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Post by Admin on Aug 23, 2020 6:24:22 GMT
** for Kat **
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Post by Katerina on Aug 23, 2020 18:31:37 GMT
Having finally communed with the Maze and pushed her way through the infinite reflections she asked to be taken to the Gods. She needed the Gods to help them against the Kingdom of Longharron and this was the only way. As she pushed through though, her mind fractured just like a mirror fracturing into its component pieces and she fell a ways before she landed with a bump.
When she gradually opened her eyes she a name came to her mind - Fiskaron, but she could not place it. Everything was upside down and there were tiles under her.
"Gods, come out!" She shouted, finally looking up from the floor. She was in a corridor full of mirrors. Had she really left the Mirror Maze of was she trapped there however to be its servant like those others she had seen and fought off.
"Let me go and find the Gods!" She wailed. But why did she want to find them? She couldn't quite place it now and she had to start sorting through her fractured memories. Hopefully it would all settle down in time, but it was still reflections of reflections in her mind that she had to sort through.
She slowly picked herself up from the ground. The mirrors here were strange and she could not quite place them or access them like she was used to. Whichever Mirrormancer had made these had somehow locked them from another mirrormancer's use. They must have been skilled indeed she thought since somehow they were accessing the mirrors remotely from a different location. She had never seen such skill and she wondered who had placed these mirrors here and why. Instead of seeing her reflection in the mirrors, Katerina saw something else entirely. Something that the other mirrormancer obviously wanted her to see ....
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Post by Admin on Aug 24, 2020 15:05:46 GMT
As Kat gets to her feet the first thing that catches her eye is a pentagonal shaped mirror which holds the image of an elderly man, his hair and beard long and white.
"A trap! A trap! Oh how I long to escape this trap!" he says while looking imploringly at Katerina.
From behind her another voice says "Never mind him, child, the fool just can't accept that he is dead."
The second voice comes from an equally aged man in a curved mirror. Spots of his image are darkened as if the silvering on the back of the glass has flaked off over the centuries.
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Post by Katerina on Aug 24, 2020 15:36:04 GMT
"How were you trapped and by whom?" She asked the first old man, inspecting the mirror to see if she could potentially manipulate it.
Katerina turned and looked at the second old man. "Who are you and are you dead too? I am not used to seeing ghosts in a mirror. I was expecting the Gods here. There is something I need them to help me with, but I can't piece together what it is at the moment. I'm sure I'll remember eventually but my mind is a little jigged at the moment after the Maze."
The Maze. A memory of infinite mirrors was there briefly and then went. The flecks on the back of the second man's mirror might be a problem. Translating someone through an imperfect mirror would have consequences for the person that was brought through she was sure. However if they were ghosts then she wasn't even sure that she could translate them using mirrormancy at all.
Someone had once said to her that age brings wisdom. Now who had said that? She couldn't remember any more but the phrase was just floating apart from the related information that should have been with it in her mind. She hit the side of her head in frustration and her failure. She should have been here with the Gods and asking something but nothing was in place in her mind after walking the Maze. She decided that she had better remember her manners, after all she had been brought up properly.
"My name is Katerina by the way, and it is nice to make your acquaintance gentlemen. I am very sorry but I'm a little disorientated at the moment. Have I said that before?"
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Post by Admin on Aug 24, 2020 18:47:04 GMT
"A trap! A trap!" the first man continues to say then falls to muttering.
"Oh, yes, I'm dead too," the second says, "And cursed to be facing him for all eternity. Please step half a pace to your left and block my view of him for a few minutes."
Kat begins to hear babbling voice coming from the other mirrors in the corridor.
The mirrors have powerful enchantments on them in fact everything in the room holds enchantment from the tiles and carpets to the candles. Attempting to manipulate the mirrors would probably be very dangerous.
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Post by Katerina on Aug 24, 2020 20:30:11 GMT
Kat complies with the second man's wishes, checking the lines of the mirrors first and examining the enchantments as best she can. She was sure that the mirrormancer who did this was very skilled indeed. The first man might well be right about this place being some kind of trap. Something had been done to him to make him babble so.
She checks whether the mirror that the second man is in could be shifted slightly so as to ensure that he didn't face the other man. A small shift in the direction would solve his problem, but she wanted to hold that favour in reserve in this dangerous place. She needed information almost as much as she needed to have her mind back in some kind of order, and she didn't altogether trust this second ghost.
"You didn't tell me your name Sir, and who exactly cursed you? Was it one of the Gods? What did you do to irritate them so?" Katerina asks.
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Post by Admin on Aug 25, 2020 2:20:10 GMT
It is the second man that answers.
"'One of the Gods?' By the Serpent's fangs, girl, he is one of the gods! But even we are beholden to greater powers.
"Time to walk on. Seeing you has broken the man's mind stand aside so I can enjoy watching him suffer for the next few centuries. Have I changed my mind? Am I inconsistent? Know that the gods can be as chaotic as you mortals. Move on!"
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Post by Katerina on Aug 25, 2020 6:43:16 GMT
Katerina mulled over the second man's answer. What other powers and who was it who trapped them there? A memory briefly came to the fore at random in her fractured mind of a man weeping uncontrollably at the loss of someone. She couldn't place the man's name with the event though, nor who had been lost. Was the man with a shattered mind trapped in the first mirror a man who had walked the Mirror Maze and failed?
"I must know Sir what greater power are even the Gods beholden to, and who trapped you here before I go? If there is such a God capable of doing this, then I do not want to get on the wrong side of him or her. We need the Gods too badly to get on their wrong side."
She does not step aside yet. She needs answers before she leaves him to his fate. But why did they need the Gods again? It was urgent, it was the reason she was there and she knew it was important, but the vital piece of her mind that linked that to the reason was missing. She hoped that things would slowly get better. Perhaps if she were away from the mirrors it would recover. Tempting ... but she needed answers and there was no certainty that she was correct in the assumption.
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Post by Admin on Aug 26, 2020 17:08:15 GMT
"Even the gods look up to greater gods and so on and at the top of it all are the great mindless forces and concepts of the universe. As to how I arrived in this place it was the result of the greatest concept of them all: Death!"
His eyes look down to the sword hung at Katerina's hip.
"I see that you too are familiar with our mutual enemy yet you are still on the other side.
"If you need a god look to your own hands!"
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Post by Katerina on Aug 26, 2020 18:42:35 GMT
Greater Gods? Great mindless forces? And this is the sane one of the two of them. She looked down at the shortsword at her hip and sees Tempest sheathed there.
"Oh my sword Tempest you mean? I know how to use it and will endeavour to use it to stave of your nemesis Sir. Its supposed to say its name of the side but its written in some ancient language of my people. That was left for me by my father. Are you trying to tell me that this is a God weapon? That would mean that you think that my father is a God. If that is the case then I guess I really need to find my father. My natural one that is, and not the man who has acted as such since as long as I can remember. But I don't know where to start? The Mirror Maze was supposed to take me to the Gods, but all that's here seem to be dead people."
Katerina realised that she'd just called the ghost she was talking to a dead person. It was accurate but not neccessarily polite.
"Sorry Sir." She apologised. "I didn't mean to offend you. I'm not from here and I don't really know where I am or where the Gods live. I don't suppose you could tell me could you please?"
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Post by Admin on Aug 28, 2020 20:41:24 GMT
"You will use your sword to oppose Death?" he man says with a chuckle. "Sadly, no matter what weapons you have or how you move the pieces on the board Death will always win the game.
"You will always be close to the gods, child. Trust in your hands! The answers to your questions are at the end of this corridor. Now move and let me see my opposite!"
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Post by Katerina on Aug 28, 2020 21:07:29 GMT
"I will use it to stave death off as long as I possibly can. No one lives forever, but then I'd be foolish to throw my life away without being able to defending myself." She smiles.
"Thank you for your help Sir. I will leave you to gloat at your opponent." With that she steps to the side and gingerly walks down the corridor towards the door hand on Tempest in case, trying to ensure that nothing translates through the other mirrors as she makes it through to the doorway and hopefully beyond it.
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Post by Admin on Aug 29, 2020 7:15:20 GMT
#s://i~ibb~co/Vx4phpf/81836de7507b22b66bdb7cb68e9c9832-roger-zelazny-ambre~jpg Katerina only manages to take a few steps before an unseen force stops her. From her left a man's voice comes from a mirror. "Well, well, well, little girl, you finally made it home."Then from her right a woman says. "My dear, Katerina, we have been waiting for you."The man has pale skin and blond hair, he wears a black shirt under a brown jacket. The woman also has pale skin but with red hair, green eyes, and wears a green dress.
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Post by Katerina on Aug 29, 2020 7:58:35 GMT
"I'm not little and I'm not a girl any more but a grown woman," She says almost reflexively, "I had my sixteenth birthday earlier this year! Besides how can I have made it home when I've never been to the place of the Gods before. To go home, you really have to have lived there first don't you think?"
How did these ghosts know my name? Did they hear me say it to the other ghost down the corridor?
She examines the force stopping her to see if she can understand what it is. It's not something she's seen done using mirrormancy before, so this must be something else.
"I'm sorry, Sir ... Madam, you have me at a disadvantage. Might I know your names so that I know how to address you properly?"
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Post by Admin on Aug 29, 2020 20:42:59 GMT
"She got you there, Del" the woman says smiling.
"Touche, Kat," the man says also with a smile. "You are correct - a child couldn't have found her way here unless there was a tragic mistake on someone's part.
"Know that this place is your home. Wherever you were before was just a brief stop on your journey to Amber."
"You are in your ancestral home. Your aura proclaims you one of us and shows you fit to live with the gods."
The man then says: "My name is Delwin, and we may never actually meet - unless certain ancient powers come loose -"
"Oh, he uses that line on everyone who wanders in here" the woman interjects rolling her eyes.
"Which," the Delwin continues ignoring the woman's words, and holding his arm up to look at a small device strapped to his wrist, "Will be any time now, knowing the kind of trouble your cousins like to get in to."
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