Ruler: None. Centerpoint: None. Inhabitants: Some Discordants. Places of Interest: The World Tether, the Bane Tether.
The Reflection is an eerie place, and in its own way far more disturbing than the Shifting World or even the Deadlands. It is an exact replica of the planet Halci, but only where there are mirrors.
Entry into the Reflection is easy, if you are a Mirror-Walker: simply walk or crawl through the nearest unwarded permanent mirror, and there you are. For those less-talented, it usually takes decades of magical study before the proper spells are mastered, though some people manage to pass through accidentally and quite instinctually, which is not good because they rarely ever get out again.
Wherever a permanent mirror stands, there exists a room in the Reflection. The Reflection room is situated exactly how it appears in the mundane mirror, but whatever can not be seen in the mirror from any angle does not exist. The walls and floors in Reflection rooms often end suddenly, and the rampant greenery of the world outside of the rooms creeps in the gaps.
The items in a Reflection room are immovable, as if the entirety of the room was crafted out of a single block of material. A candle and candlestick sitting on a mantle would not come apart, nor would they lift off of the mantle. Not even the dust can be moved by someone within the Reflection, though if someone in the mundane world is moving things around, a Reflection-traveler will see a dark, man-shaped silhouette moving and shifting the items. These silhouettes are known as Shards, and are not independently active; they are the true substance of reflections, and only appear when people are in the range of permanent mirrors. The front side of a Shard is an exact replica of the person in the mirror, but the replication only goes as far as is presented to the mirror, and the back side of a Shard is black and hollowed-out. When a person on the mundane side moves away from a mirror, parts of the Shard vanish until the person has left the vicinity of the mirror entirely. Shards are not intelligent and never have been.
Outside of the Reflection rooms is a whole different world. The terrain is completely altered; there are no deserts or cities or even mountains, only rampant green growth, across low hills and valleys and the occasional crystalline stream or lake. The oceans still exist, the shapes of the continents are still the same, and to some degree the roads are still there, though even the broadest, best-paved road in the real world is hardly more than a footpath in the Reflection. The Reflection rooms are dark, squarish shapes shrouded in vines and bushes, though it is not unusual for a Reflection room to hover in the air because its corresponding mirror was at the top of a taller building. If the mirror in a Reflection room shows a door or window, then there will be a fan-shaped continuation of the room outside, such as a partial wall and hallway or a semi-permanent Shard pretending to be a window scene. Reflection-travelers can be seen through mundane mirrors as if the mirrors were windows, and therefore tend to avoid Reflection rooms.
The most unnerving things about the Reflection are that it has no native life beyond the strange plants--none of which can be found in the mundane realm, and all of which can actually be moved and removes and taken back through the mirrors--and that there is only one sound beside what travelers make: a steady, metallic grind that seems to come from far away. Even running streams are silent except when a traveler steps in one or splashes the water. Nor are there seasons, or much weather; the sky is pale, steely grey in the daytime and absolutely black at night, and the sun and moons shine as if seen through thick fog. Mist is the only weather-like condition that exists in the Reflection, and it rolls down from the hillsides and cloaks the meagre trails periodically.
Some Discordants fled to the Reflection after the end of the Second Demon War, and now hunt travelers or slip through the mirrors in the Reflection rooms to attack others. This has caused many Magi, Silent Circle and otherwise, to ward all mirrors they find so that the demons can not cross over. However, these wards also tend to bar Mirror-Walkers, making quick entries and escapes impossible. For this reason, most travelers in the Reflection make sure to bring their own mirrors.
A mirror brought into the Reflection will not reflect, but instead serve as a one-way window back into the mundane world. A mirror wide enough so that the shoulders can pass through is imperative for a traveler wishing a quick escape from the Reflection, and all the traveler has to do is move through it as if it were in fact a mirror. They must make sure it is situated so that it will not break while they are moving through it, however, because anything on the wrong side of the mirror will be cut off if it shatters. The mirror is left in the Reflection.
Portable mirrors on the mundane side have effect on the Reflection as well, but not as much as the rooms. Clusters of Shards hover around portable mirrors, mimicking the people and the surroundings in the mirror's vicinity. When there is no sentient life near the mirror, they disperse.
There are two features in the Reflection that stand out from the ever-present greenery: the World Tether and the Bane Tether. These form the only traversible path to Ynith Cree, and their locations seem to shift each time they are sought. The World Tether is a great spiral staircase of dark wood and twisting roots, which looks like it somehow grew that way and rises straight up from the forest like a tower before vanishing into the misty sky. The Bane Tether is a similar spiral staircase, only made of a bronzy metal and seeming somehow organic despite the fact that it was obviously built. It is the source of the metallic grinding sound that permeates the Reflection, as the pair of gargantuan gears that bracket its base turn slowly, and in their motion rotate the staircase as well. Like the World Tether, it rises into the mist and vanishes.
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