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Endbringers Hate Paperwork Part 6
🕑 Added 2023-02-18 08:37:11 +0000 UTCAmy frowned as she looked around the dust and cobweb covered warehouse. "We're probably going to need hazmat suits. What were they storing?"
Myst glanced away from the shelf filled with rusted pieces of metal that he didn't recognize and the wet spot on the concrete floor which meant he was going to have to fix the roof. "Boat parts and that's why you're wearing a dust mask."
"Just think of it like an adventure," Vicky said as she floated around the warehouse looking at the various pieces of old machinery that should probably be in a museum. "If you can summon angels, can you summon something that can give us magic?"
"Probably," Myst admitted as he focused on the various methods he knew about to acquire magical power and tried to figure out if any of them were viable. 'Yeah, we can probably skip the demons, I'm not Constantine or Strange,' he mused as he tried to get a sense of the impressive collection of entities he could summon. "Huh, give me a minute to narrow things down a bit."
"Too many options?" Taylor asked, not quite sure how his power worked.
"Yeah," Myst replied as he focused on sources of power that wouldn't screw them over or require them to sell their souls, causing most of the demons and gods to vanish and half the devils to vanish. He spent a couple of minutes trying to narrow things down and shifting his focus before he found someone that might work. He focused and activated his power, causing a whirlwind of flower petals to appear out of thin air, revealing a naked three foot tall rainbow haired pixie wearing a crown of woven flowers on her head.
"You have summoned the great and powerful Snapdragon, Lady of Magic and Chaos," the pixie announced, her booming bass voice filling the chamber like thunder.
"Inside voice!" Vicky blurted before she realized that she probably shouldn't argue with the magical creature.
"Oh, right, sorry," Snapdragon offered in a much quieter voice. "Standard deal?"
"Standard deal?" Amy asked warily.
"I give you enough power to unlock a warlock's talents and you let me observe the world through your senses for a year and a day," Snapdragon replied, not seeing a reason to explain that she got to copy any magical tricks they came up with while they were connected.
"Just observe?" Amy asked, wanting to make sure she wouldn't end up mastered.
"Exactly," Snapdragon replied cheerfully, under no requirement to tell them the truth. "You get magic and I get to experience a new world through someone else's senses, it's a good deal for everyone involved."
Taylor looked at Myst. "What do you think?"
"Sounds good to me," Myst replied, figuring it was a good place to start and not sensing any ill will from the little fae.
Taylor focused on the naked pixie floating in the air, hoping she wasn't making a mistake. "You have a deal."
Snapdragon smiled as she used magic to awaken Taylor's talent for magic and make a connection, a touch surprised that it took twice as much magic as it normally did and that she unlocked two connections rather than just one. 'Weird, thermal vision? Gravity? Heat? Is that tachyons? How many different senses does she have? This is fantastic!'
Taylor smiled as she realized that she could feel something warm and inviting just out of reach, like it was waiting for her to reach out and touch it. "Thank you."
"You're welcome," Snapdragon replied cheerfully, more than happy with the trade. "Your power should grow the more you use it in interesting ways." She turned to look at Vicky. "Deal?"
"Hell yeah!" Vicky replied, not seeing a problem with having someone from another world she'd never run into again borrowing her senses if it meant that she could learn magic, even if she used it to watch her shower or something.
"Excellent," Snapdragon replied as she spent the mana to awaken Vicky's magic, noticing that it also cost twice as much and gave her a number of interesting senses. She smiled when she noticed that the other half of her was trying to figure out how to use magic. 'This should be interesting,' she mused as she turned her attention to Amy. "Ready?"
"Ready," Amy agreed, looking forward to learning magic.
Snapdragon spent the mana to awaken Amy's power and shivered as she was suddenly aware of every bit of genetic material that was clinging to her skin. 'How the fuck are you still sane?' She pulled her attention away from the confusing senses and looked at the giant. "Ready?"
"Yeah," Myst replied, hoping he wasn't making a mistake but knowing that sometimes you had to take a chance.
Snapdragon spent the mana to empower the giant, a touch surprised that she didn't get two connections like with the girls. 'Weird but probably for the best,' she mused, knowing that she was already pushing the number of connections she could pay attention to at once. "You should have a basic warlock blast and at least one minor magical ability to start."
"Warlock blast?" Taylor asked.
"It's basically a ranged blast of magic. The more you practice, the more abilities you'll unlock and the stronger your blast will get. You can increase your abilities with training but actual combat increases them faster," Snapdragon explained. "Did you need anything else?"
"Would summoning other beings for warlock deals break the contract or cause you trouble?" Myst asked, wanting to make sure before he summoned more people.
Snapdragon considered the question for a couple of seconds then shrugged. "I'm not going to complain as long as you don't try to void the contract."
"Cool. Can I summon you back if we find more people to turn into warlocks?" Myst asked, wanting to make sure it wasn't going to annoy her.
"Give me a couple of days to recharge," Snapdragon replied, wanting a couple of days to tie their senses to magical crystals so she wouldn't get overwhelmed and so she could share the new senses with her friends.
"Sounds good," Myst replied, fairly sure it would take that long to track down the Undersiders and or wards in a way that wouldn't cause trouble. "Thanks for the help."
"You're welcome," Snapdragon replied as she felt the magical effect 'holding' her vanish.
Myst sighed in relief when the pixie vanished without causing trouble. 'At least we didn't get stuck with a quest,' he mused as he focused on the 'shadows' in the warehouse or what should have been the shadows. 'Dark vision or devil sight?' he mused as he glanced towards the other end of the warehouse where the old lights weren't working. 'That's at least sixty feet and I don't have any problems determining color, which means it's probably devil sight or something close.'
"Not to be greedy but what else can you summon?" Vicky asked with a grin.
"Good question," Myst replied as he tried to sort through the confusing and ever changing collection of supernatural beings that he could summon to acquire power at reasonable prices. He activated his power when he felt one of the people he could summon start flickering, summoning the entire group.
Vicky winced when a soaking wet naked girl with ink black skin and pointed ears appeared in front of Myst with a sword through her chest. "What the fuck!"
"Priest?" the dark elf asked hopefully as she slumped to the ground.
Amy dashed forward, touched the girl's face and started healing her heart as Vicky pulled the sword out, ignoring the rest of the group. "I'm taking that for permission."
"No arguments here," Myst said as looked at the rest of the dark elf's group, an elf in robes, a tall man wearing breeches without a shirt and holding a massive sword and a skinny elf with his pants around his ankles. "Huh."
"What the hell?" the elven bard asked as he pulled his pants up. He froze when he spotted his friend with a sword wound in her chest that was slowly closing. "Xiania! What the fuck?!"
"Relax, she'll be fine," Amy told everyone as she started working on the girl's less life threatening injuries.
The nearly seven foot tall warrior looked around and relaxed when he realized there weren't any cultists in the area. "Where are we?"
Vicky smiled as she looked over the warrior's muscles, enjoying the view. 'Huh, cat-like eyes, pointed ears, are any of them human?'
"Not in Misthaven, fucking town," the elf in robes complained as he pulled a long shirt out of his belt pouch for Xiania. "What the hell happened?"
"Fucking cultists," Xiania complained as she sat up, wondering how much luck they'd burned to get teleported to a healer. "I was taking a bath and they burst in and stabbed me."
"This is why I use magic," the elf wizard said smugly.
The bard laughed as he finished securing his pants. "You're just cheap."
"Just because I don't use every whorehouse in the realm doesn't mean I'm cheap," the elf complained.
"Life is short," the bard replied with a shrug.
"Fair," the elf admitted, knowing that his friend probably only had another hundred and twenty years before he got old and another fifty before he was gone.
"Thanks for the help, I don't think I would have made it out of the bathtub, let alone to Kirk's room before I bled out," Xiania admitted as she started to stand up.
"You're welcome," Amy replied as she helped the dark elf to her feet, trying not to stare at her and failing miserably.
Joe glanced up at Myst, wondering what type of giant he was. "Where are we?"
"Brockton Bay, I picked up the ability to summon people and creatures, your friend was on the list of people that could help me acquire magic and she sort of flickered so I summoned her," Myst explained.
"Probably because I was a couple of seconds from bleeding out," Xiania mused. "That's the last time I take my gear off without wedging the door shut with knives and making sure there aren't any secret passages, fucking inns."
Valen tossed the extra shirt to Xiania. "You're just complaining because Sam wasn't around to check the place."
"She's our trap monkey and trouble finder, this would have been a walk in the park if she'd been with us," Xiania complained as she pulled the shirt on.
"Do you want me to take care of the gash?" Amy asked the tall man with a sword that had a shallow cut on his side.
"Don't worry about it, I'll stick some glue on it if Kirk can't deal with it tomorrow," Joe replied, not wanting to get more in debt with the strange healer if he could help it. βWe owe you too much as is.β
"Don't worry, I don't charge for healing," Amy told him.
"Seriously?" Kirk asked in disbelief. "Why not?"
Amy looked at the skinny half dressed man with pointed ears. "Because I have the power to help."
"If she's willing to burn the mana, take her up on it," Kirk told his friend, happy to save his mana.
"Thank you," Joe said as he held his hand out.
Amy reached out and touched Joe's hand, immediately noticing that he wasn't completely human. 'Dragon eyes, better muscles, longer lifespan, damn, I might need to make some modificationsβ¦' she trailed off as she realized she'd been thinking about upgrading her sister. She focused on his injuries and repaired them then took a couple of seconds to check his organs, trying to figure out how everything worked so she could duplicate it as everything seemed to work surprisingly well.
"What type of magic are you looking for?" Xiania asked, figuring she owed the group for saving her.
"Something arcane, divine magic has strings," Myst complained. "We made a deal with a pixie for a warlock pact, but you generally only get a narrow selection of magical powers and no ability to actually learn spells."
"Not a bad choice if you don't have access to a university or somewhere to get spells," Valen mused.
"I could try to teach you but it would take a while and I'm not sure you have enough magic to make it worth it," Xiania admitted.
"How long is a while?" Amy asked as she took a step back from Joe before she started modifying his biology.
"Months? Probably years," Xiania admitted, not wanting them to get their hopes up. "I might have a better idea." She turned to look at Valen. "Valen has an experimental potion that can permanently give someone the ability to cast basic spells and gives you a small mana pool, but you don't have any control over the spells you end up with."
Valen shook his head. "I'm still trying to work out the bugs."
"Bugs?" Vicky asked in concern.
"The elixir tends to mutate the test subjects," Valen admitted.
"Half of the test subjects were fine and restoration fixed Ralph's arm," Xiania argued.
"He also lost the magic," Valen pointed out. "Last I heard George was stuck with the tentacle since he didn't get it removed within a couple of days."
Kirk grinned as he thought about his teammate's tail. "Not all of the mutations are bad, Sam likes her tail."
Joe shook his head. "That's because she's weird."
"How many do you have?" Myst asked Valen, wondering if there was a way to check the result before they used them.
"With me? Five, you're welcome to them for saving Xiania," Valen said as he pulled five metal vials out of his belt pouch and held them out.
Myst smiled as he floated the vials over to his hand. "Thanks, Amy can probably fix any physical mutations as long as they don't involve our brains."
"Can you cure diseases?" Joe asked. "Kirk has managed to pick up a collection of magical diseases that are resistant to healing."
"Party foul, none of them are serious," Kirk assured Vicky when she floated back a couple of steps.
Vicky rolled her eyes. "Right."
Amy reached out and poked Kirk's hand with her finger. "Huh, I'm not even sure what some of these do."
"Sweat alcohol, occasional fever, fuzzy problems during the full moon, one of them changes your piss blue, at least I think that's a disease, it could be a curse," Kirk admitted, fairly sure he'd picked that one up when he'd crawled into the wrong bed a couple of years ago at a party.
"This could take a couple of minutes," Amy admitted as she worked on figuring out how to neutralize everything. "Actually, can I touch your hand?" she asked Valen. "It might give me a better idea how to fix your friend."
"Sure," Valen agreed as he held his hand out, starting to wonder if her ability was psionic or something, because she wasn't using mana as far as he could tell.
Amy frowned as she checked Valen's health. "How the hell are you still alive? Your immune system and stamina are shot."
Valen gestured towards the necklace he was wearing. "My necklace protects me from disease and poison, otherwise I'd catch a cold walking down the street in the middle of summer."
"He's also breakable," Joe offered. "One good hit and he crumples."
Valen gave his large friend a less than impressed look. "You're a monster, most people can't take hits from a troll and shrug."
"They're not that impressive," Joe argued, knowing he was stronger than most of the trolls they'd run into over the years.
"I can probably fix that," Amy blurted before she could change her mind.
"What?" Valen asked.
'Just say it,' Amy told herself, fairly sure most of the doctors already suspected that she could do more with her powers than she'd ever shown. "My healing ability lets me manipulate biology, I can probably improve your immune system and increase your strength and durability, if you're interested?"
"Yes!" Valen blurted. "That would be fantastic."
"What about my diseases?" Kirk asked.
"We'll get there," Amy assured him, happy to work on things she'd never seen before.
Taylor reached out and poked the pool of Xiania's blood with her finger, picking up unlocks for dark elves and magic users. 'Nice, that makes things easier.' She wiped her finger off on an old canvas tarp. "I don't suppose you have any spells for cleaning?"
"Yeah, give me a second," Xiania replied as she cast a cantrip and started removing the dust from everything within a ten foot radius, more than happy to help.
Myst turned his attention back to his summon ability, trying to figure out someone that he could summon that would be able to help with the improving or boosting the elixirs.
0o0o0
Vicky pulled her attention away from where her sister was finishing Taylor's draconic upgrades and looked at Myst, wondering where she was going to sell her share of the hundred gold coins the team had paid them for Amy's help healing and improving their bodies. "Do you think you could summon someone that could cast a glamor so we could upgrade our eyes without people freaking out?"
"Worried about Carol?" Myst asked, still a bit surprised that Amy had been willing to basically turn the entire adventuring group into a bunch of nigh immortal elven half dragons with inhuman physical stats. 'Does that mean she's doing better or slipping down the rabbit hole?' he mused, not sure how to read the snarky girl.
"Or one of the idiots that hate the case 53s," Vicky replied, knowing that her mother would freak if she asked, never mind that Amy could always fix them if she wanted to change them back.
"You could always ask," Myst pointed out, doing his best not to laugh at the look on Vicky's face. "Just point out the advantages and the disadvantages and then point out the fact that you have a force field if people get stupid about it."
Amy finished putting the final touches on Taylor's new and improved muscles then turned to look at Myst. "Let's not and say we didn't. I already feel weird enough about upgrading the group using alien genetics."
"Fair enough," Myst replied. "How do you feel about going somewhere and blowing things up so we can test our new powers?"
Amy glanced at Vicky then looked back up at Myst. "Where are you thinking?"
"Not sure," Myst admitted as he focused on the type of demon he wanted and activated his power when he found someone that might work. He smiled when an attractive redhead with tiny horns poking out of her wild hair appeared wearing a skimpy black dress.
"That was fast, I just filed the paperwork for my license," the demon admitted as she glanced around the warehouse.
"License?" Vicky asked, wondering if she was a case 53 or an actual demon.
"It's hell, you need a license for just about everything," the girl replied with a shrug. "I have a class E license which means I can send you into a basic Item World so you can improve your gear and fight monsters."
"Fight?" Vicky asked hopefully, looking forward to a chance to test her upgrades and magic.
The girl smiled at Vicky. "I can't pull off any of the advanced tricks but you'd need to have a lot more power before you could really take advantage of the better licenses so what do you want to jump into?"
Myst handed the demon one of the magic boosting vials. "The vials are currently only powerful enough to give the person that drinks them a couple of cantrips and a small mana pool."
"Thirty levels would help boost the power," the girl mused as she tried to judge how dangerous the monsters would be with what she could sense from the vial. 'He's a giant, he should be able to take everything on the first ten levels, they can always leave if things get hard.' She gestured at the concrete and used a spell to paint the floor with two large red circles, the smallest being large enough for a carriage to park without hitting the edges.
"So much for hiding the circles in a closet," Vicky mused.
The demon laughed as she worked on painting the runes using her painting spell. "You have a giant, I scaled things up so he could actually help."
"Thanks, I appreciate it," Myst assured her, not particularly comfortable about the idea of sending the girls into an Item World based on a magic elixir without support since the Item Worlds in Disgaea had a nasty habit of scaling quickly.
Vicky pulled her phone out and took a video of the magic circles and the runes that were appearing between the two circles, figuring they'd want a record in case they needed to ask someone about it.
"How does it work?" Taylor asked, wondering if they'd be able to duplicate it.
"Once I finish drawing the symbols, I just push a bit of mana into the circle while focusing on the item you want improved. That should cause the circle to glow and open a portal into the item in question," the demon explained as she finished drawing the circle.
"Should?" Amy asked, wishing Myst had summoned someone with a bit more experience.
"This is the first time I've used the ritual outside of the underworld or on a magic elixir, we normally practice with chewing gum," the demon admitted as she charged the circle, causing it to glow with a flickering crimson light. "Once everyone has stepped into the circle, I'll close the portal and time should freeze out here and you'll have as much time as you need to clear all of the levels. Killing all of the monsters on a level will drop you on the next level, same with sending someone through the gate. There's a boss every ten levels, don't worry about skipping monsters as long as you kill the bosses every ten floors."
"Cool," Myst replied then stepped into the glowing circle, looking forward to trying out his eldritch blast and seeing how much mana they could get from the potions.
Vicky smiled as she followed Myst without any hesitation.
Amy glanced at Taylor then stepped into the circle, wondering if they were making a mistake but oddly unconcerned about it.
Taylor made sure to 'accidentally' brush the demon girl's arm with her fingers as she walked into the circle, picking up a demon unlock. She shivered when she realized they were standing next to the edge of a platform that dropped into the abyss. She glanced behind her then took a couple of steps back from the ledge, rather happy that she was wearing her cloak. She glanced up and around, trying to figure out what else was around them, seeing nothing of note beyond a couple of floating platforms and people that were running towards them. "Now what?"
"Practice," Myst replied as he 'reached' out to the field of magic that he could almost touch and pushed in a way that was hard to explain, creating a ball of sparkling magic in the palm of his hand. "Every monster or person in here is just a soulless mana construct."
"Which means I don't have to hold back," Vicky said cheerfully as she spotted the three people dressed in a weird collection of outfits that were charging them.
"Have fun," Myst told her as he tossed the ball of magic at one of the constructs, missing by a couple of feet.
Vicky snickered. "You need to work on that."
"Yeah," Myst agreed as he reached out with his telekinesis and stole the group's weapons, picking up two swords and a staff for his trouble.
Vicky laughed as she watched the crazy looking people float into the air. "That's cheating."
"Bite me," Myst replied as he created another eldritch blast and tossed it at the warrior in front. "If we don't steal the loot while they're alive, it vanishes," he explained as he floated the weapons over so he could see if he wanted to keep them.
Taylor focused on the magic she could feel that was just out of reach and tapped it, creating a ball of sparkling magic in her hand. "I could get used to this."
"When in Rome," Amy muttered as she created a ball of magic and tossed it, hitting one of the constructs in the face and making it twitch, but not doing an appreciable amount of damage to it. "This could take a while."
Myst laughed as Taylor pegged one of the constructs and it merely continued trying to move towards them like a zombie. "Worst case, we'll let Vicky do her impression of Hulk."
"Who?" Vicky asked as she focused on her magic and created a ball of magic in her hand.
"Hulk smash," Myst replied as Vicky tossed the ball of magic, causing her to get distracted and sending the ball crashing into a tree.
"That doesn't count," Vicky complained as she worked on creating another ball of magic.
"Right," Amy lied as she conjured a ball of magic and tossed it at the constructs, wondering how long it was going to take to get their magic up to a useful level.
Comments
Bable Zmith
Okay, now I'm interested. LOL
