Chapter 21

Before I could thoroughly explain the emotional and lyrical background behind this masterpiece of Mulan feeling like she tried harder and harder to be someone she was not only to still fail being left feeling broken as she looked at her reflection and didn't recognise her face, the scenery changed entirely and the basin disappeared in a puff of smoke. I was loving the special effects.

"What-?" DemonLord456 tried to move but we all heard the creak underneath his feet and turned to look at our own. We were all standing in different stony tiles that seemed to react to pressure. I thought of Indiana Jones and booby traps in ancient temples and tried to stay extra still to make sure I wouldn't trigger anything. On each stony tile, we could see a rune carved deeply that glowed faintly with a purple light. 

"So what do we do now?" Asked Ayase impatiently. She was leaning forward as if she just wanted to lay down and fall asleep. The more her body came closer to the ground, the more my heart pounded. There were more tiles around us but none of them had a rune on them and I could feel that we weren't supposed to touch them.

"Try to stay on your runes!" I shouted not managing to mask my nerves as the others seemed to test the bounce on the tile or toe the line of their tile to the next one. "The tiles we are on are the only ones with runes on them. I don't know what will happen if we remove our weight from them too quickly or if we touch the non-rune tiles" Everyone checked the room for the validity of my statement and then nodded in understanding. The thing is, this was easier said than done. The tiles we were standing on weren't that close to each other and it would need a very careful and measured leap for us to use them in order to move. And then what? No tile seemed to lead somewhere out of there. They were all scattered around the same general space. What were we supposed to do when we couldn't even move?

"One of us isn't on a tile or a rune in general" Ch1tog3 remarked almost accusingly and I lifted my head hopefully following the direction her talons were pointing. The hope was quickly snuffed out like a weak spark against a strong wind. There he was, in all his regal smugness, smiling at me wolfishly. Nax was the only one of us who could actually move and we would have to count on him for any progress. Thing was, he listened so little to me that I wasn't even sure if he understood me or he was just being an asshole and I wasn't sure how this communication thing was going to work. Also he had no hands, if we were once again requested to pull a lever, then we would have our work cut out for us. 

So, I looked away from him and tried to look around for any clues. It was apparent by now, the Portal somehow knew where we wanted to go and the hints hadn't been that subtle. At least to me. It was pretty obvious that the Twin Trees were reflections of each other and the song itself was talking about reflection while the scene was Mulan in front of her mirror self. The riddles and puzzles had to do with the Mirror Shard as if the Grove was testing our adequacy to actually go there. So at first, I tried to look for any reflective surface. The room around us was very dark and all I could see was what the purple light allowed me to. Which wasn't much. I could tell there was something like a device behind Nax but I couldn't make it out exactly and I had no clue on how we would even use it or what it would do. We shouldn't take risks just yet.

"Look up!" Fett's voice rattled me and I had to stiffen my whole body in order to not lose my balance. I would have glared at him but I saw everyone looking at the ceiling entranced and my curiosity got the better of me. It was a mirror alright, but at the same it wasn't. I could see us but instead of having our reflections directly above us, we were standing in different spaces. I felt like gears were working in my head until it clicked.

"We need to follow the pattern on the ceiling" I murmured and smiled widely but when I opened my mouth to share this with the others, something lodged on my throat. It was my words. They became sticky and thick like tar and I refused to swallow them back down, they tasted bitter, and they wouldn't get unstuck from my throat to leave my lips. They hadn't trusted me with the trees even though I had been right. What told me they would now? Just then, Ayase seemed ready to make a move just out of boredom ans I couldn't watch. I had enough! 

"We have to be in the position of our reflections!" I shouted and almost got us all into trouble because they jumped at the sudden sound but managed to stay on their tiles. "This is a reflective room! Just like with the trees and the song. We want to go to the Mirror Shard so it keeps pitting us against mirrored surfaces and distorted reflections" I panted after I explained as quickly and coherently as I could. Tol smiled at me in enthusiasm and amazement. Fett seemed to be considering it carefully. The trio looked disbelieving and I decided they really got on my nerves because they seemed hellbent to go against me on principal. I was just hoping we would eventually need the heat they were packing because right now, all they did was rattle me.

"Why should we listen to you?" DemonLord456 challenged arrogantly and flicked his hair as if he considered himself the protagonist in a shampoo ad or something. I decided not to comment on the fact that he more likely looked like he would be used for the dandruff example.

"Because he already solved the first puzzle" Tol replied defensively and I felt warm and a little shy.

"And because I said so" They had no argument over Fett's word, even though they looked like they wanted to protest. I decided to keep an eye on them because they looked like they were going to be confrontational in the near future and that would be dangerous for when we found the Empyrean. They looked too confident in their knowledge and logic to take anything else into consideration and there was nothing that pissed me off more than smallminded people who believed they were right on default.

"Even if we wanted to move the tiles, how do we do that without moving from them?" Ayase asked exasperated and her half lidded eyes seemed to open a tad more. Yeah, that was why I hadn't wanted to share my thoughts before I had solid plan first. My palms started sweating and I shook my arms to get rid of the tickling feeling in them. I made eye contact with Nax. He looked at ease, as if he was expecting me to figure stuff out and ask for his help. 

"Nax, move a little aside, please" He looked surprised at my gentle manners but I wasn't sure if he was even going to understand me. The trio scoffed. Nax got up, moved a few steps to the side and then sat back down. I was amazed. Now, I could see the device a little bit clearer. There were multiple buttons on it, each one with a rune on them. I didn't know their names though and even though he seemed to understand me easily enough, how was I supposed to explain runes and their weird names and that he needed to push them in the correct order to a literal wolf?

"Lainax, do I have your attention?" I wasn't sure what Tol was about to do but I trusted her. "Can you do something for me?" Her voice was sweet and Nax's tail wagged wildly while his tongue lolled out. He almost stepped on one of the unruned tiles to get closer to Tol in his excitement. His feelings had been hurt at her cold shoulder and he was a moment short of doing pet tricks just to appease her. She giggled and the sound was so warm that it seemed to light up the dark room. I checked that my tongue wasn't also lolling out.

She started naming the runes one by one. I couldn't actually catch their names, tough luck on that because something told me I would definitely need them later on in the game. I trusted her implicitly to be using the right ones in the right order as well. Nax stood above the console and started pressing buttons. I heard a yelp and I looked behind me to see DemonLord456 trying to stand on the tile while it moved to take the position of Ch1tog3's tile as Tol commanded and Nax followed through. I thought they looked funny until my turn suddenly came and I felt a little weightless as if I was on a skateboard downhill. It was extremely hard to keep your bearings and after a certain point I wasn't even sure how Tol managed to keep spouting rune names and keep her voice steady. In order to bring us all to the right order, they both kept moving us around so much that my legs felt like jello, my upper body like it weighed a ton and would drag me down and my stomach was flipping. By the time the tiles stopped moving, we still kept staggering around and the world felt like it was still in motion.

"Did it wo-?" I won't say I wasn't just a little happy that DemonLord456 got a taste of his own medicine as he vomitted but then the sound and the smell triggered my own gag reflex as well and suddenly we were all vomitting. A purple light embraced all of us and when we looked up, the ceiling was opening up to show grass? But wait, if this was reflective and there was an opening on the ceiling-

We fell through the newly made hole.