Mist of Shadows
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Dragon King Part 27
🕑 Added 2022-11-08 07:13:10 +0000 UTC"Just let me out for an hour, I promise I'll come back," Vivian begged the witch, hoping Walga slipped up in the wording so she could get help and then come back.
"No," Walga the Wicked replied as she stomped towards the window to scream at the children that were trespassing.
"No threats, no screaming that I'm going to eat your eyes or your toes? No wonder they tossed you out of hag school," Vivian taunted, hoping she could make her mad enough to make a mistake.
"I'm not falling for that," Walga replied as she grabbed the knobs on the window.
"I need a hero," Vivian sang.
"Heroes don't rescue wicked girls," Walga replied dismissively as she pushed the two halves of the large glass window open. She had just enough time to shriek in surprise before a sled crashed into her.
Vivian blinked in disbelief as the girl on the sled tumbled off of it and landed perfectly safely on her bed, despite all attempts by physics to protest. 'Huh, I wasn't expecting that to work.'
Egwene scrambled off the bed and over to the sled to check on the person she'd hit, barely noticing the fact that the room was a strange combination of a bedroom and workshop in her haste. She winced when she saw the hag's broken neck, glad she was just a dream. "Sorry?"
"Don't worry, she was evil," Vivian offered.
Egwene spun to check the voice and saw the teenage girl with pointed ears and a mix of blue and white hair sitting behind a spinning wheel. It took her a moment to realize that the girl's stained shirt was actually a modified pillowcase and that she was wearing a manacle on her left wrist that was connected to a heavy metal ring on the floor by a long iron chain. "What happened?"
"I was taking a shortcut through the woods," Vivian grumbled as she gestured at the manacle on her left wrist. "Can you get the key the witch was wearing around her neck? I can't actually touch it."
'Another trapped girl, it's straight out of a gleeman's tale,' Egwene mused as she collected the witch's key. She took a second to glance around the girl's room, taking note of the neat piles of straw, spools of glittering gold thread, leather and half completed footwear scattered around the various workbenches. "Are you going to attack me if I release you?" she asked, not sure how the story was supposed to go.
"Does hugging you count?" Vivian asked as the other walked over to look at the manacle that kept her from escaping.
Egwene frowned when she noticed what looked like burns around the iron manacle. "Hugging doesn't count."
"In that case, you have my word, you're safe for a year and a day if you let me go free," Vivian swore, happy to get rescued.
Egwene relaxed when she felt the story of a grateful princess solidify and the other possibilities fade away. She unlocked the manacle with the witch's key, letting the manacle drop to the ground and fade away. "You're free."
"Much obliged," Vivian replied as she checked her wrist, unhappy with the burns where the iron edge of the manacle had touched her skin. She stood up and stepped away from the spinning wheel, wanting to stretch as she'd been stuck spinning for hours. She glanced at the bed then turned and smiled at the hero that had rescued her. "If you build a fire, I'll see about getting clean so I can properly reward you."
Egwene shook her head. "I don't need a reward, no one deserves to be locked up."
"You're my hero, the least I can do is toss together a decent meal," Vivian told her, fairly sure cooking couldn't be that hard, mortals did it all the time.
Egwene focused and conjured a large bathtub filled with warm soapy water in the middle of the room, a touch surprised that the dream let her influence things to that extent since her ability to influence this particular dream world had been a bit hit and miss so far. "That should help with getting clean."
Vivian stared at the inviting bath for a couple of seconds, a touch surprised and relieved that her hero turned out to be a magic user rather than an idiot with a sword and a dashing smile that all of the girls were supposed to swoon over. "Nice!" she squealed as she quickly pulled the stained pillowcase over her head, looking forward to being clean for the first time in weeks.
"Where do I find the wood?" Egwene asked, trying not to stare at the strangely attractive girl as she stepped into the bath.
Vivian giggled as she thought about a couple of naughty jokes she'd have made if her hero was male and a teenager. "Should be some in the shed, there's a door in the kitchen."
"I'll be back in a bit," Egwene assured her. "My name is Egwene, what's your name?"
"Vivian," Vivian replied with a smile. "Nice to meet you."
"Same," Egwene replied as she turned and left, looking forward to getting a fire going and warming the room up. Thankfully, the door led directly to the stairs and the spiral staircase led down to the main room that was filled with hundreds of shoes scattered everywhere along with a dozen glittering gold dresses hanging from hooks around the room.
'How do you make a dress out of gold? Dream logic or magic?' she mused as she made her way through the maze of boxes to the archway that led to the large kitchen. She froze in place when she got close enough to see the filthy kitchen that would have driven her mother into a cleaning frenzy. 'How many years do you have to avoid cleaning for it to get this bad?'
She turned her head and stared at the massive oven that was large enough to roast a full sized pig then looked at the counters that looked like they needed to be thrown away and replaced or at least scrubbed to within an inch of their lives. "I don't care how good of a cook you are, I'm not eating anything prepared in this kitchen," she muttered as she walked over to the door and grabbed the iron handle.
'Vivian would have told me if the witch had a guard dog or something worse,' she told herself as she turned the handle and pulled the door open, using her ability to control dreams to make sure the story remained a pleasant one. She was quite happy when the door opened to a peaceful looking area with a shed filled with wood and a decent amount of kindling to get the fire started and a well with a bucket that would let her make a start on cleaning the kitchen while she waited for the fire to get going and Vivian to finish her bath.
0o0o0
Myst looked up from his book on household spells when both Nynaeves walked into the room like they owned it. "Before you ask, she's fine."
The older Nynaeve stared at her obviously pregnant and sleeping friend who looked at least eight months pregnant already then looked at the child that wasn't a child. "Last I checked, you weren't a wisdom or a healer," she said as she stalked over to check on Egwene, less than happy about her friend being used as a test subject.
"You're right, I'm not," Myst replied as he double checked Egwene's health with his upgrade ability, looking forward to hearing the story about how Egwene managed to get pregnant by three different people. "I just have the ability to check a person's health and she has regeneration and immunity to disease, she'll be fine."
The older Nynaeve wove the threads for a delving and checked on Egwene's pregnancy, wanting to make sure she was healthy. She was a touch surprised to find that Egwene was in perfect health, despite having three babies growing inside of her and being at least six months pregnant. "Triplets."
"That would certainly explain her size," the younger Nynaeve mused as she stalked over to weave her own delving, putting her magic lessons to use.
The older Nynaeve turned her head to look at Myst. "What does your ability tell you?"
Myst sighed, fairly sure Nynaeve wouldn't take his refusal to give her information well. "Not enough and too much to cover in a few minutes, most of which is none of your business but I can tell you that they're healthy and they'll have to avoid getting cut with iron and prolonged contact with iron will cause burns."
"What happens if they're cut by iron?" she asked warily.
"The cuts will take twice as long to heal," Myst admitted, figuring that was something the local healer needed to know. "I can also tell you that Hope and Apple have green eyes and red hair while Vivian has blue eyes and blue and white hair," he offered with a bit of amusement.
Nynaeve stared at Myst. "What makes you think Egwene is going to name her children those particular names?"
"No clue," Myst admitted. "Maybe Egwene named them in her dream or maybe my ability randomly assigned names to the girls and they'll change when Egwene names them."
"Can you keep it down, some of us are trying to sleep," Egwene complained as she rolled over onto her side so she could look at the people in the room.
"How are you feeling?" Nynaeve asked, resisting the urge to scream at Egwene for being a fool and agreeing to test a potentially dangerous ter'angreal.
"Like I'm going to burst," Egwene complained. "This is worse than when I had Joiya."
"That's because you're having triplets," Myst offered cheerfully as he double checked Egwene's health with his upgrade ability. "How much of your dream do you remember?"
"Parts of it got a bit blurry, mostly when I was skipping time and not actually living it," Egwene admitted. "How much time did I lose?"
Myst glanced at the clock on his HUD. "We have another thirteen minutes until dawn, so about eight hours."
"It felt longer," Egwene admitted.
"What was it like?" the older Nynaeve asked.
Egwene smiled as she remembered having fun with Hope and Vivian. "If you ignore the wild hunt and the terrifying sled run, it was actually sort of fun."
"Fun?" Nynaeve asked in disbelief.
"It was certainly interesting though every path had traps built into them so I doubt people would have found it interesting without a dreaming talent," Egwene admitted.
"What's the last thing you remember from the dream?" Myst asked.
Egwene adjusted how she was lying to get more comfortable. "Eating an apple pie with my grandmother then going to sleep, why?"
"Do the names Hope, Apple and Vivian mean anything to you?" Myst asked.
"Hope was an inventor, Vivian was a cobbler and tailor, no clue on Apple…" Egwene trailed off when she realized that her grandmother had probably used the apples the strange woman from the woods had given her in the pie. "Where did you hear their names?"
"My power listed your children by those names," Myst admitted, skimming Egwene's memories of her dream with his telepathy, trying to figure out if the ring was safe to use.
"That would explain why Hope and Vivian vanished," Egwene mused.
"They vanished?" Nynaeve asked.
"I went to sleep after Hope showed me around her workshop. When I woke up, Hope was gone and the workshop looked like it had been abandoned for years. I skipped out before the wild hunt found me and walked past a girl giving away apples. She seemed a bit off so I stuck the apples in my basket and continued on, figuring I'd get rid of the apples somewhere that wouldn't hurt her feelings."
"Let me guess, you forgot?" Myst asked.
"I figured they might come in useful if I had to poison someone but I forgot they were in the basket. I found a large hill with snow on it and sledded down to an evil witch's tower where I found Vivian locked up. After I rescued her and got her cleaned up, we ended up grabbing lunch at the local inn when we realized the kitchen wasn't salvageable and that she can't cook. I spent the rest of the night there with her and she was gone in the morning. After that I finished my trip to visit my grandmother and we had apple pie, that's probably where Apple came from."
"You got pregnant because you ate pie?" Nynaeve asked in disbelief.
"Apparently," Egwene complained, fairly sure anyone that used the ring without training with the dream world was going to run into a lot of trouble.
'Fucking the other girls like rabbits probably helped,' Myst mused as he double checked Egwene when he noticed that her belly had increased in size. "You're getting closer, I'm guessing you'll go into labor at dawn or that's when the first one will be born."
Egwene frowned as she glanced around and didn't see her husband. "Where's Rand?"
"I had to use a sleeping spell, he was driving me up the walls because he wouldn't stop worrying about your health," Myst admitted as he stuck his book in his inventory and headed for the door, happy to escape the upcoming excitement of her giving birth. "I'll get him."
The older Nynaeve shook her head. "Nynaeve can collect him, you're staying here in case there's a problem with Egwene's health."
"Two rooms that way," Myst replied as he gestured at the wall as he walked back over and sat down in the chair he'd been sitting in.
Nynaeve gave Myst an annoyed look then walked out of the room.
The older Nynaeve watched her younger counterpart walk out of the room then shook her head when the door closed. "She really needs to learn to relax."
"I'll take your word for it," Myst replied with amusement.
"Do they have any abilities we're going to have to worry about?" Egwene asked, thinking about his warning when he'd handed her the ring.
'Just rip the band-aid off,' Myst told himself. "Do you want the good news first or the bad news?"
"Bad news," Egwene replied.
"The girls have an aura that causes Egwene al'Vere to be more inclined to break social conventions if it makes them happy. I'm not sure if that will work on the other Egwene but you should probably be careful," Myst warned her.
"At least the village is already weird," Egwene mused, knowing that type of ability would have bothered her more when she was younger.
"Could be worse," Nynaeve said as she worked on lining up the towels and blankets she was going to need.
"They'll have to be careful of iron until I can fix it," Myst warned her. "On the upside, Hope should have an eidetic memory when it comes to engineering and science related fields and her inventions can blur the edges of what's possible. Vivian has talents that increase her ability to make magical footwear and alchemy and Apple or whatever you end up calling her has the ability to create and control plants."
"Eidetic memory?" Egwene asked, not familiar with the term.
"It means her memory is close to perfect," Myst explained.
"That makes sense considering the lack of notes in Hope's workshop," Egwene mused, not sure if her daughter was the girl she'd met in the dream or if she was basically Hope's daughter. 'Either way, the next couple of years should be interesting.'
"What about channeling?" Nynaeve asked, curious if they'd have the ability to channel considering most of Egwene's family had the ability.
Myst double checked the girls with his upgrade ability, slightly surprised to find more entries on their sheets. "They have the potential to be as strong as Nynaeve and they have a decent spread of talents."
"That's…" Egwene trailed off as her water broke and she felt the first contraction start as the younger Nynaeve walked in with Rand and her counterpart, fairly sure the ring was messing with the timing or at least speeding things along.
"Sorry, I fell asleep," Rand admitted sheepishly.
"Don't worry about it," Egwene told her husband with a smile, knowing it wasn't his fault.
Thankfully for the younger Egwene's peace of mind, the ring seemed to reduce pain or maybe her counterpart just had a higher pain tolerance than some of the people in the village judging by her lack of agonizing screams.
'Any trouble?' Dawn asked Myst via telepathy, having felt the group's anxiety.
'Not so far,' Myst replied and tossed Dawn a mental image of the girls.
'They're adorable!' Dawn squealed, amused by Vivian's short blue and white hair.
'The best part is they don't feel evil, probably because nothing actually caught Egwene,' Myst replied cheerfully, happy that his project hadn't exploded in their faces.
'Does that mean we can start handing the extra rings out like party favors to the Aes Sedai?' Dawn asked with amusement.
'Let's avoid unleashing a plague of half fae chaos magnets until we've had someone actually fail the ring's test,' Myst replied as he watched Egwene pull her shift down so the girls could nurse, not caring that he was in the room. He skimmed Egwene's thoughts, trying to figure out if her lack of concern about people seeing her breasts was a cultural difference or because of the girls' aura. 'Huh, that's probably just Viaria's fault and the fact that she's been through this twice before.'
'I'll see if I can find a volunteer,' Dawn replied, figuring it shouldn't be hard to convince some of the Aes Sedai to give the rings a try if she mentioned that a wilder survived the process without any trouble.
'Have fun,' Myst replied, making a mental note to work on his house elf potion in case he had to wipe the slate clean. He examined the curse the three girls had. 'Quick growth, duration fourteen days: ages the victim one year per day, filling in experience and knowledge as if they'd grown up with their mother.'
'That makes the ring less useful to use on Black Ajah, unless we give them a copy of the house elf potion, all of the skills, none of the annoying personality traits,' Dawn mused.
'Like I said, we should probably run some tests before we create a couple of hundred half fae chaos magnets,' Myst replied as he started creating skill books of their talents to share with the group.
0o0o0
As much as Dawn disliked using spells that erased memories, there were times when the alternatives were worse, namely the fact that her test subject was a neurotic mess that was hiding in her closet rocking back and forth, trying to forget her nightmare and the creature that she'd spawned. Personally, she was a bit surprised that she'd picked a dark place to hide but she had a feeling that the woman's experience in the maze had caused her mind to snap like a clay pigeon hit by a shotgun, given her fragmented mind that made it hard to figure out what she was thinking. "Can you fix this?"
"I wouldn't know where to start," Myst admitted as he checked the wolf tailed feral pooka's sheet with his upgrade ability, wondering if the insanity was because of her abilities or because of how the ring programmed her personality and 'mission'.
"Obliviate," Mione chanted as she waved her wand at the gibbering idiot, erasing the last twelve hours of her life. She wasn't sure why ending up in a tavern and having slightly inebriated sex with a room filled with people should have resulted in such an extreme reaction, even if the people had animal trails, it was just a particularly vivid dream and she'd known that going into the test. "Stupefy."
Dawn sighed in relief as the Aes Sedai collapsed and the waves of terror she was projecting stopped. "Thanks, that was getting annoying."
"Any idea why she flipped her shit?" Ginny asked as she studied the unconscious magic user.
"I'm guessing the animal traits made her think of trollocs," Dawn said, not sure what else it could be as the woman's mind was a mess.
"Or she freaked out when the girl bit her," Mione said as she studied the baby with a fluffy black wolf tail that was trying to gnaw through Myst's hand. "Can you even feel that?"
"I can feel it, it's just not doing any damage because her teeth aren't silver," Myst replied as he used telekinesis to pull one of his 'improved' house elf potions out of his inventory that erased memory and gave people house elf magic without turning them into house elves. "Normally, I wouldn't erase a child's mind but she has a copy of a particularly nasty pooka's memories and goals."
"I'm going to kill everyone you love!" the baby snarled in a high pitched whine that sent shivers down everyone's spines, now that her secret was revealed and she didn't see a point in hiding.
Ginny pointed her wand at the child and chanted, "Stupefy!" before the child could do whatever it had been planning on doing, hitting her with a stunner.
Mione grabbed the potion that was floating near Myst and poured it down the girl's throat while she was stunned, using a wandless spell to make sure she swallowed it. "Shouldn't Aes Sedai have more mental fortitude?"
"You'd think," Dawn muttered as she watched the girl's memories and programming fall apart as the potion's magic swept through her mind, erasing everything but skills.
Myst shivered when he got confirmation that the potion wasn't a curse or something that could be broken, it just erased memories and would probably take something like a wish to get them back. "We need a defense against mental tampering, preferably something that people can't remove."
"You're the one with a gacha ability," Dawn pointed out, less than happy about the idea of losing her memories. "Do you want to shelve the tests?"
"Let's give it a couple of days to see how the pooka and Egwene's children turn out, we can always limit the tests to cultists and people with the ability to manipulate dreams," Myst mused, not particularly worried about driving the cultists more insane since they were insane enough to support a dark god that was known as the father of lies.
"Works for me," Dawn admitted. "We can use the time to look into building the models for a flying city."
"I know a couple of people that can help, do magical contracts count as curses for your curse breaking spell?" Mione asked, thinking about Bill Weasley.
"It's worth a shot," Myst replied as he pulled a bag of gold out of his inventory and set it on the Aes Sedai's desk then pulled a pen out of his inventory and wrote a quick note on a blank piece of parchment. "The test had unforeseen side effects, please take the gold for your trouble."
Dawn looked at the note. "That's it?"
"Yeah," Myst replied as he carefully wrapped the unconscious pooka child in a blanket. "The Aes Sedai broke down because of a party, she willingly got a bit tipsy and nothing particularly bad happened. Maybe the pooka did something that we didn't catch but I didn't find any sign of the pooka's magic on her which means she probably just snapped. She's welcome to learn and study at the school but I'm not giving someone that weak phenomenal cosmic power or even a fraction of it."
Dawn shook her head. "I was talking about the message, you should add something about the memory loss being a one time deal, that way you don't cause her to snap."
"Oh, right," Myst admitted and started working on phrasing the message in a way that wouldn't cause more trouble than it was worth.
