You have pulled an item out of your inventory. Items are interactive objects within the world. This item can be examined by looking at it.

Close window.

You have examined Mirror of the Moon. This will pop up a window with information about the item. The Mirror of the Moon is a reflective surface where you can see your face. It's a mirror. Duh.

Stupid game window. Closed it.

Well. It was about time to find out if reflective surfaces worked. The first spider in the pack reached the window and was crawling up and climbing up at a speed faster than she could be hauled. I looked up, not wanting to chance making eye contact.

If only the mirror was larger.

When I thought that, the mirror shimmered, pouring out like a pancake on a griddle as it spread a silver circle and became wide as a snow saucer or maybe a shield. As I thought about a shield, handles formed on the edges of the mirror. It gave me an idea so lifted up my legs and then sat on the saucer.

Right on time, my vision was blocked by a window.

You have activated an item's special feature. Items sometimes have magical or mundane affects that can affect the world around you.

Something hit the metal beneath my butt. I turned my head to the left and right and saw that the tutorial window blocked my direct vision. I could only see a little out the sides of the window.

Then I did something reckless. I knew that my vision was technically not covered by the imaginary window, but I leaned over the edge of the shield and looked down in the direction of a spider crawling up the wall. I stopped moving. I felt, rather than saw, a strange haptic buzzing and then nothing.

It happened again and again.

They were trying to hit me with their gaze attacks, but the tutorial window actually worked as a block to my vision and negated their spells. I didn't even need the butt shield. I laughed.

"Why are you laughing so evilly?" Suze yelled down.

Another spider joined the first and then another and another until there was this mass of spiders clinging to the wall that were all attempting to hit me with the gaze attack. I grasped tightly onto the shield under my butt.

From behind the first game window, another one of them popped up just a little staggered at the edge. Then another. And another. I heard what I could only think of as frustrated shrieking from the giant baby spiders.

The gaze attacks and haptic feedback suddenly stopped. From the edges of my vision, the spiders who had attacked must have realised I was somehow immune and they crawled up the wall to the window where Suze was. She'd be overrun soon, if not petrified by one of them.

I called up to her, "Do something that will pop up a tutorial window. They can't hit with the gaze attack when the window is up. Leave it up until we kill all these things."

"How can I trigger it?"

"Tsk. I don't know. Maybe cut yourself?"

A moment later, Suze began to laugh in her own evilly delighted way. She yelled down, “They’re here! It's gonna get rough. I'm going to pull you up between attacks.” Something shrieked above and then I heard a sickening crunch and splurt.

"Okay!" I said with only just a little bit of fear in it. Something bumped the shield again.

The splattering sounds from above were, frankly, disgusting. Stuff dripped down onto me and I just didn't want to know what it was. It sure smelled awful. Still the spiders kept coming. I dangled just beyond their reach and I felt the buzzing which told me the spiders were still trying to hit me with their gaze attack. If they jumped, maybe they could physically attack me. I thought about what I could do with the shield.

"Incoming! Yeeeeet!" Suze yelled. "Yeeeeet!"

And then spiders were falling into the abyss beyond. I curled up further into the body of the shield and just dangled as I think Suze began just hurling the spiders off the ledge as they climbed up to it. At the edge of my vision I could just see them flailing their legs as they disappeared into darkness, out of the range of my balls of light.

"Yeeeeeet!" Her voice echoed down the cavern.

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I felt truly pathetic all of a sudden. She couldn't have all the fun.

I moved the shield to my left arm. That felt like something I was supposed to do because all avatars in games held their shields on their left arm. It was not heavy, but felt very solid and a bit unwieldy. Then I levered myself pumping my torso and legs so that I began swinging closer to the spiders and just targeted the shield side at them.

My feet hit the stone wall and I pushed off, careening somewhat uncontrollably. But with my shield I felt the crunch of hitting spider and then as I launched away, that spider just dropped.

With my vision covered by the tutorial window, I didn't see any other pop-ups telling me if abilities or attacks were used against me, but I didn't feel anything except the crunch of spider against wall as I swung myself at them, then kicked off to do the same thing further away.

Suddenly, Suze pulled and the rope jerked me up. Enough game windows had opened so that I could not even see far enough around them to tell if the spiders were within reach. It had the beneficial effect of feeling like a blindfold. What you can’t see, can’t hurt you? I certainly hoped so.

I kept swinging the shield and kicking my feet. Something grabbed my jeans and gained purchase, but I shook so hard that I know the rope wobbled dangerously and dislodged the spider. It dropped to its doom.

Suze let out a grunt of satisfaction and it was actually right beside my head. She’d pulled me to the top.

I chanced closing a game window. Then another. And another until there was just one game window covering my vision. I know I missed a bunch of notifications, but I needed to see just a bit better to pull myself up into the apartment. While Suze continued to dislodge spiders and knock them out of the window, I pulled myself up into the room. Another spider grabbed my legs before I could get all the way in, but Suze dealt with it.

On what seemed to be solid stone ground, I scrambled up to face the oncoming spider horde. Now I could try the thing that I had summoned the Mirror of the Moon for.

I dropped the final game window. My vision clear, I looked pointedly at a spider trying to attack Suze from behind. “Hey you!” I shouted and shoved at it. It turned its eyes my way and then just as I saw the initial whorl of the attack, I shielded my body and face with the mirror shield.

A glorious window popped up.

Achievement: Boomerang! I’m rubber, you’re glue. Your gaze bounces off me and sticks to you. You have negated and returned an attack that has affected a creature.

I closed the game window.

The spider was frozen solid. Its many eyes whorled. It took very little for me to shove it with the shield out into the abyss. I leaned over the edge of the opening and showed my face for a few moments, a spider’s eyes began to whorl that crazy way before the attack, then blocked it with the shield. I peeked a little over the shield to see it drop as another spider crawled over its body and both of those spiders just fell into darkness.

Suze had the arms of my mannequin or maybe hers. It didn’t matter. She smashed and crunched them and I shield punted or froze them with the reflection. A game window popped up and just to be careful, I let it stay for the duration of the fight.

It was easier to mop them up after that. The big ones had come in the first wave. The ones after were smaller and some even had been wounded prior to climbing up. It was like popcorn popping with a massive amount of spiders at first and then there was a delay before the arrival of one or another, until we thought we were done only to have a couple of spiders show up.

Finally, Suze yeeted a spider out into the deep below and we waited, but no more came.

I leaned over, shield ready, but saw no spiders hanging from the wall. There was gore and some spider bits still clinging to the rockface, but all the spiders were gone.

I closed that game window and breathed a sigh of relief.

I saw then that Suze was absolutely filthy with spider guts and webbing. She pulled it off her body and disappeared it into her inventory.

“I really hope that our inventory is a physical space. Yours would be so gross.”

Suze asked, “Speaking of inventory. Did I just see you conjure a mirror out of your ass?"

“Yes, but not from my … butt.” I tsked again to regenerate my light spell. “I thought about how to fight a gaze attack and then this thing was my in my inventory. I just don’t remember how it got there. I think I created it somehow. It’s called the Mirror of the Moon.”

“That’s useful. Can I take a look at it?”

“Sure.” I removed the shield from my arm and as I did so, it reverted back to a silver hand mirror.

Would you like to give Suze Tier 0 - Elvis Impersonator the Mirror of the Moon? Yes or no?"

In frustration, I growled out while looking up at the ceiling, "Can I just give her blanket permission to hold anything of mine?"

Would you like to give Suze Tier 0 - Elvis Impersonator unlimited access to inventory? Yes or no?

“Absolutely.”

“That won’t bite you in the butt later.”

“C’mon. You’ve always been better at inventory organisation than I have. If I have anything you want, I think it’d just be easier if you can grab it yourself. I could use a guild bank right about now.”

Suze laughed as she took the mirror out of my hands without difficulty. She swung it around, but it stayed a mirror. “How did you get it to become a shield or switch back to a mirror?”

“No clue. I closed the tutorial window that probably explained how it was done.” I looked around at the place where we were. The room was stacked from top to bottom with cardboard boxes. “Where are we?”

“Geraldine’s apartment, I think.” Suze said as though she was slightly impressed.

I looked around as far as I could see. It was like we were transported into an episode of Hoarders. As far as I knew, neither of us had ever been in the apartment of the sweet little old lady with the scotch mints who lived above us. While our rooms below were basically empty except for the small things that Suze looted, this was the complete opposite.

This room was crowded with cardboard boxes piled to the ceiling and mounds of ruined newspapers. A layer of dirt sat on all of it as if this room had been neglected for a very long time. Just wall to wall cardboard and paper. A trail had been dug out to the doorway just wide enough for one person to move through to the window and back.

At least everything in here smelled like sneeze-inducing dust only. No weird animals smells.

"Do you know if it always looked like this?" I asked.

"Não. Cardboard and newspaper may come in handy.” So, of course, Suze began looting.