We all stared at each other and then back to our dopplegangers before cautiously proceeding to get closer until we realised that it well and truly was copies of us.

“It ain’t no fucking mirror. Must be some kind of illusion. Carefully now.” Catara led us forward, and, as we reached the line, we stood face to face with ourselves as if we were staring out at an impossibly perfect mirror. Unexpectedly, caution was quickly thrown to the wind and barely a few minutes passed before there were 'wows' and weird echoed voices as everyone commented and explored the strange situation, the clones mirrored everything we did and, amusingly, Siya was completely unphased by it all to the point she was making physical contact and was patting her clone on the head, whilst likewise, her clone was patting her on the head in return.

#Godu# Siya?-Siya! Stop that! It could be dangerous!

#Siya# Sorry.

I tsk’d to myself and blew out a puff of air as I reviewed my observations.

Hmph, so I guess, mirrored, but not a literal mirror? They are definitely there and they match our every movement. Do they match our abilities?

Biggs was trying to push his clone out of the way, but couldn’t get it to budge. I analyzed his clone and felt a pang of fear as I saw it was not the attribute restricted Biggs.

“Careful Biggs! They are copies but full power ones!” Their laxidaisy attitude sobered up as they took heed and backed away.

“Bollocks..Right, I completely forgot about that.” He gulped.

This is turning pretty fucking insidious..Hmm, think..The message said “kill yourselves”? Does that-..Oh shit..I think I can see where this is going…

“We can’t get past them. We’re going to have to kill them.” My voice doubled up as my clone copied me and I rubbed my face and groaned. Me and my clone looked at each other, snorted and then frowned, all at the exact same time. It was very odd.

So damned weird..How the fuck is it doing that-

“Two problems there bub. One. If I walk up to you and try and kill your copy, look what mine does.” Catara walked up and pointed her sword at me, whilst her clone mirrored the exact same. “Dodging ain’t going to work either is it? As your copy will just do the same.”

“Righ..Uh-”

“Two. If I try to kill my own one guess what happens?” She pointed her sword at herself and her clone did the same. “We both die. Or rather I would die since I’m weakened. That bitch would probably live.” The harmonized echo was getting a bit annoying.

Ahhhhhhhhh ffffffffffffuck..What are we supposed to do then?

“Right okay. What about slipfold?” I suggested to her and my copy irritatingly matched my words. The echo was getting really annoying.

She folded her arms and tapped her chin thoughtfully, her clone doing the exact same thing and the slowly rising panic was amplifying the agitation.

Can’t kill them. Can’t get past them-fucking bloody clones!!

“Hmm. I can’t see why not actually. Try it.” She nodded at me.

Anchor placement failed.

Something shimmered in the air canceling out my placement.

Of course it would.

After a few more tests I found out that anything past the line would fail, suggesting an invisible barrier or something that was disrupting the placement.

“Shit. Okay, no dice. Somethings blocking anything past that line-ARGH! SHUT UP! That echo is so fucking annoying! I can’t take it anymore! I’m going to move back and have a think.” I stomped off angry and frustrated, thumping down and angrily watching the others discuss and try a few of their own tricks.

Catara tried to turn into the mist and pass but her clone seemingly blocked her, mist-for-mist; Angel couldn’t phase through the floor or her clone either, calmly giving up after one try; Biggs tried to do some tricky things with his platform but it was futile as anything he did, it would be copied exactly by his clone; Siya…continued to pat her clones head.

For fuck sakes Siya! Come on..Oh I just fucking give up.

They were visibly exhausted after doing a few skills and the frustration was now kicking in big time for them, as, Dave was telling himself to repeatedly shut up and die, whilst Biggs was walking away and then stopping and flipping himself off before continuing a few more paces and then stopping and doing it again. Angel and Catara were having a silent mindspeak conversation, nodding and pointing at things, whilst Siya was still doing her usual.

This is bollocks! Bullshit! What kind of stupid bloody puzzle involves killing yourselves?! Fucking how could we have even been able to do it if we were all weak as shit-

I paused and thought back to the words.

‘Please kill yourselves’..

I looked down at my hands and then up at everyone else.

I’m still fine though. The others are weak. BUT, the clones are all fine..

An interesting thought sprung to mind. A rather wild one.

No way!

Then it clicked.

“Hey Angel!” I hopped up and jogged over as she regarded me silently.

“So, this is going to sound weird but, I need you to shoot me in the head.” I pointed to myself, not my clone.

She looked at Catara.

“Angel. Ignore him. Godu. Are you fucking insane? That’s not going to solve anything. What we need to do is find out how to break the syn-...Oh….Oh-hoh. HA! Fucking smart arse-Angel scratch that. Please proceed. Dave. Get ready to heal if something goes wrong. HAHA! You smart little bastard!” She laughed as Dave gave me a concerned look. Angel just shrugged and pointed her gun at my head; I stared down the aperture and gulped.

Okay actually maybe this could still really fucking kill me-

“Uhh WAIT! Maybe shoot the leg first actually. That would be more sensible right?” I ducked out the way, Angel paused then shrugged and pointed the gun back at my head. “Angel!” I heard her snicker before she quickly pointed down and shot me in the leg at pointblank range with a

“TSSSSSSSSSS! ARGH! SHIT! FUCKER!” It stang really badly but didn’t pierce the skin.

“ARGHHH!” Meanwhile my clone had his leg blown off and was screaming, completely desynced with me and had fallen right over.

“Quickly! Try and make your clone shoot it!” My clone started to almost glitch out as it desperately tried to mimic some of my gestures, spasming and twitching, attempting to standup but failing. I hobbled out of the way and the clone started scrambling in the growing pool of blood on the floor in what a most sad, horrific attempt to resume its syncronisation, as if by just simply reaching my coordinates, it would be fulfilling at least a tiny purpose of its existence..But Angel was ruthless and precise, taking merely a few glances, she shot into the ground where my clone was and her clone blasted the shit out of my clone, shortly killing it.

That was somewhat..grim. RIP clone.

There was a stunned silence and for a very small split second, I swear I caught the clones giving each other nervous side glances, but that’s probably because all the real folk just realised they might need to get shot, ha.

When my clone didn’t move after a few more moments, Biggs, Dave and Catara gave a few nervous cheers and praises my way, which weirdly erupted from both sides, but I was now alone in my voice as I responded to the praises, thankfuck, and so we moved onto seeing if I could attack a clone now that my one was lifeless.

“I’ll try a shard into Biggs. Okay?” I looked at the real Biggs and he gave a wide sarcastic smile and a thumbs up.

“By all means mate! Pick on poor little me!”

I gave him a wink and slugged a shard into his clone, but the second the shard touched the line, ALL the clones turned to me and screamed this horrific, bone chilling wail and my dead clones corpse violently started to shake. A black smoke swirled in from the line and smothered my corpse, lifting and regenerating it and placing it back in sync with me.

“Oh shit..Okay then, lesson learned. No direct attacks are allowed from us...Shit that would have turned out bad had we tried to kill each other..No matter, I’ve got an even better idea!”

I got Angel to repeat the leg shot and subsequent butchering of my clone, suffering the same weird sense of guilt as my clone writhed and screamed in glitching, existential pain.

“Gahh that fucking stings!..Okay, here’s the next part. Angel, you stand there, Biggs, come stand here. I’ll stand inbetween-Nay! I’ll put my shield, inbetween, ha! Good thing I had shreddies for breakfast..Angel, all you need to do is aim for his head but my shield will block your shots, whilst the clones get blasted..Hopefully-ha.” I barked out a premature victory laugh, managing to cough it off and mentally scolded myself for doing such a thing.

But the logic is sound! Right? This should work!

And it did.

Gloriously.

Once Angels clone had finished blasting all the other clones, Angle turned the gun on herself and I put a shield inbetween her weapon and her own head before she took the shot, forcing the clone to kill itself, and a small tone and a faint shimmer in the middle of the room indicated we had completed the stage.

As we stepped over, Siya turned back with a somewhat sad look on her face and did a little wave to her clones corpse.

Aw..man..

It hadn’t really occurred to me to consider that the clones were some kind of conscious lifeform made from ourselves-

I stopped and glanced back, taking a long last look at the bodies.

-or even worse, what if WE were the clones.

…

Unsure if I was truly certain, I shrugged it off and walk on.

Naahhh, I’m not a clone..but uhh, probably best to not dwell on it anyway…

At the other end of the room we reached the exit, and before passing through the next doors we were greeted with another message.

The light is not always good, it can burn and blind.

The dark is not always bad, it seeks to protect and hide.

Will you grip tightly onto the beacon of light?

Or will you allow it to cast shadows in your mind?

The Lonely Flame: The torch allows ONE of you to pass through the veil.

“Doesn’t sound too bad, especially compared to fighting dinosaurs..” Dave chuckled to himself.

Everyone groaned.

“What??” He sounded genuinely offended.

“Nice flag mate. I’ll put that on your tombstone.” Biggs patted him as he walked past.

We entered a long dark corridor room, and at the end were 6 open doorways. The doorways were completely pitch black themselves, but a single purple flamed torch sitting neatly in the middle of room on a pedestal softly illuminated most of the surfaces that were-

Cracks? Euck.Fucking cracks..

The wall and floor surfaces were riddled with fissures and cracks, like pottery that had been left out to dry in the sun; it reminded me of dark memories..We walked forward towards the light.

“Well, I’m guessing one person needs to take the torch, pass through a veil and find a button or something..” Dave softly spoke but was also carefully scanning around, Angel and Biggs each had a light source on their weapons that they used to paint our path in a pale blue light.

Oh yeah, that reminds me, I need to test out that new-

Everyone suddenly froze, including me.

An awful, cold feeling of dread and faint pins and needles started to crawl over my skin. Agh. I can’t..Move! My eyes darted around, fearfully checking the abyssal dark nooks an crannies. My mind started to play tricks on me, making me think thin ribbons of something was shifting and moving between the cracks and crevices all around us..

No way-

Only, the mind didn’t need to play tricks these days, reality did that aplenty.

Oh nonono, not those FUCKING THINGS-

A flat cartoonish scribble-head poked its head in front of Angels torchlight, illuminating its massive white eyes that sported a large black pupil wildly looking at us all. And then another poked up, like a curious chicken. And then another did. And another. None of the others moved or screamed.

They couldn’t.

They were completely paralyzed.

Label: Crevice Horror

MAGN: 99.99

HP: 2900/2900

Extremely thin and extremely dangerous. They slip into the thinnest of cracks and crevices and lie in wait to ambush their prey. They are equipped with intentionally confusing and disorientating appearances-

SHIT! THEY ARE EVERYWHERE!!! SEREN!!

Seren burst out and charged into the closest ones, obliterating them into shreds of horrid scraps, mercifully releasing me from their paralyzing grip.

Sorry darling! I was so tired sorry! I’m so sorry! I-I-

It’s okay Seren! We just need to get to the end and find a way to-

A crevice horror tackled into me but it felt little more than a paper bag blowing a gust of wind into me. With a confused frown, I grabbed its slimy neck and hurtled it into a wall, splattering it like a handful of spaghetti, but the spaghetti slopped down and started to regenerate into a dozen more smaller spaghetti’s. The exact same thing played out with the ones that Seren had flattened.

“Ahhh shit! I forgot they’re like fucking starfish!”

The others were still frozen in place, but I could see the pissed off look in Siyas eyes and the terrified looks in Dave and Biggs, Angel could have been smiling for all I knew and Catara didn’t look fussed at all, just carefully watching me.

“Right! I need to get you guys away! Seren, help me clear some space and thn grab the torch and hurry over!”

On it darling!

Hopefully there’s some trick we can use to get us all through..

In the pace of a few seconds, I checked the others were clear, turned my head and placed an Anchor point at the end of the room, hurriedly making sure the others were enveloped in my folds sphere of influnce and slipf-

Wait NO! I can’t reach him! GODU!-

In a confused panic I snapped back around, but it was just a fraction of a second too slow. Biggs had been yanked clear of my slipfold and we had left him behind..In the blink of an eye, the rest of us were at the end of the room and the scribbles had already descended upon him and ripped him apart, his limbs, his head, his torso, all torn into bloody shreds.

“NO!-”

My stomach lurched as I frantically placed anchors but the horrors carrying pieces of him all ran back to their cracks like victorious, eager fucking little nighmares, disappearing with his parts..leaving behind red clotted splatters and smears as they forcefully squeezed their fleshy prizes with them.

Biggs team icon flickered then faded out completely.

“GODS FUCKING DAMN IT!!!” I clenched my fists and had to restrain myself from going into a blood frenzy. I felt responsible and enraged, but I needed to protect the others since the crevice horrors were seeping out from everywhere apart from the 6 tunnels behind us.

No Godu! I’m so sorry! I couldn’t-

It wasn’t your fault! Please just help me keep the others safe!

O-of course!-WATCH OUT ABOVE YOU!

Reality became a living nightmare as they spilled down from the ceiling and smothered me, gnashing and clawing at my skin like piranhas made from paper mache, their giant madness filled eyes glinted and reflected soft flecks of light as they flooded my world, confusing and blocking everything out.

“FUCKING GET OFF-”

I tried ripping them off but it was like trying to pull plasters that had been super glued to my skin, so I reigned in my slipfold as close to my skin as possible and folded multiple times, severing their body parts and breaking free.

NOOOOOOO!!!

Serens construct screamed a synthetic cry and I felt a blast of displaced air as she slammed her shields into something close by..Her intervention greatly helped as I managed to surface out of the horrid, jet black, slimy, spaghetti mess, allowing me to look in the direction where I’d thought I left them....but the others were just..gone.

“SIYA? CATARA??!!! ANGEL??? DAVE?”

Their icons flickered and faded out.

“No. NO. What just FUCKING HAPPENED! SIYA!? CATARA??”

No! No! They’re coming from the floor! New cracks are appearing everywhere!

Dozens of the little scribble fucks were scrambling and dragging bits of red globs, white fragments, yellow pieces of fat, bone and offal..My team..My friends..Siya..My family..

There were sickening thock noises as I heard skulls cracking open like coconuts as the crevice horrors shoved them into their thin hideaways.

In the space of a few moments, I had lost all of them..All that remained were shredded rags and pieces of filthy gore coated equipment.

Siya..Siya no..It can’t be...

GODU WE HAVE TO GO!

I swallowed back the tears and clenched my teeth.

But..they killed them Seren. They KILLED SIYA..They need to FUCKING DIE!

Something grabbed my foot and started painfully pulling; I responded by deploying my null armanents in my greaves and I stomped it brutally before reaching down and pulling it out and repeatedly punching it with a null clawed gauntlet, smashing it into paste that splattered on the ground where it began to regrow.

I know! I know..But there’s too many and..Something is behind this. They are rigging the environment and changing it on purpose. I could somehow sense it! It’s THEIR fault...We need to find them. I don’t think we can kill these with force..But we can raze this place to ground, and...Please..We need to survive..For Marri and Lone..

……

Ripping out another crevice horror and smashing it to pieces, I realised that beating them was about as satisfying as challenging a swimming pool and punching the water.

“AGHH!.......Right. Let’s go.”

Slipfolding back to Seren who was repeatedly slamming her kite shields into the ground, grinding a mass of the scribbles into slimy dust, she handed me the torch and burst into a mist, slamming into my back.

This can’t be real..I’m..so sorry Siya...Everyone..I KNEW we shouldn’t have come back..This can’t be real!..

I fought back choking agony and chose the middle path, running away from the screaming, trumpeting fucks..Everything felt dislocated and blurred, like I was in a bathroom at a heavy party, completely shit faced and staring at myself in the mirror whilst my intoxicated and neural transmitter blocked mind struggled to continue its routines and processes about what had just happened.

My mind quickly steadied itself and clouded my recent history, perhaps by way of some psychological process that disrupted the neural pattern that made up the hurtful memory, and it merely took maybe 30 or 60 seconds of steady jogging before I found the exit, weaving and skidding through the basic tunnel maze, and, once I was out, I found myself breaching into a huge cavernous area, much like the very beginning, only this time there was an exceedingly large, embedded, temple structure on the other side of the path, with massive steps leading up to thick pillars, the entire thing was half carved out of the rock;

“Fucking cliche. What is this? Tomb raider?” I snarled in anger and treaded carefully along the path.

At the bottom of the giant stairs, I noticed there were 6 of the same stone coffins and then an altar with a flat square screen surface with a message on it.

Alas, our journey nears it’s end, and just as it is in life, it is a long path that we tread. Do you know when it even started?

Regardless, you’ll never know which day is your last. So do not be afraid to cross this line, embrace it, as it is now your time.

Animam Agere: A corpse must fill each coffin.

I roared in anger and punched the stone screen, doing zero damage but chipping 10 HP off myself and slumped down against the pedestal.

I….

Silent droplets splashed into the dirt as I stared at the floor.

Flashes of memories with Siya betrayingly rolled around my mind.

The day I met her, the poor little creature with mangled legs, our fake memory, family world, with a little fake moth daughter, the look of gratefulness and joy when we made our soulbinding pact, all the times she would give me a puzzled look of curiosity and ask me to clarify a ‘weird human ritual’ or ‘habit’...the time she dove into this hellhole to come save me. When she protected Marri and Lone..The happiness in her eyes when I told her she was more than welcome to come stay with us, part of my family...The joy she had playing with ‘little hatchling’...

And look where we are now…LOOK where she is now!!.....

And then I hated myself for not even thinking about the others..I hated myself for letting her convince me to do this. I hated myself for coming back to this place..I hated myself, for once again leaving Marri and Lone.

And now what? I’m absolutely fucked.

“I DON’T EVEN FUCKING HAVE ENOUGH CORPSES TO OPEN THE FUCKING DOOR!”

I jumped up and grabbed the nearest stone lid. I wanted to destroy this place. I wanted to destroy the stupid gates and messages. I wanted to destroy the stupid fucking stone coffins. I wanted to destroy SOMETHING-

“SCREEEEEEEEEE!”

OH PERFECT TIMING! OH YES! COME HERE YOU BASTARDS!

A sound, that would have normally sent ice running through my veins, instead filled me with a burning rage and violent excitement, and, as I clocked the small hatches in the artificial caves ceiling opening and dropping out a trickle of corrupted, I placed anchors around the area and triggered Blood wrath.

[Blood Wrath I] activated (-25% HP).

“A DELICIOUS GIFT FROM THE HEAVENS? FUCKING FINALLY SOME GOOD FODDER!! I’LL GIVE YOU YOUR FUCKING CORPSES!”

Because of course I wouldn’t ven have time to grieve.

Of course I wouldn’t even get a break or have it easy.

Of course the universe was going to hurl everything it had at me..But I had come too far to give in now. I wasn’t going to let Siya and the others down. I wasn’t going to leave Marri and Lone to fend for themselves in such a shithole of a universe.

Fuck that. This utter bullshit has become personal now.

The corrupted got up from their crash landing aerial deployment and they wailed and screamed, vocalising their offense at my presence before they charged forward. I felt a maddening adrenaline rush as I deployed my shields into config:prime and did one last double check on a particular new party trick I felt would do quite nicely right now.

[Graven Image]. Shrouds the user in a Null avatar that deflects all projectiles and physical attacks for a limited time. Heavily consumes MP and DS.

Unlocks Flight capability in combination with config:prime. Consumes MP.

Unlocks Null light passive. Null light allows the user to emit a light that can only be seen by the user and approved entities.

Yeah. That’ll do.

I activated the skill and I indeed became shrouded in some kind of gothic silvery plasma. Everything turned a strange black and white with dark blue and red undertones like faint pearlescent paint, and already, the first corrupted had reached me and tried to spear into me, but my shields blurred forward and uppercutted it effortlessly and sent it hurtling up into the air. My shields snapped behind as a blast of heat pulsed through me and I felt it being diverted to my back where it vapourised the air with an audible hiss; I crouched before surge leaping up and there was a short coil whine before a thunderous crack signalled me taking off and propelling me upwards with absurd speeds in such a short amount of time. With my fist, I impacted the airborne corrupted and penetrated its chest with my null clawed gauntlets, and, clutching onto a sickeningly strong organ that should have been its heart, but felt like a pulsing ball of steel, I held on tightly, and swerved us down as the corrupted screamed in my face and tried to hit me, but its blows skidded harmlessly off me as we plummeted down towards a coffin. The impact was unreal, as I slammed the corrupted into the indestructible material of the coffin. It didn’t break, so physics decreed that ‘all such force must escape back the other way’ but, in the Graven Image shroud, I was also considered an indestructible object, and thus, physics decreed confusion before decreeing its verdict, ‘all such forces will now convert into heat, light and kinetic energy, and will return and disperse through-’ the abomination burst into flames as it was physically crunched into mush.

The corrupteds organ I had a grip on dislodged, and, with a roar, I dragged it out of the pile, ripping it free of the horrendously strong, wiriry tendons and muscle tissue, and held it up, panting from the exertion of it all.

“What..The-fuck..Is-that!”

It was distrubingly heart shaped, but was made of some kind of inky metal mixed in with metallic flesh. It disintegrated in my hands and a huge plume of smokey Majik crashed into me, regenerating all my wounds and restoring my resources back to full.

Bloody hell-

A corrupted tried to tackle me from the side but instead deflected off me and went flying past like I was made of butter. It was violently stopped as it impacted another stone coffin, the force of the event was so great that I saw a heat haze shimmer and arcs of plasma sparked and flared up like a firework had gone off, scorching the monsters flesh, and the corrupted itself tried to stand up but either its spine or hips were broken because it only managed to gargle, confused, as it failed its first step and promptly folded in half.

GOOD! I HOPE IT HURTS! FLOPPY CUNT!

It tried again and the sight was comical “PAHA!” I barked out a savage, hate filled laugh as a dozen corrupted reached me and I felt my resources drain rapidly as they clawed and grabbed at me.

“HA-ARGH! JUST! FUCK! OFF!”

Taking a note from the previous kill, I crouched slightly and heard the short coil whine before I shot off and up into the air, slipping free of all the grubby, spoiled, little hands. I reached the cavern ceiling and then sharply performed an arc, sprinting at full pelt and then kicking off from the ceiling and surge leaping away into a nosedive, that I enhanced even further with a shoulder charge cancel and finally, spontaneously combining surge with Graven Image, which, turned the world into streaks of light as I went very hypersonic, my trajectory aimed at the crippled corrupted and its screeching friends-

GODU WAIT! CAREFUL!-OH TITFUC-

-I was on a completely different plane as I screamed with fury, my shields snapping forward, and I impacted like I was a fucking exctinction level comet, right into the lot of them. Impossibly, I received no damage initially, nor felt the impact, but instead, the air around me spontaneously ignited, and my perception flickered and slowed down like reality had became a story flick book. The pages of existence slowly turned with crisp sounds as I slowly drifted backwards in the air, my mind, registering the birth of a miniature white hot ball of plasma that started expanding and expanding until *it* consumed me and everything around me. The world turned blindingly white, simultaneously giving off ungodly levels of heat and energy that washed over me as I curled up into a ball, held my breath, and pulled my shields close to me and slipfolded…and slipfolded..and slipfolded.

But no matter where I went, *it* was there, searing and peeling back all my layers of protection, finding tiny cracks and holes in my stuttering shroud as my resources ran dry and my flesh started to suffer the ultimate consequences.

The heat and light was everything. It was everywhere.

That is, until it was not-

…

..

.