I stood in front of the entrance of what I had started calling the Alice room and glanced around one last time. Just to make sure that I was alone on the platform. I needed to check because unlike my last few misadventures, I was starting from the world above instead of the one underneath.

I had tried getting into the locker via the world underneath… only to find that the Alice room didn't even exist there. It was so far the only part of the world above that wasn't mirrored and I would be lying if that wasn't freaking me out.

I started keeling down when I eyed the underside of the door.

I had thought about doing it as a joke, but now that I knew something was up… I summoned Lamia's card and watched as she reached underneath the door.

A stray thought crossed my head as Lamia flinched back opened her mouth for a voiceless scream.

It wasn't as funny without anyone else around to scare. Lamia reached back down and clicked the button, opening the door and letting me in.

The room was just as we left it, if a bit brighter. An upside of coming here early on a weekend instead of afterschool.

I walked up to the locker and gulped as I pulled it open, Lamia right behind me ready to pull me back if needed.

The locker was empty except for the mirror, the chest now decorating my room. I looked into the mirror and caught sight of the door that didn't exist on this side.

Instead of just crossing over like an idiot, I had Lamia go in first.

My other-self went into the mirror as I felt a strange sensation that I had felt only once before. Back when I had first gotten Lamia, I had done a few tests with her. Including sending her out to see how far away from me she could be.

I hadn't gotten an answer, instead when she got really far away, I started feeling lightheaded and a little dizzy. I pushed her just a bit further away only for me to start seeing black spots in my eyes.

I called back Lamia and the feeling went away.

I learned that day that I could have lamia away from me, but not super far away. And apparently the other side of the mirror counted. I dismissed Lamia back into me and stood in front of the mirror alone.

I took one last look at the mirror the other world beyond.

Did I really have to do this? It didn't look that dangerous, and it was so out of the way unlike the other incidents. I could just leave and never have to worry about it again…

But, I just knew. I just knew that if I let it alone, something bad would happen. Someone would fall in and my recon mission would turn into a rescue mission.

No, the safest thing for everyone was for me to go inside and figure out what was the deal with this thing.

I took a deep breath before pushing my arm into the mirror.

Despite the ripple around my arm like I had just pushed it into water, I didn't feel anything. I kept going and it felt like I was just moving through empty space.

I made it to the other side and looked around. The Alice room looked pretty much the same, except for the new door and the working light bulb overhead that lit up the room in full yellow light.

Before anything else, I pulled out my goggles, checking to see if there would be any change at all. There wasn't, but I still kept them on anyway.

Before going through the mystery door, I tried the door that led outside. I pushed it open and it didn't budge. I scrunched my face as I gave it a few more pushes, not feeling it give way.

I narrowed my eyes at the door and back away and looked down. There was no light coming from the bottom or the sides…

"Come Lamia," I summoned my persona and noted that she was solid instead of the vaguely see-through that she usually was in the world above. She slithered down to the bottom of the door and reached her hand underneath.

There was nothing there, it was a fake door. The only thing on the other side was a bare stone wall.

Well that's stupid. It was open when it was a reflection.

I looked at the other door and pushed it open, hoping for better luck.

Unlike the other one, it opened. In particular, it opened to a large room with bare stone tiles and bare stone walls. Off to the side there was a staircase built leading up to a door built into the wall.

In the very center of the room there was a panel covered pillar going up, and up, and up. I could barely even see the top of this thing. Of course with how close up I was, maybe it just looked bigger than it actually was?

What I could see was a series of walkways above that reached from one side of the room to the other, going through the pillar in the process.

"Well, time to cheat," I said aloud as I called forth Lamia's card and crushed it. She appeared behind me as I fell back into her arm and we started flying up.

We made it just halfway to the first walkway when the panels on the pillar opened up to reveal spears shooting out of the sides. I had lamia slow down just as the spears started to glow purple.

I felt a heavy weight on me like I was about to die and had Lamia fall back. The closer we got to the ground, the less the spears glowed.

Okay so maybe not that. If I couldn't go straight up, then I would have to take the stairs. I climbed up the stairs on the wall and looked ahead at the door in front of me.

I took a deep breath and hoped for the best as I pushed it open.

Well if I wanted proof that I wasn't in Kansas anymore this was it. I had emerged from the door into someplace sunny and apparently high up enough to have clouds at eye level. Ahead of me was a narrow stone walkway with stone walls boxing me in. At the end of that was what looked like a small floating castle. I glanced over the side of the wall and glanced down.

Yeah, the whole walkway and castle were floating in the sky over a vast mostly empty plain of green. Off in the distance I could make out the blue of the sea and if I squinted my eyes, I could see a small handful of buildings dotting the countryside.

And behind me? Behind me was a single door at the end of the walkway with nothing but empty sky behind it.

You know, maybe Kansas is the wrong comparison here. I was down the rabbit hole maybe? It would fit with the Alice motif at least.

I grumbled to myself about how weird this all was as I walked down the stone walkway towards the castle. As I got closer, I noticed that the walkway led into one of the towers instead of the base of the castle.

I reached the end of the caste and summoned Lamia. I had her go up and fly around the caste a bit to get a better look at it. She couldn't see the whole thing due to my range, but it was enough to make out the general shape.

The castle was shaped like a square, with a tall tower at each corner. There was no courtyard like there would be in a real castle, instead the whole thing was covered in a mostly flat stone roof. At the very center of the roof, there was a single part sticking out into the air. It looked like the size of a single room, so who knew what it was.

I called Lamia back to me and entered the first tower.

The room I entered looked like it took up the entire upper part of the area. It was a circular room with the top of a spiral staircase leading down at the far end of the room.

The floor was made of wood to contrast with the stone walls with wooden panel lining going up the sides.

At the dead center of the room, I saw a strange emblem on the floor. It looked like a fourth of a round shield, colored red and with a bird on it. I stepped over it and felt a low warmth coming from below.

I knelt down and touched the emblem. It was warm to the touch, not too hot, just nice and balmy. I moved my hand around a bit, trying to see if any part of it was warmer than the rest. It wasn't, the thing was all equally warm. However as soon as my hands left the emblem, the warmth went away.

"Weird," I mumbled to myself. "What does it mean?"

Instead of an actual answer, my question was met with a loud screech coming from above.

I threw my head up and spotted a shape falling towards me from above.

Lamia's card was in my hand in an instant. I flexed my hand and felt her grab me and pull me forward.

I heard the shape crash into the floor and looked back.

Standing on the floor was a large red bird with its talons puncturing the spot where I had been kneeling.

The bird looked back up at me, its golden feathers topping its head. It ruffled the feathers of its large red and gold peacock-like tail. The eyes on the tail started to glow before small flames started to appear in front of them.

I gulped as the bird screeched and flapped its wings forward.

The flames flew at me like they had been directed by the wings.

The world froze as my eyes scanned the flames in front of me. There was no cover, and Lamia wasn't fast enough to pull me out of the flames completely. Plus she would get hit too and the angle had taught me why that would be a bad idea.

The flames were kind of small, and while there wasn't enough space to move between them, if I moved in the right way, I would only get hit by one.

I gulped to myself. Time to find out what the word 'resist' in my stats meant.

I ran forward into the flames, covering my face with my arms.

I grunted as I ran into one of the fireballs and it exploded in my arms. I felt myself burn a little but it didn't hurt as much as it probably should have.

I kept running as Lamia's fangs appeared in my hands. The bird screeched and reared its head back. Its eyes wide and looking a little surprised. Its long neck also pulled it away from the range of my daggers.

That was fine.

I reached the bird and kept running, moving past it as I got in range of its tail.

I heard it screeching and saw its beak coming down at me out of the corner of my eye. It must have figured out what I wanted to do.

It was too late, I skidded to a stop in front of its tail and cut into the feathers.

It roared in fury as pillars of flame erupted from the ground around us. I barely felt the heat.

It stabbed its beak down at me and hit me right in the shoulder. Once again I barely felt it.

Things clicked into place as I looked the bird in the eye as it tried to dig its beak into my shoulder.

I quickly glanced at my status just to make sure. The green circle that represented my life was almost full.

"You don't have anything besides the fire do you?" The bird stopped its attempt at stabbing me and slowly turned its eye at me. "The flames are your only trick and now that you're up against someone who can tank them, you don't have anything else, do you?"

The bird shrunk back as I fought back a laugh. Elemental rock paper scissors was on my side for once.

The bird had the last laugh as it lurched its head up with me still on its beak. It twisted around a bit, sending me flying off its beak.

I went flying, going through one of the flame pillars before crashing onto the wooden floor. That the floors hurt more was all the extra proof I needed.

I scrambled to my feet and felt a familiar object in my hand.

"Cut them up Lamia," My persona came forth in a burst of blue, rushing forward through the air. I burst into a run along the ground.

The bird looked between the two of us, not sure which one to react to. It made up its mind as it turned towards me and the flames appeared in front of its eye feathers again.

I quickly noted that the feathers that I had wrecked weren't creating any flames. When it opened fire, there was going to be an entire section of its attack free of flames.

I slowly started running towards the gap as it let loose its flames and flapped its wings at me.

I ran past the gap in the wall of fireballs without any trouble as Lamia just went above.

The bird squawked before glancing back at the ruined section of its tail.

"Keep your eyes on me!" I demanded as I reached the bird and swung my daggers at its head which was still just in range. Its head swung back away from me just as my daggers would have cut its head off.

Right into the waiting hand of Lamia who sliced its head off with purple glowing nails.

Thank you blight fang. I took more damage casting you then I took from this stupid bird.

I watched the now headless body of the bird in front of me and noted the lack of blood. Inside of it there was just some sort of black void.

Weird.

Weirder still was the way that the body started to darken and shrivel up after a second. Cracks started appearing all over its body before parts of it broke off and crumbled to dust. Every time it did, they were carried off by the wind even though there wasn't even a breeze in here.

After a few more seconds, the only thing left of the bird was a quarter circle on the floor. I picked it up and held it up in front of the emblem on the floor.

It was an exact match.

"Alright, let's get out of here," I placed the emblem under my arm and headed off to the staircase.

I climbed down the tower grunting as the emblem weighed me down. I needed to get a backpack or something. Maybe next time.

There were a couple of windows on the side of the tower, letting me see how high up I was compared to the rest of the castle. As I went down, I noticed that we were getting closer to the top floor.

I reached the bottom of the stairs, with no way to keep going down. Based off the last sight of the outside I had gotten, I was still at the very top of the castle.

The room that I had come out of was pretty nice. The stone walls and wooden floor were still there, but now the floor had a red carpet and the wall was lined with swords and other decorations.

I glanced at my daggers before dismissing them and reaching out for one of the smaller curved swords on the wall.

My hands went right through it like it was made of smoke.

I groaned light disappointment before looking at the one door in the room that led forward.

I was still in pretty good shape, let's keep going. I went into the door and into a rectangular version of almost the same exact room that I had just been in. There was the same red carpet and the same repeating lines of weapons on the walls.

The only additions were two rows of tables and a large ruby cocoon hanging off the ceiling in the dead center of the room.

Maybe I should have led with that last part?

I carefully walked around the edge of the room towards the other door, making sure to stay as far away from the cocoon as possible. Of course since the room was a rectangle, I couldn't help but closer to that thing as I kept going.

I reached the mid-point of the wall and sighed as the cocoon started to crack. I stopped hugging the wall as the cocoon shattered, its red pieces turning into black sludge before falling to the floor and reshaping as an armored knight. Or at least a knight's armor. I was pretty sure that the helmet was empty inside.

The whole thing was made off gray shining metal except for an emblem on its chest. It was a shield made of red, white, green, and yellow sections.

"Not what I expected but okay," I told the knight as it created a sword and pointed it at me. It rattled as it charged right at me.

I dropped the emblem piece I was holding in my hands and summoned lamia. We both grabbed onto the edge of the table in front of us and flipped it up with all the strength.

Which honestly wasn't that high an amount, but the armor still got surprised by the sudden presence of table in his face.

"Light this thing up," I commanded as Lamia let loose an Agi towards the armor.

The armor tossed the table to the side just as the flames hit it. The blast sent it reeling back before making it fall to its knee.

I recognized a downed foe when I saw it and ran forward. I brought Lamia's fangs down on the armor's exposed back… and almost bounced off. My daggers weren't going to do anything against this… metal armor with nothing inside.

Okay so maybe that should have been obvious.

The armor stumbled to its feet before glaring at me with its empty helm. It raised its sword and made a wild horizontal swing.

I ducked down, feeling the wind blow over my head. Without a word, I summoned Lamia again to fire another Agi.

The flames did their job, sending the armor back to the ground.

This time I wasted no time in keeping lamia out and sending a couple more Agis its way.

By the time I was done, the armor had been reduced to a charred scrap and the yellow circle was half full.

I propped myself up and sat on one of the tables. I let out an exhausted sigh as I watched the armor turn to dust and fade away like the bird did. I guess that's just what happened to stuff in here?

Would that happen to me if my green circle emptied out? I let loose a shiver as the scene played in my head.

Best not to think about it, let alone risk it.

Speaking of risking it… did I keep going? It was a little dangerous… but I was still pretty sure that I could handle at least one more fight. If I did get over my head, I could always just run for it out of the castle anyway.

I glanced at the spot where the armor had fallen and did a double-take when I spotted something on the floor. I hopped off the table and knelt down over the stuff.

"Is this… cash?" I mumbled as looked at the small collection of bills and coins on the ground next to a small scrap of metal. I shuffled it around a bit to figure how much there was.

It wasn't much, only three dollars and sixty-seven cents… but it was more than I had been expecting to get from beating the armor. I'd been expecting something in-between diddly and squat.

Was this even real money? Would I get arrested for counterfeiting if I used it? I glanced down at the money again and picked it all up, including the iron scrap just in case, and placed it in my pocket.

I mean, I guess it would come in handy? And more money was always good…

I'd figure out what to do with this stuff later. For now I picked up the emblem and kept going.