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  [colpse]Chapter Eighty-Five - Funhouse

  We reached another interse and as we had done a dozen times already, we waited as e walked around in a circle, phased through the walls, theuro lead us on a little more.

  All of this happened in near-silence. Only the occasional crackle of Amaryllis’ lightning marking the gss apanied us.

  The problem wasn’t that we were tired, or that we had nothing to talk about. It was the stant walk down poorly lit corridors, expeg a trap at every step and finding none. All the while, a thousand refles of ourselves moved around in the walls. The rooms we travelled through were sometimes so tight we had to line up in single file, and the air felt just a little too warm and stale.

  It was creepy as heck.

  When we reached the interse I huffed and crossed my arms. “I don’t like it,” I decred.

  “What don’t you like?” Amaryllis asked.

  “This... thisness. The silend the gloominess. It’s not fun,” I said.

  “Did you e here just for fun?”

  I thought about that for a moment. “Mostly, yeah,” I said.

  “Idiot,” Amaryllis said. “We’re here because you got a quest. We really shouldn’t pin.”

  “I don’t see what’s so special about getting a quest.”

  “Awa,” Awen awa’d. “Quests are... big. They only happen when big things are happening in the world. They’re for very important people.”

  I snorted. “Well, that’s not quite right. I got a quest and I’m just me.”

  “I-I think you’re important,” Awen said.

  I bumped my shoulder against hers, but shook my head all the same. “It doesn’t matter. We’ll get through this silly maze one way or another.”

  I was about to start talking about brighter things--I still had plenty to learn about my friends. Were they dog or cat people? What were their favourite colours? Big s, cleft s? No s?--when Amaryllis shushed us all with a talon raised to her lips.

  She crouched a little and I did the same, my spade ing up in a two handed grip ready to bonk anything that tried to cause trouble.

  Then Awen pointed and all of azes so the side.

  Skittering along the gss, and reflected a thousand times over, was a beetle. A big ohe size of one of those y slippers that were shaped like bunnies.

  We all watched as it scuttled closer, but instead of heading for us it... moved towards the mark Amaryllis had left in the wall. Tile-y legs started scrubbing at the burnt patch, slowly ing it off a the mirror’s shine.

  Our tension seeped away. “It’s undoing all of my work,” Amaryllis said.

  “The dungeon is rather clever.” I eyed the beetle. “Insight?”

  A Mirror Beetle, level 2.

  “Cute, I guess,” I said.

  We all agreed that stig around wasn’t going to help any, so we started following e again. The kitty was looking increasingly impatient, and I suspect that she would demand many pats and scratches when this was all done.

  “This pce goes on forever,” I pined a little ter.

  “It will eually,” Amaryllis said. “Trust e.”

  “I do, I do,” I said. “But it’s kind of b.” The worst part was that we were stuck shuffling along because moving too quickly, as we had discovered quite painfully, led us to run into the walls, bounce off their edges, and generally caused us to bump around like loons.

  I was about to pin some more when I saw someone in the refles ahead of us.

  All three of us came to a stop as, from around the er came a short human girl. She retty, with bright blue eyes and long blonde hair that trailed out behind her. Her lips were set in a fident smile and she stood before us in the kind of adventuring outfit that I would expect a movie star to wear. That was, it revealed a lot of skin and probably wasn’t all that suitable to actual adventuring.

  “Awen?” I asked as I reized the girl.

  “That’s me,” the girl that looked like Awen’s twin said. She grinned from ear to ear. “It’s been a bit, Broccoli. I thought I had lost you iunnels.”

  “Huh?” I said.

  “Awa, th-that’s not me,” Awen said.

  “Oh, you’re right about that,” New-Awen said. “You wish you were me, don’t you, little illusion.” She started walking... no, strutting towards us, hips swaying from side to side and legs moving as if she were wearing heels instead of sensible boots. “Ah, Broccoli. I’m so... excited to see you. But now that we’re reunited I have pns for you. First, I’m going to pin you down, then--” she reached out a hand for me.

  And that’s when Amaryllis shot her full of lightning.

  New-Awen poofed apart, leaving us all staring at where she had been.

  “That was enough of that,” Amaryllis said.

  “What was that?” I wondered.

  “Awa, she was... me?” She swallowed. “But, more pretty, more... more.”

  “That,” Amaryllis said. “Was an illusion. Don’t you have insight?”

  “Ah, yeah,” I said. “Sorry?”

  “Idiot. Use your skills. That was obviously some sort of trap. Not even a very effective one,” Amaryllis said.

  “H-how do we stop them?” Awen asked. She was looking around and into all the refles around us with more than a little paranoia. “I, I don’t want just anything toug Broccoli.”

  Amaryllis huffed. “Magic. Point bnk magids to disrupt simpler illusions quite well. It’s why that field of magi’t as popur as some. It’s hard to learn, taxing to use, and easy to ter.” She shrugged. “Great on unintelligent foes though, which means we’ll both have to keep a in case Broccoli gets it in her head to befriend the illusion.”

  “R-right!” Awen said.

  “Hey!”

  e waved her tail from side to side impatiently, then turned and started stalking off. I had the impression that if we didn’t keep up, she would just head on out without us.

  We jogged after the kitty to keep up. For a bit, we merely navigated the maze with her obstacle or challenge, but that soon came to an end as we walked into a four way interse with a pilr in its tre. Leaning against it was Amaryllis.

  Not our Amaryllis. This one was smiling wide and boung ooes. Her clothes were simir to the real Amaryllis, though in brighter colours. “Oh, oh, you’re here!” she said. “I’m so happy to see you!” she said.

  I blinked. “Uh, hi?” I said.

  Amaryllis. The real one, raised a crag hand towards her strange doppelganger. “Let me put ao that thing,” she said.

  “Aww, but she looks nice,” I said.

  “It’s an illusion, moron.”

  Fake-Amaryllis gasped. “Don’t call poor Broccoli a moron! She’s my friend! No one calls my friends bad things!”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I think I like this one.”

  “It’s okay!” the doppelganger said. “We be friends, even with you, lesser Amaryllis.”

  Amaryllis, the real one, filled her e full of lightning. “No,” she said. “Being friends with Broccoli is taxing enough. I don’t need more.”

  “Awa,” Awen said.

  Amaryllis froze for a moment, then huffed. “You be my friend too, Awen,” she said while slumpiedly.

  “I, I would g-gdly call you a friend, Aw-Awamaryllis.”

  I ughed as we moved deeper into the maze. I don’t know what kind of challehe dopplegangers were supposed to pose, but so far they weren’t nearly as bad as the room with the mirrors had been.

  And theurned a er and my heart stopped.

  Broccoli Bunch was staring back at me.

  Not another refle. This Broccoli was all wrong.

  She wore all bck, a frilly, cier version of my own dress. Her pale face was adorned with bck mascara and an expression that was h somewhere between apathetid depressed. Her shoulder slumped and she seemed to shrink in on herself. “Oh, great. Just... keep moving. It’s not like you’re worth fighting or anything.”

  “Um,” I began. “Hi?”

  “Urgh, how you be so peppy,” the goth Broccoli asked. “Just leave me alone. Or better yet, finish me off. This life is too miserable to be worth living.” She pulled out a cigarette from her bandoleer, and lit it with a snap of her fingers. “Just look at you three. Clever Amaryllis, who isn’t half as clever as she wishes she were and only a quarter as clever as she thinks she is. Cute little Awen, with a mind filled with more delusions and taped-together dreams than any sense. You o wake up and face reality girl.”

  “Hey,” I said. “That’s a little rude.”

  Gothccoli took a long draw from her cigarette. “Ah, look at me go. Standing up for the first people that call you friend. You’re so desperate it hurts. One day you’ll see that Dirt is just as cruel and ung as your home was. Then you’ll see.”

  “Wow,” Amaryllis said. “I thought this would be funny, but this is actually kind htening.”

  “Awa, that Broccoli doesn’t... Broccht.”

  Gothccoli leaned against one of the walls, then waved the ent off. “Go on. Keep on being a merry bunch of friends. See if I care.”

  I looked towards Amaryllis. “’t I hug her just a little? She really needs it.”

  Amaryllis rolled her eyes, and with a buzzing-crack, Gothccoli died an inglorious death.

  I was at least tent in knowing that that robably how she would have wao go.

  e returned, and it was a silent party that followed her to the end of the maze. The mirrors stopped, and we found ourselves in a little alcove with a door at the end.

  I ope to reveal the now-familiar raviepping out onto it and taking a deep breath of fresh air was a balm to the soul after the stuffy fines of the maze.

  “Whaaa,” I said as I stretched out my arms and legs. “That was awful!”

  “Awa, it was a bit warm, but, um, there were no fights.”

  Amaryllis just huffed. “If it wasn’t fe we could have been in there for far, far longer.” She picked up the cat and cradled it in her arms. e didn’t make any noise, but I could still hear the faint rumble of her purring as it made Amaryllis’ coat vibrate. “We’re lucky that the party has such a good member in it.”

  “We are!” I said.

  What followed was a minute or two of everyone g over e who took it with stoic aplomb aurned a smug kitty smile.

  But all things had to end, and so we turned our attention to crossing the bridge towards the floor.

  We crossed with growing fidehe st room’s ck of difficulty spurring us on. That is, until we were nearly halfway down the bridge and Amaryllis’ feet slipped.

  She ‘eeped’ and did a bit of a dao keep her ba ended with her wings spread out wide and her butt low to the ground as she crouched o us.

  “Awa, I... that was scary.”

  I giggled as my heart calmed down a little. “You scared me too,” I said. “What happened?”

  Amaryllis scuffed her foot against the surface of the bridge with a growing frown, then leaned down to touch the surface. “There’s ice atop the gss,” she said, her voice calm and poised as if she hadn’t just done an interpretive version of the chi dance.

  I ran my foot from side to side on the gss ahead, and true enough, there was a thin yer of ice atop the gss. The air was notably cooler too, but that was hard to tell with the way the wind twisted in the ravine. “We’ll have to be more careful,” I said. “Maybe we smash it?”

  “And smash the bridge beh?” Amaryllis asked.

  “Ah, right,” I said. “I just hope that this isn’t a hint of what is to e.”

  Unfortunately, it very much was.