Mist of Shadows
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Broken Soul Part 10
🕑 Added 2024-02-03 07:49:13 +0000 UTC"Did you even sleep?" Selena asked as she walked out of her room and saw Myst sitting on the couch looking through a large pile of technique scrolls that hadn't been there when she'd gone to bed.
"I snagged about four hours, maybe five," Myst replied with a yawn, not actually sure how much sleep he'd gotten since he didn't have a watch. "I would have kept draining the lake of sludge until it was empty, but we noticed our sense of smell was coming back and decided to make a run for the nearest fountain."
"Did you get enough mana to open the portal?" Selena asked, excited about leaving and getting away from the local idiots.
"Easily," Myst replied as he used a cursed upgrade tile on the scroll that would teach him how to create corrupted talent granting crystals. "Can you check the scroll? I'd like a second opinion before I use them."
"Sure," Selena replied as she pulled her magnifying glass out of her pocket. "Does your avatar need sleep?" she asked as she walked over and checked the scroll he'd just upgraded.
"Maybe? He was getting a bit loopy by the time I got back and crashed, but that could have just been the boredom catching up with me since the chicken of doom kept giving him health and stamina when it killed the goblins. He vanished when I crashed so, it's a moot point."
"Did you lose anything?" Selena asked.
"Nothing important," Myst replied with a yawn. "I left a couple of spirit stones in the area to test things and stashed everything else in the chest before dismissing my avatar. Almost everything, I left him with a shirt and a spirit stone and he still had them when I resummoned him."
"At least you checked before you lost something valuable. What happened to Taylor's spirit beasts?"
"We collected most of them then tested it with a couple of spider spirit beasts, they got tossed out when the pocket dimension collapsed," Myst replied as he used a cursed upgrade tile on a technique that let people teleport by turning into a lightning bolt, trying to see if he could fix the fact that your limbs didn't always reappear attached to the same places when you finished the teleport.
"At least they didn't get eaten by the darkness. You're going to need to break the curse on the scroll, unless you want to end up a mutated demon."
"Not particularly," Myst replied as he used his purification technique on the cursed scroll. "Any better?"
Selena double checked. "You'll still have to deal with the fact that all of the talent crystals are going to be cursed, but at least you shouldn't turn into a demon or mutate just for using the technique. The tile seems to have boosted the quality of talent the crystals can give and you have a bit more control over the type of insanity the ki granting crystals cause."
Myst used the scroll that taught him how to create cursed crystals before he talked himself into trying to upgrade it and ruined it because he got greedy. He blinked a couple of times as he 'remembered' learning the technique from a really crazy cultist.
"Issues?" Selena asked.
"Not really, I'm just remembering learning the technique from an enthusiastic shaman that was willing to fight fire with fire and was missing a couple of screws in her head," Myst explained as he focused on his new technique and pushed some mana into the spell, causing a thumb sized purple crystal to appear on the palm of his hand.
Selena used her magnifying glass to check the crystal. "You should probably toss that in a fire, we don't need insane cannibals running around eating people for power."
"Explain," Myst requested.
"It gives the person that uses it the ability to eat people to increase their maximum ki pool and twists your mind so you don't see anything wrong with eating people," Selena explained.
"People or spirit beasts?" Myst asked thoughtfully.
Selena stared at Myst. "Taylor would stab you if you suggested making a bunch of spirit beasts to eat and no, it's just people."
"I meant, can you give the crystal to a spirit beast?" Myst asked, figuring that would be a good way to boost her spirit beasts, since they had a bunch of cultivators running around that the world could do without.
"Oh, right," Selena replied as she double checked the crystal's description. "Sorry, I'm still half asleep, nothing prevents a spirit beast from using the crystal provided they're intelligent enough to use it, other than you'd have to be insane to give a spirit beast something that drives them insane and drastically increases their ability to get more powerful."
"Unless you can sacrifice the beast to increase the power of something else or unlock a better version of the talent that doesn't cause them to go insane," Myst pointed out as he carefully set the tainted crystal on the table.
"That's less horrible than I was expecting," Selena admitted.
"I'm not completely insane," Myst replied with a smile as he used his mana to create a ki boosting crystal, causing a light green crystal to appear on his hand. "Can you check this one?"
Selena checked the crystal. "That explains why the cultists haven't taken over the world, they can't use the crystals they make. This particular crystal would just about double my available ki and give me an obsession with food and fucking people with it, no thanks."
"And here I was thinking it would cause homicidal behavior," Myst admitted.
"I'm still not using it," Selena argued.
"I can't say I blame you," Myst replied as Akari walked out of the second guest room in a robe that showed a lot of skin but was technically covering everything required to meet a minimum standard of decency, if only barely.
"Crystals?" Akari asked when she noticed the crystals on the table. "Does that mean he used the technique?" she asked excitedly as she walked over, figuring there was a chance that he'd just found them as loot.
"I figured I'd try since I needed something to burn vast amounts of mana so I don't get stuck with mana crystals bleeding out of my skin," Myst complained.
"Bleeding out of your skin?" Akari asked, wondering if that felt as weird as it sounded.
"More like sweating but yeah, the lake of sludge was corrupted enough that I couldn't burn mana fast enough, so it was oozing out of my pores and forming into mana crystals," Myst explained as he spent the mana to create another green ki granting crystal.
"Are they corrupted or can we use them to get out of here?" Akari asked, hoping that meant they could leave.
Myst covered his yawn with the arm that wasn't holding the crystal. "I should have more than enough mana to open a portal which means we can leave as soon as we figure out where we're going to open the portal."
"I vote we drop the wards and lock the door, I doubt they'll break it before we're gone," Akari suggested, fairly sure their fear of Selena's father would keep them second guessing things long enough for them to leave.
"That only really works if we don't tell the rest of the people that we have a way to leave," Myst pointed out.
Akari shook her head. "I've talked to most of them, they're either assholes that can rot or they're actually enjoying themselves."
"Fair enough," Myst agreed, wondering if he should feel guilty that he wasn't making more of an effort to save everyone.
"I should be able to use a barrier ward to cover the door, with any luck the elders won't be able to tell the difference," Selena said as she used her magnifying glass to check the new crystal.
"How long would it take to set up the portal?" Akari asked Myst.
Myst shrugged. "Best guess? About ten minutes to set the ritual up that I can do while the wards are up, maybe a minute to search out a path between dimensions that I can't do with the wards up and twenty to thirty seconds for the portal to stabilize depending on local conditions and fifteen for everyone to run through it."
"So what you're saying is we should unleash the demon chicken on the sect to serve as a distraction while we're using the ritual," Akari suggested.
Myst shook his head. "That wasn't what I was saying but it would probably buy us a couple of minutes or make it easier for the elders because they'd already be together when they notice the mana I'm tossing around or the open portal."
"Did they notice the mana you were burning to purify the corruption last night?" Akari asked.
"Not that I know of and I doubt that anyone with a functional nose would go anywhere near the place, but it's always possible that we were followed," Myst admitted.
"It's also possible that they can't sense mana and that everything will be a cake walk," Selena pointed out.
"Would be nice but I'd rather have something approaching a plan for when everything goes sideways," Myst replied. "Crystal?"
"Right, you should probably hit the crystal with a hammer, it gives the person or creature that uses it the near constant urge to cut or bite people's buttocks off," Selena explained.
"That's about what I was expecting. Can you check the lightning technique?" Myst asked as he set the crystal by the other green one.
"Sure," Selena replied as she checked the scroll. "It looks legit, if you ignore the fact that learning the technique will offend one of the local gods who will curse you so that you'll attract lightning."
"We might as well wait until we're gone," Myst mused as he moved the lightning scroll to the pile of techniques to let Ron test.
"Have you found anything useful?" Akari asked.
"Hope springs eternal," Myst replied as he spent the mana to create another talent crystal. "How about this one?"
Selena checked the talent crystal. "Huh… it gives you the ability to burn ki to create demon dust."
"Demon dust?" Akari asked warily.
"The glass says it opens your third eye, lowers inhibitions and gives people a small amount of wild magic that they can use to practice magic," Selena explained.
"How low are we talking?" Akari asked thoughtfully.
Selena shrugged. "It doesn't say. I'd probably need to check a sample of the demon dust."
"Side effects?" Myst asked, wondering if it drove people insane.
"It mentions that a small percentage of people end up turning into sexy demon girls and that the chances increase if you have demonic blood but doesn't give any details," Selena complained, a bit annoyed at the lack of details.
"Sounds interesting as long as we use it responsibly," Akari mused, figuring it would be a way to get people used to having magic. "Can I have it?"
"Mom would freak if I grabbed it," Selena admitted with a shrug.
"Go for it, I can't use it," Myst replied.
"Why not?" Akari asked as she picked the crystal up.
"Part of the technique, you can't use any of the crystals that you make," Myst explained.
Akari focused on the crystal and absorbed the energy, giving her a new talent and information on how to use her talent. "Should I make some so you can check it?"
"How is it used?" Myst asked.
"You have to lick it," Akari replied, glad that you didn't have to snort it or do anything weird with it.
"Let's make sure it's not completely toxic or cursed," Selena suggested, trying to avoid unleashing a plague of demons or something worse.
Akari focused on her talent and spent the ki to create a small pile of the demon dust in the palm of her hand, creating a purple 'dust' that looked like dyed sugar.
Selena checked the dust with her magnifying glass. "Huh, that's not even close to as bad as I was expecting. It's mildly euphoric and intoxicating, like drinking maybe two or three beers. There's a small chance of turning into a sexy demon girl, but that depends on how much demon blood you have, it's always at least five percent. You can also increase your magic and learn to open your third eye if you use it enough, meaning eventually you won't need it."
"Is it addictive?" Myst asked.
"About as much as soda, so yes but not really," Selena replied.
"What's the other shoe? It's supposed to be a corrupt talent, where's the catch?" Myst asked, figuring there had to be something they were missing considering the other talent was straight up monstrous.
"It's two of three beers a dose and it gives you a decent amount of wild magic, you're looking at a recipe for trouble," Selena warned them.
"And most people would probably hand it out like candy," Myst mused. "Not my monkey, not my circus as long as you tell people about the side effects."
"That's the plan," Akari assured them. "Do we need to steal anything from the library or the vaults before we leave?"
"Do you think we could get away with it?" Myst asked, thinking about the summoning technique that had brought them there.
Akari shook her head. "Not a chance, but I figured Selena might have something in her bag of tricks."
"Nope," Selena replied with a shrug.
"Really?" Akari asked in surprise.
"I wasn't thinking about ki when I grabbed a ward breaker for my kit," Selena admitted. "I mean, there's a chance that it works but there's also a chance that we'd just set them off and get vaporized. I'd rather avoid the risk, especially since my parents are probably going to loot their library to the ground once they realize I'm gone."
Akari nodded. "Taylor mentioned the vents are warded yesterday, so we might as well jump worlds and find somewhere more interesting and relaxing."
"Works for me," Myst agreed as he stood up. "Can someone help me with the furniture?"
"Sure," Akari replied as grabbed the other side of the couch.
"I'll wake everyone up…" Selena trailed off as she heard a crash from the guest room. "Are you okay?!"
Gwen took a couple of seconds to try to figure out why or she'd been on the ceiling or how Peter had rolled out of the way just before she'd crashed into the bed and ended up perched on the dresser looking like a naked and wingless gargoyle. "It's fine, I hit the bed!"
"I'll get Amy," Selena replied as she headed for Amy's room, figuring she'd let the biokinetic explain things.
"How much strength and agility did you get from Peter and Gwen?" Myst asked Akari, curious how much she'd picked up from Peter and Gwen.
"Enough," Akari replied smugly as she lifted the entire couch with one hand.
"Nice," Myst replied as he 'helped' her move the couch out of the way, happy that her talent was paying off.
"I'm going to have to run some tests when we have more room but I haven't found anything that doesn't feel light, so I can probably lift a few tons which is crazy," Akari replied cheerfully, looking forward to seeing how much she could actually lift.
"Did you try the cast iron bathtub in the bathroom?" Myst asked as he 'helped' her move the table so they didn't knock the pile of scrolls over.
"One of the first things I tried," Akari replied with a grin. "I can tell that it's heavier than an apple, but it doesn't feel heavy which probably means I can lift five or six tons."
"Assuming Peter and Gwen can lift ten and you're getting a third from each, six to seven tons checks out," Myst agreed, knowing that Spiderman's strength varied a bit between the comics, cartoons and movies he'd seen but was generally in the ten to fifteen ton range.
"Any bets where we end up?" Akari asked.
"Nope," Myst replied as he walked over to his bag and grabbed some chalk so he could start drawing the circles he needed. "You seem to be from a version of Earth that is close enough to mine that I can't tell the difference, Peter and Gwen are from some version of Marvel and Amy and Taylor are from Earth Bet or a version of it, we're obviously dealing with some type of multiverse which means we could end up in a lot of weird places."
"DC sounds fun," Akari mused.
"As long as we can keep the random villain of the week from showing up and killing everyone," Myst grumbled.
Akari shook her head. "That's only happened a couple of times."
"In the comics, we don't know which version we're dealing with," Myst pointed out.
"Point," Akari admitted. "I'll settle for somewhere I can take a vacation and get my new abilities under control."
"I'll settle for somewhere that doesn't have a bunch of homicidal assholes running around," Myst replied as he started working on drawing the circle.
"Would be nice," Akari agreed as she headed for the door, wanting to grab her stuff before the last minute.
0o0o0
"One last check before I drop the wards and everything goes to shit. Did you leave anything important in your rooms or the bathroom?" Selena asked as she glanced around the room at the people that were quickly becoming friends.
"I checked," Amy assured her.
"We have our phones and wallets," Gwen assured the younger girl, not particularly worried about the sock that she couldn't find or the pair of pants that wouldn't fit anymore since she'd grown a couple of inches and put on a decent amount of muscle thanks to getting bit by a spider shaped spirit beast.
Ron finished double checking his bag then gave Selena thumbs up. "I'm good."
"Is the distraction in place?" Selena asked Taylor.
Taylor smiled. "It's currently harassing the cultivators."
"I thought you were going to toss it at the demons?" Ron asked.
"I did, they were smart enough to run," Taylor replied with a smile, rather enjoying watching a bunch of cultivators trying to escape a swarm of insane and indestructible chickens through the eyes of her pets. "A couple of the cultivators tried killing the chickens with ranged techniques, it just encouraged them."
"Cool, let's do this," Ron said, eager to leave so he could start testing things.
Selena glanced at Peter. "How are you feeling?"
"I'm good," Peter assured her, feeling like he'd downed a couple of energy drinks and eager to get started testing his new powers.
"I'll drop the wards and toss up a force barrier then Myst will do his thing, right?" Selena asked Myst.
"That's the plan, one minute of finding the path, twenty seconds to make sure the portal is stabilized then we run through like a bat out of hell," Myst agreed.
Selena licked her finger then touched the girl's face on her barrier card with her finger and fed all of her mana into the card, wanting to make sure it would survive a couple of hits. She tossed the card to the ground in front of the door then dropped her ward. "Go!"
Myst quickly 'started' casting his portal spell, expecting to be interrupted at any second but trying to focus on during the spell right. The next minute and a half were some of the most nerve wracking in his life but the portal stabilized and they could see a quiet looking beach through the portal. "Go!"
Ron darted through the portal, glad that nothing had gone wrong at the last minute.
Akari grabbed Myst's treasure chest and followed Ron.
Selena waited for Amy, Taylor, Peter and Gwen to run through the followed them, knowing that she had the most chance to survive if the elders showed up, if only because of fear that her father would murder them if they hurt her.
Myst dashed through the portal and closed it, surprised that nothing had gone wrong, at least until he turned to give everyone a smile and saw a wrecked and weather-beaten ship. "Well… fuck a duck."
Akari laughed when she turned and noticed Myst's expression of frustration. "It could be worse, you could have dropped us in 40k."
"Fair," Myst admitted as he started walking toward the ship, wanting to see if the name on the other side of the ship was what he thought it was.
"How long do you think it's been here?" Ron asked as he studied the ship, wondering why it looked familiar.
"Probably a decade or more, it looks a bit more worse than in the show," Myst replied, not sure how to feel when he saw the faded words on the other side proclaiming the ship the 'S.S. Minnow', getting confirmation of their location.
“The show?” Ron asked.
“Yep, welcome to Giligan’s island,” Myst said with a sigh.
“Really?” Peter asked, perking up. “I always wanted to visit there as a kid.”
"At least we'll have plenty of time to relax and work on our techniques before we try to figure out how to get everyone home," Akari replied as she slipped her robe off and dropped it on the beach. "I'm going swimming."
"Sounds good," Myst agreed, deciding that taking a swim before checking the rest of the island sounded like a perfectly reasonable idea.
“That does sound fun,” Gwen agreed, feeling much more relaxed on the deserted beach of the possibly cursed island than she had in the dimension of, as Myst had put it, ‘infinitely reincarnating assholes’.
