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Message: <blockquote data-quote="spyscribe" data-source="post: 2271060" data-attributes="member: 5808">Part the One-Hundred NineteenthIn which: some questions about the mirror are answered.“Everyone!  Cover your eyes!” Reyu barks.The party members immediately comply, turning their eyes to the floor and shading them to avoid inadvertently looking at the mirror.“What happened to Anvil?”“I don’t know!”“I felt something… reaching for me, when I looked at the mirror, but I fought it off.  Maybe he’s inside it.”“Inside, the mirror?”“I point out again, we’re in the basement of a moving tower; it’s not that far a stretch.”“Well what are we going to do about it?”Thatch, who was standing not ten feet from Anvil when he suddenly vanished, has an idea about one thing they should do.  Being careful not to actually look at what he is doing, or to touch the surface of the mirror more than he can help, Thatch takes off his cloak and drapes it over the face of the mirror.  Tucking it in behind the frame, he cautiously cracks an eye to examine his work.“It’s covered up,” he tells the others. The other adventures cautiously open their eyes and look in the direction of the mirror.  Since none of them abruptly vanish, they relax a little bit.Eva does a quick look through Anvil’s things.  Sword, armor, even his holy symbol has been left behind.Lira looks over her shoulder.  “So, wherever he is, he’s unarmed, unarmored, and completely naked.”Eva nods.  “Looks like it.”“That probably isn’t a good thing.”“We’ve got to get him out of there,” Thatch declares.Eva rolls her eyes, “Well, of course we do, but how?”“Breaking the mirror might do it—” Annika begins.“Fine!” says Thatch, raising his sword pommel first—“Or it might kill him!” Thatch lowers his sword.  “Oh.”Annika is becoming agitated, wracking her brain for anything she might have ever learned about magic items of this nature.  “Objects like this would probably have a command word.  I mean, you’d want a way of getting people in and out of it… right?”Lira takes charge.  “Okay, let’s assume that there is a command word, and let’s also assume that he wrote it down someplace because if he memorized it, we’re back to breaking the mirror.”Annika nods.“Great.  So, where would he write it?”Annika shrugs helplessly, “I don’t know.  His spell-book?  If he kept some kind of notes…?”“Thatch, didn’t you say that room looked like a study?  Let’s check and see if there’s anything that looks relevant.”Eva offers to help, and she and Lira follow Annika into the study.Once they are gone, Kiara taps Reyu on the shoulder.  Bending a little to whisper in the elf’s ear she whispers, “I have an idea, but Annika isn’t going to like it.”###In the study, Annika sets about pouring through the many volumes as quickly as she can, looking for any reference to magic mirrors, while Eva searches for any sign of hidden drawer or other hiding place.  Lira isn’t quite sure what good her looking is going to do.  Although she is comfortable with the theories behind arcane magic and can identify most common spells by sight, she is almost entirely self-taught, and not as familiar with the actual texts as Annika is.However, perhaps because she’s not distracted by the contents of the books, Lira does notice one section where the type of books does not match the rest of the collection.  One shelf, just to the left of the door as one is entering the study, is filled with thin, cardboard-bound volumes.  She takes one down on impulse and opens it.  She finds it’s a notebook, filled with pages and pages of regular, neat script.Jackpot.###“But if I went through in swallow form” Kiara is explaining as quickly as she can to Reyu, Thatch and Benedic, “and then shifted back once I was inside the mirror, I should have all of my things still with me.”Reyu and Thatch exchange glances.  “You know,” says Thatch, “that’s really not a bad plan.”“But what if she still couldn’t get out?”  Reyu asks.“I’ve got it!”  The triumphant shout is quickly followed by Lira, emerging from the study, waving a small notebook.  “Look here,” she says and begins to read aloud: “So, if we break the mirror, it should free Anvil,” Thatch translates.Lira nods.  “Exactly.  But look at this.”  She turns the page so that everyone can see it and points out two columns of 16 words each.  (The page from Petros’ Notebook is attached at the bottom of this post.)“Why would he need so many command words?” Kiara asks.“Maybe Anvil isn’t the only thing in that mirror,” Annika suggests.“So, if we break it, we’ll release everything in there.”“Not to mention we will have destroyed the ‘masterpiece’ of an archmage.  That’s not going to make him happy,” Eva adds.“Hang on.  Hang on,” Lira interrupts.  “Look at this.  All of the word pairs share a common root and two different endings… except for the top two.  What if those aren’t command words, but column headings.  ‘Indigium’ would be words used to send someone into the mirror and ‘Anterium’ to bring them back out.”“But you don’t know that,” Annika points out.  “It could be that ‘Indigium’ are words that are used from inside the mirror and ‘Anterium’ are words used from the outside.”“Since we are outside, and we want to bring Anvil outside, that should not matter,” Reyu points out. The party agrees that they ought to do something, and sooner rather than later, as Anvil has already been inside the mirror for at least five minutes.Cautiously, Lira positions herself so that she is in front of the mirror without (hopefully) being in its direct line of effect.  She turns her head and Thatch raises the edge of his cloak from where it hangs over the glass. Lira takes a deep breath...to be continued.</blockquote>

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