Mist of Shadows
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Dungeon Myst Part 27
🕑 Added 2023-11-18 06:34:25 +0000 UTC"Two galleons for one gold coin," the goblin offered with a smug grin, knowing he was ripping the man off but figuring most wizards wouldn't even question the exchange rate.
Myst glared at the goblin, wondering if he should have let someone else deal with the goblins since he wasn't a fan to start with and he'd spent the last couple of hours helping pluck and gut the geese that had been killing his gremlins, which hadn't helped his mood even if the Cooking experience was nice. "Do you know the current price of gold in the rest of the world?"
"Your coins are larger but it takes effort to turn the gold into galleons," the goblin lied, knowing it was just a matter of tossing gold into a magical machine.
Myst glanced over at the other goblin tellers and magic users that were doing business in the bank then focused on the ugly goblin in a suit in front of him. "I can appreciate trying to get a good deal but you're trying to cut my throat and make me thank you for it, there's less than a tenth of an ounce of gold in the galleons, try again."
The goblin glared at Myst, wondering where he'd learned that particular bit of information as the charms they placed on the coins should prevent that sort of testing. "That's slander."
"Slander requires something to be false," Myst argued, curious if the goblin would give him a better deal or if he was going to start screaming for the guards. "If you don't give me a reasonable price I'll take out an ad in the paper."
"They wouldn't dare print it," the goblin replied smugly. "If you're going to spread lies, get out before we have you arrested."
"Go ahead and call the aurors," Myst replied sarcastically, figuring he'd just jump out of the gremlin turned surfer he was possessing if they tried to toss him in prison for standing up to the goblins. "I'm sure they'd like to know how badly you're cheating them as well."
"Guards!" the teller shouted. "Toss this wizard out of the bank!"
"Whatever," Myst replied as he turned and headed for the exit. 'Fuck it, I doubt most of the businesses will object to getting paid in gold.' He scowled as a goblin in platemail grabbed his arm from behind. He turned to look at the goblin that was grabbing his left arm. "If you don't get your hands off me, I'm going to treat this as assault."
The goblin punched Myst in the stomach, figuring that usually shut the wizards up.
Myst crumpled to the floor in pain, less than amused that the goblin grabbed his money pouch filled with gold.
"He was a thief!" the goblin shouted.
"Lying bastard!" Myst defended himself when he could take a breath. "I was asked to leave because I called them out on cheating everyone, I was leaving."
"Toss him outside," the teller called out.
Myst struggled as he was hauled outside and tossed down the steps, making him wish that he'd taken the ex-slime beast or someone stronger than a five year old. 'Fucking thieves.' He screamed in agony when one of the goblins walked over and kicked him in the ribs before he could get to his feet.
"You shouldn't have stolen from us," the goblin taunted Myst then headed back towards the bank.
'Fuck it,' Myst thought as he used possession on the goblin, jumping bodies and leaving the gremlin body to suffer the agony of multiple broken ribs. He glanced at the group of wizards that had walked outside to watch the show then drew his sword, turned around and stalked over to the ex-gremlin turned surfer and cut his head off. "Goblin rampage!" he shouted as he started running towards Knockturn Alley, leaving a fair number of horrified wizards behind him.
Myst shoved several adults out of his way as he headed toward the dark alley, knowing that people would be more inclined to believe the worst if they were personally impacted. He smiled when he spotted a kid that looked like the actor that played Neville in the first movie and noticed that his wand was in his coat pocket. "Goblin rampage!" he shouted as he dashed past Neville and his grandmother, making sure to clip him in such a way as his wand snapped. 'Sorry, not sorry,' he offered in his mind as he continued running towards the alley, knowing that having a better wand would help the kid out.
He ignored the shouting behind him as he ran into the dark alley. He glanced at the small group of disreputable wizards and witches that were talking to a woman he was fairly sure was a hag then headed into Borgin and Burkes. He glared at the three dark wizards that turned to look at him as he burst into the shop with a sword in his hand. "Goblin Rampage!" he shouted as he lunged forward and stabbed a wizard through the chest that wasn't even trying to hide his dark mark.
Severus drew his wand and sent a blasting curse at the goblin that had just stabbed Parkinson, wishing the shop didn't have disapparation wards.
Myst laughed as the blasting curse sent him flying back a couple of feet but otherwise didn't do much of anything thanks to the goblin's armor. "Thieves!" he shouted as he lunged forward and stabbed the next Death Eater. "Revenge!"
Snape conjured a shield then banished a shelf at the goblin, sending it crashing into the wall and stopping the assault for the moment. He conjured a cloud of acid over the goblin.
'Fuck!' Myst cursed as he twisted so that he could see the old man behind the counter as the acid ravaged his goblin host. He used his possession ability on the old man then shot the man he was fairly sure was Snape in the back with a stunner, happy that it was on the old man's skill list. He shot Snape a second time just to make sure that he was down.
"You should be teaching Defense," Myst muttered as he walked over and locked the door, making sure to avoid the cloud of acid that was eating the destroyed shelf and the goblin. He glanced around the shop filled with questionable magical items then headed over to the only cabinet that looked large enough to step inside. He opened his Enchanting menu and focused on the cabinet until a model of the cabinet appeared in the box. He paid the mana to non-destructively reverse engineer the cabinet, picking up a pattern that would let him enchant a pair of doors so that you could step between them.
'Mission accomplished, everything else is gravy,' he told himself as he walked over to Snape and focused on the man's dark mark. He felt slightly cheated when he destructively tested the dark mark and the cursed tattoo merely faded and disappeared, rather than exploding or causing Snape to wake up screaming as his arm melted off. 'Oh, well, probably for the best.'
Myst stole Snape's wand and made sure he was tied up securely then turned his attention toward the cloud of acid that was already fading away. 'It's already fading, the armor should be safe to grab in ten to twenty minutes and the stunner should last at least twenty minutes, plenty of time to give Snape a heads up about Voldemort's horcruxes.'
0o0o0
Severus froze when he woke up naked on a motel bed and realized that he was staring at a muggle alarm clock. "What the blazes?!"
"You got jumped," a female voice offered.
Severus turned and froze when he saw a pair of attractive, busty, identical and naked teenage girls with long red hair standing at the foot of the bed that reminded him a bit of Lily. "What's going on?"
"What's the last thing you remember?" the other girl asked, enjoying her brother's confusion.
"I was in a shop and a lunatic goblin burst in and killed Parkinson," Severus replied, leaving off the part about him using an illegal acid curse on the off chance that they were with law enforcement or muggles.
"Borgin and Burkes, yes?" she asked.
"Yes," Severus replied, wondering why they were naked and what was going on. ‘If this is an attempt at blackmail it is poorly thought out.’
"You were caught in the middle of an attack, as an apology for the trouble our services have been acquired to rock your world and make sure you don't cause any trouble for a couple of hours while the mess is… cleaned up," the first girl explained.
Snape glanced between the girls, glad that he didn't recognize them from any of his classes as that would have made things a bit awkward. "Do I have a choice?" he asked curiously.
"Would you prefer us to chain you to the bed?" she asked with a smirk, knowing that he'd had some fantasies about Lily and dungeons that he'd never dared voice.
"Not currently," Severus replied reluctantly. "Did they say why they wanted me out of the way?"
"I didn't ask and I don't really care, if we don't rock your world we'll be dead by morning which means we're going to have a hell of a lot of fun, then we'll give you the letter the boss left and you're good to go," the other twin said, knowing they'd fade away if they didn't have sex with their brother.
'To hell with it, maybe they'll kill me but at least I'll die happy,' Severus thought, not remotely opposed to having sex with a couple of hot redheads, especially if they'd give him answers. "Get over here."
Lorelai smiled as she jumped on the bed, her twin quickly following her.
0o0o0
The secretary barely managed to avoid laughing when a teenage witch walked up to her desk wearing a visitor badge that said, 'Delivering a bribe to Umbridge!' and carrying a package. "Can I help you?"
Myst set the package on the woman's desk. "Mr. Burkes wanted to express his appreciation for Umbridge's recent help."
The secretary stared at the word 'Bribe!' that was written on the package for a couple of seconds then looked at the girl. "You're not supposed to call things bribes, they're merely gifts of appreciation."
"Take it up with the client, I'm just the message girl," Myst lied, wishing he was surprised that she didn't have a problem with her superior accepting bribes. "Can you just make sure Umbridge gets it?"
"Of course," the secretary replied with a smirk.
"Speaking of gifts, if I wanted someone to get better food in prison, who would I need to give a gift of appreciation?" Myst asked.
"You might try bribing Alastor Moody, I hear he's looking to pad his retirement fund," the secretary lied with a smile, wanting to make sure the girl wasn't around to complain about her stealing the bribe.
"Excellent, where can I find Mr. Moony?" Myst asked, intentionally getting the name wrong so she wouldn't realize he knew Moody was honest. 'So much for feeling guilty about leaving her with a cursed necklace.'
"Two floors down," she replied with amusement.
"Thank you," Myst replied as he left the room and headed for the elevator. 'If that doesn't kill Umbridge, I'll just have to be a bit more direct next time.'
He got on the elevator and pushed the button for the lobby. 'It's probably easier to send Dumbledore a letter about Sirius not getting a trial than it is to figure out which corrupt asshole I'd have to bribe.' He barely managed to keep a smile on his face when two middle aged wizards stepped into the elevator at the next floor and leered at his host.
"What brings you to the ministry?" the balding wizard asked as he took a step closer to the girl so that he could look down her shirt.
"I was dropping off a bribe for Umbridge," Myst replied with a shrug, causing his host's breasts to bounce and pretending that he didn't notice the wizard staring at them. 'They need an etiquette class at Hogwarts, there's a difference between appreciating the view and being an asshole.'
"Wasted effort, she never stays bought unless it suits her current objective or she thinks she can extract more gold out of you," the bald wizard warned her as he pushed the button for his floor.
"There goes my tip and life," Myst complained as the elevator started moving again, trying to sound like a scared little girl.
"Life?" the other wizard asked, sounding less sympathetic and more like he saw an opportunity.
"I'm working for a wizard in Knockturn, he's not exactly the forgiving type and he has a habit of blaming the messenger," Myst complained. "I don't suppose you can introduce me to Mr. Moody? Umbridge's secretary said that he accepts bribes."
"That depends, can you show us some skin?" the wizard with thinning hair asked with a smirk.
The bald wizard glared at his coworker. "Frank, stop being a creepy bastard before I hex you. You don't want Moody if you're trying to bribe someone, he's too honest. What is your boss trying to get passed?"
"Something about a muggle hunting ranch, I didn't ask," Myst lied, causing the wizard with thin hair to get an amused and thoughtful look on his face. 'Yeah, this explains why the 'light' side is generally screwed.'
"Have you considered reporting the man?" the bald wizard asked before his coworker could say something completely stupid.
"He's willing to bribe Fudge's assistant and call it a bribe, I don't need to get sold to the goblins, fed to dragons or tossed into Azkaban," Myst complained.
"Don't worry, the goblins only normally buy people if they steal goblin secrets," the bald wizard assured her.
"Azkaban on the other hand, is a possibility but I can make sure you don't end up there if you show me some skin," Frank lied.
"Do you work in law enforcement?" Myst asked, trying to sound hopeful and not like he wanted to tell the asshole that he needed a breath mint.
The bald wizard snorted. "He works in the records department."
"I have access to all the criminal files," Frank bragged.
"And you'd change things if I show you some skin?" Myst asked, deciding that Frank might be useful.
"Don't answer that," the bald wizard told his coworker as the elevator came to a stop. "Miss, you should consider taking a long vacation, Umbridge doesn't have any friends in America as far as I know. The same is probably true of the dark wizard that hired you."
"I wish I could," Myst replied as the elevator opened.
"I tried," the bald wizard replied as he walked out of the elevator, deciding the less he knew about the entire situation the better.
"What do you need in the records?" Frank asked when the door closed.
"My father was tossed in prison without a trial, I'd like to prove it so I need access to the records and someone that can take the records to Director Bones. If you help me out, I'd be very appreciative," Myst lied, planning on framing or killing the asshole depending on how far he tried to push things, if only because he seemed amused by the muggle hunting idea.
"Let's go prove your old man innocent, then we can celebrate," he said with a leer as he reached up and hit the button for the floor of the records room.
"Sounds like an excellent idea," Myst agreed, hoping he could get something out of the idiot before he did something that he'd have to kill him for.
0o0o0
"Hey!" Vivian shouted as she glared at the NPC quest giving dwarf, who’s quest had already been completed that was ignoring her attempts to get his attention while he mined Myst's mithril node. 'Fuck it, if you're not going to share, we don't need you hanging around.' She pulled a flask of the strongest alcohol she could conjure and one of the cursed pink lemons out of her bag. She levitated the flask with telekinesis so she'd have her hands free then unscrewed the top, cut the lemon in half, squeezed as much of the juice into the metal flask as she could and put the lid back on. "I have alcohol, I want you to listen!"
"Why didn't you say so earlier?" the dwarf asked as he turned to look at the girl and the pair of catgirls with mining picks behind her.
Vivian tossed the dwarf the flask, resisting the urge to hit him in the face. "You can't just kill Myst's skeleton miners and hog the mithril node, it doesn't belong to you."
"It's a dungeon, no one owns it and skeletons are monsters. The girls can use it when I'm done," the dwarf replied as he unscrewed the flask.
"You're under Myst's city," Vivian pointed out.
"It's mithril," the dwarf replied as if that explained everything then took a drink. "Not bad, not particularly good but I've had worse."
'Nice to know that it takes more than a little bit of the juice to transform people,' Vivian thought as she tossed the dwarf one of the lemon halves. "You should try eating the lemon, it improves the flavor."
The dwarf laughed and took a bite of the lemon, figuring she was trying to mess with him or poison him. 'Joke's on you, I actually like lemons and I'm a dwarf, no chance in hell of poisoning me with anything natural.'
Vivian smiled as the dwarf grew a foot and a half and changed into an athletic looking blue haired woman with large breasts and no beard. "Can I talk you into taking a break for a bit? I'll give you a shoulder massage while the girls do some mining then you can get right back to it."
The ex-dwarf blinked a couple of times as she realized that a nice soak in the hot springs would be the perfect way to seduce the girl and a shoulder massage would let her be more productive when she got back to work. "Let's take a dip in the pool."
"Sounds good," Vivian replied cheerfully, figuring she'd be able to copy the ex-dwarf after giving her a shoulder massage. 'Hopefully her twins still have the ability to instantly teach mining.'
0o0o0
Myst was honestly surprised that it had taken less than twenty minutes to find the records or rather the lack of records from Sirius' trial and six minutes of Madam Bones' time before she'd collected a pair of aurors and stormed out to have a conversation with Barty Crouch Senior since it was his signature on the orders that had dumped Sirius in prison without a trial. "It's nice to know that justice isn't completely blind."
"You can't toss purebloods in prison without a trial, it's just not done," Frank agreed as they headed toward the public floo that would take them to the Leaky Cauldron, looking forward to celebrating the girl's victory and fucking her stupid.
"Exactly," Myst agreed, trying to ignore the fact that Frank was walking entirely too close for comfort. "Speaking of celebrating, should I grab some girls with loose morals so we can make an actual party out of this?"
Frank stumbled as his brain processed what she'd said. "Bloody right, this is a great reason to celebrate."
"You have some friends, right? The right type of friends?" Myst asked, wondering how someone that ugly and creepy wasn't more suspicious considering the sheer number of times he had to have been shot down in his life.
"Right type?" Frank asked.
"You know, the type that wouldn't object to a spot of muggle baiting," Myst replied in a whisper, curious if he could actually talk Frank into inviting a bunch of his cronies over for a party.
"I know some people, how many girls do you know?" Frank asked, his mind already conjuring images of him with multiple girls.
"It should be easy to get a half a dozen girls to a hotel room with a snap of my fingers and a couple of pinches of floo powder," Myst bragged, thinking about his wench summoning spell.
"Wicked," Frank replied cheerfully, knowing the boys would owe him for this. "We should be able to rent the back room in the Leaky Cauldron for a couple of hours."
"Sounds good, I'll make the arrangements with the barkeep," Myst replied, rather amused by the way Frank was barely paying attention to the path in front of them. 'Three, two, one, pot,' he thought as he reached up and pulled the front of his robes down enough to give Frank a decent view of his host's breasts a couple of steps in front of a potted plant that stuck out just a bit, causing Frank to stumble over the potted plant. He quickly pulled his robes back into position before the wizards in the hallway could turn and see what had caused the noise. "Are you okay?"
"Sorry, I got distracted," Frank replied as he got to his feet. "That was dirty," he complained in a whisper.
"I'm a dirty girl," Myst replied with a smirk as he walked over to one of the floos and picked up a pinch of floo powder. "You have twenty minutes, don't be late." He tossed the powder in the fireplace as he said, "Leaky Cauldron!" causing an explosion of green flames a second before he stepped through.
Myst glanced around the pub then used his magic girl ring to swap his appearance when he realized no one was looking at him. He headed over to talk to the barkeep when he didn't notice anyone familiar.
"Can I help you?" Tom asked the girl he'd never seen before.
"I was wondering if I could rent a large room for a private party for a couple of hours, I'm willing to pay extra for silencing charms," Myst offered.
"Five Galleons and I'll toss in the silencing charms," Tom offered, setting the price a bit higher than he normally would to cover the time it would take to clean the room and set up the charms.
"Done," Myst replied as he dropped five galleons on the counter.
"Pleasure doing business with you, what did you say your name was?" Tom asked as he headed for the door to the back room.
"I didn't but the party is for Frank Withers and his friends, thinning hair, you can't miss him," Myst explained as he followed the barkeep, glad that Frank had bragged about his family while searching for the records.
"Are you going to need any refreshments?" Tom asked.
"I've got it covered," Myst replied, figuring the food conjuration spell would cover the alcohol he was going to use to get everyone sloshed.
"Excellent, let me know if you change your mind or if you need something, Frank isn't exactly a gentleman," Tom warned her, having overheard some things over the years.
"I'm aware," Myst replied with a grin, looking forward to having a decent collection of magic crystals once the wizards were decently drunk.
"As long as you're aware," Tom replied as he reached the door to the room he rented out for events. He unlocked the door then walked in and got started casting a number of silencing spells, making sure to push a bit more magic into it than he normally would as he didn't want the party disturbing the rest of the patrons.
Myst walked into the decent sized room and glanced around at couches and tables scattered around the room, fairly sure that half of them had come from various yard sales twenty years ago since nothing matched or even went together and everything looked old and worn in a way that had to be at least partially intentional considering the wizarding world had repair spells. 'That's almost painful, maybe that's the point or is that giving people too much credit?'
Tom finished placing the silence charms on the room. "Best of luck with your party, I'll let Frank know where to go when he shows up."
"I appreciate it," Myst replied as Tom left, shutting the door behind him. He focused on his Conjure Wench skill and activated it, paying the five hundred mana. He frowned when a chunky dark skinned woman in her forties with close cropped hair that was dyed magenta appeared in front of him wearing a really cheap and tacky barmaid outfit and looking like someone had beaten her half to death with an ugly stick. "Hello?"
"The fuck are you looking at?" the woman demanded when she realized that Myst was looking at her eyes and not her chest. "Your eyes should be right here," she said as she gestured toward her cantaloupe sized breasts, "or you should be down on your knees, bitch."
'Yeah, I'm going to need to grind the hell out of the skill,' Myst thought as he pulled up the woman's character sheet. 'Decent strength, bad agility and vitality, no magic. One point of cleaning and one point in customer service with a negative trait that drops that by five along with authority issues, lovely.'
"Are you listening?" she demanded.
"No," Myst replied as he focused and paid another five hundred mana to summon another wench, causing a busty teenage girl with strawberry blonde hair in pigtails to appear in front of him wearing a pair of work boots and a short and very naughty French Maid outfit.
"I'm going to thrash you," the first wench complained then promptly got punched in the gut by the second girl.
The blonde girl lunged forward, stuck her leg behind the older woman's legs and shoved her, sending the chunky bitch crashing on the couch. "Do not disrespect the master!"
"Huh," Myst muttered as he pulled up the girl's character sheet. 'Fiona Morrigian Clarey? Decent physical stats for a fifteen year old girl, sociopathic tendencies and an obsession about being my pet? Not exactly what I was looking for but at least she has decent cleaning and customer service skills, in addition to a couple of points of martial arts, computer systems, firearms and explosives.'
"I'm going to bitch slap you!" the first wench shouted as she got to her feet then promptly got kicked in the stomach by Fiona, sending her back onto the couch.
"We need some duct tape for the bitch's mouth," Fiona complained, watching to see if the woman started more shit.
He glanced at the first wench's name. "Don't start Gretchen. You'll get your chance to abuse a couple of wizards in like twenty minutes if you behave."
"If you don't, I'll smack the stupid out of you," Fiona said cheerfully.
Gretchen glared at Fiona and Myst, figuring she'd wait until the bitch wasn't paying attention to get revenge. "Fine."
Myst opened his Enchanting menu and got to work reverse engineering the various charms placed on the room while he waited for his mana to regenerate enough that he could use his ability again.
"When you say abuse, do you mean verbally or physically or can we cut them up and sell their souls to demons for magic, that's a thing right?" Fiona asked hopefully.
"We're not making any deals with demons, at least not today and not without a lot of research but if you play your cards right, I'll give you magic," Myst replied as he finished learning an enchantment. 'Security Expansion?' he mused as he read the description of his new enchantment. 'Five hundred mana per extra ten foot block that you expand and it increases the durability of the physical room, mutes the sounds leaving the room and prevents or muddles scrying unless you link the room to a scrying device. Let's hope the charms for scrying are old and not being used.'
Myst spent the mana to summon another wench, getting a short plain looking and overweight teenage girl with frizzy red hair that was almost orange wearing a cheap looking plaid skirt and a sheer top that showed off the fact that she barely had breasts despite the extra weight. He opened her sheet and glanced at her stats, less than impressed by her physical scores, lack of useful skills and her negative mental traits. 'Karen Kelly? That's a bit on the nose, considering one of her traits makes her a whiny bitch and the other an arrogant bitch with delusions of importance.'
"How much are you paying us for this?" Karen asked Myst.
"At least a couple of gold coins," Myst replied, not particularly worried about the gold.
"Who do you want me to fuck?" Karen asked, suddenly cheerful.
"I just need a couple of sleazebags distracted until I can figure out if they're irredeemable, it shouldn't take all that long," Myst assured them, wondering if it was worth sending Gretchen and Karen to the gremlin school to get rid of their negative traits before sending them on their way or if he should just pay them to take a hike once the wizards were dealt with since they were basically useless. 'Fiona might make a decent minion, assuming I can keep her from stabbing someone because they looked at her funny.'
