Mau''s boots crunched over the crags of the sooty, cracked earth. The blistering heat of the Demon Lord''s realm, well beyond the icy lands of the frozen north, did little to deter her. She marched on with a relentless determination and a burning hate gleaming in her eyes every time the subject of her hated foe came up.


    The party had already left behind the organized coalition of armies led by Thrain and the generals of the human, elf, and demi-human lands and were well into enemy territory beyond the bloody snow and front lines of the war.


    So many men and women lost their lives for Mau and her team to come this far, and the last thing Mau wanted to do was squander those deaths needlessly as she traversed the rivers of lava and hot vents belching noxious fumes into the air. The party had their sights set on one goal. Somewhere in the blazing hell of the demon realm sat the Demon Lord''s tower. At the top of that tower would be a teleportation circle that Penne could use to transport the team to the Demon Lord''s floating castle in the sky, and from there, Mau would achieve her life''s goal of murdering the everloving hell out of the bastard.


    "There. I see it." Suvdaa''s voice cut through the sound of bubbling magma as she pointed out a lone tower in the distance, reaching toward the smog-blackened heavens.


    The mere sight of the black tower with its spinnerets and ostentatious carvings of gargoyles and demons only spurred Mau with hateful determination.


    Dulguun growled, a complaint about the heat no doubt as the gigantic bear trudged along the burning plains at Suvdaa''s side.


    "We''ve come a long way," Andy said as the party cut across dusty flats and over hills of volcanic rock. "Would anyone like to say a prayer with me?"


    "No," Mau replied testily. She wouldn''t put her fate in the hands of the gods, not now and not ever.


    "Fair, " the dogman said, a little sullenly, as he prayed to Galatea under his breath.


    Penne had kept quiet for most of the journey but chose now to speak up.


    "A moment of rest might not be a bad idea, Mau." The hagling said. "You''ve been pushing yourself dangerously. We all know you want the Demon Lord dead, but waiting a few moments more won''t amount to much in the long run."


    Mau paused; one blue eye gleamed dangerously as she glanced over her shoulder.


    "Ten minutes." She said after taking a breath to calm herself rather than take her mounting vengeful temper out on her friends.


    For Mau to be this close to her goal, the span of ten minutes stretched for eternity as her companions collapsed to the ashen earth and pulled out their rations and water to fill their famished stomachs. She stared at the tower in the distance while her friends recuperated from the strength-sapping heat.


    Mau was already leading the pack when the party was ready to pick up and move on again, and it wasn''t much longer before they reached the great doors to the Demon Lord''s tower.


    Two orc guards stood flanking the doors, clad in great black armor adorned with spikes. As soon as the team approached, the massive pigmen drew their weapons, large gnarled axes, snuffled, and snorted angrily at the trespassers.


    "Halt!" one of the orcs growled. "To pass us, you must solve our riddles three," he said before motioning to his ally and then to himself.


    "One of us tells only the truth. The other tells only lies. One path beyond leads to what you seek, the other to certain doom and-"


    He never got to finish as Mau smoothly drew her blade and hacked him down dead in a single strike, cleaving neatly through his armor as though it were cardboard.


    "We don''t have time for your bullshit." She said to the remaining orc, who immediately looked ready to piss himself with fear, as Suvdaa leaned in.


    "Is your friend dead?" The raider asked the shocked orc, who shook his head.


    "... No, he''s... He''s alive." The pigman answered shakily.


    "Okay, which path is certain doom?" Andy interjected.


    "The-- the left path."


    "Thank you," Penne said too casually as Mau kicked the doors open.


    The instant the party stepped inside, they were in for the fight of their lives.


    "Left left, left, go left!" Mau called out as a storm of arrows and offensive magic pincushioned the space where she had been standing a split second before. Dulguun immediately barged in after her, the bear using his immense bulk and mass to shield Suvdaa from the arrows that peppered him and bounced off his resilient hide. Andy and Penne were in the door next, and the group bolted leftwards up a spiraling set of stairs that led up the tower.


    Mau hacked a goblin archer in half as she leaped up the stairs two at a time while Andy and Penne covered her with holy fire and dark flames.


    Goblins screeched, and orcs snarled as the party tore through them on the path up, stopping for nothing and sprinting the whole way up. If this path wasn''t certain doom, Mau briefly wondered what the right path would have been like. But the onslaught of monsters was nothing the party couldn''t handle as they charged, covering for one another with Mau at the head.


    An arrow whipped by Mau''s cheek and caught the orc in front of her in the throat. He stood visibly shocked by this turn of events as he clutched the shaft embedded in his neck, and Mau''s perception of time slowed down.


    She reached out almost slowly...


    She casually pushed the dying orc off the side of the stairs over the banister. The orc gurgled in dismay as he fell fifty feet down to land with the crunch of a snapped spine.


    Time resumed its fast, frenetic pace as a swarm of insectoid humanoid creatures came rushing down from the upper landing. Each had four arms and carried a short blade in each hand.


    Dulguun roared and charged past Mau, barrelling into the chittering mass and sending many of them to fall off the side of the stairs. Some sprouted wings, while others did not, and those that did reveal their ability to fly screamed their dying breaths in a loud screech as Suvdaa quickly embedded arrows into their thorax-like bodies, sending them plummeting once again.


    What waited for the party at the first landing was a monster the likes of which Mau had seen many times before. With a man''s face, the mane and body of a lion, and the venom-dripping tail of a scorpion, the manticore roared as it lunged. Mau lept back as Dulguun snarled and met the monster face to face. Despite his immense bulk, Dulguun dodged the lashing tail and reared up. The manticore shrieked as the grizzly caught it in a hug and reared its tail back to try and stab him again.


    A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.


    Seeing the opportunity present itself, Mau took a vaulting leap and neatly clipped the spiked barb off the manticore''s tail, rendering it stuck and unable to free itself or defend against Dulguun''s bone-breaking squeeze.


    With several loud and nasty pops, the manticore went limp in the bear''s arms and slumped to the ground.


    Mau lightly patted the giant bear on the side.


    "Way to exercise your right to bear arms, big guy." She said.


    "Grrrrrowf?" The bear replied, confused.


    "Stop confusing my bear and focus, Mau!" Suvdaa snapped as she joined them on the landing and fired several arrows upwards at the next series of archers on the higher level.


    The whole ordeal was an uphill battle as the party struggled up the tower, killing anything and everything in their path until they reached the uppermost floor. Mau paused to catch her breath and glanced back at the carnage in her team''s wake. It was only the beginning of what was going to be a demanding series of battles ahead as she pushed the door open.


    The room beyond, at the top of the tower, was wide and spacious. Upon the floor dominating the entirety of the chamber was a massive teleportation circle, and Mau popped her neck.


    "Alright, Penne." She called over her shoulder. "It''s clear. You''re up."


    Penne nodded and motioned for the circle''s center, and the party took their places within it.


    Suvdaa knelt in front of Dulguun and gently ruffled the big bear''s head.


    "Stay here, Dulguun." The raider said, earning a pitiful whine from her ursine companion.


    "I need you to keep anything from sneaking up on us, no mercy," Suvdaa said as the bear nipped gently at her fingers and wrist. Eventually, the bear chuffed and turned to lumber back to the chamber door to keep a watchful eye and prevent anything from catching up to the party.


    Once everyone was within the circle, Penne began to chant. The hagling''s language was harsh, guttural, and grating on the ears, but the circle started to glow as they progressed. Mau, Suvdaa, Andy, and even Dulguun soon began to feel like they were being tugged from their bodies, and with the recitation of the last word of Penne''s incantation, they felt their stomachs suddenly drop.


    The world shifted before their eyes, and they found themselves in the center of a chamber with perfectly polished mirrors for walls. There was only one exit, and judging from how the hall beyond was made up of more mirrors, Mau groaned.


    "Fuck me, a mirror maze? Really? This is the most cheap-ass carnival bullshit I''ve dealt with in forever." She groused.


    "Guys, I feel like we''re being watched," Andy said, eyeing his surroundings dubiously.


    Mau felt it, too—the nagging feeling in the back of her animal brain that told her something was eyeing her like its next meal. It was never a feeling she enjoyed, but she knew it could keep her alive if she paid attention to it, so she didn''t simply discredit Andy''s paranoia as out of hand.


    "Yeah, I feel it too," Mau said as she tightened her grip on the hilt of the holy blade and took to the point for the party, the others forming up with her in their usual practiced manner.


    The glass maze was eerily silent, and the sounds of the party''s footfalls echoed loudly against the mirrored walls. Mau grimaced at the distorted figures in every mirror; wobbling and wavy versions of her and her party flickered and danced in every distorted reflection she passed.


    Suvdaa kept her knife ready, and Andy and Penne held their staves aloft, lighting the path as the team progressed cautiously, jumping and lunging at shadows and disfigured reflections for what felt like hours.


    "Do we even know which way to go?" Suvdaa griped.


    "No clue," Penne replied in a lazy tone. As an ageless hagling, they technically had all the time in the world to wander a maze like this.


    "As long as we keep following our left, we should find where we''re going," Mau noted from her point at the lead. She had been following the left wall for every turn they had taken. It was an old trick for getting through hedge mazes, and it should easily apply to one like this.


    "Hah! See!" Mau crowed triumphantly as the party hit the center after some more time wandering.


    Another teleportation circle was etched into the floor in the maze''s center, but before Penne could step forward to activate it, an arrow whipped by Mau''s ear.


    Suvdaa cursed, and Andy grunted as the whole team crouched, trying to figure out where it came from as it embedded itself in the opposite mirror, spider-webbing it with cracks. Slowly, the cracks receded, and the mirror rippled like water.


    That was when Suvdaa''s reflection lashed out of the nearest mirror with the knife in its hand to try and gut Andy. Andy grunted as the knife scored against the breastplate he wore under his cleric vestments and lurched away with a snarl.


    Penne''s mirror image stepped out of another glassy wall and mouthed something, and several shimmery tentacles slithered along the floor to try and ensnare Suvdaa. The party was caught off guard to be attacked by their own reflections but managed to evade injury through sheer luck and grit as the reflections *stepped out of the mirrors, shimmering like glass.


    Mau immediately pivoted and slashed off the arm of Andy''s reflection. It fell to the floor and shattered as Suvdaa knocked an arrow out of the air aimed for Mau with a well-timed shot of her own.


    In the next instant, Andy and Penne were back to back as the dogboy raised a protective barrier, and Penne began to chant. Slimy black tentacles met the glassy ones head-on and tangled in a morass of inky and glassy flailing limbs as Suvdaa turned Penne''s reflection into a pincushion of arrows. The reflection went down and crumbled to pieces, and Mau smacked a glass arrow out of the air with her shortsword out of sheer reflexes alone.


    With a surly grunt, Andy dropped his barrier and swung his staff with the force of a hammer, taking the head off the raider girl''s reflection with a loud snap of cracking glass. Penne then engulfed Andy''s mirror double in black balefire, searing it a glowing shade of red as it melted away, which just left...


    Mau''s reflection.


    Mau expected a fight. She did not expect what she saw to emerge from the mirror wall next.


    The young man who emerged from the mirror stepped forward sluggishly, his shoulders slouched with lousy posture. His short hair was a mess, kind of overly long and unkempt, and he hadn''t shaved in a few days. On top of it all, he was dressed like the unhappiest office worker to grace the earth.


    He stood there, staring at Mau, and she stared at him. Doubtless, the rest of the party stared, too, as Mau heaved a tired sigh.


    "Oh hey." She said, staring down the man she used to be. "Fancy seeing you here."


    The youth stared her down blankly, silent and wordless, as Mau sheathed her sword.


    "I shouldn''t be surprised, honestly." the catgirl sighed and shook her head. "But this is all wrong."


    The youth cocked his head to a curious angle at this but remained silent.


    Mau''s eyes fell half-lidded on her doppelganger, tired and sad as she answered his wordless question.


    "I''m not you anymore."


    Slowly, the youth nodded to this, stuffing a hand in his pocket as he turned back to the mirror from whence he came, stepped back through the glass, and melded away as though he had never emerged from it in the first place.


    The party stood in pensive silence for a long moment before Mau sighed again.


    Andy''s hand rested warmly on her shoulder.


    "We should go," Mau said, quiet and a little sad.


    "Do you think the gods will send you back to your home after we''re done here?" Penne asked.


    Mau shrugged. She had finally relented and told Andy and Penne the details of her life''s work in killing Demon Lords for as long as she could remember, and like good friends, they stuck by her side instead of accusing her of madness.


    "Donno. The question is... Do I even want to go back?" Mau replied as Penne started to work their magic on the teleportation circle.


    <h2>?</h2>


    The campfire crackled quietly as a wounded soldier tossed another log on the fire. He grumbled and adjusted the bloody bandage wrapped around his head.


    "Stop touching that, ye''ll get it infected." Thrain groused at the young man as he hunkered down to join his men in the warmth of the guttering flames. The frozen north was as cruel as it was inhospitable. The soldier sluggishly moved to salute, but Thrain waved him off, and they both collapsed in heaps by the fire.


    "Sir, " the young soldier—a human boy barely into his twenties—began to speak. Do you think they made it?"


    Thrain nodded his head.


    "I''m sure she did, lad. That girl''s tough as nails." The dwarven general replied as they both looked toward the towering silhouette reaching up into the sky, far off on the horizon.


    "We lost so many today..." The young trooper murmured as he turned his head to the mound of neatly stacked corpses, each wrapped up tightly in dirty cloth. The day''s battle had been fierce, vicious, and unforgiving.


    "Aye..." Thrain conceded. "But she won''t let their lives go to waste. I''m sure of it."


    "How will we know they made it?" The youth asked somberly.


    That was when the top of the tower lit up like a beacon. A bright speck of light launched from the silhouette''s top point. Contrails of stardust followed after the distant mote of light as it lanced higher into the night sky. Their eyes followed it to the black shape looming above the clouds—the Demon Lord''s flying castle.


    "That''s how, lad." Thrain chuckled tiredly. "That''s how."