Stepping fully into the chamber, the group quickly realized this wasn’t just a room covered in mirrors.
It was a sprawling, fragmented maze constructed entirely out of freestanding panes of some kind of enchanted glass.
Every step felt like walking into a hostile kaleidoscope. The endless, shifting reflections made the space look infinitely vast, but the physical reality was a claustrophobic nightmare. Within minutes, the formation completely fell apart.
’I’m getting dizzy just standing here.’
"Lily, use your fog to mark the path behind us," Tristan said, turning toward the quiet girl standing just to his right. "If it sticks to the glass, we can trace our steps."
"I’m over here," a small voice echoed from the left.
Tristan blinked. He reached out and tapped the ’Lily’ to his right.
"Clink"
’Clink?’
His knuckles hit solid, cold glass. He sighed, rubbing his temples. It was gonna be a long day wasn’t it.
They wandered for what felt like hours, constantly bumping into invisible barriers and hitting frustrating dead ends. The ambient silence of the room, broken only by the sound of their own echoing footsteps, was beginning to grate on everyone’s nerves.
Finally, Oliver lost his patience.
"Enough of this," the northerner growled, gripping his steel polearm with both hands. "It’s just glass."
Before anyone could stop him, Oliver swung the heavy weapon in a brutal, sweeping arc. The steel blade slammed into the mirror blocking their path with a deafening CRACK.
Spiderweb fractures exploded across the surface, and hundreds of glittering shards rained down onto the stone floor. But before the glass could even settle, the pieces suddenly froze in mid-air. With a sickening, reversed crunching sound, the shards flew backward, fusing seamlessly together until the mirror was pristine and whole once again.
"Well, that’s deeply unsettling," Ella muttered, her sand golem shifting nervously beside her.
"Let’s just go back," Lily whispered, her grip white-knuckled on her staff. "We can take the left or right path instead."
Rowan turned around, his eyes scanning the endless reflections behind them. He swallowed hard. "Would you happen to know the way back? I may be a bit crazy but I swear I just saw the walls shift."
Panic immediately flared in the group, but before Oliver could start throwing tantrums, Rowan stepped closer to one of the nearby mirrors, squinting intensely. His unique skill was working in overdrive.
"Wait," Rowan murmured, running his fingers inches away from the glass. "Look at the background in the reflection. It’s not a true mirror."
’Smart guy.’
Tristan leaned in, pretending to analyze it. He already knew the gimmick, but it was better to let the scout take the credit.
"He’s right," Tristan pointed out. "Look at the floor tiles in the reflection."
In the real world, the stone floor beneath their boots was completely bare. But in the mirrored reflection, faint, glowing runic arrows were etched into the stones, pointing deeper into the maze.
"Good eyes, Rowan," Oliver praised grudgingly. "Follow the symbols."
The group carefully navigated the labyrinth by staring into the mirrors rather than at the path ahead, following the phantom arrows.
’Which might I add gives terrible headaches’
Ten minutes later, the glowing symbols abruptly stopped in front of a massive, heavily gilded mirror standing alone in a dead-end alcove.
Unlike the other mirrors, the reflection in this one was completely distorted, rippling like the surface of a disturbed pond.
"It’s a doorway," Oliver deduced, reaching out. His armored hand passed straight through the glass, sending concentric ripples across the surface. "We go through here."
Determined to maintain his position as the vanguard, Oliver stepped directly into the glass and vanished. Ella followed with her sand golem, then Rowan, and finally a trembling Lily.
Tristan lingered behind, staring at the rippling portal with profound dread.
He absolutely hated this stage. The developers of Flamecrest Legacy had designed this specific puzzle room as a brutal vibe-check for players who relied too heavily on their teammates. It was the notorious and cliche ’Mirror Match’ stage. While the essence stone rewards for clearing it were massive, as you can imagine clearing it was a pain in the ass.
Taking a deep breath, Tristan stepped through the glass.
The transition was freezing, like plunging into a lake of ice water. When his vision cleared, he wasn’t in a hallway with the rest of his team. He was standing completely alone in a circular, dimly lit arena carved from black obsidian.
His team was standing just a few paces ahead, completely frozen in shock.
Across the arena, standing in the exact same formation, were five figures.
It wasn’t a trick of the glass this time. They were fully physical. The doppelgangers wore the exact same clothes, carried the exact same weapons, and stared back at them with terrifying, blank expressions. Tristan locked eyes with his own clone, who rested a hand lazily on the hilt of a bone-white dagger, wearing his exact same cynical smirk.
The mirror match had begun.