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Next nest ???!
(Illuminated manuscript bit-check sizing on computer)
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You find yourself in a most peculiar lair.
It is enclosed, you know it is. Stepping through the mirror you found yourself in a theatre parlor, but now you are outside, though you know you are somehow within a mirror.
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The Cresent moon shines brightly above in the blackened night sky, the blinding white light failing to illuminate much of anything beyond it, and you feel heat, as if you were bathed in the sun's warm rays on a summer afternoon.
Below you, the floor is cool and slick, and looks to be bathed in the light of the sun, yet the orb under the ground seems to absorb light, not give it off. It is unmistakably golden, a parallel to the moon above. You can see clouds reflected in the floor, caught in a breeze across the sky; but only see stars in a clear night sky when you glance above.
With a steady breath you step forward, continuing on, and the strangeness grows. Contradictions of the world around you intertwining with whatever you'd previously established as reality.
Lawn flamingos litter crystal outcrops nestled among patches of grass, along the ceiling in the sky. The stars begin to separate into patterns, creating twinkling outlines of canyons and riverbeds.
A goose the size of a gaoler flies past you upside down, intersecting what you'd come to view as the floor, and dipping into the strange daytime below you.
You stare.
You blink.
When you open your eyes it is bright above and dark below. Bats fly past you rightside up- but backwards. The disorientation you've felt from the moment you stepped through into this bizarre place, hits you full force and the world spins. When it stops it is as if time itself has slowed, but you are exempt.
Another step forward-
The landscape flashes by in an instant, colors and objects blurring together, and you find yourself at an impasse of two tunnels, with two dragons sat side by side. At first you think them to be colorful statues, but one blinks.
Then two identical grins form.
"You've done well to make it here, traveller." They speak and move in unison, stepping down from the platforms they'd been set upon. They're mirrors, you recognize. A fitting breed for sure, for the domain you've found yourself.
Crossing in front of you and circling like sharks, the mirrors grin, amused by something you're sure is beyond your comprehension.
"The tunnels we guard hold precious goods." They chant, "Pick which way to go."
"Where do they lead?" You find yourself asking.
"Where you need to be." They state.
"Which is the best path?" You counter.
"Left and Right."
You pause, looking between the left and right path, and turn to look behind.
"What about the way I came?"
The dragons pause, seeming to consider, before they stop circling and turn.
"You can't go back." They state. And just like that, the trail you'd come has gone, a vertical wall of rippling water in its place, yourself reflected in the deep blue, a mirror at each shoulder.
Turning back to the dragons before you, they too are nowhere to be found. And both paths are now one very long tunnel. You cannot see the end of it, but note that the bizarre landscape from before travels up the walls and loops, intertwining around the enclosed space, blending together in the distance.
Three steps in, and you find yourself in what vaguely appears to be a den, with the dragons sitting just beyond. You look behind you puzzled, and see that the tunnel seems even more stretched out than it did from the other end.
"You need a guide to leave this place." The purple one speaks alone, drawing your attention back to the mysterious hosts. At their claws rests a nest of eggs, and she gestures to the bunch. The nest is indescribable, a jumble of in and out of focus objects, blurry sticks moving erratically, super crisp feathers unbothered by the surrounding objects- and suddenly it's gone, leaving the eggs in the same place, floating unbothered as if the nesting materials were never there at all.
"Unless you want to stay." Speaks the other.
"Aren't they too young?" You ask, puzzled how an egg could lead you anywhere. The two dragons grin at that, and you frown and look away from their feral gazes. Before you now sits a nest of hatchlings, looking expectantly. The adults are gone and you scramble to locate them in this wishywashy world, and- there! You spot them swimming through the impossible sky, below you past the floor.
The hatchlings wait expectantly.
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September 22nd
