Chapter Eighty-Five — Funhouse
Chapter Eighty-Five — Funhouse We reached another intersection and as we had done a dozen times already, we waited as Orange walked around in a circle, phased through the walls, then returned to lead us on a little more.All of this happened in near-silence. Only the occasional crackle of Amaryllis’ lightning marking the glass accompanied us.The problem wasn’t that we were tired, or that we had nothing to talk about. It was the constant walk down poorly lit corridors, expecting a trap at every step and finding none. All the while, a thousand reflections 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 next intersection I huffed and crossed my arms. “I don’t like it,” I declared.“What don’t you like?” Amaryllis asked.“This... thisness. The silence and the gloominess. It’s not fun,” I said.“Did you come 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 complain.”“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 chins, cleft chins? No chins?-when Amaryllis shushed us all with a talon raised to her lips.She crouched a little and I did the same, my spade coming up in a two handed grip ready to bonk anything that tried to cause trouble.Then Awen pointed and all of our gazes snapped to the side.Skittering along the glass, and reflected a thousand times over, was a beetle. A big one, the size of one of those novelty 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. Tiny beetle-y legs started scrubbing at the burnt patch, slowly cleaning it off and restoring 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 sticking around wasn’t going to help any, so we started following Orange again. The kitty was looking increasingly impatient, and I suspect that she would demand many pats and scratches when this was all done.“This place goes on forever,” I complained a little later.“It will end eventually,” Amaryllis said. “Trust Orange.”“I do, I do,” I said. “But it’s kind of boring.” 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 complain some more when I saw someone in the reflections ahead of us.All three of us came to a stop as, from around the next corner came a short human girl. She was pretty, with bright blue eyes and long blonde hair that trailed out behind her. Her lips were set in a confident 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 recognized 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 in these tunnels.”“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 plans 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 reflections around us with more than a little paranoia. “I, I don’t want just anything touching Broccoli.”Amaryllis huffed. “Magic. Point blank magic tends to disrupt simpler illusions quite well. It’s why that field of magic isn’t as popular as some. It’s hard to learn, taxing to use, and easy to counter.” She shrugged. “Great on unintelligent foes though, which means we’ll both have to keep an eye out in case Broccoli gets it in her head to befriend the illusion.”“R-right!” Awen said.“Hey!”Orange 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.Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.We jogged after the kitty to keep up. For a bit, we merely navigated the maze with neither obstacle or challenge, but that soon came to an end as we walked into a four way intersection with a pillar in its centre. Leaning against it was Amaryllis.Not our Amaryllis. This one was smiling wide and bouncing on her toes. Her clothes were similar 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 cracking hand towards her strange doppelganger. “Let me put an end to 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 can be friends, even with you, lesser Amaryllis.”Amaryllis, the real one, filled her clone 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 can be my friend too, Awen,” she said while slumping dejectedly.“I, I would g-gladly call you a friend, Aw-Awamaryllis.”I laughed as we moved deeper into the maze. I don’t know what kind of challenge the dopplegangers were supposed to pose, but so far they weren’t nearly as bad as the room with the mirrors had been.And then we turned a corner and my heart stopped.Broccoli Bunch was staring back at me.Not another reflection. This Broccoli was all wrong.She wore all black, a frilly, lacier version of my own dress. Her pale face was adorned with black mascara and an expression that was hovering somewhere between apathetic and 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 can 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 need to 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 uncaring as your home was. Then you’ll see.”“Wow,” Amaryllis said. “I thought this would be funny, but this is actually kind of frightening.”“Awa, that Broccoli doesn’t... Broccoli right.”Gothccoli leaned against one of the walls, then waved the comment off. “Go on. Keep on being a merry bunch of friends. See if I care.”I looked towards Amaryllis. “Can’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 content in knowing that that was probably how she would have wanted to go.Orange 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 opened it to reveal the now-familiar ravine. Stepping out onto it and taking a deep breath of fresh air was a balm to the soul after the stuffy confines 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 for Orange we could have been in there for far, far longer.” She picked up the cat and cradled it in her arms. Orange 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 cooing over Orange who took it with stoic aplomb and returned a smug kitty smile.But all things had to end, and so we turned our attention to crossing the bridge towards the next floor.We crossed with growing confidence, the last room’s lack 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 dance to keep her balance. It ended with her wings spread out wide and her butt low to the ground as she crouched next to 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 glass,” she said, her voice calm and poised as if she hadn’t just done an interpretive version of the chicken dance.I ran my foot from side to side on the glass ahead, and true enough, there was a thin layer of ice atop the glass. 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 can smash it?”“And smash the bridge beneath?” Amaryllis asked.“Ah, right,” I said. “I just hope that this isn’t a hint of what is to come.”Unfortunately, it very much was.
Chapter Eighty-Six — Broccoli On Ice
Chapter Eighty-Six — Broccoli On Ice We slipped and slid all the way over to the door leading into the fourth floor, then, with just a bit of finagling to keep my balance, I opened the large door and helped Amaryllis and Awen slip into the room.Lights hanging from metallic gantries above illuminated a huge doughnut of a room. In its centre was a small stone platform with a large wheel on it, chains went from it to the ceiling, then all the way to the far end of the room where the exit was waiting in plain view.Other than that, the room was nearly featureless.That was, if you didn’t count the ten or so machines skating around the room.“Insight,” I said as one of them shot past. It looked like a metallic grasshopper. Six limbs that all ended with skates, the two back legs kicking out every so often to push the body along. There were big globular eyes atop it, and a hinged mouth with serrated teeth covered their lower face. The spines along the legs didn’t look like they were decorative either.A Brass Ice Slipper Golem, level 7.Amaryllis’ head twitched a few times. “All level seven,” she said. “And obviously not aggressive yet.”“Do you think they’ll let us just cross?” I wondered.Awen shook her head. “We need to turn that wheel in the middle. Awa, at least, I think.”So, we had a nice big circular room, the floor obviously very slick with a layer of ice over what was probably more glass. And ten machines that looked like they meant business. We had to get to the middle, then over to the door at the far end.“Do you guys know how to skate?” I asked the girls.“No,” Amaryllis said.“Awa, I don’t either,” Awen added.I hummed and added that to my tally of things to keep in mind. “Okay, I have a plan.”“Do tell.”I nodded. “Awen, you can ride me. I’ll skate over to the middle. Amaryllis, you’re able to sort of fly. So I’ll kick you up into the air and you glide over to the rock.”My harpy friend stared at me for a good long while. “Counterproposal. We leave this room and I throw you off the bridge.”“Rude,” I said.“Idiotic,” she shot back.“Awa, guys,” Awen said. “We, um, need to work together, right, Broccoli?”I dropped my glaring contest with Amaryllis to grin over to Awen. “You’re right. Do you think the bots over there will slide out of their lane? We could fight them one at a time until the room is cleared.”“Risky,” Amarilis said. “There are a lot more of them than there are of us.”“Darn it.” I watched as one of the nearly-robotic golems flew pasts with a scrape of steel on ice and a wash of cool air that sent tingles across my exposed skin. “We can’t just stand around and be this indecisive,” I said. “We need to try something.”“We’ll go after the one on the farthest edge of the circle,” Amaryllis said. “I can maybe take it out with one well-aimed shot.”“That’ll have to do,” I said.We gathered on the very edge of the little platform by the entrance. Amaryllis flicked her wrist so that her sneaky little dagger fell into her talons and she pointed it towards the golem that would pass the closest to us. It was still a ways away, taking nearly a minute or so to circle all the way around.Electrical crackles and little sparks started to snap off of Amaryllis’ blade and her feathery hair rose on end a little. I felt the hairs along my arms rising as she started to mutter something under her breath. “Close your eyes,” she said.I pinched my eyes shut and threw my hands over my ears just as Amaryllis fired.The air burst apart around us, and I had to take a step back and away from the pressure.When I opened my eyes again it was to see the bot she had targeted crashing to the ground, its legs a tangled mess. Sparks and a wash of ice flew around it as the golem ragdolled across the ice.“It’s dead,” Amaryllis said with a smug, self-satisfied smile. She blew the smoke off of her knife. “That was easy.”Then the door behind us slammed shut and all three of us jumped a few feet into the air.“Awa!” Awen said. “They’re transforming.”The bots shifted as they skated around, legs bunching up and the middle of their sleek bodies unfolding until a very crossbow like device was deployed from their backs.They continued skating by, but the crossbows turned to point at us.“Oh shoot,” I said.Nine twangs sounded out at the same time and we dove to the sides as a bunch of foot-long bolts flew past where we’d been standing.The crossbows made loud crunchy noises and I just knew they were reloading.I climbed onto my knees, then almost slipped back down as my arms and legs slid across the icy floor. Thankfully, I was Canadian, so I had a racial bonus to icy pantomimes and was able to get to my feet with a little effort.The bots flew past, their bows turning to follow me and my friends. “This is bad,” I said.“Awa, it is,” Awen said as she spun and windmilled her arms to stay upright.I looked off to the side, hoping to find Amaryllis on her feet. Instead I saw her climb up to standing, only to flop back down onto her bum, as her feet kicked out from under her. “Amaryllis?” I asked.“Shut up, I’ll figure it out!” she squawked.She wasn’t going to figure it out, I decided as I saw her skedaddle on the spot and face plant into the ice.“I’m going to distract them,” I said as I pulled my backpack off. “Awen, grab the rope in there. It might help.”If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.“G-got it!” Awen said as she crashed to her knees next to my backpack and started searching within.The bots had stopped making their very loud reloading noises, which could only mean that I was running out of time.Gritting my teeth and wishing for a pair of proper skates, I started to push myself forwards. My shoes were a little thin, and the cold was already seeping into my feet, but it was better to have cold toes than stand around and get a crossbow bolt through the tummy.I looked at the oncoming row of ice skating golems, bunched my legs under me, and jumped into the air just as they were coming around.Raising my spade in an icepick grip, I got ready to land on one of the bots in the middle of their little pack.Its crossbow snapped around and I squeaked as I brought the head of my spade around just in time for a bolt to punch into and through it.I was so busy staring wide-eyed at the glass-tipped bolt hovering just before my face that my landing atop the bot was a little... messy.I don’t know exactly what happened beyond my legs clattering about on the top of the Ice Slipper. There was screaming and scrambling for purchase, but I managed to grab the base of one of its legs and hang on for dear life. The golem started to skate off to the side, my weight enough to throw it off its original path.Grunting, I pulled myself up and came face to face with the crossbow.My heart stopped.Then I noticed that it hadn’t reloaded yet and I let out a very inappropriate giggle.The girls seemed okay, as far as I could tell. The other bots had mostly fired their bolts into the air to try and hit me, but I suppose I had been a small enough target-and a moving one at that-that they had all missed.“Sorry big guy,” I told the golem as I crouched precariously atop it and aimed my spade towards the nock between its head and neck. I brought my spade down and smashed its tip against the fine rods and pistons and spinning shafts within, then when that only bent the outermost one I hit them again.One of the golem’s eyes started twitching, so I knew I’d hit something important. But I didn’t have the strength to just end it in a blow.I huffed and tried to think of a solution as we whizzed around the circular arena, my hair whipping out behind me like a lame banner. Magic? It was worth the try.Standing a little taller, I aimed an open palm down towards the golem and fired a burst of cleaning magic into it. I saw the mana race across the golem’s surface and beneath the panels covering it. The oil on the gears I could see spinning away was wiped out, but that didn’t seem like a way to destroy the machine any time in the next few minutes. Most of my mana was wasted cleaning off the surface of the ice we passed.“Dang,” I said. That had been a waste.Then I saw one of the golems skate past the freshly cleaned ice. It had to scramble a little as it began to spin out, one side slipping by much faster than the other. It rightened itself just fine, but that gave me an idea.I jabbed my spade into the crossbow's mechanism. Something in there broke, and that was good enough for the moment.Hooking a leg around the crossbow’s protrusion, I let my upper body dangle down behind the golem, face only a handspan away from the ice.Reaching down, I tapped the ice with the tips of my fingers and shot out busts of cleaning mana to the left and right. It left streaks of sparkly-bright ice behind.It only took a moment before one of the golems flew past the now extra-slippery ice and veered wildly off-course.“Oh yeah,” I said with a growing grin as I repeated what I’d just done.A moment later my efforts were rewarded when two of the golems rammed into each other. Brass limbs tangled, skates were pulled off the ice and the machines flew off and into one of the walls of the arena with a crunch.Congratulations! You have caused two (2) Brass Ice Slipper Golem, level 7 to skate off the mortal coil!“W-well done!” Awen shouted from the sidelines. “I have the rope!”“Great! Tie it somewhere then give me the other end!” I said.The idea was to kludge together a tripwire to bring down the remaining golems. I eyed them, hoping to see them skate into a wall, but they were spacing themselves out a little more and were doing a better job of keeping steady as they skated along.There was a loud clack from the six golems that were left, and that I wasn’t riding on. Their crossbows were primed again. “Oh no,” I said as I saw a few of them turning towards the girls.Amaryllis was still on her bum, looking mightily angry about not being able to stand, and Awen was tying an end of my rope to the large wheeled handle of the door. They were both prone and out of cover.Pulling myself back, I straddled the golem I was riding on and started firing out balls of cleaning magic as hard and fast as I could.Having magic smack them in the face did exactly what I wanted and soon they were all aiming at me.“Uh. Oops.”I got to put my new dancing skill to the test and I ducked and weaved atop the already shifty surface of the golem I was riding. Somehow, all six bolts fired my way missed or bounced off the armour of the golem I stood on.“Broccoli!”Awen’s call had me looking to the side just in time to reach up and catch the rope she tossed out of the air.It was time to put an end to the chase!
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