Mist of Shadows
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Dragon King Part 17
🕑 Added 2022-10-04 04:22:38 +0000 UTCAginor glanced at the young woman's face and dismissed her as being a true threat when he didn't see the 'ageless' look the binder inflicted. He glanced at the strange items scattered on tables then focused on the child that was floating in the air. "Parley? I'm afraid this isn't a discussion, the Great Lord wants you dead."
Myst felt a shiver of ice run down his spine when he saw the cords of pitch black mana that ran from the back of Aginor and Balthamel's heads into the distance. 'Don't use telepathy on them,' he told Hermione via telepathy.
'I wasn't planning on it, they have a link to the Dark One,' Hermione replied, ready to apparate out or attack when things turned hostile.
'Just making sure,' Myst replied as he folded his arms in front of his chest so he could work on making popsicle stick shaped skill books without the insane scientist noticing. "What if I can offer you a better deal?" he asked, trying to appeal to their greed as he created a skill book of the Forsaken's knowledge of channeling,
"What can you offer that the Great Lord can't?" Aginor asked, figuring he'd humor the child for a few minutes before he killed him and gave the woman to Balthamel.
"Flight and immortality?" Myst asked as he stuck the skill book in his inventory and copied the mad scientist's knowledge of genetic engineering.
Aginor laughed then coughed, having forgotten for a second that his body was ancient and broken. "Let's say I believe you, what would you want in exchange?"
"I'd appreciate your help with a project," Myst said as he copied Balthamel's skill at channeling and stuck the popsicle sticks in his inventory.
"What type of project?" Aginor asked, curious what the child wanted despite his orders from Ishamael to kill him immediately.
'Do you want me to stun one of them?' Hermione asked, less than happy with the way the guy in the mask was looking at her.
'Give me a minute,' Myst replied as he copied Aginor's shield against the taint. "I'm curious if it's possible to fix a zomara so they're not useless for anything other than being a particularly stupid servant."
"Why would you want to?" Aginor asked, surprised the child even knew what a zomara was considering the lack of proper education in the current age.
"They'd be particularly good at figuring out secrets if you could make them without a connection to the Dark One and without memory issues," Myst replied as he copied Balthamel's history skill and stuck the skill 'books' in his inventory.
Balthamel growled as he thought about giving the mind reading servants the ability to actually remember anything other than commands.
Aginor glanced at Balthamel then focused on Myst. "The connection to the Great Lord is what gives them the ability and the memory loss was the only way to keep them from going insane."
'Drop the guy in the mask.' Myst reached out with his telekinesis and crushed Aginor and Balthamel's eyes then spun them like tops, figuring it would make aiming difficult if they managed to channel through the pain.
Hermione gestured and hit each of the spinning Forsaken with stunners, dropping them unconscious. "We're going to have to figure out how to shield people."
"It's on the list," Myst replied as he flew over and shoved the two Forsaken into his spatial ring, wanting to make sure they didn't wake up early or die from blood loss. "I saw Moiraine's shield so I can probably make it work but I want to run some tests before I try it in a fight."
"Did you get anything you can use against Ishamael from the gacha wheels?" Hermione asked hopefully, knowing he could level cities and that eventually the gloves would come off.
"Not so far," Myst admitted. "I haven't checked everything but most of the stuff I've looked at are useless trinkets like the bag of mismatched communication stones or the magical tattoo that temporarily turns your arm into an unnaturally strong chitinous claw for an hour if you kill a worthy opponent or cursed items that we're going to have to carefully test."
Hermione glanced at the items scattered on the tables. "Not everything is going to be amazing and we can probably reverse engineer the communication stones. Do you think the dagger that hides people from shadowspawn could hide us from Ishamael considering how much of the Dark One's power he's used?"
Myst considered the question for a couple of seconds then shook his head. "I wouldn't count on it but we should probably send someone to grab the stash before someone finds it. We need to get Dawn working on duplicating Mat's medallion."
"Do you think one of the girls can cut Aginor and Balthamel's connections to the Dark One so we can get some actual answers?" Hermione asked, knowing that would make it safer to look through their minds with telepathy.
"Considering Rand severed Ishamael and Asmodean's connections in the book, it shouldn't be impossible but it might be a talent or something that isn't possible in this version of the world." Myst wasn't sure how much to trust the books after Elayne had to kill the Whitecloak assassin and he hadn't had a chance to check some of his knowledge of weaves with the two Forsaken.
"Something to keep in mind," Hermione agreed, hoping they could break the connection so they could get some actual answers.
Myst read the description of the skill book for the dark shield that he'd stuck in his inventory. "So much for getting a usable skill to deal with the taint."
"Tainted or broken?" Hermione asked.
"Mostly useless, it creates a connection that lets the Dark One monitor your magic use and keep track of your location but he could just snap it, not sure why he'd want to considering it doesn't really cost him anything and it gives him information but it's effectively useless for anyone fighting him."
"Can you use it to figure out how to filter the taint?" Hermione asked, not surprised that something that came from a dark god was useless.
"I'd get more out of studying the actual connection," Myst mused as he tried to figure out how to duplicate the filtering effect by dragging saidin through a pool of mana and tossing or burning the mana when it got tainted. "We'll have to run some tests."
"Do you think Mat's medallion would help with the taint?" Hermione asked thoughtfully. "If you're immune to magic, the taint is magic, right?"
Myst frowned as he considered the question. "You're not technically immune, the weaves just unravel and the taint is more of a toxic substance than a magical spell. It's probably worth testing but I wouldn't want to count on it helping."
"Do you think the globe shows abandoned steddings?"
"Worth a shot." Myst pulled the globe out of his inventory and focused on the area around the Two Rivers, causing the globe to show an overhead view of the land. He focused on finding steddings and smiled when two translucent purple blotches appeared in the mountains. He focused on the closest blotch, causing the globe to zoom in on the hard to reach valley.
"We're going to need to build some bridges or make sure everyone can fly if we're going to rebuild the city," Hermione mused as she studied the valley filled with snow and three massive trees.
"Not to mention tunnels." Myst opened a portal to the uninhabited stedding that was probably less than twenty miles from the ruins of Manetheren in a hidden valley he'd probably never have found without the globe or without flying over it and seeing the great trees. "Ladies first."
Hermione stepped through the portal and promptly dropped through five feet of fresh snow as it didn't support her weight.
Myst smiled as he flew through the portal and found a winter wonderland. He glanced down at the hole in the snow and the top of Hermione's head. "Oops."
"Not funny," Hermione grumbled as she floated out of the snow.
"At least we know our magic works," Myst offered, trying not to laugh as she looked like a snow monster.
Hermione gestured and all of the snow fell off her clothes. "We're going to need a fire or some type of shelter if we don't want people freezing to death before we're done sorting through their memories and copying talents."
"I have an instant bathroom," Myst replied as he flew towards the giant trees, wanting to get somewhere he could reach the dirt.
"Instant bathroom?" Hermione asked as she flew after him.
"Daern's Instant Privy, on command it transforms into a 5' by 5' outhouse that's larger on the inside," Myst explained as he flew over to an area near one of the massive trees where he could see a root through the snow. He pulled the small adamantine model of an outhouse out of his inventory and set it on the snow near the base of the tree. "Instant salvation."
Hermione stared as the model changed into an eight foot tall metal outhouse, complete with a half moon shaped hole in the solid door. "I can think of a couple of times that would have been useful while hiking."
Myst floated over and opened the door, revealing a ten by ten gray tiled room with a bathtub in one corner with a built in shower with glass doors in the other. He flew inside and noticed two sinks against the wall opposite of the shower and a wooden stall around a toilet on the right. "Could be worse, at least it's clean and warm."
Hermione followed Myst into the bathroom and glanced around then shut the door to keep the heat in, not sure how the enchantment on the building worked. "Who do you want to start with?"
"Sheriam Bayanar, she only joined the Black Ajah to help her political aspirations, meaning we can probably flip her now that she understands how insane the rest of them are," Myst suggested, knowing they'd have to work their way through the rest of the Black Ajah eventually.
"Working for the dark god doesn't sound particularly sane to me," Hermione complained as she opened the menu on her spatial ring and started looking for the red haired Aes Sedai.
"To be fair, it's not like she realized the last battle was coming when she joined," Myst pointed as he pulled an inflatable air mattress out of his inventory and set it on the floor.
"Has your gacha dropped a kitchen sink yet?" Hermione asked as she pulled Sheriam out of her spatial ring and dropped her on the mattress.
"If you don't count the one in the tower, not yet but there's always tomorrow," Myst replied with amusement as he looked at the Aes Sedai with his upgrade ability. "Should we grab a copy of her talents before I try to increase them?"
"Might as well," Hermione said as she pulled a notebook and a pen out of her inventory. "It's going to take a couple of minutes to dig through her mind for secrets."
"What are you looking for?" Myst asked as he started copying Sheriam's talents.
"Contacts, the locations of hidden ter'angreal or large stashes of gold and their current projects so we can toss a wrench in them," Hermione replied as she worked on digging through Sheriam's mind for information. "You should probably copy her channeling knowledge in case I screw something up."
"Sure," Myst agreed as he copied her channeling skill on the off chance that Hermione melted her brain looking for information. "Should I use the cursed necklace to make her stronger before I turn her into a werewolf or after?"
"Before, we can always swap things with the next one," Hermione replied as she jotted down some notes about Sheriam's contacts and a ter'angreal she'd hidden under her bed that created an illusion of flowers.
Myst put the popsicle stick skill books in his inventory then pulled out the cursed necklace and put it on the unconscious Aes Sedai. He glanced at Sheriam's strength then looked at her total strength when he saw that her base strength was the same. "That's a bit of a jump," he mused as he looked at her list of abilities and saw the magical enhanced strength ability. "Increases base strength by fifty points, that should give her the ability to lift an extra 250 pounds with one hand, not bad."
"Is it tied to the hearing damage?" Hermione asked, wanting to make sure they weren't going to screw themselves over by copying the ability.
Myst glanced at the weakness section of Sheriam's page. "No, the hearing damage is listed as ruptured eardrums and the enhanced strength ability is clean."
"Meaning, you can fix it with regeneration, right?" Hermione asked, hoping they could just hand the cursed necklace to one of the girls with regeneration and have them work their way through an army.
Myst reached down and poked Sheriam's neck, temporarily loaning her his regeneration. He grinned when her hearing loss disability vanished after a couple of seconds and promptly lost his smile when the disadvantage reappeared. "It was worth a try." He glanced at the enhanced strength quality to see if reapplying the curse had boosted the strength ability then took the necklace off. 'So much for stacking things.'
Sheriam blinked as she woke up in an unfamiliar location. "What happened?"
Myst smiled when her hearing loss vanished a second before his regeneration quality finished healing the rest of her old injuries. "You were captured and you're on trial."
"What…" Sheriam trailed off as she realized she couldn't sense the source. "Did you still me!" she demanded as she scrambled to her feet, almost falling over as the mattress was strangely squishy.
"No, you're in a stedding," Myst assured her as he copied her enhanced strength ability.
Sheriam glanced between Myst and Hermione. "Why am I on trial? I'm not part of the Black Ajah."
Myst gestured and cast remove cast on Sheriam, breaking her oaths. "We have a ter'angreal that allows us to read minds, we know you're guilty."
'Shit, wait, he has to be lying,' Sheriam thought, realizing they didn't have enough evidence if she wasn't in front of the Hall.
"Shit, wait, he has to be lying," Myst offered sarcastically. "We're not hauling anyone in front of the Hall because you're more useful alive."
"What do you want?" Sheriam asked, hoping he wasn't telling the truth about being able to read her mind but a bit disturbed by his entirely too accurate guess at what she was thinking.
"I have some ter'angreal that I'd like to test, if you cooperate, you can swear an oath on the oath rod to never hurt anyone again and I'll send you to a mirror world where you can live the rest of your life in peace," Myst offered.
"That's it?" Sheriam asked suspiciously, surprised that he was willing to let her escape considering he thought she was a member of the Black Ajah.
"Basically," Myst replied as he put the necklace and the skill book in his inventory. He pulled the cursed werewolf ring out of his inventory and tossed it to her. "Put it on."
"What does it do?" Sheriam asked warily.
"It permanently increases your strength, agility and toughness or at least that's what the notes say," Myst replied cheerfully, not sure which abilities she'd end up with as the ring's description said the results depended on the person using the ring.
Sheriam glanced at the door, wondering how many people they had waiting outside.
Hermione silently conjured a shield in front of Sheriam just in case her werewolf form was more dangerous than they were expecting.
"Enough to make sure you never leave the valley alive if anything happens to us," Myst told Sheriam.
"Fine," Sheriam grumbled as she put the ring on her finger.
Hermione had half a second to watch the woman change into a gray seven foot hybrid wolf monstrosity before it blurred at her and crashed into her invisible shield, causing several cracks in the shield and punching a bunch of holes in the air mattress.
"Shit!" Myst cursed as he dropped his mental link with the rage filled woman and hauled her off the ground with his telekinesis as she snarled and clawed at the shield.
Hermione quickly hit Sheriam with three overpowered stunners as the transformed Aes Sedai struggled against Myst's telekinesis, snarling like a mad beast and trying to reach them. She felt a shiver run down her spine as the stunners did less than they would have against Hagrid. "Since when do werewolves instantly transform?"
"No clue," Myst admitted as he focused on keeping the snarling beast in a shredded dress in the air so she couldn't rip them apart.
"Any idea why she went insane?" Hermione asked, not taking her eyes off the furry blender of doom floating in the middle of the room as she took a couple of steps away from her.
Myst checked Sheriam's weaknesses with his upgrade ability. "I'm guessing her temporary 'heightened emotions' flaw made her go berserk because she was already stressed."
"How long does it last?" Hermione asked as she tried hitting the werewolf with another two stunners, dazing her but not dropping her unconscious.
"Forty seven hours, fifty nine minutes and change," Myst replied as he glanced over the rest of the abilities. "Enhanced strength, resilience, nearly tireless and the ability to shift between a wolf, a hybrid form and a human form."
Hermione shivered as the werewolf started gnawing on her shoulder, trying to get rid of the things holding her in place. "Shit!" she cursed as she grabbed the werewolf's head with telekinesis so she couldn't injure herself. "Is she contagious?"
Myst looked at Sheriam's bite ability then quickly looked through the rest of the abilities when he didn't find anything about the condition being transmittable. "No, it's genetic."
"Do you have everything copied?" Hermione asked as she took another step back, her back hitting the wall when Sheriam started trying to hit them with her feet.
"No, give me a minute and keep a hold of her neck in case I lose focus and drop her," Myst replied as he worked on copying Sheriam's new abilities.
Hermione focused on holding Sheriam's head, trying not to think about the fact that her old defense professor would be livid about turning someone into a werewolf. 'Sorry, I have a war to fight when I get back to Azeroth.'
Myst quickly finished copying Sheriam's new abilities then stuck the popsicle skill books in his inventory and shook his head. "We should have just tossed the ring through the hole in the door then barred the door shut until we figured out what we're dealing with."
"I wasn't expecting her to instantly change," Hermione admitted, not particularly bothered by the experiment considering most of the mages on Azeroth were worse.
Myst looked at himself with his upgrade ability and scowled when he saw a curse designed to push him towards reckless behavior. "Shit, can you grab the werewolf for a minute, I need to break something."
"What's the matter?" Hermione asked as she adjusted how she was holding the werewolf so she wouldn't get strangled if Myst dropped her.
Myst hit himself with remove curse until the spell broke and the effect vanished completely. "I wonder if this is how a mad scientist feels after coming down from a spark induced bender?"
Hermione glanced at Myst. "What happened?"
"One of the items from the gacha cursed me with reckless behavior, I didn't notice until I checked," Myst admitted, wishing he'd set things up to have someone check his mental and physical health after he was in the Ways. "Why didn't you raise concerns about the plan to make a werewolf in a bathroom?"
Hermione shrugged. "I went to school with Harry and Ron and spent the last couple of months training to be a ninja, it wasn't the worst plan I've ever heard and our gear should have kept us safe."
"Having decent safety gear is no excuse for being sloppy," Myst complained, thinking about all of the dead mad scientists from various movies that had considered their safety gear sufficient.
"You're right, just because you're working with something that should be safe doesn't mean you shouldn't expect someone like Malfoy to tamper with it. Can you improve her mental health enough that she'll calm down?" Hermione asked, not taking her eyes off the werewolf that was snarling and clawing at the air.
"It's worth a try," Myst replied as he spent mana to improve Sheriam's mental health, burning through the duration of the heightened emotions flaw.
Sheriam blinked a few times as she realized her mind was clear and that she had a muzzle which almost made her faint. "What happened?" she asked, surprised that her voice was only a little distorted, though it was a lot lower.
"You lost your mind for a bit and turned into a monster," Myst explained as Hermione lowered Sheriam to the ground. "Don't worry, you should be able to change back…" he trailed off as Sheriam changed back to her normal form, causing her much abused dress to fall off.
Sheriam glanced down at her destroyed dress then pulled the ring off, deciding that her lack of appropriate clothing was the least of her worries. "Now what?"
"Now you swear an oath and we send you to a mirror world," Myst replied, not seeing a point in stabbing her in the back as she wouldn't be able to hurt anyone with the oaths.
Hermione pulled the oath rod out of her inventory and held it out. "If you're thinking about swearing something else, don't."
"I just want to leave," Sheriam assured them as she tossed the ring to Hermione, not seeing a point in sticking around if everyone in the Tower knew she was guilty.
Myst pulled the cursed mirror out of his inventory and set it up while Hermione dealt with Sheriam swearing an oath to never hurt anyone that walked in the light again. He would have felt worse about cutting someone's life span in half but she'd already willingly swore the three oaths the first time and the boost to her vitality from being a werewolf would probably help.
Sheriam glanced at the mirror after she finished swearing the new oath. "Now what?"
"Now you walk through the ter'angreal mirror," Myst told her as he pulled a bag of gold out of his inventory and tossed it to her. "This should make it easier to find a place to live."
'Should we send a crystal sphere through so we can find the new world?' Hermione asked, wanting to keep an eye on her and curious what type of world it would send her to.
'Might as well, we can always open a portal to grab the sphere,' Myst replied as he pulled one of the sphere's he hadn't handed out to Sheriam. "Leave it in a safe place after you walk through the mirror and enjoy your new life."
"What does it do?" Sheriam asked.
"It's a bit of insurance," Myst replied as he walked out of the bathroom, wanting a door between himself and Sheriam's more powerful alternate when she came out of the mirror in case she was a werewolf, rather amused that Sheriam intended to toss the sphere in the woods or a lake as soon as she could.
"Where will the mirror send me?" Sheriam asked warily.
"Somewhere with mirrors," Hermione said as she walked out and shut the door.
Myst turned invisible and lined up his shot for when Sheriam's alternate stepped out of the mirror. 'Hopefully she's not a werewolf.'
Sheriam sighed then reached out and touched the mirror, a touch surprised when her hand sunk into the mirror like it was water. She briefly considered leaving the sphere but decided that the mirror might not be safe to use without it. She took a breath then stepped into the mirror, not seeing a better option.
Myst stared as an airbrushed version of Sheriam stepped out of the mirror looking like she'd just stepped out of a bath for a movie or a photo shoot, her fiery red hair looking a touch more like flames than the original and her green eyes seeming to sparkle a bit. He quickly used his upgrade ability to check the woman's abilities, trying to avoid any unpleasant surprises. 'No enhanced physical abilities, just more power and better talents.'
'That makes things easier,' Hermione replied then promptly went a bit green when she looked at the alternate Sheriam's mind and realized she was completely nuts. 'What the fuck is wrong with her? At least the undead get something out of eating people.'
Myst checked the alternate's mind and realized she was planning on taking over a village and eating the people that annoyed her and tearing the rest apart bit by bit while playing the innocent noble. He hit the insane Aes Sedai with a stunner then lowered her to the ground so she wouldn't get more brain damage before he could copy her skills. 'Great, we went straight from joining a cult for political power to pointless puppy kicking evil.'
Hermione turned and stared at Myst. "What were you expecting? The mirror is cursed."
"Something in the middle," Myst admitted as he made a skill book of her channeling skill. "I was expecting her to jump from political evil to stabbing people for money, not let's watch the world burn evil."
"That's fair," Hermione admitted, thinking about the levels of insanity in the Death Eaters, even Voldemort wasn't quite on the girl's level. "Now that she's here, what do we do with her?"
"Do you want to dig through her mind and try to fix it?" Myst asked, not particularly interested in dealing with someone that was completely insane.
"I wouldn't even know where to start," Hermione admitted.
Myst opened the door then walked in and shoved the woman into his spatial ring. He gestured and repaired the air mattress. "We can worry about twisted witch later, we need to figure out how to cut the connection to the Dark One and get some answers about Ishamael before he decides to show up himself."
Hermione followed Myst inside and shut the door, enjoying the warmth despite the fact that she was immune to the cold. "I'll ask Moiraine when she gets back, you need to sort through the rest of the items you picked up from your gacha wheels and double check everything in that tent to make sure they aren't cursed, we don't need you losing your marbles."
"Point," Myst admitted as he grabbed the mirror and stuck it in his inventory. He checked to make sure he wasn't cursed then checked Hermione for curses, wanting to make sure she wasn't going to go crazy on him. He walked over to the bathtub and leaned up against it and started looking through his loot, wanting to make sure he wasn't walking around with something that was going to get him killed.
