The Wraith's Games and Dreamscape Physics
As soon as Rosa entered the dreamscape, Vīsio smiled. She sent a hypnotic suggestion along their tether and sent the girl off track a smidge—just a bit—to give her and the Emotion Doll some time alone.
Vīsio slowly moved to the black pedestal, her form seeming to breathe as she moved. The catacombs filled with the smell of honey and rot, and small purple mushroom-flowers began to dot the ward field surrounding the pedestal. Her bluish-grey form shimmered with an inner silver hue. The smoke swirling within her eye sockets flared red and quickly cooled to an eerie green.
The areas around the mushroom-flowers began sprouting petals bruised with bright orange fungus—fissures of bright orange running across the ward-field from them. Vīsio smiled sinisterly, an eerie green third eye opening across her ghostly forehead.
Her third eye blinked once, the pupil quickly moving from perfectly round to a narrow slit, then remained open and fixed. She spoke an ancient mental speech created in Sala Dimension—the Emotion Doll's dimension—the dimension known for mental attacks.
The language was complex and draining, causing her form to fade in and out. To compensate, her magic flared, the smell of honey and rot intensified, and the purple mushroom-flowers began sprouting on the walls of the catacombs.
Vīsio pursed her lips, controlled her magics, and focused the mental speech to penetrate the Emotion Doll's forehead. The entire catacomb changed in an instant. The area seemed to freeze in a single moment. The air stood still and Vīsio knew, if she was capable of breathing, she wouldn't be able to breathe now. Then the air seemed to thicken and a steel-grey mist began to form over the floors and just below the ceiling—the space between them writhing with an unseen tension that began to pull on Vīsio.
The soul wraith began to be involuntarily pulled toward the pedestal and the Emotion Doll. She began to panic, her death crystal clear within her mind's eye. Images flowed over the slit of her third eye like a film: the Emotion Doll devouring her and her existence erased from the lines of fate.
No matter how she thrummed the lines of fate, her existence was erased each time.
Then, quite suddenly, it all stopped. Vīsio couldn't see the blue spark that lit within the depths of the Emotion Doll's eyes, but she felt it. It was a shiver down her spine that flowed out into her extremities like snowdrifts across a semi-frozen sea.
"You awaken me fully and yet you do not want to die? Don't you want to look in my eye?"
Vīsio was ancient and had lived when magic was wild, strong, and freely flowed across the dimensions—way before the barriers were created—and this Emotion Doll was far more terrifying than anything she had ever seen. Her soul went cold as her silvery-blue form completely turned light blue.
Her reply lacked all her confidence and rattled from her with a sound like ice tinkling in a lead-crystal glass. "I… don't want to die."
The laugh that ensued was a deep horror that rumbled down the catacombs' columns, leaving trails of black ichor that chased the smell of honey away and left only the scent of loamy earth and ancient rot. "You died so long ago. What is the difference now? What do you contribute to fate when you seek to destroy the Fate-Seer?"
"I just want to give her to you. I just want to…"
"You want to see what will happen. Because you are a thing of chaos and ruin. I know what you want!" The Emotion Doll's reply was full of fury, and it took Vīsio's voice from her.
But calm rolled across the catacombs as the Emotion Doll closed her mental gaze off from Vīsio. "I do not exist for your entertainment, and I have my own agenda." A quiet sadness filled the space and the ward-field collapsed—the purple and orange mushroom-flowers vanishing into sparks of golden light.
A jagged orange and green gash opened beside the pedestal. Dark green muck, smelling of ancient loamy soil and decay, slowly dripped from the opening. The air shimmered and the Emotion Doll was gone. Vīsio's ethereal form fell to the floor, a translucent pile of silvery grey-blue.
She shuddered. She knew she had only survived because she was of no consequence to the cursed item. What had she unleashed on the dimensions? She smiled as she reveled in an evil anticipation—she could hardly wait to find out.
Hazel felt Rosa's entrance into the dreamscape—Vīsio knew she would. She pursed her lips and decided to begin her examination of the Mirror of Indifference. Just as she opened a portal to the dreamscape, one of the wards she created for her father flared. Shylah flew to her shoulder.
"I will see to your father. You need to understand and control the mirror. You can do this."
"Let me do a divination and see what is going on with daddy."
"You already know. You've already seen. I will protect him as long as fate will allow."
Hazel closed her eyes in understanding and gave a single nod. A portal of vibrant starlight opened before them and Shylah slid into the portal as if she were pulled into it instead of flying. The portal closed behind her even as Hazel turned her back and stepped into the dreamscape.
She was standing on her scape and felt an odd ripple move through the layers. It was a premonition, and the Emotion Doll flashed in her mind's eye. She nodded and called Evervine and Marcel to her. They stepped onto the dreamscape without hesitation.
Evervine frowned. "What's going on, Hazel?"
"The Emotion Doll is going to move through the layers in moments. I have put this off too long. Shylah had to go see to Dad; I need you to anchor and protect me." She paused. "Please."
Evervine and Marcel nodded as one and without hesitation. Sparks swam around both as all they needed manifested as if they knew their tasks beforehand. Marcel was surrounded by bubbling, smoking, or fizzing potions of varying colors—he had prepared things like the Tincture of Magic Welling and the Vibrancy Healing potion.
Evervine wore both her torque and glove, and Hazel could feel the strength granted to her by the torque flowing through her as the Mirror of Indifference rose in its sealed box.
She dared not open the box, knowing full well that she could not control such a thing yet. Instead, she worked to sway and cajole it, or, if need be, she would bury it in an infinite number of illusions.
Hazel McGonagall—originally Potter—had learned a lot. From the age of three, when she first met Shylah, her education began. Her best friend had taken her to infinite places within the dreamscape where she dove into the mental subconscious of the dimensions—known and unknown—so techniques swam within her being that she had never thought to use. She never thought to use them, but her innate diviner ability allowed her to fully understand them.
She used one of these techniques now. Her third eye opened slowly and she instantly saw the whole of the dreamscape within a single scape across her vision. For a moment it was staggering but, because it was expected, she quickly regained herself.
She rolled her shoulders and turned this all-encompassing sight to the Mirror of Indifference. She staggered as the weight of the mirror's history slammed into her being. She felt the torque support her and give her strength. She sensed a potion had been released and soaked into her pores to rejuvenate her.
She took a deep breath and dove into the mirror. At first, all was quiet and she was enveloped in thick black darkness. Then the reflections rushed to her like a tidal wave—she understood each in an instant and at once. She saw her life from birth to death and different possibilities of both and everything in between. She saw her brother—his life and all of the possible lines branching from various decisions—and she saw the same for every person she had ever known, whether she cared for them or not.
The information flooded her and she held strong against the onslaught—Shylah had taught her well. She sensed the mirror's frustrations as she continued to wade through the reflections and near its core with a steady pace.
A wave of power moved toward her, but just before it hit, a wall of dreamscape power flooded forth in a vast wall. The mirror's power broke against it like water on fortified stone. The dreamscape wall slowly dissolved and a scene of liquid tranquility was revealed to Hazel.
"Step forward, Fate-Seer. You chose the perfect location for our battle and have made it to my core. What can I do against the physics of a world you control fully?"
Hazel did not enter the room of liquid light and reflection but instead spoke from just outside. "Help me and I will help you."
There was a long silence then a sigh of resignation blew over the room; the walls, floors, and ceiling rippled like deep pools. "How can you help me, Fate-Seer?"
"I will reconnect you. I will make you whole again," Hazel answered without hesitation and felt the mirror's interest and shock.
"Can you give me back my body?"
Hazel nodded. "That and more. Will you work with me and tame your emotions?"
The laugh that issued was vibrant self-mocking. "And that has always been the problem, hasn't it? How can I now tame something I never could conquer in life?"
"You were younger than I am now when you were separated from your emotion. You were never given the chance to control it." She paused and her hands extended out toward the dreamscape. "You already know what I am capable of here."
As she spoke, a tall beautiful woman stepped to her side. She had long straight black hair, high cheekbones, and deep blue eyes. Both the woman and Hazel felt the mirror's astonishment. The woman smiled. "You need to be able to express your emotions, Gaelia. Isn't it time you stop hiding and become again?"