Sammy’s next big target of research would be a level 4 Protection spell, for progress in the quest ‘Protection Personified’ she’d gotten after Specialization as an Abjurer. But she also needed to pick a Core spell to go after for the halved research time…

It was a common difficulty to decide, mostly due to not really needing most things. It was more a matter of picking something she’d use regularly rather than simply having another rare option in the Spell Utility Box. She could go for Forcebolt again, but she had a pretty sufficient telekinesis spell which did similar things already.

I’m tempted to go for Ball of Acid now…

She ultimately decided on Traveler’s Boon, which increased movement for an hour and was designed to stack with enchantments. It would be beneficial for long-distance as well, perhaps even combat in some situations. One never knew when they needed such an edge.

Preliminary research quickly tumbled the helper runes into the mix and she advanced it to two-thirds completion or so. It was difficult to focus though, because the unused, unexplored ‘key’ to the Hall of Reflections was nagging her.

Can we fill time in quickly and leave? Maybe it’s a good test of our control. I know time flows inside visions, but if we can mitigate it and pop back out in the morning, it would likely be an efficient use of time.

She contacted Azure about it, who was assisting the Servitors with logistics and team assessments. “We should do it,” Azure said. “Poke around some. It should be quite feasible to limit our timeframe if you keep it in mind. After all, there is some sort of manipulation of time that goes into your interfacing. Besides that, I think we’ve recovered from the last time.”

“Alright. Let’s do it! Er… So, will we meet inside? Should I just do my thing?”

“I can always go where you go. Yes. Go for it.”

Sammy felt for that ‘doorway’ to get a sense of how to get there compared to her prior entrance, and then she zipped through the Mirror Maze entrance to find herself in that mind-bending ‘small’ transitory space between the Maze and the palace of crystal. She was in the form of her Avatar in the Relic Armor.

As far as the eye could see were semi-transparent, overlapping layers of crystalline kaleidoscopes, where even a slight shift of one’s viewpoint would warp and distort one’s vision into something new and unique. Only a portion of it all was actually illusory, despite the transparency — one had to navigate it and could easily bounce off (or fall off) an edge. She knew where The Lover’s Palace was, far off in the distance through the haze of layers. Interestingly, it was almost… downward.

Nearby, she could just barely make out nearly transparent arches curling every direction from a central point she was on top of… more or less a many, many, many-sided quasi-sphere.

The Bridge of Edges. It was a foreign thought, but eerily true. From her prior experience, it was also accurate — despite the illusion of some shapes (such as cylinders), there were only hard lines and right angles in that place, always leading to a sharp point. From the Bridge — Or is it Bridges? — it looked as if she was in a good position to go in many different directions.

Azure materialized next to her, immediately looking out in wonder and bewilderment. “W-whoa… this is even trippier than doing hallucinogens, much less shenanigans with the Hall.”

Sammy grinned at her word choice. “I love how my peeps are learning my lingo.”

The blueberry Naugite flashed a grin in return. She looked… different in that place. Like everything else, she appeared subtly crystalline and formed of tiny angles, where only from a distance would she seem smoothly contoured.

Azure was also looking at Sammy strangely, which caused her to look down at herself. “Motherfucker!” Sammy exclaimed. “I guess I didn’t notice before. Must be a Realm Rule.”

“A minor one, if so.” Azure took two steps over the small sorta-sphere, then wobbled, yelped, and fell to her hands and knees.

Sammy rushed over with a smooth skip, hand going to her lover’s shoulder. “Are you alright, love?”

Taking very slow blinks, Azure nodded. “I… am not as natural as you in this place, it seems. Ironic as that is. You might need to lead me for now.”

“Not a problem.” Sammy took Azure’s hand and helped her rise. “Try to keep your eyes down while moving. If you feel like you want to look around, just ask to stop. But don’t move your eyes around a lot, especially while moving.”

“Got it. Do you know where you’re going? The palace? I feel the general direction at least.”

“Yes, I believe I do… and the key is more than something you just do when you get there. It starts right here. It’s a route, or effectively a tunnel, and begins with the path toward the palace, which is incredibly massive. Relative to us in this place, at least.”

“Alright, then. Lead the way!”

Sammy started through the bewildering environment, her ‘natural vision’ that of [Spirit Sight], and allowing her to know the right steps from wrong. It was similar to navigating tunnels, except these took strange shapes, sometimes appearing over the open ‘sky.’ Gravity had no specific direction and could even change between steps. At least it didn’t do it in a violent fashion.

Sadly, attempts at powered flight and so forth failed. Spells fizzled and hard light ‘caught’ and lodged into hidden spaces instantly, unmovable. The place seemed to have its own existing physical rules…

Maybe Pneumamancy will help with this realm?

Unlike her prior trip, she was not simply headed toward the palace, but had to stay on a very specific trajectory… a few times she took a wrong turn and had to double back — or triple — and it was not easy finding the path again after going astray. She began taking her time more, to ensure each step was the right one.

Azure always stayed behind her while holding her hand, specifically to avoid accidentally walking ahead over a cliff or the like. For the most part, she kept quiet, but at one point she muttered, “Could’ve sworn I saw the Bay of Mengior…”

Sammy stopped and turned to her. “Do what?”

Azure shook her head and looked back to gesture. “Like through a tiny window, I thought I saw the Bay of Mengior in the Land of Naug. Distinctive sandbars and the gleam of the ships at Sovar Ska’s docks in the distance.”

“Shit, can this lead to the material world?”

“Who knows? It could just be a mirage. Or some hellscape version of reality.”

Sammy hesitated, burning with curiosity about it. But chasing mirages would probably make her totally lose her trajectory. “Can you remember where that was?” Sammy looked around herself, trying to fix their position into her memory. “We could investigate another time.”

The Naugite shrugged as she also looked around. “Maybe. I don’t understand this place well, though.”

Sammy took out a big Lightstone from her dimensional sack and set it down on the platform nearby, to hopefully act as a beacon and place marker. “This is as good as it gets I think. Let’s move on.”

The palace soon loomed ahead — or below, as varied with the path — and was quite different from her first trip through the area. It was more like a shadow or silhouette seen within the more luminous environment, as if they were proceeding through a multicolored liquid to a dark core. The path had ceased having a ceiling and thus resembled a floating bridge.

“The center of my Blueberry is dark chocolate, who knew?” Sammy asked with a dumb grin as she nudged her girlfriend with a shoulder.

Azure rolled her eyes and scrunched up her face in something of a frown. “That might’ve been amusing if this place didn’t give me a migraine. Are we almost there?”

“Probably…”

As the path twisted closer, the palace seemed to… bend around and around them spherically, until the shadow obscured half the world. The other half became irregular windows showing the layers of colors and fractal patterns they’d left. Even the crystal of the bridge-like environment grew darker and more opaque. It was, however, easier to follow.

On the other hand, it was spooky. There was something of a feeling of it being… unused or abandoned. A layer of grit, like powder or dust, was evident on the walkway, kicking up swirls and crunching as they walked in a slow spiral or corkscrew ‘up’... or down. Wasn’t it down?

“Achew!” Azure sneezed. “Fuck…”

“Bless you.”

“I’ll be blessed when I’m out of this dusty fucking place.”

Yep. She’s in a bad mood.

The milky crystalline bridge became more luminous than the shadow beyond its confines as they approached the end… which appeared to be the silhouette of the palace stretching every direction, something like they’d taken a spiral walkway with trippy gravity straight up into another flat plane meeting halfway into and swallowing the sky.

Underbelly. Not to be feared, exactly. More like… a service entrance?

The dust of the platform glittered in the gloom. The end of the planar corkscrew was very narrow, coming to a point barely capable of being stood upon, leading right to an almost-solid substance. If a silhouette could be tangible, that was what it was.

Sammy gingerly approached, hesitant that the blade-like crystalline end could support her weight. But it was up to the task. She held Azure’s hand tightly behind her.

A circle slightly different could just be seen in the substance. A very dark, gleaming mirror face, with the familiar sense of power leaking out through the ‘edge.’ The slightest hint of color was evident… a bronze sheen.

It held her own distorted reflection… or a different version of her. The clothes seemed odd, and she was possibly older and shorter. Maybe had on a hat? That was really all she could tell because it was warped.

No perfect reflection here, eh?

She ran her fingers over the smooth surface and felt an indentation. A shape for a hand. Taking a deep breath, she looked back to Azure, who nodded confidently. She returned the nod, turned back to the mirror, and placed her hand into the indentation.

Light enveloped them…

They were in a large, wide-open circular chamber, on some sort of suspended bronze platform, with massive, humming cylinders of transparent material going up and down over the sides. They were filled with incredibly condensed mana or some other magical energy that practically blinded her through [Detect Magic].

The mana was intense enough to provide all the light for the area and was also completely inaccessible to tap into directly. Nonetheless, the area was absurdly high in mana — certainly like no other place she’d been to.

The slightly curling energy cylinders continued into the walls enshrouded by metal supports, in bundles like gigantic… tubes. Power cables, she realized.

Ridiculous! Is that for show? It can’t be real.

They were standing on a circular central platform. Immediately in front of them, somewhat oddly, was an elegant water fountain that sprayed upward in sequence, and had its own central pedestal with a circle of runes.

So many circles…

Multiple platform paths ended in heavy-duty metal doors. Bronze and copper, it seemed, as was the theme.

The runes on the pedestal at the top of the water fountain began to light up one by one.

Azure snorted. “Great. Now what? Maybe a dancing harlequin?”

Sammy sighed. “If it is, I will do jazz hands.”