The giant stone cube was indeed a building, though it was hard to tell at first. It seemed to be made of a single piece of stone, with no seams or individual blocks. There was also only a doorway, the one that I was standing beside.

“At least its unlocked,” I announced, looking over the doorway and the stone door which had already been left wide open.

“Mad Mike opened it,” Ramirez answered. “Using that medallion they stole from Margaret Sullivan.” She looked uncomfortable as she said the name, knowing that Margaret had been my friend. “He left it wide open when they went inside.”

“Good,” I responded grimly. I shifted my hammer in my hand, looking forward to using it. “I’d have no idea how to pick the lock for this thing.”

“One way inside,” Ramirez pointed out. “One way out. We could set up an ambush out here.”

“A good idea,” I agreed. “Except…”

“We don’t really know what they went in there for,” Bunny said, eyeing the door suspiciously. “For all we know, they might come out with some kind of superweapon.”

Ramirez nodded at that but didn’t say anything. She just stared at the doorway, a determined look on her face. She seemed a bit less jumpy than she had been when we’d reunited with her a short time ago.

“It must have been terrifying,” I quietly told the Warden. “Following them all by yourself.”

“You have no idea,” she admitted, shuddering a little. “If it hadn’t been for my ability, I never would have risked it, and even then…”

“I wouldn’t want to walk through ANY of that by myself,” I admitted, gesturing back the way we’d come. “Even if I could hide from the monsters.” Then I gave her an encouraging smile and said, “You’re a brave woman, Ramirez.”

“Thank you,” she responded with a bit of a blush. “And call me Maya.”

“Maya,” I said in acknowledgement.

After this, we spent several minutes debating whether we should go inside to chase after the other players, or remain where we were and set up an ambush. Both options had their good points and their risks. In the end, we decided to just go in, more out of curiosity than for any other reason.

We stepped into a hallway that seemed to head straight in towards the center of the building. I didn’t see a single side room or connecting hallway, nor any decorations of any kind. It was all stone ceiling, floor, and walls, and it appeared to have been carved out of the same single block of stone that formed the cube.

“At least we know we’re going the right way,” Ace pointed out a little nervously.

“No other ways we can go,” Turtle agreed.

Since there were no twists and turns, merely a straight and clear path, it didn’t take long to reach the center of the building, or at least, what I assumed was the center. We stepped out of the passage and into a spacious room, though one that was…confusing.

The room was empty in the sense that it didn’t have anything inside of it. No furniture or additional decorations. However, it was hard to tell how large the room actually was because every surface was covered with mirrors. Broken mirrors. There were no actual frames, and it was more like every surface was part of a single giant mirror that had been cracked and shattered into countless large pieces.

“It’s like a funhouse,” Bunny announced with a note of awe in her voice.

“Impressive,” Olivia agreed.

I nodded, though I was less focused on the mirrors than on the tickling sensation on my skin. I felt the presence of primal magic the moment I stepped inside the structure, and it had only grown stronger since then. Now, I could tell that I was not only in the presence of primal magic, but of a primal itself. I just didn’t recognize the type of primal by the feel, nor did I even see it.

“I don’t see the rogues,” Maya pointed out, gesturing across the room. “And I don’t see another way out of here either.”

“We lost them?” Ace blurted out in surprise. “How?”

“I’m fairly confident that we didn’t pass them while coming in,” Turtle said with a wry tone.

Olivia looked at Maya. “Are you sure they didn’t come out?”

“I’m positive that they didn’t come back out the same door,” Maya responded with a scowl. “And I didn’t see any others.”

I slowly stepped forward, moving towards the middle of the room while looking around at the reflections. All of us were reflected in the broken mirror pieces, from every direction. It was eerie, and as Bunny had said, like a funhouse.

“Where are you?” I asked aloud.

“I don’t think the rogues are going to answer that,” Olivia said with a sigh.

“I was asking the primal,” I responded, not bothering to look at her.

Ace turned to me with a look of surprise. “Primal?”

Just then, the floor began to move. It was as though the mirror on the floor had suddenly become liquid and started to bubble up. It was only in one area, about fifteen feet away from me. It didn’t extend at all to where I was standing. The rising floor began to take shape, and a few seconds later, a figure stood there.

The primal’s entire body seemed to be made of broken mirror, or shards of mirror that had been assembled into a human shaped mosaic. It was about the same size and shape as a human, though it had a slender and somewhat androgynous build. Then I realized that some of the mosaic pieces were missing from his body, like lost pieces of a puzzle, revealing glimpses of a silvery light within.

I noticed that the reflections around us had suddenly changed, and they were no longer showing us as we currently were. Instead, they showed other people looking back from the mirrors.

In one mirror, I saw myself. My OLD self. I saw Carl Upton, looking almost identical to how I had the last time I’d looked into a mirror with that face. Then I saw a different reflection in another mirror. It was a younger version of Carl, one who was in his forties. He was wearing a grey Warden uniform and sitting behind a desk. Off to the side, there was yet another reflection, one that looked like a ten-year-old version of Carl.

“This really is a funhouse,” Ace gasped.

My eyes went to the mirrors around Ace, and I noticed that they reflected images of a young man with dark hair and tanned features. He looked like he might have been Mexican or Native American, though I couldn’t be sure.

Turtle’s reflection was that of a woman in her thirties, though there were other versions of the same woman scattered about in other mirrors around him. Those looked to be younger versions of the woman, a teenager and little girl.

Beside Bunny, there were reflections of a woman in a wheelchair, and Olivia was surrounded by images of an asian woman. Of the six of us, Maya was the only one who had reflections that showed her how she currently was, though even she had some that showed younger versions of her.

Then I saw the reflections all flicker and change, like TVs that had just been switched to a different channel. Now I saw reflections of my new face and body, but not as I looked now.

I saw a version of myself with short hair, wearing armor that I’d never seen before and carrying a bandolier full of knives slung across her chest. She had a look of rage on her face as she fired an ‘Invocation of Spite’ at an armed man, then flung a knife at another.

A second reflection showed a teenage version of that woman, with long dark hair and wearing a nice dress. The teenage girl looked happy as she worked in a kitchen, using a knife to slice vegetables at a near blinding speed.

There was another reflection of the same woman, an older one with lines on her face and grey streaks in her hair. This older version was holding a scepter and seemed to be in a fight, alternating between firing the scepter and using some ability that I couldn’t identify.

A quick look around confirmed that the others were all seeing the same kind of things, alternate versions of their current selves. All except for Maya, whose reflections had returned to normal ones.

“What is this?” I asked the primal, who had been silent and motionless as I observed all the strange reflections. “And who are you?”

The primal finally moved, which was eerie from a being that resembled a human shaped disco ball. When it spoke, it’s voice was calm and evenly toned, making it sound almost as though it was bored. Perhaps it was.

“I have been called the Spirit of the Mirror, the Scrying Glass, the Reflection Who Sees All, and the Broken Mirror. I am now called the Guide, for that is my purpose.”

“The Guide?” I asked, remembering that Wolf had something about a guide and a genie. “What are you a guide for?”

“I am able to see most things within the Labyrinth,” the Guide explained. “My purpose is to guide others to whatever it is they seek, whether it be a person, an artifact, or simply a goal. Tell me what you seek, and I will guide you to where and how you may find it.”

My eyes widened a little at that as I remembered Wolf’s words. He’d said that the rogue players were after something that was like a genie, but with extra steps. This guide certainly seemed to fit that description.

“What is that thing saying?” Ace demanded.

“Can you understand it?” Bunny asked me.

“Hey,” Ace called out to the Guide. “Do you speak English?”

I looked at my companions and asked, “You can’t understand it?”

“Not in the least,” Turtle responded.

Olivia nodded agreement. “It’s just gibberish.”

The Guide merely remained where it was, not responding to the others in the least. It didn’t even look at them when they spoke, even Ace tried talking directly to it. It seemed to be ignoring them completely.

I considered that for a moment, remembering that something similar had happened when I’d been talking with that infernal. None of the others had been able to understand what it said either. Was this why Raze and Mike had been looking for an invoker? They’d needed an interpreter to talk to the Guide for them.

“What I’m looking for now,” I told the Guide, “is answers.” When it didn’t respond, I pointed to the mirrors near me, and specifically, to the woman who looked like me. “Who is THAT?”

The Guide answered, “She was called Magdalena Malice, Daughter of Vengeance, the Last Child of Camlin, and Paladin of Avexis.”

“And why,” I asked carefully, “does she look like me?”

“Because she is you,” the Guide answered in the same even tone. “Or, it would be more accurate to say, that you were once her.”

“I don’t understand,” I told the primal. “Please explain.”

The primal didn’t answer at first. It appeared to be thinking it over, as if trying to decide how to answer me. I wasn’t sure how primals thought, but that might very well be what it was doing.

“When the Labyrinth infects a new world,” the Guide began to explain, “it attempts to absorb pieces of that world to fuel its own growth and expansion.”

“It sounds like you’re describing a disease,” I said.

“What disease?” Maya asked me, completely missing half the conversation.

“The System,” the Guide continued, “which exists to rival the Labyrinth, saw that your world did not have champions that were capable of resisting the Labyrinth, so, it sought to create them. It found many souls which had been initiated into the system during previous incarnations, and it respawned them into the same form that they possessed during their first System initiation.”

I froze upon hearing those words, sure that I was missing something. I considered what the Guide had just told me, running its words through my head several times to make sure that I really understood what it had just said.

“Previous incarnations?” I asked the Guide. “Are you saying that players…that respawned players had been reincarnated?”

“What are you talking about?” Bunny demanded.

“Shhh,” I said, shushing her and the others. I could see that they had questions, but I was in the middle of getting the answers myself. “Let me finish asking it first.”

“That is correct,” the Guide told me. “In a previous incarnation, you were born Magdalena of Camlin, a woman who dedicated her life to seeking vengeance upon those who slaughtered her town.” It pointed to the woman in the mirror, the one who looked like me but wasn’t.

I took a deep breath and tried to remain calm, though it wasn’t easy. This was…groundbreaking. This was the answer to questions that people have been asking ever since the first respawned player stepped out of the Labyrinth. This was an explanation to questions that I myself have been asking for decades, long before I was respawned myself.

Then, I realized that this also explained why Avexis had been so interested in me. In a previous life, I had actually been her paladin. And from what I’d already seen, it looked like the goddess of spite was interested in rekindling that relationship.

Another thought suddenly struck me. My name. I’d taken the name Maggie in order to honor Margaret, and perhaps even to remind myself of my task. However, I couldn’t ignore the similarity between that name and Magdalena. Coincidence? Had I subconsciously remembered my previous name? Or… Or was that primal just screwing with me?

I suddenly realized that this was a trap. A time trap, whether it was intended to be or not. I could spend hours here, asking the Guide about the Labyrinth and about Magdalena, and I had no doubt that the others would have questions of their own. They would probably want to know all about their own past lives as well. However, we didn’t have the time for that kind of thing. We were here for a purpose, and we couldn’t afford to get too distracted from it.

“I’ll explain later,” I told the others before turning my full attention back to the Guide. “We were following other players…ones who came in here ahead of us.”

“They came to me,” the Guide responded. “They told me of their goals and I am guiding them to that which they seek.”

“And what…what are their goals?” I asked. Knowing what they were after might be useful. Hell, knowing what your enemy was after usually was. “What are they after?”

The Guide went silent again, perhaps considering whether or not it should answer my question. I didn’t know if it had some kind of client confidentiality rule or not, but the fact that it seemed to be thinking about it was a good indication.

“Power to destroy anything in the way,” the Guide finally answered. Many mirrors suddenly showed images of Raze. Then Mad Mike’s reflection appeared, replacing Raze’s. “Knowledge of artifacts and how to create them.”

“Good to know,” I said, sure that Ace would be interested in that as well.

Godiva’s image appeared in the mirrors. “Immortality,” the Guide stated simply before the mirrors turned to Jace. “The power to reshape ones body.” And then Wolf’s image appeared. “And a powerful primal who is both willing and able to share that power.”

“Thank you,” I told the Guide. “Now, where did they go? I didn’t see any other way out of here…”

“Is that what you ask of me?” the Guide asked, a new energy and interest in its voice. “You seek the location of your enemies?”

“I do,” I agreed, my heart racing as I said this. “I want to find Raze.”

“Then, I shall guide you to him,” the primal loudly announced.

With those words, a tingle of primal magic flowed through my body and a popup suddenly appeared in front of me.

THE GUIDE IS ATTEMPTING TO CHANNEL THE ABILITY ‘GUIDING SHARD’ THROUGH YOU.

DO YOU ACCEPT?

I hesitated for a moment, not sure what that entailed. However, I’d come to far to back away now. As soon as I clicked on the mental ‘yes’, the feeling of primal magic intensified.

A piece of mirror floated away from the Guide’s body, leaving another missing puzzle piece where it had been. The shard of mirror floated towards me, though it melted and compressed as it did so. A few seconds later, it became a chrome sphere, about the same size and shape as a golf ball, right before it landed in the palm of my hand.

“Take my shard,” the Guide instructed. “It will lead you to that which you seek.”

The wall suddenly began to shift and melt, much as the floor had done when the Guide first appeared. Then, an opening appeared, a new tunnel that led off into the opposite direction of the one we’d entered through. The chrome sphere pulsed in my hand and gently tugged in that direction, making the intention clear.

I took one more look at the Guide, then at the surrounding room. This place was… Interesting? Tempting? Yes to both. The Guide offered countless opportunities, ones that were worth their weight in gold…or more. But unfortunately, we didn’t have time to take advantage of those opportunities just yet. Maybe once we were done, if the primal’s guidance proved to be accurate and trustworthy, we could come back and see what else he could do for us.

“But that is for another day,” I muttered as I started walking towards the new passage.