story Part One - The existential dread of the White Box Building

[TiffanyKorta]

The brain is pretty amazing, able to cope with almost impossible things. As such those that looked in the mirror didn’t realise that anything was amiss, until it slowly dawned on them that the image in the mirror wasn’t reflecting this small storage room. The shelves were mostly empty and the floors littered with trash, as if the place had been abandoned for quite a while.

 

The slow dawning of the changes meant that when someone called out from the mirror it wasn’t as much of a surprise, for the rest of you it might be more shocking to hear the voice of someone else in the room.

 

“I apologize for this rather shoddy rescue but someone has accelerated things beyond our control.”

 

The woman in the mirror wasn’t particularly impressive, a South-Asian woman of only around 5’2” (~1.57m). But she carried herself with extreme confidence and has a distinctive look with her (natural) red hair in two braids and piercing green eyes. She was also dressed somewhat conservatively with a business suit, but also wore at her waist an ornate looking rapier. 

 

“I would like to have had more time to earn your trust, but for now I need you to do just that. If I was there it would tip whoever is involved that I’m helping, so I need you to join me.”

 

Knowing there might be some scepticism she thrust her hand through the glass, which seemed to act like she was in the very same room. Her hand was however real, and you could make out the intricate henna designed painted on the back of her hand. The hand made a signal to follow before retreating back through the mirror.

---

The mirror acts as a instant teleport between the two locations (and Earth) feel free to move your characters through the mirror to this alternative world. 

[Sir Lazeabout]

Well, Jane isn't one to hesitate just because things are completely insane and make no sense. With a cry of "GERONIMOOOOOOO!!!" she takes a flying leap through the mirror.

[Whisper]

The visual search for an impromptu weapon yielded nothing useable, unfortunately.

Not that Martin was particularly adept with any kind of melee weapon - whether improvised or professional - unless they were controllable by keyboard, mouse or controller but having something solid in hand would at least have given him an illusion of control and self-efficacy. Time and again, his eyes touched upon the mirror - and each time, he had the impression of missing something.

The hall outside seemed quite enough, at least. Though... the demon could be quiet enough that the sound of its approach didn't penetrate the door. Rubbing a hand over his face, Martin pushed down the threatening panic; he'd deal with that when - if ! - it happened. Somehow.

 

The appearance of a foreign woman in the reflection made him blink, then point at the mirror with a croaked "Uhm..." to bring the others' attention to it. Not exactly articulate but... unnecessary, apparently, as the 'reflection' spoke.

 

While he was still trying to process apology, explanation and invitation, Miss Suicide-plan was true to her apparent self and jumped at the mirror. Through the mirror.

 

Portals, gates, teleportation, dimensional rifts, mirror-realms - Martin was 'familiar' with those and similar concepts from TV shows, books and games - but incorporating such into his understanding of reality was more difficult, even in face of Miss Suicide-plan's apparent successful transition to... mirror-land. 

 

Martin considered. On one hand, there was a mirror he could go through into somewhere else with a person that seemed to be helpful (might even already have helped - could this woman be Mr. Wiry's 'wizard' ?). On the other hand, there was a demon whose touch turned people into mud... things under its control. Would the police arrive before its return - and if yes, would they be able to hurt, kill or drive it off ? Martin's decision was the rational one. Mostly. Well, nine tenths rationality and one tenth curiosity. Abandoning his post next to the door, he studied the not-reflection in the mirror for a long moment before slowly climbing through.

 

[Anthr4xus]

Rachel stared dumbfounded at the mirror next to her as two people of the small crowd in the closet just... vanished into it. Even with the impossibility stomping around outside the closet, mirrors aren't doors, they are just means of making sure a deception would sell.  She blinked and moved enough that she could see the abandoned ruin shown in the mirror.  It was a comfort that she could see the prior two taking a few tentative steps away.  The crowd still in the closet pushed and moved behind and around her.  "Well," she thought, "it can't be more of a dead-end than this closet is."

 

She took a deep breath and with her eyes closed, she stepped forward through the seemingly solid glass.

 

On the other side, she peeked with one eye first then let her breath out and took a step to get clear of the mirror on this side.  She began picking a route through the rubble to see what could be seen beyond the ruin.

[jabberwock]

Telly was searching behind the mirror when the voice spoke up through the mirror.  He thought nothing of it at first, likely one of the people stuck in the closet with him was speaking up.  But he came around the mirror just in time to see a hand poke through the surface.  It surprised him enough that he stumbled back and bounced against one of the shelves, where he rested as a few of the others took the woman up on her offer.

 

As they stepped through the portal, the technician edged around the room until he could see the mirror itself.  He finally acknowledged what had been lingering in the back of his mind: that the image in the mirror, while still showing the same room, had marked differences.  It was dusty, empty, and disheveled, other than the odd Asian woman and his three former closet compatriots.  It was clear that no harm had come of the others; had the mirror been backed against a wall, Telly would have been convinced that someone had cut a hole through the sheetrock.

 

He reached out tentatively, letting his fingers slip through the opening.  He half expected a Matrix moment, where liquid glass rippled like the surface of a puddle, but the space beyond was as open and clear as it looked.  With half a feeling of excitement and half of dread at the sheer stupidity of his actions, Telly stepped through the portal into the area beyond the looking glass.  He glanced about in wonder, taking in the littered floor and dusty shelves.  Then he sneezed.

[wtaylorjr2001]

"I knew something like this would happen, we're off to see the wizard," Micheal thought as he walked towards the obviously magical mirror. With one glance back at the staffroom door, he stepped through the mirror with his eyes closed.

[Thot]

First a demon, and now that ? Had Akhtar fallen asleep in the DMV, and was he now dreaming ? The smells and sounds were so vivid though...

 

It made no sense, but there was certain danger beyond that door, and promise of a respite beyong that mirror, that several others had already walked through... it made no sense, except that it really seemed like the sensible thing to do, and so Akhtar crossed through the mirror, and felt a shiver down his spine as he did so.

[matt_s]

And if you go chasing rabbits and you know you're going to fall ... mutters Tim ... But where is Alice? I think she'll know.

 

The "oldies" (confound it, was "Jefferson Airplane" an "oldie" now?) along with the bizarre massacre and now all this had got him in that kind of mood.

But nonetheless, Tim with a deep and anxious breath steadied himself as much as could and steeped through into the beyond.

[TiffanyKorta]

When everyone was through she banished the mirror portal with the wave of her hand, leaving behind what appeared to be a charcoal sketch of both the mirror and room you were just in.

 

“I’m sure that you have many questions, but for now I can only answer a few that you need to know.”

 

She walked into the main room you were in only a few moments before, except this one had been abandoned for many years. Water was dripping from the roof and the whole area smelled of mildew and decay, luckily there didn’t seem to be any bodies around that you could make out.

 

“The enemy we face work by swapping creatures between parallels, so I had to bring you to one that cannot provide bodies. Try not to disturb the plants here, some of them are violent to humans…” she provided this information like it was nothing, like a movie or dining recommendation.

 

Her target was a large elaborate carpet that had been laid over one of the larger desk, which she took up a cross legged pose, laying her blade close enough to be used if trouble started.

 

“Like attracts like, so we should be far enough away that they won’t find us in a hurry, though those mud men were a little surprising.” Again she seemed to be underplaying the weirdness of all this, to her it must have just been normal to her.

 

“Whilst I meditate and cast my astral body to check, get yourself something to drink.” She gestured to a generator and a slight out of place looking fridge.

 

“One at a time go to the fridge and imagine what you wish to find in there, the fridge is well stocked so you should find what you’re after. After that I suggest you get to know your new allies, I promise that I’ll explain everything when I get back.”

---

She's subtly teaching you to use the Find Item ability for the first time, it won't fail if you see that it's a power that you have, but it might obviously cause you some concern. 

 

How I imaging this is that you edit reality to have the item that means it was always just there, whilst the other side drag items from one universe to another. Which happily works for both the Amber books and the movie so win, win!

[Whisper]

Martin slowly took a few step further into the mirror-storeroom - more to make way for the others to follow through the mirror than anything else - while his gaze slowly swept through the room. More and more made the step from... there to here until everyone had gone through the mirror. Which the woman promptly waved away, leaving only an charcoal sketch of what was reality. Like a chalk outline at a crime scene. Martin thought unconsciously, falling victim to what was a media stylistic device rather than actual investigative practice.

Prompted by the woman moving to the other, larger room, Martin followed and listened.

 

The Swiss had questions. A lot of them. Problem was, he could neither decide with which to start, nor how to phrase them. And the woman then forestalled them by first giving some answers then withdrawing onto a carpet and... Meditation ? Really ? 

Looking at the woman, sitting cross-legged on the carpet, rapier in easy reach, Martin didn't pose any of his questions and instead grumbled to himself. Softly and under his breath, for disturbing the woman would be... impolite. 

Ungrateful too - probably, assuming that she did really save them - and possibly dangerous, given the pointy weapon, but it was indeed the incivility of any such attempt that stopped the Swiss.

Instead, he looked at the others then at the out-of-place looking fridge and made his way there. Something - anything - to drink would indeed be very welcome; the elementary prosaicness a reaffirmation of... real and mundane. 

 

Opening the fridge, Martin didn't really know what to expect. Or what he wanted, at least not consciously. What he saw in the fridge, though, was an utter surprise. Slowly, he reached inside the fridge, his fingers closing hesitantly, almost as if fearing whatever he saw might just vanish upon being touched, around one of the PET bottle inside. Studying the brown plastic container*, he closed the fridge and move several steps away before slowly unscrewing the lid of his prize and taking a tiny sip.

Finding the taste matching that of his memory, he takes a bigger sip before sighing contentedly. He had no idea whatsoever how bottles of not only Rivella - which, to his knowledge, wasn't sold in any noticeable quantity outside of Switzerland, its direct neighbouring countries and either Denmark or Netherlands, he couldn't remember - but Rivella Grün, which was hard to find even in Switzerland, ended up in that fridge. But for the moment, he was content to postpone that question.

 

After another sip or two, he asked in his slow, British-drawling accent "Sooo... introduction time ?" He unconsciously straightened his posture and shifted his stance to feet shoulder width apart. "I'm Martin. Martin LüthiMAR-teen LY-tee (the 'ee' are short, the 'y' as in French "tu"

IPA: ˈmartiːn ˈlyːti. Or TinuDeenoo ('ee' short, 'oo' long), if that's easier." Having experience with the inability of most native English speakers to pronounce umlaute (and their propensity of anglicising proper names), he chose to provide easier-to-pronounce regional nickname along with his name. "And I'm a tourist -" he glanced around at the twisted reflection of the DMV and added "- doubly so."

 

---

*

The Bottle

 

[Sir Lazeabout]

Many questions? Jane can only really think of one, and it goes something like, "... uhm... whut? Like, seriously, whut?!" You have to have some kind of grip on the situation to start with before you can start asking questions, and right now she feels like she's lacking even the most rudimentary one. She could ask what that demon-looking thing back there had been, but to do that she'd need to make room in her worldview for the existence of demon-looking things, and she has a vague feeling that that in itself is going to take some doing. She's never been a particularly great thinker, after all - "don't think, just do it!" has always been her motto. It's starting to dawn on her, though, that you need to have some sort of clue about what 'it' is before you can do it, and that requires thinking. Damn. What a cunundrum.

 

She heads to the fridge to buy some time for things to magically start making sense. At least she knows what a fridge is, and she's never found anything worse in hers than badly past-its-expiration-date takeout. She pictures a bottle of her favourite energy drink, and when she opens the door after Martin, sure enough it's there. She doesn't question it. Hey, that mysterious chick said it was well-stocked!

 

"Hiya, Martin!" she says, cheerfully if somewhat breathlessly. "I'm Jane. I'm an athlete."

[Anthr4xus]

Rachel had wandered over to a broken window to look out at the ruins of the city sprawled out before her.  Weirdly massive plants twisted through the rubble, odd flowers and pods peaking out through broken walls and windows like warzone survivors. "How pretty," she thought until she heard their supposed savior mention that some of them were dangerous. With a shudder she stepped away from the window and into the room with the fridge.  

 

She opened the fridge as others had before, smiling as she saw the single bottle of Jolt cola inside.  The soda had been discontinued for a couple of years, but apparently their now meditating host was accurate that with some thought the fridge could provide apparently anything.  She wondered about using it to... what?  Summon?  Create? Whatever.  She wondered if it could make things that weren't drinks?  Maybe if she could get a minute with it to play, she could find out. 

 

She still wasn't sure what had really happened back in the DMV, but there was no way this could be a con.  It was just too much, and too unbelievable.  Looking at the rest of her new group of marks, there were one or two that looked fancy, but no one carried themselves as rich enough to make something like this worthwhile.  She leaned against a wall, sipping her drink and thinking about the how and why that someone could possible have to try to set up a game as ludicrous as this.  She heard people start to introduce themselves as her mind began to race.  Who should she be in this situation?  What was the optimal play?

 

For the first time in a long, long time she felt a faint thrum. It was a ghost of the old excitement of pulling a big lie.  Something was going on, and she was in the middle of it.  Maybe there was something to work with here after all.  Lessons for the future at the very least.  Her best play was to fit the role of a mark, blend in with the rest, but keep looking for the turn.  She just wish she had a disguise or something.  Everything felt at a safer distance when she wasn't wearing her real face.

[matt_s]

Tim shrugs, opens the fridge, and pulls out a can of 'gansett lager. The can is cracked open with the typical aluminum snap and the beer inside has that artisanal mass produced Rhode Island quality about it. All in all a perfectly serviceable and unremarkable beverage. Unremarkable except for the obvious. It just worked, just like how VLOOKUP and PIVOTTABLES worked in everyone's favorite office spreadsheet software. Some of his companions appeared somewhat dazzled or bewildered, but Tim, perhaps oddly for an accountant, did not. He think he was coming to grips with all these happenings precisely because it was so absurd, so reality shattering, that his rational mind had nothing better to do than stop and pick up the pieces and keep moving forwards.

 

All that about astral projecting, violent plants, mud men - it made sense in its on inverted Alice-In-Wonderland sort of way, after all. One followed naturally from the other until it reached a conclusion.

Name's Tim, and you can certainly call me that I suppose. I was an accountant, if that matters now given all this. Now, we must till the soil that lies before us or else perish I fear.

[jabberwock]

Their surroundings were strange, to say the least.  The building had been populated and stained with blood only moments before, but passing through the mirror (?!?) had left them in a deserted and dusty facsimile of their DMV.  On the surface, he was following the events, moving with the group and listening to the string of consonants and vowels issuing forth from the Asian redhead.  But internally, he was mentally stalled and had trouble trying to kickstart his brain into motion.

 

The words coming from their guide all made sense, individually.  He knew those words.  They were English.  But the structure and context had him completely blindsided.  He was still reeling at "enemies" (because he has some now?) when the words "swapping creatures" and "parallels" passed him by.  "Violent" was a word he only encountered on the news, and he was having trouble associating it with "plants", though the word "mud" had somehow preceded "man", and "astral" was used in a completely serious context.

 

The only phrase that made sense was "get yourself something to drink" and "well stocked".  He latched on to the sanity, the only thought that subsisted in the rapidly dwindling rational part of his mind.  Yes, liquid.  Thirst.  A queue formed.  A line to alleviate thirst.  Normality, banality.  Telly stepped into the line and waited for those in front of him to complete their first task in this upside down world.  When his turn came, he felt foolish but held the simple thought: Oh magic fridge, please give me an iced coffee.

 

With baited breath, he opened the fridge door and discovered that the refrigerator had delivered.  Inside stood an assortment of iced coffees and teas, like what you might see in the refrigerated section of a grocery store.  He selected one and unscrewed the top with a satisfying little pop! that indicated the seal was broken.  Then he turned his attention back to the group.

 

They sat around the fridge chatting like it was break time at the watercooler.  Awkwardly leaning one arm against a nearby dusty counter, he joined in on the introductions.  It was like starting a new job.  "James," he said, gesturing at himself with his drink.  "James Tellerheim, but I grew up with a couple of other Jameses, so everyone calls me Telly.  I do customer support work."

[Thot]

It was hard to remain poised when you stepped for the first time in another world through a magical portal of some sort, but Akhtar was sticking to his dignity with some success. He stood erect - stiff was closer to the truth - and he looked all around with his mouth well shut for lack of proper things to say. He looked all around, down at the decrepit soil, up at the mildewed ceiling, back at the scribbled walll, and also very much at the faces of all those around him...

 

Their savior had indicated that they were to remain here for now while she was doing... stuff... and that she would explain later. Akhtar didn't quite like to follow orders but in these very particular occasion, he didn't really mind, and instead quietly waited for now.

 

When it was his turn, he went to the fridge, and got exactly what he hoped from it, a cup steaming hot mint-tea, heavily sugared. It was as sweet as what he remembered in the streets of Cairo, and that brought him comfort, and a smile. At that time too, he had felt like the world was full of wonders, and he had wanted to see it all.

 

Looking at his fellow Travelers, he raised his cup in salute, and introduced himself. "Greetings ladies, gentlemen. I am Akhtar Mubarak, a culture councilor at the Egyptian Embassy. It is a pleasure meeting you." he said in near perfect Oxford english. The words came to him naturally, because he was used to saying them day in, day out for his job.