Mist of Shadows
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Myst and the Magic Shop Part 10
🕑 Added 2022-05-17 01:36:24 +0000 UTCMyst did his best to ignore the massive ring floating in the sky in the distance as he checked the address on the sign above the door against the piece of parchment in his hand that Sapphire's grandfather had given him, fairly sure the address matched, but he'd been reasonably sure the last time and that had ended up being a 'mundane' antique dealer.
"Worst case, you have to ask someone else for directions," he muttered under his breath as he opened the door and walked into the shop filled with an eclectic assortment of antiques some of which were faintly glowing or otherwise showing signs of being magical. 'That's promising.'
He glanced at the impressive collection of medieval weapons hanging on the walls then glanced at the robes on mannequins scattered around the shop at random or at least in no real organization that he could recognize.
"Are you looking for anything particular?" the masked shopkeeper asked from behind the counter.
Myst turned to look at the woman wearing a set of black robes with the hood pulled up and wearing a mask that concealed her face. A shiver went down his spine when he saw part of the hood move as if snakes were moving around under her hood. "Third eye conceal."
"You have expensive tastes," the shopkeeper replied, her voice having a faint accent that he couldn't quite place but that sounded familiar.
"Unfortunately, I know a couple of telepaths that can't keep their powers to themselves and I'd rather not have people looking through my memories. I have trade goods that should more than cover the price," Myst assured her.
"What type of trade goods?" she asked as she studied the tall man standing in her shop, a touch surprised that he wasn't carrying a weapon given his athletic build and height and the fact that the city was a dangerous place to walk around without one.
"I have a ring that lets you absorb fire attacks, not to mention gold and gems," Myst replied.
The shopkeeper considered the claim for a couple of seconds then gestured towards the counter with her gloved hands. "Show me the ring."
Myst pulled the ring out of his pocket and set it on the counter.
The shopkeeper examined the magic contained in the deceptively simple looking gold ring and smiled behind her mask when she realized that the young man had undersold the ring, it didn't just absorb fire, it absorbed it and used the energy to heal the person wearing the ring. "Where did you find this beauty?"
"Does it matter?" Myst asked.
"That depends, am I going to have someone busting down my door looking for it?"
"I didn't steal it," Myst assured her as the door opened. He turned and looked at the four dangerous looking people that had just walked into the shop, a bit annoyed but not surprised that one of them was the weasel faced bastard that had been hanging around the market square giving people unfriendly smirks. "Of course, this is Sigil so I'm not sure that matters."
The shopkeeper reached under the counter and grabbed one of the small glass boxes from an enchanted display case. "Someone enchanted it to put you to sleep when you put it on, so you'll spend the first eight hours in a restful sleep but it should keep you hidden. Feel free to grab a couple more items for the rest of the balance I owe you."
Myst examined the flat dime sized red gemstone sitting on a wad of gray wool in its small glass case. "Sounds good," he replied as he picked up the case and slipped it into his jacket pocket as the four adventurers walked over.
"You have a king's ransom in loot in your bag, hand it over," the weasel faced adventurer demanded.
"No fighting in my shop," the shopkeeper warned them, having a feeling it was going to be one of those days.
"We're not going to fight if our mark hands over his stuff," the man with a gnarled black staff said with a twisted grin.
"If you start something here, I'll finish it," the shopkeeper said coldly, wondering if the thieves were blind or just stupid.
"Let me guess, you have a spell or a magical item to check wealth?" Myst asked as he studied the four men in their mid to late thirties or early forties that looked decked out in a collection of clothes that didn't match which meant they were probably enchanted unless they had horrible fashion sense.
"You're a sharp one, do yourself a favor and hand over your loot," the mage ordered.
"Or you could do yourselves a favor and pick a better target," Myst replied sarcastically, fairly sure he could deal with the four of them if he had to, as long as he was careful to avoid their weapons since they were most likely magical weapons.
"We've killed dragons, boy," the man wearing midnight black leather sneered at the kid's bravado.
"Tell you what, give me ten minutes to finish shopping then I'll leave the shop and you can do your best to kill me without pissing off the dangerous magic user running a magic shop," Myst offered, wanting to finish his shopping before he opened a portal and left.
The shopkeeper glanced at the mage with the staff that was practically a storm of magical energy to her arcane sight then looked over the rest of their magical gear, hoping they'd start something so she'd have an excuse to rob them. "I suggest taking the deal," she said, giving them a disdainful look, hoping to encourage them in their idiocy.
The mage waved his staff and dropped an anti-magic field on the shop, wanting to prevent the stranger from leaving. "Field!" he shouted as he dodged behind the group's fighter.
"Fuck!" the fighter blurted as his armor and backpack suddenly got a lot heavier. 'He was supposed to wait until we got outside.'
The shopkeeper scowled as she reached under the counter, pulled out a gun that she'd picked up from a shop back home and aimed at the group. "Leave."
"He was going to open a portal as soon as he got outside," the mage complained,
Myst scowled as he tried to figure out what the mage had just said as his sunglasses hadn't translated it, wondering if he was casting a spell or if there was a language his glasses didn't translate.
"Your wand is-" one of the thieves said before a lead slug went through his face with a crack of thunder, splattering his brains on the wall.
"Kenny!" the fighter shouted as he stepped forward to slash their original target. "Kill them both!"
Myst focused on the fighter shouting nonsense at him and burned a hole through his head with his heat vision then blurred forward and slipped behind the mage before he could blink. He grabbed the mage's head and twisted it three hundred and sixty degrees then ripped it off for good measure, wanting to make sure he couldn't cast something nasty that might get through his defenses.
The shopkeeper shot the other thief in the left eye as he reached for his sword, causing another crack of thunder.
"Nice shots," Myst offered, looking at the woman's pistol. "Nice pistol."
"I was a sheriff for twenty years before I retired," the shopkeeper replied as she set the pistol on the counter then turned around and adjusted her mask that had partially fallen off her face thanks to the lack of magic in the area.
"Does this happen often?" Myst asked the shopkeeper, curious about the fact that he could still understand the woman and the fact that she had a hint of a southern accent.
"Four or five times a year, most of the locals know better but we're in the City of Doors, there are always idiots wandering through a portal from somewhere," she replied as she finished adjusting her mask, her voice sounding muffled by her mask without the magic making her voice clear.
"Do you have anything that increases the number of known spells for a sorcerer?" Myst asked, fairly sure that was his best chance to get access to some of the D&D magic without spending years learning it like a wizard.
"I have a couple knowledge stones and some rune staffs that you might be interested in," the shopkeeper replied as she walked around the end of the counter and over to the dead thieves to check their loot. "What type of spells are you interested in?"
"Prestidigitation, polymorph any object, permanency, true sight, greater invisibility, time stop, fabricate, and wall of stone or iron," Myst listed off without hesitation, figuring he'd worry about rounding out his collection of spells if he could get the spell altar working.
"Let's start with something easy," the shopkeeper said, feeling a bit of relief when her mask went back to moving with her face and the wards came back online. "At least his anti-magic field didn't last that long."
"That's probably my least favorite spell," Myst admitted as the shopkeeper walked over and grabbed one of the staves off the wall.
"Fireball, it's just powerful enough to be useful but not out of reach of idiots that should know better, especially the mages that lack common sense," the shopkeeper complained.
"Makes sense," Myst agreed, thinking about the number of players that loved using the spell at the drop of a hat, despite the destruction it caused or perhaps because of it, almost daring DMs to start wildfires.
"Rune staffs are a bit different than the majority of common magical staffs. This one has a light spell, see if you can get it to work." The shopkeeper tossed the staff to Myst.
Myst caught the staff and focused on pushing magic into the staff to activate the spell, surprised when he managed to push enough magic into the staff to create four floating balls of colored light after a couple of seconds. "Easier to use than I was expecting."
"They're designed for sorcerers, if they weren't easy to use they'd be worthless," the shopkeeper replied as she looked over the collection of staves hanging on the back wall. "I have a runestaff of time but it would only let you cast the spell once a day and you'd need a lot of power."
"Fair enough, I'm more interested in polymorph any object and the rest," Myst admitted.
"I have a stone for the polymorph spell and I've got a fabricate runestaff that should get you the walls and fabricate," the shopkeeper replied thoughtfully. "I think we can make this work, just let me make sure there aren't any traps or contingency spells on their items before I grab your stuff."
Myst glanced at the cheap watch he'd picked up. 'Forty five minutes until I need to meet Batman in Happy Harbor, should be plenty of time.'
0o0o0
"So much for getting another girl on the team," Athena said as a tall stranger walked in with Batman that looked like the pictures she'd seen of aunt Kara when she'd been exposed to pink kryptonite.
Myst glanced at the three blue eyed girls he didn't recognize, fairly sure the slightly younger looking girl was Alura, judging by her light brown hair, 'Mad Science!' t-shirt and the fact that she looked a lot like Kara and Lena and wasn't a twin, unlike the goddesses with ice blue eyes and long dark hair that reached the top of their blue shorts. 'Hestia should be the one with the lasso and Athena the shield from what Kara said.'
"What are you talking…" Miss Martian trailed off as she turned around and saw the teenager that was nearly as tall as she was in her normal form. "I can't hear you."
"Glad to know my gear works," Myst replied cheerfully as he focused on the green skinned young woman with red hair that was standing next to Connor. He glanced at the tall girl wearing the mad science t-shirt and white cargo shorts with a dozen pockets that was standing next to Lewis. 'I'll have to remember to grab some magitech books for Lena's kids.'
"I like the gem," Hestia offered as she studied the stranger that looked a bit like her father as he walked over with Batman.
"Thanks," Myst replied, having to remind himself that the blue eyed and dark haired twins were related to him as they would have won any beauty contest they’d entered even if you'd dropped them in a contest with a bunch of supermodels or actresses. 'Wait, Kara and Clark are cousins, that makes them second cousins and related to gods, the genetics probably don't matter at that point.'
Aqualad focused on the emerald cut purple gem stuck to the middle of the stranger's forehead. "What else does it do?"
"It prevents scrying, mind reading, and mental tampering," Myst replied with a grin, not particularly concerned that his replacement gem wasn't as flat as the original, because he was planning on replacing it as soon as he found something that looked better.
"How does it work?" Wally asked.
"Magic," Myst replied cheerfully.
"No such thing, it's all smoke and mirrors or metahuman abilities," Wally said dismissively.
Alura reached out and flicked Wally's ear. "You have two magic users on the team, have a little respect."
Wally glanced between Zatanna and Aqualad. "They're metahumans."
Athena looked at Batman. "Can I challenge the annoying idiot to ritual combat for being stupid?"
"You'd lose, I'm faster," Wally replied.
"Technically speaking, magic isn't what you think of when you say magic, magic is the manipulation of exotic energies, usually through ritual, but sometimes admittedly through metahuman abilities or deals with entities you generally shouldn't deal with. Just because there is a certain amount of art to it, doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Not to mention, just about everyone that uses it refers to it as magic and has been doing so for millennia before your current definition of magic existed, thus it's magic even if your definition doesn't fit."
"Doesn't mean magic exists, it just means that a bunch of people are mistaken," Wally argued.
"So you're saying that everyone in existence that uses magic, including the gods, are wrong and you're right?" Myst asked.
Wally opened his mouth to reply then closed it, remembering Barry's advice not to insult the Greek gods.
"Atlantis studies magic along with science, there are rules and laws magic follows," Aqualad spoke up.
Wally frowned. “So it’s a vocab problem?”
"Pretty much, you're thinking about Disney magic, versus magic as physics defying energy that you can manipulate," Myst explained.
"So, bippity boppity-" Wally started when Zatanna put her hand over his mouth.
"Don't say that," Zatanna ordered, looking disturbed. “You have no idea what you almost-” she burst out laughing and let go of him. “Sorry, couldn’t keep a straight face on that one.”
Wally chuckled. “Good one,” he said.
"Depending on how you look at it, Lantern rings are basically magic," Lewis offered, speaking up.
"Willpower…" Wally trailed off as he realized that magic actually fit in this case and so did the Speed Force in some ways. "Moving on."
"I've run into both complete frauds and people that use magic as well as tricks," Batman offered. "Just because someone is using technology to imitate magic doesn't mean that someone else can't disable you with a simple incantation."
"On the other hand, tasers don't require spending your own personal energies," Zatanna said with a grin. “There is a time and place for both science and magic.”
"Back to the point of this meeting," Batman cut in before things got completely off topic, "Myst has generously agreed to provide the team with mystically enhanced equipment, so we’ll be going over the additional features."
"Are you saying we're getting magic gear?" Wally asked, eyes lighting up.
"Yes," Batman replied as he turned and headed out of the room, expecting everyone to follow him.
Myst grinned and followed Batman to the lounge where they'd laid everything out. "Everyone's boots should have a combination of stealth and either stamina regeneration or some type of movement enhancement."
"Does that mean flight?" Connor asked hopefully.
"Basically, it's not particularly fast but it should combine nicely with your jumping ability. I combined stealth and stamina regeneration for Megan's boots as she doesn't need flight."
"What about us?" Athena asked eagerly.
"Stealth and lightning absorption, I wanted to make sure you could shrug off lightning and energy weapons and you probably don't need extra stamina regeneration considering I stuck stamina and health regeneration on everyone's pants or skirts. I'll be upgrading everyone's armor over the weekend to add even more protections, mostly because I need access to a workbench that I can't really duplicate right now," Myst admitted.
"Workbench?" Aqualad asked.
"Part of my powers only work on the weekends," Myst replied with a shrug.
"Seriously?" Wally asked in disbelief, pleased to notice he wasn’t the only one and several of the other junior leagues were also looking confused.
"That's the problem with magic, it often comes with strange and illogical rules," Myst admitted. "I scattered immunity to disease, poison, and magic over the rest of your gear. I also tossed in fortify magic and health."
"Don't forget the gender alteration rings for undercover missions," Batman reminded him.
"I wonder if that would screw with my running," Wally mused.
"Your costumes already provide sufficient support," Batman assured him.
"Actually, I'm wondering how the hips work and the center of balance, but the bouncing would probably be a problem depending on how well built I am," Wally said thoughtfully.
"I doubt your breasts would get in the way of running," Zatanna said.
"Really, have you ever run at the speed of sound?" Wally asked with a smirk.
"Point," Zatanna conceded.
"I have," Hestia said.
"You also make physics cry," Lewis pointed out.
Hestia smirked. "I'll bake it a cake for its birthday."
"Physics doesn't have a physical personification does it?" Wally asked, thinking of some of Uncle Barry's stories about the Speed Force.
Athena shook her head. "Not as a whole, but certain aspects do."
"That's disappointing, I would have loved to have a discussion and gotten some answers to a couple of questions," Wally admitted.
"It would be nice," Athena agreed.
Alura glanced at the collection of books stacked in front of the television. "Are we going to learn actual magic?"
Batman glanced at Myst then focused on Kara's daughter. "Everyone in the League will be learning a basic healing spell, unless they lack the capacity, and you're encouraged to do the same. Also, if you wish to learn additional magic, the books are there and Myst has agreed to an educational field trip this weekend that would increase your potential skill with magic."
“Increase our potential?” Zantanna muttered quietly to herself, knowing of few ways that could be accomplished without a great deal of risk or the sacrifice of expensive magical reagents.
"Grab your gear, head to the lockers and suit up," Batman ordered. "We'll be running some drills and making sure you know how everything works."
0o0o0
"Do you have anything to make the spells less dangerous?" Black Canary asked as she watched the children practice blasting targets that Robin had set up on the beach.
Myst pulled his attention away from where Zatanna was floating in the air, tossing electricity at her target and looked at the twenty something blonde hero wearing shorts and a t-shirt. "I have a couple of ideas but they're going to take a while to track down."
"It’s good to see the younger generation take such an interest in the subtle arts," Giovanni said as he walked over with Kent Nelson.
"Is that something Giovanni can help with?" Black Canary asked, keeping part of her attention on Connor who was currently sparring with Hestia and losing badly as she kept tying him up with her lasso and tossing him around the beach when he got frustrated and sloppy.
"No…" Myst trailed off as he realized Giovanni might have a spell for recalling information which would cut the time he'd have to play Skyrim down to something reasonable. "Actually, that depends, do you have a spell for recalling information? I have a vague idea where to find an ancient book of arcane secrets that would help but I don't recall the exact details."
"I know a couple," Kent admitted. "My favorite spell writes the details in a notebook, it's often enough to jog my memory, but it doesn't help if you never learned the information in the first place or if you've managed to convince yourself that something else happened."
"I have a couple of spells that would help, but they sometimes bring back unpleasant memories," Giovanni admitted.
"Something to consider if I can't find the book by this weekend," Myst mused.
"Do you have a backup plan?" Black Canary asked.
"I know a mage in Sigil that might be able to acquire a book on a technique to warp a spell to avoid an area or to turn the magic in a spell into something less lethal, but I'm not sure how well it actually works as I just have stories," Myst admitted.
"What's the catch with the ancient book?" Kent asked, having noticed the look in the kid's eyes when he mentioned the ancient book.
Myst considered the question for a couple of seconds, trying to figure out the best way to explain things without them thinking he was a reckless lunatic. "Did Diana have the chance to explain the nature of my power?"
"She mentioned the ability to open portals to pocket dimensions based on certain games," Kent replied.
"The books are artifacts in a game world which means they don't currently exist. Normally, I'd just track them down in the game, open a portal and grab them, but the books are in a realm of madness and magic," Myst admitted.
"How cursed are the books?" Kent asked.
"I'm not sure," Myst admitted. "The player character managed to read them in the game without going insane, but certain elements in lore point to them pushing people over the edge. I'm not sure how well my mental defense gear will stand up to the next best thing to a god in another world, so I'm asking for suggestions."
"I doubt your power could create an actual god, but it might be able to attract the attention of something or create something that could turn into a god," Kent mused, glad that the kid was concerned about the possibility even if it wasn't likely.
"What are you hoping to get out of it?" Giovanni asked thoughtfully, trying to figure out if it was worth the trouble.
"In the game one of the black books gives you the ability to alter your spells so they don't hurt your companions. I'm not sure how that ability would translate into reality," Myst admitted.
"But it's probably worth checking," Giovanni admitted after a couple of seconds of weighing the risks against the possible rewards. He glanced at Kent. "What do you think?"
"Nabu would be ranting about using chaos magic, but there's a reason he's been sitting on a shelf for decades, he's too rigid," Kent said thoughtfully. "I know some decent protection spells. I'd be willing to help if you can help me find a host for Nabu."
"There's a chance that pulling someone out of the game will create a soulless husk, but that might be a better body for him, no one to contest him running around with it. Ideally, they'd keep their personalities and we can get an order of order mages out of it," Myst mused.
"How close to the book can you get the portal?" Black Canary asked.
"A couple of feet," Myst replied, planning on using telekinesis to grab the book without stepping into the crazy realm.
"Which means you can probably grab the book then slam the portal closed," Black Canary pointed out.
"In theory, of course we're talking about opening a portal to a god's realm and I don't have the protection of being the dragonborn," Myst admitted as he pulled one of the enchanting books out of his inventory. "Can I talk you into helping me try to figure out how to enchant things without having to use the energy given off by souls when I send them to the afterlife?"
"You're using souls?" Giovanni asked warily.
"From what I understand, I'm using part of the energy they're surrounded by, it doesn't damage the soul and I haven't captured any souls, I've just been using the soul gems I found in the game," Myst assured them.
"I'll take a look," Kent offered.
"Agreed," Giovanni said, wanting to make sure the enchanted gear that his daughter was using didn't end up cursed.
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Chichi son
"It didn't steal it," I didn't?
