The building you're in only vaguely resembles the castle, if perhaps it were made of twisted white solid webs like the skeletons of a stained glass window. The air inside fairly shimmers with dancing lights like the reflection the sun on water and trailing gossamer threads that twist endlessly.

The wide circular foyer has the usual staircases but there don't seem to be any interior doors.

You're safe, but you're not home yet.

Day 4

Today the group is headed off across a large blank expanse (known as the Dreamlands, in the movie). Your goal of course is the mirrorland’s equivalent of castle itself.

But you didn’t really think the rest of this journey would pass peacefully did you?

That black shape heading towards you? It’s not here to make friends.

You’ll get a couple of minutes before it gets close, during which you’ll be provided with a clue, and then the final combat will begin.

It gets a little tricky from here, so let me break it down for you.

If you haven’t realized it yet, the journals influence the place you’re in now. More than you might have realized. This sequence will be twofold – try to get to safety and use the influence of the journal to do it.

To do this, the Really Useful Book will relay your messages (and they should probably be brief because you’ll be running for your life by now), or supply helpful tips of its own.

On the castle side, the residents will write, draw, or otherwise help you create ways to defend, dodge, or hide from the massive monster racing down on you, which will become real for you.

Meanwhile do what you can to keep the monster off of you. It will function like a fairly standard tentacle monster with lots of grabbing, crushing, and smacking you around, if it gets the chance. It’s too large to really fight, but you can hit it back enough to make it withdraw and keep it away from the noncombatants.

Once you get to the castle, you’ll be completely safe (a second post will go up for this, regardless of the progress of the fight), and then you’ll have to find a way home.

Before that point, a final reveal. There are two deaths scheduled for this combat – Yuan Ka-Fai and Tim Drake Wayne. Feel free to note and react accordingly to this in the final post.

Please direct further questions here or contact a mod. Thank you.

Eventually the group finds themselves in a new part of the city. The stone is cleaner, the air is brighter, and everything seems far better cared for. Whether this is illusion or truth, it’s hard to mistake the trickling sound of a fountain ahead, drawing you into view of a massive open courtyard. Rising out of the middle of it is a tall building with a strangely crooked spire, topped with a globe like a watchful eye.

Closer, it’s easy to read the carved sign above the doorway.

LIBRARY

Perhaps there are answers here.

LOWER STACKS | RESTRICTED SECTION | OBSERVATORY

It's hard to tell how long you've been walking, but it doesn't seem like you're getting anywhere. The streets are too confusing and the sights too strange. Maybe the city is a maze, or it's simply popping new ones into existence as you go.

Something seems different though. It's hard to place at first, but there is more of that ghostly writing in the air, and how one piece of it clearly says Fred. Coincidence, perhaps?

And then there is the feeling that you're being watched. Maybe that's just the random faces etched into the walls...or maybe not...

((OOC: As usual, wait for sections! Go go go...))

EXPLORING | SPHINXES

The first sign is maybe different for all of you – the hard ground underneath you, the lack of a body next to you, or no blanket to pull over your shoulders when you reach for it. Either way, when you open your eyes you know for certain you aren’t in the castle.

It’s a little too quiet here, except for the sounds of people around you moving about. There is a strange, unreal quality about everything, as if were viewed through the grimy patina of an old piece of film or photograph and half-realized blurs of images and words seems to hang suspended in the air like solid smoke – there but not quite there.

The group seems to be at the edge of a dead forest, the trees dark and twisted and the ground swirling with mist. A path seems to lead into the depths, but the sky that way is cast with dark umber and hanging shadows that don’t seem terribly inviting.

Not far off, however, is a long stone bridge stretching over a chasm of nothingness and leading to what looks like a city. Far beyond the rooftops, there is the briefest glimmer of dazzling light, gone almost as soon as you see it.

((OOC: WAIT FOR SECTIONS PLEASE! Aaaaaand GO!))

WAKING UP | THE CITY