Mist of Shadows
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Dragon King Part 23
🕑 Added 2022-10-25 07:19:17 +0000 UTCHarry pulled his attention away from where Mione and Hermione were discussing their time in Hogwarts when Myst walked over wearing a pair of shorts and a t-shirt, glad that Hermione had already warned him about the fact that he had an alternate form. "Feeling better?"
"It's like walking through a sewer," Myst complained as she flopped down in the comfortable looking chair across from Harry and Ginny, glad that the tower had extra lounges. "Even if you don't touch anything, you still want to scrub your skin off when you leave."
"I felt like that after dealing with the Basilisk," Harry admitted. "Did you end up with anything useful?"
Myst swapped back to his normal form and pulled up his inventory so he could look at the collection of magical items he'd picked up from burning the demon lord's magic. "That depends on your definition of useful, I found a gemstone that has a demon trapped inside that gives people an evil magic boy form, a plasma cannon turret I have no way to power or use, a screwed up cyborg minion, a statue that causes people to lose faith in their gods and increases everyone's pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony and wrath the longer they're in the area."
"No power source for the plasma turret?" Mione asked as she walked over with Hermione.
"Or controls," Myst complained as he scrolled through his inventory. "It's almost as useless as the can of never ending badly roasted generic coffee beans."
"It's worth researching," Hermione pointed out, fairly sure he could upgrade the flavor if he actually cared. "Did you get anything that's actually useful?"
Myst smiled as he thought about the cookie tin he'd picked up. "I picked up a large flat screen monitor and a bunch of electronic equipment that should come in useful for showing movies, a cursed shrine that kills plants within a mile of it when you feed it enough magic and a cursed ring that turns people into evil teddy bears when they wear it."
Ginny stared at Myst. "Cursed teddy bears?"
"The multiverse is a weird place," Myst replied with a shrug, not remotely interested in turning himself into a cursed teddy bear that couldn't move or communicate.
Hermione shook her head. "That's not exactly helpful."
Myst smiled at Hermione. "I also picked up a cookie tin that replaces the object you place inside with a parallel version that has a different appearance. I'm looking forward to testing it with t-shirts and the hairpins I have."
"Different styles, different sayings?" Mione asked thoughtfully.
"That's the idea," Myst agreed as he pulled the magic cookie tin out of his inventory and looked at it with his upgrade ability, looking forward to seeing how it upgraded things compared to his own ability. "Give me a second to fix the chance of it turning the contents to ash then we can have some fun."
"How large of a chance?" Ginny asked, curious if it worked with conjured or duplicated items.
"It currently has a one in six chance to turn the contents to ash," Myst explained as he locked the sliders on the percentage of it changing the object's appearance then poured mana into upgrading the upgrade percentage, burning through enough mana to level a large city before he managed to completely remove the chance to ash the items. "And now it doesn't."
"Can you upgrade anything?" Harry asked, thinking about his firebolt.
"I can't upgrade skills which means that I need to be careful upgrading powers and your natural stats so you don't end up with something you can't control," Myst warned them.
"Does that mean you could upgrade our magic?" Ginny asked excitedly.
"Sure. How much of a boost do you want?" Myst asked, not seeing a problem with helping out.
Ginny glanced at Mione. "Any idea how much we can boost our magic before we're blowing things up like Seamus?"
"Start with five percent and run through some spells?" Mione suggested, figuring it was better to start small and work their way up.
"Better safe than sorry," Myst agreed as he reached into his inventory and moved all of the magic sensing goggles from the coffin to a bag. "Do you want to run through some test spells before I boost your magic or do you want me to boost your magic first?"
Ginny pulled her wand out of her sleeve and cast a lumos at the wall, sending out a beam of light like a high powered flashlight. "I should be good, go for it."
Myst spent the mana to upgrade her magic five percent. "That should do it, try again."
Ginny shivered slightly as she felt the magic flowing over her, making her think of lazing in bed with the sun shining on her. "Lumos," she said excitedly, creating another beam of light that seemed slightly brighter. "Was that brighter?"
"Or you're trying harder," Mione mused, not sure lumos was the right spell to test her magic. "Run through a couple spells."
Myst set the cookie tin on the couch next to him then pulled the magical coffin out of his inventory and set it on the ground in front of him. "We might as well test some things while Ginny is testing her magic," he said as he pulled the hairpin angreal out of his inventory, dropped it in the coffin and closed and opened the lid twice, creating four hairpins of dubious quality.
Ginny smiled as she started working through some of her favorite spells, wanting to make sure she still had control of her magic.
Mione frowned when she noticed the flaws in the hairpins. "They look like cheap knockoffs."
"That's because the coffin doesn't make perfect copies, they're half as good," Myst explained as he used his upgrade ability to boost the hairpins to twice the quality and power of the original. "I wanted to make sure I could weaken curses."
"Makes sense," Harry agreed as he pulled his extra wand out of his second sheath. "Can you boost wands?"
Myst focused on the wand with this upgrade ability. "I should be able to, give me a second to take some notes," he said as he pulled up his notepad and copied the numbers on the wand so he'd know what changed. "That's an extra wand, right?"
"Yeah, Mione likes to tinker and you never know when you have to torch a wand so the ministry can't check your prior spells or just have a backup wand," Harry explained.
"It shouldn't be against the law to defend yourself," Mione complained, thinking about some of the crap the 'reformed' Death Eaters had tried to pin on Harry after they'd tried and failed to kill him.
"It shouldn't," Myst agreed as he closed the coffin lid, turning the four nearly perfect hairpins into eight that matched the original in power and appearance. He reached down and collected the hairpins then set them on the couch next to the cookie tin. "Go ahead and set the wand in the coffin and copy it."
Harry set the extra wand in the coffin then closed and opened the lid, creating two knockoffs that looked rougher than the original. "They certainly look worse."
Myst quickly compared the two wands, making sure they were the same then compared the numbers to the numbers for the original. He boosted the two wands to match the original. "Can I see your normal wand?"
"Sure," Harry replied as he pulled out his holly and phoenix feather wand. "What are you checking?"
"One of the attributes is a compatibility stat…" Myst trailed off as he checked Harry's wand and realized that his first wand was nearly 100% compared to the extra wand's 48% and the holly wand had a boost against Voldemort and a lot more power in general than the backup wand.
"What's wrong?" Mione asked.
"I was just comparing his wands, his original has almost a hundred percent compatibility with him, compared to the backup wand's 68%," Myst explained as he worked on boosting the backup wands back up to the original. "It also gives a larger boost."
"Phoenix feathers are hard to come by," Mione grumbled.
Myst handed one of the wands to Harry. "I boosted everything back to where it was, let's see if I can make the other wand better." He focused on the other wand and boosted the wand's compatibility to Harry up to 90% then closed the lid and opened it twice, creating four shabby looking apple wood wands. He focused on one of the wands in the coffin and boosted the compatibility with Harry up to 97% and the quality of the workmanship and durability back up to reasonable levels, leaving the wand's general compatibility at 2.5%. He boosted the power up to the level of Harry's holly wand then picked it up and handed it to Mione. "Try to cast a lumos."
Mione waved the uncomfortable feeling wand and cast her spell which fizzled. "That's worse than a mundane stick, it was fighting the magic."
"Hand it to Harry," Myst said, curious if his idea worked.
Harry took the wand and pointed it at the wall. "Lumos…" he trailed off as a dazzlingly bright light shot out of the end of his wand and illuminated that side of the room. "What the hell?"
"I boosted the wand's power and its compatibility with you, while leaving its general compatibility at 2.5%, in other words, even if you lose it in a fight and someone picks it up, it's going to be worse than useless for most people," Myst explained with a grin.
"Not a bad safety feature, can you make sure Mione and Ginny can use them?" Harry asked, not sure how the ability worked.
"Mione yes, Ginny, not so much, she didn't have an entry for the wand," Myst replied as he upgraded the wand's compatibility with Mione up to 97%. "Give it a spin or a flick."
Mione accepted the wand from Harry then pointed it at the wall. "Lumos," she said, a touch surprised when a bright beam shot out of the end of the wand and struck the wall. "Makes me wish we'd brought the elder wand."
Harry pulled his pant leg up and pulled the elder wand out of its concealed sheath. "I wasn't sure what I was walking into."
Hermione smiled as she thought about her Harry's collection of wands and weapons. "You're almost as paranoid as my Harry."
"I wasn't stuck in a nightmare world," Harry reminded her, fairly sure he would have ended up worse if he'd been stuck in the twisted version of Azeroth. "Give me a couple more years dealing with fangirls and I probably will be."
"I'm not having any trouble with five percent, how about another ten percent?" Ginny asked hopefully.
"No problem," Myst replied as he spent the mana to boost Ginny's magic by 10%, curious how much he could push things before she had issues controlling it. "That should be slightly more noticeable, run some tests and see if you want me to keep boosting your magic or if you need to hit one of the practice halls first."
"Thanks," Ginny replied then went back to testing her magic, noticing a slight difference in the amount of energy she had to push into the spell.
"Did you learn anything?" Harry asked Myst.
"It's certainly interesting, it makes me wonder if Antioch Peverell created the wand or if he got it from someone else like the story," Myst said as he picked up one of the knockoff wands and worked on upgrading it. "It has no real loyalty, you can win it in a fight or by murder in the night. It gives a generous boost if you have its favor and little more than any other decent wand if you don't. If the story of the brothers running into Death is true, your ancestor certainly made the better choice with the cloak."
"Is it cursed?" Mione asked, thinking about the stories of the wand.
"No more than any other extremely valuable object that a bunch of power mad magic users are willing to kill for," Myst replied with a shrug as he finished upgrading the wand to the level of the elder wand. He stuck the wand in the cookie tin then closed the lid and shook the tin, curious what he'd end up with. He opened the cookie tin and pulled out a wand with a slightly different grip. He checked the stats using his upgrade ability then handed the wand to Hermione. "See if it works."
Hermione pointed the new wand at the wall. "Lumos." She blinked as the light was almost painfully bright. "Apparently."
"Nice, you're enough like your alternate that the wand recognizes you," Myst said as he picked up the other two wands and started upgrading them, figuring Harry and Mione could use a couple backup wands.
"How does my holly wand compare?" Harry asked, trying to put things in perspective.
Myst smiled as he compared Harry's original wand with the rest. "It's better than you'd get from the elder wand if you didn't have its favor and it's only a couple of steps down from what someone with the elder wand would get, it's almost on the same level as the full power of the elder wand against Voldemort, not exactly surprising considering it hates him."
"It's always been a good wand," Harry replied with a smile.
Myst put one of the other two wands in the cookie tin and shook it. "Do you want me to increase your wand's durability?"
"Would that decrease its flexibility?" Harry asked, wanting to make sure it didn't screw up his ability to do some of the wand movements.
"No, it would just be harder to break," Myst replied as he opened the tin and looked at the slightly different wand, curious if it had different traits. 'Damn, the numbers are the same, it just looks different.'
"In that case, I'd appreciate it," Harry said, wanting to avoid his wand getting broken again.
Myst upgraded the durability of Harry's holly wand until it was nearly indestructible. "That should keep it from breaking or scratching, do you want me to give it a power boost?"
"Thanks," Harry replied, happy that he wouldn't have to worry as much about his wand getting broken.
Myst spent the mana to boost Harry's wand a bit past the highest level the eldest wand could provide. "That should help. How's your tests going Ginny?"
Ginny finished her last test spell and focused on Myst. "Everything is a bit easier but you might have a point on practicing and not going crazy boosting our magic."
Mione glanced between the wand and Myst. "Is there a reason you're changing the wand's appearance?"
"The cookie tin has a chance to upgrade things, I was sort of curious if we'd get a bonus to certain types of magic," Myst replied as he closed the lid and shook the tin again, mostly because he didn't like the handle.
Mione frowned as she looked at the cookie tin Myst was lightly shaking. "You should probably increase the durability if you're going to be shaking them like that."
"Good point," Myst agreed as he opened the lid and looked at the wand. He smiled when he noticed the wand hadn't changed appearance which probably meant the cookie tin had upgraded it instead. He checked the wand's attributes and grinned when he realized the wand had a quality that boosted charms. "Do you care if I keep this one?"
"Go for it," Harry replied, not worried about a copy of his backup wand.
Myst swapped the wand in the tin for the last knockoff and shook the tin, curious how far he could push things. "Where did you learn wand making?"
Mione smiled as she thought about the large used bookstore that had a bit of everything. "From an old book I picked up in Le Fey's used books in Madrid."
"We spent a decent part of the summer in France with her family, it was great," Harry said, thinking back to his first vacation.
"If I hand you a piece of magical wood and the hair of a magic-using creature, how long would it take to make a wand?" Myst asked as he pulled one of the weirwood wands he'd created when he was trying to make a warcraft style wand out of his inventory and handed it to Mione.
"Ten minutes, maybe fifteen since I don't have some of my specialized tools," Mione mused.
Myst turned to look at Hermione. "Can I have a stray hair?"
"I'm fairly sure a magical animal would work better but sure." Hermione changed into her 'hag' form, causing her clothes to vanish and be replaced by a crimson silk loincloth and halter top.
"Nice," Mione said as she checked Hermione out. "Can I talk you into making a copy of your clothes?"
"That depends, can I talk you into teaching wand crafting?" Hermione asked as she grabbed a stray hair and handed it to Mione. "I've never been able to find decent books on the subject."
"I'd be happy to," Mione replied as she pinned the hair against the wand shaped stick with her thumb and drew her wand. "Do you want the best wand I can make or something quick?"
"Let's go," Myst paused when Hermione pulled her halter top off and dropped it in the coffin, "with quick and dirty, I have a couple of wand blanks."
"Quick and dirty it is," Mione said as she ran her eyes over Hermione's breasts.
Hermione shook her head, unable to keep her lips from curving up in a slight smile as she closed and opened the coffin twice, making four copies of her magical halter top. 'It's nice to be appreciated,' she thought as she tossed the halter tops next to Myst on the couch and took her loincloth off, giving everyone a nice view, fairly sure spending time in the screwed up version of Azeroth had screwed with her morals or at least burned the last shreds of modesty because she was reasonably sure she wouldn't have been this much of a flirt before she'd gotten stuck there.
Myst smiled when Hermione bent down and closed and opened the coffin a few times, creating a bunch of knockoff copies he'd have to upgrade. 'Even without hormones, she's still a work of art.'
"Please tell me you brought your camera," Ginny said, not looking away from Hermione.
"Yep," Harry replied, hoping he could talk Hermione into letting him take some pictures of her and Mione.
Mione pulled her attention away from her alternate and silently cast the spell she used to merge the magical cores with the wands. She carefully pulled Hermione's hair through the wand, lining everything up as best she could before the magic faded. She handed the new wand to Myst. "Give it a flick or a swish."
Myst looked at the weirwood wand with his upgrade ability, not particularly surprised that it was a decent wand for anyone that liked learning. He pointed it at the wall and chanted, "Lumos!" he smiled as he got a halfway decent beam of light for his efforts. "Could be worse."
"What type of wood is it?" Mione asked, not recognizing the ash white wood.
"Weirwood, it's useful because it's almost as hard as ironwood and it doesn't rot," Myst replied as he boosted the wand's durability to the point where it would survive the heart of a star. He boosted the magic boosting aspect until it was better than the elder wand. "Do you want a new wand or should I drop it in the coffin and make extra?"
"I'll take it, we can always toss it in later." Hermione picked up the thirty two loincloths and set them on the couch next to Myst. "Do you think you can fix the cursed gem by dropping it in the coffin?" she asked as she accepted the wand and put it in her inventory.
"Worth a shot," Myst replied as he pulled the cursed sapphire out of his inventory and dropped it in the coffin. He closed the coffin lid and opened it, not sure what he'd get considering the demon trapped inside. He stared at the two large sapphires that looked the same as the original for a couple of seconds then checked with his upgrade ability. "Huh, two perfectly functional demon prisons that give you the ability to turn into magical teenagers."
"Any personality changes?" Ginny asked.
"Doesn't look like it," Myst replied as he double checked the other sapphire, wondering where the demon had gone. He checked his abilities, weaknesses and curses then picked up the sapphire and used it when he didn't find anything suspect. He checked his new ability to make sure there weren't any surprises then used it, shifting to his new form, changing from a child with black hair and sort of naturally tanned skin to a pale skinned fifteen year old teenager wearing a neon pink speedo that did very little to cover his package and a cowboy hat.
"Interesting outfit," Hermione said, hoping you could change the starting outfit like their hag form.
"It comes with a small boost to your magic and agility and the ability to jump a couple of stories and land safely," he offered, doing his best to ignore the uncomfortable swimwear.
"Can I borrow that?" Ginny asked hopefully, staring at Myst's equipment that was on display because of the nearly sheer fabric and the way he was sitting.
Mione wandlessly conjured a rolled up newspaper and playfully hit Ginny over the head.
Ginny pulled her attention away from Myst and looked at Mione. "What was that for?"
"You were staring," Mione said with a straight face as if she hadn't been doing the same.
"So are you," Ginny argued.
"So? Last I checked, you can't conjure newspapers," Mione replied as she reached down and picked up the other sapphire. "How do I use it?"
"I'm guessing the usual way, tongue or hand," Ginny teased, knowing she meant the sapphire.
Mione wandlessly charmed the newspaper to keep hitting Ginny on the head and tossed it at her. "I meant the sapphire."
"Help, I'm being oppressed," Ginny complained good naturedly as she dodged the newspaper.
Myst snickered as he watched Ginny try to dodge and avoid the newspaper for a couple of swings before blasting it out of the air with a whispered spell. "Give me a second to check something."
Ginny stuck her tongue out at Mione. "Just wait, I'll have my revenge."
Mione playfully flipped Ginny off. "Bring it."
Myst checked to make sure the sapphire hadn't screwed up his other forms then double checked the sapphire Mione was holding in case he'd missed something. "Just focus on using it then changing forms."
Mione used the sapphire then swapped to an athletic looking green haired teenage boy wearing a neon blue speedo and a witch's hat. He looked at his long green hair. "This would be more useful for disguises if it didn't have green hair."
"You look a bit like Edward," Hermione said as she studied Mione, having some issues with the fact that Mione's current appearance was rather hot, mostly because she looked a lot like her cousin.
Mione smiled as she turned and looked at Hermione. "There are worse people to look like, we could look like Draco or Ron."
"Yeah, no thanks," Hermione said, trying not to think of either of the boys naked, wishing he didn't know what Ron looked like without his clothes thanks to their time in Azeroth.
"Let me try," Ginny said as she walked back over.
Mione handed the sapphire then looked down at his equipment and sighed when he realized that he was poking out of his speedo thanks to Hermione's current lack of clothes. He changed back to her normal form, looking forward to having some fun with Ginny later. "Hopefully we don't end up with a speedo every time."
Myst double checked his ability. "You should end up with the clothes you were wearing the last time you changed."
"That's a relief," Ginny said as she used the sapphire. She focused on her new form, changing to look like a teenage redhead that looked like a mix of Bill and the twins. "How do I look?"
"Better than Ron," Mione said as she checked out Ginny's equipment, looking forward to having some fun with Ginny's new form when she got her alone as she was larger than Harry.
Myst tossed Harry the sapphire then swapped his speedo for a pair of shorts using his equipment page, not seeing a point in making things annoying for Harry and tired of the way the speedo was riding up his ass. "You might as well pick up the alternate form, it might be useful."
Harry used the sapphire then swapped forms, changing to a well built fifteen year old. "Anything?"
Hermione smiled at Harry. "Not bad, you look like you could be on a magazine cover."
Harry glanced down at his larger equipment then changed back, not particularly amused by the way the speedo was digging into various places. "What else do you have?"
"Flight? Ageless immortality, earth and plant control, flower generation, necklaces that keep you from aging?" Myst offered as he picked up one of the loincloths and started upgrading it.
Hermione turned and looked at the door to the lounge when it opened, revealing Dawn, Loise, Alene, Kari and a red faced Egwene standing in the hallway sans clothes. "Need something?"
"Egwene has something she wants to ask," Dawn said, recognizing Myst by his mana.
"Can you just say it?" Egwene asked hopefully, wishing Myst was still in his female form so she could forget that she was basically showing off for a boy.
"Nope," Dawn replied with a grin. "Your show, if you can't say it, I doubt you'll be able to follow through."
Egwene took a breath and let it out, not sure why she'd been elected the spokesperson for this particular wool headed plan but figuring it was better than letting Kari blurt things out as she'd go further than they needed to. "Dawn mentioned ways to get more power…" she trailed off, not particularly comfortable being this forward, especially with people she'd only just met.
Myst glanced at Dawn then focused on Egwene, enjoying the view a lot more than he would have in his child form. "What are you offering?" He tossed a question to Dawn, 'What's up?'
'The girls wanted a power boost, I floated the idea of sex with another girl, Kari floated the idea of fucking her mother's alternate and her aunts,' Dawn replied, rather amused by the entire situation and glad she was an empath because Egwene wasn't actually as opposed as she would have thought.
"Dawn said you want to see me have sex with Kari and my sisters, how much of a boost are you willing to give us?" Egwene asked, doing her best to ignore the fact that her face and ears were beat red and the fact that she was talking about letting people see something that should be private.
Myst glanced at Kari then between Alene and Loise al'Vere. He skimmed the girls' thoughts, trying to figure out how much making the deal would screw them up. He'd barely brushed Kari's mind before he realized that she was a naughty girl that would be legitimately happy to have some fun with her family. Alene wasn't going to be particularly broken about it, nor Loise, mostly because they were interested in girls and figured it was worth it.
"Hold out for at least double," Dawn suggested.
Myst wasn't particularly surprised that Egwene's focus was a bit scattered, though he was surprised that the top two reasons were because of Nynaeve ranting about her clothes and Rand ranting about her unbound hair and lack of clothes. Of course, her desire to be a legend and impossibly strong played a large part as did her attraction to Kari because she looked a bit like Rand. 'There are worse reasons to have sex than the power of a god,' he mused. "How do you feel about being twice as strong as the Dragon Reborn?"
Kari smiled as she pushed Egwene into the room. "Fantastic, how much more could we get if I let you fuck me while Dawn fucks my mother's alternate across from us?" she asked, figuring they might as well see how much they could get.
'Take the deal,' Dawn teased, looking forward to having sex with Egwene and watching Myst fuck Kari.
"Three times as strong as the Dragon Reborn and I'll toss in magical underwear and some magical clothes and boots," Myst replied with a smile, looking forward to the show.
Ginny changed back to her normal appearance. "Can we join?"
Myst sensed the girls wavering. "I'll toss in some extremely powerful angreal which would give you even more of a boost and immortality."
"Deal," Alene cut in before Egwene could screw up the deal, not in the least bit concerned that she was trading sex for power, immortality and wealth. 'More than I'd ever get out of marriage and it's a shorter commitment.'
Loise smiled as she walked into the room, rather amused with the whole deal.
Dawn followed the girls into the room and locked the door behind her, not seeing a point in having someone interrupt their fun. 'This would be better if Xander was here, but I'll take what I can get.'
0o0o0
Elia sighed as she looked over yet another letter from one of the nobles in the crownlands that was basically asking the king why day had turned to night and if the world was going to end. She dropped the message in the pile that needed some type of generic, the world isn't going to end letter, then picked up the next message and glanced over it. "How much does it cost to hire an assassin?"
"Depends," Varys told her, reasonably sure she was joking. "Which one of the lords has offended you?"
"Just one of the priests saying that the gods are unhappy and that a donation to the faith would help quell their anger, no one signed it," Elia complained as she handed the message to Varys.
Varys looked up from the message he was reading and read the other message. "I don't recognize the handwriting but that just means they're not a noble in the Crownlands or anyone I've communicated with recently. I can't blame the faith for trying, considering their recent losses but we should be able to safely ignore them."
"Especially since without knowing who sent the message, it would be hard to know where to send the gold or if it was even sent by the faith," Elia said, not particularly inclined to do much of anything for the faith at the best of times. "Do you have any idea how we're supposed to tell everyone that we're in a different world?"
"I suggest telling the nobles that the stars have changed and that you've sent a couple of ships to investigate after the prince had a dream of new lands. It lets everyone know that he's on top of things and that we're doing something about the situation," Varys said, not sure how to feel about magic, mostly because one lunatic had castrated him as a child so he could do a ritual and Elia had healed everything by touching his hand and loaning him her power. "Hopefully we'll be able to get something useful out of Ser Barristan and Prince Oberyn when they return."
"Hopefully," Elia agreed, wishing he'd left a better way to reach him if they had an emergency.
0o0o0
Comments
Mist of Shadows
It's nice to toss up a bit here and there for reactions to the craziness.
Bable Zmith
Thnx
