absorb the beams. Is everyone with me?"

[theseus]

D’gall and Anna both nod their assent, though Anna still looks a little worried.

[erichenry]

"Just in case this doesn't work, it's been an honour knowing both of you" Arenea says. She stands in front of the door and waits until she can feel D'Gall and Anna pressing up against her back. She concentrates until she feels the mirror open into Mirrorspace. She then throws open the door, intoning the word "NOGTZ!" at the same time, and leads D'Gall and Anna through, holding the mirror before them like a shield.

Once through the door, she moves the mirrored wall immediately adjoining the doorway. She feels a beam of lance out from the globe and strike the mirror, passing through into Mirrorspace. Arenea places her impromptu shield against this wall, keeping the angle as shallow as possible and witgh their backs still in the open doorway. Arenea concentrates, attempting to spread the effect from her mirror onto the wall and from there onto each of the adjoining mirrors.

[theseus]

As the mirrors touch, a pretty shimmering flashes around the room, as each mirror opens.

Destructive beams of light continue to cascade from the globe in every direction, but now pass harmlessly through the mirrors. The beams are then lost from view. Strangely, from somewhere distant in the mirror realm, comes the sound of ethereal singing, combined with the anguished screams of what must be some terrible monster.

The party’s progress across the room is quick. They are soon close enough to discern the glint of a gold ring inside the lip at the top of the pedestal. At seemingly random intervals, a beam from the globe arcs outward. The beams either flash into the mirror and vanish, or cut downwards through the space between the group and the pedestal, to hit the floor harmlessly.

[erichenry]

"Better than I'd hoped" Arenea says under her breath. "Now for the tricky bit."

To Anna and D'Gall she says "As far as I can see we have two options at this point. I can turn my skin reflective and attempt to reach in and grab the ring. If the test with my hair was right, I should have about ten seconds. Or we can toss a mirror into the space under the globe and I can try to reach through and grab the ring. That's probably safer but will split my concentration even further."

[theseus]

“So it would be better if I made the shot instead,” Anna says.

She reaches into her belt pouch. She withdraws a small slingshot with a ball and string attached to it, and a small mirror. “I was trained to be a good thief,” she explains. “And you never know when you might need to hit a button on a far wall.”

She replaces the ball of the slingshot with the mirror, which she places facedown. She breaks the string off the slingshot. “I’ll only have one shot at this,” Anna says. “I don't want to throw off my cast by moving back under cover with the string attached.”

Taking a deep breath, she darts around the side of the mirror, and uses the slingshot to fire the small mirror across the room. She dives back under coverwithout seeing if her shot will hit home. The mirror flits towards the pedestal in a slight downward arc, and drops neatly into the lip.

D'gall risks a look "Perfect shot, well done!” he says.

[erichenry]

"Thank you" Arenea says softly, but with real gratitude in her voice. "That was very brave of you. Now it's up to me again."

Taking advantage of her extra arms, Arenea holds the large mirror in place out in front of her with her upper arms and takes one her hand mirrors with one of her middle hands. She holds this up in front of her face and concentrates. She reaches forward with her other middle hand and passes it through the surface of the mirror. She extends her hand the short distance through the mirrorrealm to where she knows the second mirror rests and tries to pass her hand through that.

[theseus]

Contact with the second mirror is made, and Arenea’s fingers easily open it and slide into the space beyond. It feels weird, her body is in one place, her fingers beneath the globe in another, with only a portion of her arm existing in the cool softness of the mirrorrealm.

Her fingertips brush against a cold object, the right size and shape to be a ring. Grasping it is little difficult as it is smooth and slippery. She manages to snag it in between two of her fingers. She withdraws her hand with the object carefully.

All of her back in normal space, Arenea finds that between her fingers is a gold ring. An inscription is marked on the inside of the ring in ancient Sanskrit. It reads ‘To Forge Stability for your Kingdom – The Sign of Chaos.’

Arenea can feel the immense power of reality flowing from it. She realises that this is likely to be the most valuable artifact that has ever existed in the history of the Courts of Chaos.

[erichenry]

Arenea exhales a sigh of relief. "Got it" she breathes softly. Her hand closes around the ring and she has to work to prevent her hand from trembling.

"Okay. We're going to back up towards one of the mirrors. It doesn't matter which one" she tells D'gall and Anna. "Once we're through, I close them and we should be safe. Any questions." The strain of the sustained concentration and energy expenditure is starting to show in her voice.

[theseus]

As the group retreat to the closest wall mirror, loud rumbling sounds can be heard from overhead. The floor vibrates like in an earthquake. Large rocks fall from the ceiling, hit the ground, and crack or splinter apart.

As Arenea leads her two companions through the closest mirror, a large hunk of rock falls into the mirror room, smashing into the space where they were standing moments before. Arenea leaves the mirror shield in real space, and closes the mirror on the wall as they exit into the mirror realm.

All is still. Around them in mirror space is the perfect geometric pattern of the mirrors, the reflections of which have not yet caught up to the chaos occurring outside.

“That was a little close for comfort,” D’gall admits.

Anna looks crestfallen. “I… I think Reyn was still in the palace. Something’s happened… I don’t think he, I mean she… I don’t think she made it!”

[erichenry]

"If she is still in there, then there is nothing we can do" Arenea says with regret. "We have no way of locating her. The best we can do is to make our way to the rendezvous location."

She staggers slightly and says "My reserves are starting to run low".

[theseus]

Anna nods reluctantly. “I understand.”

Arenea leads her companions to their new destination. Anna glances back, glistening tears in her eyes, before moving on.

To be continued…