The Mirror Palace

Long ago, the powerful Mareeh family, an elven noble family belonging to the Empire of Koruthar, came into possession of a legendary artifact known has “The Mirror of Desire”. Using its power, the noble family quickly climbed the nobility ladder, gaining domain over one of the biggest cities in the Empire.

The origins of the mirror are yet unknown, but the artifact is said to make true the desires of any who wield it. As for the price, the mirror secretly feeds upon unfulfilled desires. The Mareeh family found the easiest way to feed the mirror was by finding motivated people, individuals with great dreams and aspirations, and kill them in front of the mirror. The unfulfilled dreams and desires would empower the mirror, allowing the family to extract more wishes from the magical mirror.

In honor of the mirror, the Mareeh family built the Mirror Palace, a lavish mansion built entirely of magically reenforced mirror. Becoming a great wonder of the Empire of Koruthar, attracting visitors and tourists from all over the continent.

However, the Mareeh family eventually stopped this practice, when one of the heirs to the family grew guilt ridden for the great atrocities his family had committed and refused to pass down the family’s secrets about the true nature and usage of the dark artifact, which eventually made the mirror fall into a dormant state, being unable to speak and influence those that gazed upon the mirror. The Mirror of Desire remained in the possession of the family for the next decades as an heirloom, even if the knowledge and true power of the mirror had now been forgotten to time.

But on a desolate day, the Plague of Shadows befell upon the city, and the Empire of Koruthar. The city initially attempted to fight the hoards of shadow beasts, both outside and inside the city, but the city’s forces were quickly overwhelmed, and the citizens began to flee far and wide, leaving very few survivors.

Prince Raqedann Mareeh, the king of the city at the time of the Plague of Shadows, choose to instead blockade himself inside the Mirror Palace, along with many of his noble friends and acquaintances, believing the Empire would eventually arrive at the city with its great army, and save the city. To drown the noise of the civilians being massacred by the plague outside the walls of the mirror palace, Raqedann commenced a great ball, as a way to pass the time as they waited for rescue.

But unbeknownst to the elven nobles, salvation would never arrive. Slowly the food began to run out, and the nobles inside the palace began to grow hungry. Raqedann eventually turned to his family’s mirror, wishing for salvation and rescue. But the prince was granted nothing, for he did not know the proper usage and price of the mirror. In his rage, Raqedann broke the mirror into three pieces, leaving the mirror scattered throughout the palace.

As the guests grew hungrier and hungrier, infighting began, and the palace soon fell into absolute chaos. Two guests, blaming Prince Raqedann for this whole ordeal, found the prince and killed him, feasting on his corpse as a source of much needed sustenance. Another guest passively watched the killing, but soon took the opportunity to also feed on the corpse of the murdered prince.

As Raqedann slowly died from the stab wounds, felling his guest’s teeth pierce his skin and his consciousness faded, the Prince began to call out for the mirror one last time, simply wishing that the “ball would have never ended”. But this time, the stabbing and killing seen all around the palace was secretly feeding the mirror, granting it enough power to fulfill the Prince’s wish.

The Mirror of Desire began trapping the souls of the guest inside the palace, making them unable to pass on into the afterlife. And once the last guest died of starvation, the souls were trapped in an endless delusional state of partying and dancing, forgetting the circumstances of their true predicament.

However, to maintain this endless ball, the Mirror of Desire required sustenance in the form of unfulfilled desires. The mirror then began mimicking the practices of the noble family, sending out ghosts to influence the dreams of mortals in the recently formed Ladian Empire. The ghosts would use their ghostly songs to provide dreams of the Mirror Palace to individuals, magically compelling them to journey into the Mirror Palace, becoming trapped inside its glassy walls. Once there, the individuals starved to death, feeding the mirror, and joining the endless ball.

As the Ladian Empire continued its expansion, slowly clearing away the Shadow Beasts and making room for the resettlement of areas in the continent of Koruthar. Settlements in the far reaches began to fall victims to a sudden rise in disappearances, a through line shared in many of these incidents were individuals having recurring dreams with a lavish palace, completely covered in mirrors of various colors, before their sudden disappearance.

Faroei, leader of the Faroak Village, one of these far-reaching settlements, was attempting to investigate the disappearances before he too suddenly disappeared, causing the Ladian government to mobilize a group of mercenaries to investigate the matter, and hopefully return Faroei.

This group consisted of: Saurro Gudoman, Bjorn, Wilbur, Kazir Smugler and Varis.

The mercenaries investigated the leader’s disappearance, piecing together Faroei had acquired a map to the Mirror Palace before disappearing. However, the map had been stolen by Lixi, Faroei’s lover, prior to his disappearance. Lixi had secretly stolen the map and given it to the town’s crazy old man, for the old man believed the map would fetch a high price, and so he convinced Lixi that Faroei was mostly likely never coming back, if he journeyed into the Mirror Palace, as the leader often said he intended to do. Fearing for his safety, Lixi took the old man’s offer, and stole the map.

Journeying into the Mirror Palace, the group to became trapped inside the palace, but by investigating and fighting off the ghosts trapped in the endless ball, the mercenary group was able to gather all the pieces of the Mirror of Desire, which ended Raqedann unconscious control of the mirror, ending the endless ball, and allowing the mercenary group to leave the Mirror Palace.

As a thank you, and a source of temptation, the Mirror of Desire offered the group one wish. The group choose to retrieve Faroei’s body, which revived Faroei.

Collecting the reward for their quest the group travelled with Faorei to the village, later alerting the Ladian authorities about the potential danger of the Mirror of Desire and selling it to the highest bidder in a Ladian auction, splitting the profits afterwards.

Faroei eventually married Lixi and continued managing Faroak Village, which began to grow into a proper city and center of trade. However, the fear and anxiety of what the mirror might have done to him during his miraculous revival weighed heavy on his mind.