Chapter Nine – The Hall of Reflections

  Fulgaday, 11 Tamihr, Year of Folivor the Restful Sloth, 489 years AWA

  Celebration Grounds, Candibaru, Andovarra

  “Do you think we won?” asked Neric with his usual enthusiasm. “I think we did pretty well.”

  Before anyone could respond to Neric, the tomb walls around the party shimmered and transformed. The walls seemed to recede slightly, creating a larger chamber about 35 feet square. The broken sarcophagi reconstructed themselves, their lids sliding completely off as a deeper darkness gathered within. Tarnished mirrors of various sizes and shapes materialized along every surface, creating a ceremonial hall where countless reflections of the companions stared back at them. Interspaced between the mirrors at regular intervals were entrances to small alcoves, and an altar sat just north of the center of the western wall.

  Looking up, the companions saw a vaulted ceiling covered in angled mirror panels arranged in geometric patterns. Threading between these panels were thin veins of crystal that glowed with the same purple-blue hue as wildshards. As magic flowed through the chamber, these formations pulsed in response, sending fractured reflections dancing across the floor and walls. The mirrored ceiling created an illusion of endless space above them, as if they stood at the bottom of a deep well lined with countless reflective surfaces, creating an effect both beautiful and unsettling—as if the entire room was observing their every move from countless perspectives simultaneously.

  The companions exchanged relieved glances, though their victory felt somehow hollow in this simulated environment.

  "Cali needs healing," Kere said, already reaching for the wand secured at her belt. "That skeletal champion did some serious damage."

  Kere moved to Cali's side, the wand's tip beginning to glow with restorative magic. As she channeled the spell, something unusual happened—the magic seemed to flow more slowly than it should, as if the simulation itself was reluctant to allow recovery. The first Cure Light Wounds spell sealed the worst of Cali's wounds, but left a faint trace of what looked like translucent swirling purplish-blue wildshard fragments around the healed areas.

  Cali's perceptive gaze lingered on the swirling fragments, sensing that this was significant beyond immediate appearances, although she wasn’t sure how.

  "That's... strange," Kere murmured, also studying the effect. "Let me try once more." The second casting behaved normally, bringing Cali substantially closer to fully healed.

  The cleric smiled at the Half-Aquatic-Elf druid. “Thanks, Kere. I feel quite a bit better now.” But she also cast Cure Light Wounds on herself, the healing magic closing up the last of her wounds.

  Jenna glanced at Perx, a question in her eyes, which were large in her pale face.

  He replied sourly, “I don’t think we're done yet.”

  Jori glanced at one of the mirrors closest to him and noticed ancient symbols etched into the frames. In places, the torches on the walls echoed back from the mirrors across the hall.

  "I think we should all gather around Cali, if what happened last time is any indicator of what we can expect," Kere suggested nervously, eyeing her own reflection with apprehension.

  The companions quickly positioned themselves protectively around their cleric, although Jori stepped back momentarily from Cali as a slight grimace came over his face before finally settling into his position north of her and schooling his expression to neutrality. Only one spot to her southwest remained unoccupied. As they formed their defensive circle, their reflections in the surrounding mirrors briefly lagged behind their movements, creating an unsettling visual echo.

  "I sure hope you've got more channeling left, Cali," Wenthe murmured, her Catfolk ears twitching anxiously.

  Before Cali could respond, their reflections in the nearest mirrors darkened and twisted, transforming into nightmarish versions of themselves. The darkened reflections stepped through the glass, materializing as various undead horrors.

  A towering figure in ornate, tarnished armor emerged from the southwest mirror and took the empty position near Cali. The armor bore the scars of countless battles and the figure wore a tattered cape of royal purple that flowed behind it, seemingly moving against the air currents of the room. The armor seemed fused to the creature’s form, with wisps of necrotic energy seeping through the joints. Within its helmet, which featured a full face guard with narrow eye slits, baleful red eyes fixed upon the cleric with calculated malice. As it raised its longsword, which appeared to shift between solid and translucent states, an aura of dread emanated from the figure, washing over the companions.

  Jori, Monoffa, and Neric felt their courage falter as terror gripped their hearts. In the mirrors behind them, their reflections showed expressions of pure fear—expressions that matched exactly what they were currently feeling.

  "It knows what scares us," Neric whispered, his voice uncharacteristically shaky.

  The undead noble’s sword slashed at Cali with uncanny precision, striking exactly where her armor was weakest. As the blade bit into her torso, Cali noticed something disturbing—the undead figure had used the exact same angle of attack that had wounded her most severely in the previous wave. That’s…worrying, she thought, but didn’t say anything.

  From the western mirror, a three-dimensional shadow emerged, its form darker and deeper than natural darkness should be. Its form was vaguely humanoid, but constantly shifted and undulated like living darkness. It had no distinct facial features except for two pinpoints of cold, white light that served as eyes. As it moved, it did so unnaturally, sometimes flowing like liquid shadow, other times jerking like a puppet with tangled strings. The torchlight from nearby sconces that were placed periodically around the hall seemed to dim, as though the figure were drawing their illumination into itself. It approached Kere with unnatural fluidity, its pinprick white eyes fixed upon her. Most disturbing of all, it began to perfectly mimic her movements, creating a dark parody of her stance and gestures just before it struck, draining her strength with its cold touch.

  "It's... copying me," Kere gasped, feeling her physical might diminishing. Her connection to nature felt different in this simulation—more mechanistic than organic—but she pushed past her discomfort, quietly drawing power in her characteristically understated way to enhance her recently weakened strength. As she did so, the wildshards in the ceiling flashed with a brief glow before fading. She also noticed that as the magic flowed through her, the shadow that had attacked her seemed to absorb the ambient magical energy, growing slightly more substantial in response, and, at the same time, the mirrors in the room pulsed with a subtle energy.

  Jori shook off his fear with visible effort, but the corrupted priest that stood in front of Perx to Jori’s northeast suddenly froze mid-motion. Its head tilted at an unnatural angle, jaw unhinging further than physically possible. When it spoke again, the voice that emerged was no longer the hollow rasp of the undead, but a lilting, feminine tone with an unmistakable cadence.

  "Jori, my sweet. Still letting others fight your battles?" The voice—Jyssandra's voice—echoed with unnatural clarity.

  Jori's fingers tightened around his bow, knuckles whitening instantly. A slight tremor ran through his weapon hand—barely perceptible, but enough that he fumbled the arrow he had been about to nock. His jaw muscle twitched once, a momentary tensing visible only to those watching closely.

  He didn't acknowledge the voice, didn't turn toward it, but his breathing pattern changed—becoming deliberately measured, too controlled. The momentary lapse in his normally perfect form revealed more than any verbal response could have.

  When he repositioned himself in the formation, he put slightly more distance between himself and the priest than was tactically optimal—a subconscious adjustment that Perx noticed with a raised eyebrow. Jori's face remained impassive, his gaze focused intensely on his target, but sweat had beaded at his temples despite the cool air of the tomb.

  "You always did prefer running," the corrupted priest continued in Jyssandra's silken voice, its head continuing to twist unnaturally as it advanced. "How long before you abandon these friends too?"

  "Focus on your targets," Jori said flatly to no one in particular, his voice carrying a hardened edge that hadn't been there before. He nocked another arrow, form perfect once again, but something had shifted in his posture—a new rigidity, as though he were now fighting two battles simultaneously.

  As he aimed and loosed at the noble-looking undead knight that had attacked Cali, the mirrors briefly flashed, showing everyone's thoughts about the undead's possible weaknesses. Jori's arrow struck true but glanced off the undead noble’s enchanted armor without effect. From across the way, the ancient symbols on one of the mirrors flared.

  Neric, from his position west of Jori in the circle around Cali, said to Jori, “Hey Jori, at least this time when she says you're running away, you can actually shoot her in the face! I'd call that personal growth!" Neric called out with a theatrical wink, already reaching for a spell component. "Besides, her voice sounds way better coming from a rotting corpse—really brings out her personality!" The corrupted paused, its form flickering briefly.

  Jori cracked a smile, and his tense posture relaxed somewhat.

  "Magic weapons," several voices murmured simultaneously, the thought becoming almost tangible in the chamber.

  Wenthe lobbed a bomb toward a group of skeletons that had emerged from the eastern mirrors. The four skeletons bore a resemblance to the four the companions had just slain, but with denser and heavier bones and magic runes and sigils that glowed along the flat surface of their ribs. Their movements were more fluid and deliberate than ordinary skeletons, suggesting an unnatural intelligence. Their eye sockets emitted a pulsing azure light that seemed to analyze everything they saw. They wore broken chain shirts similar to those the earlier skeletons had worn, although these shirts appeared to have been at least partly mended, looking more functional than those the earlier skeletons wore.

  As Wenthe’s bomb arced through the air, the skeletons' reflections in the mirrors showed them moving to dodge—a split second before the actual skeletons attempted the same evasion. The bomb exploded, but did minimal splash damage to two of them. Wenthe's eyes narrowed with the challenge, her mind already racing through chemical adjustments for her next bomb—a puzzle to be solved rather than a setback.

  "They're anticipating our moves," Wenthe called out, reaching for another bomb.

  Perx's eyes narrowed in concentration as he categorized and analyzed two new figures, searching for patterns in their flickering transformations. One of the figures emerged from the mirror to the northwest and the other emerged from the mirror to the northeast. The two figures appeared to be corrupted clerics or priests, still wearing the tattered and defiled vestments of their former holy orders. Their forms constantly flickered and shifted between their undead reality and illusory disguises of living beings, one moment appearing as rotting corpses with exposed bone and desiccated flesh, the next as seemingly normal humanoids whose only tell was their hungry, hollow eyes. Unholy symbols hung reversed around their necks, and their fingers were blackened claws. They looked at Cali and Kere with particular hatred.

  Two additional figures emerged, from the north wall this time, two zombie-like creatures that were in an advanced state of putrefaction. Their skin had a greenish-black hue and hung loosely from their frames while open, weeping sores covered their bodies, dripping a viscous yellow fluid that sizzled slightly when it hit the ground. Clusters of boils periodically burst, releasing clouds of noxious spores. Their breath came out as a greenish mist, and clouds of flies seemed to hover around them. Most disturbing was how they seemed to be specifically focusing on Cali and Jenna, as though they had learned who posed the greatest threat.

  If they’re anticipating our moves, then there’s a little test I can do, thought Perx. Without warning, he cast a spell with methodical precision that engulfed the skeletons and corrupted priests in a cloud of sparkling particles, and he mentally catalogued their reactions for later study. As the wildshards in the ceiling lit with a sparkling effect, two skeletons and one of the priests failed to shield their eyes in time, becoming temporarily blinded.

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  "Interesting," Perx muttered. "They didn't predict that one."

  As Monoffa recovered from her fear, she noticed that whenever she contemplated using her electrical spells, small puddles of water would briefly manifest beneath the undead's feet, then vanish when she reconsidered. Seeing a possible connection, she decided to test it, deciding to create an illusory wall to block the putrefying zombie-like creatures’ line of sight.

  As Monoffa began the incantation to create her wall, the wildshard veins above her took on a misty, opalescent quality. Rather than brightening uniformly, they seemed to blur and smudge at their edges, creating ghost-like duplicates of themselves that overlapped with the original pattern. The mirrors between these veins subtly distorted, momentarily showing multiple versions of the illusory wall—some more substantial than others. As the spell took hold, tiny prismatic sparkles drifted down from the ceiling like suspended raindrops, vanishing before they reached head height.

  The moment she completed her illusion, she felt the simulation responding to her magic, almost enhancing it. The wall appeared more substantial than usual, convincing enough that the mindless putrefying zombie-like creatures and one of the undead priests failed to recognize it as an illusion.

  Monoffa's eyes lit up with excitement. “Ooh, did you see that?” she exclaimed, already dreaming up new possibilities for manipulating the environment.

  Jenna assessed the battlefield with a rogue's practiced eye. Spotting an opening, she took a careful step southwest, positioning herself perfectly to flank the undead knight with Kere.

  Jenna moved with intuitive grace rather than calculated steps, her intuition and years of practice guiding her to feel the right moment to strike rather than overthinking the approach. Attack now… Her rapier slid between the joints of the knight's armor with deadly precision. As she struck, the mirrors around them shimmered, momentarily showing ethereal wildshard energy flowing from her weapon into the knight's form. The knight was clearly wounded despite its magical resistance.

  Not wanting to remain exposed between the powerful undead, Jenna tumbled back to her original position. As she moved, the skeleton's bony claws lashed out, but Jenna's nimble dodge allowed her to narrowly avoid the skeleton's grasp. Despite the precise mechanics of her tumble, there was a dreamlike quality to Jenna's movements. She quickly resumed her protective stance near Cali, the nearby mirrors briefly capturing echoes of her graceful movement as if whoever controlled the mirrors was studying her techniques.

  Her imagination was already processing this bizarre battle on a deeper emotional level than mere tactics.

  "They're faster than they look," Jenna muttered, her eyes never leaving the skeleton as she settled back into position.

  Cali called upon her divine power, radiant light surrounding her for a moment and then settling into her form. She then channeled positive energy throughout the chamber, the wildshard veins in the ceiling responding with a synchronized pulse. The crystalline networks briefly shifted from purple-blue to a pearlescent white, spreading outward in concentric circles that matched the expanding wave of positive energy. The mirrored panels between the veins caught and multiplied this light, creating the momentary illusion that the ceiling itself was banishing shadows from every corner of the room.

  Her channeling came from a place of deep conviction, her intuition sensing connections between the undead that others might miss. Her expression remained serene but determined as divine light flowed through her. As the wave of holy light expanded outward, the mirrors briefly intensified it, creating overlapping patterns of light that seemed to target the undead with uncanny precision. The shadowy figure that had attacked Kere, the four skeletons, and the two undead priests reeled from the assault as the divine energy seared their unholy forms. The undead knight seemed to shake off some of the effects, as did the two new putrefying figures.

  As Jenna delivered her precise strike, Perx noticed how the mirrors briefly intensified Cali's divine light at the same moment—the simulation seemed to be learning multiple things simultaneously.

  Neric, overcoming his fear, began a stirring bardic performance that inspired courage in his companions. His song carried marks of his unmistakable enthusiasm —bold, vibrant, and with flourishes that seemed almost recklessly improvisational but somehow perfectly suited to the moment. As his voice rose in defiance, the acoustics of the mirrored hall amplified his song in ways that seemed impossible. He then muttered arcane syllables that conjured a slick film where the undead knight stood. The knight, unable to maintain its footing, crashed to the floor while the nearest veins in the wildshards on the ceiling brightened in response, briefly tracing the spell’s trajectory before fading back to a gentle pulse.

  The skeletons affected by Perx’s Glitterdust flailed around, but the other two attacked Wenthe and Perx with their scimitars. The one that attacked Wenthe missed, but the one that attacked Perx struck a solid blow along the wizard’s right leg.

  The undead priest that was affected by Perx’s spell flailed around uselessly, but the unblinded priest advanced on Kere when it couldn’t get close enough to Cali and attacked her with its claws, leaving a long scratch along her arm. Kere’s hardiness allowed her to shake off the corrupting effect of the claws.

  The mirrors pulsed with subtle energy again, a rhythm that seemed to be syncing with the companions' heartbeats as the battle progressed.

  The first of the putrefying zombie-like figures advanced on Neric and slammed a fist against the Halfling, leaving a bruise on his forearm. Neric looked a little green for just a moment, as something from the blow seemed to penetrate his body.

  The second slammed a fist against Jori’s skull, leaving the Aquatic Elf reeling for a few moments. His face remained impassive despite the pain, his mind already shifting to analyze the zombie-like figure’s attack pattern rather than dwelling on the injury, his hardiness, like Kere’s, enabling him to shake off the corrupting effects of the blow.

  As the battle continued into its next set of exchanges, the companions found themselves naturally dividing targets without verbal coordination. When Jori engaged the putrefying zombie-like figure with his trident, Perx instinctively focused his attention on the undead priest that no one else was addressing. Despite never having fought together before, they were unconsciously ensuring every threat remained covered—an efficiency that seemed heightened by the strange mirrored environment, as if their tactical awareness was being subtly amplified.

  The undead knight stood up in the patch of slick film and began attacking Jenna with its longsword. Jenna was unable to dodge, and the blow struck her torso solidly, causing the Elf rogue to scream in pain. “Aughh! That felt real!” she yelled as the mirrors in the room flared with an unnatural light.

  The shadowy figure struck another blow against Kere, but an image of where the blow would strike in a nearby mirror enabled her to dodge it.

  Kere analyzed the battlefield with quiet precision, calculating the exact force needed to strike the undead priest near Neric with a spell that would release flying stone projectiles. When she cast, the floor beneath her feet momentarily shifted to give her better leverage, subtly enhancing her aim while the wildshards in the ceiling brightened, their light moving from just above her to just above the monster she’d attacked.

  Jori adapted instantly to the tactical situation. He swung his trident to attack a putrefying zombie-like figure, and the mirrors briefly flashed images of various weapons with their effectiveness against different undead clearly visible—almost as if the simulation was testing whether the party could learn from these hints.

  Most telling was when Wenthe prepared another bomb, her whiskers twitching with analytical curiosity about the on-the-fly enhancement she’d devised. A sharp pain lanced through her temple, and for a brief moment, she saw the ghostly overlay of the wildshard circlet she was wearing in the real world reflected in the nearest mirror. The gemstone at its center pulsed with an unnatural purple light instead of its normal blue glow.

  "Did anyone else see that?" she asked, but the battle left no time for discussion.

  Noticing Jori engaging the nearby putrefying zombie-like figure with his trident, Perx instinctively flung a dart at the remaining undead priest. Despite having never fought together before, they were unconsciously ensuring that every threat was covered—an efficiency that seemed heightened by the strange mirrored environment, as if their tactical awarenesses were being subtly amplified.

  Perx’s dart landed in the priest’s eye with a thwick, releasing acid to stream down its cheek. The priest seemed impervious to the pain, but not to the damage done by the acid, and it remained on its feet.

  Monoffa approached the undead priest Perx had attacked with dramatic flair, practically dancing forward in a display that was much performance as attack, and Wenthe shifted her position slightly to maintain line of sight on both her assigned target and Cali’s position.

  When electricity crackled around Monoffa’s fingers, the wildshard veins directly above her began to branch and fork in patterns of glowing traces that mimicked lightning. The very air around her hand seemed to enhance the electrical energy, making the spell more devastating than usual. The glowing traces zigzagged across the ceiling from vein to vein, gaining intensity as her spell reached completion. For a split second as she touched the undead priest, the entire network flashed with a brilliant blue-white light that cast stark, moving shadows across the mirrored surfaces throughout the chamber. When the corrupted priest fell to the ground with a hollow thud, she danced back to her position guarding Cali with a grin and a flourish.

  Kere’s eyes met Jenna’s as she noticed the Elf rogue about to engage with the undead knight, an unspoken battlefield communication passing between them that seemed unusually developed for companions who had only just started fighting together. The druid moved slightly to make sure she stood poised to intercept any threats to Cali.

  When Jenna delivered the killing blow to the undead knight, its form didn't simply crumble like the undead in the previous wave. Instead, it briefly dissolved into a swirling constellation of tiny purple-blue wildshard fragments. The fragments hung suspended in the air for a heartbeat, arranged in complex geometric patterns. Ephemeral strands of arcane energy connected these fragments like a crystalline web before they collapsed inward, reforming as mundane dust and bone shards that scattered across the floor.

  Cali's next channel of positive energy revealed another anomaly—the wave of divine power visibly interacted with something hidden in the air around them. As her holy light expanded outward, it briefly illuminated a delicate latticework of crystalline energy threads connecting the mirrors. These threads pulsed with purple-blue luminescence, forming intricate geometric patterns reminiscent of constellations or sacred runes. For just a fraction of a second, the companions could see how their own thoughts and emotions created ripples along these ethereal threads, distorting and reshaping the patterns before the threads faded back into invisibility.

  Neric couldn't help but add a theatrical spin to his magical scream, his love of performance turning even combat magic into a chance to impress his audience. By this time, the wildshard veins in the ceiling released a faint hum while the mirrors in the hall vibrated in perfect harmony with his voice, amplifying the spell's effect and ensuring the putrefying zombie-like figure was stunned by the assault.

  As the battle drew near its end, Wenthe reached into her alchemy pouch for another bomb component but found herself patting an empty pocket where a crucial catalyst should have been. Her whiskers twitched in momentary confusion.

  The mirror directly across from her flickered, no longer reflecting the battle but instead showing a scene from her past. Wenthe saw herself in her alchemy master Zap's workshop, casually pocketing a small vial of rare quicksilver compound while the Gnome's back was turned. In the reflection, she had that familiar expression—casual entitlement masking the deeper hunger of someone determined to claim what had been denied her for too long.

  The scene shifted, showing a laboratory in flames. Zap was frantically trying to recreate a stabilizing agent for an experimental bomb, searching desperately for his missing quicksilver compound. The reflection-Wenthe realized too late what she had taken, fumbling through her own pockets as the unstable mixture on Zap's workbench began to bubble ominously. The explosion that followed wasn't catastrophic, but it left the Gnome with singed eyebrows and a workshop that took weeks to repair.

  "I'd have shared if you'd just asked," mirror-Zap said, his voice carrying a rare note of genuine disappointment beneath his usual manic energy. "Trust works both ways, kit."

  In the reflection, Wenthe's expression showed something rarely seen on her face—shame, quickly masked by defensiveness. She had offered to help rebuild, had even paid for replacements, but never actually acknowledged the taking itself.

  The real Wenthe flinched visibly at the memory, ears flattening momentarily against her skull. When she glanced toward her companions, she noticed Monoffa watching her with innocent curiosity—a look unencumbered by shared history or judgment. Something in that blank slate of a gaze stung worse than recrimination would have.

  "What's happening?" Monoffa asked, her eyes darting between Wenthe and the now-normal mirror.

  "Nothing," Wenthe replied too quickly, fingers automatically checking her bandolier of reagents—all carefully labeled in Zap's distinctive scrawl. She pulled a bomb from her pouch, this one more powerful than her usual mix. "Just remembering why I always need backup supplies."

  As ancient symbols on another of the mirror frames flared, she hurled the bomb with extra force, compensating for something that had nothing to do with the battle at hand. As it exploded and took out both of the putrefying zombie-like creatures, she silently catalogued borrowed components so she wouldn’t have to see who else might be looking at her. At least component checking was something she needed to do anyway to be ready for whatever came next.

  As Perx calculated the trajectory for his next acid dart, the mirror directly across from him flickered, no longer reflecting the battle but showing a scene from his past. In the reflection, a much younger Perx stood aboard a storm-tossed vessel, frantically performing calculations as massive waves threatened to capsize the ship. His captain bellowed orders while Perx attempted to recalculate their heading through the wildshard-infested waters.

  "Thirty-seven degrees northeast should bypass the wildshard cluster," reflection-Perx shouted with mathematical certainty. The captain adjusted course based on his calculations.

  The scene shifted to show the catastrophic result—the ship striking a wildshard reef that Perx's calculations had failed to account for. Men screamed as they were thrown overboard, and a young sailor—barely more than a boy—was impaled by splintering wood. The reflection showed Perx's face, not with the horror of the others, but with cold shock at his mathematical error.

  "You were so certain," the captain's voice echoed. "Your precious numbers failed us."

  The real Perx's fingers froze momentarily around his dart, a barely perceptible twitch in his otherwise methodical movements. His analytical mind had always been his greatest asset, his calculations a point of pride. But here was the memory he'd methodically partitioned away—the time when his mathematical precision had failed catastrophically, costing lives.

  Perx glanced toward his companions, wondering if they'd seen the mirror's revelation, before swiftly refocusing on the battle with renewed determination to ensure his calculations would not fail again.

  He lobbed his dart at the last remaining skeleton, hitting it square in the pelvis, which was only barely connected to its left thigh bone. The dart’s momentum—and its acid—were just enough to send the skeleton toppling to the ground. As it did so, the mirrored hall began to shift once more. The mirrors flickered, showing not the party's reflections but instead their fears, hopes, and past failures—memories that should have been private.

  The walls of the tomb wavered like a heat mirage, briefly becoming transparent to reveal an intricate underlying lattice of glowing wildshard energy arranged in geometric patterns. The air filled with harmonic resonances that seemed to vibrate through the party's very thoughts, and multiple voices speaking in perfect unison echoed throughout the hall:

  "ATTUNEMENT INCOMPLETE. THOUGHT-WEAVE RESONANCE INSUFFICIENT. RECALIBRATING FOR DEEPER COMMUNION."

  Each party member felt a strange presence brush against their consciousness—like cold fingers sifting through their memories. Moments of failure, old fears, and private insecurities flashed before their eyes in the mirrors surrounding them.

  "PERSONAL ATTUNEMENTS ESTABLISHED. INITIATING FINAL COMMUNION."

  For the barest flash of a moment, Jenna caught a glance in one of the mirrors of what looked like the vague shape of a humanoid figure with gray skin with chains that hung from its wrists and ankles. She frowned at it, wondering, What is THAT?

  Monoffa glanced at Wenthe and asked, “Is it just me, or does it seem like these wildshards are getting stronger with each new wave of monsters we fight?”

  “It’s not just you,” said Wenthe shortly, her quick mind and hunger for patterns having already noticed that.

  The rest of the mirrors darkened, and from within their depths, new horrors began to form—each one tailored specifically to the deepest fears of each companion.

  The simulation had learned from them. It had adapted. And now, it would use that knowledge against them.