The group had a light rest, complete with tea and travel snacks, accompanied by the delicate sense of foreboding gained from staring into a mirror that one should be in, but is not. This was, almost without doubt, the thing they had been seeking. When they completed their rest, they packed back up, putting snacks and saucers back in their secure containers before gathering in front of the ominous mirror.
“So… How do you think this works?” Will asked, rubbing his hands together and looking at his companions.
They looked back, baffled. “You don’t know? You’re the one who had the tip!” Annette said.
Gerald and Nina looked at each other, rolling their eyes. “It’s a mirror, folks. Just…” Gerald gestured at Nina, confidently stepping into the mirror, and waving at them from the other side. “...Do that.”
Annette and Will were nonplussed. “Oh.”
The rest of the party made their way through, Gerald with confidence and ease, Will with curiosity, and Annette with caution. As she made her way through, she gripped the frame of the mirror in a tight grip, and stopped, looking around with her head still out of the mirror. Shuddering, she went the rest of the way in.
Will touched her shoulder. “Are you okay?”
Hesitantly, she nodded. “I’m okay. It just feels weird to be in here knowing that the only way we have out is… well, that.” She said, gesturing back at the mirror from within it. From this side, the mirror looked largely the same, though the frame appeared to be the inverse from the the otherside, concave where the other side was convex, but still these two competing forces, waves or wind, clashing together. The contrast to the other side of the frame, and the sheer stillness they felt here, lent to an almost sinister feeling.
Will nodded. “Ultimately, we’re still in the same Domain. Just think of it like another room that no one else has been in before.” He scanned around quickly, noting that they were still in a storage room, covered furniture all around them. He paced about, he and his companions on high alert, as they surveyed the room. He neared the window and glanced out before doing a double take, his eyes widening.
Gerald stepped up beside him, hands on hips. “Huh. Yup, just a totally normal room, complete with a view of a totally normal city.”
Will turned to him, excitement in his eyes. “If no one else has been here before, do you think there are treasures still out there?”
“Hah! No, kid. It’s just an image of what’s outside the Domain, there isn’t really anything there. No relic should be strong enough to spin up an entire mirrored world. Trust me, what we’re after is treasure enough.” Clapping the younger man on the shoulder, he turned back to the room. “Looks like this room is clear though. No sense dragging this out. Let’s get the relic and get back here.”
The party gathered, and headed to the door. Will and Nina stood in front of it, both noting the handle being on the opposite side from where it had been on the other side, and they nodded to each other. If things were the same in the mirror world, the room outside the door should have some of the humanoid enemies common to this Domain. Quickly throwing open the door, the two frontline fighters burst through, ready to commit violence.
They hesitated a moment as they entered the room, taking quick stock of its inhabitants. There were some humanoids in here, the same uncanny, not quite right recreation of those that had died here long ago, dressed in the same extravagant servants attire seen through the mansion, but the colors were wrong. Things appeared inverted, blacks where before there were whites, orange where there were blues, and so on. On sighting the party members, these invert servants dashed at them, malice in their eyes.
The party only hesitated for a moment, though. They were trained and experienced, and adapted quickly. Against these creatures, Will took on a more defensive role, diverting opponents attention and defending allies. Nina, true to form, ducked in and out of the enemies reach, slashing quickly with blades, effectively and efficiently crippling, then killing. In the rear, Gerald used minimal magic, weaving quick pops of light in enemies eyes and subtly yanking on limbs with a spectral imitation of his hand, disorienting the foe. Annette stood beside him, hand on her staff, a light buzzing emanating from it as she surveyed the fight. Against groups of opponents like this, their melee fighters had proven to be more than enough on their own, and as the only healer, she tended to reserve her energy.
For a group that hadn’t been together long, and hadn’t even known each other when they were gathered, they worked well together. Nina and Will were skilled enough to stay out of each other's way, and they each naturally fell into different roles on the battlefield that complemented the other, while Gerald was highly experienced working as support. He was able to fit into most parties effectively. Annette had far less fighting experience, but when supported by a team of members with the level of skill the other three had, she didn’t need to get into things as much.
Having adjusted to fighting the inverted humanoids, they were able to make quick work of them. In this way, they continued their exploration of the mirror mansion, starting by retracing their steps. As they cleared each room, with no sign of a relic, or even any magic items, tension began to slowly climb.
Stopping in the foyer, hand resting on the front door, body turned to the room, Will looked around searchingly. He sighed. “Well, I was hoping that there might be more to this whole mirror gimmick, you know?”
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The others looked at him questioningly. “You mean, like… stronger enemies or something?” Nina asked.
He waved his hand in front of his face, “No, no. Something more like… We enter the mirror world, and our destination is where we started in the other world, right? Like, we’d find the relic here. But!” He pushed on the door, which didn’t budge in the slightest. “It looks like this is as far back as we can get, and we’ve already visited all the same rooms we’ve seen on the other side… I’m all out of ideas for clever ways to find this thing without searching every room.”
His party chuckled, then Nina half raised her hand. “Maybe we’ll find it in the mirrored boss room! I think that would make sense, especially if there is an inverted version of the boss as well.”
Gerald nodded. “Mmm, Domains do like to protect their most powerful items. Certainly a plausible idea.”
Nina radiated smug energy at this praise, and started angling towards the door. “That settles it then! We should just go take out the boss!”
Before she could make it far, Annette stopped her, a slanted grin and a twinkle in her as she looked at Will. “No, no, hold on. I think Will really had a good idea with this mirror thing, right? The whole, ‘our destination is where we started’.”
The man in question looked at her, head tilted, one brow raised. “Did I?”
She waved lightly at him, like she was patting the air in his direction. “Oh, sure!” She said, an exaggerated expression of assurance on her face.
“Okay, well, now I just feel like you’re making fun of m–”
“Will! Will. I would never.”
He took a breath, looking down a bit, before dragging his hands across his eyes and exhaling. In a resigned tone, he said “...Mmmkay.” Nina stood halfway between the group and the doors further into the mansion, looking back and forth between the two, hyped and expectant, waiting to go. She settled a bit when she saw Gerald chuckling, watching the other two.
Will gestured to Annette, taking a seat on the semicircular step around the doors that should have led outside. “Let’s hear what you’ve got, then.”
She started walking around a bit, gesturing broadly at the space around them, projecting a sarcastic confidence in her voice. “Well, think about it. We’re in a mirror, right? Everything is backwards or inverted. Everything. Door handles are on the wrong way, Domain creatures wear inverted colors and have reversed dominant hands, the sun rises in the west, and sets in the east,” she said, gesturing left and right for emphasis before waving it away. “I mean, probably, we never really looked. As Will pointed out, however,” she pointed to him, head resting on his hands, watching her with mock annoyance, “since it’s a mirror world, our beginning could be our destination. Apparently, it’s not; we’re already here. But! What if our path is reversed?”
Frowning, Gerald asked, “What do you mean? Isn’t that just what we’ve done so far?”
Shaking her finger at him,she said “No, Ger, not quite–”
“Ger?”
“You see,” she said, forging on, “If our beginning could be our destination, then why can’t our destination be our beginning?”
Glancing at Gerald, smiling and shaking his head, Nina scoffed, “That doesn’t make any sense.”
“Well,” the older man said, stroking his chin, “I’ve known some who enjoyed these kinds of thought experiments. While I’m not necessarily saying it does make sense, it also doesn’t not make sense. If everything in this place is flipped why can’t that include something like, for example, time? If indeed we find this relic, what’s to stop the relic from finding us?”
Annette pointed at him, a bit less excitable. “Yes, that. Coming from me it was supposed to be a funny joke, but now you said it with this, like, gravitas and it just kind of…” she gestured, cutting her hand sideways before slowing to a stop. “Fizzled.”
He chuckled, clapping her on the shoulder as Will stepped past, toward the door. “Sorry, it’s always good to keep spirits high, but I think,” he covered his mouth with the back of his hand leaning into her, “some of our members were a bit antsy.” He nodded towards Nina as he said so, and she was practically vibrating waiting for the others to catch up.
Flushing a bit, Annette said “Ah! Right. Sorry. I’m still not too used to being in groups like… this,” she said, gesturing. “I got a bit excited having people that I like, with the back and forth that we’ve had and everything…” She looked up a bit sheepishly. “It’s been… a bit, since I’ve been around people.”
He raised an eyebrow at that, and just smiled, gesturing to others. “Come on. Don’t want to get too far from our people, do we?” She grinned, following along.
The door clicked.
Everyone’s heads jerked, all levity forgotten as they turned to the door in front of them. There was a moment of silence before, ever so slightly, the handle began to turn.
Nina looked back, panic written on her face. She loudly whispered, “I thought the creatures here weren’t supposed to leave their rooms. What is that!?”
Everyone shook their heads. “We don’t know,” Will said. “Get into formation. Prepare for a fight. We had a tip about this place because something wiped out a party. This might be it.” He turned back to the door, shouldering his buckler and lowering himself in preparation. The others spread out a bit, Nina off to a side of the door, hiding behind some furniture, Gerald and Annette arrayed behind Will.
Slowly, ever so slowly, the handle continued to turn. Then, it stopped. The door swung open, and their quarry stepped in. Will looked back at Annette, shock in his eyes. Annette shouted out as a reflection of Nina dashed toward him, blades out.