Chapter Eighty-Five - Funhouse

We reached another intersection and as we had done a dozen times already, we waited as Orange walked around in a circle, phased through the walls, then returned to lead us on a little more.

All of this happened in near-silence. Only the occasional crackle of Amaryllis’ lightning marking the glass accompanied us.

The problem wasn’t that we were tired, or that we had nothing to talk about. It was the constant walk down poorly lit corridors, expecting a trap at every step and finding none. All the while, a thousand reflections of ourselves moved around in the walls. The rooms we travelled through were sometimes so tight we had to line up in single file, and the air felt just a little too warm and stale.

It was creepy as heck.

When we reached the next intersection I huffed and crossed my arms. “I don’t like it,” I declared.

“What don’t you like?” Amaryllis asked.

“This... thisness. The silence and the gloominess. It’s not fun,” I said.

“Did you come here just for fun?”

I thought about that for a moment. “Mostly, yeah,” I said.

“Idiot,” Amaryllis said. “We’re here because you got a quest. We really shouldn’t complain.”

“I don’t see what’s so special about getting a quest.”

“Awa,” Awen awa’d. “Quests are... big. They only happen when big things are happening in the world. They’re for very important people.”

I snorted. “Well, that’s not quite right. I got a quest and I’m just me.”

“I-I think you’re important,” Awen said.

I bumped my shoulder against hers, but shook my head all the same. “It doesn’t matter. We’ll get through this silly maze one way or another.”

I was about to start talking about brighter things--I still had plenty to learn about my friends. Were they dog or cat people? What were their favourite colours? Big chins, cleft chins? No chins?--when Amaryllis shushed us all with a talon raised to her lips.

She crouched a little and I did the same, my spade coming up in a two handed grip ready to bonk anything that tried to cause trouble.

Then Awen pointed and all of our gazes snapped to the side.

Skittering along the glass, and reflected a thousand times over, was a beetle. A big one, the size of one of those novelty slippers that were shaped like bunnies.

We all watched as it scuttled closer, but instead of heading for us it... moved towards the mark Amaryllis had left in the wall. Tiny beetle-y legs started scrubbing at the burnt patch, slowly cleaning it off and restoring the mirror’s shine.

Our tension seeped away. “It’s undoing all of my work,” Amaryllis said.

“The dungeon is rather clever.” I eyed the beetle. “Insight?”

A Mirror Beetle, level 2.

“Cute, I guess,” I said.

We all agreed that sticking around wasn’t going to help any, so we started following Orange again. The kitty was looking increasingly impatient, and I suspect that she would demand many pats and scratches when this was all done.

“This place goes on forever,” I complained a little later.

“It will end eventually,” Amaryllis said. “Trust Orange.”

“I do, I do,” I said. “But it’s kind of boring.” The worst part was that we were stuck shuffling along because moving too quickly, as we had discovered quite painfully, led us to run into the walls, bounce off their edges, and generally caused us to bump around like loons.

I was about to complain some more when I saw someone in the reflections ahead of us.

All three of us came to a stop as, from around the next corner came a short human girl. She was pretty, with bright blue eyes and long blonde hair that trailed out behind her. Her lips were set in a confident smile and she stood before us in the kind of adventuring outfit that I would expect a movie star to wear. That was, it revealed a lot of skin and probably wasn’t all that suitable to actual adventuring.

“Awen?” I asked as I recognized the girl.

“That’s me,” the girl that looked like Awen’s twin said. She grinned from ear to ear. “It’s been a bit, Broccoli. I thought I had lost you in these tunnels.”

“Huh?” I said.

“Awa, th-that’s not me,” Awen said.

“Oh, you’re right about that,” New-Awen said. “You wish you were me, don’t you, little illusion.” She started walking... no, strutting towards us, hips swaying from side to side and legs moving as if she were wearing heels instead of sensible boots. “Ah, Broccoli. I’m so... excited to see you. But now that we’re reunited I have plans for you. First, I’m going to pin you down, then--” she reached out a hand for me.

And that’s when Amaryllis shot her full of lightning.

New-Awen poofed apart, leaving us all staring at where she had been.

“That was enough of that,” Amaryllis said.

“What was that?” I wondered.

“Awa, she was... me?” She swallowed. “But, more pretty, more... more.”

“That,” Amaryllis said. “Was an illusion. Don’t you have insight?”

“Ah, yeah,” I said. “Sorry?”

“Idiot. Use your skills. That was obviously some sort of trap. Not even a very effective one,” Amaryllis said.

“H-how do we stop them?” Awen asked. She was looking around and into all the reflections around us with more than a little paranoia. “I, I don’t want just anything touching Broccoli.”

Amaryllis huffed. “Magic. Point blank magic tends to disrupt simpler illusions quite well. It’s why that field of magic isn’t as popular as some. It’s hard to learn, taxing to use, and easy to counter.” She shrugged. “Great on unintelligent foes though, which means we’ll both have to keep an eye out in case Broccoli gets it in her head to befriend the illusion.”

“R-right!” Awen said.

“Hey!”

Orange waved her tail from side to side impatiently, then turned and started stalking off. I had the impression that if we didn’t keep up, she would just head on out without us.

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

We jogged after the kitty to keep up. For a bit, we merely navigated the maze with neither obstacle or challenge, but that soon came to an end as we walked into a four way intersection with a pillar in its centre. Leaning against it was Amaryllis.

Not our Amaryllis. This one was smiling wide and bouncing on her toes. Her clothes were similar to the real Amaryllis, though in brighter colours. “Oh, oh, you’re here!” she said. “I’m so happy to see you!” she said.

I blinked. “Uh, hi?” I said.

Amaryllis. The real one, raised a cracking hand towards her strange doppelganger. “Let me put an end to that thing,” she said.

“Aww, but she looks nice,” I said.

“It’s an illusion, moron.”

Fake-Amaryllis gasped. “Don’t call poor Broccoli a moron! She’s my friend! No one calls my friends bad things!”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I think I like this one.”

“It’s okay!” the doppelganger said. “We can be friends, even with you, lesser Amaryllis.”

Amaryllis, the real one, filled her clone full of lightning. “No,” she said. “Being friends with Broccoli is taxing enough. I don’t need more.”

“Awa,” Awen said.

Amaryllis froze for a moment, then huffed. “You can be my friend too, Awen,” she said while slumping dejectedly.

“I, I would g-gladly call you a friend, Aw-Awamaryllis.”

I laughed as we moved deeper into the maze. I don’t know what kind of challenge the dopplegangers were supposed to pose, but so far they weren’t nearly as bad as the room with the mirrors had been.

And then we turned a corner and my heart stopped.

Broccoli Bunch was staring back at me.

Not another reflection. This Broccoli was all wrong.

She wore all black, a frilly, lacier version of my own dress. Her pale face was adorned with black mascara and an expression that was hovering somewhere between apathetic and depressed. Her shoulder slumped and she seemed to shrink in on herself. “Oh, great. Just... keep moving. It’s not like you’re worth fighting or anything.”

“Um,” I began. “Hi?”

“Urgh, how can you be so peppy,” the goth Broccoli asked. “Just leave me alone. Or better yet, finish me off. This life is too miserable to be worth living.” She pulled out a cigarette from her bandoleer, and lit it with a snap of her fingers. “Just look at you three. Clever Amaryllis, who isn’t half as clever as she wishes she were and only a quarter as clever as she thinks she is. Cute little Awen, with a mind filled with more delusions and taped-together dreams than any sense. You need to wake up and face reality girl.”

“Hey,” I said. “That’s a little rude.”

Gothccoli took a long draw from her cigarette. “Ah, look at me go. Standing up for the first people that call you friend. You’re so desperate it hurts. One day you’ll see that Dirt is just as cruel and uncaring as your home was. Then you’ll see.”

“Wow,” Amaryllis said. “I thought this would be funny, but this is actually kind of frightening.”

“Awa, that Broccoli doesn’t... Broccoli right.”

Gothccoli leaned against one of the walls, then waved the comment off. “Go on. Keep on being a merry bunch of friends. See if I care.”

I looked towards Amaryllis. “Can’t I hug her just a little? She really needs it.”

Amaryllis rolled her eyes, and with a buzzing-crack, Gothccoli died an inglorious death.

I was at least content in knowing that that was probably how she would have wanted to go.

Orange returned, and it was a silent party that followed her to the end of the maze. The mirrors stopped, and we found ourselves in a little alcove with a door at the end.

I opened it to reveal the now-familiar ravine. Stepping out onto it and taking a deep breath of fresh air was a balm to the soul after the stuffy confines of the maze.

“Whaaa,” I said as I stretched out my arms and legs. “That was awful!”

“Awa, it was a bit warm, but, um, there were no fights.”

Amaryllis just huffed. “If it wasn’t for Orange we could have been in there for far, far longer.” She picked up the cat and cradled it in her arms. Orange didn’t make any noise, but I could still hear the faint rumble of her purring as it made Amaryllis’ coat vibrate. “We’re lucky that the party has such a good member in it.”

“We are!” I said.

What followed was a minute or two of everyone cooing over Orange who took it with stoic aplomb and returned a smug kitty smile.

But all things had to end, and so we turned our attention to crossing the bridge towards the next floor.

We crossed with growing confidence, the last room’s lack of difficulty spurring us on. That is, until we were nearly halfway down the bridge and Amaryllis’ feet slipped.

She ‘eeped’ and did a bit of a dance to keep her balance. It ended with her wings spread out wide and her butt low to the ground as she crouched next to us.

“Awa, I... that was scary.”

I giggled as my heart calmed down a little. “You scared me too,” I said. “What happened?”

Amaryllis scuffed her foot against the surface of the bridge with a growing frown, then leaned down to touch the surface. “There’s ice atop the glass,” she said, her voice calm and poised as if she hadn’t just done an interpretive version of the chicken dance.

I ran my foot from side to side on the glass ahead, and true enough, there was a thin layer of ice atop the glass. The air was notably cooler too, but that was hard to tell with the way the wind twisted in the ravine. “We’ll have to be more careful,” I said. “Maybe we can smash it?”

“And smash the bridge beneath?” Amaryllis asked.

“Ah, right,” I said. “I just hope that this isn’t a hint of what is to come.”

Unfortunately, it very much was.