Non-magical Research- The Mirrored Orb

During their last delve into 'The Complex', the Dragon Slayers of the Drinking Crow encountered strange doubles of themselves within the the dungeon depths. Bors Redbeard shared a recounting of his dream and the encounter with these duplicates with the Beholder Phasmo after a shared expedition to recover the missing adventurers Riverborn Scamandros and Crambo. The description of the encounter and the appearance of the orb the dwarf showed to Phasmo peaked the magic-user's interest as it all reminded him of tales he once read while studying the Mirror Tongue. A reoccurring element in several tales involve beings from the other side of the mirror using stealing a piece of a being from this world and combining it with a strange reflective orb to create crude mirror versions of the being from this side of the mirror.

Bors Redbeard and the Orb

Bors Redbeard settled in and began to sit with the small reflective orb taken from the duplicate Bors the Dragon Slayers had defeated on their last expedition. At first the dwarf attempted to reach out to the orb like he had at a few of the altars within 'The Complex'. If he tired to open himself on a spiritual level to receive whatever the orb had to communicate, maybe he'd be able to discern its spiritual essence. No matter the attempt, Bors received nothing from the object.

In frustration, Bors picked up the small orb to place it in his pocket. He found himself looking in his own reflection in its surface. As it stared back, he couldn't help but feel some connection to the visage in the surface. He noted how well the rounded surface reflected his image. The longer Bors stared, though, the more he felt uncomfortable with the image staring back. Was it because with its dark pitted eyes, it reminded him of the reflection in the water he saw in his dream? Perhaps. The longer he looked, though, the more it felt like the reflection was staring back. The gaze was unnerving. The closest thing Bors could describe it to was the look in the eyes of some of the creatures in 'The Complex', like a ghoul or those spatially distorted beings: ravenous and ill in all intention.

Phasmo Hits the Books

Phasmo's first thoughts when gazing upon the orb in Bors' possession took the Beholder back to the study of Auralion the Lingoaut and that tome of his on the "World of Reflection". The strange collection of tales, seemingly written for children, and Auralion's writings on an unusual language in the back of the work had seized upon the magic-user's imagination. This interest caused Phasmo much frustration over the years as there was little more he would more he would encounter on the subject. Most of his fellows in the Transcendental Congress of the Aureate Precepts found the subjet to be more than nursery stories. Sure, there was the occasional nursery tale met to frighten children with misplaced curiosities or paranoid crackpot flights of fantasy that Phasmo would most certainly thing where complete delusional fabrication if not for the surprisingly linguistically accurate use of a language Phasmo came to understand as 'Mirror Tongue.' Now, with the resources of the Athenaeum and its ancient texts, Phasmo hoped for better results.

Sadly, Phasmo found that the subject of the 'World of Reflection' was not as widely covered in these ancient tomes or scrolls as gnomish analysis of dwarven property law or liturgical review of the popular entertainment of the early waning days of the Empire-That-Was. Only one book featured any writing on the subject: Homerinous' History of Magical Mysteries Appendix N: The Peculiar Realms Twilight, Elfin, and Otherwise.

Clearly, the 'World of Reflection' was an otherwise. One referred to Homerinous as The Other Realm. This did not trick Phasmo, though. He recognized the strange language (even if notated differently) and what little there was about this 'Other Realm' seemed to spring forth from some drier, more official accounting of the tales in Auralion's book: the investigations of an Imperial Tax Collector and a half-elfin maiden (perhaps witch? This is unclear.). The writing here, though, does not end with the murder of the pair. No. It ends with the murder of the 2nd Warden of the Elfish Marches. Her head and hands removed and sown to the body of a bull. The Tax Collector the obvious murderer. When captured, he eventually withered away in the a dark cell into a stream of smoke and leaving behind only a small, mirror-like orb. This final story is the only part of the whole tale Homerinous seemed to have any faith in at all given the multiple eye witness accounts. Much of what comes before, only briefly summarized, comes form the diary of the missing half-elfin maiden. Homerinous provides two tips for those seeking to identify one of these beings born of an orb: A misspeaking on the second word of a sentence and the way their eyes can seem dark, reflective pools.

Phasmo thinks that if he could find the diary of the half-elfin maid, more could be researched here. He knows little of the diary, including the author's name, but he knows the cover is of red velvet with a silver mirror-like decoration in its center.