Many mages don’t really have a solid conceptual understanding of what teleportation entails.

In the olden days of spellcasting, several archmages would send their apprentices to their unwitting deaths by having them test dangerous and half-baked methods of arcane-mana-based teleportation. One mage tried a method that would relay a body from point A to point B by converting the body into pure energy, and this method proved that creating a body from pure energy is possible. It also proved that doing so without supporting this exchange of energy with life magic would turn the caster into a corpse at the receiving location, being a perfect copy of the original sans the spark of life.

Other methodologies, such as the prevalent tessellation theory, also had their hiccups along the way. One mage died because he didn’t account for the electrical potential of the receiving plane. Put simply: If lightning is created because of differing charges in two electrically charged regions of the same space, how much worse do you think making a singular point of connection between two entire worlds with differing electrical charges would be? Always remember that when magic and natural laws fight, the mortal always loses.

- excerpt from Mortimer’s Meticulous Primer for Planar Telepositioning

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The first thing Gio noticed when he appeared in Hart’s Casino was the smell. It was somewhere between damp carpet, stale cigars, and ozone. The smell was also potent, nearly inescapable. The second thing he noticed was a flickering red line of dialogue in his peripheral vision.

< . welxe to Hharrts caxxx, we hoxe yox aaaaaaaaaaaaaa marveloxxxx time? >

Uuuh… thanks?

Gio looked around the small chamber in which he had appeared. The oval-shaped pod might have been quite comfortable in a different time. Moth-eaten cushions lined a horseshoe-shaped couch extending around the room beside the sealed-off exit. The dilapidated domed walls must have been covered in tapestries and glass ornaments at one point in time, but now revealed scratched-up plywood and metal rebar. The room was very dim, the only light coming from a faintly glowing dish-shaped fixture in the center of the low ceiling that was upsettingly full of dead bugs.

Gio looked down, finding that he was standing on some sort of glassy black pad. He cast [Detect Magic] and allowed the magic to flow through him. The minute arcane magic gently augmented his eyesight, attuning him to the smallest bits of magic present. He scanned the glass platform for any presence of enchantment, disappointed to see that there was nothing present in the glass itself, but that the entire space seemed to thrum with a static whisper of spatial magic.

That can’t be right. There’s got to be something here. If the first half of the teleport spell is like an arrow… I should be standing right in the bull’s-eye.

Gio carefully applied [Hairline Fracture] to the tip of his index finger, testing and confirming that he could create a fault line in the otherwise unmarred surface. Catching his reflection in the glassy slab, Gio looked to Rio for affirmation.

“Just be quiet about it. We might already have attracted attention from something.” Rio signed.

Gio nodded a silent confirmation, beginning to slowly work his way over the surface with his fracturing magic. A nearly imperceptible web of lines began to appear where Gio traced his finger. The only sound in the dead quiet room was a quiet tinkling noise coming from the cracks splitting the slab.

Gio finished a circle that was a bit bigger than his head, but not quite big enough to fit his whole body through. He took a deep breath and gave a hard knock on the fault line with the end of his pocket knife. Nothing happened, but Gio’s heart began racing because of the thunking noise, louder than what he would have preferred.

Cursing silently, Gio re-traced his line, going a little bit faster this time. A sliver of glass splintered off, stabbing right into the meat of his pointer finger, drawing yet another curse, but he managed to dig it out and proceed.

Once he had completed the circle for the second time, he smashed down on the cut-out. It gave way, revealing a small hollow area underneath the sturdy glass pad. The glass was thicker than he had thought it was, and the resulting thud as it hit the bottom of the cavity was very audible.

Gio didn’t hesitate to stick his arm and a ball of light down from [Prismatic Shape] down into the hole, revealing swooping, concentric lines carved into a second surface beneath the false floor of the glassy pad.

I knew it! Now I just need to copy it down. What was that noise?

A skittering sound, muffled by the closed pod door. Something like a dozen tiny feet, running across a tiled floor.

Gio hurried to move over the hunk of jagged glass down the hole so that he could see the carving, straining his [Specular Mind] to capture several images of the revealed circle. Fortunately, Gio had long since learned sign language, so he didn’t mind that he had to overwrite the imprint of the sign language page that was previously stored in his memory skill. A small bit of a headache began to form at the over-strain of using the ability to store such an intricate design in such a small bit of time, but the adrenaline pushed those feelings to the side. With the images complete, Gio rushed snuffed out the light, and leaned back, sucking in a deep breath.

The rest of the unmarred glass surface was still reflective, if not dusty. Gio activated [Mirror Jaunt], sinking into the reflection. As he dove deep into the very world that he was trying to access fully, he looked up, seeing the space beyond the mirror in a new light.

Gio couldn’t get a very clear picture of the room besides the glass pad, but there were a few bits of gilded panels shining through the patina. He swam through the space, watching as several small, clawed hands ripped the door off the pod-shaped room. What looked like several children with rat-like tails and limbs crawled into the room on all fours at high speed, even slowed as it was from the time-dilation effect of Gio’s spell. Gio couldn’t hear anything beyond the mirror, but they looked to be talking to, or perhaps arguing with each other. One reached into the hole, pulling out the chunk of glass and examining it.

The rat children all stopped dead in their jerky, erratic motions as a gaunt figure came into view of the door. The skeletal, bald person seemed to be constrained by some sort of uncomfortable manacle device that prevented their limbs from moving at all. A hooded figure carted this emaciated figure around. The robed person bowed their head as the restrained figure opened its mouth, revealing rotten teeth, and silver mist poured out in a hacking cough.

From the mist, shapes began to emerge. First, the billowing edges of a bone-white robe. Within that robe was a metal skull in sparkling silver, with glowing white diamonds where its eyes should be. Instead of bony hands, the apparition sported long, slender blades that articulated eerily like bat wings without the cartilage.

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The edges of the ghostly cloak swirled through the air, elongating into snaking curls of fog that wrapped themselves around the shivering rats. None of them moved in its presence, as if trying to avoid drawing attention.

The being floated forward, its rhinestone eyes surveying the room with cold calculation. The ghostly figure stopped abruptly, its skull jerking downward in a surreal way like a marionette being controlled by an inexperienced puppeteer. It extended a long, bladed finger and poked at a section of the glass slab, withdrawing its hand to reveal a single crimson drop of blood from where the sliver of glass had stabbed Gio’s finger.

The glittering eyes of the metal skull snapped toward Gio’s direction as if it could see him through the reflection.

Allllright, that’s enough of that.

Gio quickly pushed off from the reflective surface of the tattered, beaded fringe that he was using to survey the room beyond. Though his touch would likely have disintegrated it in the real world, in this liminal space, it may have well been made of forged steel.

He floated through the space, starting to feel the fatigue of being submerged for as long as he had. He began to see the impossibly large hub beyond the pod he arrived in. Even in the place between reflections, he could tell that this space was massive. Hundreds of rooms, just like the one he came through were all linked to a grand cylindrical room with spiraling staircases and hanging planters, all of which looked to be barren, or in a state of decay and disrepair. He floated out into the open, swimming in spirals through the void.

I have to get out of here quickly. Where would I find one of those spell dispensers?

Gio looked down from his perspective, seeing the remains of what was likely once a spectacular chandelier, now coated in cobwebs and missing hundreds of strands of sparkling crystal. The soft glow of emergency lighting made it look like ghostly yellow coral at the bottom of an otherworldly ocean. Gio righted himself, looking up, or maybe down in the real world, and saw several tiers of walkways lined with cracked tiles, and tarnished brass banisters. He saw deteriorated gilded columns, half-destroyed advertisements, and even a dried-up fountain with a pitiful puddle of murky liquid inside, barely reflective enough to appear between reflections.

He looked for a surface from which to exit the mirror. He hoped for something far enough away from whatever those scavengers were. He needed to be fast, though, as he wouldn’t be able to hold his breath for much longer.

Spotting some sort of abandoned eatery that still had its windows mostly intact, Gio swam closer. He peered through the glass, finding that it was suitably abandoned inside.

Grasping with his magic, he pulled himself from the mirror dimension with a gasp of air and rolled forth from the pane of glass and onto a dusty couch. He allowed himself a precious second or two to catch his breath before standing up and hastily moving in the opposite direction from the hub.

Immediately, Gio heard screeching, followed by what sounded like several small explosions.

“Narsty little bugs, you are! Come ‘ere and I’ll show you what my boys think of you lot!” yelled a gruff, masculine voice.

More explosions in rapid succession followed, as well as a choir of inhuman screeching.

Gio broke into a sprint, running in the opposite direction. He largely stuck to the shadows, in areas barely lit by the sickly yellow lighting of the emergency system. He ran by boutiques with mangled mannequins, slot machines that were disassembled or stripped down to bare bolts, and entire walkways that were un-navigable due to eroded architecture.

Looking behind, there was a group of men dressed in all-black who were holding quarter-staves of enchanted metal. Ther fired balls of blue fire at the swarm of rats. One of them turned and locked eyes with Gio mid-sprint.

“Straggler at our back! Break fire!” The man yelled.

Two of them turned from the rats and focused on Gio, causing a hail of bolts to rain on him. Wasting no time, Gio ducked behind a mannequin that promptly burst into blue flame. The flame didn’t feel particularly warm near his face, but Gio didn’t fail to notice how the mannequin seemed to disintegrate into ash anyway.

Gio conjured a spinning mass of polygons with [Prismatic Shape] and flung it towards the firing squad, which had the desired effect. The two men swore loudly, taking evasive measures which paused their firing. Gio took the opportunity to run away, banking a hard turn at a corner.

After running from display to display in a zig-zag pattern for a few moments, and taking a series of confusing turns down narrow alleys, Gio couldn’t hear the sounds of violence as clearly, which he took to mean that he had created enough distance between the commotion to look for a way out again.

The next alleyway had a raised circular pavilion in the middle that was mostly unharmed and surprisingly well-lit by what seemed to be a beam of moonlight. Looking up, the artificial light was coming from a big glass orb being held up by a team of headless statues.

In the light, there was a metal kiosk of some sort. The device looked to have been torn apart and repaired several times. Panels of filigree were mismatched, and a pile of gears and ruined papers sat next to the device. Someone had smeared the word “BROKE” on the glass screen in something that may or may not have been blood.

Is this a spellform printing machine? It looks… sort of like what I imagined one would look like. I guess?

Gio approached cautiously and began looking for any way to interact with it. He used [Cleanse] to remove the red writing from the screen, and tried manipulating any part of the device with mana. He received no response for his efforts.

Gio exhaled a frustrated breath. [Detect Magic] revealed that there was some amount of mana in the device and that there were certainly enchantments on it, but he couldn’t really make heads or tails of it.

All of this… just to be shot in the foot because I didn’t make time to learn enchanting.

Gio laughed to himself quietly.

He looked at Rio through the glass. Gio used sign language to rant at his reflection.

“If I wasn’t laughing, I think I’d be crying. I might have been able to fix this if I had been taught enchanting. Oh, wait! They don’t teach enchantment until later. “All you need to do is pass your first year!” they say. This was stupid. Why am I even here? We should have just gone home.” Gio signed. He wasn’t sure how much sarcasm would translate through a non-verbal language, but he knew that Rio would understand him.

“It’s not over yet. I can… try splitting more of myself off to look for other machines. I don’t know if I’ll be able to maintain it for long… I’m already spread pretty thin.” Rio replied.

Gio felt a pang of regret and guilt.

“Don’t hurt yourself for this. Whatever happens is-” Gio started.

“I’m just a reflection of you. Don’t worry about me. Even if I go away, I think you’ll be fine.” Rio interrupted.

“Bullshit. What good is a mirror mage without a reflection? We got into this mess together, and we’ll get out of it together.” Gio replied.

“Fair enough. Then… you… we need time to rest. There’s a coffee shop at the end of this walkway that looks like it has a little reading room out of sight of the main thoroughfare. Let’s head there for a little while.” Rio signed.

“Okay.” Gio said.