Mist of Shadows
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Dungeon Myst Part 36
🕑 Added 2023-12-30 06:54:30 +0000 UTC'Mat was right, she looks like an older Hermione,' Vivian mused as the Aes Sedai carefully made her way through the crowd of naked or half dressed girls and over to her table with a tall man that was most likely Lan trailing behind her. "Is there something I can help you with?"
"I've heard some strange stories about you," Moiraine replied. "Do you mind if I sit?"
"Help yourself," Vivian replied as she gestured toward the other chair. "What type of stories have you heard?"
Moiraine sat down across from the naked blue haired young lady. "I've heard that you have the ability to duplicate people and to empower people but that it comes at a price."
"Not exactly a secret," Vivian replied with a shrug, causing her breasts to bounce and draw Moiraine's attention. "To answer the questions you didn't ask, I'm not a shadowspawn, I'm not working for a dark god or anything and I don't have any direct control over the children or the clones that my power creates."
"But you are an imp of perversion, yes?" Moiraine asked, curious what the term actually meant since she'd heard a couple of different explanations.
"Imp of the Perverse technically. Our bloodline basically trades the need for actual food with the need for a particular emotion or situation that depends on the personality of the Imp in question. My father basically feeds off of public affection, the more physical, the more he can feed. I feed off happy incest."
"Happy incest?" Moiraine asked, wondering if she'd heard her correctly.
"Sisters that are a bit too close, cousins that can't keep their hands off each other, none of that twisted shit where some asshole is taking advantage of a child," Vivian explained. "To be clear, we feed off the emotions people generate, not the people themselves."
"Is that true for every imp?" Moiraine asked.
"No," Vivian admitted. "The family journals mentioned a couple of imps over the centuries that had nasty powers that let them feed off people, it probably has something to do with their gift or maybe they mixed with a weird type of demon. We're supposed to tempt people and have a bit of fun, not twist people's arms until they break."
"What do you get out of making clones?" Moiraine asked.
"Technically? Nothing, there's no compulsion for the target to have sex with their twin but honestly, I'm not going to make a twin unless I'm reasonably sure they'll have sex, so yeah, I basically get a meal out of it and potentially a new friend since my power requires a positive emotional attachment to the person in question which generally means sex, cuddle time or dancing."
"What do people get out of having a twin created?" Lan asked, wondering why people would make that type of deal.
"Having a sibling to share your life with is a decent draw but magic users get extra power and channelers get a decent sized well that they can use to store magic that they can use in steddings and while shielded," Vivian explained.
"I can see where that would be tempting for a lot of Aes Sedai," Moiraine admitted, fairly sure that at least half of the Aes Sedai in the Tower would do a lot worse than have sex with a sibling for more power.
Vivian smiled at Moiraine. "It would be hard to tempt people into breaking traditions if we didn't have something to offer."
Moiraine glanced over at where a heavily pregnant teenager wearing a fancy silk dress was devouring a roast chicken. "Is that how everyone got so much power?"
Vivian shook her head. "That has more to do with bloodlines and natural talent, my ability doesn't change what channelers can sense, just how much magic you can hold when you let go of the source."
"How many people in the city can use magic?" Moiraine asked, wondering if she'd give her an actual number.
"If you're asking how many people can channel? I couldn't tell you. If you're asking about some type of magic, we only have a couple of people that can't use magic if you don't include the skeletons and the gremlins."
"Aren't you worried about the male channelers going insane?" Moiraine asked, surprised that no one seemed to care.
Vivian shook her head. "The magic girls have a purifying burst that deals with the taint and it's illegal to use saidin without supervision and part of supervision involves getting hit with a purification blast once they're done practicing. They also get hit every month on the off chance that someone channels without supervision or realizing what they're doing. It's kept their village safe for years, so I'm not particularly worried about them going insane, especially since they can use the system to check for taint or side effects now that they're here."
"Purifying blast? Would that work on the Blight?" Lan asked, wondering if it would let him reclaim his kingdom.
"I don't know, we'd have to run some tests and we're still trying to figure out how to prevent the plants and the bugs from killing us if we go up there," Vivian admitted, unwilling to poke things until they had better gear.
"Is channeling always this annoying when you're pregnant?" Lara al'Vere asked as she walked over with a plate filled with chicken.
Moiraine turned and looked at the heavily pregnant dark haired teenager that she'd taught in class a couple of times, wishing she had a ter'angreal or ability to summon dresses that worked as armor and stayed perfectly clean. "It gets hard to control during the middle of your pregnancy, sometimes it's better, sometimes it's worse."
"At least I'll be done in a couple more days," Lara complained as she sat down, glad that the rest of her magic was still working.
"That's the nice thing about my power, nine days and you're done," Vivian said cheerfully.
"What's it like being a twin?" Moiraine asked, already coming up with ways to find out if the twins were under the Imp's control or influence, because if they weren't, she could use the help and the boost to her power.
"I remember Egwene's life, I remember being her and I remember being her sister, it's a bit strange but not unpleasant. It might be different if I was worried about having enough gold but I have a couple of talents that are remarkably good for making gold so I should be fine."
"Which talents?" Moiraine asked, wishing the Hall wouldn't lose their collective shit if she suggested that everyone should take a trip through a portal to the city to check their talents because the system made figuring out which talents you had dirt simple.
"I have the talent for making cuendillar and have the ability to pull metals out of the earth," Lara replied, knowing both of them would mean she wouldn't have to work all that often or hard as long as she was the least bit careful.
"You can make cuendillar?" Moiraine asked in disbelief.
"Not yet, but Myst found a scrap in a book that describes the process so Egwene is working on figuring everything out," Lara replied smugly, rather proud of her sister and Myst's ability to pull secrets out of thin air. "Even if we can't, Myst has a lead on someone that can teach me to pull metal out of the ground."
"Most Aes Sedai don't have a lot of strength with Earth," Moiraine mused, wondering if it was worth trying to find the people she could feel channeling in the city.
"I doubt most of them bother training it," Lara replied with a shrug, not seeing a reason to explain that most of the Two Rivers had a great deal of strength in Earth.
"If we asked the Amyrlin to borrow some of the ter'angreal to study them, would she let us?" Vivian asked Moiraine.
"The hall would want her head if she gave any of the White Tower's ter'angreal to a group of wilders," Moiraine admitted.
"Hopefully they'll change their minds when we realize we can duplicate them," Lara said, fairly sure the Tower would throw a shitfit when they realized that they didn't need their help and weren't going to sign their stupid book.
"We'll have to see," Moiraine said, knowing the Hall would pull every trick they could to try to get the girls to sign the novice book if they realized they could duplicate their collection of ter'angreal or identify the uses.
0o0o0
Myst double checked that none of his limbs were in the way of the water that might burst out of the portal and that no one had walked in front of the portal like an idiot then looked over at Dawn who was standing on the other side of the portal with her hand on the frame. "Ready?"
"Ready," Dawn agreed. "If something goes wrong, I'll shut it down."
"Thanks," Myst replied as he selected the city under the ocean option from the portal's interface.
Dawn watched the portal form and frowned when water didn't pour out of it. "That's a bit anticlimactic."
"Yep," Myst agreed as he turned to look at one of the skeletons that he'd conjured. "Walk through the portal then walk back."
"Do you think the portal holds the water or do you think there's air?" Dawn asked as she watched the trolloc skeleton walk through the portal.
"No clue," Myst admitted. "That's why I have minions. If the skeleton makes it back, we'll send one of the intelligent skeletons…" he trailed off as a figure in dripping wet power armor flew out of the portal holding the skeleton by the neck with one hand. "Hello?"
"We come in peace!" Dawn blurted as she stared at the figure in dark blue power armor that was dripping water on the stone platform.
"Then why did you send an undead abomination?" the armored figure asked in an obviously synthesized voice as it turned to look at Dawn.
"The portal interface listed the destination as a city under an ocean. We don't have robots or droids to test dangerous portals which means we went with something disposable. It was just supposed to walk through the portal then return so we could figure out if the other side of the portal was flooded," Myst explained, trying to avoid a fight.
"Sensible," the figure admitted as it glanced around. "The other side of the portal is underwater and under a great deal of pressure."
Dawn sighed. "In other words, we'd probably die if we stepped through the portal."
"Most likely," the figure agreed. "Will the skeleton try to kill people if I drop it?"
"It shouldn't," Myst told the figure as he mentally ordered the skeleton to go stand by the rest of them, not wanting to start a fight with someone in power armor if he could avoid it.
The figure dropped the skeleton then focused on Myst when the skeleton walked over to stand next to the rest of the group of large skeletons. "Did you make the portal or find it?"
"I made it but the destinations are random and set when created," Myst explained as he studied the figure's armor, a touch surprised that he didn't see any obvious weapons.
"Which explains the testing," the figure mused. "How long will the portal remain open?"
"Until we close it," Myst replied.
"Do you have any objection to…" the figure trailed off as a red haired teenage girl wearing a pair of purple spandex like shorts and a belt with tools stepped out of the portal holding something that looked like an energy rifle. "They're friendly, don't shoot!"
Myst stared at the tall half naked girl that was dripping water and holding an oversized alien energy weapon. "Hi?"
The armored figure sighed. "What part of wait here, didn't you understand?"
"I figured you might need backup," the red haired girl replied as she walked over to where her teammate was standing so she could keep the strangers in view. "What's going on?"
"Long story short, I can make portals that are set to random destinations. The interface gives us a brief description of the destination, in this case, a city under the ocean. I was using the skeleton to make sure it wasn't dangerous," Myst explained.
"Damn, I was hoping I could test my Vortex Cannon," the girl complained.
"Considering we're not on Earth anymore, that's probably a bad idea," the armored figure pointed out. "Are we on another planet or in another dimension?"
"I'm guessing another dimension since the portals jump dimensions and none of the locals have advanced technology from what I've seen," Myst replied with a shrug.
The girl carefully flipped the switch to power her Vortex Cannon down and make sure she couldn't accidently fire it. "Yeah, not testing something that uses subspace before I run some tests."
"Probably for the best," the figure agreed. "I'm Box, short for Black Box, this is Aquagirl, can we get some names?"
"Aquagirl?" Myst asked as he studied the red haired girl, surprised that she didn't have a full costume on.
"It's a family thing," Aquagirl complained. "Dad's hero name is Aquaman, I got stuck with Aquagirl, mostly because all of the good tech monkey names are taken."
"Why Black Box?" Dawn asked, wondering if the name of the girl's father was just a coincidence or if they'd ended up connecting to a version of DC.
"Because her stuff is basically schizo tech and impossible to reverse engineer," the girl complained.
"It's just basic engineering," Box argued.
"Ocrashit," Aquagirl muttered, having looked at some of her friend's tech schematics. "Have you found any interesting alien worlds?"
"A pocket dimension filled with cheap furniture and a desert world with large slug-like creatures, I'm reasonably sure the rest of the portals go to a version of Earth, assuming Egwene's world is a post apocalyptic version of Earth and not just another planet," Myst mused. "I also have a portal for a demon town but I haven't tested it yet."
"Too dangerous?" Box asked.
"Basically," Myst admitted. "It could be anything from friendly demons running a holiday themed town to eldritch abominations that are a memetic hazard and we don't have anyone I'd consider an archmage to fight the demons in case they're hostile."
"I know a couple of magic users," Aquagirl mused. "They'd probably be willing to take a look if you're willing to trade something interesting."
"What do you consider interesting?" Myst asked, happy to hire a group of magic users to scout the portal on the off chance that the town was nastier than he was expecting.
"Alien tech, magitech, ancient spells or mystical materials that are hard to get in Atlantis would be a good start," Aquagirl replied cheerfully.
"Atlantis?" Myst asked, making another mental note for the portal connecting to DC.
"It's the capital of the Atlantean civilization…" Aquagirl trailed off when she noticed the lightsaber on Dawn's belt. "Is that a lightsaber?" she asked with a high pitched and excited squeal.
"Last I checked," Dawn replied as she pulled her lightsaber off her belt and turned it on, causing a purple beam to erupt from the handle.
"No," Box told her friend as she grabbed her shoulder so that she couldn't take a closer look.
"It's a lightsaber!" Aquagirl argued.
"You're not plasma proof and you spend a lot of time underwater," Box reminded her.
"There are versions that are supposed to work underwater," Dawn pointed out, curious if she could talk them into teaching an engineering class.
"Not helping," Box complained.
"Do you have any?" Aquagirl asked hopefully.
Dawn shook her head. "No but we can probably get a schematic if you think you can make a lightsaber."
"That would be awesome!" Aquagirl squealed as she swung her hand around like she was swinging a lightsaber.
Dawn quickly turned her lightsaber off, glad that she'd had it pointed away from the enthusiastic tech but worried that she'd step closer. "So, does everyone have power armor in your world or is it just a cape thing?"
"It's mostly a cape thing but it's easy to download schematics for basic power armor and 3D print something that will let you walk around like an extra in a science fiction movie. It's a lot harder to make something that will let you survive getting shot in the head by hunting rifles or to rip a bank vault apart. If you toss in the fact that one of the League "heroes" is basically a tech thief, most gangs don't bother anymore."
"One of the heroes is a thief?" Myst asked.
"Cyborg is an asshole and has a habit of stealing any tech he can get his hands on," Box complained, thinking about her friend that had gotten a prototype drone stolen because she'd flown a couple of feet over a property line in the city and he'd taken it as an excuse to steal it.
"You're just lucky that Batman talked him out of pressing charges for your virus considering it fragged his system and almost killed him," Aquagirl argued.
'Batman, Aquaman and Cyborg, that's probably DC,' Myst mused, not sure which version of DC he was dealing with.
"I wrote a note on my drone telling the techs that it wasn't safe to use because of an unknown virus and that he should stay the fuck away from it. It's not my fault that he fucked around with my shit and found out that he's not a god," Box argued, not seeing a point in admitting that she'd written the virus to intentionally fuck him up if he jacked into the drone and tried to copy her code. "Either way, he basically shows up any time anyone pulls off something major with tech and confiscates everything and he has government contracts so the government lets it slide."
"Lovely," Myst muttered, glad that he wasn't planning on being a tech monkey in her world.
"To be fair, he's stopped a lot of criminals," Aquagirl pointed out, knowing her friend was more than a bit biased.
"I'm aware," Box snapped, still pissed that he'd already disassembled her friend's stuff before she'd managed to get it back. "Changing the subject, do you have anything interesting to trade?"
"I have a couple of crystals that might work for lightsabers and I have a lightweight metal that is stronger than titanium that doesn't have a problem with saltwater or oxidation, are you interested?" Myst asked with a grin.
"Yes," Aquagirl replied without any hesitation.
Box sighed. "Is why we don't let her haggle in the market."
"I can haggle just fine," Aquagirl complained, thinking about the lecture one of her father's aide's had given her on the subject.
Box shook her head, not seeing a reason to argue with her teammate. "Does the metal have a name?"
"The locals call it mithril," Myst replied with a grin as he pulled an ingot of mithril out of his storage and tossed it to Box. "It requires a decent amount of magic to forge but you could probably get there with a blast furnace."
Box smiled behind her mask when she tried to bend the metal and found her suit having trouble which meant it was a lot stronger than titanium. "I'm going to have to run some tests. How much do you have and how much do you want for it?"
"That depends, how expensive are 3D printers and computers in your world?" Myst asked, not wanting to admit that he had an endless supply of the stuff until he had a better idea who they were.
"It depends on the printer and the computer, the hard part is getting them through the portal, I'd have to have a mage's help because some of the assholes like tossing up anti-tech wards that will drop my force fields," Box complained.
Dawn stared at Box. "That sounds like a good way to kill people."
Box scowled as she thought about the first time she'd run into an anti-tech field that had resulted in a severely damaged suit and a broken escape talisman. "There's a reason that my current suit is designed to survive the pressure without a force field."
"Everyone has bad apples," Aquagirl said.
"And if I ever find the people responsible, I'm going to make applesauce out of them," Box complained, wishing she'd told Aquaman to fuck off and called Fate to look for magical traces rather than letting the Atlantean task force deal with it, mostly because by the time they gotten around to it, all traces of the spell had 'mysteriously' vanished causing people to blame her tech for the failure.
"Sounds fair," Dawn assured her, knowing she'd be pissed if someone tried to kill her.
"Can we please avoid starting a war?" Aquagirl asked her friend.
"Fine," Box grumbled. "How much would you give me for the computer, printer and a couple dozen schematics for power armor?"
"Twenty pounds, fifty if I can talk you into teaching a couple of classes about force fields or printing and assembling power armor," Myst offered.
"I'd be happy to teach a couple of classes if everything checks out with the metal," Box told him, not seeing a problem with spending a couple of thousand for the computer and printers if it meant that she got enough metal to make a new suit.
"Can you teach me how to create portals?" Aquagirl asked hopefully.
Myst turned to look at the red haired girl and shook his head. "Would you teach a random person that might be a villain how to open portals to random worlds in the multiverse?"
"No," Aquagirl admitted reluctantly. "At least not before I got to know them."
"Don't worry, she grows on you," Box assured them. "Will the portal open to the same place if you close…" she trailed off as she spotted Raven and Richard Grayson walking toward them. "Raven? What are you doing here?"
"Taking classes. Do I know you?" Raven asked as they walked over.
"You should…" she trailed off when she realized that Richard looked a bit younger than he should. "You're not my teammates, are you?"
"No, we took a portal to a pocket dimension to avoid Raven's father using her to take over, we got stuck and Myst was nice enough to give us a lift," Richard explained. "Can I get some names or codenames?"
"I'm Black Box, this is Aquagirl," Box offered as she gestured toward her teammate.
"Nice to meet you," Richard replied. "Are you part of the League?"
Aquagirl shook her head. "We're part of the junior league, we're not actually old enough to join the League."
"Who did you get stuck with for mentors?" Richard asked, curious how much was the same between the worlds.
"The second Blue Beetle, he's one of the League's better tech monkeys so I don't have any complaints," Box replied, glad that she didn't get stuck with Batman or one of the more uptight heroes.
"Name starts with a T, ends with a D, right?" Richard asked.
Box nodded. "Ted's retired so I doubt he'd care if I mentioned his name."
"Kord?" Richard asked.
"Nice to know some things are the same," Box replied. "Is Batman still driving everyone crazy with his defense classes?"
Richard laughed. "You get used to it."
"You're lucky I don't have my stun gun, I'd shoot you on general principle, you're obviously an imposter or you're lying," Box joked, having noticed his smirk.
"That's fair," Richard admitted with a smile, knowing that Batman tried to mix things up so that you never really got used to training. "What's your team look like?"
"I mostly just patrol with Aquagirl, Starlight, Zoe Zatara, Impulse, Batgirl, Titan and or Feral depending on the location and the criminals we're looking for, you?" she asked.
"Raven, Kid Flash, Beast Boy, Superboy, Oracle who used to be Batgirl and occasionally Zatanna Zatara and Arrow," Richard replied.
"Does Zoe have any relation to Zatanna?" Raven asked.
"Zatanna is Zoe's mother," Box replied, not seeing a problem with sharing that bit since they had semi-public identities and lived in a terrifying magical mansion that wanted them safe and wasn't above eating intruders. "Impulse is a speedster, Feral is Beast Boy and Starfire's daughter and Titan and Starlight are Wonderwoman's twins, with the powers you'd expect or close enough."
'Talk about heavy hitters,' Richard mused. "How often do you run into actual challenges?"
"It depends on what we're dealing with but the biggest challenge is making sure no one cripples or kills Impulse, he's annoying and fast, he's just not particularly durable and he can't hide worth shit," Box complained, thinking of the various times his mouth had gotten him in trouble.
"You're not much better," Aquagirl pointed out.
"I'm wearing power armor, what's his excuse?" Box asked, knowing she was a lot better at hiding than her teammate, especially if she used her suit's stealth system.
Aquagirl snickered. "He's usually looking at Starlight's ass."
"That's fair," Box admitted. "She has a nice ass and a sparkling skirt."
Myst pulled his attention away from Aquagirl's breasts. "That sounds like she'd have trouble sneaking around."
Box laughed. "Less than you'd think, she can turn the lights on her costume off."
"What type of gear does Batgirl use to keep up?" Richard asked, curious how the token normal girl kept up with a team of powerhouses, since he'd had trouble keeping up with his team.
Aquagirl glanced at Box. "Just about anything and everything she can talk us into making for her, including drones, explosives, alien stun blasters, magic trinkets and force fields. She also has ninja training and a necklace that gives her mystical armor which puts her about even with my durability."
Dawn glanced between the heroes. "That sounds like a well rounded team."
"We got pretty lucky, if you ignore the fact that we got stuck with Impulse," Box complained.
"What are Starlight and Titan like?" Richard asked.
"Starlight is a hyperactive bubbly girl that likes flirting, streaming video games, dressing up and fighting bad guys, she can take some getting used to," Box admitted. "Do you want to explain Titan, you've known him longer than I have."
"Not much to say, what you see is what you get. You'd think the son of an Amazon would have issues but he's one of the nicest people you'll ever meet," Aquagirl replied with a smile as she thought about her teammate.
"As long as you're not harassing his twin," Box added.
Aquagirl shivered as she remembered his 'fight' with Ares. "The only time I've ever seen him lose his cool is when Ares was harassing Starlight, he stabbed the god in the back with a magical sword then proceeded to turn his avatar's head into chunky salsa using gauntlets that he'd borrowed from Hephaestus."
"Ares, as in the god of war?" Dawn asked, wondering if she could recruit him to help with Glory.
"Yeah," Aquagirl agreed.
"Did he deserve it?" Myst asked.
Aquagirl nodded. "He said some things he shouldn't have."
"Unfortunately or fortunately for his skill with the sword, this resulted in Ares getting a man crush on Titan and Titan getting a lot of combat lessons when Ares got out of Tartarus," Box added, glad that Ares hadn't held a grudge.
"Makes a certain amount of sense," Richard said, thinking about some of the crazy villains he'd run into over the years.
Aquagirl glanced at the portal, wondering how long it would take for the royal guard to realize they were gone and investigate. "Can we get a quick tour before we have to head back?"
"I'd be happy to show you around," Myst replied, not seeing a problem with showing her around since he was reasonably sure she was a hero.
"I should probably slip back through the portal and send a report to the League so they don't send the rest of the team to rescue us," Box admitted.
"Makes sense," Myst agreed. "I'd worry if my friends dropped off the grid."
"We've lost a couple of heroes over the years, I don't blame them for worrying. I'll catch up," Box assured her friend then walked back through the portal to send the League a report, wanting to avoid Batman having a reason to bitch.
"What do you want to see first, the school or the inn?" Myst asked.
"I wouldn't mind a snack but I don't have any money," Aquagirl admitted.
"Don't worry about it, I'll pick up the tab," Myst assured her.
"I could eat," Aquagirl replied, always happy to try new food, unless Starfire was cooking something from home.
0o0o0
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