Mist of Shadows
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Dungeon Myst Part 32
🕑 Added 2023-12-12 07:20:31 +0000 UTCEgwene pulled her attention off the card game where Mat was fleecing some merchant guards out of their money and glanced at Myst, doing her best not to look at the pair of channelers that were sitting at a table watching them. "We should just walk over there and ask."
"If you insist," Myst replied as he pushed his chair back and got to his feet. He studied the women that were wearing red belts over their rather conservative dresses as they made their way through the moderately crowded tavern. "Is there a reason that you're looking at my companion like you're trying to figure out if she's a runaway?"
Berowin focused on Myst. "I'm not sure what you're implying."
'I need to figure out how to make Dragon Ball scouter,' Myst mused as he focused on the stout woman that looked to be in her late thirties or early forties, wishing he knew how much magic she could bring to the table in case she panicked. "I'm not implying anything, I'm flat out stating that you can channel and that you're part of the Kin."
"Who are you?" Derys asked warily, wondering if the handsome man was a warder.
"My name is Myst," Myst replied as he gestured towards Egwene. "You can call my friend Annabeth, we're here because my friend needs a teacher."
"We don't teach, she'd need to travel to Tar Valon for that," Berowin told him, wondering how he knew anything about the Kin.
Egwene shook her head. "I'm not interested in selling my soul by signing my name in their book, can you teach me enough to survive?" she asked, trying to judge their character.
Berowin glanced between Myst and Egwene. "Most wilder's don't survive without training. Why do you hate the Tower so much?"
"A couple of years of training isn't worth letting them order you around for the rest of your life, no one needs that sort of power," Egwene told her.
"At least you'd have a life, three out of four wilders die without help," Berowin told them, hoping she changed her mind about the Tower.
"I'm aware," Myst replied. "Which is why we're asking for help, we can pay."
"I'm not interested in your gold, you need to take her to the Tower," Berowin stated.
"And if I said that wasn't an option?" Myst asked, trying to get a sense of their character.
"Then you'd better hope that your friend is lucky," Berowin told them. "Where did you hear about the Kin?" she asked, wondering who was spreading stories they shouldn't be.
Myst's smile didn't reach his eyes as he studied the stout woman, not particularly impressed by her disdain and unwillingness to help a girl that by all accounts would die without a couple of hours of her time, especially when they'd said they were willing to pay. He turned his attention to the slender woman with a pretty face. "I don't suppose I can talk you into helping my friend with the basics?"
Derys sighed when she realized that they were quite serious about not going to the Tower. "I'll help."
"Derys!" Berowin snapped as she turned to look at her friend.
"Only enough to make sure she doesn't die," Derys stated, knowing she was breaking the rules but unwilling to let the girl die over a stupid rule.
"We need to find out what they know and how they know it," Berowin stated.
"You could always try asking politely," Myst told the stout woman then focused on the slender woman. "I have a room in case you don't want to discuss things in a crowded tavern room."
"Lead the way," Derys replied as she stood up, knowing that saving the girl's life was more important than a stupid rule and figuring that they'd be more likely to tell her what they knew if she helped the girl.
Egwene smiled as she headed for the stairs, curious what the woman could teach her.
Myst turned and followed the others, wondering how many of the Kin would jump at the chance to learn more magic. 'Here's hoping the girls have managed to find the storeroom.'
0o0o0
"Die!" Harry screamed as he tried to kill the cultist with blasts of magic, something that was made more difficult by the fact that he couldn't see thanks to the cultisting gouging his remaining eye out.
"You told me to!" the gremlin complained then promptly dodged behind a desk when he realized that he should have kept his mouth shut. He scrambled away from the desk when it turned into a green sludge and started whistling. "Help!"
Hermione poked her hand around the door and nailed Harry with a stunner, knocking the unstable wizard out. "We should have knocked him out to start with."
"The ritual requires pain," the gremlin grumbled as he watched the large clump of sludge that smelled like burnt toast evaporate.
"He should be fine," Morana Snape offered, hiding her own uncertainty as she walked over and stuck a rubber tube down his throat that was connected to a funnel. Once she was confident that the tube was in the right place she poured the Elixir of Restoration down Harry's throat. "Just give the potion a chance to work-" she jumped back as all of Harry's various scars erupted with blue flames.
"Is that supposed to happen?" Hermione asked warily from the doorway.
"No clue," Morana admitted as she studied the eldritch flames dancing where Harry's eyes should have been. "It's probably just healing him…" she trailed off as Harry's body stretched out like melted taffy.
"Fix it!" Hermione snapped, not wanting to lose one of her only friends.
"How?" Morana replied as she mentally ran through the spells she knew that might help, discarding most of them for one reason or another.
Hermione relaxed slightly when Harry's body filled back in, leaving him at least half a foot taller than he used to be. She sighed in relief when the flames vanished, leaving healthy looking skin.
"Urgh," Harry sputtered as he woke up feeling like he'd gotten the best sleep in his life while giving him a sugar high. "What happened?" he asked as he looked around the partially destroyed room, wishing he had his glasses as everything was a bit blurry.
"What's the last thing you remember?" Morana asked.
Harry winced as he remembered trying to murder the gremlin for gouging out his eye after he'd told him to. "I remember coming up with some really stupid ideas for alchemy experiments that I wanted to try, everything is a bit fuzzy after that."
Morana held her hand up. "How many fingers am I holding up?"
Harry glanced at her hand, surprised that his vision was better than when he was using his glasses. "Five or four and a thumb."
"Is anything blurry?" Amy asked as she stepped into the room.
Harry blinked his eyes a couple of times then focused on Amy. "It's not as fuzzy as using my glasses but not as bad as without them used to be."
"Would you care if I ripped your uncle's arm off and beat him half to death with it?" Amy asked, frustrated that they'd leave Harry with defective glasses and that he'd suffered enough abuse to damage his eyes.
"Half? Not really," Harry admitted. "Do you have a spell to fix my eyes?"
"No but the magical carrots in the garden permanently improve eyesight so we should be able to get your vision taken care of," Amy assured him. "Does anything else hurt or feel strange?"
"I don't feel any pain but I'm a bit hungry," Harry admitted, surprised at how good he felt.
"Have you checked your status page?" Amy asked.
"Huh," Harry muttered when he pulled his character sheet up and saw the changes. "Everything looks good, no afflictions, curses or notes about broken bones that weren't properly healed or damage from the elixir."
"Good!" Hermione blurted as she dashed over and pulled him out of the creepy chair that looked like a torture device given the sheer number of straps bolted to the chair and into a hug.
"Did you get the ability to see invisible objects or ghosts?" Morana asked, hoping he picked up the ability to see invisible objects considering wizards could already see ghosts.
"It says I can see invisible objects with my left eye," Harry replied as he closed and opened each eye, trying to figure out if anything was different.
Morana pulled her wand out of her sleeve and tapped a chunk of the bench that hadn't been blasted in Harry's rampage, turning it invisible. "What does it look like?"
Harry blinked a couple of times then closed each eye and twisted his head back and forth a couple of times, trying to get a better idea how his new ability worked. "It's sort of there and not at the same time depending on how I'm focusing on it, sort of like when you're looking at your hand and it's too close to your face."
"It worked!" the gremlin ritualist called out from behind the desk he was hiding under.
Harry glanced at the desk the gremlin was hiding under, still slightly annoyed that the gremlin had been rather gleeful about gouging his eye out. "Let's head back to the inn and get something to eat."
"Food sounds good," Hermione agreed. "Sorry that we didn't let you test any of your potions."
"Don't worry about it, I wasn't thinking straight," he told her as he took a couple of steps towards the door, finding it weird and yet surprisingly easy to walk despite the change in height. "I probably would have ended up turning myself into something weird."
"Can I talk you into making a list of your alchemy discoveries?" Morana asked hopefully.
"Eventually," Harry replied as he continued walking towards the exit, wanting to grab some food before his stomach decided to stage a rebellion.
0o0o0
"Did you find anything?" Nynaeve asked hopefully, worried about Egwene and Myst meeting a group of channelers without her and frustrated with the lack of progress, if only because she wasn't sure there was anything to find. "You've been staring at the same thing for a couple of minutes."
"Sorry, I got distracted, this guy had a mustache that looked like a rat had crawled up his nose and died," Dawn replied as she adjusted the X-ray scope so that she was looking at the top floor of yet another building, rather than the scene she'd been watching of a pair of ladies of ill repute showing a dark haired man with a really bad mustache a good time.
Nynaeve smiled slightly as she thought about some of the horrible mustaches she'd seen some of the boys try to grow over the years. "How long do you think it will take to scan everything and put it back?"
"At least a couple of hours," Dawn replied as she studied the room filled with boxes and crates, wondering if she'd gotten lucky or if it was going to turn out to be another room filled with random crap and dust. "Assuming we can find it…" she trailed off as she adjusted the scope and saw the weird collection of figurines and jewelry. "I found a bunch of boxes and jewelry, it's worth grabbing Mat and checking."
"I'll be right back," Nynaeve told her then left with a spring in her steps now that there was progress.
Dawn carefully zoomed the view out so that she could get a better look at the outside of the building to make sure she could find the building again then checked the rest of the building, wanting to get an idea how quiet they'd have to be to avoid getting noticed. 'Doesn't look like anyone lives in the top couple of floors, which means we should be fine as long as we're not bouncing around or shouting.'
She spent a couple of minutes playing with the dials on the scope and looking inside the various crates while she waited for Mat and Nynaeve to get back. 'We need to figure out a decent method of scrying for ter'angreal, it would make this a lot easier.'
"Anything good?" Mat asked as he opened the door and walked into the room.
"Hopefully," Dawn replied as she pulled her eye away from the scope, doing her best to keep the scope from moving on the desk. "Take a look, the top floor of the old building that looks like it's going to fall over in the next windstorm."
Mat carefully sat down and looked through the spyglass then adjusted the dial until he could see into a dusty room with a bunch of boxes. "The dusty room with boxes, right?" he asked, wanting to make sure.
"Yes," Dawn agreed as Nynaeve walked in and shut the door.
"I need to get one of these," Mat said as he opened a portal into the dusty storeroom.
"If we can pull this off, you can keep it," Dawn told him then walked through the portal into the dusty room and looked around at the collection of priceless artifacts and junk. "Have you taken any of the Enchanting classes yet?" she asked once they'd walked through.
Mat nodded. "Just the first one but my Enchanting skill came with the ability to reverse engineer things so I should be able to tell if something is junk even if I can't figure out exactly what it does."
"Lucky, I've been organizing things with the other wisdoms to make sure all of the magic users can take classes and dealing with one of the wool heads on the city council," Nynaeve complained as she glanced over the boxes.
"What did Cenn do this time?" Mat asked as he walked over to start sorting through the closest crate, curious if they'd find anything that would help defend the village.
"He was whining because he overheard one of the men ask Alexis about alternative methods to roof a house and he was worried about running out of work," Nynaeve explained as she started pulling things out of boxes and handing them to Mat and Dawn so they could start sorting them.
"He's the thatcher, right?" Dawn asked as she dropped a vine covered vase into her enchanting box and pushed the button to reverse engineer it.
"When he works," Mat replied as he dropped a figurine of a bird into his Enchanting box and hit the button to identify it. "He never has enough time when someone needs something and he always complains when people refuse to pay him before the job is done."
"I can't say I blame them," Nynaeve muttered. "The last person that paid him before he finished had to wait three months for him to finish the project and he only finished it because the Mayor threatened to cut off his ale supply."
"It sounds like he needs a reality check, maybe his work ethic will improve if you get better options," Dawn suggested. "Oh, the vase pulls moisture out of the air and condenses it, giving you a decent source of freshwater."
Mat smiled when he read the description on his display. "The bird lets you communicate with its twin, that would be useful for keeping in touch."
"Sounds useful," Dawn agreed as she grabbed a broken figurine and dropped it in her enchanting box, wanting to make sure it wasn't anything special before she stuck it in a pile.
0o0o0
Myst sighed when Berowin and several women burst into the room that he'd rented where Derys was giving Egwene a lesson on channeling. "I'm going to complain to the innkeeper."
"We don't give lessons," Berowin snapped, glaring at Derys and Egwene.
"How do you know about the Kin?" one of the other women demanded.
"I read an old journal," Myst lied, not seeing a point in explaining that someone had written a series of books about a version of their world. "The only reason the Tower hasn't swooped in and claimed the kin is they don't care, most of you barely have enough strength to be Aes Sedai which means they'd rather use you to catch runways."
"You're saying they know?" Berowin sputtered in disbelief.
"Since the end of the Trolloc wars or at least the Amyrlin or the Hall know," Myst replied with a shrug, taking a bit more pleasure in their horrified looks than he probably should but they'd burst into the room he'd rented to demand hours and interrupted Egwene's lesson that he'd already paid for so he didn't feel all that guilty.
"They would have stopped us," one of the women argued.
"Why? You're not claiming to be Aes Sedai or doing anything to bring shame on the Tower, you also let them catch most of the girls that run," Myst replied with a smile. "They might care if you started teaching a bunch of students but I doubt they'd actually care if you gave the occasional wilder a couple of lessons and sent them on their way to the Tower. Besides, if you actually failed the tests, you're free and clear as far as they're concerned."
"Do you have any proof?" Berowin asked.
"Nothing you'd believe," Myst replied, knowing they wouldn't believe him about being from another world. "Now, are you going to leave or do I have to toss you out?" He sighed when threads of magic reached out from the woman and lifted him up off the ground. He glanced at Egwene. "Can you deal with this?"
"Sure…" Egwene trailed off as Berowin reached out and shielded her. "Bloody ashes! I'm shielded!"
"You're nothing but children," Berowin scolded them. "You're going to explain who put you up to this and where you learned about us."
Egwene reached out with her personal mana and cut the shield then shielded Berowin and tied it off as she created two clones of herself that promptly started shielding the rest of the women.
"Fuck it," Myst muttered and started hitting the women with stunners, less than impressed by the entire group of idiots. "I tried being nice."
"You can channel," Derys sputtered in horror.
Myst shook his head. "I can't channel, it's just a talent that has nothing to do with channeling."
"What are you going to do with them?" Derys asked.
"I was planning on tying them up and letting an Aes Sedai deal with them, they're not going to believe me about the Tower until they hear it from someone with an Aes Sedai's face," Myst replied as he worked on dragging all of the women into the room so he could close the door. "Annabeth, can you grab Mat, we're going to need a gate."
"Sure," Egwene replied as she ran for the door, wanting to avoid things getting worse.
"How many people do you need trained?" Derys asked, figuring that a change of venue would be a good idea considering the number of rules that she'd broken by trying to help.
"Enough," Myst replied as he shut the door. "I was being honest when I said I'd rather avoid the Tower, they have a nasty habit of thinking that they're smarter than they are."
"I'm aware," Derys agreed, thinking about the stupid punishments they'd heaped on her while she was in the Tower just because she liked having sex with men.
"Excellent, I think you'll like it," Myst assured her, figuring she'd be a halfway decent teacher until they could find someone better.
