When the green light hit the fallen pickles, the re-dead vegetables were shredded into a slurry filled liquid, and the resulting sludge flowed back towards the fallen Acetomancer.

The combined sludge twisted around the dead wombat, lifting him up into the air and swirling around him.

Wait a minute. He gets a second phase? Why the hell does he get a second phase? Why don’t I get a second phase?

Realizing that he would have to have died (again!) to get a second phase, Will abandoned that train of thought.

Assuming he was in for a difficult fight, Will downed another one of his precious healing potions. He was down to just two more of them now, but this particular fight seemed to have more severe consequences than actually dying, making the choice an easy one to make.

Raised on the fountain of sludge, the Acetomancer was out of reach of any melee attack Will might have tried. He did attempt to fire one Thunder Ball at the powering up reflection, but the skill splashed harmlessly against the liquid mass.

It too five minutes for the whole process to reach completion, during which the liquified pickles flowed over the reflection, forming into plates of armor and solidifying. The dark wombat crashed down into the ground, stood up and opened his glowing green eyes.

Foolish wombat! You may have beaten my mortal form, but now I am Will, the Relich! Fear my dark deliciousness!

Relich? As in, you’ve been a lich earlier and now you’re a lich again?

No, you fool! A Relich is a lich of relish! The chopped remains of my pickle army empower my Preserved form, far beyond what I was in life!

Well, I will make sure to relich your defeat!

Will charged at his reflection, nose horn lowered and aimed. The Relich prepared himself for the impact, spikes of relish launching behind him and anchoring themselves in the ground.

Will slammed horn-first into his dark reflection. Even with every advantage his skills and equipment gave him, the horn could barely penetrate the Relich’s pickle armor. And even with all of Will’s mass and the knockdown effects of Unstoppable Lance Charge, his opponent was barely moved by the attack, braced as he was against his spikes.

More spikes erupted from the Relich, aimed this time at Will himself. The wombat barely dodged the sudden attack, and had to back away quickly to avoid a flurry of stabbing tendrils.

Fool! My pickle armor makes me more than equal to you, even in your own brutish style of combat!

You may have gained some ability in melee combat, but it seems to me that you had to give up some of your other abilities for it.

With that, Will launched a pair of Thunder Bolts at his opponent. And unlike every single attempt he’d made before, this time the skill hit the Relich without any interference, the Relich’s shield skill failing to activate, just as it failed to activate against Will earlier charge.

Wha…? Ho…?

The Relich stumbled about, pulling his spikes out of the ground, and mumbling unintelligibly to itself. Seeing his enemy disoriented, Will closed in with another charge. This time, the unprepared Relich was bowled over, and Will followed up his attack with rapid slashes of his bronze claws.

Once again, the reflection’s armor blunted a large portion of the attack, but Will could feel his claws digging into his enemy’s fur underneath the armor.

The Relich, on the other hand, missed more attacks than he managed to land, and the ones he did land had very little power behind them.

A few seconds later, however, the Relich seemed to throw off his confusion, and his spikes went back to hitting Will with punishing force.

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Will retaliated with another pair of Thunder Bolts. If he’d counted them correctly, this was the sixth he’d used in this battle, and he’d only have one more cast before running out of mana. This time, the stun effect procced, and for a single second, Will could feel how much weaker the pickle armor had become, and how much easier it was to pierce it and strike at the vulnerable flesh below.

Only for a second, however, and when Will felt the armor harden and the spikes start to move again, he ran off to put some distance between himself and his opponent.

Out of range of the pickle armor’s built in weapons, Will cast his last Thunder Bolt. Once again, both bolts hit their target unimpeded. This time, however, none of the status effects procced.

Will could see scorch marks, scratches, and outright holes in the Relich’s pickle armor. He hoped it meant the reflection was close to death. Again. He, himself, was just about out of tricks.

I will not be defeated like this! I will become the real Will!

Pulling all of its spikes back, the Relich braided them together, forming a single lance-like weapon over his right shoulder. Snarling in anger, the reflection started to charge at Will.

Lowering his head, Will started his own charge.

Like a pair of jousting knights, if a pair of knights had ever jousted on a steed with stubby little wombat legs, the combatants charged at each other, braided pickle spear versus lowered nose horn.

The clash of wombat against wombat could have been heard from meters away, if anyone had been there to listen.

Horn smashed into hardened pickle relish, and spear into enchanted plate. Both finding their mark, and both penetrating into the body beneath.

But one wombat was used to physical combat, and one was used to commanding his minions from behind.

And out of two dazed wombats, Will was the first to recover and lash out with his claws

The other, battered from the previous round, ravaged by spell and claw, and broken by two charges, never managed to recover.

The Relich fell down.

Will, carrying numerous wounds of his own, stumbled backwards and fell on his well-padded wom-butt. Exhausted from the fight against the reflection, and from fighting on the volcano slopes before, Will had no more energy left, and could only hope that the Relich didn’t have a third phase.

Without the reflection’s will to hold it in shape, the relish armor crumbled into shredded pieces of pickled vegetables. The Relich’s body, itself, disintegrated in front of Will’s eyes, the powdered remains carried away by an unfelt wind.

Congratulations!

You have looked into the Mirror of Varioso, and defeated the reflection found within!

Reward:

100 XP

A fragment of the reflection’s power.

Sighing in relief, Will closed his eyes. The battle was over, there didn’t seem to be anything else in the Space, and there wasn’t an environmental hazard to nibble at his remaining health. He could rest for a bit, and check about the fragment of the reflection’s power afterwards.

The messages, however, were too insistent to give Will a break. Even though his eyes were closed, the next message intruded itself into his awareness.

Choose your reward:

A fragment of acetomancy

A fragment of magic

A fragment of wizardry

A fragment of sorcery

The message refused to be dismissed. It refused to be dimmed. It refused to let Will rest until he’d made his choice.

And there was, of course, no information about what any of the fragments actually was.

Grumbling to himself, Will was tempted to just choose randomly, but even as tired as he was, he knew that the decision was too important to leave to chance.

Definitely don’t want the fragment of acetomancy. I’ve just had a very good look at where that leads, and that’s not a road I’m willing to walk. Not a Will I’m willing to be.

The others… There are fragments for both acetomancy and magic, and I’ve seen skills from both the Mage and Acetomancer sets. Can I assume that the name of the fragment relates to the skill sets? And that there are Wizard and Sorcerer skills out there?

If so, then my options are something that links to my Thunder Ball skill somehow, or something completely new.

And if that’s the way things work, I’m probably better off with boosting what I have and use, rather than gambling on something new. Fragment of magic.

As soon as Will chose, the message screen disappeared, only to be replaced almost immediately with yet another one.

Fragment of a reflection gained!

Your soul is reinforced. You have gained one skill slot.

You have gained the skill “Mana Shield”.

You have gained the aspect “Darkness”.

“Mana Shield” has become “Darkness Shield”.

That, however, was far too much for the exhausted wombat to parse. Promising himself that he’ll look at the skill and consider the ramifications of everything later, Will closed off the message screen, curled into a ball of armored wombat, and fell asleep.