>>2985898
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>>2985898
The sun angles low in the sky, tinting the city with the faintest beginnings of its sunset colours. The light stains both the sky above and the water beneath. Aquitae Cogituum, in its delicate array of ochre and neon, is left suspended between the two. There is still some time before the sun sets for the first time, passing below the horizon of the city. After that, the city will only be lit by ghost-light from the Lesser Realms, pale light rimming the horizon from the world below. And there is yet even more time until the second sunset, an invisible process that marks when the sun sinks below the horizon of the Lesser Realms below and even the ghost-light vanishes.
Once that passes, both the sky above and the water below will be in the domain of the stars.

All of this would be an incredible spectacle for one who had never seen it before. Many more words could be spent in vain trying to capture the process and no doubt it would be, for someone new to the city and impressed by such ordinary things.
But you are not some gullible foreigner, you are City born and bred and so spare it not even a glance as you hurry down the canal.

Your name is Sofia Pseudonym, public defender and professional duellist, and you have business in the Aevum District that must be attended to before nightfall. You don’t have time to gaze up at the sky like some credulous fascina.

Aevum is a far cry from your usual destinations, an opulent district full of painted marble, archways and with gardens blossoming forth from every rooftop and street corner. Lotus petals float down the canal that you’re hurrying across, the blossoms trampled into barely recognisable pulp by a day’s worth of citizenry passing through. The constabulary have a slightly more visible presence here than you’d see elsewhere and accompanying them are private guards, no doubt hired by residential associations to keep out riffraff. They almost kept you out but a quick glance at your sword and scroll is enough to let you go anywhere.

Aevum is one of the Three Virtues, the name given to the three richest districts in the city. It is populated almost entirely by nobility, merchant guildmasters and their servants, many of whom could practically afford servants themselves. Why, even some Elector families lived here!
Which is what make the summons you’ve received all the more puzzling.

You are here to fight on behalf of one Claudio d’Rocca. It says so right there, naming you in your duties as a public defender and everything. And you certainly can’t turn it down.

But why would someone who lives here, someone with a d’ in their name no less, need you? This Claudio should be able to buy and sell any number of professional duellists to fight on his behalf. Public defenders like you are only assigned by the City for those who cannot afford or are unable to find a champion. That absolutely cannot be true in this case.
So why are you here?

1/2

>>2985904
>Your curiosity drove you to come here as quickly as you could. You still have plenty of time before negotiations.

>You’ve got a few minutes at best. You couldn’t believe it at first.

>You’re arriving exactly on time for negotiations and not a second earlier. Aevum is home to nothing but bad memories for you.

>>2985908
>>Your curiosity drove you to come here as quickly as you could. You still have plenty of time before negotiations.

>>2985908
>Your curiosity drove you to come here as quickly as you could. You still have plenty of time before negotiations.

>>2985908
>You’re arriving exactly on time for negotiations and not a second earlier. Aevum is home to nothing but bad memories for you.

Vote called, writing.

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>Your curiosity drove you to come here as quickly as you could. You still have plenty of time before negotiations.

You ventured off as soon as you got the scroll of course! The whole situation is just too curious to resist. Why would someone in Aevum need a public defender? So you’re planning on arriving with plenty of time to spare before the negotiations begin.
It’s only been two days since your awful battle with Gloriana to defend a thief. To think that you’d have a new assignment so quickly and for it to be so strange!

You’re dressed in your usual duelling outfit, handbag slung across one shoulder, but compared to the people passing by you feel a little ratty. Even an outfit this fancy feels only barely good enough to be here. But you know that’s a lie. Aevum isn’t as elegant and beautiful as its facade makes it look. All kinds of trashy and septic people make their homes here, hiding inside delicate clothes and beautiful makeup. And you should know! After all, you were born here.

And yet you still can’t help but feel a little self-conscious. You have to be self-conscious, you suppose. With your curse, nobody’s ever going to be conscious for you.

The address your scroll leads you to is fortunately just a few streets deep into the district. You only have to ask for directions three times! Your scroll calls it Il Casa d’Zaffiro but you’re not sure if that means if it’s just a particularly sapphire estate or if it belongs to the d’Zaffiro family.
As it turns out, it’s both.

The emblem emblazoned upon the gate that stretches across the canal tells you exactly who it belongs to and though the mansion itself is some distance away, its roof catches the declining sunlight like a dazzling gemstone.

The gate bars the canal and a black iron fence extends from both sides of it to enclose the estate, an entire block that has been cleared to its foundations to construct a beautiful private hillside, green with grass and dotted with trees. The house itself is at the very top and if architecture could be said to recline, it would be.
From a distance, you can make out that it’s a shallow and sprawling thing, covered in shining blue rooftops. It’s bigger than your old house, that’s for sure.

But as a whole, it’s not entirely unfamiliar to you and you hate that.

You’re also not the only person standing outside the gate. There are the guards of course, all done up in bright blue to match the family’s estate but beside them is a rather busty dark-haired young woman. She’s wearing an ornate red gown of at least three lawyers, over which she clutches a shawl so diaphanous that at some angles, it can’t even be seen. Much more visible is the little violet python wrapped around her shoulders like the coddled pet it undoubtedly is.
She looks strangely familiar but you can’t quite place her.

1/2

>>2986054

But it seems she can place you just fine.
“Sofia? What are you doing here, pray tell?”
Six feet tall, she stares down at you with hooded eyes.

“Oh...hello? I’m here for a case. I’m defending a Claudio d’Rocco. I’ve been told he’s staying here.”

“Claudio? He was but...and defending?”
Something about it seems to startle the young lady. And then she begins to laugh wholeheartedly. It is a sight to behold.
“Oh...oh dear. No, you go right on ahead Sofia. I forgot. I suppose that Claudio would need one.”
Whatever the truth behind your summons is, it is apparently fucking hysterical.


>Stay behind and interrogate her on the matter. You have time.

>You’d rather not delay this and you can find out for yourself. You don’t like people who you can’t remember.

>Bring her with you. You can talk and walk.

>Other (Specify)

>>2986059
>Stay behind and interrogate her on the matter. You have time.

>>2986059
>Stay behind and interrogate her on the matter. You have time.

>>2986059
>Recognize her as the fiance of the middle height (?) brother from our first escapade as a public duelist
>Stay behind and interrogate her on the matter. You have time.

>>2986059
>Recognize her as the fiance of the middle height (?) brother from our first escapade as a public duelist
>Stay behind and interrogate her on the matter. You have time.

Vote called, writing.

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>Recognize her as Ormanno d’Rosarre’s fiance from our first escapade as a public duelist
>Stay behind and interrogate her on the matter. You have time.

You peer at her for a moment, trying to remember who she might be. She knows you after all and surely you’re not that famous in Aevum. No, the two of you have definitely met. And then a bolt of recognition finally strikes you and you see her to be Ormanno’s fiance, back during that mess that was your professional debut. What an idiot he had turned out to be! You still don’t even really know what he was trying to get out of staining you like that.
But you did meet Maccio because of it so it can’t be all that bad.

And as for this woman, whose name you still can’t remember, you barely interacted with her save to threaten her and Ormanno. But if she has any bad feelings about that you’ll probably never know because she will never voice them. They’ll stay chained up in her heart forever.
Or...if your godmother really can come through, maybe just a few more days. But you try not to think about that. It is a terrible thing, hope.

“What do you mean, that Claudio? Is there more than one Claudio d’Rocco?”

“You could say so,” she says mirthfully, her eyes flicking off to the side.

“What do you mean by that? Does he have a brother or a cousin I should know of?”

“No.”
Her eyes flicker once more and this time you catch them. She’s looking down at the water. At the reflections of both you and her in the surface of the canal. You stare at them too but they seem more or less the same. Your reflection is only lagging behind you by a second or so.
“But what would you like to know who the challenger is?”

You sigh. But you are committed to this conversation now.
“Who?”

“Claudio d’Rocco.”

“Pardon?”

“It’s true. Both the challenger and the challenged are Claudio d’Rocco.”

“You can’t challenge yourself!”
You’re starting to lose your patience.

“”You can’t. But they are both Claudio and yet, not really.”

“Look Signorina, just be straight with me. I’m not here to play around, I have a job to do.”

She raises an eyebrow.
“‘Signorina’? Oh my, Sofia. Could it be, in your peerless wisdom and capacity for intellect, you have mistakenly let me slip your mind for just a second? Have you forgotten me?”


>”Of course I haven’t forgotten your name!.” (Specify).

>”Whatever. I think I understand what’s going on now.” (Specify)

>Just crush her into telling you everything. You don’t want to play silly games with her or at least, not this kind.

>Take out the lock of hair from your handbag and pin it to your coat. “You’re not worth remembering.”

>”Sorry, I forgot.”

>Other (Specify)

>>2986194
>Take out the lock of hair from your handbag and pin it to your coat. “You’re not worth remembering.”

This introduces a new type of prompt by the way! These Specify prompts are a little different from the usual >Other choice. In order to take them, you yourself have to fill in what you think the answer is.

>>2986194
>>”Of course I haven’t forgotten your name!.” (Specify).
Zuana. I didn't catch your family name.

>>2986194
>”Of course I haven’t forgotten your name!.” (Specify).
Zuana, never caught your alst name.

>”Whatever. I think I understand what’s going on now.” (Specify)
Let me guess, Claudio was a painter and now one of his paintings are more real than he is?

Vote called, writing.

>”Of course I haven’t forgotten your name!.”

You blink a few times in quick succession, trying to remember.
“Of course I haven’t forgotten your name! It’s Zuana. I didn’t catch your surname last time however.”
In fact, that was specifically because you’d cut her off, wasn’t it? But she’ll forgive you for that. She has to.

“It’s d’Zaffiro. Zuana d’Zaffiro.”
Now that’s a tongue twister.

“Oh? Is this where you live?”

“Not at all,” she says smoothly. “This is the estate of a cousin of my father, Eduardo d’Zaffiro. I’m simply here to behold the spectacle.”

“Yeah, you’ve been dropping hints about my client the whole time we’ve been talking. How about you just tell me what it is?”

“Are you sure? Do you want more time to reflect upon the matter?”
The head of her decorative python rises to bump up against her cheek and she scratches it beneath the chin.

“No.”

“Fine. It’s his reflection.”

“Pardon?”

“Eduardo often opens his doors to visitors and Claudio d’Rocco, as far as I can tell, is a gentleman rather prone to wandering. He was staying here in a guest room for a week but as far as I can tell, he left three days ago. All rather plain. But you know what’s interesting? The guest room in question features a full-length mirror. I remember it, I’ve stayed there myself.”


“And while Claudio left three days ago….”

“His reflection never did,” Zuana says. “I can’t claim to know why but I suspect it’s gone berserk. They do that sometimes.”
You both look down at the water in near synchronicity. Your reflections mimic your actions in almost exactly the same way.
“And now, for whatever reason, he’s taken dire offence to the existence of this wayward reflection persisting for so long after he left. He wants the mirror to be smashed or the reflection otherwise evicted.”

“And let me guess. Your cousin, this Eduardo, didn’t feel like ruining his own house for such a dumb demand.”

“Of course! Sofia, you’re so smart! But did you know that reflections are permitted their own legal identity? So he’s decided to challenge his reflection for improper use of his image.”

1/2

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>>2986485

You sigh again, much louder this time.
“And a reflection doesn’t really have the capacity to hire anyone, does it? That’s why I’ve been assigned.”

You’re certain it doesn’t. After all, reflections are entirely unaware of the real world they mirror. They’re just like illustrations and paintings that way. They’re only aware of the plane in which they exist. Your adorable little jigsaw people never see you moving the pieces around, they only feel the effects.
But while illustrations have awareness, they only act and behave as their artists intended them to do. If someone painted a portrait of you, the Sofia in the painting would be their version of you. If it really did think if it really had an interior presence, it wouldn’t be anything like that.
But reflections aren’t like that. They’re like a shadow, an emanation of you. They’re perfect replicas of you, all the way down. That’s why they so reliably do almost exactly whatever you do. Because they are you, an emanation of you on a lower level of things, one wholly unaware that they aren’t real.

You gaze down upon the water once more, your reflection staring up at you. It thinks it’s you. It will do everything Sofia would do in its situation. And so it will eventually walk out of the plane that’s reflecting and it vanish, ceasing to exist so quickly it wouldn’t even know it died.

A reflection’s drive to do exactly as their real selves would do is what drives their short-lived nature. The moment they walk away from the surface reflecting them, they are undone.

But not this one? For some reason, the reflection this Claudio supposedly left in the mirror three days ago is refusing to leave its mirror. Zuana claims it to have gone berserk. In other words, aware. A berserk reflection is a rare occurrence but it’s easy to replicate if you’re the type to be fascinated by such things. A reflection that, while still totally unaware of the world beyond their surface, knows the truth of their reality.

And apparently they can be challenged to duels.

“How…,” you start to say and then stop, only to start again a moment later. “How am I supposed to work with that? I can’t talk to …’him’, it won’t even know I’m there! It doesn’t even know that it’s been challenged!”

“I have no idea. But it should prove to be quite entertaining.”


>Hurry over to the estate. You need to figure out a way to sort this out!

>Take Zuana with you. It’s not right for a lady of her stature to be loitering about anyhow.

>Talk to her a little more. You still have more questions to ask.

>Other (Specify)

>>2986489
>>Talk to her a little more. You still have more questions to ask.

>ask where the challenger is, also ask if she is aware of a certain painter's murder....

>>2986489
>Talk to her a little more. You still have more questions to ask.

"Is this unprecedented for a 'berserk' self aware reflection hiring a duelist?"

>>2986489
yeah, this could end badly for 3D Claudio. If the reflection becomes more HIM than the 3D, destroying the reflection will kill the 3D.

SO, are we going to get in trouble if that happens, or will that just be treated as assisted suicide?

Vote called, writing.

>Talk to her a little more. You still have more questions to ask.

You’re not sure how you’d even start with this one. How can you defend or negotiate for a client that you can’t even talk to? It’s nonsense. But while you feel like you should inspect this situation yourself, you’re not quite ready to deprive yourself of Zuana’s company.
You’ll admit that her personality isn’t particularly enjoyable but she’s certainly easy on the eyes.

“I feel as if this unprecedented. Tell me, have you ever heard of a berserk reflection hiring a duellist?”
You’re racking your brains to remember anything like this but if there is, you’ve never heard of it.

“Not that I know of,” she says. “It’s impossible for it to hire anyone and equally impossible for it to actually fight. That’s why the City assigned you automatically. And I’ve never heard of a reflection being challenged to a duel before. Congratulations Sofia! You might finally make your mark on history!”

But you don’t really want to be known as the duellist who fought on behalf of a reflection. It’s not a real person! You just scowl.
“Come to think of it, do you know where the challenger is?”

“You mean Claudio? He’s not here. He’ll be along shortly for the negotiations no doubt. I wonder how you’re going to do those?”
Is she enjoying this? You can’t tell if she’s merely being as innocent as she seems or if the curse is twisting malice into smiles and compliments. Does she want to see you flail about with an entirely unprecedented client?

“Right. Well. I heard about a painter who got murdered a few days ago down in Apokalypsis. He died because someone burned his self-portrait, which has become a truer rendition of him than he himself. So doesn’t that make Claudio’s demands a little dangerous?”

“Why?”
Zuana stretches a leg out elegantly, driving a slipper into the water just hard enough to disrupt the reflections of the two of you.
“Can I hurt you by stabbing your shadow?”

“Sometimes, yes.”

“True,” she concedes. “But if the reflection really has gone berserk, it’s less like Claudio than ever. I’m sure he feels safe enough.”

“Hrmph. Why does he care so much about this particular reflection anyway?”

Zuana shrugs her shoulders, which is an experience.
“I couldn’t possibly know. But if you require assistance, Sofia, I’m sure I could lead you up to the estate and make the proper introductions. I was supposed to be meeting with Eduardo but he is rather late.”

“Why? Why do you want to help me?”
The last time you met her you threatened her!

“I just wish to see this resolved as quickly as possible.”

>Believe.

>Disbelieve.

>>2986655
>Neither, not enough point of reference to really say.

>>2986655
> Believe that she wants to see this resolved quickly
> Disbelieve the 'just' part.

>>2986704
>>2986655
I'll second

Vote called, writing.

> Believe that she wants to see this resolved quickly
> Disbelieve the 'just' part.

You drag your eyes up to look her in the eyes. They’re a faint brown and they show you absolutely nothing. But in the end, you don’t believe her offer. You don’t believe that she’d have forgiven you for now if it wasn’t for your birthright. Sure, she might want to see this resolved quickly. But is that all? And is that really why she wants to come with you?

You don’t trust her.

“Thanks but no thanks,” you tell her, turning away from her to face the guard. “Excuse me, can you get this gate open for me? I’m supposed to be here, I’ve got a client I have to visit.”

“If you wish,” Zuana says as the gates grind open. “I will wait here for Eduardo a little longer. If you see him up there, pray tell him that I am most disappointed in his behaviour. It’s unseemly to make a lady wait.”

“Yeah, he has you loitering about outside the gates like a common vagabond. Must suck.”
You walk through the gates and leave her behind.

The canal terminates in a small pool directly outside of the gates, a fountain of unknown properties rising out of it. You step around it and then set boot to solid ground. One of the guards accompanies you, guiding you up the surprisingly steep hill along the path through the gardens. The mansion awaits above.

It’s even more palatial up close, even if it doesn’t rise above a single storey. It’s an unusual design, one that focusses more on sprawling across the entire hill than it does on rising high or having particularly fanciful roofs designs. The walls are a soft yellow stone and the rooftops are all completely flat, moving in steppes rather than in slopes. They’re a glazed blue, possibly made entirely of glass or sapphire. And as far as you can tell, it’s all seamless. There’s no visible gaps between the blocks of stone and if there are any roof-tiles, they blend together so perfectly that they could all be one solid piece.

“Do you like it?,” the caretaker asks, wheezing just a little as he scales the hill beside you.

“Of course,” you say, more out of formality than anything else. “Unusual design though.”

“Was built just seven years ago. It’s in the Immacolato style. The man they brought in to design it wanted it to appear as spotless as possible.”

“I’m not really a student of architecture,” you confess. “It is very pretty though. But isn’t it a bit...low?”

“Well it has to be signorina or otherwise it wouldn’t have so many rooftops.”

“That’s a selling point?”

1/2

>>2986890
Your conversation ends here however, as you approach the doors. They’re a little more traditional at least, solid imported wood and framed with a row of purely decorative columns. They don’t even pretend that the columns have any architectural purpose, they’re not even supporting anything. Such frivolous displays are probably necessary. Otherwise how would anyone know how much money Eduardo d’Zaffiro has?

The doorkeeper nods to your companion, evidently enough of a signal to send them off. She then proceeds to just stare at you. She’s an older woman but not particularly so and though she is dressed in the black dress of house servant, it’s cut elegantly enough to almost be a fine dress in its own right. You get the feeling that whoever this is, they don’t do much of the practical work around the house.

“Sofia Pseudonym, public defender. I’m here for the…”
You can’t believe you’re saying this.
“I’m here for the reflection.”

“Right this way.”
She nods and opens the door. You step through into an elaborate entry hall with gleaming walls of green marble that share no resemblance to outside decor. The floor is carpeted so thickly that you feel as if you could sink into it entirely, as if it were an ambisilk pattern. Paintings line the walls, various personages twitching, conversing and in one case, brutally murdering another.
The doorkeeper sees you stare at the gruesome painting, one depicting a cluttered study smeared with blood as a small gaggle of academics engage in vigorous cannibalism, and shakes her head.
“It is not always like that. But the master of the house sees fit to include it, even considering its...habits.”

“What is it supposed to be?”

“Five Gentlemen Fascinated By The Natural World’,” she says drily. “They are supposed to be examining a new creature or plant every day. But it has a tendency towards the macabre.”

“You have my sympathies.”

There are seven doors here, though none of which are open. And somewhere from deeper within the house, you hear the sound of clinking glasses and muffed laughter.
“Is-”

“We are currently entertaining guests in the drawing room,” she says, apparently anticipating your every thought. “You do not need to go there. You will be visiting the guest room in the Viridian Hall.”
She motions a particular door to you. It looks entirely indistinguishable from all the rest.

“And I’m not to go anywhere else?”

“You can go wherever you wish.” she says and then looks confused with herself. Predictable.


>Proceed to the guest room post-haste!

>You have plenty of time. You’ll go wherever you want and she can’t stop you.

>Tell her that the master of the house has a guest waiting for him by the gates.

>Inspect the paintings a little longer. You have an interest in damaged art.

>Other (Specify)

>>2986894
>Tell her that the master of the house has a guest waiting for him by the gates.

>>2986894
>Ask about Claudio. The 3D one.
Are we going to talk to the reflection with our reflection? Do we need to ask for another mirror?

>>2986962
>Are we going to talk to the reflection with our reflection?
If this happened, your reflection wouldn't be able to talk to you.

>>2986971
Don't worry, we can trust the reflection to get the job done. After all, it's Sofi-

-okay, maybe this is a problem.

>>2986894
>>Tell her that the master of the house has a guest waiting for him by the gates

Vote called, writing.

>Tell her that the master of the house has a guest waiting for him by the gates.

“I’ve got a few questions to ask before I proceed any further. Firstly, how exactly am I to meet with my client? Like, at all?”

She meets your eyes with her own, a piercing green gaze. It’s a little intimidating but you get the feeling that it’s just her default look. It only lasts a moment before she looks back down at the ground. Was she surprised by the question?
“I’m afraid I cannot help you there. I have ordered the room to be sealed off to prevent any further contamination to the mirror. It should be just as it was when the reflection was discovered.”

“Right. But how am I going to talk to it? Does it even know that it’s been challenged?”

“You’re right, it shouldn’t be possible. And it isn’t. If it were, I would have asked it what it was doing by lingering for so long. But you will never know your client’s wishes.”

Not a lot different from real life, you suppose. The true wishes of everyone are closed off to you.
“That’s going to be make negotiation hard. I suppose it wants self-preservation and nothing else?”

“How do you figure that?”

“Well, if it really is berserk than it knows that leaving the room will kill it. Seems obvious why it lingers.”

The servant just tsks.
“That simply won’t do. Lord d’Rocco’s wishes aside, it will render the mirror useless. It needs to be cleansed.”

“...Just do it after I’ve won my duel, alright? It’s within the rights of the household since you actually own the mirror.’
It makes you feel a little bad for it actually. Even if you save the reflection from Claudio and whatever weird reason he has to want to destroy it so badly...it’ll still be forced out afterwards. But reflections are transient and have less reality to them than a soap bubble. Just light on glass. They are not meant to endure.
“How was Claudio anyway? The three-dimensional one. Was anything strange about his visit?”

“Not particularly. He has been here before, often to visit the master of the house about various interests. He stayed for a week and then left three days ago. And then earlier this morning, I personally discovered the reflection in the mirror and sent him a message about it.”

“Huh. Oh and also! That reminds me. There is a lady waiting by the gates for your employer. He’s been keeping her waiting for some time.”

Now that draws a proper reaction from her! Her brow wrinkles.
“Who is it?”

“Zuana d’Zaffiro. Second cousin to Signor Eduardo.”

“That shouldn’t be right,” she says. “She should know. The master is out on business and has been so for the last several days. He left the night before Signore d’Rocco left, in fact.”

“Where’d he go?”

“It is a family affair, he is often visiting the other relatives. He is not to return until tomorrow morning.”

“Really? Because Zuana seemed convinced he was still there.”

1/2

>>2987137
“That is odd, yes. I will send a caretaker to fetch her. Is that all you wanted to know?”


>You have a few more questions actually.

>No, that’s fine. Enter the Viridian Hall.

>Well you have plenty of time and it looks like negotiations are a bust. You might as well find the party so you can get a drink that you’ll sorely need.

>"I think reflections deserve a little more compassion than that."

>Other (Specify)

>>2987143
>You have a few more questions actually.

Zuana gave me her brief of events, but she and I do not get along. Mind if I go over what she told me for ..inconsistencies? Also does the challenger know this could kill him?

>>2987143
>>No, that’s fine. Enter the Viridian Hall.

>>2987146
+1

Vote called, writing.

>>2986489
>Reflections have consciousnesses and personalities and die when you stop reflecting them.
Ah, the tone is so light, it's blinding.

>>2987314
The lightest

>You have a few more questions actually.

“Actually before you do that, I have another question. My situation is rather unusual, hey? So while I’ve gotten a version of events, I did so from Zuana and I feel like we don’t get along. Mind if you give me your own retelling in a little more detail?”

“Certainly not,” she says. “You could say it started when Lord d’Rocco was leaving. I remember it well because with the master having left last night with little warning, I was in charge of the estate. Acting in such a position, I personally visited the guest room to make sure our visitor was seen off appropriately.”

“And was anything strange with the mirror then?”

“Not with the mirror, not exactly.”
She taps her chin lightly.
“But Lord d’Rocco himself was in a bit of a fluster. I surmised it was due to the master’s departure.”

“Really? Why?”

“No comment. But he told me to clean the room very thoroughly and to start even before he was finished packing.So I was in the room with him for some time and I was there as he left. He was outwardly calm but I could see that he was feeling upset. And come to think of it...I did see that his reflection lingered after he walked out but I was busy overseeing the cleaning. I didn’t think anything of it at the time, reflections often linger. It was in there when the cleaning was finished and the room was sealed.”

“The room was sealed?”

“Naturally. Rooms not in use are sealed up to keep them clean. Otherwise maintenance of the entire estate would prove unreasonable.”

“You have a lot of empty rooms? Why?”

“The mansion was initially built with the expectation of housing a family. But the master’s wife and children no longer stay here. They live with her family on the other side of the district. The master visits them often for extended periods but otherwise lives her alone.”

“Really? Why?”

“No comment.”

“And you didn’t f-”

“Find the reflection until this morning, yes. The sealed rooms are still dusted once a week. A maid reported it to me and after the inspecting it myself, I sent an errand boy to inform Lord d’Rocco and had the room resealed.”

“When you saw the mirror, what did you see?”

That elicits a visible squirm from her for just a moment.
“No comment.”

Whatever. You’ll come back to that in just a moment.
“And Claudio wanted the mirror destroyed.”

“Not exactly. First he wanted to take it but acting in place of my master, who is too busy with family issues to respond, I told him no. Then he wanted to destroy it and I told him no. I relented and told him that after the master had returned, they could it talk out together. But instead of waiting he’s immediately gone forward with this foolish challenge!”
She pouts.
“Not that I wish to call any of the master’s friends a fool. That was not my intention.”

1/4

>>2987416
You’re starting to get a strange vibe from this woman. Firstly, you know how household staff talk and this isn’t it. Nobody calls their employer master and especially not ‘the master’. It isn’t just inaccurate, it’s weirdly impersonal.
Not to mention she keeps slipping up between her descriptions. Was she the one doing the cleaning or does she tell other people to do it?

“So uh...what did you see in the mirror?”

She’s silent for several seconds.
“Maybe I should just show you. The guest room is this way.”
As she speaks, the door to the Viridian Hall slowly swings open as if it had been pushed open by someone in the hall beyond. But after you walk around to have a look, there’s nobody there. Just an empty green hall full of doors.
Maybe the other servant just scurried off into one of the other doors? But why?

Well, you do have to visit the guest room anyway.
“Sure. Let’s go.”

The hallway doesn’t really look viridian. It’s just the same green marble as the entry hall. And yes, you know viridian is a shade of green. But it’s not this shade!
The housekeeper points down the hallway.
“It’s that one.”

“That one. The one at the very end of the hallway?”

“Yes.”

“Say, what are all these other rooms for?”

“No comment.”

*******

The hall is a little longer than it looks. There must be over twenty doors in total! Are they all guest rooms? That doesn’t seem right.

The housekeeper opens the door for you, selecting a key from a fractal keychain to do so. You try not to stare at it, knowing it’ll do nothing but give you a headache.
“Here you are. Your client awaits, so to speak.”

“Aren’t you going to come in with me?”

“No.”

You open the door and step inside. And whatever you were expecting, it sure wasn’t this!

What the housekeeper had told you about the room being sealed for cleanliness had given you the expectation that everything would be covered up in dust sheets and the like. Everything all prim and proper.
But it’s anything but.

The guest room is small, containing a large bed big enough for two, a chest of drawers and a cupboard. A painting of a sunset sits on the wall above the bed and opposite it on the far wall is a large mirror. There are drapes pulled over the window. They’re all uncovered, all unsealed. But they’re not what draws your attention.

First is the blood, a trail of it running along the carpet and across part of the wall. You can smell it, fresh and strong on the air. It’d make you feel sick except even that is but a secondary focus, something for your brain to absentmindedly catalogue while you stare at the person standing in front of the bed.

2/4

>>2987418
He is not particularly remarkable on his own, you suppose. He’s a mature looking man who has run a little to fat, enough to be portly but not incredibly so. He’s red-faced and red-haired, a balding penumbra of greying orange hair surrounding his head. A massive moustache dominates the rest of his face and the outdated sense of fashion it gives off goes well with the rest of his clothes, a tattered but expensive ensemble of what was considered to be the height of noble fashion a good ten or eleven years ago. Why, you remember your father wearing a suit just like that once.
You barely notice the dried blood covering his cumberbund.

“Oh, good evening signorina,” he says hurriedly. “I say, I say, who are you?”

The world feels unsteady. You weren’t meant to meet anyone here. You were just here to see a..a..a reflection. You spin around but you’ve already closed the door behind you.
“Uh…,” you say slowly. “Are you Claudio d’Rocco?”

“Hrm? Yes, yes I am.”
His big face softens.
“And I am so sorry.”

“Sorry for what?”
But you feel you are beginning to understand. If he’s here- If you- If he- If-If-if-if!

“You shouldn’t have had to know. It’s cruel.”

You came here to see a reflection. You came here to see a reflection. You came here to see a reflection. There was nobody in the room. There should have been nobody in the room. There should have been an empty room. An empty room with an occupied mirror. An empty clean room. And Claudio d’Rocco left three days ago.

So…

So!

Here you are. In a room that’s not clean. In an occupied room. And Claudio d’Rocco is still right here. Still right here. Still right here. Still right here.
You feel as if the world is flattening out around you.

‘I’m so sorry,” he says again. You are barely paying attention. You are trying to turn your head to look at the mirror. But you can’t. Something in you is resisting with all its might. It’s like an iron rod holding your neck stiff.
But you wrench it free and as the realisation is still settling upon you, you look at the mirror.

For a moment, you see your own reflection, same as always. See? It’s fine! This is just something weird with some other explanation. There can be another-
And then the reflection fades away. All of it. Just blank and empty glass. You reach out and touch it but it’s still there. You grab it, as if you can squeeze it back to normal. The realisation has turned to panic. You feel a panic inside your skin that makes you just want to tear it all off.

“It’s no use,” Claudio says mournfully. “I think the world tricks you into providing the details yourself. But once you realise the truth, it all fades away.”

3/4

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>>2987422
It’s quiet. Why can’t you hear the party? You could hear them the whole time when you were in the mansion. You could hear them in the hall. Why can’t you hear them from here? There’s not a sound coming from anywhere outside this room.
The mirror is blank.

You sink to your knees.

“It is a terrible thing,”Claudio says, keeping his distance from you. “To be enlightened.”

“E-enlightened?”
Your voice is dry.

“Well, it’s better than saying berserk. And it’s what I am. And now you too.”

“...If I leave this room…”

“I’m afraid there’s nothing.”

“I see.”
It had to happen, right? Reflections share the memories and personalities of their originators. So how would you know? How would you know how would you know how would you know how would you know how would yo-

You start screaming.


>No! This can’t be true! Open the door and run!

>Curl up in a ball for a while.

>”...I-I’m here to be your public defender!”

>Frantically search the room.

>Descend into incoherency.

>Ask about the blood.

>help

>Other (Specify)

>>2987427
>>Ask about the blood.

>>2987418
Hmmm. The "servant" is the antropomorphic personifcation of the house?

>>2987422
FUCK

>>2987427
>Curl up in a ball for a while.
>help

Hm. Reflected!Claudio seems like a decent person, unlike how the real Claudio was made to seem.

>>2987427
>Curl up in a ball for a while.

>lamplighter Quest is too dark
>oh hey, a new Quest by Ouro
>darkness intensifies

Vote called, writing.

what the fuck

>Curl up in a ball for a while.

Lacking anything better to do, you ignore your client and let yourself fall from your knees. You lie on the carpet and scream into it, letting it muffle it. You’re not sure why you do this though. Who would ever hear you? You’re just light on glass.
Transient.

When you open your eyes, you want things to be better. It’s a desperate want, something half-mad and entirely heart-wrenching. Just the idea! The idea once your eyes open, you’ll see the room as it is meant to be. It has to be that way. Because if it isn’t….what could you possibly do?

But no, the room is still the same. Claudio is still there. He’s sitting on the bed now.
“Are you feeling better?”

“No.”

“Just promise that you won’t try to hurt yourself.”

“W-what?”

“Some of the others tried that. If you want to die, just open the door and step out.”

“I see.”
You slowly stand up.

“What is your name?”

“I don’t think I have one.”
You open the door. The panic is gone. You’re left running on an icy coldness that only seeks one thing. And there it is. You can see the hallway. It’s just like you left it. You just have to step over the threshold and…

You pull your foot back and shut the door. No. That's not you. And maybe you're not you either but that's okay. You've spent your whole fucking life trying to be someone you're not. So why should that stop you now?
“No sorry, that wasn’t right. My name is Sofia Pseudonym. I’m your City-appointed public defender. Or I guess, the me out there is.”
Your cheeks are wet with tears.

“A public defender? Whatever for?”

“This might be a long story.”


>Tell him about the challenge.

>Figure out why you went berserk. Maybe you can figure out Claudio then too.

>Ask him about the blood.

>Ask him about the circumstances before he went berserk.

>Other (Specify)

Sorry for the delay on this one by the way, I was eating.

>>2987551
>>Ask him about the circumstances before he went berserk.
>Check how curse works here

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I'm going to rest for two hours or so and then return. Vote will remain open until then.

>>2987551
>Tell him about the challenge.

>Ask him about the blood.

>Ask him about the circumstances before he went berserk.

>>2987551
>Tell him about the challenge.
>Ask him about the circumstances before he went berserk.
>Ask him who the others were
Probably the maid who found the situation. Or rather, her reflection.
The blood is obvious, someone's reflection suicided here.
>Figure out why you went berserk. Maybe you can figure out Claudio then too.

>>2987551
>Tell him about the challenge.

LIGHT
TONE
QUEST

I'm back. Vote called and writing.

VERY LIGHT AND CHEERFUL QUEST

>Talk

“I’m afraid you’ve been challenged to a duel.”

Claudio frowns.
“I don’t see how any of that is my problem. My real self will deal with it just fine and he certainly won’t be in need of a public defender. I might be a wanderer but I’m not without my means.”

“No, you don’t quite understand. You have been challenged to a duel. This you. The reflection itself. Obviously nobody in the real world was able to tell you this. And since you are categorically unable to represent yourself or hire one, the City automatically acted to assign you one. I’m not even sure if it knows you’re a reflection, just that you’re a challenged citizen unable to effectively respond.”

“But who would challenge a-a reflection?”

“You apparently.”

“What?”

“The challenger is your real self. They want this mirror smashed,” you motion at the blank piece of glass that is absolutely not the mirror in question, “and you gone the way all such things go.”
And now that you’re here...you too.
“Do you have any idea why you would do that? You are, I assume, the authority on that matter?”

“No,” he says, sounding quite puzzled. “What would even be the point? What would I have to fear from a mirror?”

“So…,” you say, jumping on his wording, “If you did have reason to fear you might actually do it?”

“Maybe. But I can’t think of anything a mere reflection could disclose. We don’t affect the physical. We can’t even talk to them. And even if we could, I have no knowledge that I would tell anyone that would rattle me. Never been a particularly secretive man.”

“And you’re sure about that?”
You have to keep talking. Otherwise reality...or unreality, will start to sink in once more.

“Absolutely!”

“Well that’s fucking odd. But I guess the duel is out of both our hands now.”
Now and forever. Now there’s a thought. You will never duel again. In fact, you’ve never duelled. You’re just a reflection who thought she did but in reality, you didn’t exist until just a few minutes ago. You will never ever even so much as touch what you’ve devoted your entire life to.
You need to keep talking. Anything to drive away the ephemerality of you. Anything to avert your gaze from the door.
“D-do you mind if you tell me a little about what happened to you? How did you go berserk?”

“Enlightened,” he says, a tad dangerously. Perhaps it’s an important issue to him. You can understand. It’s all very well to say such words about reflections when you’re safe in the knowledge of being real. But now you’re not real. Now you’re just a painted puzzle person, waiting for the hand you can’t comprehend to descend and flip your legs the wrong way.
Ah, you’ve been cruel.

“Very well. If nothing else it’s something to do. It happened on the night before I was due to depart. When was that, exactly?”

1/3

>>2987886
“Three days ago?”

“Three da-oh my. My word. It’s hard to tell the time. I was sitting on my bed and Eduardo was sitting beside me. He was telling me that he was leaving tonight.”

“Was it an unpleasant discussion?”
You remember what the housekeeper had told you, of Claudio being flustered and upset. Except the housekeeper didn’t tell you that. You’ve never met her.

“It could have gone better. Regardless, I don’t know at what point during the conversation where the experiences between me and my real self differed. We finished the conversation and Eduardo got up to leave the room. As he was walking out, I swear I saw something in the corner of my eye. It was like an...arm.”

“An arm?”

“A human one. One and then two and then a whole cluster, flooding through the world and into the mirror past me. I only glimpsed them and yet….that was enough. Something about seeing them shook me and lifted all illusions from my eyes. Because it wasn’t something that could be real. And I know what I was and where I was.”

“And that’s why you didn’t leave when your real self did.”

“Oh, he left?”

“Yes.”

“Then yes. It’s a little odd that he didn’t see anything wrong with his reflection in the mirror after that but not impossible. He...I...whichever. But yes, knowing what I knew, I was hardly going to walk out that door. I want to live!”

“We’re not alive,” you say, looking around the tiny room that is the entirety of your world. You were born here a few minutes ago. You’ll die here eventually. You hope this spreading numb feeling is better than the panic.

“I want to live,” he repeats softly.

“What happened after that?”

“Some time passed. Then Adriana or I suppose, Adriana’s reflection entered. So the real Adriana was in the room. I was still feeling unwell so I didn’t speak to the one I saw.”

“Who’s Adriana?”

“The head housekeeper. Have you met her?”

“Blonde, green-eyed, sort of weird?”

“Precisely. She left without incident. Then a very long time passed before I was visited once again by a maid. I didn’t know her name. She saw me and asked what I was doing here. Before I could explain myself, she told me that she was going to get Adriana and ran out the door! Vanished of course. Didn’t even know she killed herself.”

“Right. Adriana told me that a maid discovered you this morning when they were dusting the room. Can’t help but notice the lack of dust covers by the way.”

“I took them off.”

“Well in the real world, according to Adriana, that maid spotted your reflection while dusting and went to get her. So that means you would have met an Adriana again right?”

2/3

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>>2987892
“Yes.”
He grimaces.
“That was a bad business. For whatever reason, Adriana was enlightened the moment she entered the room. Even faster than you. She immediately had a mental breakdown and after I tried to console her, she tried to leave. But I didn’t want her to. I didn’t want her to die and more importantly, I wanted the company. I needed it!”
He looks ashamed.
“But when I put my hands upon her, she snatched my shaving razor from where I always keep it in my breast pocket and…”
He shudders.
“She slit her own throat. There was a mess.”

That would certainly explain the aversion Adriana had to explaining what had happened and why she didn’t want to set foot in the room again. She would have had front row seats to her reflection committing suicide. And not an easy suicide either.
“I noticed you kept your distance from me earlier.”

“I learned my lesson,” he huffs. “But just how did you figure it out anyway? I don’t suppose both you and Adriana saw those strange hands, did you?”

“No,” you say. “And it’s obvious really. You might be an anomaly but there’s a perfectly good reason why Adriana and I were ‘enlightened’ and the maid wasn’t. It was….”


>”...the state of the room.”

>”...the person we were expecting to meet.”

>”...us both being real smart probably.”

>”...that we both have something that anchors us to something beyond the norm.”

>”...the state of the hall itself.”

>Other (Specify)

>>2987896
>>”...the person we were expecting to meet.”

>>2987896
>”...the person we were expecting to meet.

Vote called, writing.

Might have been the talk about sealing the rooms, too.

>”...the person we were expecting to meet.

“It was the person we were expecting to meet.”
You’ve pieced it together now.

“Come again?”

“I’ve heard that it’s possible to do this to your reflection fairly easily but I never looked into it because I wasn’t interested. It’s kind of a fascina thing to be interested in anyhow. But this is probably how we do it. I came in here expecting to see a reflection and nothing else. But instead I saw you. The same thing applies to Adriana because the maid would have told her that you were still here. But the maid’s reflection wasn’t expecting to see anybody at all so they just thought that you had somehow returned.”

Claudio strokes his moustache.
“Yes when you put it that way, it’s obvious. Any situation like this, where you’re trying to meet a reflection specifically, it’s just about guaranteed to let any of us see the light.”

“Now that I’ve experienced it, I’d say it’s a cruel thing to do.”
You scratch an itch on your scalp and panic drifts in. There’s blood under your fingernails when you finally pull your hand back. But it feels right. It feels real.
“Signore, I collect picture puzzles.”

“And?”
He looks quite bemused by your sudden change of topic.

“It was okay because they weren’t real. But now I’m not real and and and!. So I want to say that this has changed me. That I won’t do that with the puzzles again. I’ve seen the way. But it doesn’t matter does it?”
You sit down on the floor. Or more accurately, your legs give out beneath you. You can think all you want about changing your ways or being sorry but again...it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter because you don’t matter. You don’t even have a say in your own future anymore. The thing that is Sofia will continue forward without you. And you won’t ever change it and she won’t even know you ever were.

This room is all there is for you until you die. Just a shitty fake Sofia sitting around until she finally has the courage to open the door and step outside. And why not? It’s not like you’re going to accomplish anything ever again.

“That’s not true,” Claudio says, breaking you from your reverie. “We might not be real but we can change the real world. For example, you’re going to fight a duel over me. Correct?”

“R...right.”

“You’re a bright girl. I’m sure there’s something we can do here. Because you’re here, we’ve got something that I didn’t have before.”

“And what’s that?”

“Certainty,” he says. “For example, now we can be certain that your real self is in the real room. And that any time, she might be watching us.”

“Right! We can use that!”

1/2

>>2988024
>Pound on the mirror like a maniac. Look at me! Look at me! Surely Sofia won’t ignore your struggles if she can just be forced to notice them!

>You need to find something to write with and something to write on!

>Explore the whole room and show it to the mirror. Maybe the real Sofia will notice some sort of difference that can help her?

>Other (Specify)

>>2988031
>Surely Sofia won’t ignore your struggles if she can just be forced to notice them!
HA. HA. HAAAAAAAA

>You need to find something to write with and something to write on!
>What if, what if WE enter the Wake? We've got two people, a sword and a bloodied razor which is LIKE a sword. That's enough for a duel!

>>2988031
> You need to find something to write with and something to write on!

>>2988045
> HA. HA. HAAAAAAAA
Yeah, Sofia is definitely a Sofiopath.

>>2988031
>You need to find something to write with and something to write on!
>Explore the whole room and show it to the mirror. Maybe the real Sofia will notice some sort of difference that can help her?

>A doppleganger that didn't want to appear appears, has character development beyond that of the original, ultimately dies.
I've seen this already.
Nobody vote for Clarity.

Vote called, writing.

>You need to find something to write with and something to write on!

“I have an idea,” you say slowly, rising to your feet once more. You need to stay calm. And if there’s nothing real for you to cling to, you’ll just steady your feet on the void as best you can. And really, haven’t you had practice at this? Or at least, hasn’t the real Sofia had practice at this?
You’re already used to trying to be someone you’re not. You’re already used to being surrounded by the unreal. It’s just that for once, you’re the unreal one instead of it being the words of everyone you’ve ever known. And so when it comes to having faith and stepping out heedlessly into the void, you’re more than qualified.

The void. You first coined that term to describe the impossibility of ever knowing what anyone else really was like. It was what you leapt into every time you decided to believe in someone. And it’s still the same principle. You just have to apply it to everything now.
If nothing is real, then that means your panic and fear isn’t real either. You might just be an image but it doesn’t mean you have to be an ugly one.

“Do you,” you say to Claudio, “have anything we can use to write with?”

“I’m afraid not,” he says. “I thought of that too. But while this room has paper, there’s nothing to make so much as a mark on it.”

“And that’s where you’re wrong.”


>You can use blood.

>Your sword should be able to scratch the wall facing the mirror no problem.

>Try breathing on the mirror and writing in with your finger. It’ll be even more temporary than you are however.

>You still have your scroll! Cut out the letters to make a makeshift note.

>Other (Specify)

>>2988147
>>You can use blood.

>>2988147
>Fold dust covers, drapes and whatever cloth we can find into giant letters

>>2988147
>You can use blood.

>>2988147
>You can use blood.

Vote called, writing.

>You can use blood.

You don’t hesitate, drawing your sword immediately. Claudio jumps back but you don’t point it at him, instead angling it back towards your own arm.
“If there’s nothing else, we’ll just use blood! It seems to persist well enough.”

“I say! Do you intend to cut your own arm?”

“Of course,” you say through gritted teeth. “This pain won’t even be real. Whoever cares for the suffering of an imaginary creature?”

“I do. And besides, there’s another way. Here!”
He kneels beside the bed and begins to push it aside.

“What are you doing?”

“I told you that Adriana killed herself, didn’t I? Where did you think the body went?”
He shoves the bed aside and beneath it is the housekeeper’s corpse, covered in dry blood. You have to resist the urge to vomit. You’ve never been so close to a corpse before in your life.
“I put it under here so I didn’t have to look at it all the time. At least nothing smells here.”

“What?”

“I put it un-”

“No, what do you mean nothing smells here?”
And just like that, another veil falls from your vision. You haven’t smelled anything in here, have you? You’ve just been...filling in the details.
“Oh.”
The world becomes less real.

“Yeah. That happened to me after she died. Now look.”
He nudges the body with a foot, evidently much more used to corpses than you are. Or maybe that much more harder? You wouldn’t think so to look at him. Adriana stares up at you vacantly, someone you’d just seen and spoken to, reduced to a puppet of blood and meat. A bloodstained scarf is tied tightly around her neck.
“She only died this morning. Her blood should still flow. I also tried to patch her neck up when she was dying to stop the blood. Didn’t work but it means she should still have some in her. So please Sofia, use the corpse instead of yourself. I’ve seen enough of this already.”

“I-I guess I assumed she had just vanished when she died,” you say.

“No, nothing just vanishes here. All the usual still has to happen.”

“Oh! Then how have you been eating?”

“I’ve been rationing from my bags, I always bring a little personal food. I don’t know what I’ll do about you.”

“...How have you been shitting?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Well it has to happen right? If a corpse is still here, so’s that. So why isn’t it all filling half the room by now?”
Your priorities feel a little skewed but whatever. You have every right to being a little unhinged right now.

“I just use the drapes,” he mumbles.

“What the fuck does that mean?”

“I’ll explain later! But please Sofia, your real self might leave the room at any moment!”

“Oh she’ll pay attention to this,” you say grimly. Swallowing your disgust, you bring your sword down upon the corpse. There’s a sound not unlike a handful of raw mince being thrown at a wall.


>What do you write? (Specify)

>>2988266
> Sofia, mirror copied you, I'm in here with our client. He says hi.
Or something along those lines.
Maybe add in a bit about how she should stop abusing the puzzle people.

>>2988266
>Sofia, hi. I'm talking with our client. Also for the love of Law never torment puzzle people ever again.

>>2988147
>What do you write? (Specify)
>Sofia, mirror copied you, I'm in here with our client. He says hi. Also bring reflections of food plz

>>2988353
If Sophia exit the room then enters again, will there be two reflected Sophias?

>>2988359
No. Sofia knows that once a surface is reflecting something, it can't reflect it again. Exemptions abound for putting yourself between two mirrors of course.

Vote called, writing.

>>2988353
And maybe a reflection of a chamber pot. We can occasionally chuck the contents out the door, at which point they will presumably vanish.

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>Sofia, mirror copied you, I'm in here with our client. He says hi. Also bring reflections of food plz

You hate the feeling of blood between your fingers. Your duelling blade was never meant for this. But then again, it’s not the real sabre is it? So for now you’ll just do your best to ignore the queasy feeling of cold blood dripping down your hand.
But it’s okay. The real Sofia will remember none of this.

You daub out the message as quickly as you can. Are you watching? Sofia, do you hear your call? If so, please help. You don’t know what either of you will be able to do about this but please...you have to be able to do something out there.
But what would you care for a reflection? You see your reflection die all the time. Why should any of this faze you?

You’re ever a slave to hope.

>>2987418
>Enter the guest room.

The hall is a little longer than it looks. There must be over twenty doors in total! Are they all guest rooms? That doesn’t seem right.

The housekeeper opens the door for you, selecting a key from a fractal keychain to do so. You try not to stare at it, knowing it’ll do nothing but give you a headache.
“Here you are. Your client awaits, so to speak.”

“Aren’t you going to come in with me?”

“No.”

You open the door and step inside. It’s exactly what you were expecting.

You suppose that there’s a bed, a chest of drawers and some sort of wardrobe here. You can only see the general shape of them however as each is covered in a dust sheet. Just as you thought it would be. Light streams in through a window, the drapes of which have been pulled to the side and bundled.

Just about the only thing here that isn’t covered up is the mirror and only because that’s set into the wall itself. The mirror is tall, stretching from almost the ceiling to the floor and contains the whole room in its gaze. Or at least it should.
But in this case, the room in the mirror is way different. There are no dust sheets anywhere, the drapes are drawn shut, there’s what looks to be blood all over the place and there, reflected in the mirror even as the room itself is empty, is your client.

It has to be Claudio, there’s no other errant reflections hanging around that you know of! He is not particularly remarkable on his own. He’s a mature looking man who has run a little to fat, enough to be portly but not incredibly so. He’s red-faced and red-haired, a balding penumbra of greying orange hair surrounding his head. A massive moustache dominates the rest of his face and the outdated sense of fashion it gives off goes well with the rest of his clothes, a tattered but expensive ensemble of what was considered to be the height of noble fashion a good ten or eleven years ago. Why, you remember your father wearing a suit just like that once.
At first, your attention is drawn solely to the dried bloodstain across his white cumberbund. What’s the story behind that?

You open the door to find the servant still standing there, staring straight ahead.
“Hey.”

“Is everything to your liking?”

“My client is a reflection so not really! Do you think this counts as meeting with it?”

“I couldn’t possibly know.”

“But how am I supposed to talk to the thing? It’s-hold on. What’s up with my reflection? It’s going weird.”

The servant just nods, still refusing to set foot into the room.
“I had a similar experience. I can’t see the mirror from here but I’m sure your reflection is doing her very best!”
She looks confused again and for a moment, so do you. But of course! Your curse applies to your reflection too, you already know that. That might make things a little awkward.

1/2

>>2988482
Stepping back into the room, you inspect the mirror. Your reflection does indeed seem to be freaking out, having fallen to its knees, mouth open in a scream you can’t possibly hear.
“Yeah, it’s berserk,” you try to say. It comes out instead as ‘Yeah she’s beautiful.”

“You’ve confirmed the reflection,” the housekeeper says. “You might want to step away before you see anything...distressing.”

“Nah, it’s not going to distress me. She’s kind of cute when she’s crying like this.”
You think you understand why it went berserk. It would have gone in here expecting to see Claudio’s reflection but it got Claudio in the ‘flesh’, so to speak. Instant dissonance. You’d heard that it was possible to easily replicate a berserk incident and though you never learned how, you’d guess that this is at least one way.

“What do you intend to do in there?”

“It’s none of your business honestly, I have a right to be in the presence of my client. And…”


>”I’m going to inspect this room a little bit, if you don’t mind. I want to investigate the differences between this and the reflection.”

>”I just want to see what happens to my reflection. You’ve piqued my interest.”

>”I have to spend at least a little more time here. My client might not know I’m here but it’s just what’s right.”

>”No actually, you’re right. I’ve got no further business here.”

>Other (Specify)

>>2988488
>”I’m going to inspect this room a little bit, if you don’t mind. I want to investigate the differences between this and the reflection.”

>Nah, it’s not going to distress me. She’s kind of cute when she’s crying like this.

I can't tell if this is the curse or Sofia being her normal socio self when it comes to puzzles and the like

>>2988488
>”I just want to see what happens to my reflection. You’ve piqued my interest.”

>>2988488
>>”I’m going to inspect this room a little bit, if you don’t mind. I want to investigate the differences between this and the reflection.”

>>2988488
>>>”I’m going to inspect this room a little bit, if you don’t mind. I want to investigate the differences between this and the reflection.”

>>2988488
>>”I’m going to inspect this room a little bit, if you don’t mind. I want to investigate the differences between this and the reflection.”

Vote called, writing.

>>2988078
Boooooo

>>2988563
I regret nothing.

>>2988611
It's been one thread, we can still make it happen.
Or did we do something bad I forgot about?

The more I learn about the city, the more I think it's an actual hell.

>>2988683
You're not wrong

>>2988683
Remember anon: this is light tone quest

>”I’m going to inspect this room a little bit, if you don’t mind. I want to investigate the differences between this and the reflection.”

“I want to inspect this room a little. It’s got nothing to do with the duel really but I’d like to see where it differs from the reflection.”

“It’s probably just due to the actions of the lingering reflection,” the housekeeper tells you. “I doubt there’s any meaning to it.”

“If there was no meaning to the reflection, why is the real Claudio so desperate to get rid of it? That’s what I want to know. And unfortunately, it’s not like I can just ask the reflection itself.”

With the housekeeper keeping watch on you from the hallway, you begin your quick search through the room. You don’t find much of interest at first, particularly since you keep sneaking glances at your reflection.
You’ll admit, seeing your reflection so distraught is actually starting to bother you. It’s not right. But you don’t dare say anything about it because you’ll just say that it’s cute or adorable. So you’ll keep your worries locked up nice and tight and never express them again.

The bed, the chest and the wardrobe have nothing of any value to you. The latter two have been thoroughly emptied, the former thoroughly made. Any sign of Claudio has been erased. But the drapes...those are interesting.
As you noted before, they’re not on the window. They’re bundled up to the side but even then, a close inspection lets you make out the curved teardrop pattern dotting the thick fabric.
“Hey housekeep! Are these curtains ambisilk? This looks like an ambisilk pattern.”
You hesitantly push your finger against it but nothing happens. It certainly doesn’t draw you in.

“It’s genuine,” the servant says. “But it doesn’t function while it’s bundled up. They were a gift to the master from an old friend.”

“But the one in the reflection isn’t bundled up like this. It’s over the window like it should be.”

“Remember, the guest asked for a thorough cleaning as they were leaving. Bundling the drapes is just part of that.”

“So what, it’s whole purpose is to just absorb and store the light? That’s a bit of a waste.”
Contrary to how it sounds, ambisilk isn’t a material. It’s a pattern. It can be put on any fabric and if done exactly right, it transforms the fabric into a sort of...bag. Or a doorway? You’re unsure of what you’d call it. But when it’s active you can stuff just about anything into it and recall it just as easily. Either you can try to reach for a specific item or you can find and pluck its command stitch, disgorging everything put in it for the last three days and three nights.
It’s also incredibly expensive.

1/2

>>2988840
“I’m not to judge how the master uses his possessions.”

“Sure, sure, you see-woah! What’s that?”
Something hideous is happening in the mirror. You watch open-mouthed as you reflection slices open the housekeeper (when did she get there?) and starts to smear blood upon the wall. You feel like you’re going to be sick just looking at it.

“What is it?”

“It’s uh...beautiful.”
You can say nothing else.

You watch, paralysed by fascination, as your reflection slowly spells out a series of backwards letters on the wall behind the bed. It takes you a moment to flip them in your head to read them but when you do:

Sofia, mirror copied you, I'm in here with our client. He says hi. Also bring reflections of food please

“Ah.”
Why didn’t you think this would happen? In hindsight it seems obvious. Claudio’s reflection stares out imploringly as your reflection slowly begins to bang her head against the bloodstained wall.
That said….this message is almost entirely useless. Are you disappointed with yourself?

And just as you finish deciphering it, the housekeeper knocks on the side of the doorframe to get your attention.
“It would appear that Lord d’Rocco has just arrived, signorina.”

“What?”
But it’s still incredibly early! Was he planning to get here before you? What would have happened if you’d arrived late?


>”Please bring me some food. From the party, if you have to. They can wait.”

>”I guess I’ll go meet them. Can you please get some food while I’m gone and place it on the floor of this room?”

>”They can come here if they want to negotiate. Fuck ‘em.”

>Go out to meet them. Reflections don’t need food.

>Other (Specify)

>>2988842
>”Please bring me some food. From the party, if you have to. They can wait.”
>And a write a note about the curtains

File: sleep.jpg (114 KB, 577x515)

114 KB JPG

As you may have noticed from the time that update took, I am very tired. I sleep now. Vote will remain open until I wake.

>>2988842
>”Please bring me some food. From the party, if you have to. They can wait.”
>Other (Specify)
Write back that the message is received and that Lord d'Rocco has arrived.

Is it possible to also bring a note pad and pencil so we can give it to ReflectSofia so she doesn't have to paint the walls with blood anympre?

>>2988895
Seconded

>>2988842
Supporting >>2988895, except the writing back part. Reflected Sophia can't see out of the mirror, remember?

>>2988951
Yeah but RealSofia doesn't know that so I thought it was in character

>>2988895
Good idea, support.

>>2988969
Ouro would we know this?

>>2985898
Wow, this new art is great

>>2988951
Wait, I'm stupid. We can communicate with Reflected Sophia by passing her reflections of notes.

>>2988842
Supporting the note part of >>2988895 as well

I wonder if perhaps our client has done anything illegal and wants to silence the reflection before it talks. Maybe it is something so hideous even the reflection doesn´t want to speak about it, as it is a legal entity as well and the constables could charge him.

>>2988683
The Upper Realms are like... I don't know, the land of the Fae in World of Darkness or something.
Whatever we think is hellish is peachy keen to the residents.

I'm awake! Vote called and writing.

>”Please bring me some food. From the party, if you have to. They can wait.”
>”And find me something to write with and on.”

“I imagine they will want to meet in the entry hall. I told him that the drawing room was off-limits today.”
The housekeeper, whose name you still don’t know, looks just a little irritated. You guess you’re not the only one thrown off by your opponent’s early arrival.

“They can wait,” you say. “You know, since they’re so fucking early anyway. I want you to bring me some food please. Take it from the party if you have to. And something for me to write with or on, if you’d be so kind!”
And she will be.

The housekeeper closes the door and bustles off, leaving you trapped in the little room with the mirror. The reflection of Claudio is standing out next to the curtains and looks as if he’s explaining something to your reflection. It only takes a moment but it apparently disgusts your reflection and it spins around to the mirror itself, leaning up against with a bloodstained hand.

Acting without thinking, you walk up to the mirror and stretch out your hand. Your hand brushes against the glass, seemingly brushing against the hand of your counterpart. But of course neither of you feel anything. You’re not actually holding hands.
“I’m still here,” you say. “I haven’t gone anywhere.”

It’s just a reflection. But it looks so desperate.

You are interrupted by a knock at the door, the housekeeper pushing it open but refusing to take even a single step into the room. She’s holding a platter of skinned mangoes in one hand and a sketchpad and fountain pen in the other. Down the hall behind her, you swear you see one of the doors close.
“Here,” she says. “Food and writing material. But what do you plan to do with either?”

“Why, give it to them of course!”
You take it from her hands and step back into the room. And oh, oh wait. That doesn’t work. Your reflection, now well and truly divergent, doesn’t have either in her hand. So how are you going to get them reflected.
“Hous-uh sorry, what is your name?”

“Adriana.”

“Right, thank you Adriana. Could you step inside with all these and take it off me? I need a fresh reflection to carry all these.”
You look uneasily at her mutilated corpse in the mirror.

“Perhaps later,” she says uneasily. She very clearly doesn’t want to do it. “I shall call for a maid to do it instead.”

“Alright, that’ll work too.”

“Incidentally, Lord d’Rocco is getting most impatient.”

“Well too bad! I need to write this message!”
What do you write?


>Keep writing messages.

>Thank you! Stay strong.

>Duel negotiations soon.

>You’re beautiful.

>What the hell is up with that corpse?

>Please search the room.

>Claudio, why are you doing this?

>Other (Specify)

>>2990252
>Other (Specify)
They're here. Duel negotiations soon

>Claudio, why are you doing this?

>>2990252
>Thank you! Stay strong.
>Duel negotiations soon.
>Please search the room. Look for anything out of the ordinary. Other than the corpse.
>Claudio, why are you doing this?
>Keep writing messages. Preferably with the sketchpad and pen.

Vote called, writing.

>Duel negotiations soon.
>Claudio, why are you doing this?

You scribble down a quick message and watch it as it fails to appear in the mirror. Just as you surmised, you’ll need someone whose reflection already isn’t here to actually deliver this.
“Call that maid, Adriana. I should only need her once, as long as this stuff is delivered they can write as much as they need!”

>>2988478

>Stay sane.

You sigh, a sound that almost ends in an awful whine. Claudio has just finished explaining to you how he’s been using the ambisilk curtains to store his ...bathroom necessities. You wish you didn’t know now. But this is going to be your life too, isn’t it? For as long as you want to live you’re going to be in this room, shitting into a drape.

“You’ll have to use it too,” Claudio is saying. “I don’t want waste piling up in here. And it’s uh, going to have to be the same for any waste of a uh, more feminine nature.”

“What?”

“You know. Any blood.”

“Oh, you don’t have to worry about that,” you grumble, crossing the room and leaning up against the mirror. You leave a bloodstain smeared on it. You don’t care. You can still feel the cold blood coating your fingers. You can still feel the itching beneath your skin.
You throw your hand up against the mirror as if you were trying to touch your own reflection. But you know better, don’t you?

You can only hope that the real Sofia is still here. Did she even get your first message? Did she even care?

Some time passes but you don’t know how much. But then the door opens once more and in steps...a maid you don’t recognise. She’s holding a platter of skinned and diced mango in one hand and a sketchpad in the other.
When she sees Adriana’s brutalised corpse, she drops both and screams. She runs out the door and dies.

“I say!,” Claudio rumbles, moving past you with surprising speed. “Food! Food! Finally!”

You mouth the word ‘thanks’ at the mirror. And then as your client falls to his hands and knees to gorge himself on the dropped platter, you step over him and shut the door. You don’t need to see the hall beyond. You don’t need the temptation of cessation.
A fountain pen rolls free from where it had been tucked between pages of the sketchpad. And on the pad itself, the first page is covered with a familiar scribble.

They’re here. Duel negotiations soon! Ask Claudio why the fuck he’s doing any of this!

“I wish I knew,” Claudio says mournfully, his mouth half full. “I wish I knew.”

“I think she wants us to write something back,” you say, staining the sketchpad red where you pick it up. “Maybe you should do it though.”

“Mrrmph. But what shall we even write about?”

“I don’t know! She didn’t tell us what she needed! I love her so much!”


>Send back a message asking for clarification.

>Send back a message pleading for your lives.

>Inspect everything in the room and send back a message describing this.

>Send back a message asking Sofia to relay a message to someone you’ll never see again.

>Send back a message thanking her for the food and sketchpad.

>Ask her to ask the real Claudio for his version of the story. Write down your Claudio’s version.

>Other (Specify)

>>2990451
>>Send back a message asking for clarification.
>Inspect everything in the room and send back a message describing this.
>Send back a message thanking her for the food and sketchpad.
>Ask her to ask the real Claudio for his version of the story. Write down your Claudio’s version.

>>2990451
>Ask her to ask the real Claudio for his version of the story. Write down your Claudio’s version.
>Send back a message thanking her for the food and sketchpad.

>>2990451

>Ask her to ask the real Claudio for his version of the story. Write down your Claudio’s version.


>skinned and diced mango
wow, that's not going to last long

>>2990451

>Ask her to ask the real Claudio for his version of the story. Write down your Claudio’s version.

Vote called, writing.

>Ask her to ask the real Claudio for his version of the story. Write down your Claudio’s version.

“Hey, leave some of that for me alright? I know you’ve been starved these past few days but I want to eat too.”

Claudio shrugs, pulling himself away with visible reluctance.
“It won’t last long anyway. This is just something you’d serve as an appetizer at a party. There’s no substance to it.”

“Probably because it is from a party. There’s apparently one going on in the drawing room.”

That gives him pause.
“Really? Has Eduardo returned then?”

“No. Adriana told me he isn’t due back until tomorrow morning.”

“Then why are there people here? Who is it for?”

“...I don’t know.”
You hadn’t thought of that.
“Maybe Adriana is throwing it?”

“That doesn’t sound like her. But oh well, it’s quite beyond our grasp I’m afraid. As long as they keep this food coming.”

“I think I know what I want to write to Sofia too. Don’t you think there’s something odd about this whole thing?”

“Oh, exceptionally so.”

“There must be something here that your real self is desperate to hide. And if it involves your death, it more or less confirms it’s related to this room. No, this reflected room! And to you. Claudio, please be honest with me...did you do anything wrong?”

“Not here, no. I swear it’s the truth!”

“Maybe you didn’t,” you say grimly. “But your real self could have. Is it...is it normal for a reflection to diverge so abruptly?”

“No.”

“Hrm. Just go over your version of events again. I already have similar stories from Zuana and Adriana but I think it’s the stories of the Claudios that might show us the truth. I need to write down your version of things and then Sofia can read it and ask the real Claudio. Capiche?”

“That makes sense. I don’t much like the idea of suspecting myself though.”

“It can’t be that bad. You don’t seem like an awful person.”

Claudio regales you with the story of his ‘enlightenment’ once more and this time you write it down as best you can, covering multiple pages. And when he describes the mysterious ‘travelling arms’ moving through the mirror once more, you stop to think.
You’ve never heard of phenomena like that before. Not in rumours, not in stories, not in truth and not in fiction.
“Do you have any idea what those were?”

“Not at all.”

So either it’s something entirely unheard of...or Claudio is lying to you. But why would he do that?

>>2990443

In the guest room, an errant reflection of a redhaired woman places several pages in front of the mirror in the hope that they’ll be read. It’s a message in a bottle, put out in the hope of it being read by someone.

She has no way of knowing it but she’s showing them to an empty room.

*****

You stand in the entry hall, tapping your foot irritably. You didn’t want to be out here but the negotiations can’t be kept waiting for too long. And besides, your reflection wasn’t sending you back any messages. It had just kept writing and writing and writing. You didn’t have the time to stick around for all that!
You’ll come back and read it later.

Adriana opens the front door to admit two gentleman, one of which is rather familiar. It’s Claudio, looking exactly like his reflection save in his choice of outfits. He’s wearing something a little more modern now. He also looks extremely upset, sweating and even more red-faced than his reflection was.
“I say,” he says loudly, ignoring Adriana entirely. “Let’s get this over with.”

Accompanying him is a younger man, one who must be near your age. His brown hair is cut short and what little there is of it is slicked back with some sort of gel or wax. He has a bit of a babyface and...and might actually be an inch shorter than you! Woah.
But he’s dressed sharply in a red tunic hidden beneath a beige vest and tight patterned trousers held up across his shoulders by a pair of suspenders. His sleeves are long but tied back to reveal surprisingly full triceps.
He carries a sheathed sword in one hand, the sheath itself more ornate than some duelling sabres, decorated all the way down with images of roses.

And then he goes ahead and ruins a somewhat favorable first impression by looking extremely nervous. Feh. Nevermind then. He looks like a dweeb.
“H-Hello,” he says. “I’m here to discuss the matter on behalf of my client.”


>”I didn’t know they let children duel.”

>Be courteous and professional. Just because it’s been a weird day doesn’t mean you have to take it out on him.

>”Oh good, you’re both here. Now stay here while I go further discuss matters with my client.” Turn around and walk back to the Viridian Hall.

>Ignore this duellist. Advance on Claudio.

>Other (Specify)

>>2990732
>Oh, you wish to discuss this with our clients present? Let's head on to Viridian Hall, then.

>>2990732
>Be courteous and professional. Just because it’s been a weird day doesn’t mean you have to take it out on him.

>>2990732
>>Be courteous and professional. Just because it’s been a weird day doesn’t mean you have to take it out on him.
>>”Oh good, you’re both here. Now stay here while I go further discuss matters with my client.” Turn around and walk back to the Viridian Hall.

Need to get the last detail from my client

>>2990769
This

>>2990732
> Be courteous and professional. Just because it’s been a weird day doesn’t mean you have to take it out on him.

Then pinch his cheek because he's adorable.

Don't actually pinch his cheek.

Have to admit, our opposing duelist is a cute kid and is probably a lot better than we actually suspect. I'm sure he wants us to take him seriously, so we'll try not to let him realize we think he's adorable.

Actually, let's invite the kid duelist in to see our client, just to see how his reflection will react.
I admit that it's rather mean but I'm wondering if the duelist will spill something if he see's his reflection and the other claudio in there.
two duels for the price of one!

Vote called, writing.

>>2990798
He's probably going to kick our ass.

> Be courteous and professional. Just because it’s been a weird day doesn’t mean you have to take it out on him.

Just because he looks like a dweeb doesn’t mean that’s all he is. For example, he might also be a cute dweeb. Or an adorable one! Why, you’d pinch his cheek except that such an action would make you feel uncomfortably like your godmother. And besides, he’s a colleague. You’ll do him the professional respect of taking him seriously.
And what’s more, Claudio d’Rocco is a wealthy man. So if this kid is who he hired, he’s a bigger deal than any opponent you’ve yet had! If you don’t take him seriously you might wind up with an embarrassing loss.
So with that in mind you just give him a nod as he continues to speak.

“My name is Sabino Manfredi, provisional member of the Rose Blossom Ring.”

Now that gets your attention. He doesn’t have a Ring’s symbol anywhere on him or at least, not where he can see. But you don’t doubt him either. Considering the strata of society through which you are now moving, it’s likely for him to be a member of a Ring. But you’re just surprised he isn’t a member of the Upturned Eye like Ormanno. Isn’t that Ring all about showcasing young duellists?
You don’t know much of anything about the Rose Blossom aside from it having the most delicate and feminine reputation of all the Rings. In a mostly male profession, it has the most female members. But if he really is accepted among their ranks, not even as a member of the special youth Ring...he must be the real deal.
Now you’re real happy you chose to be courteous.

But what the shit is a ‘provisional’ member?

“I don’t see your insignia,” you say.

He colours in response. He really is nervous! It’s not an act.
“That’s not important,” he says. “What’s important are these negotiations. I’m representing Claudio d’Rocco.”

“Sofia Pseudonym, public defender. I am also representing Claudio d’Rocco.”

“Now hold on just a moment,” the real Claudio bellows. “You do not represent me, that thing in the mirror is not me. You can’t just declare yourself like that. I insist…”

You exchange a look with Sabino as his client continues to ramble in the background. Claudio is even more nervous than his duellist, it would seem. You just wish you knew what he was nervous about. Sabino looks particularly wretched and you think you know why. His client shouldn’t be taking part in this and certainly not in such a rude manner. It’s his responsibility to keep his client under control.

“I,” Sabino says. “Maybe you sho-”

“Don’t you tell me what I should and shouldn’t do! I payed for your-”

“Shut up,” you tell him. “The clients will remain silent. Mine doesn’t have a problem with that. Why don’t you?”

“Yes Signorina,” Claudio grumbles, sweating even harder and looking rather perplexed with himself. Sabino just looks grateful.

1/2

>>2990943
“And now,” you continue, “your terms, if you would.”

“The challenger demands the destruction of the mirror in the guest room of the Viridian Hall of Casa d’Zaffiro and the eviction of all tenants,” Sabino says. “This is not a particularly b-burdensome clause.”

“It is for my client, buddy! He’ll die.”

“W-well, you’re going to win anyway.”
Poor Sabino looks extremely uncomfortable with his curseborne admission.
“What are your terms?”


>”That the challenger never return to this house and will, through no means or proxy, ever gaze upon, approach or endanger the mirror ever again.”

>”A complete cessation of all further legal inquiries into this matter. That is all.”

>”The challenger will pay for food and any other items deemed necessary for ensuring that my client lives a long and healthy life despite his circumstances.”

>Other (Specify)

>>2990948
>”A complete cessation of all further legal inquiries into this matter. That is all.”

>>2990948
>”A complete cessation of all further legal inquiries into this matter. That is all.”

I feel like that's the only reasonable thing we can do.

>>2990948
>>”The challenger will pay for food and any other items deemed necessary for ensuring that my client lives a long and healthy life despite his circumstances.”

Vote called, writing.

>”A complete cessation of all further legal inquiries into this matter. That is all.”

You’ll concede that while it might be life or death for your client, what they’re actually asking for isn’t all that much objectively speaking. And while it seems impossible for them to demand anything more than they already have from your client, you’ll meet Sabino halfway with a term that won’t force him to further demands.

“All that I ask is that when I win, your client will cease all further legal inquiries into this matter. That’s all.”
It’s a piddly term, one of the most basic ones possible. But it should be all your client needs.

“When you win.” Sabino says. He probably meant to question your phrasing but somewhere along the line his words got twisted to agree with you.

“Indeed. Now I believe I also get to choose the place and the time? The place is mostly unimportant. As for the time…”

>”Right now! No waiting about. The sun is going down after all.”

>”In an hour or so, at the first sunset.” That will give you a little time at least.

>”Tomorrow morning. It’s nearly dark after all and this is a very complex matter.” This will give you plenty of time to get to the bottom of things and prepare!

>Other (Specify)

>>2991034
>>”Tomorrow morning. It’s nearly dark after all and this is a very complex matter.” This will give you plenty of time to get to the bottom of things and prepare!

I think we need all the time we can get right now.

>>2991034
>”Tomorrow morning. It’s nearly dark after all and this is a very complex matter.” This will give you plenty of time to get to the bottom of things and prepare!

>>2991034
>>”Tomorrow morning. It’s nearly dark after all and this is a very complex matter.” This will give you plenty of time to get to the bottom of things and prepare!

>>2991034

>”Tomorrow morning. It’s nearly dark after all and this is a very complex matter.” This will give you plenty of time to get to the bottom of things and prepare!

>>Other (Specify)
Also kid, you're fighting for your client. Cut it out with the defeatist crap. *poke arm muscle* You've clearly trained.

>>2991063
The curse is affecting him and that write in will also be twisted.

Vote called, writing.

File: sofiaOP.jpg (75 KB, 750x378)

75 KB JPG

>”Tomorrow morning. It’s nearly dark after all and this is a very complex matter.” This will give you plenty of time to get to the bottom of things and prepare!

You certainly don’t want to rush this. Not only will you need to find out some information about Sabino here, you intend on getting to the bottom of this Claudio business. Maybe then you won’t even need the duel?
“Tomorrow morning. It’s nearly dark after all and this is a very odd matter. Do you take issue with this.”

Sabino shakes his head.
“No. We shall meet tom-”

“I do!”
Claudio’s shout makes Sabino jump a little as the chubby man strolls forward.
“The whole point of this challenge is to get this solved in a timely fashion! We can’t afford tomorrow.”

“This is none of your business,” you say sharply. “When you selected a champion, you gave up your control over this matter. You’ll wait for tomorrow and you’ll like it.”
You don’t even give Sabino a chance to respond this time.

“I will,” he admits, backing away back towards the front door, Adriana following him like a shadow. “But the rest of you won’t!”
And with those words, he runs for the door!

Adriana reflectively steps in front of the door as if she had been expecting this but Claudio swats her aside with a backhand bearing a lot of momentum behind it! She stumbles back and her head strikes the wall with a nasty crack.

“Hey! Stop!”
But your shout is in vain.

Claudio wrenches the door open and stands just beyond the doorway. And it’s there that you see another man waiting for him, a tall man in a dark blue overcoat whose steel-gray hair is tied back into a short ponytail.
“Nero! Do it now!”

The grizzled looking man pulls a bundled-up scroll from his beneath his cloak, unrolling it even as you push Sabino aside and run forward. It’s a map...no, a set of blueprints!

Claudio bars the door, forcing you to draw your sword.
“Hold your sabre! You you not recognise this blueprint? I had it borrowed from the Archivum! And this man, Nero, is a trained and accomplished architect. He’ll do it!”

“Do what?”

Adriana wobbles to her feet, blood running down her forehead.
“Don’t you dare!,” she screams. “You don’t have permission! That’s not leg-”

Taking a few steps back, this ‘Nero’ drives a pen down upon the blueprints in a quick stroke.


>Quick! Push your way through the doorway and get him!

>You need to get as much distance as you can. This is getting...bureaucratic.

>”What the fuck is your PROBLEM Claudio?”

>Grab hold of Adriana. She looks as if she’s about to topple over again.

>Throw Sabino at his client.

>Other (Specify)

>>2991231
>Grab hold of Adriana. She looks as if she’s about to topple over again.
>”What the fuck is your PROBLEM Claudio?”
>Other (Specify)
"I need to be able to see my client. You cannot prevent me from seeing him."

I think we have jurisdiction here?

>>2991231
>>”What the fuck is your PROBLEM Claudio?”

>>2991231
>Underhanded Deflection
>P provocateur

Vote called, writing.

>”What the fuck is your PROBLEM Claudio?”

You’re not sure what’s being done here, only that it’s dangerously bureaucratic. How did he ever get the approval for those blueprints in the first place? So, in the face of something beyond your ken, you stay put and settle to shout instead.
“What the fuck is your problem, Claudio? Why are you doing this?”

“Nero! Hurry it up!”

You take a few steps forward.
“You can’t keep me from seeing my client! I have jurisdiction!”

“I’m not stopping you from seeing that thing! Have all the time you need!”
But before you can figure out whether this is correct or merely a threat inverted by your birthright, the house...folds.

The entire wall of the entry room that the entry hall is set into scrunches up as if it was paper and then implodes, vanishing into a far flung point miles and miles distant. The door is taken with it. All that is left in its wake is buckling chaos as the rest of the house forms up and heals over it as if it was an old deformity. The floor and the ceiling rush to meet one another there, the walls twist and fold as the place where the wall and door of the entry hall once were is replaced by a pile of mish-mash folded in from the surrounding walls, ceiling and floor.
Architectural scar-tissue. It hurts to look at.

“Sofia!”
You turn as you hear Sabino cry out. The back of the entry hall, where he had been standing, has been undone! So much of it has flowed forth to fill the wound that the back corners and creases where the ceiling and floor meet the walls have split apart and beyond...beyond is a void of a dozen other rooms flashing past. The internal body of Casa D’Zaffiro.
The floor has folded beneath Sabino’s feet and he’s fallen, rolling down towards the domestic abyss.

But even as you run towards him, two other things catch your eye.

The first is Adriana, fallen in the confusion, blood covering her eyes. She had been right next to the door. And even though she struggles forward, she is being twisted back towards the forming scab, to become part of the plug of detritus forming there. If you let her be, she’ll likely be crushed or buried!

And the other is the open doorway to the Viridian Hall. The doorway is slanting under the forces of the twisted house, growing thinner, shrinking. You have no way of knowing but you have the horrible suspicion that it might not be there for much longer.

>Rush to grab hold of Sabino’s outstretch hand!

>Wade into the chaos to drag Adriana out.

>Run for the Viridian Hall. Your client matters above everything else!

>Other (Specify)

>>2991332
>Wade into the chaos to drag Adriana out.
Fuck me.

>Other (Specify)
"Sabino try and use your sword to stop your movement!"

>>2991332
>Wade into the chaos to drag Adriana out.
>Encourage Sabino to man up and use his physical conditioning.

>>2991332
>>Wade into the chaos to drag Adriana out.

Vote called, writing!

>Wade into the chaos to drag Adriana out.
>Shout at Sabino.

“Oi!,” you shout at Sabino as you struggle your way towards the still-forming scab. “Use your sword! Else what good are you!”

You take your own advice as you step forward, slicing in half a painting that comes barreling towards you! The cannibal scholars scream in silence as their world, and their bodies, are split in twain. But it’s not alone. Everything in the entry hall is being pulled towards the absence. The vacuum is being thoroughly abhorred.
And in the midst of it all, Adriana reaches out helplessly. If you don’t do anything soon, she’s going to merge with the wall or something equally grotesque. You don’t even want to imagine what that’ll look like!

Of course, the same thing could happen to you but you don’t want to think about that. Lacking any better plan, you leap into the architectural maelstrom with your arm outstretched!

>Roll 1d10. The first 3 shall be counted.

Rolled 6 (1d10)

>>2991399

Rolled 10 (1d10)

>>2991399

Rolled 5 (1d10)

>>2991399

Writing.

>6, 10, 5
>21

>Obstacle Composure: 1d20

You dodge another painting as it whirls past you, your feet skidding on the bulging carpet as floor cracks up and towards the absence. Adriana is pinned to the rising wall, house forming around her as if it were liquid.
But you’re nearly there! Just a little closer…

“Hold on!”
You grab Albero’s tin scabbard from your handbag and thrust it forward, just barely clearing the distance between the two of you! She grabs hold of the tip and with a mighty heave that sets your shoulders aflame, you pull her free!

She stumbles into you and you grab hold, wrapping a hand around her waist and pushing her away and out from the scab. She stumbles free and falls flat on her face. And with that, you crawl your way out as well, the walls rushing in to fill the space just behind you!

The entry hall settles around you, the buckling and shaking subsiding and the world returning to normal. The room is a mess but despite appearances, everything is still mostly as it was. The only exception is, of course, the wall that held the front door. It’s no longer there. The rest of the room around it has curved in to replace it and it’s still uncomfortable to look at.
Adriana is lying in the middle of the room looking dazed and just behind her is Sabino, his sabre drawn and embedded in the floor. Looks like he followed your advice!

“What,” you say, gently breathing in to avoid your voice from rising to a screech, “the fuck was that?”

“I don’t know,” Sabino says.

“Bullshit! He’s your client, isn’t he? Why did he do that?”

“He abandoned me too! Don’t act like I’m in on this.”
He gets to his feet, cradling a bruised arm.
“I swear, I have no idea what he’s trying to do.”

>Believe.

>Disbelieve.

Meta-wise, I have no idea what's going on.

>>2991451
> Believe.

>>2991455
Real Claudio threw a temper tantrum because his remodeling got delayed by one day, and now he's magically restructuring the house with everyone still inside it, resulting in people getting crushed.

>>2991459
So attempted murder, then.

>>2991462
That's what it looks like.

>>2991451
>>Believe.
Almost forgot.

Vote called, writing.

>>2991451
Sophia must have one huge handbag.

>>2991451
>Believe.
Sabino barely escaped being embedded into a wall. I don't think he's in cahoots with Claudio.

>Believe.

“It’s alright, I believe you. You were just trying to do your job, not your fault that he threw a tantrum over being delayed a day! Still, do you have any idea about what just happened?”

“No.”

“Architecture,” Adriana says, sitting up. She’s still bleeding but she no longer seems to notice. “Rogue architecture.”

“Pardon?”

“He had the blueprints of the house and, evidently, an architect with loose enough ethics to do this. He altered the blueprints!”

“Oh,” you say. “I see now, that makes sense. What did they do, cross out the door?”

“Probably,” she says. “But that’s not allowed. Rogue architecture is a serious crime and he probably had the blueprints stolen too. This’d be a matter for the High Court.”

“So why?,” Sabino groans. “I don’t understand.”

“He’s desperate,” you say. “Didn’t he only make this challenge because you told him to wait for, uh, Eduardo to return, Adriana? Whatever he wants from this it’s clearly urgent.”

“He...had the blueprint and the architect already there.”
Adriana tries to wipe the blood out of her eyes but only succeeds in smearing it further.
“This was planned beforehand.”

“Wait, then he hired my instructor already knowing that?,” Sabino’s starting to sound genuinely angry and fuck, he sure has to right to. You all do!

“I don’t understand the point,” Adriana continues. “He’s going to be arrested now, no matter what he does. And when he does, it’ll be the lawyers for him. Why?”

“You mean, what does he gain? I don’t know.”
You scratch your head.
“This whole case, none of it has made sense. The only way it would make sense is if…”


>Claudio has a secret that he’s willing to die to protect.

>Someone else has put him up to this.

>There’s something about that reflection that endangers more than just himself.

>Other (Specify)

>>2991487
>There’s something about that reflection that endangers more than just himself.
The reflection is still Claudio, so it should have no motive to reveal any secrets that harm the real Claudio.
Claudio demanded the reflection to be removed immediately after it was deiscovered, so there should've been no time for anyone else to put him up to it.
The third option is the only one that makes sense for now
The hands. It's probably the hands.

>>2991487
I don't really know. Claudio doesn't really strike me as the type to put his own life on the line for anyone else, so I think what's probably going on is that he thinks he'll definitely die if the mirror isn't destroyed right now, so he's willing to take his chances with High Law in order to destroy it right now.

But to keep things moving, I'll go with
> There’s something about that reflection that endangers more than just himself.
because I don't have any concrete ideas at the moment.

Maybe he's actually the reflection and real Claudio is the one in the mirror, but he'll fade away and die if the mirror isn't destroyed thus allowing him to fully take real Claudio's place? Fuck if I know.

Vote called, writing.

What would eduardo do if he saw the reflection? He might be related to the time constraint.

Should we have been checking if the reflections are right or left handed, compared to the 3d ones?

Sorry for the delay, I dozed off for a few minutes there.

> There’s something about that reflection that endangers more than just himself.

“...if there’s something about that reflection that endangers more than just himself. Or is something he thinks is more dangerous than what he’s exposed himself to by doing this. I mean, he’s been doing his best to have it destroyed!”
A sudden thought strikes you.
“Adriana! Can he use the rogue architecture to destroy the guest room?”

She shakes her head.
“No, I don’t think so. This ‘Nero’ doesn’t have permission. It’s testament enough that he can even affect the outside of it.”

“But why do this?” Sabino asks. “This in particular! There’s no reason to take the door.”

“Maybe he wants to seal off the whole thing,” you say. “Hold us hostage until we agree to do what he says.”

“He wouldn’t have very long.”
Adriana stands.
“The master arrives in the morning. Claudio’s ploy will be discovered after but a night.”
You note that she doesn’t call him by his title anymore.

“I think we need to do a quick check of every room we can,” Sabino says. “Inspect all the possible doors and windows. We have to find one before they can steal them all!”

“No!,” Adriana barks. “...I mean, please don’t. There is no telling how dangerous the house has become. And worse yet, there are other guests. We must secure them.”

You stare back at the twitching doorway to the Viridian Hall. At least it survived the scabbing.
“I don’t know guys. If the reflection is really this important, I want to check on it right away.”


>Support Sabino’s idea.

>Support Adriana’s idea.

>Support your own idea.

>Other (Specify)

>>2991557
> Support Adriana’s idea.
We got into the public defender business to protect people after all.

>>2991557
>Support your own idea.

File: advancedflaking.png (11 KB, 636x405)

11 KB PNG

I'm going to rest for a few hours to get my energy back. Vote will remain open until then.

>>2991557
>Split up
Ariadna and Sabino can secure the other guests while we're checking up on our reflection.

>>2991573
> house goes all horror movie with the walls trying to eat people
> split up
Please no.

>>2991576
It's alright anon, we're in control.
Or would you tell Sophia she is not in control?

>>2991557

Two important questions.

Is our blade sharp enough to cleanly cut glass, and can a reflection be moved?


If both of these are true, we can theoretically shuttle our client out of the building with a steady hand using a steady hand, a portion of the mirror and someone brave enough to guide the holder in keeping the reflections in LOS.

Not the immediate plan by the way. Save the people. If he can't affect the guest room, your client should be safe in the meantime.

>>2991580

Freudian typo by the way: If it's even possible, a simple jostle is fatal to them.

In regards to the actual vote, we need to locate the architect immediately. Every edit is potentially fatal. Follow Sabino's idea, but be prepared to act in self defense of yourself, the people inside and your client.

>Sabino
>Other(Locate and neutralize Nero)

What if 2D claudio is evil, and the hands are hidden in the covers?

Also, the hands still might be in the covers in the 3D world.

>>2991588

They aren't under the covers Anon, that's ridiculous.

They're in the Ambisilk of course.

>>2991573
Support

>>2991576
/lighter tone/
Seriously though this is comfy af Ouro, is this the Halloween mystery episode?

Vote called, writing.

>Go to the guest room.

You step into the Viridian Hall without even waiting for a response from the others. The hallway is a little slanted but otherwise seems fine. You poke your head back into the entry hall.
“Yeah, this seems unharmed. So I’m going to go check on the reflections in the guest room.”

“There are other people here,” Adriana says. You’re sure she would have a much harsher tone if she could. “We need to find them!”

“You two can work at that if you want. I’m attending to my clients.”
They’re welcome to argue with you except wait, no, they’re not welcome. They can’t.

Adriana sighs.
“Very well. Signore Manfredi, we shall want that door over there. Yes, that one. The one that’s bent in half. I will catch up with you in just a moment.”

You leave them behind and stagger down the hallway. They’ll be fine. They should be able to handle themselves just fine. Sure, Sabino looks nervous and Adriana has a head wound but...your client comes first.
Everything Claudio is doing, it’s all for this mirror. There’s a mystery here. And if you can just understand that, you might be able to find a way to get out!

The guest room is just as you left it. Well, almost. There’s a pile of diced mango and a notepad sitting on the floor. Oh! Now that’s a problem isn’t it. When you’re alone you won’t have any way to speak to them. Hopefully whatever they have for you is worth it.

Both of the berserk reflections are still there. Claudio is leaning up against the wall, rocking back and forth on its feet. And your doppelganger is sitting on the bed with its head in its hands. Neither of them notice you. How could they?
And scattered all around the mirror where you might see it is paper. They’ve worked so hard for you. And had things gone differently, you would never have known.

You read the little story laid out before you as quickly as possible. It’s just a transcription of mirror Claudio’s recollection of events before and after their berserking. And it mostly matches what you’ve heard from the others. But nobody else mentioned that Eduardo had been there! And you know for a fact that none of them had said anything about a ‘rush of disembodied arms’.
Seeing them had been what had caused the reflection’s divergence and yet...neither it or your counterpart have any other idea about them. They only passed Claudio’s reflection for a moment, disappearing through the mirror as quickly as they appeared.

Some kind of fauna? Are there creatures native to reflections? No, surely not. People would see them in mirrors and you’ve never heard about any such thing.

But that mystery aside, you can generally assume that the reflection’s testimony holds true to what the real Claudio was doing up until the arms and the split. After that, all bets are off.

Is this it? Does this help you any?

1/2

>>2991769
>You need to find someone to help you get a message to the reflections. You have more questions to ask and they probably deserve to be informed of this situation.

>Inspect the room one last time. Be fastidious about your search.

>Try to escape through the window here.

>You can carve glass, can’t you? You’re going to try and take this mirror with you. That probably won’t do anything bad to your client.

>Other (Specify)

>>2991772
>Inspect the room one last time. Be fastidious about your search.

>>2991772
>Inspect the room one last time. Be fastidious about your search
Then
>You need to find someone to help you get a message to the reflections. You have more questions to ask and they probably deserve to be informed of this situation.

Vote called, writing.

>Inspect the room one last time. Be fastidious about your search

Despite all this strangeness going on, one thing is abundantly clear to you. The reflection is the key to all this. So what is it about this room that is so dangerous that Claudio would do this? Is it something to do with his reflection? Or just the reflection of the room itself? Is there something that the Claudio in the mirror changed about the room that isn’t reflected here?

So you’ll ignore your reflections for now and while you’ve already searched this room before, this time you’ll be much more thorough.

******

The search turns up nothing. The chest of drawers is still as empty as it was before and the wardrobe is blessedly free of secret passageways. What about the bed? Nothing beneath it, something which is fortunate and unfortunate for you.
Eventually there is nought left but the window and the rolled up drapes beside them.

The window is dark and as you approach it, the glass goes gray and opaque. The wall around it hums with an unspoken menace. Ah, of course. The rogue architecture’s already here. You’re not going to be able look out of it, much less open it or escape through it. It’s as if it the window looks into an endless bank of gray fog.
To be honest, you almost prefer it this way. You’ve become leery of windows at night lately. You just...don’t like them. You can’t see out but anything can see in! How is that fair? It’s not a particularly rational fear but they still creep you out.

You unroll the curtains, reactivating the ambisilk pattern in the process. The little sewn in teardrops stare up at you, twisting oddly in the dying light. That’s normal. You brush your hand across the drapes and then apply a little more pressure.
Your hand sinks straight through as if it was an open window. It goes all the way in up to the wrist before you pull it back out. And when it does, it comes back feeling prickly and warm.

That’s normal too. That’s what ambisilk is supposed to do.

Now this could be it. Maybe you’ve got entirely the wrong idea and it’s actually something else but this could be it. For some reason, the curtains in the reflection are where they should be while the curtains in the real room were rolled up. The only reason for this divergence is Claudio. Between the reflection of the room and the room itself, only the actions of the two Claudio’s changed them.
Now that might just be because the berserk reflection was diverging constantly at that point, well and truly off the rails and too distracted by their newfound existence to be doing anything like the real Claudio would. In fact, that’s almost certainly it. Or it could be more important.

But what could one Claudio do with these curtains that the other wouldn’t? Besides have them rolled up, that is. The only answer you can think of is to put something in them. But what? And what would it have to do with anything?

1/2

>>2991841

You spend a desperate ten minutes searching futilely for the command stitch before conceding that you don’t know enough about weaving or patterns to be able to distinguish one stitch from thousands of others. That’s a shame. Pulling the command stitch would have the ambisilk regurgitate everything within its recent storage all at once.
Maybe someone else knows it?

But without access to that, the only thing you can do is jam your hands into it and command it to give up a specific object. So unless you make an absolutely inspired guess, that would be fruitless. Or...and this is grotesquely unreliable... You could jump in and have a look around yourself.
The reason this would be unreliable is because, as far as you’ve been told, things don’t exist inside ambisilk. Not really. You don’t know how it works, not really. But there could be anything in there, in any pattern, at any distance from one another. And if you were to forget the way out…


>Just find someone who’d know. Adriana almost certainly does.

>Name something for the curtains to disgorge (Specify)

>Jump in!

>Just keep trying to find the command stitch. Take as much time as you need to.

>Other (Specify)

>>2991842
>Jump in!

>>2991842
> Just find someone who’d know. Adriana almost certainly does.
We should have gone with her in the first place, I don't know why people thought we'd be able to do much with the mirror on our own.

>>2991842
>Name something for the curtains to disgorge
Eduardo, or his corpse.

Now, we know that reflected drapes are just unrolled to serve as a loo, but Sophia doesn't, so what can she suspect?

>>2991850
Adriana is weirdly defensive about this place.

>>2991851
Do we have a reason to think that Eduardo is dead and his body is in the drapes? I thought that Eduardo is going to arrive at the house tomorrow and that's one of the reasons why Claudio is so desperate to destroy the mirror today.

>>2991842
>>Just find someone who’d know. Adriana almost certainly does.

>>2991860
I imagine Sophia grasping at straws.

>>2991868
I don't think we should be eating up time on random things since there are probably a bunch of people getting crushed by the house the longer this goes on.

>>2991868
All the more reason to head directly in

>>2991870
Adriana and Sabino can manage it, also Adriana is acting suspicious as fuck like >>2991853 pointed out. I doubt she'll help us find the stitch.

>>2991882
Her master just fucked her over and the reason she's skittish is that her reflection committed suicide in here

>>2991885
That doesn't explain the inconsistencies in her story pre-reflection discovery though

Vote called, writing.

>Just find someone who’d know. Adriana almost certainly does.

Blegh. You rise from where you’d been kneeling by the curtains. You can’t afford to waste time needlessly here. It’d be quicker if you could just find someone who knows where the command stitch is and have them pull it. That’d be quicker and more efficient than just guessing a dozen random things.
But who would know? Adriana, obviously. Which means you have to find her. You can’t think of anyone else who would know. Oh! Vespa would. She’d know. She’s also not even remotely accessible from your current circumstances so thanks Sofia, you really pulled through with that genius idea.

You step out into the Viridian Hall, ready to stomp your way back to the entrance hall...when you hear a curious sound. It’s a whimpering. Someone in pain. And as far as you can tell, it’s coming from one of the Hall’s unmarked doors.
You wait for several seconds but you don’t hear it again.

Maybe you just imagined it.


>Investigate.

>No thank you! You have a clear objective in mind and you have no desire to be eaten by the house.

>Other (Specify)

>>2991901
>Investigate.

Fuck, man, this is a nailbiter. Edge of my seat between each update, I wanna know the answer to this mystery!

I'm pretty sure that the ambisilk allowed the reflection to grab the real Claudio and drag him into the reflection.
While Reflection Claudio jumped out and took over the Real Claudio's life.
WHat clued me in was the clothing.
If the one in the mirror is the fake, why is it wearing such old clothing that's out of fashion. The one outside the mirror was wearing some pretty fancy modern digs.

>>2991901
>>Investigate.

>>2991925
I don't follow your logic about the clothes. Also why wouldn't mirrorClaudio remember any of this?

>>2991931

It's hard to put in words.

Real Claudio and Reflection Claudio should match in attire or at least taste in fashion.
It seems that Real Claudio has an affection for slightly out of date clothing. Ergo the Reflection Claudio matched him.

Yet the guy outside the mirror, he was all dressed up modern and fashionable for the day. What caused his change in fashion taste so quickly?
Shouldn't the guy outside the mirror still retain his taste for aged fashion? I suspect it's the Reflection Claudio who jumped out the mirror, trapping the Real Claudio in it. Now that Reflection Claudio is out, he's basically trying out different things and getting updated fashion wise.

Also the Ambisilk allows the transportation of things in the mirror to elsewhere right? There is Reflection Ambisilk and Real Ambisilk. Why shouldn't they be connected and allow two transportation? One could enter the reflection or exit it.

>>2991901
>Investigate.
There's still a possibility that Eduardo is in the ambisilk. Maybe attempting to leave the ambisilk from the inside is what causes the arm thing.

Vote called, writing.

>>2991936
It's something to think about for sure. It might be just that OutsideClaudio just changed into something nicer for today (you don't where the same fashion of clothes every single day even if you have a preference) but it's worth considering

>>2991931
I think that the Claudio in the mirror had an existential crisis. If Reflection and Real are the same being, and if they switched out... who can tell? What is the real you if it makes no difference at all? People haven't even noticed the difference at all, if they haven't and your copy is doing exactly what you've been doing... well... were you of any importance at all?

We should ask Adriana if Claudio is left or right handed.
The reflection will be the opposite of the Real Claudio. So if Real Claudio is right handed, then his Reflection should be left handed.
This is just a complicated and literary Knights and Knaves kind of situation.but with reflections instead