Day 18.

Star zipped up her backpack, then looked at Marco, who was still holding the Mirror. He tapped the Mirror, and said, "you sure you don't want to bring it along?"

Star raised an eyebrow and looked at the Mirror. "Hey Mirror. Is it a good idea to bring you along?"

"SPECULATION: IT IS EXTREMELY UNLIKELY THAT YOU WILL BENEFIT FROM BRINGING THIS DEVICE ALONG."

Star shrugged. "That's my answer."

Marco had a worried expression on his face. "Any chance you want to tell us what exactly Star is supposed to find in the cave? Or see? Or do?"

"THIS DEVICE IS FORBIDDEN FROM DISCUSSING THAT SUBJECT."

Marco looked tense.

"What's the matter?" Star asked.

"I want to trust the Mirror, but..." Marco's voice trailed off.


Could the Mirror be trusted?

That was a newly reopened question.

It was abundantly obvious that the Mirror was lying to them about certain things. Not just with its masking of "THIS DEVICE IS FORBIDDEN FROM SPILLING THE BEANS ABOUT IT" style evasion. There were definitely answers that the Mirror had given them that were demonstrably false.

More to the point, Fate himself wasn't trustworthy. It didn't seem like he was lying to Star when she spoke with him, but Fate was a God: who knew what kind of rules applied to them, or whether they had the same kind of physiology as Star or Marco. For all she knew, that wasn't even what he really looked like. She never performed any testing to figure out whether the Dimension of Fate was affected by the negative effects of the Curse or not. Was it like the cave, where it looked the same regardless of the Curse's impact?

This could be a trap. Except…

Why did the Mirror tell Marco not to bring it along? Fate seemed upset that neither Star nor Marco brought the Mirror along. That positions the Mirror as being opposed to Fate, and if Fate can't be trusted, then can the Mirror be trusted, presuming that the Mirror is an ally with them?


Star held her head.

These questions were too difficult to ponder right now.

Star tapped her wand. "I've already demonstrated that I can take down Artificers. I don't know what to expect, but our enemies don't exactly know what to expect either."

Marco nodded. "I hope so."

"Plus… If this is a trap…" She glanced meaningfully at the Mirror. "It's still better in your hands than lost in that cave."

Star cut open the portal.

"Be careful, Star."

"I will."


The ground outside the cave sloshed with fresh blood as Star stepped out of the portal. "Eugh." Star vocalized as she closed the portal, smelling the sulfur in the air. Or more precisely, the sulfur that wasn't in the air.

She quickly stepped into the cave, and as she moved from masses of muscle and ligaments to hard stone, the rancid smells faded away.

"How many times have I seen the inside of this cave?" Star whispered to herself, using her wand to keep the way lit. "At this rate, I'm going to memorize this place."

Star knew that was a hyperbolic notion: she'd long since understood that the cave was self-rearranging. When she'd watched Eclipsa make her way into the cave, using the Mirror's instructions, it had more than once instructed her to deliberately make her way to the end of a dead-end. The only explanation for that was that the Cave was reacting to her actions and changing its own layout in response.

So Star trudged along, keeping an eye out for anything still moving in these dark tunnels. The Artificers were dead, but that didn't mean there was nothing else in here, or that nothing else would ever come here.

Suddenly, Star found the long hallway. The same long hallway she'd always seen before finding the Antechamber.

Star clutched the strap of her backpack and walked into the Antechamber.

She looked at all the various archways, each of which led out of the cave. The markings on the floor where Star had identified Earth and the other Earth-like dimension were still present.

Actually, that was an important discovery: If the rest of the cave were self-rearranging, wouldn't the Antechamber be like that too? But it seemed the Antechamber was some kind of Anchor for the whole cave. All paths led here, and all paths lead away from here.

Star sat in front of the entrance leading to Earth. "Alright. I'm here. So what the heck am I supposed to do next?"

She sat staring at the entrance for several minutes, then got up and turned around, and froze in place.

A massive Eyeball had appeared in the room, staring directly at her. It had slitted irises, like a reptile.

Star gripped her wand tightly. "Uh."

And there she stood, for what felt like several minutes. Star gripping her wand, ready to pounce if the Eyeball did anything, and the Eyeball doing… Nothing. Just staring at her.

Star raised up her free hand and waved at it. The Eyeball vibrated slightly, as though it was tracking her hand. She began to walk around the perimeter of the room, and as she did so, the Eyeball continued to look directly at her.

Star looked behind herself, to make sure that there wasn't anything there, and when she turned back, the Eyeball was still staring at her.

Star lowered her wand, but still gripped it tightly. "Hello?"

No response.

Star slowly walked towards the Eyeball, and it slowly lowered its gaze to track her movement.

Star now stood under the edge of its volume, and had gotten close enough that she could reach out and touch the bottom of it. "Um… Do you… I don't know what you want."

Star reached out with her free hand to touch the edge of the Eyeball.

The moment she touched it, purple veins began to spread out from the Eyeball, making a cracking sound as they moved. Star backed away, unsure what she had just done.

The Eyeball continued to stare at Star, even as its entire surface turned purple, until instantly, the Eyeball shattered into dust.

Star stared in disbelief at what she was seeing. Then realized that something was on the floor, where the Eyeball had been based.

Or rather, someone.

Star got closer once again, and gasped when she saw the figure. "Is that…! Are you…?!"

The figure turned to look at Star. "No, but it's not a bad guess, all things considered," she said, in Eclipsa's voice.

She certainly looked like Eclipsa. Or… More precisely, she looked like Princess Eclipsa, which was immediately distinct to Star, as Queen Eclipsa would look a lot older.

"Who are you?" Star asked.

Not!Eclipsa glanced meaningfully at the ground. "Her, in a very technical sense. But given that I share neither her memories, nor her appearance, nor her… disposition, I suppose it wouldn't be pragmatic to act like I were, in fact, her."

Star tilted her head. "Her? Wait, you mean… The entity under the cave?"

"'Under' being a relative term, but yes."

"So… I still don't get what you're supposed to be, though. Why do you look like Eclipsa?"

Star reached out to try to touch her, and Not!Eclipsa backed away, looking amused. "Ah! While I'm not technically alive, I'd still prefer not to be obliterated. Not yet, at least."

Star retracted her hand.

"You know my name?"

Star blinked. "Are you Eclipsa?"

"Well… No. Not technically. I'm more like… An impression. I spent… God, how many fucking hours did I spend down here? Too many. So many that She captured an impression of me. Who I am, what I know, what I care about… All the stuff that makes up a person, and when you came here, She gave me life."

"I see."

Not!Eclipsa smirked. "But I'm very curious who you're supposed to be. Especially..." Her eyes directed towards Star's wand. "You're not just some random Mewman girl, are you?"

"I'm… Princess Star Butterfly, of Mewnie."

"Princess! So it's been awhile! And I guess… Mewnie is still standing long after I left it. That's… That's good."

"This is… Amazing! I've actually got a ton of questions I wanted to ask you."

Not!Eclipsa beamed. "About what?" Suddenly, her expression darkened. "Wait… If you found me here..."

"I mean," Star began, "some of it is about what you did here. I was aware that you fought the Artificers here, and later did experiments with them..."

Not!Eclipsa sighed and folded her arms. "Goddamn it. And how old are you supposed to be anyways, that you're getting involved in this shit?!" She looked haunted. "How bad of a mess did I leave behind?"

Star folded her arms. "Those two Artificers you weren't able to kill. One of them cursed my friend. The curse chained to me as well, so while I'm not going to die..."

Not!Eclipsa's eyes widened. "I'm so sorry. I should have..." She shook her head. "What about the other one?"

"I killed him. As far as I know, all the Artificers are dead now."

"Good. That's very good." Not!Eclipsa sat on the floor. "Come on, sit down."

Star also sat on the floor. "I, uh, found your journal from this time."

Not!Eclipsa's face darkened again. "Of course you did. I suppose it's too late to ask whether you did the smart thing and leave it alone..."

Star shook her head. "Marco and I were already cursed when we found it. It gave us a few leads on how to try to undo the curse, but..."

Not!Eclipsa's face softened. "Well, I guess that was a good call then." She glanced to the side. "If all the Mewnie Artificers are truly dead, then once this curse is dealt with, I strongly suggest you destroy that journal. I tore out the most damning stuff, but there's magic in there that could destroy Mewnie if it got into the wrong hands. Not unlike all the crap I put in the spellbook."

Star's eyes widened. "You already contributed to the spellbook?"

"Well, I am queen. Or was, rather."

Star blinked. "You are?!"

Not!Eclipsa examined herself. "This impression was captured about a month after my coronation. That would have corresponded to the last time I came down here. So yeah, about a month into being Queen." She raised an eyebrow. "How was I remembered as Queen."

Star grimaced. "Badly. It wasn't your fault; I'm told you did a lot of good stuff for the kingdom! But..."

Not!Eclipsa averted her gaze. "Honestly… I'm not that surprised to hear that. After everything I did, it's a miracle I even made it to Coronation. Even the most cursory investigation into the dirt surrounding me..." She shook her head. "It's really just as well."

"But you did so much good! You fought the Artificers, when no one else would!"

She sighed. "Doing the right thing and making good things happen aren't the same thing, princess. It's better you learn that now, before you have to learn it the hard way, like I did." She looked around the room. "I stopped one kind of evil from harming Mewnie. I'm proud of that, and I don't regret that. But if I had a chance to do it all over again..." She crossed her arms. "Well, there's definitely lots of things I would have done differently." Things which would have gotten rid of the Artificers cleanly and quietly. I was so obsessed with making them pay for what they had done..." She looked at Star. "Vengeance feels good, Star. It feels really, really, good. But it doesn't solve problems. If I'd have just slit their throats the moment I had them paralyzed, I'd have prevented a lot of terrible things from happening. But that wasn't good enough for me. I needed to make them suffer. I felt like Justice wouldn't have been dealt if I didn't ensure that. But Justice was ensuring that they never harmed another child again. Anything beyond that was my selfish desires getting in the way."

Star gulped. "I see."

Not!Eclipsa chuckled. "Ironically, it feels like that was the lesson Rina tried to teach me that was most important, and it was the one lesson I missed. She understood that taking vengeance against me wouldn't solve anything. It wouldn't bring her son back. It wouldn't fix her marriage." She smiled sadly. "I don't think I'll ever be able to face her."

Star shuffled uncomfortably in place.

Not!Eclipsa composed herself. "At any rate. You said you had questions for me." She turned to look at the pedestal where the Mirror once sat. "Do you have the Iris?"

"Yeah, my friend is holding onto it back in Mewnie. Why?"

"Did it ever start working again?"

Star raised an eyebrow. "It was damaged when we got it, but it worked right away."

Not!Eclipsa looked surprised. "Wait, what?! I thought that thing was completely broken!"

"Was it?"

"After the Artificers stole the Fate Mana from me, every time I tried to use the Iris, it complained about errors. I could occasionally get a Speculation to work, but even then, it was a crapshoot. Every time, "TOO MUCH CORRUPTION" or whatever. Eventually, I just used it as a lure in a Time Distortion Trap, because I couldn't think of anything else to do with it."

"So you did set the trap."

"You know about it?"

Star rolled her eyes. "My friend and I lost a month because of that thing."

Not!Eclipsa looked guilty. "I'm so sorry."

"Actually…" Star frowned. "Now that I think about it, I don't think the Artificer would have found us if you hadn't trapped the Mirror!"

"Shit." Not!Eclipsa shook her head. "I'm so, so sorry. It was just a stupid little experiment I was testing out. I figured no one would ever come here anyways, so I didn't think it would actually hurt anyone important. Least of all that it would make them susceptible to one of the remaining Artificers."

Star sighed. "Nothing to be done about it now. Anyways… Yeah, the Mirror works. Why?"

"Because if you have questions for me, It seems like you could just address them towards the Iris instead. I don't mind the company, but you made a trip all the way here for very little gain, if any at all."

Star took a deep breath. "Part of the problem is that I don't even know the right questions to ask the Mirror. Aside from half the stuff it says being 'Forbidden' to discuss, it feels like I ask it questions and I never quite get an answer I understand." She glanced to the side. "The other reason is that I actually didn't know I was going to find you, or anyone else capable of answering my questions, down here. The Mirror suggested I go here of its own volition."

Not!Eclipsa looked amused. "Oh wow, it must really like you. That's quite brazen of him."

"What?"

"Well, you know the Iris is a living thing, right?"

"It is?!"

Not!Eclipsa shrugged. "Of course. He used to be Mortal. Until the God of Fate enslaved him and made him into the Iris of Truth."