Mist of Shadows
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Dungeon Myst Part 14
🕑 Added 2023-10-03 01:54:29 +0000 UTCHarry ignored the goblins that were pounding on the metal door that he'd wedged shut as he ran a polishing cloth over the metal wand that he'd spent the last couple of minutes welding together out of the silver rods the goblins had.
"Wand polishing skill increased by 1. Polishing skill increased by 1," the voice announced.
"Finally!" Harry exclaimed as he tossed the polishing cloth back in his inventory and opened the menu for his Transmogrify skill. He dropped the rune carved 'wand' into the slot for items and pushed the button to create a template.
Harry scowled when his skill tossed up a warning. "Unknown item?"
'Okay, let's try something else,' Harry mused as he pulled the mostly finished magical foci out of the box and stabbed the air a dozen times like he was trying to stab someone. He dropped the wand back into the box and scowled at the description. "Pig sticker?"
"Whatever," Harry muttered as he pushed the button and created a template for a 'Rune Carved Pig Sticker' then pulled the wand out of the box. He tossed the wand into the box on his Magical Foci crafting menu then added one of the gems that he'd stolen from the goblins and hit the craft button causing him to go through the motions of setting the gem in the tip of the metal wand.
"Silver Rune Carved Ruby Wand created! Magical Foci Creation increased by 1," the ethereal voice announced.
Harry grabbed a silver rod from the workstation and slashed it through the air a couple of times to set it as a weapon then tossed it into his Transmogrification window. He selected the pattern for the Rune Carved Pig Sticker and hit the button, changing the metal rod into a duplicate of the wand before he'd added the ruby. 'Wasn't expecting that to work.'
He grinned as he dropped the transfigured item into his foci menu, added a ruby from his inventory and pushed the button.
"Silver Rune Carved Ruby Wand created!" the ethereal voice announced.
Harry checked his skill. 'Okay, I received experience, just not enough to level. Is that because I cheated or because it was basically the same as the last time?'
He gave each of the wands a wave and sent a firebolt at the stone wall, trying to get a feel for how the wands channeled his magic. "They both feel about the same." He tossed them both in his inventory and noticed that the second wand was slightly better than the first. 'Is that because my skill leveled or is it because of a difference in the gems?'
Harry grabbed one of the Goblin Silver daggers that he'd picked up from one of the goblin knights, tossed it into his Transmogrify box and hit the button, giving him a Thaumium Silver Rune Carved Pig Sticker. He tossed the partially completed wand and a ruby that was of the same general cut and quality as the other two and dropped it in the box. He pushed the button and let himself go through the motions of making the new wand.
"Thaumium Silver Rune Carved Ruby Wand created! Thaumium Crafting unlocked! Thaumium (alchemy) unlocked! Error, Alchemy isn't unlocked, unlocking Alchemy skill." the ethereal voice announced.
'Goblin Silver my ass,' Harry thought as he tossed the new wand into his inventory and stared at the results. 'Fifty Percent reduction in magic cost for Destruction spells and a twenty percent reduction on all types of magic, that's better than the rest of the wands.' He pulled up the description for the Thaumium unlock. 'You've discovered a secret mastered by the fae that involves working with metals that have been infused with magic.'
"Thieving bastards," Harry muttered as he went back to making wands, trying to max out or at least improve his Magic Foci skill before he decided what to do with the small goblin army outside.
0o0o0
Myst ignored the discussion that he could faintly hear in the inn as he used his magic extraction spell on the last of the terminally stupid magic using gremlins that he'd ordered to report to the inn, getting a magic granting gem that gave water affinity.
The skeleton mage almost absently torched the slime beast with a firebolt. "Do you think this will keep the rest in line?"
"I doubt it," Myst admitted as he used the magic granting crystal, giving the cat boy the water affinity and another five points of magic. "But they were the most problematic and none of them had useful skills or traits."
"What are you going to do when you get human students?" the mage asked.
"I'll probably assign a couple of annoying and useless gremlins to various classes and then burn them alive to reduce everyone's tendency to cause trouble," Myst admitted, not sure what else he was supposed to do with some of the more insane gremlins he ended up with.
"Sounds reasonable," the mage agreed, thinking about some of his more annoying students.
Myst gestured at the six dead gremlins on the ground. "Raise them as undead, I want to pad the numbers a bit more before I try to summon a teacher."
The mage nodded then got to work animating the gremlins.
Myst walked back into the inn and over to where Vivian was standing near the table watching the Scoobies argue about who was going first. "Any luck?"
"Not yet, they're still trying to figure out who gets to go first," Vivian replied as she pressed her back against Myst's chest and rested her head against his shoulder.
Buffy glanced between Vivian and Dawn. "I want to make sure it's safe."
"And I have the weakest transformation," Xander pointed out. "On the off chance that something goes wrong, you should be able to restrain my twin."
"Any ideas?" Willow asked, tired of the arguing.
"Just shuffle the cards and cut them, high card goes first," Myst suggested as Vivian grabbed his right hand and moved it to her right breast. 'You're a bad influence,' he thought as he gave her breast a light squeeze.
Dawn held her hand out toward Xander. "Hand me the cards."
"Fine, high card wins," Buffy complained, knowing her sister's luck was running high today.
Myst smiled at Dawn. "Tell you what, if you can solve the issue in the next two minutes, I've got a stack of magical crystals that should boost your magic and your magical affinities that I'm willing to part with."
"How much?" Dawn asked as Xander held the deck out.
"One song and dance show with your twin?" Myst asked thoughtfully, leaving things up to the winner what type of song or dance they came up with.
"I can do that." Dawn cut the deck and flipped the top card, showing an ace of spades. "Beat that!"
"We could go around the room and try to match her," Xander suggested, despite knowing the odds were against them.
Tara shook her head. "I'm fine with waiting."
"Do you have enough for everyone?" Willow asked Myst hopefully.
"I should by the time you need them," Myst assured her as he opened his minion menu and ordered the next group of gremlin troublemakers to the inn so he could extract their magic.
"Awesome!" Willow squealed, ecstatic about increasing her power and getting a sibling that actually cared about her, unlike her parents. "In that case, she might as well go first."
Myst pulled enough magic granting crystals out of his storage to give Dawn a full set of magic affinities or at least everything he could give her and set them on the table. "You just have to pick them up and concentrate on using them, it should be easy."
Buffy put her hands behind her back before she gave into the urge to knock the gems off the table or do something stupid, mostly because she doubted that would stop Dawn or Willow from using the crystals and also because he didn't seem to be lying and they could use the help.
Dawn mentally opened her character sheet so she could see the changes then picked up one of the magic gems. She dropped the gem into her inventory to check it then pulled it back out and drained the magic, causing her magic stat to increase by five and the gem for fire affinity to light up. "Yes!" she squealed as she quickly grabbed the next gem and worked on draining it.
"Has she lost her mind or is she just excited?" Buffy asked.
"I'm fine," Dawn assured her sister as she continued to burn through the gems while giggling evilly and doing a little wiggle after each one that drew everyone’s eyes.
"I can't really blame her," Willow admitted.
"Does that mean you'll put on a show with your twin?" Myst asked Willow.
"Deal," Willow replied without hesitation.
Myst dropped half a dozen magic crystals on the table in front of Willow. "You can start with these, I'll grab the rest in a minute."
"Thanks," Willow replied then quickly got to work draining the gems.
Dawn giggled when she finished absorbing the last gem, feeling like she'd just downed a dozen pixy sticks. "That's a rush!"
"Let's dance, I haven't had enough cuddle time with you," Vivian said as she held her hands out towards the girl with eyes that were glowing with green flames.
"Have fun," Myst teased as he took a step back, letting Vivian and Dawn head over to the section of the room that was empty of tables.
Buffy shook her head and turned to look at Myst when Dawn's hands started wandering. "I don't need to see that."
"At least they're having fun," Myst said as he watched Dawn and Vivian start dancing around the room. He glanced at the map then looked at his mana pool and sighed as he realized that he needed to burn mana before he hit the cap. 'Time flies when you're having fun,' he mused as he headed for the door.
Willow finished draining the last gem then turned to watch Dawn and Vivian dance, surprised that Dawn could dance as well as she was dancing. "They're adorable."
"Like tigers," Xander agreed. "You never know when they'll pounce on you."
Willow laughed then turned to look at Tara. "Do you want to dance?"
"Yes," Tara replied with a bright smile as she headed for the open space.
Myst pulled up the menu for the inn as he walked outside. 'One slot for an innkeeper, three slots for waitresses and a slot for a cook. I probably have to fill the employee slots before I can upgrade it.'
He closed the menu and glanced over the group of angry looking gremlins that were standing in front of him. "There should be six."
The skeleton mage gestured towards the gremlin that was using a marker to draw prehistoric designs on the inn's wall that were more than slightly reminiscent of mankind’s first attempts at preserving their history. "I told him to stop, he refused."
"I makes art! Fuck you!" the gremlin replied as he continued drawing on the wall.
Myst checked the gremlin's sheet to make sure the gremlin didn't have any useful skills or unique spells. 'Bad taste is a trait? Critic? Yeah, fuck it.' He cast his magic extraction spell on the gremlin that thought he was an artist despite having no skill for it or talent or enough patience to actually learn, causing the gremlin to drop dead and a magic granting crystal to appear in his storage.
"Shit!" one of the other gremlins cursed as a slime beast appeared and lunged at it.
"Burn!" a gremlin shouted in a squeaky voice that sounded like nails on a chalkboard as he tossed a tiny firebolt at the slime beast, distracting it enough that the other gremlin could escape.
The skeleton mage absently torched the slime beast before it could eat the gremlin. "You have a halfway decent aim, you just need to work on your power."
"I are god of fire!" the gremlin declared as he started pouring mana into a firebolt so he could show him how it was done.
"Never mind," the skeleton muttered, not seeing a point in saving someone that was clearly delusional, not to mention trying to steal his rightful place in the cosmos!
Myst double checked the rest of the half dozen gremlins he'd ordered to the square to make sure none of them were salvageable. 'I don't need a bunch of delusional lunatics running around.' He cast his magic extraction spell on the pyromaniac, causing him to fall over dead and creating another magic crystal. "No running," he ordered the gremlin that had been trying to sneak away. 'I don't need someone that leaves razor blades on chairs either.'
"We might have more luck if we had an actual teacher," the skeleton mage pointed out as he absently torched the resulting slimes.
"It's on the list." Myst finished off the rest of the annoying gremlins then opened the school's menu and started reassigning the extra gremlin magic users to fill all of the slots while the skeleton mage torched the slimes. "Everyone with useful talents and or skills has magic and a place in the school which means I might as well try."
"Hopefully you get an archmage of fire," the skeleton mage said, wanting to learn more fire spells.
Myst double checked to make sure Vivian was registered as a student and that the scoobies counted as guests rather than townsfolk then pushed the button to summon an insane yet useful teacher. He glanced at the notice that popped up informing him that he'd just lost thirty eight skeletons and twelve gremlins then focused on the video clip showing a group of teachers and magic users doing a ritual. "At least the undead skeletons count as townsfolk for the ritual."
"That makes it easier," the skeleton mage said. "How many gremlins did you lose?"
"Twelve," Myst replied as he watched the short clip that showed the teachers and some of the students summoning a red haired young lady with a suitcase in the middle of a pentagram. He pulled up his new teacher's character sheet. "Wendy Weird: She's twenty one, has a dual masters in art and teaching, nice."
"Meaning she can teach?" the mage asked.
He smiled when he saw her Gifted Teaching trait that let her teach four times the students and give each of her students a five percent chance to pick up a random artistic trait every week. "Not only can she teach, she can inspire and students have a small chance to acquire artistic traits."
"There's a certain art to fire, I might have to ask for some pointers," the mage mused.
'Magical paintings?' Myst looked at the artistic trait. 'Ms. Weird has the ability to create paintings that allow passage to a pocket dimension based on the painting.' He smiled when he read the description of her negative trait. 'Students that cause trouble in her class have a twenty percent chance to get beat with a paddle and a ten percent chance of getting shoved into a horrifying magical painting, modified by the severity of the infraction. Gives them an eighty percent chance to die horribly and a twenty percent chance to come out as a better person with two less negative traits.'
"Not to mention that one of her abilities can remove negative traits," Myst said as he glanced at his resource list.
"At what cost?" the mage asked as he worked on animating the dead gremlins.
"An eighty percent chance to end up dead," Myst admitted as he selected the option for a new classroom and tossed agate and tainted wood into the box then hit the button, causing a pair of popups to appear.
'Cannibal Cooking Classroom unlocked, any students taking cooking in this class have a fifty percent chance of picking up a cooking related talent per class and receive fifty percent more experience for cooking skills but a victim has to be assigned per class.
'Anatomy Classroom unlocked, any student in this classroom will also get experience toward Anatomy skills as lessons are adjusted.
'That would probably help more if I had an actual cook,' Myst mused as he pushed the button to summon another teacher, burning through forty seven skeletons and three of the new gremlins. "Track down the dead gremlins and animate everyone. I summoned another teacher, I'm going to watch the rest of Dawn's dancing."
"Understood," the mage replied as he headed towards the workshop, figuring that was where most of the dead gremlins would be.
Myst absently watched the clip of the new teacher being summoned as he walked back into the inn to watch the dancing. "Did I miss anything?"
Xander glanced over at Willow and Tara who were still dancing. "Dawn stole a couple of kisses and Buffy went to check out the rooms to avoid watching."
"She's very kissable," Dawn replied with a smile then took another drink from her float.
"I try," Vivian replied cheerfully. "Do we want to wait for Buffy or make with the copying?"
"Make with the copying," Buffy sang as she danced out of the hallway like she was in a musical.
"Are you okay?" Xander asked.
"The hallways are cursed," Buffy complained as she walked over to where the group was standing. "It's hard to avoid singing and dancing while you're in the hallway."
"Time to make some magic," Vivian said cheerfully as she focused on Dawn and tapped into her magical talent, creating an identical and naked duplicate of Dawn.
Dawn smiled as she looked at her duplicate. "Dawn?"
"No, I'm Thea, did you hit your head?" Dawn's twin asked, doing her best to keep a straight face.
"How much do you know or remember about everything?" Dawn asked.
"I'm your twin, we went everywhere together and we didn't," Thea replied with a shrug that caused her breasts to bounce. "I've loved you forever and I know that I'm nothing but a dream right now."
"Do you have a plan to fix that?" Dawn asked, unwilling to let her twin vanish.
"Of course, it's simple, we grab Xander and haul him to a room and have our wicked way with him until the world decides I can stay," Thea replied cheerfully.
"Have fun!" Buffy said as she gently shoved Xander at Dawn, having slipped behind him while he was distracted as she decided he was a much better choice for Dawn than anyone else present.
"Betrayal most foul, whatever shall I do?" Xander asked as he scooped Dawn and Thea up and headed for the hallway, his reluctance completely absent as he’d somehow been granted Buffy’s approval.
"Your duty!" Buffy called out as Xander and her sisters stepped into the hallway and started dancing out of sight, more amused by the entire situation than she should probably be.
Myst laughed at their antics as he looked at his new teacher's sheet. 'Richard Wilkins? Age: One hundred and ninety seven? Richard has made various deals with dark and eldritch powers, resulting in his continued existence and unnatural youth. While he's long since paid off his debts to his benefactors, his experiences have left him unstable and a borderline sociopath. While he is willing to teach any subject that he knows, there is a small chance that he flips out each class and sacrifices the student with the lowest grade to his dark benefactors, resulting in each of the remaining students in his class getting a bonus that increases their learning rate for a week by one hundred percent. Could be worse.'
'Teacher? Doubles the available students that he can teach at once.' He glanced over Richard's skills while he waited for Willow and Tara to finish their dance. 'He's not quite as good as Wendy but he's willing to teach anything and he has a decent collection of skills, I'd just have to make sure there's someone that I don't mind losing in the class.'
"Do you want a twin or should we wait for everyone else?" Vivian asked Myst.
"Give me a minute." Myst quickly checked to make sure none of the new magic crystals would give his host anything he didn't already have then dropped four of the magic granting crystals on the table for Willow and set the other two on the table for Buffy or Tara. "Go for it."
"What are the chances of the cat boy's twin attacking us?" Buffy asked, knowing that Myst was basically possessing a monster.
"The transformation should have given the kitten some basic knowledge and the twins should be friendly but there's always a chance that something will go wrong," Vivian admitted.
Buffy nodded. "You should probably clone me first."
Myst winced as he felt a rush of magic and Vivian was tossed across the room a second after a reasonably tall dark haired man in his early twenties appeared next to Buffy.
Willow gestured and caught Vivian with telekinesis, saving her from hitting a table. "What happened?"
"No clue," the naked man replied as he looked around then down at his equipment. "Everything looks intact."
Buffy stared at her twin, noticing a slight resemblance to some of her extended family. "You're male."
"Last I checked," he agreed. "Which is a bit weird now that I think about considering her power shouldn't be able to pull that off."
"That sucked," Vivian complained as she tried to shake the cobwebs out of her head.
"What happened?" Willow asked as she carefully set Vivian back on the ground.
"Something objected to getting copied and zapped me," Vivian complained.
"Probably the slayer spirit," Buffy offered, not sure what else it could be.
Nathan looked at his character sheet. "I don't have anything referencing the slayer spirit or your combat awareness but my physical stats match what I remember you mentioning so I'm calling it a win."
"So, now what?" Buffy asked, trying to adjust to the idea of having a brother.
"Considering I don't want to fade out of existence, let's grab a bottle off the shelf, get roaring drunk and have some fun," Nathan suggested as he headed over to the bar to grab a bottle, not sure what else to do.
Buffy considered the pros and cons of the idea for twenty seconds. 'Can't be worse than any of the boys I slept with in college.' She turned to look at Vivian. "Are you still up for copying Myst or do you want to wait until the morning?"
Vivian blinked a couple of times until she was only seeing one set of people. "I should be fine."
"Just remember the cat boy is immune to fire," Myst reminded them, not wanting them to use their lightsabers if something went wrong.
Vivian focused on the cat boy and used her power, creating a busty female cat girl with brown hair. "Did it work?"
"Sex?" the girl asked hopefully, not actually sure what was going on beyond the fact that she needed to have sex with the cat boy if she wanted to continue existing and a couple of fragmented memories along with basic skills.
"Only if you want to." Myst checked the girl's character sheet, relieved that she was a minion unlike his host. 'Above Average Intelligence and matching magical affinities and abilities, that worked better than I was expecting.'
The cat girl nodded. "I don't remember much but I want to learn magic and I can't do that if I'm dead."
"My turn?" Willow asked.
Myst gestured towards the pile of magic crystals. "You should probably use the magic crystals first."
"Thank you!" Willow dashed over to the table and started absorbing the magic.
Tara smiled as she checked the cat girl out, wondering if she could get away with playing with her fluffy tail. 'I'll ask once she gets settled.'
Nathan walked back over with two bottles of whiskey. "Ready? Or do you want to wait for Willow?"
Buffy stole one of the bottles from Nathan. "I want to make sure nothing goes wrong."
"Okay, I'm good," Willow said after she finished absorbing the last magic crystal, feeling like she'd had too much sugar.
Vivian focused on Willow and duplicated her, creating an identical copy of the red head. "That should do it, I'll copy Tara when Myst gets more crystals or in the morning."
"No rush," Tara told her then smiled at Willow's twin. "Are you interested in testing a couple of things?"
"Yes," Danielle replied as she picked Willow and Tara up with telekinesis and headed for the hallway.
"Let's go get drunk and laid," Buffy said cheerfully. “But if you try and sneak off in the morning I will kill you,” she quickly added.
"Works for me," Nathan agreed as he followed Buffy.
Myst turned to look at Vivian. "How are you feeling?"
Vivian giggled as she absorbed some of the energy that Dawn and Thea were putting out, feeling like she'd just downed a double shot of espresso. "Fantastic but I should probably find a bed before I start grinding against a table."
"There should be a couple of empty rooms," Myst told Vivian then scooped up the cat girl and headed for the hallway to find his own room, doing his best to ignore the questionable morality of puppetting someone during sex or the frustration of knowing that he'd have to deal with his mana issues in the middle of it. ‘Oh well, that is a problem for future me.’
0o0o0
