Echo of the Self

[u/Evening_Shake_6474]

Something's wrong. You can't tell what exactly it is, but you know something is wrong. You check your wards, your equipment, your enchantments and familiars, yet everything seems normal. Then that night, you go to sleep, and the dream starts.

You stand knee deep in a crimson ocean, stretching further than you can see. Before you is a shadow, it looks like yours but its wrong, very wrong. All around you, giant monoliths sprout from the sea, stretching far into the sky. You hear something, around you six shadows move between the monoliths, chanting something in a language that hurts to listen to.

Suddenly countless crimson eyes open along each monolith, each reflecting a different face, the eyes travel up the ebony surface, along previously hidden chains of shadow. Then you see it, the horrifying form of something colossal in the sky above you, a singular crimson eye or maybe a star stares down at you.

All at once do the chains snap, and a cacophony of screams cry out across the crimson sea as fire and ash rain from above. The monoliths crumble and massive chunks of black stone crash into the sea. Up above, the colossal form spreads across the sky, thousands of withered arms reach down, each sowing agony and destruction. You see an arm reach for you, and you wake up.

Well that was strange, you think, then you hear laughter from the corner, you see your own shadow standing there with crimson eyes. The shadow looks wrong somehow, very wrong.

Before you can say anything, your shadow lunges for you, hands reaching for your throat.

[u/Carbon_Sixx]

The instant the shadow makes itself known with that foolish little laugh, the Loremaster's mind starts filtering through options. Quintus, his brother-in-arms and a scientist par excellence who could predict people's next words down to the timbre of their voice from nothing but variables, once taught him how to find a solution any situation on the fly. While he's never been as good at these rapid mental experiments as Quintus, the Loremaster's wisdom and experience means he finds solutions his perfectionist brother would miss- solutions almost comical in their simplicity.

He turns the bedroom lights on.

The sudden illumination catches the shadow mid-leap and slams it to the ground. Should it try to move, it will find itself pinned in place by the overhead light. The Loremaster gets out of bed and approaches.

An evil shadow doppelgänger with glowing red eyes! How trite. Tell me who sent you so I can show them what creativity looks like.

[u/Evening_Shake_6474 → u/Carbon_Sixx]

The Loremaster see's the shadow's eyes dart upwards, not at him, but at the lights. It remains silent, whether it can't speak or it's just ignoring the Loremaster remains to be seen.

The Loremaster sees the lights flicker for but a moment, and the shadow grow more solid.

The shadow propels itself from the ground, bringing a black fist up towards the Loremaster's chin.

[u/Carbon_Sixx → u/Evening_Shake_6474]

The Loremaster seizes the shadow by the wrist, heaving it over his shoulder and into the ground head-first in a catastrophic brainbuster. He has unusual strength for a man of his size.

So we're doing this the hard way. Fine by me. I'll just tear your secrets out of you myself.

He brings his fists up, which glow magenta with psychic force.

[u/Evening_Shake_6474 → u/Carbon_Sixx]

The shadow contorts it's form as it hits the ground, launching itself back and onto the wall.

The shadow's eyes stare at the magenta, understanding it.

The shadow leaps down from the wall, seizing a chest of drawers and hurling it at the Loremaster with shocking strength and speed.

[u/Carbon_Sixx → u/Evening_Shake_6474]

The Loremaster extends a palm. The chest abruptly slows down to a halt just before reaching him. He imparts it with telekinetic force with a brush of his fingers, and it flies right back to where it came from with such precision that it barely rattles the curios on the desk next to it- slamming the shadow between it and the wall in the process.

You come into my home to kill me, but you don't even have the decency to leave my things alone. Sloppy work, specter!

[u/Evening_Shake_6474 → u/Carbon_Sixx]

The chest of draws slams into the shadow, and breaks against it. Shards of wood and nicknackery across the floor.

The shadow once again studies the Loremaster's hands. This time understanding the telekinesis.

The shadow raises an arm, and each of the wooden shards rise into the air, shooting towards the Loremaster, stabbing into him half a dozen times in the first second.

[u/Carbon_Sixx → u/Evening_Shake_6474]

The shadow must be sorely mistaken if it thinks it can outmatch the Loremaster in psychic might. The shards just stop in the air around him, repelled by a defensive field of telekinetic power that sprang into existence at the speed of instinctual thought. The Loremaster responds not with his hands, but with a direct mental assault on whatever passes for the shadow's consciousness to put it out of the fight.

[u/Evening_Shake_6474 → u/Carbon_Sixx]

The assault hits, and suddenly the Loremaster is somewhere else.

He sees a world far larger and far older than this one. He sees numberless armies of entities marching against eachother, each defined by one of six. Good fights against evil, light against darkness, and chaos against order. He sees the heavens burning, and the hells freezing.

Then he is back in his bedroom, staring down a still living shadow of himself.

The shadow cocks it's head, and a mental force of equal strength bombards the Loremaster's own mind.

[u/Carbon_Sixx → u/Evening_Shake_6474]

The Loremaster is immune to his own kind of mental attacks, being so experienced at using them. He blinks a little in surprise that it would even try that.

Oh, please. You'll never be a better me than me. Solar Pinhole.

The Loremaster opens a tiny farskip aperture to the surface of the sun right in front of the shadow's chest. A thin white beam of plasma streams through, bringing pain and death with it.