"Who are you?" Kelia asks, brushing her windswept hair from her less pale face.

"Who are you?" Ay asks.

"Kelia! How did you survive!?" I yell, frozen.

"Do I know you?" Kelia frowns and scrutinizes my face. "You look... almost... oh! Oh... of course..." Kelia frowns and looks worried.

"Okay, you're alive! Ay, this is how we get to Spots! This is my llama guide, Kelia. I thought she drowned or was killed by the drowned, but she's alive." I say, suddenly excited. We can get to Spots, now.

"No! Not Spots, anywhere but Spots! I'm sorry, if I ever was your llama guide, but I'm not taking you there!" She shakes her head vigorously and looks terrified.

"What game are you playing!? You made me pay twenty-two golden ingots and a full set of iron armor! Are you kidding!? You have to take me to Spots!" I yell angrily.

"Wow, you paid an entire set of armor and gold to get to Spots!?" Ay gasps.

"Yes!" I run over with surprising energy and yank Kelia's shirt collar - she looks stunned. I can't believe it, but I think... I think she might be genuine.

"Look, I have no idea why I asked for that much, and I don't know who you are but Spots does weird things to people. I... I haven't been myself since I went into the woods... and I have barely any memories since then, only fleeting moments that I break free of," Kelia shudders, "It's grasp." Suddenly the dots connect. What was it Aeve said? "...like there's some voice in her head-" Of course, not a voice, the voice! Ugh, I've been such a fool!

"A voice?" I ask breathlessly to Ay's weird annoyed 'are you serious' expression.

"Yes! A voice, possessing me, being me! The voice wanted to use me for some possess death thing to make it stronger but I couldn't entered the mirrored side-"

"The mirrored side?" I ask, deathly quiet. Memories are streaming back to me. Shadow's diary, 'the only thing that can save you is the Sword of Grief, hidden beneath the ruins of the world once mirrored'  Hage in the shakket, "You've entered the dark side. Subconscious, other side, mirrored face, whatever you want to call it, you have a deadline." and finally just now, "I couldn't enter the mirrored side." Everything begins to connect, but it still doesn't make any sense no matter how I connect the dots.

The sword beneath a mirrored world - one in or of the subconscious? I've entered the mirrored side before... in the void, where I might have gained the ability, and then in Juzoos... but Kelia can't. And the voice tried to do to her what it's trying to do to me but failed... So how come it can do it to me? Why am I so special? "Why do you think you were chosen over the legendary Ay? Brave and just Jules, or perhaps Good and Moral Arjay?"  Why was I? Why? Why? "You have the power to unlock so much... twice aptitude, so it seems."  I'm the twice aptitude. Not Jules who fights so hard for justice, or Ay who's emotionally unstable, or even Arjay who's so gullible. I'm the one who gets sucked into the mirrored side.

"This is silly, right S?" Ay is asking.

"No! No, I'm not! It's real!" I cry. Ay gives me a look so weird I think she might have been possessed for a second.

"C'mon inside, guys! I love seeing real people after all this time!" Kelia cries in response to the darkening skies. "We can talk more inside!" Kelia rushes us in and sits us down with chocolate chip cookies and milk. My ideal supper. Her base is surprisingly comfortable. It has jungle plank benches and furnishings, and she's even devoted the time to dig a basement into the stone with a double bed. I just take my bed out of my inventory and Ay splits the double one, taking one of them for herself and immediately plumps down on it in the corner of the basement room. I go upstairs again and sit with Kelia.

"What do you know about the voice?" I ask.

"Do you want the whole story?"

"Yes. Everything."

"I was quite young, maybe about eight or nine, when I was drafted to be taken by llama guide to an inn where I would stay until I was very old. I would probably never see my family again. So I ran away to the most remote city left standing. Spots. I had to become a llama guide to get there so I could get free maps, and after a lot of work I was on my way. But when I reached the city, I found it in ruins. But I couldn't leave, whatever had destroyed Spots wouldn't let me warn the others. I found myself being pulled into the woods and some sort of strange structure stood before me. The last thing I remember is reading an engraving saying - or even, singing,"

'Kays sa'jsk creskadoh hit'e eis'ne 'ndohr 'tyr ndoh'. Aksil di'kans hit'e eis'ne oer 'tyr oer 'tyr oer sa'jsk wil'der eis'ne akso, di'kans sa'jsk ndoh' semod oer 'tyr sa'jsk o'therda yarweh 'forthe a sub'vice 'tyr o'therda oer so mir'ther 'forthe.' The words ring a strange hum in my ears, almost a song like Kelia said. It's creepy.

"How do you know all that!?" I ask, frowning because nobody can remember an entire song in a different language the first time they see it.

"I don't know, but it won't leave my head. It's like once you see the engraving it engraves itself in your head. It's terrifying. I wonder what happened to my family and my dear little sister... I miss them so much! And I have no memories since then, except an eerie voice commanding things, warning me that my time was near, that the warrior had arrived and I was to lead them."

"Your sister's fine, if you mean Aeve. They made her take your place." I say. Tears spurt to Kelia's eyes, which is weird considering how she had shaken off her sister with no regard not long before. "And that writing... it's the mirrored writing, the writing of the ancient people. I learned some of it in Prisseters, but I know most of it... because I am the warrior you were sent to lead to Spots. The voice has me, too. But I can enter the mirrored side... so, well, you know what that means." I say.

"Oh! I'm so sorry!" Kelia gasps, realizing what that means for me. We're silent almost awkwardly for a few minutes before she speaks up again, "What does it mean? The writing?" Kelia asks.

"I only know this, because I think my inner voice is translating or something inside my head. But I only get whisps of it,"

"'In the creation there was End and Ender' no, Ender and End, 'But then there was overworld and overworld and overworld-' maybe multiple worlds? But one End? Anyway, 'and the world was-' Akso. I think that means good, or something like that. Maybe balanced? 'Then the End swallowed the overworld' Maybe they tried to defeat it? Or maybe they really did destroy it. But then, 'the mirrored warrior-" there's some grey area here, but I think some warrior of the subconscious or creator of it sacrificed him or herselves' body and became a voice, the voice I think, but it was corrupted? 'Became voice and mirrored overworld so nether became.'"

"Wow, so Mir'ther is the Nether, which is the overworld's shadow! And that destroyed the end, because then there were three so none can destroy one without the other!" Kelia sounds genuinely excited, and she's smiled multiple times. The possessed Kelia is definitely nothing like the real Kelia. "That also means that the voice used to be good, but then something evil happened. I bet it's like that story I once read about the witches!" Kelia exclaims,

"Back in my shakket the travellers who came through would have the most amazing stories! One of them was about a boy who decided to be a witch, so he went to a witch's hut and became the witch's apprentice! But then the dark took him over and long story up the witch was lying and doom reigned!" Kelia says.

"Um, that made no sense and did not match the context but great facial expressions." I say dryly. 

"Oops wring story!" Kelia laughs it off and continues, "So this now-voice mirrored the world and created the nether in it's mirror image. That's pretty freaking awesome."

"Yes... but that means we're dealing with something way, way, more ancient than expected. We're dealing with something that literally extends beyond known time."

Author's Note

This was one of those chapters that I broke up into a ton of parts and had about no action to keep me writing, but I hit the word count and it's the word count that counts. Okay, maybe not. My minimum word count is 1400 words for a pretty no-action chapter. Generally I try to target at about 1550. 

I will be taking some time off to finish writing one of me and my awesome friend's series, but I will still be writing a chapter of this every day, so don't worry just ignore anything rushed and/or less spellcheked!

I loved the ancient script and actually I created a pretty flawed generator where you can write stuff and it comes out as ancient minecraftian, 

https://lingojam.com/OldPrissetersDialect

Just Be!