>[3] Clearly, the solution to this riddle lies behind the other door. That's what you pick to win the game show, or something.
You briefly consider the logistics of stacking four chairs on top of the table and standing on that to peel wallpaper off the ceiling, but it doesn't seem worth the trouble. Or the possible humiliation. Instead, you make a final check for anything suspicious— no luck. "It's useless," you declare. "Let's try the other door."
Richard stretches outwards, like a cat. "Good call, Charlie. The mirror was making me itch."
You touch the doorframe as you exit for good luck. The entrance room is nearly how you left it: a mess. Glass still litters the floor. Only now it's mixed with…
"Eugh!" You hop on one foot to examine the sole of your boot. You've stepped in something nasty. "Tar?"
It's black and viscous, you know that much. It puddles among the glass and oozes (you follow its trail) from… the broken mirror.
Careful not to cut yourself on the glass, you take a sample with your fingertip. You hold it to your nose: it smells overwhelmingly of burnt toast. You put your tongue to it, just to be thorough.
It tastes, strangely, of nothing at all. But it numbs your tongue. You wipe it back onto the mirror.
"Not my first move, but suit yourself." says Richard, very close to your ear. You yelp. He leans over you to collect some of the liquid in a jar. "I'd be careful."
"You know what it is?"
"I didn't say that. But it's a mysterious black substance, Charlie. I don't know what else you'd expect. Consider not touching it... more."
You don't touch it more, but you do watch it drip-drip-drip from absolutely nowhere as Richard does whatever he does to the other door. "You think it's blood? Like, mirror blood?"
He pauses. "I would hope not."
The door clicks open. The new room is cavernous, easily twice the size of the others combined, and seems uncannily to bulge outwards. Shiny, waist-high counters ring its perimeter; burbling tanks of water take up most of the center. (They're glass. They make you nervous.) The back of the room is mostly obscured, but you think you see a stairwell.
Bookcases, set into the wall behind the counters, extend all the way to the ceiling. You can't see how that's possibly practical, especially since there appear to be all manner of delicate and pointy implements beneath them. A row of clear dishes, for example, that extends all the way to the back wall. Some kind of tubing. Cunning little knives. Lots and lots of needles. The kinds of things you've seen doctors with… but surely Ellery isn't a doctor?
And that's just the left side. The counters to the right are entirely filled with… junk, as best you can tell. It looks like the set of a hidden object book: there, a sunhat, a croquet mallet, a perfect orb of polished stone. There, a badly-taxidermied seagull, a walking stick, a lace handkerchief. They're laid out neatly, but in no apparent order.
"Oh, dear." Richard is already leaning over an array of vials. "Crystals."
>[1] Write-in.
"Oh yeah?" You sidle up behind him. "Are they pretty?"
"Are they… what? No. Maybe? Charlotte, how am I intended to know?"
They're fine, you suppose, but just that. Lots of inclusions, generally dull… you'd need better lighting to apprise the fire, but you're not expecting anything special. It's the kind that gets ground to pebble for currency.
"Yes!" You pump your fist exuberantly. "Finally! Something!"
"It's something, all right. It's…"
"Forgery!" you say.
"…a terrible omen. Sorry, what? No."
"Forgery! He's…" Your words are wilting under Richard's black look. "…he's growing— you're not supposed to do that. I didn't know you could do that. I mean, if you did do that it'd crash the whole… the whole economy. And… that's bad."
"Well. That does make sense, doesn't it?"
You weren't expecting that response. You don't like that response. "Er, yes," you say, and lower your arm. "Naturally."
Richard polishes one lens of his sunglasses. "It's the only logical conclusion, really. As we know, the only value of crystal is monetary. Completely metaphysically inert. Tragic."
Oh, this. You don't know why he does it.
"Certainly isn't the only natural substance that absorbs, stores, and refracts law. You know why that's not!?" He polishes the other lens so thoroughly you fear it'll wear through. "It's not because it's little chunks of distilled reality! That would be silly."
It would be so much faster if he just told you straight.
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
"And you know what those crystals don't do? They do not force everything else in their vicinity to also become realer, damn the consequences! But that's fine, right, Charlie? Because it doesn't happen."
"What if I licked it?" you say, more out of spite than anything.
"What if you— nothing. Nothing would happen. It's a passive effect, Charlie. Now, if I licked— if I touched it, that would be entirely different."
"Touch it, then."
He produces a grim little half-smile, slides his sunglasses back on (one lens is merely clean, the other is gleaming), and touches one of the vials of crystal. Except that's wrong: his fingertip disappears first, before it makes contact, and then the finger, and then the entire hand before he pulls away.
"I don't get realer," he says.
You eye the vials with newfound respect. "So why is he growing them? If it's so dangerous, and whatever."
"I understand it's pleasant for people to be around it, if they happen to be ignorant. Maybe it's that. I suppose it could be an accident, somehow. Or it could be a concerted effort to make this place closer to the outside."
"Or maybe he read about it," you offer.
"In here? No, unless he wrote the book first, or memorized it. How could you possibly read a book you've never read?"
You look from Richard to the bookshelves. "What's in there, then?"
It looks like books to you: dozens, with identical black spines. Most are unlabeled. The few that aren’t have titles like "FM 1.1 - 1.25 - Construction," which dangles mockingly just out of your reach.
In fact, you haven't been able to dislodge a single book. All you've gotten for your troubles is a fistful of dust bunnies and a black smudge on your palm. Ink? No— it smells of burnt toast.
Did you track some of the ooze in from the other room? Unlikely. You would have noticed. "Richard," you say, "would you mind terribly, to, uh—"
"I'm leagues ahead of you." He deposits a handkerchief onto the counter unceremoniously. It may have been white, once, but it's so sodden with ooze it's impossible to tell. "Third shelf up. I don't suppose you broke another mirror?"
"…No," you say, although you're not quite sure yourself.
The ooze is beginning to leach out from the handkerchief onto the white counter. It has a vaguely malevolent look about it.
"Even a small one?"
"No!"
"Well." Richard prods the handkerchief delicately. "What did you do, Charlotte Fawkins?"
>[1] Nothing! It's probably springing from the wall behind the bookcase. Get Richard to help you up there so you can find out.
>[2] Nothing! You don't even know what this stuff is. Could you run some tests on it with all this equipment?
>[3] Nothing! It doesn't matter, anyways: you have something else more pressing to look at. [What?]
>[4] Nothing! You ought to move on entirely. Head up (or down? you can't tell) the stairs.
>[5] Write-in.
"I mean," you say, "I haven't done anything, yet. You said I could pick these up?"
Richard scratches the back of his head. "Er, yes. I can't go near it. You ought to be fine."
You try to maintain a neutral expression. Does he not realize where this is going? "I wouldn't need gloves, or…"
"You're real, they're real. I wouldn't try prolonged contact, but…"
Triumphantly, you snatch four of the vials out of their holders. "Thanks! I'll just—" You pop the lid off one and tip its glittering contents onto the pool of gunk. "Uh, I'll just go ahead and do that."
Richard has a strangled sort of look. "I… can't stop you," he says only.
"I know!" You tip another vial. The crystals tinkle out. "Look at all this autonomy happening, right before your eyes! Wow!"
You're not paying attention to what's happening with the crystals. (You're on vial #3, now.) All your focus is on Richard, whose hand flexes and unflexes with all the unconscious regularity of a clockwork wind-up. There is a faint sheen of sweat on his face.
"This isn't productive, Charlotte," he says. There are knives in his voice. You don't care.
You finish emptying the fourth and final vial of crystal and finally look down. Much to your disappointment, nothing appears to have happened. The ooze burbles.
"You see? Absolutely nothing of value was—"
And then, from the edges inwards, a thin rocky skin encases the ooze. Just as quickly, fractures split it into plates. The plates bulge and splinter further, spiking upwards in forms that resemble…
"Crystals! Except they're black. Does that matter?"
"Does that… wait." Richard ferrets through his breast pocket again and retrieves a handful of something. Of sand. He deposits it next to the newly-grown black crystal. "I dislike telling you I told it so, but… I did. I did tell you so."
"Twenty seconds ago it was nothing of value," you mutter, but you have to admit: the sand and the black crystal share their color, luster, texture. Texture? The feel, you mean… but if you look at the two closely, they both too lack the visual texture.
Richard's hand is still. "This is crystal, I said, and you ignored me. You're too arrogant, you know— one of your many flaws. You're too arrogant, you're reckless, you don't listen…"
"Uh-huh," you say impatiently. "But what does it do?"
"It… hm." He pokes it. Nothing happens to either subject. "Not what it's supposed to, evidently. Might be inert."
"Oh," you say. (You don't entirely believe that. It looks too ominous.) "What's the black stuff, then, if it shorts out… reality? And why does it make more crystals?"
"Good questions." You recognize this immediately as euphemism for 'I don't know', and frown a little. You don't like not knowing, either, though at least you have the stones to admit it. Richard doesn't say anything else.
The black crystal glistens on the counter like an oil slick.
>[1] Well, alright. Stick it in your pocket, or whatever, and move on. You can't stand at this counter forever. (To do what?)
>[2] Just leave it where it is. It's probably unlucky or cursed or something. Bad aura. And so on.
>[3] Lick it! Or, you don't know, commune with it. Stare at it a lot. If you try hard enough, it's definitely going to divulge its secrets to you.
>[4] Write-in.
BATHIC'S RECOMMENDATION CORNER #2
If I were voting back in the day, I would absolutely vote to lick the weird black crystal
