Mist of Shadows
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Dungeon Myst Part 35
🕑 Added 2023-12-23 03:36:32 +0000 UTCGinny pulled her attention away from Harry's naked behind when the teacher started cackling maniacally. "Should we start running?" she asked warily, not sure if cackling was normal for the enthusiastic teacher or a cause for grave concern as she seemed unhinged.
"We'd never make it," Luna pointed out, not seeing a problem with the teacher being happy about the results of her experiment.
"She hasn't grabbed a wand, I'm sure it's fine," Michelle Rosenberg assured them, only reasonably sure their current alchemy teacher hadn't lost her marbles or at least hadn’t in a way that would endanger them.
Natasha Faust pulled herself together and stopped laughing after a couple of seconds. "To be fair, I don't actually need a wand to set things on fire."
"That's not helping," Michelle complained.
"Sorry," Natasha replied with a smile that said she wasn't remotely sorry. "I was just laughing about the results from the last round of tests."
"Let me guess, the luck potions screwed up the results?" Harry asked as he continued stirring the Restoration Elixir that he was brewing for Sirius.
"Absolutely, without a doubt," Natasha replied as she set the potion she'd been examining back on the teacher's desk. "Which was about what we were expecting, so it's not really a problem," she assured them as she walked over to the table where Harry was brewing this restoration elixir. "I can't really complain about the results, Michelle's accident with the scales caused a flash that distracted Lara, which caused her to bump into Luna and knock her radish earring into Hermione's cauldron which boosted the potency by six percent."
"Sorry," Lara al'Vere offered, still feeling bad about accidentally destroying the girl's earring.
"Don't worry about it, they were already wilting," Luna told her, not seeing a reason to mention that her mother had helped her make the earrings a couple of days before she'd died, if only because her mother would have approved of using them in an experiment and she was trying not to think about the fact that she was gone.
"Does that mean we're done?" Michelle asked.
"Let's see, we covered basic safety, basic terms and you got some experience brewing a couple simple potions and unlocked your alchemy skill, I'd say that's a pretty good start for your first alchemy lesson, so yeah, we're done," Natasha said with a smile.
Ginny jumped when a window appeared in front of her face informing her that she'd acquired the Quick Alchemy and the Shadow Touched traits. "Did anyone else get a pair of traits?"
"Yes," Hermione and Michelle replied at the same time as Luna nodded.
"Jinx, you owe me a coke," Michelle teased.
"How about a rootbeer float?" Hermione offered, feeling like celebrating.
"That works," Michelle agreed, knowing they were free at the student store but figuring it was a good excuse to swap stories and hang out.
"Quick Alchemy and Shadow Touched?" Lara asked, curious if they were the same traits that she'd picked up.
"Yes!" Harry replied excitedly, ecstatic that his luck potion had let them cheat the normally low odds and pick up both of the traits. "I wonder if this would work for the rest of the classes?"
"Or the bedrooms," Natasha mused.
"Bedrooms?" Ginny asked.
"Some of the teacher's bedrooms are enchanted. How long will the luck potion last?" Natasha asked, wondering how long they had to work with.
Harry glanced at the icon on his HUD that showed the luck potion's duration. "Another four hours and forty three minutes, what are you thinking?"
Natasha smiled at Harry. "I'm thinking that we should take advantage of your insane luck while you have it. That should be enough time for three classes and some private lessons in our bedrooms so you can pick up wings."
Hermione glanced between Ginny and Luna, fairly sure their parents wouldn't want them having sex with a teacher, even if it meant picking up the ability to fly. "Do you think they'll have time?"
"No clue, we'll start with the tinkering class and go from there," Natasha replied as she headed for the door. "I'll grab Julia while Harry is finishing his potion, she can get us started with Enchanting or Magitech Tinkering. I'm going to need a potion."
"I've got extra. The elixir shouldn't take more than five minutes to finish," Harry assured everyone, not seeing a problem with having sex with one of the female teachers, especially if it meant he'd get wings.
"Perfect," Natasha said cheerfully as she dashed out of the room.
"Wings?" Ginny asked, wondering what she'd just agreed to.
"Taking lessons in some of the teacher's bedrooms has a chance of giving you the ability to conjure wings that let you fly," Michelle explained delicately.
"We're never telling Mum," Ginny declared, instantly realizing what was not being said and willing to do a lot of things for the ability to fly without a broom as long as it didn't include telling her mother about it.
Luna nodded, not seeing a problem with having a private lesson with Ms. Faust if it meant she could fly without a broom.
"How often can we use the luck potions?" Michelle asked.
"I extracted most of the useful qualities from the dodgy ingredients which let me avoid using some of the worst substances, but I don't think I'd want to use the potion more than a couple of times a week," Harry admitted as Nymphadora, Myst, Sirius and Xenophilius walked into the room.
"Which potion?" Sirius asked, having caught the last part of the conversation.
"The Elixir of Restoration," Harry lied as he gestured toward the cauldron he was using, hoping that Luna's father wouldn't freak out about the fact that everyone was naked under their aprons. 'Probably just as well that we drank the luck potions,' he mused, wondering if the potions had something to do with the fact that Nymphadora was still naked.
"Elixir of Restoration? Why can I practically hear the capitals?" Nymphadora asked as she walked over to examine the potion.
"It's a powerful restorative so the capitals are important," Harry replied with a grin. "It should reverse the damage that the dementors caused Sirius."
Myst pulled his attention away from Nymphadora's behind and focused on the cauldron filled with a bubbling purple liquid. "How long does it take to make a batch?"
"About twenty minutes," Harry replied, not seeing a point in mentioning the luck potions while Luna's father was there since the luck potions from his world were rare and expensive. "We started the class making strength potions."
"Always a favorite for adventurers. How did the newspaper class go?" Michelle asked Myst.
Myst plastered a smile on his face and did his best to ignore the wizard's robes, mostly because he'd admitted that he used a charm to get them that particular shade of yellow. "It was informative and he had a couple of magical shortcuts that should make it easier to get the newspaper up and running and he was nice enough to share them and offer Beth a chance to see his printing press."
"Are you good with staying here and taking more classes while I give the young lady a tour and meet with a ministry employee for a piece on heliopaths?" Xenophilius asked Luna and Ginny.
"Yes," Ginny and Luna replied at the same time, happy at the idea of picking up more classes and unlocking new skills, especially if it meant they got the chance to learn to fly.
"You might get more out of him without me there, I'll be there next time," Luna assured her father.
Xenophilius nodded. "Molly shouldn't be expecting you until after dinner. If everything goes well, I'll talk to your parents about taking summer classes," he promised Ginny, figuring that going to classes with Ginny would be exactly what Luna needed to take her mind off Pandora's death.
"Thank you," Ginny said, hoping the potion's luck was strong enough to convince her mother to let her take classes the rest of the summer.
"Best of luck with your potions," Xenophilius told Harry then turned and left, wanting to get started on the tour of his printing press.
Sirius waited until the door closed then focused on Harry. "What's next?"
"I need to bottle the Elixir of Restoration then we're grabbing some classes while we're under the effects of a modified luck potion," Harry replied as he turned around and started bottling the Elixir of Restoration, giving Ginny a nice look at his backside.
"What does a luck potion have to do with it? And do you know how dangerous and addictive they can be?" Sirius asked, thinking of Lily's lecture about the idiots that abused them.
"You're probably thinking of Felix Felicis, I used a better recipe and removed most of the side effects, we'll be fine as long as we don't use it more than a couple of times a week," Harry assured him.
"We're using the potion to take advantage of the small chance some of the classes have to give people magical talents," Hermione explained.
"Nice, do you have extra?" Nymphadora asked hopefully.
Harry gestured at the desk with the hand that wasn't holding the ladle filled with the glowing and bubbling elixir. "On the table, they should be labeled."
"Wicked," Nymphadora replied as she headed for the table to grab a potion.
Sirius glanced at Myst then shrugged and headed over to grab a luck potion, figuring the girls could fix any health issues that came up. "Works for me."
"Might as well," Myst agreed as he walked over to grab a luck potion, curious if the classroom would give him the talent or his host.
0o0o0
"There's no way he actually understands the shit he's saying," Dawn complained in a whisper, less than impressed by the supposed hero's 'lecture' on elemental infused guns that was annoyingly vague when it came to actually constructing them.
"Nope," Xander agreed in a whisper, glad that the classroom's magic also gave him experience towards his tinkering skill because Yodo's lecture reminded him uncomfortably of Lockhart from the Potter series, all flash and no substance.
"Yeah, not a chance," Myst agreed, less than amused by the fact that Mr. Yodo was flirting with Fiona despite her manic and unhinged grin. 'Apparently there's a reason that people keep trying to kill him, go figure,' he thought as he opened the school menu and looked at the button for the school's special ability. 'You're just as bad as Takeda, you're willing to risk everyone's life on the off chance that you get more shadow pets or a portal to a cave filled with shadow related nodes.'
Yodo smiled at the attractive girls as he posed on the teacher's desk, using a stapler as a replacement for the pistol in his story. "So there I was, facing a hound of hell with my trusty six shooter. I knew I was a dead man unless I started shooting, so I just kept my finger on the trigger and the bodies hit the floor."
"Six shooter, right," Xander muttered.
"Shoot me now," Buffy grumbled, wishing she'd just waited until they had a competent teacher for the subject.
'Yeah, you left out the part about changing your underwear,' Myst thought, less than impressed by the man's story for a variety of reasons. 'We need the resources, no you want the resources, we need people alive and safe. The luck potion was good enough to give everyone that used it multiple traits, what is that a million to one? Worse?'
"Right," Dawn muttered. "This better be worth it."
"We'll get experience," Myst assured her in a whisper. 'Screw it, Luna and Ginny should be safe with the teachers.' He tapped the button and spent the two hundred mana to activate the school's special ability, creating a shadow pet token. 'Shadow cat? I can work with that.'
"Not enough," Dawn muttered then forced herself to smile when the 'teacher' looked in their direction.
'Yeah,' Myst agreed as he hit the button again and spent another two hundred mana, figuring he was off to a good start. He stared at his HUD in surprise when he got a message that his shadow cowgirl had been duplicated. 'Okay, looks like the potion is working.'
"How did you kill the boss?" Fiona asked, wondering if she could get away with stabbing the man if he kept staring at her breasts.
"It wasn't the most glorious thing in the world but I shot out the supports for an awning then continued shooting him until he was dead while he was distracted," Yodo replied with a shrug. "Never let honor get in the way of saving innocents."
'You probably knocked the awning down accidently, assuming any of it was true.' Myst briefly hesitated as he reached his hand up to hit the button, wondering if he was pushing his luck. 'Fuck it,' he thought as he tapped the button again and spent another two hundred mana, creating a portal to a shadow cave in the lobby. "Yes!"
"Glad that you agree," Yodo told him.
"Nothing wrong with saving innocent people," Myst replied as he opened his minion menu and sent his team of harvesters and the skeleton mage to survey the shadow cave filled with resources and set up a magic door so they could get back on the off chance that the portal closed on them.
'So far so good,' he told himself, trying to ignore the voice that was telling him that he was making a mistake. He pushed the button and spent more mana, rather amused when he got a shadow clone of Nynaeve. 'That's one way to get an excellent healer, hopefully they don't kill each other.'
"Did they have any loot?" Dawn asked, wishing she had something to throw at the teacher.
"Millions of credits but they were stolen, thus I was compelled to return them," Yodo lied, having stolen everything he could from the bandits that he'd accidentally run into a couple of minutes before a hero had cleared them out.
"Anywhere but here," Buffy muttered, less than amused by the teacher's inability to actually teach.
Myst pushed the button again and winced when a shadowy portal appeared and sucked Buffy into a shadow realm, causing everyone in the class to turn and look at the portal. 'I should have expected that.'
"If this is your fault, I'm going to kill you," Xander told the teacher, less than amused by his tendency to flirt with everything female, even if they were obviously not enjoying it. 'At least she has her lightsaber and her necklace.'
"That wasn't my fault, none of my enemies should be able to reach us. I mean, none of my enemies are alive," Yodo said, correcting his story when he realized it made him look like a coward.
'Could be worse, it could have grabbed one of the kids,' Myst thought as he pulled his hand away from the button, wanting to let his mana regenerate.
"I'm sure she'll be fine," Yodo lied. "We should probably discuss defensive turrets."
0o0o0
"Not touching you," Buffy taunted as she dodged out of the way of the vampire's cane, kicking off the side of the cave to avoid his wild swing, rather amused by the fact that she was stronger and faster than the demonic fashion victim to an amusing degree.
"Die!" the vampire with a pimp cane and a purple suit shouted as he went from swinging his cane around with a dash of skill to swinging the cane with both hands like it was a baseball bat.
"Boop, got your nose," Buffy replied as she slipped under the vampire's swing and kicked him in the nuts, causing the cane to fly out of his hands. "Oops, touched you," she said playfully then stabbed the vampire in the nose with her lightsaber, causing the vampire to die screaming and turn to ash. She giggled as she picked up the black leather purse that the vampire dropped and got a notice about acquiring a purse of holding. 'Instant identification, I could get used to this.'
She giggled as she walked over to where the expensive looking cane had landed and picked it up. "Cane of Knicker Knocking, double damage against anyone wearing knickers? Good thing that I'm not wearing any and that he couldn't hit shit."
Buffy stuck the cane in the purse then slung the purse over her shoulder and headed back down the cave towards the nook where she'd stashed the rest of her loot, rather happy about the chance to take out some frustration and get actual loot for it.
0o0o0
"What type of lecture did you get from Ms. Vanessa?" Hermione asked Harry as he walked over to the table where she was sitting with the rest of the people that had taken the luck potions.
"Magical law," Harry replied as he took a seat next to Hermione. "It was nice to catch up, I wasn't expecting to see her again."
"How do you know Vanessa?" Myst asked, wondering where Harry had run into her.
"I took a couple of classes from her in the tutorial," Harry replied. "Did everyone get their wings?" he asked, trying to change the subject as he didn't want to get sidetracked explaining the tutorial or the type of classes he'd taken.
"Most of us," Hermione replied as she glanced at Myst.
"Bad luck?" Harry asked Myst, glad that Luna and Ginny seemed in good spirits.
"No, just no real point considering I can already fly and Mr. Yodo was teaching a magitech class that sounded interesting," Myst replied. "I also wanted to play with the spell creation room while I had a luck bonus."
"Did you get anything good?" Nymphadora asked, still not sure how to feel about the art lesson she'd had that involved chocolate syrup, whip cream and Sabrina's tongue, mostly because she'd enjoyed herself a lot more than she'd been expecting.
"A couple of traits, a spell to conjure shorts or skirts with expanded pockets, a magitech paintball gun that conjures paintballs and uses mana to charge the air tank which makes it environmentally friendly and Lara and I figured out how to create a milking machine that purifies the milk which makes the dairy a lot more useful."
"Does that mean we'll continue to get free ice cream?" Harry asked hopefully.
"That's the plan," Myst agreed, not seeing a problem with giving Harry and his friends free ice cream as long as they didn't waste it.
"You realize your parents left you money, right?" Sirius asked, wanting to make sure he knew.
Harry gave Sirius a look that said, don't ruin things. "Free ice cream, is free ice cream."
"Don't worry about it, the cows produce a hundred gallons of milk a day and we have a spell to conjure ice cream, we're not going to run out," Myst assured him, making a mental note to look into places to sell the dairy products now that he didn't have to worry about the milk corrupting people.
"Objection withdrawn," Sirius assured them.
"Which traits?" Hermione asked as she picked up her pen so she could take notes.
"Quick Toy Creation and Efficient Toy Creation. The quick trait reduces the creation time by five percent and stacks up to ten times. The efficient trait cuts the energy use of the toys I create by half which should extend the battery life," Myst replied, rather happy with his traits and looking forward to getting more.
"Would that stack with my Better Batteries trait?" Hermione asked thoughtfully as she wrote the information in her notebook.
"We'll have to run some tests but it should," Myst said, looking forward to seeing what they could do if they worked together.
"I need a can of red spray paint," Harry mused, thinking about the trait that he'd picked up from their magitech class.
"Why?" Sirius asked, wondering why he wanted spray paint.
"My Red Makes Things Faster trait makes anything I paint red go ten percent faster," Harry explained.
"Is that limited to toys or would it work on ships?" Myst asked thoughtfully.
"It doesn't mention any limits," Harry replied with a shrug.
"What about body paint?" Amy asked from the next table.
"Body paint?" Sirius asked as he turned to look at the girl wearing a sheer nurse's outfit.
"It's basically non toxic paint that people use on their skin for costumes," Amy explained. "We should be able to pick some up from an art shop."
Myst pulled his wallet out of his shorts and handed her a few hundred pounds for the art supplies. "Grab the art teachers and have fun."
"Thanks," Amy replied as she accepted the cash. "Speaking of shopping, how long does your new spell last? I need a pair of shorts."
"It's not a question of duration, it's a question of material," Myst replied as he cast his new spell, conjuring a dark blue sheer silk skirt with expanded pockets then handed it to Amy. "It's limited to silk for some reason."
"Not a problem," Amy replied with a smile as she turned to look at Harry. "Can I get a pair of pink panties and a large black t-shirt that says, "Go away, it's laundry day!" on it in white letters?"
"Sure," Harry replied with amusement as he conjured the clothes and handed them to Amy.
"Are you going shopping like that?" Ginny asked, fairly sure her mother would murder her if she dressed like that in public.
"That's the idea," Amy replied as she set the money on the table then pulled her nurse's outfit off so she could put the shirt on. "The shirt covers my breasts and the panties cover my crotch, it's the middle of summer, if anyone complains, I'll rip their throat out," she told Ginny as she pulled her new panties on, enjoying the way that everyone was watching her.
"Try not to maim anyone unless they deserve it," Myst told his werewolf nurse, making a mental note to make sure she got stuck in a class that helped with mental issues before she killed someone important.
"Of course not," Amy replied with a grin as she pulled her new skirt on. "That's actually pretty comfortable."
"Good to know," Myst replied with amusement, rather amused by the way her breasts bounced when she shifted around to make sure everything fit.
Amy pulled the large t-shirt on and adjusted it. "Perfect, it reaches the middle of my thighs which means that no one should even notice that my skirt doesn't get less sheer unless I'm bending over to grab something and I doubt they'll complain."
"They'd have to be insane," Harry agreed.
'Or suicidal,' Nymphadora thought, not sure the girl was all there.
Amy glanced down at her feet. "We might need to work on a spell to conjure shoes."
"It's on the list," Myst assured her.
"Good," Julia piped up, not looking up from Harry's notes on the techniques that he'd used to process the ingredients for the luck potion.
"Are we going to keep using the luck potion to pick up traits?" Hermione asked as she glanced around the table.
"I can't see a reason to stop until we can't get more traits," Harry admitted. "If we use the off days for theory or mundane subjects, we should be able to pick up immunity to cold and a bunch of traits by the end of summer."
"Works for me," Myst agreed.
Julia finished reading the last bit of the notes then closed the journal and looked at Myst. "I don't see a problem with alternating which days people take classes but we're going to want to take a couple of classes ourselves, especially if you can talk Harry into giving some alchemy classes."
Harry shrugged. "I don't have a problem with teaching as long as the classes are small and I don't have to teach gremlins."
"Cool," Julia replied, curious if he could help her unlock Legendary Alchemy, since he had some techniques that she'd only heard rumors of.
Myst yawned as he stood up. "On that note, I should probably see about exploring the portal to the city under the ocean, they might have some useful reagents or spells."
Amy grabbed the money off the table and stuck it in her pocket. "Does anyone want to go shopping with me?"
"Sure," Sirius replied. "I need to grab a friend of mine anyway."
"We should probably get home," Luna admitted.
"Unfortunately," Ginny agreed.
"Where do I find the frozen gym?" Nymphadora asked, figuring she might as well work on her ice skating and agility while Sirius was elsewhere as he'd tell her mother all of the embarrassing details of her crashing on the ice.
"I'll show you," Harry offered, looking forward to watching a naked lady slide around on the ice.
"I should probably work on my agility while I've got time," Hermione admitted as she got up and headed towards the gym.
"Have fun," Myst he offered, then headed towards the exit so he could check the portal.
