“He’s a long way from any example but bad,” Rufus said.

“Rufus,” Danielle lightly scolded.

“No, he’s right,” Jason said.

“I heard you acquitted yourself quite well at the Vane Estate incident,” Danielle said.

“Then you might want to check your sources,” Jason said. “I got laid out multiple times by a guy with a shovel.”

She raised an eyebrow in Rufus’s direction, who nodded with a wry smile on his face.

“Rufus was saying you train family members from all around the world here,” Jason said.

“We have branch families spread far and wide,” Danielle said proudly. “They all come here at age fifteen, and stay until they reach bronze rank. We also take in some non-family.”

“Our family members have a habit of picking teams even before they get their essences,” Humphrey said. “We take the team members in as well.”

Danielle led them into one of the buildings, which turned out to be a large single room. The back wall had a long glass window through which was only darkness, but Jason’s power let his eyes penetrate the gloom. Beyond the glass was the empty interior of the dome. The dome itself was made of segments, irregular metal pentagons carved with magical symbols.

Underneath the window was a rectangular stone block. Carved into the top were numerous runes and sigils, made up of sophisticated patterns. The last feature of the room was a series of low wooden platforms the size of single beds. They lined the left and right wall, a half-dozen to a side. More mystical symbols were engraved into their surfaces.

“This is the control room,” Danielle explained. “From that panel under the window we can control everything that happens inside the chamber.”

She turned to Rufus.

“So what do you have for us?”

48. An Endless, Inescapable Nightmare

48

An Endless, Inescapable Nightmare

In the control room of the mirage chamber, all eyes were on Rufus. He walked over to the stone block under the window, which had a dizzying array of runes, sigils and intricate magical diagrams carved into it. He spent a few moments looking it over.

“Standard arrangement,” he observed. “Jason, hand me that crystal.”

Jason took a long, faceted crystal from his inventory, something Farrah had created using Magic Society resources. It looked rather like a long, narrow diamond, the facets catching the light and reflecting out flashes of rainbow colour. He handed it to Rufus, who looked around one side of the stone block, then the other, finding a hole into which he pushed the crystal.

“So, what’s with the crystal?” Jason asked.

“A mirage chamber projects things from these platforms along the walls,” Danielle said.

Jason glanced again at the wooden platforms lining both sides of the room.

“If it doesn’t have direct access to something through the platforms,” Danielle continued, “you need to give it a magical imprint to replicate instead.”

“And the crystal is a storage device for the imprint,” Jason said.