Mist of Shadows
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Dungeon Myst Part 12
🕑 Added 2023-09-26 06:52:13 +0000 UTCHarry carefully inched around the stalagmite until he could just barely see the rickety wooden bridge that stretched across the boiling and steaming water that covered the bottom of the cavern, mostly because if he moved another inch he'd get spotted by a goblin lookout and he was trying to avoid alerting the entire army to his presence. 'Okay, third time's the charm.' He waited for the patrolling scout to walk back into the tunnel. 'Five seconds, then ten to kill the goblin lookout before the scout comes back.'
He turned his attention towards the goblin lookout that was 'hiding' in a tunnel near the ceiling of the chamber he was in. 'And five,' he counted as he hit the goblin in the throat with a telekinetic strike as hard as he could. He grabbed the goblin's nose with telekinesis and yanked him forward, sending them tumbling towards the boiling water. 'Assholes,' he thought as he used his telekinesis to hold the goblin under the boiling water, wanting to make sure he couldn't scream or alert the scout.
Harry kept the goblin lookout under the water while he waited for the goblin scout to come back, glad that the soon to be dead goblin was in a section of the cavern that was poorly lit.
"New recipe discovered, Boiled Goblin. Basic Cooking upgraded to Advanced cooking," the ethereal voice announced.
'Is that because I discovered a new recipe?' Harry mused as the goblin scout walked out of the tunnel and headed for the bridge, not realizing there was something wrong. He let the goblin he'd been holding float to the surface then hit the goblin in the throat with a telekinetic strike and shoved him into the boiling water. 'That's for the first time you shot me,' he thought as he held the goblin under the water until it stopped thrashing.
"Cooking increased by one. Alteration increased by one," the ethereal voice announced.
Harry checked his advanced cooking skill while he waited to see if the goblins would send anyone to investigate the noise or the missing scout. 'I might have to lure some of the goblins back here, that was a lot of experience.'
'That shouldn't be too hard, it was just a pain in the ass last time because I got swarmed,' Harry mused as he used his telekinesis to reduce his weight as he made his way over to the bridge. 'I don't have enough power to fly but I should be able to make myself lighter.' He spent the next couple of minutes carefully making his way across the bridge, doing his best to avoid the rotting chunks of wood the goblins had used to secure everything.
Harry froze when he stepped on a solid looking board and it snapped with a suspiciously loud crack. 'Yeah, that's a trap,' he thought as he quickly moved over to the wall next to the tunnel and tried to hide in the shadows, figuring it was safer than trying to get back across the bridge. He was proven correct when half a dozen crossbow bolts exploded out of the tunnel without any warning.
'Nasty bastards,' he thought as three goblin sized knights charged out of the tunnel, two of which looked like they were in regular platemail while the other goblin's armor gleamed like polished silver. 'Cheating bastards,' he complained as the goblin with nigh indestructible silver armor glanced around the cavern. 'Don't move, don't breathe,' he told himself, hoping that the knight's helmet would work against him.
'What would the girls do? They'd probably use explosives but I don't have any,' he complained as the goblin in the silver armor walked over to look at the bridge. 'Note to self: Always carry a good amount of explosives as the girls suggested. Okay, what would Dudley do? Hit him with something. Yeah, that sounds like a good way to die.' He barely resisted the urge to groan when he realized Dudley's approach might be the right approach in this particular case, not that he was ever going to mention it.
'Okay, it's just like the movies where they're playing pool.' He used his telekinesis to shove one of the other goblins into the silver knight when the knight turned to ask a question, sending both goblins off the ledge into the boiling water. He quickly shoved the third goblin off the ledge then made his way over to the ledge and worked on keeping them from climbing up the ledge on the off chance that they could think straight while being boiling alive.
"Cooking increased by one. Alteration increased by one," the ethereal voice announced.
Harry levitated the silver sword out of the water and set it on the ground near the ledge, figuring it would be excellent bait for the next idiot that came out to investigate. He made his way back over to the shadowy area by the tunnel and settled in to wait. 'I'll have to loot them after the boiling water finishes disinfecting the armor.'
0o0o0
Myst checked the new magic plants that the farmer had harvested. "Pears of honesty, they ward off nightmares for twenty four hours and force the person that eats it to tell the truth as they understand it for an hour after consuming it, neat."
Vivian giggled. "That sounds perfect for dealing with troublemakers or to make sure your sisters aren't cheating at truth or dare."
"I'm certainly planting a few," Myst replied as he read the description on the carrots. "Purple Carrots of Sight: Eating the cursed carrots permanently increases the quality of your eyesight but each time you eat one your clothes transform into a bunny girl outfit or it conjures one. Okay, that's useful if a bit annoying if you're wearing clothes that you don't want transformed."
"Is there a duration on the transformation or the clothes?" Vivian asked.
Myst double checked the description. "It doesn't say but the carrots are cursed so I'm guessing you can't remove the outfit unless you break the curse."
"Something to test," Vivian replied, thinking about her aunt's taste in clothes or at least gifts.
"Yep," Myst agreed. He glanced at the lemon tree on the farm then back at the bag of pink lemons in his storage. "Pink Lemons, eating these lemons will turn the person or creature that consumes them into an attractive sex crazed busty teenage girl that is also attracted to girls, insanity will decrease after sleeping. Warning, this is only a cosmetic item as it doesn't actually change racial abilities or stats."
Vivian laughed. "Yeah, I can see where the gods would want to limit your ability to toss the lemons at bosses and then kill them."
"Huh…" Myst trailed off as he realized he might have an interesting idea. "If I had something that changed a person into a girl then a kitten, could you turn them into a catgirl?"
"That depends, can you get me a lab coat?" Vivian asked thoughtfully.
"Maybe?" Myst offered, thinking about the dirty lab coat one of the gremlins had found in the trash pile. "Why?"
"Because it's mad science time!" Vivian said cheerfully.
Myst laughed when he looked at the next fruit, realizing he had a way to send minions down to the island. "Beach Banana, eating this magical banana changes you into a handsome male humanoid, gives you a swimming skill and transforms your pants and or underwear into a speedo that gives you the ability to conjure a magic surfboard that lets you fly through the air like you're surfing for an hour."
"Sweet, I want one!" Vivian squealed.
"You want be male?" Myst asked.
"What? No, I want to steal their clothes," Vivian explained. "I want to go flying."
Myst shook his head. "You can have a set as soon as we run some tests and make sure they're safe, shouldn't take all that long."
"Cool," Vivian replied. "What's next?"
"You take a couple of steps back, I want to run a test." Myst set one of the temporary brain increasing apples on the ground in front of the slime then used the slime's devour ability on it. He checked the slime's character sheet, making sure that the apple increased the slime's intelligence since he wasn’t sure it would affect a creature that lacked a brain, much less a skull. "At least we know it works on slimes."
"What are you going to test?" Vivian asked as she moved back fifteen feet, wanting to be well out of the blast radius if something went wrong.
"The bananas." Myst dropped a beach banana in front of the slime and used devour on it, hoping he wasn't making a mistake. He shivered as the body he was possessing went from a squishy ooze to a humanoid form. He pulled up the slime's character sheet, checking to make sure the slime still had its devour action. "No changes on the intelligence which means the slime should go back to being as dumb as a mud brick once the intelligence buff wears off."
Vivian glanced down at the yellow speedo that was smoking. "I think you're still acidic."
"Shit!" Myst cursed as he opened his enchanting menu and tossed the speedo into the box.
"There is no way that's going to fit," Vivian muttered as she stared at the surfer's package that looked larger than some of her older sister's toys.
"Don't worry, I should be able to reverse engineer the enchantment," Myst replied absently as he read the description on the conjured speedo. "The speedo's temporary, it should fall apart in six hours and summoning the board has a thirty minute cooldown meaning you'd be able to use the speedo four times before it vanishes."
"Does that mean I can go flying?" Vivian asked hopefully.
"Not until we've let someone expendable test it," Myst replied as he used his character sheet to put the speedo back on and summoned a flying board. He quickly tossed the bright yellow surfboard into his enchanting box and hit the button to destructively reverse engineer the enchantment then did the same with the speedo, picking up three enchantments.
"Is there a reason you destroyed the board?" Vivian asked.
"I wanted the enchantment," Myst replied as he checked his new enchantments. "Controllable platforms, flying objects and clothing that summons a flying board, not a bad haul."
Vivian snickered. "Nice, does that mean you can make magic brooms?"
"No clue," Myst admitted as he pulled up the workshop and assigned some of the better crafters to make a stone arch for the portal that he wanted to build. "Let me collect some of the mist stones so I can make a new portal then we can make some twisted farms and a barracks, assuming the idiots have managed to harvest enough lumber."
"Sounds good," Vivian agreed. "Just let me know if I can help with something."
"That's the plan," Myst replied with amusement as he used his magical flight and flew towards the walled area, hoping his second portal went somewhere more interesting than the Blight.
0o0o0
Vivian pulled her attention away from the wonderfully 'carved' stone arch that Myst had placed near the lumber mill and looked at the piece of eye candy that Myst was possessing. "What are you hoping to find?"
"I don't know," Myst admitted as he added tainted mist crystals to his enchanting box until he had enough mana to pay for the portal enchantment. "The portal should open a portal to a world where a civilization fell but I'm using tainted mana crystals which might warp the destination."
"Everything burns," the skeleton mage assured Myst.
Myst tapped the button and started enchanting the arch to open a portal to another world, doing his best to stay calm or at least calm enough that he wasn't going to screw things up. He took a step back when he finished pushing the last bit of tainted mana into the stone and the arch filled with purple and blue flames. "That's new."
"Is it safe?" Vivian asked.
"Not sure," Myst admitted as he focused on the arch and paid the mana to reverse engineer the portal without destroying it. 'Magic Girl: Rule 34 Portal: Fallen Empire: This enchantment turns a doorway or frame into a portal that connects to a random fantasy world that contains at least one fallen empire of note. This world has been seeded with naughty magic girl devices that will dramatically change the destiny of the world. This will generally result in nudity and sex being more common and or accepted in public.'
"That's why we have minions," the skeleton mage said as he mentally sent one of the skeleton gremlins through the portal with orders to turn around and walk back.
Myst took a step back when a familiar looking teenage girl with bright green hair stepped out of the portal wearing a sheer black sleeveless dress that barely came down to her knees and holding a lightsaber with a purple blade. "Dawn?"
Vivian glanced at the lightsaber and took a step back, wanting to make sure she had enough room to dodge in case the girl proved hostile.
Dawn glanced between the naked teenagers and the undead skeleton then stepped to the side so that Xander could step through the portal, doing her best to watch all three of them and not get distracted by the man's overly large equipment, the small horde of creepy six inch skeletons or the strange buildings she could see behind the strangers. "Do I know you?"
"Not that I know of, you just look familiar," Myst replied as an unfamiliar tall dark haired girl stepped out of the portal wearing a short pink dress and holding a green lightsaber. "Is that a lightsaber?"
"Last I checked," Xander replied with amusement as she glanced around. "Where are we and what's with the skeletons?"
"Do you want the long version or the short version?" Myst asked.
"Let's start with the short version," Xander said as he stepped out of the way so that Willow and Buffy could step through the portal.
"I made a wish and I ended up on an unknown world in control of a flying platform that I'm going to turn into a flying city. Can you tell me where the portal leads?" Myst asked, hoping they could tell him where the portal went.
"Tatooine," Xander replied, not seeing a point in lying since they could just walk through and ask someone, assuming they avoided the raiders.
"As in Star Wars?" Myst asked as a girl that looked like Buffy stepped out of the portal wearing a cheerleading outfit and holding a red lightsaber. 'So much for the girl looking like Dawn being a fluke.'
"Is there a reason you haven't killed the skeleton?" Buffy asked as she took a step to the side so that Willow could step through the portal, doing her best not to stare at the man's junk.
The skeleton focused on Buffy. "I believe your friends are in the process of gathering information and Myst seems to know your friend's name which is why I haven't set you all on fire."
Buffy glared at the skeleton as she shifted her stance, ready to lunge forward and cut him apart.
"We're not killing anyone," Dawn snapped. "Don't mind her, she's still pissed that Olaf killed Darth Maul while she was dealing with a group of bounty hunters."
"Kill stealing bastard," Buffy grumbled as Willow stepped out of the portal.
Xander shook her head. "The guy was a monster, I'm perfectly happy to let Olaf rip him apart and crush his head."
Myst opened his mouth to ask about Olaf then closed it and stared at the version of Willow that stepped out of the portal wearing what looked like stuff Faith might wear clubbing, if you stole her pants. "Blue lipstick, pink panties and leather?"
"Not my fault," Willow complained as she glanced between Myst and Vivian. "Where are we and why are you naked?"
"You're on my floating platform over a tropical island and my current host…" Myst trailed off as Tara stepped out of the portal wearing a sheer red dress that showed off her curves in a way that drew the eye and almost made him miss the fact that she was holding an unactivated lightsaber. 'Magic girls for the win!'
"Current host?" Buffy asked suspiciously. "What are you?"
Myst pulled his attention away from Tara and focused on Buffy. "I'm basically the spirit of the city."
"And you decided to possess a person?" Buffy complained.
"Person is a bit of a stretch. I fed a magic banana to a slime beast so I could get a temporary body," Myst explained, leaving Buffy staring at his muscles.
Dawn glanced at the portal. "You should probably close the portal if you can, we already helped Anakin and I'd rather not have to deal with Olaf, he's annoying."
"You're not the one he was hitting on," Xander complained. "I'm just glad that he went after the raiders."
Buffy turned to look at Xander. "Why was he hunting raiders?"
"No idea," Xander admitted. "Willow?"
Willow shook her head. "I was helping Obi-Wan with the engine."
Tara clipped her lightsaber to her belt, happy that she wasn't going to have to use it. "I don't know either, I was talking with Padme."
Buffy turned to look at her sister. "What did you do?"
Dawn pulled her attention away from Vivian and looked at her sister. "I might have implied that the raiders were the only people in the dimension that had alcohol."
Buffy sighed. "He's going to kill them, you know that right?"
"Considering they like taking pot shots at children while they're racing, we're better off without them," Dawn assured her, knowing they'd cause trouble later.
Myst walked over and tapped a couple of the runes on the portal frame, causing the flames to flicker and die. "Huh, I wasn't expecting that to actually work. If you don't mind my asking, how did you get to Star Wars?"
Dawn glanced at Buffy then focused on Myst. "The Powers That Be Annoying decided to nuke the Hellmouth because one of their seers predicted that a hell god was going to acquire a key and destroy reality. We got a heads up and Willow came up with a spell to send us to another dimension so they wouldn't have to nuke everything. We were in the middle of the spell when Olaf burst in, everything sort of went sideways and we ended up in Star Wars."
Myst glanced at the silvery skeleton key hanging from a chain around her neck. "And the strange outfits?"
"Every magic girl transformation item we've found comes with a weird outfit." Xander deactivated her magic girl necklace, causing her to change back to his normal appearance. "Most of them also change people into teenage girls, it's a bit annoying."
"I'm suddenly glad I didn't say something embarrassing," Myst admitted, glad that Xander was alive and well.
"You wouldn't be the first," Dawn replied with amusement.
"I don't suppose you have an inn or somewhere we can get some sleep?" Willow asked hopefully.
"Give me a minute and I can probably come up with something," Myst assured her as he opened his build menu and selected the inn pattern. He tossed stone and agate into the box and the minimum amount of wood that he could and placed the inn near the portals. He assigned a ground of gremlins to help build it then hit the button to start construction.
Buffy pulled her attention away from Myst's crotch. "Are we just going to ignore the fact that he's creating undead minions?"
"Relax, I'm not killing people for their skeletons or desecrating graves, we're either conjuring them or animating monster skeletons," Myst assured her. "The other portal occasionally spews out monsters and we don't have a lot of decent options since we need the portal open so we can collect resources."
"So, you're not evil?" Buffy asked.
Myst shook his head. "Not particularly, I'm just trying to build a magical city where people can enjoy themselves and learn magic while keeping the city from getting taken over or destroyed."
Buffy sighed when she realized that she was being a bitch because she'd only gotten a couple of hours of sleep in the last forty eight. "Sorry. Our home town is infested with vampires and demons and it's been a long couple of days."
"Don't worry about it," Myst assured her. "Just try to avoid killing the gremlins, most of them are harmless and we're trying to deal with the problems."
"Most?" Dawn asked.
"The local gremlins are basically minor chaos demons that love pranks, some of them take their pranks too far or don't really understand collateral damage or long term planning but most of them just want to have fun," Myst explained.
"I'll be nice as long as they leave us alone or aren't in the process of causing mischief," Buffy promised, willing to play things by ear now that she'd calmed down.
"Do you have anything fun to do?" Dawn asked hopefully, trying to change the subject before Buffy pissed everyone off and got them kicked out.
"I can probably cobble together a deck of cards and a table," Myst offered. "Feel free to explore the city or check out the magic school."
"Magic school?!" Willow squealed.
"It's a work in progress," Myst replied as he gestured towards the school on the other platform. "Just make sure you use the moving bridge rather than the log bridge, the damned thing is covered in oil and likes to spin."
Xander glanced over at the log that connected the two platforms. "Security feature?"
"It wasn't supposed to be, but I'm under a temporary curse, just about everything I build right now comes out sideways or twisted which helps with new patterns so I'm trying to take advantage of it while it lasts," Myst explained as he walked over to the edge of the platform so the skeleton mage would have a clear shot.
"Makes sense," Xander agreed. "I don't suppose you know any enchanters that can alter a magic girl item?"
"I can take a look in a couple of hours when I've got more free time but I doubt I'd have the resources. Speaking of resources, I need to spend some mana, incoming slime beast," Myst warned them as he floated off the ground so the slime beast couldn't attack him.
"Is that something we can kill?" Buffy asked.
"Sure," Myst replied as he queued up another twenty five gremlins and hit the button, creating a slime beast and dropping his mana pool back down to a more reasonable level.
Buffy stepped forward and slashed her lightsaber through the slime beast, being careful not to hit the stone. She twitched when she heard a voice informing her that her lightsaber combat skill had just increased by a point. "What the hell was that?!"
"The slime beasts are part of a curse," Myst replied as he dropped back to the platform.
"Not the slime beast, I heard a voice telling me that my lightsaber combat skill just increased," Buffy explained.
"Ah. Yeah, this world comes with a gaming system, it's sort of like we're characters in a video game," Myst explained.
"Does that mean we can grind skills?" Dawn asked hopefully.
"Or stats?" Xander asked hopefully.
"Yes on the skills, no clue on the stats," Myst admitted. "I'm guessing there are diminishing returns on the skills and I'm not sure where the cap is or what it takes to break the cap but there are basic and advanced skills so there's probably some wiggle room. Feel free to wander around the city, don't eat the apples, we're still trying to make sure they won't give people a caffeine overdose."
Dawn glanced at Willow, knowing caffeine was the last thing she needed. "How bad?"
"Your heart might explode, the system tossed up a warning about it."
"Anything else that we should avoid?" Tara asked, wanting to avoid running into trouble.
"The other portal leads to a blighted land where just about everything can kill you or make you sick and the wells on the other platform lead to a cave system with at least one basilisk that can turn people to stone."
"That's nasty," Willow mused, wishing she'd raided the magic shop before they'd left as one of the books might have had something about reversing petrification.
"Did you lose someone?" Tara asked in concern.
Myst shook his head. "Just a couple of conjured rabbits that I was using to check for traps. I've been using the basilisk as a quick way to get stone so I don't have to have people mine it. That reminds me, I should get back to that so I can continue farming agate while the curse lasts."
"What does the curse have to do with it?" Willow asked.
"The curse conjures a slime beast every time I use mana and the slimes turn into agate statues while the conjured rabbits turn into normal stone, which means I basically get a bunch of agate statues for free while I'm farming the stone from the rabbits. I'm not sure why the slimes turn into agate but the agate lets me make clear floating platforms and walls that let in light so I'm not complaining."
"Do you need help killing things?" Buffy asked, wondering if he was hiding something in the wells or if he was serious about the basilisk.
Myst turned to look at Willow and Tara. "That depends, do you have a way to break curses?"
Tara shook her head. "Nothing powerful."
"I'd have to study the curse and I doubt any of the counterspells I know would work," Willow admitted.
Myst pulled a stone rabbit statue out of his storage and set it in front of Willow. "Let me know if you find anything, I need to get back to work. The inn should be done in half an hour." He turned his head and focused on Vivian. "On second thought, can you show them around?"
"Sure," Vivian replied, not seeing a problem with getting to know the group of magic users, especially since they were attractive.
Myst glanced at his resource display as he flew towards the other platform. 'This would be a hell of a lot easier with decent woodcutters,' he complained as he flew towards the walled enclosure, figuring he'd conjure a couple of dozen more meals and rabbits before he got back to work making statues.
"What's it like living in a flying city?" Dawn asked Vivian.
"No complaints so far. Where do you want to start?" Vivian asked the group.
"Hogwarts!" Dawn replied with amusement.
"Where?" Vivian asked, pretending that she hadn't read the books.
"Magic school," Willow answered, looking forward to seeing what she could learn and not particularly interested in emptying her magical reserves on the statue when there wasn't a pressing need to restore the statues and she might need the energy.
"No problem," Vivian replied as she headed towards the bridge with a spring in her steps, causing everyone in the group other than Buffy to stare at her butt for a couple of seconds before they started following her.
0o0o0
