23: A Moonlit Lake

David’s view

“So, what do you think?”

“Of the boss? Um… it’s a pair of women.”

“... oh. I guess I messed up. Maybe rule 63 was too much.”

“Rule 63?”

“From the rules of the internet. For every male character, there exists a female version, and for every female character, there exists a male version.”

“Why do you specify male and female like that? Wouldn’t it work to just say an opposite sex version exists?”

“Well, some characters aren’t male or female. I don’t actually know the rule for that.”

“Huh?”

“Like, golems for example.”

“Oh. I suppose that makes sense.”

“Or slimes.”

“Yes, I get it.”

“Most plants… snails…”

“You don’t need to try and list everything that isn’t simply male or female.”

“... I feel like I need a better memory. I should be able to think of more…”

“Hello? You were trying to explain the boss to me.”

“Oh, right, well, they are designed to mirror us. It’s a big part of why they aren’t attacking yet, since we aren’t attacking. I just thought it would be boring to just be a normal reflection.”

“So you switched sexes? How do you even make a spell for that?”

“Uh… I just kinda did?”

“So, how do we beat them if they mirror us?”

“That’s… a good question. I guess I need to test that out.”

… a few hours later…

“This is the first time I’ve ever actually needed to heal you in a fight.”

“Yeah, this is pretty tough. Hardest opponent I’ve ever fought. It’s copying me too well for me to win with brute force.”

“Any clever ideas, David?”

“Actually yeah. I need a way to attack myself that will harm them more than me. For instance, what if I try to dispel myself?”

My copy did as I did and vanished.

“Seriously? It’s that simple?”

“Seems like it.”

“You should’ve dispelled me first. What do we do about my mirror?”

“Oh that’s easy, without my copy blocking me, I can just kill it the normal way.”

“... I’d probably be more bothered by that if my copy looked more like me.”

“You really think it’d be better if I didn’t swap the sexes?”

“Yeah. Would work much better for this kind of boss. As is, it’s way too obvious that she’s not me.”

“Drat. Oh well.”

…

Jessica’s view

“I told you that was a dumb idea.”

“You don’t need to rub it in, Rev.”

“I thought it was fun.”

“Thanks, Sia. I thought it was a fun idea too. It just doesn’t seem to work right. Maybe I should make a trap later to change people with an illusion.”

“Not an actual transformation?”

“I don’t want to risk doing anything permanent… not without consent at least.”

***Author Note***

And there’s the silly boss idea. 

P.S. the title was originally intended to just be a reference to the image of a moon reflected on a lake as a metaphor for the mirror boss idea. Except when I think about it, that would be a pretty awesome boss room. So I’ve decided: That boss room is a shallow moonlit lake… like really shallow… like ankle deep water. Just enough depth for some video game characters to take no fall damage… because some physics engines are weird.