Mist of Shadows
patreon
Dungeon Myst Part 25
🕑 Added 2023-11-11 06:26:43 +0000 UTCDawn pulled her attention away from the crystal walls and the recessed areas that would be perfect for statues and followed Xander into the classroom. "Now what?"
Willow glanced around the room that had a number of purple massage benches as well as drawing tables. "I'm guessing we wait for the teacher."
Hermione blinked when she noticed a Classroom buff on her HUD. "Why do we get more experience if we're naked?"
Buffy turned to look at Hermione. "What?"
"Look at the classroom icon on your HUD, it's giving us an experience boost, twenty percent for art and an additional fifty for tattooing and enchanting tattoos. It's also giving us a general thirty percent extra experience if we're naked."
"Cool," Thea said as she pulled her t-shirt off without hesitation.
"Yep," Alex agreed as she took off her shirt.
"Don't tell my brother," Sarah warned people as she started stripping.
Buffy shook her head. "Don't blame me if you get kicked out of class."
"Don't worry the entire city is clothing optional," Sabrina assured them as she walked into the room carrying a stack of paper and a box of pens.
Xander turned to look at the person talking and stared when he saw the attractive red haired woman in her late teens or early twenties that was wearing a red and blue kilt and a long sleeved white shirt that clung to her curves. "So, we're not going to get in trouble for being naked?"
Sabrina set the stack of books on the teacher's table then turned and smiled at Xander. "Of course not, I want you to learn and a thirty percent bonus would definitely help with that."
"Cool," Buffy replied as she started stripping, wanting the experience boost.
Sabrina worked on passing out the paper and pens while the students finished stripping. 'This is way better than teaching the gremlins.'
Hermione raised her hand. "What do we call you?"
"My name is Sabrina Weird, you may call me Sabrina or Ms. Weird. I'll even answer to Teacher or Professor in a pinch. Unlike some of my fellow teachers that qualify as teachers based on the merit of their specific skills, I have dual masters in Art and Teaching as well as impressive art skills. My specialty is in crafting magical portraits but I'm more than able to teach the basics of most forms of art."
Willow and her twins Maple, and Danielle relaxed when they heard that she also had the appropriate degrees.
Sabrina glanced over the group then focused on Nathan. "While I expect everyone to have fun in my class… within reason, any malicious mischief will result in me tossing you into a magical painting to be devoured by monsters or learn some basic respect."
Nathan simply nodded, not wanting to give her a reason to dislike him when he wouldn't mind asking her out.
"Ah…" Xander trailed off as he realized he hadn't raised his hand.
"Am I serious? Yes, I'm quite serious," their teacher said firmly.
"A vague disclaimer is no one's friend," Willow added.
Sabrina smiled as Richard Wilkins walked into the room. "I'd wondered if you were going to make it."
"Just a bit of trouble with a shadow dungeon, nothing to worry about," Richard assured her.
"Fuck!" Buffy blurted out when she turned and saw the Mayor wearing a pair of khaki shorts, expensive looking sandals, a simple black t-shirt, a black leather duster that seemed to eat the light and a ceremonial viking styled helm of all things made out of a dark metal.
"Language," Richard Wilkins scolded then blinked when he realized he wasn't teaching. "Ah, forgive me, force of habit."
"Don't worry about it," Sabrina told her fellow teacher. "Is there a problem?" she asked Buffy, having noticed that Xander was also glaring at her fellow professor.
Buffy relaxed slightly when she realized that the man didn't seem to recognize her. "Sorry, he just looks like someone that tried to kill us."
"Ah, I can assure you that if I'd tried to kill you, you wouldn't be alive," Richard replied as he walked over and sat down in one of the seats. "Don't worry, I'm not in a habit of killing people that don't deserve it."
Buffy opened her mouth to respond sarcastically then closed her mouth, deciding to let it go since he didn't seem to recognize her and didn't seem hostile. 'I'll have to do some digging later.'
"Excellent, just a case of mistaken identity. I can relate, I've got two twin sisters that are also teachers," Sabrina offered. "I generally start with some basic art lessons to make sure people can draw a straight line then we'll move onto a discussion about tattooing and a brief overview of enchanting if we have time."
'At least the scenery is nice,' Xander mused, glad that she wasn't expecting masterpieces.
0o0o0
"Fucking curse," Myst muttered as he tried to figure out how much of the wall he was going to have to rip out to remove cursed pipes since he couldn't reach the pipes to disenchant them.
"Language," Lara al'Vere teased as she walked into the strange tiled room with her sister.
"Sorry," Myst replied as he turned to look at the person talking, "I wasn't expecting anyone else to be here."
Lara glanced at the wall where she could sense the twisted magic. "Tara mentioned that you had a problem with curses, I figured we could help."
Myst pulled up her character sheet and glanced at her skills. 'Athletics 4, Basic Channeling 4, Clone 6, Reading/Writing 4, Reinforcement 4, Riding 3, Advanced Staves 5, Waitressing 3?' He shrugged. "If you want, go for it."
Lara held her hands out as she started chanting in a language that sounded vaguely like Gaelic and released a blast of light at the walls that washed over everything.
"Cursed Locker Room cleansed. Magical Locker Room acquired and unlocked."
"Thank you!" Myst told her gratefully. "You saved me from having to rip the wall apart to get at the pipes."
Lara laughed. "Thank you for giving me a chance to practice, my Reinforcement skill increased to five from that."
"Reinforcement?" Myst asked, curious what the skill actually did.
Egwene glanced at her twin then shrugged. "The magic girl transformation comes with the basics for creating shields and wards, healing and purifying areas and things as well as breaking curses. We haven't had a lot of practice breaking curses so it's nice to practice."
"Do you want us to swing by the infirmary?" Lara asked Myst, wanting more experience.
"In a minute, what type of wards can you place?" Myst asked thoughtfully as he looked at her transformation ability. 'Twenty points to every stat, comes with reinforcement and a random magical skill, spread by biting? Okay, that's amusing and useful.'
"I started with a ward against rats and a ward against bugs, probably because I worked in the inn growing up or I remember working in the inn. I probably have the ward because Egwene has the ward."
"You're real enough," Egwene assured her twin as she gave her a one armed hug.
"Thanks," Lara replied with a smile as he leaned against her sister. "I also learned a ward from Nynaeve that wards against certain types of disease, generally the ones that spread by contact."
'Probably wards against viruses and bacteria,' Myst mused. "Can you share the wards?"
"You can, most people don't bother as it takes a bit of work and I still haven't figured out how Rand's pest ward works, his works against bugs, rats and rabbits. I picked up a ward to keep a room dusted from my mother, it saves a lot of time."
Myst opened his mana menu when he felt his pool fill completely. "How long does it take to ward a room?"
Egwene glanced around the room, trying to judge how long it would take to set everything up. "A minute if you want something quick, ten if you want it to last."
Myst smiled as he thought about having a magically clean locker room. "Can you place the longer lasting dust and disease wards on the room? I want to see if I can pick up a pattern for a clean locker room."
Egwene glanced at her twin. "If you get the dust, I'll get the disease ward."
"Deal," Lara replied cheerfully, happy to help.
Myst walked over and sat down on a bench to wait for the girls to finish setting up their wards and frowned slightly when he noticed just how cold the benches were. 'Yeah, I should probably fix that when I get a chance or at least not use the frost wood on the rest of them,' he mused as he dropped a thousand units worth of gems and one of the magic granting crystals that granted shadow affinity into the box in his mana menu. He selected mana regeneration and hit the button, picking up a shadow affinity and received another hundred points of mana regeneration for his rubies and mana. 'I guess the quality of the gems matter.'
'Let's see how crazy I can make a classroom,' Myst mused as he opened the school menu for his shadow school and looked at his options for classrooms. He added the Nudist and Enchanting qualities. 'Five hundred mana, could be worse.' He added the Magitech Personal Massager Creation and Magitech qualities then added the Sex Education quality as it seemed to fit and the option to add more classes wasn't grayed out. 'Benches or couches, fifty gems and a hundred metal from the Magitech classroom.'
Myst added the Anatomy classroom and frowned slightly when he got a notice informing him that he'd have to double the required material since he'd combined more than five classes. 'Still cheap at twice the cost,' he thought as he dropped two hundred units of gems and one hundred units of faerie wood into the box. He pulled up his workshop and ordered ten exceptional and solid faerie wood benches with eggplant leather covers and the cushions they'd recovered from Ikea. 'I'm going to have to mine the hell out of that dimension and build a couple more storage rooms.'
Myst glanced over the various types of stone that he'd mined from the dungeon while he was mining the nodes for the cleansing quest. 'Marble, granite or limestone. I just need something that looks nice and goes with the metal I'm going to use. I doubt they want something that eats light considering they're going to be working on magitech. This would be easier if I had mithril or more celestial bronze.'
Myst pulled the mithril node card out of his storage and read the annoying brief warning about the node attracting monsters and adventurers. 'Fuck it, if I can't deal with the monsters or adventurers with a small army of magic girls and a slayer with a lightsaber I'll just have to plant lightning trees around the entrance or get some turbo lasers from Star Wars. I wonder if I can use the lightning trees to power turbo lasers?'
He used the card, placing the node in what used to be the dungeon under the platform that he was using for resources. He pulled up his minion menu and directed his mining minions to grab the picks they'd received from the quest and mine the mithril node, figuring it shouldn't take all that long before he had enough mithril to build the classroom. He sent Morgana to help, figuring her ore refining spell would work better than the admittedly shitty smelter that needed repairs.
Myst closed his mana menu then pulled up his general build menu and selected the pattern for the Wood Fired Elemental Smelter. 'Ten units of wood, fifty units of metal and two hundred units of stone, probably for the tools and the door. No point in building the smelter when I'd just have to rebuild it with better materials in a couple of hours.'
Myst glanced at his mana pool then conjured a resource card, figuring it would be regenerated by the time the girls were finished. 'Eldritch Adamant, this nearly indestructible gravity infused metal would be perfect for weapons if it wasn't five times as heavy as gold. That sounds like an excellent material to make an anvil out of, assuming we can use magic to craft it,' he mused as he placed the node on the resource platform. 'Hopefully I can get some interesting gemstones out of it.'
"Eternally clean Magical Locker Room unlocked."
"And that took less time than I was expecting," Lara admitted after finishing her ward.
"Same," Egwene agreed. "Did it help?"
Myst pulled up the new pattern. "It's slightly more expensive in terms of the initial magic cost but completely worth it considering it protects people from contracting anything while in the room and it's permanent. Let's swing by the infirmary and fix the curse then we can start signing people up for the new school."
Lara glanced at the strange metal things coming out of the walls, fairly sure they were the showerheads given Tara's description. "How do the showers work?"
"You turn the dial and the water comes out of the showerhead near the ceiling. The C is for cold and the H is for hot, you generally want it somewhere in the middle," Myst explained.
Lara smiled as she started stripping out of her magic girl outfit. "We should probably test it to make sure it works."
"Be my guest," Myst replied with amusement as he watched the attractive teen strip. 'Might as well watch the show, it's not like I have enough mithril to build the classroom or the smelter yet.'
0o0o0
"Something on your mind?" Xander asked Buffy when he noticed her staring at her drawing with a frown on her face.
"It feels like cheating," Buffy admitted, not sure how to feel about the drawing of Willow that not only resembled her friend but might actually take first prize in a high school drawing contest.
"So?" Xander asked with amusement.
"I listened to the directions and I drew a couple of dozen sketches in like twenty minutes and now I'm drawing like an artist," Buffy explained her unease. "It doesn't feel like I earned it."
Xander glanced over at Wilkins who was working on a sketch of the teacher then looked at the drawing of Willow holding an apple pie that he'd sketched in thirty seconds. "Life isn't fair and the basics are easy. It helps that the classroom is boosting our experience and we have an excellent teacher showing us new techniques."
Sabrina smiled at Xander. "Nice to be appreciated and he's right, it's a lot harder to increase your skills if you only have a couple of techniques. I've spent the last couple of days teaching art to gremlins, it's such a relief to have a group of sane students that aren't chewing on the paper and everything else they can fit in their mouths."
"It just feels weird," Buffy admitted.
"Even with the system, the more work you put into things, the better the results," Wilkins told them, thinking about the gremlins he'd been teaching.
"I've got to ask, what's with the viking helmet?" Sarah asked Wilkins.
Wilkins finished his sketch of Sabrina lounging on one of the couches then took his helmet off and set it on his desk. "I picked it up in the shadow realm before class and didn't have time to stash it in my room. It gives the wearer the ability to see in the dark and lets them conjure goats if they can afford the mana cost."
"What was the shadow realm like?" Buffy asked as she grabbed another piece of paper and started sketching Wilkins, wanting more information on his abilities before she decided what to do about him.
"Dark and filled with monsters," Wilkins replied with a smile. "The monsters increased in power and numbers as I fought my way towards the exit."
"How long were you in there?" Buffy asked.
"Time moves faster in the shadow realm. It took an hour and forty seven minutes to get to the boss and maybe five to kill him, my watch reset when I got back so I couldn't tell you the exact time," Wilkins explained.
"So you're saying the shadow realms are a death trap?" Xander asked.
Wilkins grabbed another piece of paper and started another sketch. "Almost certainly unless the difficulty scales to the person that is pulled into the shadow realm. I'll talk to Myst about it when I have a chance, I'd hate for someone to get sent there unprepared."
"We'd probably need better gear," Dawn mused.
"Shadow resistance should help," Danielle suggested.
"If I get some leather and tools, I can make boots that let you move faster," Harry offered.
"You're not going!" Buffy snapped at her sister.
"None of us are going until Myst has finished testing things," Xander cut in before Dawn could start an argument that wouldn't end well. "You should probably keep coming up with ideas."
Sabrina snapped her fingers, getting everyone's attention. "If I can have your attention. Feel free to finish your current drawing while I give an introduction to Enchanting. It shouldn't take more than ten minutes to unlock the skill, then we'll get started animating the sketches that everyone drew. The basic Enchantment provides a decent amount of Enchanting experience and a touch of art experience, which means that we'll be able to jump right into tattooing people in the next class."
"Are we tattooing pigs?" Willow asked.
"We'll start with leather or we'll conjure rabbits if I can talk Myst into teaching me his spell to conjure them," she glanced at Wilkins, "or goats if Richard is willing to lend us his helmet. It's a good excuse to practice stunning spells which should come in handy."
"I don't mind," Wilkins assured her, not particularly attached to the helmet, unlike the coat that was growing on him and had powerful defensive enchantments.
"Excellent." Sabrina waited twenty seconds for everyone to finish drawing. "I'm sure that everyone has heard stories of magical items, things like crystal balls, flaming swords or flying carpets. While those are certainly something that you can do with enchanting, it's not what we'll be focused on, at least not today. We're going to be working on the various ways that you can enchant artwork, everything from moving sketches and animated dolls to paintings that you can walk into. Enchanting generally falls into two categories, one-use enchantments and permanent enchantments. One-use items are permanent until used whereas permanent enchantments generally last forever and can be used multiple times, assuming the material that you enchanted survives the test of time."
"We don't have enough time to get into the complicated formulas and charts that you'd need to design your own enchantments but it's easy enough to pick up the basics by simple trial and error. I want everyone to clear your desk and stick your sketches on your lap or next to you so that you don't destroy them when you screw up. Once that's done, take your least favorite or impressive sketch and set it on the table. Now, picture the lines on the paper animating and moving around as you push a bit of mana into the paper. Too little and the lines won't do anything, too much and the paper will catch fire or worse, animate the figure in your picture, jump off the paper, and try to kill someone."
"What?!" Buffy sputtered.
Sabrina managed to keep a straight face for a couple of seconds then laughed. "Sorry, I have a warped sense of humor. Just push a bit of mana into a drawing and concentrate on it moving and continuing to move." She doubted the students would come up with anything useful on their first couple of tries but even the gremlins in her Enchanting class had unlocked Enchanting after five minutes of tossing mana at the toys she'd wanted them to enchant. 'Worst case, I'll just grab some toys and we'll unlock it and swap back.'
"Shit!" Dawn cursed when she pushed mana into her sketch and the paper caught fire, vanishing in a burst of green flames.
Sabrina snickered as she gestured and put the fire out. "A tad too much, try again with your second least favorite."
