Dark Mirrors and Childhood Terrors

Session Summary: 03/03/2024

Ahhhh, you cannot escape YOURSELVES! The dreamscape spawned a NEGA version of each hero: dark reflections assembled from Gregor's perception of them, his subconscious assessment of their worst qualities and deepest vulnerabilities given physical form and hostile intent. Fighting yourself is a specific horror that has no adequate preparation, because your dark mirror knows which feints you can't ignore and which hits will land regardless of how well you defend against them, because it is drawing from the same source material you are.

Nega-Kiren moved with every evasion and counter and dirty trick that Kiren had ever employed, used against her with perfect efficiency and none of her hesitation. Nega-Charles burned with fire that had none of the mercy that made Charles's fire a tool of redemption rather than destruction. Nega-Mutu was all of Mutu's protective capability repurposed toward offense, every defense-mechanism turned inside out. Nega-Diana existed at the same interface between life and death that the real Diana occupied, but oriented entirely toward entropy rather than transition.

The key was that the dark mirrors lacked the one thing that made the heroes collectively more than their individual capabilities: they could not COOPERATE. Each nega-version was a solipsistic reflection of its original, capable of the original's actions but not of the fundamental choice to make itself useful to someone other than itself. The heroes used this against them, coordinating attacks and defensive maneuvers that the dark mirrors could observe but not replicate, and destroyed them in the exact sequence that left the least overlap between threats.

The childhood terror chambers followed: rooms populated by Gregor's formative fears, made manifest and dangerous in the dreamscape's dream-logic. They navigated through carefully, solving the trap of each chamber rather than fighting what was in it wherever possible, using the knowledge of Gregor's psychology they had accumulated over months of investigation to predict which approaches would trigger escalation and which would allow passage. They reached the second oubliette and found within it the memory that Gregor had been most determined to keep SEALED!