We walk through the halls of the ancient Mall, take a left at the junction, and quietly make our way to the end of a long corridor. Our group takes one look at the sign hanging above the entrance before us and Gale asks, “Mr. Jing, did your family used to run this place?”
Olindia snerks from Chris’s tutu.
The sign reads, ‘Bell’s’ with the icon of a bell hanging from the interior of the vowel 'e' in a clever bit of iconography.
“…No relation.”
“Right,” Chris clears her voice with a bit of bravado, “So, what are we facing in here? Are Flou and Olindia getting their trios, or are we wasting our ti?”
The male Fairy grumbles his response, “I thought you wanted as many Cores as you could get? It’s about what’s available; isn’t that right?”
Tink defends her father as well, “Jing is leading us around the guard patrols. Dad can’t snap his fingers and take us to exactly what you need. Plus, the Slis move around constantly because they’re always hunting each other. There’s no guarantee anything is left here, let alone that the monster is still what Jing saw last. Cut us so slack!”
Makes sense. As long as they’re Slis, we have an idea of what we’re up against anyway. The others don’t seem inclined to object either.
We walk over the fallen doors of the Bell’s threshold to enter a large chamber much like the previous Outlet we visited. Inside are various stalls and displays in a state of disrepair and chaos. The destruction looks almost intentional—as if there were a riot here before it was abandoned. Perhaps there was.There’s no way to tell, now.
Our reflections stare back at us from hundreds of broken mirror shards scattered across the floor, most congregated around several empty fras. “What do you think this place was for? So many reflections; how strange,” Flou ponders aloud. The forr Bunny girl wouldn’t know much about ancient humanity.
Olindia provides a response before I can speculate, “Shopping. This place was, like, bursting with pretty little numbers once upon a ti. All the mirrors were set up so you could see how hot you looked in their shit. ‘Try before you buy,’ and all that crap.”
I almost ask how she could know that for certain when we spot the object of our search.
“Fuck, that’s freaky,” Chris says, nervous and disconcerted.
Before us stand two red skeletons. Well, one is upside-down on the ceiling, which baffles my brain for a mont, until we realize the ceiling is covered by an enormous mirror—miraculously intact after all these years. The strange thing is how motionless the red skeleton waits there while seemingly nothing happens. It clutches a large femur bone club in one hand and a pelvic shield in the other. Opposite the skeleton is a huge green pyramidal crystal with a mirror-fine sheen.
“Green Pyramidal Mirror Sli,” Jing says, “Good, it’s still here. The Red Bone Sli is a bonus.”
Well, green is a ‘go’ for us, right? Not sure what you an, exactly but I’m eager to evolve, my love!
“Hit ‘em with everything!” Chris cheers, eager to have us do the hard part of the fighting.
Knowing Gale has our best ranged attack, the rest of us hold a defensive line while she goes to work regardless of the bunny’s encouragent. The Rainbird flaps her wings to send a hail of Rain Pellets at the Red Bone Sli, and then the Green pyramid. Gale's projectile droplets patter uselessly against the crystal-blood bones of the Skeleton. As for the Mirror Sli, that reflective sheen shimrs as Gale’s attack rebounds toward her!
“Hey!” Gale objects as she dodges away in surprise from her own mirrored attack.
"How rude!" Monal squawks.
"It almost hit Mistress Gale! I'll break them into a million pieces for that," Rosie growls while her talons scrape impotently against the flooring.
“Projectile reflection…?” Flou mutters, her analytical mind assessing the situation.
Jonathan, I’ve been thinking… Are the Sli evolutions supposed to be on ‘equal footing?’ Because it seems at face value like Mirror has Stone beat in terms of defense. Should I feel bad? I wouldn’t feel threatened, my love. We’re about to remind this Sli of the kind of luck it can expect when mirrors shatter!
Wait! Why aren’t they moving? That’s right, even though Gale attacked both of them, neither Sli has budged an inch. They’re like statues… What gives?
“Super-duper freaky,” Olindia agrees with Chris’s initial assessnt after watching them ignore our attacks.
“That’s odd; the Mirror Sli was moving around the last ti we saw it,” Jing says. Then he shrugs.
He's right, it doesn’t matter. Right! ““We’re the only ones here who stands a chance of breaking through their defenses. We have to enter lee.””
With our comrades notified of the plan, we wade forward into the combat zone. Our double appears on the ceiling mirror as we step beneath it to close on our targets while charging ahead at full speed. Weirdly, our double above seems to grow in size in the periphery of our vision while our gazes are locked on the Green Pyramid. Yeah, our reflection is suddenly getting a lot bigger!Wait, we ssed up—
“Jonny!” Gale screams.
“Lurking Mirror Ooze!” Jing shouts an instant too late.
The ceiling mirror crashes atop Brenda and my rged form, the Red Bone Sli, and the Green Pyramidal Mirror Sli. Everything shatters. Then all hell breaks loose.
If we weren’t made of Stone and Sli, we’d have a skull fracture from the impact and lacerations all over our body. As-is, a crack oozing green sli runs along our face, and we struggle to our feet amid a sea of mirror shards that quiver and spin. The jagged-edged pieces hover in the air while buzzing about like enraged bees. Half a dozen pieces scrape against our Stone Skin in the span of a few seconds, thankfully to no avail. Gale and Chris have the presence of mind not to fire into the mirror shard madness; a chaotic ss of rebounding projectiles would make this so much worse.
We reach out and grab a mirror shard, squeezing it to powder with our bare, statuesque fist. The mirror dust falls to the ground when we open our palm, inanimate. Good! It’s not invulnerable. We'd certainly be screwed if the Ooze could control its micro-sized fragnts in a cloud of inhalable shrapnel!
The Bone and Pyramidal Slis are no longer pretending to be furniture—they must’ve sensed the Mirror Ooze’s presence earlier and entered a standstill stalemate until we arrived—and now the two of them lay into the deadly spinning shards with abandon. A Red Bone club bursts several of the reflective splinters into dust with each swing and a Red pelvis-bone-shield bats away those that get close.
Then the Green pyramid begins to glow. Its Mirror sheen radiates power while barely containing the energy inside its geotric structure. Viridian light concentrates at the tip of the pyramidal crystal until it blazes bright.
“Hey, listen! Watch out!” Tink screams at .
A red indicator springs into being within my mind’s eye that telegraphs the Green Sli’s attack. I can see it too while we’re bonded! We dodge aside, taking another dozen slices in passing from the floating mirror shards surrounding us, but we’re out of the line of fire as an energy beam erupts from the pyramid’s tip. The stream of corrosive light slashes down from ceiling to floor as the Green Sli’s gelatinous base adjusts to angle the pyramid's point. Anything that green ray touches dissolves with an acidic hiss, vaporizing a dozen mirror shards in passing.
The Geotric modifier shapes and directs the Acidic magic while its Mirror form contains and amplifies the energy within its body with each internal reflection! A deadly combination!
We don’t stop to gawk, though. No, we’ve been hard at work. Chris, Monal, and Rosie attack any stray Mirror shards that co their way while Brenda and I are in the thick of things. We catch and crush a piece of the Ooze in each hand before dropping two fistfuls of inert powder, then repeat that over and over. In half a minute, the Lurking Mirror Ooze is no more.
Leaving us alone with the enemy Slis.
And they have no concept of gratitude. The Red Bone Sli starts chucking osseous projectiles at our friends while the Pyramidal Sli charges another acid beam. We rush the Green crystal before it can fire the ray, tackling its base and wrapping our arms around its body to keep it from pointing the tip of the pyramid at anyone. A lethal ray of green magic shoots out that carves a scribbled signature in the ceiling as we struggle for control.
Olindia’s tutu tentacles intercept most of the flying femurs before they hit anyone by plucking them out of the air. It seems like Flou is attempting to seize the ruby constructs with her Blood Magic as they soar toward Chris, but their Bone aspect wards off her influence. Instead, Tink and Jing block the remaining bone barrage with transparent bubbles of blue shield magic.
“Go help Jonny and Brenda; we can stop this anie,” Gale instructs her wingmaidens as she slings another volley of Rain Pellets. This batch, however, doesn’t act like normal. Our Rainbird appears to be putting a lot more focus into their trajectory than usual. Instead of smattering against the hard bones of the Red Sli skeleton, the rain deliberately misses before falling into orbit around the enemy’s limbs. More rain circles the Bone Sli’s wrists with each flap of Gale’s wings until the droplets converge into rings. The Rainbird then lifts the skeleton into the air by the arms! Let's see it fight with two arms tied behind its back!
""Yes, Mistress Gale! Mistress Gale is amazing!""
Monal and Rosie arrive at my side just as the Green crystal in my grip starts growing another pyramid from the geotric side facing . Their ruby claws tear fissures in the mirrored surface of the Sli’s body that leak a continuous stream of acid. The avian won retreat as their talons smoke. However, Brenda and I are apparently extrely resistant to our own elent. We plunge our stony fingers into a gap without so much as a sizzle and pull. Our strength wars with the enemy’s defenses before the latter gives out with a loud *Crack!* as we wrench the pyramid open.
Good thing the Mirror form doesn’t protect against lee attacks as well as ranged!
“Hey, listen! Look!” Tink points, making a reticle appear in my mind’s eye directly on the Sli’s core.
We thrust an arm into the gooey acidic center to grab its Core. The Sli uselessly belches the Green contents of its body all over us as we pluck out the Core and hoist it high. Seconds, later, the remains of the crystalline Pyramid crumble.
The Red skeleton hasn’t remained idle while we worked, though. It continues to shoot bones from its ribcage and legs at our friends until our rged body barrels into the hanging Bone Sli. We drag it to the ground and puml its chest. Our fists hamr its ruby crystals like boulders crushing fine dinnerware. The Sli can reform its bones in an instant by converting the osseous shards to blood, which it reshapes with magic before hardening them into ruby crystals, but we’re relentless. Without lungs, we don’t need to breathe. Without muscles, we don’t get tired.
Our punches land as frequently as Rain Pellets while Flou sabotages its Blood Magic and Olindia steals dislodged chunks of red bone with her jellyfish tentacles. Together, we reduce the ruby skeleton to crystal splinters, revealing the Core hidden inside its skull.
Success!
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