Mist of Shadows
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Dragon King Part 32
🕑 Added 2022-11-29 08:35:41 +0000 UTCSaroiya Farseen glanced over the rather simple contract for the fourth time then looked up at the teenager with dark hair and sparkling blue eyes that was absently shaking a strange metal box while he watched a group of Aes Sedai try on a collection of silk dresses. "What's the catch?"
Myst pulled his attention off the collection of Aes Sedai that were trying on dresses on the other side of the gym and looked at the stocky woman that wasn't much taller than his current form. "Emotionally, you're giving up your children and you're risking your mental health in exchange for the skill to manipulate and explore the dream world and a boost to your appearance, lifespan and power, you'll have to square that with your conscience."
Saroiya glanced at the cots that lined the walls, most of which were already partially filled with sleeping Aes Sedai wearing copies of the ring that would result in children. It was hard to recognize some of them, despite the fact that she'd known most of them or at least a version of them for decades because of the changes in appearance. None of the changes on the women she could recognize were particularly large individually but they certainly added up, making the women look polished in a way a Domani courtesan would envy. "Not particularly hard since they'll be cared for and loved and wouldn't exist without making the deal."
"You're heading back to your world to deal with the remaining demons and to make sure the world stays on track, you'll have to live with your choice," Myst warned her, knowing she'd already made up her mind, children she'd never expected to have for power, wealth and an increased appearance wasn't a particularly hard choice in her mind.
"Not particularly difficult," Saroiya replied, not seeing a problem considering her daughter or daughters would likely join the Tower and help this version of the world. "And the contract?"
"No catch, I just wanted to make sure there weren't any misunderstandings, I'll provide for their education and physical needs while they're with us, after their six years are up, they're free to leave or stay to help as they see fit. We'll even help with jobs or transportation if they want to sign up with the White Tower," Myst explained, feeling like he'd given the same lecture a hundred times though it had only been a couple of dozen as most of the Aes Sedai hadn't even hesitated to sign the contract and increase their personal power and appearance.
Saroiya set the contract on the table, grabbed a fountain pen from the desk and signed her name on the line provided. "You have a deal," she said as she slid the parchment across the desk, hoping she wasn't making a mistake.
Myst glanced at the signature then dropped it in the box of signed contracts. "How much taller do you want to be?"
"At least six inches, no more than eight," Saroiya replied, wishing she was taller but not exceptionally so. She glanced down at her breasts that weren't particularly impressive. "Can you give me a bit of a boost when you improve my figure?"
"Of course," Myst replied as he looked at the Aes Sedai with his upgrade ability. "Let's see, half a foot…" he trailed off as he started playing with the sliders, trying to get something the Aes Sedai would be happy with.
'Having fun?' Dawn asked via telepathy.
'Not particularly,' Myst admitted as he tossed up a life sized illusion of what his upgrade ability was showing him for possible changes so that Saroiya could have input on the process. 'Most of the Aes Sedai barely blinked at the idea of giving up children for power, it's depressing.'
'Eh? If they're willing to make the deal, you might as well take advantage of it,' Dawn replied as she continued shaking a copy of the magic cookie tin, trying to upgrade the schematics for the Atha'an Miere ship that Hermione had created with a neat mapping spell and a bit of research with a copy of the sailing book along with a couple of books on the subject from Mione's world.
'I'm aware, it just leaves me feeling like a depressed Disney villain that is just going through the motions and not having fun,' Myst admitted. "Larger or smaller?" he asked as he adjusted one of the sliders on her bust.
"Larger…" she trailed off as the image's breasts increased to the point where they were larger than her head. "Smaller."
'None of them need power, they want it,' Dawn reminded him as she glanced at the adorable dark haired girl with a wolf's tail that was playing tag with the triplets and some of the children from one of the Emond's Fields. 'Speaking of power, have you upgraded the coffin so you can duplicate people?'
'I haven't gotten around to it,' he admitted as he swapped to adjusting Saroiya's legs when she indicated that she liked the changes to her height and bust.
'Why not?' Dawn asked.
'I've been busy sorting through the Black Ajah, channelers from the Land of Madmen, sul'dam and damane, trying to figure out how many of them need to be fed potions and I've been trying to learn how to create ter'angreal, mostly because it's an interesting if frustrating process,' Myst replied as he opened his cookie tin and pulled the hopefully upgraded schematics out. He stuck the blueprints in his inventory to look at later then pulled out a copy of one of the magic boy gems and dropped it in the tin.
'What type of talents did the channelers from the Land of Madmen have?' Dawn asked, curious about the crazy magic users.
'At least half of them have the talents for crafting ter'angreal and angreal seeds which probably means they're descended from crafters,' Myst replied, wishing he had access to someone from the Age of Legends with the talent.
"Are we done?" Saroiya asked, barely recognizing the image of herself and happy with the fact because the image was certainly more attractive and didn't have any of her glaring flaws.
"Are you happy with the changes?" Myst asked, reasonably sure the image could have won most beauty pageants unless the judges were blind.
"Ecstatic," Saroiya replied with a smile.
Myst slid the slider on how much power the Aes Sedai could access up so that she had more than Moiraine had started with then applied the changes and spent the mana to upgrade the woman. He gave her a couple of seconds to get used to the changes then gestured towards where Egwene was standing near the empty cots. "Grab a ring from my assistant and a dreaming stick and get some sleep."
Saroiya giggled as she stared at the mirror, looking at the unfamiliar and yet still familiar face that would make a Domani weep with envy.
Myst turned his attention towards the sleeping Aes Sedai, skipping over the details for anything interesting while he waited for Saroiya to pull herself back together. 'Oh, one half nymph with red hair and blue eyes, high intelligence and physical abilities.' He grabbed the slider for the number of children she was having and slit it up to six then spent the mana, reasonably sure Nyneave's ability to give people her regeneration would keep the woman alive.
'This is why you should look into ways to copy people,' Dawn teased.
'I'll take a look when I get a chance,' Myst replied. "Do you like the changes?" he asked the Aes Sedai, trying to be polite but knowing there was a bit of a line of Aes Sedai waiting for upgrades.
"Thank you!" Saroiya blurted.
Myst smiled as he handed her a popsicle stick skill book for dream walking. "This should let you get through the maze without getting caught by anything too nasty, just break it."
"Thank you," Saroiya replied as she broke the stick and realized she knew a lot more about the dream world than she'd known before breaking it. She smiled as she headed towards an empty cot to start her adventure, looking forward to clearing her side of the bargain so she could get a drink and have some fun.
Myst turned his attention to the next Aes Sedai in line, a fat woman with a face not even a mother could love.
0o0o0
"Lord Myst, I need to talk to you!" one of the Aes Sedai called out as Myst left the gym.
'What part of I'm grabbing lunch did you not understand?' Myst complained as he stepped out of view of the room and used his ring to turn invisible. Normally, he'd have loved to spend time looking at naked women but honestly, he was getting tired of explaining the same things over and over again, despite the fact that everything was laid out in the contract and he'd assigned one of the Aes Sedai to go over everything with the Aes Sedai before they got in line.
He scanned the Aes Sedai's surface thoughts that had called his name on the off chance that she actually had something important then sprinted down the hallway when he realized that she wanted to talk about trading sex for power. 'I'm not fucking someone that isn't going to enjoy it, especially when they'd gleefully skin innocents if it increased their power,' he thought as he sprinted down the hallway, happy that his boots were silenced.
Myst slipped past a couple of attractive ex-novices that he wouldn't mind making deals with on his way to his favorite lounge. 'Mat has the right idea, the less I have to deal with Aes Sedai, the better.'
He slipped into the lounge and locked the door, wanting to take a couple of minutes to eat his lunch without a bunch of people nagging him about increasing their power. 'It's an evil reflection, it shouldn't surprise me that everyone is willing to trade sex for power.'
He pulled the twisted and mangled servant out of his inventory, set her on the couch and gave her regeneration. He frowned when his regeneration failed to actually repair her face or her missing arm. His frown turned into a scowl when he looked at her stats with his upgrade ability and realized that her genetics were screwed up to the point where she didn't have a complete form his regeneration could use as a template.
He scanned her memories as he checked her mental stats, not particularly impressed by the clone's minimal intelligence or the fact that she was barely three days old and she'd spent most of that in a lab being poked and prodded when she wasn't having information burned into her brain in a process that wasn't remotely safe if the damage log was accurate. 'At least my regeneration should fix the damage the process did,' he mused as he tried to sort through her twisted mind, fairly sure erasing her memories and faulty programming would be a kindness since she was basically a combination of a sex toy and an assassin right now.
Myst spent a decent chunk of mana to upgrade her brain and her intelligence then popped the cork on the elf potion and floated it over to the twisted clone. "Drink that," he ordered, feeling slightly guilty when she drank the 'cursed' potion without hesitation and a smile on her twisted face. He watched as her body changed from a mangled mess into an elf that looked like they'd stepped out of a Lord of the Rings movie or fantasy convention. He smiled as he checked her over and realized that she was in perfect health. 'I might need to make some elf potions that don't erase memories,' he mused as he skimmed her surface thoughts, not surprised that she was a bit confused.
"Master?" the elf girl asked in confusion, knowing that Myst was her master but not sure of much else.
"Don't worry, we'll get you sorted out," Myst assured her as he pulled his coffin out of his inventory, setting it down in front of him. He skimmed over the information his upgrade ability was showing him about the coffin, trying to find the right quality to upgrade. 'It's basically splitting things into perfect copies, not sure I'd want to copy myself but it should work.'
"Good," the elf girl replied as she looked around the room, not sure what she was supposed to be doing but figuring Myst would tell her when he had the time.
Myst took a couple of seconds to weigh the ethical concerns about cloning people before deciding that as long as they treated the clones like people, there was nothing inherently wrong with having the ability. 'Selena, I ended up having to use an elf potion on the twisted servant, do you want to come help her get settled?' he asked his demonic servant via telepathy.
Selena teleported into the room with a smile, using her ability to teleport to her current master. "Yes!" she said cheerfully as she studied the attractive and blonde haired naked elf that looked like a girl in her mid teens, looking forward to having some competent help, even if she had to train her from the ground up.
The elf girl stared at the redhead in a silk loincloth and halter top, wondering if that was the official uniform. "Hi?"
"This is Selena, she's the head maid for the castle," Myst explained as he made a skill book of Selena's cleaning skills to help the elf get started.
The elf girl looked at Myst. "Does that mean she's my boss?"
"That depends, do you want to work as a maid?" Myst asked, wanting to give the girl a choice in occupations.
"I'm not sure," the elf girl admitted, fairly sure figuring out why she couldn't remember everything was more important. "Why can't I remember anything?"
"That's a side effect of the potion I used to fix your body, you were a bit broken because the mad scientist that created you didn't have all of the kinks worked out," Myst explained.
"Did I have a name?" the elf girl asked, making a note to come up with a list of things to ask when the master had time.
Myst shook his head. "Not that I know of, you were only a couple of days old."
"Oh," the elf girl replied, not sure how to take the news but sort of relieved that she wasn't missing years of her life.
Myst handed the elf girl the popsicle stick. "Break the stick and you'll get the skills you need to do the job, if you don't like the job, we can find something else," he assured her.
The elf girl broke the popsicle stick and smiled when she realized she knew how to clean a bunch of things and which chemicals to use for each job. "Maybe this won't be so bad."
Selena smiled at the elf. "Don't worry, cleaning can be fun, especially when you have magic."
Myst pulled a bag filled with the 'basic' defensive package out of his inventory and handed it to the elf girl. "These should give you immunity to cold and fire and a decent amount of protection from everything else."
"Thank you!" the elf girl replied as she hugged Myst, glad that she had such an understanding master.
"You're welcome," Myst replied, not sure how to feel about the girl that he'd basically reformatted, if only because the original version was screwed up beyond his ability to fix without digging through her mind and basically rewriting everything.
"I'll check in later," Selena told Myst then reached out and set her hand on the elf's shoulder and teleported back to the keep.
"One problem dealt with, ninety nine to go," Myst muttered as he upgraded the coffin so he could duplicate living creatures. He pulled the vacant eyed and partially rotted cyborg out of his inventory and set her on the couch so he could work on digging through her fragmented memories, trying to figure out if any of her memories were salvageable. Fortunately or unfortunately, it didn't take him all that long to learn that the girl in question was a version of Taylor Hebert that had stumbled into an alien lab in the middle of Brockton Bay and decided to use it as a base.
He reached over and touched the cyborg on her cheek, one of the only places she still had original skin that wasn't rotting. He watched as multiple pieces of cybernetic implants were pushed out of her body over the next minute, her flesh, muscles and bones regenerating with visible swiftness. He caught her with telekinesis as she started flopping around when the control chips in her neck were pushed out and disconnected.
Myst winced when he noticed the gel and plastic oozing out of her breasts as they deflated, going from a C-cup to an A-cup at best. 'At least I have upgrade,' he mused as he gestured and used a cleaning spell on the naked teenager that was slowly filling out as his regeneration rebuilt her before his eyes. He looked at the fragmented mind quality and tossed mana at it, restoring the connections to the memories that still existed.
Taylor Hebert 'woke up' with a gasp, going from the perpetual and barely coherent daze she'd been in since getting turned into an abomination to full clarity for the first time in what felt like years. "What the fuck?!"
"My regeneration doesn't play nice with cyberware," Myst admitted. "Welcome back to the land of the living."
"Where are we?" Taylor asked as she glanced around the lounge, wishing she had her glasses.
"Honestly? We're in a magic tower, in a land filled with magic and mystery on a version of Earth at least a few thousand years in the future, probably," Myst replied with a shrug.
Taylor stared at Myst in disbelief. "Probably?"
Myst pulled his globe out of his inventory and floated it over. "The world matches a book series that I read about on my version of Earth, it was supposed to be in the future and the past, it was a weird time loop or maybe events tended to repeat, I'm not actually sure how things were supposed to play out as the author died before the series was finished."
"How did you get here?" Taylor asked as she looked at the globe, noticing that none of the continents matched.
"No clue, I was sitting down to work on a project and the next thing I know, I'm stuck in the body of a child," Myst explained.
Taylor scowled when she looked down and realized she naked and that her breasts had shrunk. "What happened to my breasts?"
"You had implants, my power basically pushed them out," Myst explained.
"Probably for the best," Taylor admitted, not particularly comfortable with the idea of purposely modifying her body to have larger breasts as the breast implants hadn't been intentional in the first place and really it sounded like something Emma would do.
"What's the last thing you remember?" Myst asked.
"Before getting turned into a slave?" Taylor asked as she tried to remember the events leading up to getting mastered. "One of the local tinkers went on a bombing spree, my left arm got turned into glass and my legs got badly burned."
"That sucks," Myst replied, not sure how to make anything better.
"No shit." Taylor took a breath then let it out, trying to calm down and not freak out since the healer had obviously put her back together. "I'm not sure how I made it back to my base, I just remember making it back to the base and hearing something about an autodoc activating as I was passing out. I woke up in pain and everything was fuzzy thanks to whatever the computer pumped into my system. I was turned into a very impressive cyborg and cleaned up a good portion of my city… before I was mastered, followed by my body being taken over by some tinker who was working with the master, or maybe for him? It’s kind of fuzzy as my mind was pretty much suppressed at that point, I only remember flashes of things.” She tilted her head and considered some of her fragmentary memories. “I think I may have been used to kill Shadow Stalker at some point… good times.” She smiled faintly. “So… how did I get here?”
"One of my abilities pulls things from other dimensions," Myst explained. "When I realized how badly you were injured and that you weren't responsive, I healed you."
"You're a healer?" Taylor asked.
"Technically, I have regeneration that I can loan to other people though I can technically use magic to heal people, it's just nowhere near as effective or nice," Myst explained as he checked her with his upgrade ability. 'Inactive connection to Queen Administrator, bug control,' he mused as he checked to make sure she wasn't going to fall over. "Do you want something to eat?"
Taylor glanced down at her stomach when it rumbled. "I could eat."
"Do you want to head to the cafeteria or do you want me to conjure something?" Myst asked with a smile.
Taylor raised her eyebrows. "You can conjure food?"
Myst conjured a pair of bagels on a plate on the coffee table then picked one of them up and took a bite. "Magic exists or something close enough to magic that it's easier to just call it magic."
"I don't suppose you can magic up some clothes?" Taylor asked, not particularly happy with being naked in front of a strange man, even if he rescued her.
"Not exactly," Myst replied as he pulled a fluffy robe out of his inventory and tossed it to her. "Dawn has my magic box that creates clothes so you'll have to go with something I have in my inventory."
"You have a magic box that creates clothes?" Taylor asked as she pulled the robe on, wishing she had an inventory.
"One of my abilities pulls interesting or useful things from other worlds, I have a lot of random things taking up space in my inventory," Myst replied, making a mental note to sort through his inventory when he had a chance since he'd been sticking a bunch of random gacha prizes into his inventory the last couple of days without doing more than giving them a quick glance.
"Do people use cape names here?" Taylor asked, wondering what she was supposed to call him.
Myst shook his head. "Not really, though some people end up using nicknames. I'm Myst Targaryen."
"Taylor Hebert," Taylor offered as she picked up the bagel, skipping her cape name since he'd seen her without a mask and she was apparently in another world. "How common are powers here?" she asked then took a bite of the surprisingly tasty bagel, briefly missing the cybernetic chemical sniffer she had used to automatically check her food for drugs or poisons.
"I'm not sure what percentage of ogier have the ability to manipulate plants with their songs or what percentage of the Aiel can do weird things with songs since most of them have a taboo against singing as adults and they live in a desert. If we ignore one of the islands that came from another world, two to three percent of the population has some form of magic. It's actually genetic but the main group of magic users has a stigma against having children so they've been slowly culling the ability out of the population," Myst explained as Taylor finished the bagel, practically inhaling it.
"One of the islands came from somewhere else?" Taylor asked in surprise.
Myst pointed at Westeros on the globe. "Westeros used to be on another planet."
Taylor wasn't sure even Scion could pull off moving an entire continent to another world. "How did that happen?" she asked, wondering if the island coming from somewhere else was just a weird legend.
"The current theory involves the gods tossing the island off their world," Myst offered with a smile.
"Are you being serious?" Taylor asked, not sure if the guy was lying.
"Unfortunately," Myst admitted. "It happened last week, we're still trying to sort through the political fallout. At least we didn't cause a tsunami when we appeared."
'So much for it being just a legend,' Taylor mused, thinking about Newfoundland and the destruction Leviathan had caused. "What type of magic does the tower have?"
"It increases the rate people learn magic and it's larger than it should be," Myst replied as he pulled one of the magic gems out of his inventory. "Do you want to learn magic?"
"What's the catch?" Taylor asked, not sure if he was a magic user or some type of trump.
"No catch for the basics, if I was dropped in another world, I'd sure as hell want someone to give me magic," Myst replied as he handed her the gem. "You just need to concentrate on using the gem and you'll acquire the ability to turn into a magic girl."
Taylor stared at Myst in disbelief. "Are we talking magic girls like in anime?"
"Or magic boys," Myst replied with a shrug. "Your magic forms get a decent boost to your strength and durability as well as your ability to jump several stories and land safely."
Taylor studied Myst's expression, not sure if he was serious or not. "Please tell me that I'm not going to be forced to do silly poses and shout attack names."
Myst laughed. "Not unless you find some magical item that requires it.”
"Will it affect my physical appearance?” Taylor asked, trying to sound casual. “I know most magic girls seemed to gain a cup size if nothing else.”
"It might change your hair color and length,” Myst said thoughtfully, “but your physical appearance should remain roughly the same. If you want to alter your appearance to something a little closer to how you were while you were cybernetically enhanced I’d have to use a spell or one of my abilities.”
"Might be worth looking into," Taylor agreed, looking forward to seeing what she could accomplish with magic or whatever they were using.
Comments
Mist of Shadows
That's actually decently close to what she found and no, this Taylor isn't from an existing story, she's just a bit off from her normal path.
MND
Okay, is this Taylor Hebert from an existing story? It sounds like she found a Night City Cyberpunk 2077 Ripper-doc lab that had an experimental Auto-Doc, 3D Printer, and tech-database...
