Beyond the colosseum of the Brood Guard lay a stone-built nightmare that defied the physical laws of shape: The Hall of Whispering Mirrors.
The hall was built from towering sheets of polished black fiery glass, cut at bizarre, non-Euclidean angles that reflected infinite, distorted variations of Arthur’s squad. Veins of glowing purple mycelium crawled between the mirror frames, pulsing with rhythmic hypnotic light that drew the eyes. Then he made the mind swim with dizzying nausea.
Arthur stopped at the threshold, raising his compass. The brass needle spun erratically in 360-degree circles, fully scrambled by intense, nearby magnetic and spatial warping.
He raised his Monocle Taxonomy Loupe, but the sight feed was equally distorted. Hallways seemed to stretch for miles into the darkness, only to loop back upon themselves, while staircases climbed toward ceilings that were at the same time floors. Every sight baseline was fractured by the hallucinogenic spore mist clinging to the mirrors.
“Spatial distortion fields,” Arthur muttered, touching the surface of the nearest glass pane with his gloved index finger. The glass rippled like dark liquid beneath his touch, cold as mountain ice. “Nyx has folded the space inside this vault using condensed fungal mana. If we walk blindly down these halls, we’ll trigger spatial shears that could slice us into ribbon or trap us in infinite time loops.”
