Mist of Shadows
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Myst and the Magic Shop Part 4
🕑 Added 2022-04-26 09:25:52 +0000 UTCMyst absently grabbed another chip from the bowl sitting on the bed as he selected the water breathing enchant and hit the button, creating yet another magic ring of water breathing that he could sell or give away after he collected it from the game. He finished eating the chip then glanced at the bathroom door that was being taken up by a portal to Ivalice where the girls and Robin were doing some shopping, wishing he'd went with them to Final Fantasy instead of doing the responsible thing of working on his character's enchanting and alchemy so he could make completely broken defensive gear for himself and the League or at least the members that he actually liked.
"Screw it, twenty rings of water breathing should be enough," he muttered as he opened his character's inventory, figuring he could always just open a fresh portal to the save if he needed more rings.
He glanced over his character's collection of potions, trying to remember the best way to start the alchemy and enchanting spiral of godlike power. 'Fortifying restoration first should help, that should boost the alchemy potion or maybe it boosted the fortify enchanting?' he mused then decided that he didn't care. He hit the button and used one of his character's potions to boost his restoration skill then used a potion to fortify his alchemy.
'Time to get the show on the road,' he mused as he activated the enchanting altar. He quickly selected a gold ring and one of the filled grand soul gems he'd bought from the old mage and created a ring of fortify alchemy then quickly did the same with another ring and an amulet. He selected a cheap light fur cap out of his inventory and a grand soul gem and enchanted it with another fortify alchemy enchant then did the same for a pair of leather gloves.
He ran across the mage's lab to the alchemy altar and created a potion to boost his enchanting and another potion to boost his restoration then ran back over to the enchanting altar and used the potions, knowing it would let him create a better set of alchemy boosting gear, which would in turn let him create a better potion to boost his enchanting, starting a cycle that should give him the power to fight a god or at least curb stomp some of the more annoying villains the League had to deal with on a semi regular basis.
0o0o0
"Any idea where she picked up the ability to open portals?" Robin asked Kara as he glanced over the collection of swords in the display case, trying to figure out if any of them were worth buying.
Kara pulled her attention off the collection of wooden staffs and looked at Robin. "Classified."
Robin sighed when he noticed her amused grin. "I'm fairly sure that only applies to government secrets."
"You're going to have to ask her," Kara replied as the clerk behind the counter walked over.
"If Cadmus has access to this ability, we're going to run into trouble. We're going to need to warn the League," Robin argued.
The gray haired shopkeeper stopped a few feet away from Kara and Robin. "Do you need something from the case?"
Kara smiled as she turned to look at the shopkeeper, glad for the excuse to avoid answering Robin's question. "I'll take the Healing staff, the runeblade and the Heaven's Cloud," she said as she pointed at the rune inscribed blade she wanted.
"Excellent choices," the shopkeeper said cheerfully as he pulled a set of keys out of his pocket and unlocked the case.
"Is there a point in buying a blade that requires magic to use?" Robin asked as Diana walked through the door of the shop carrying a collection of robes of various colors under one arm and a collection of metal rods in a makeshift bag in the other.
"Using magic allows the blade to use your magic to boost the damage and to deal grievous wounds," the shopkeeper assured them as he opened the case and grabbed the healing staff.
"And the healing staff?" Robin asked. "Does it let you cast a spell?"
"No," the shopkeeper replied as he spun around and hit Robin on the shoulder before the hero could react.
"Hey!" Robin sputtered then blinked when he realized that the strike hadn't hurt and that he was suddenly wide awake and all of the discomfort from spending the day running around or fighting was suddenly gone. "Why do I feel like I could run a race?"
"The staff converts the damage you would have done to healing," the clerk replied smugly. "It's an excellent tool for healers and school teachers."
"School teachers?" Robin asked, not sure how that worked.
"If the students fall asleep or aren't paying attention, you simply hit them over the head," the clerk replied cheerfully as he closed the case and handed the staff to Kara to hold so he could unlock the case with the swords.
Diana laughed, thinking of the couple of times she'd fallen asleep during class growing up and woken up in a fountain. "Makes sense."
"Pretty sure there are laws about that," Robin muttered under his breath.
The clerk unlocked the case on the swords and grabbed the holy sword and the runeblade and headed for the counter to add everything up.
Kara glanced between the shirt that Diana had tied a knot in to hold the four rods and the collection of multicolored robes she was holding. "I thought you were just going to the accessory shop for a quick look?"
Diana frowned as she thought about the group of magic using bandits that had killed themselves trying to kill her. "I ran into a group of mages that tried to mug me. When I refused to give them my armor and lasso they decided to hit me with a collection of spells."
"Any trouble with the police?" Kara asked.
"No one showed up to collect the bodies after a couple of minutes, so I took their equipment and left," Diana admitted, not sure if the people just didn't care or if it was a flaw in Myst's ability.
"You killed them?" Robin asked in surprise.
Diana raised her hand that was holding the bag filled with rods, showing off her new gold ring. "Technically they killed themselves when their spells bounced off my magic shield."
"Nothing like reflect to ruin a mage's day," the clerk offered as he finished figuring out the total for all weapons.
"Do people normally get attacked during the middle of the day?" Robin asked the clerk.
"They normally wait until night to cause trouble, but it's been known to happen," the clerk admitted. "That will be fifteen thousand gold."
"Do you take gems in trade?" Kara asked as she opened the chest she'd set next to the counter and started pulling out gems and gold and setting them on the counter.
"Of course," the clerk replied with a grin as he looked at the large gemstones sitting on the counter.
"Good," Kara replied, glad that she didn't have to fill his countertop with gold coins.
0o0o0
"When you want it to fly, it crawls," Myst muttered as he killed the last vampire in the cave, filling up his character's grand soul gem.
"And when you want it to crawl, it flies," Kara said as she walked out of the portal carrying a well polished wooden staff.
"Time?" Robin mused as he followed Kara through the portal.
"Pretty much," Myst agreed as he saved his game and looked at the group of smiling heroes as Diana walked out of the portal carrying a chest. "Mage staff?"
"Healing staff," Kara replied with a grin as she set it on the bed. "I'm looking forward to hitting Batman when he's injured or being annoying."
Myst stared at Kara for a couple of seconds before he remembered how the healing staff from the game worked. "Make sure you have a camera."
Robin shook his head. "Is there a reason you don't like Batman?"
Myst let his game system vanish as he glanced at the clock, noting that he had just over two hours before midnight. "Do you want a list or was that a rhetorical question?" he asked as he walked over to the door to the bathroom and closed the door, closing the portal to the Final Fantasy pocket dimension. "How many times has he captured a villain just to have them escape Arkham and go on a killing spree?"
"That's hardly his fault," Robin complained.
"If he'd let the police kill the idiots, they wouldn't be able to escape, now would they?" Myst asked as he opened the door, opening a portal to his latest Elder Scrolls save.
Robin glanced at Kara then looked back at Myst. "Some of his villains just need medication."
"I'm not saying you couldn't save some of them if you got them away from Gotham and some therapy, but most of them aren't worth the effort," Myst replied then stepped through the portal into the cave as the hero left.
"What gives you the right to judge?" Robin asked as he glanced around the cave without stepping through the portal, curious what Myst was grabbing from the cave. 'Five sleeping mats, a crappy wooden table and two altars, one of which looks like an alchemy altar while the other is probably an enchanting altar.'
"Nothing," Myst replied as he picked up the leather backpack that he'd dumped the Dragonborn's inventory into other than a sword and his armor. "One bag of holding, near infinite capacity, no weight reduction."
"Perfect for a kryptonian," Kara offered as she walked over and grabbed a handful of chips.
"Basically," Myst replied as he walked back out and closed the door behind him.
"Not going to use the altars?" Robin asked.
Myst laughed as he reopened the portal. "Of course I'm going to use them, I just wanted to double my supplies first so you can use the alchemy altar without having to fight for materials. Did you pick up anything interesting in Final Fantasy other than the healing staff?" he asked as he walked over to the enchanting altar and worked on finding one of the enchanting potions his character had created with the boosted enchanting gear. 'This would be easier if it had pockets in the game.'
Kara walked into the cave and picked up the backpack. "I traded some gems for a sword that deals and absorbs holy damage and a sword that deals damage based on your strength and magic."
"And I picked up a reflect ring, a couple of rods that deal elemental damage, a noble's magic robe and three robes that absorb one type of elemental damage each, lightning, fire or cold specifically," Diana said as she grabbed a handful of chips from the bag and followed Kara over to the alchemy altar.
"We'll have to run some tests to see if we can duplicate them," Myst mused, shivering slightly when he slipped the overpowered gold and ruby magic resistance ring he'd created on his finger and the hair on the back of his neck rose from the magic or maybe the anticipation of what he was going to do with the overpowered gear. 'I could take a shot from Klarion with this, at least until he summons a bunch of kryptonite blades and runs me through.'
"How long do we have?" Robin asked, hoping they had enough time to get the basics down.
"Two hours? Four, until dawn? No clue," Myst admitted as he grabbed the enchanted silver and sapphire circlet from the bag and put it on, glad that he could feel the magic coming from the circlet so he knew which circlet to use. "I'm planning on being back in the hotel before it gets close to midnight just in case it's literally just right after twenty Saturday morning and midnight on Sunday and nothing more."
"Probably a good idea, magic can be oddly specific at times," Diana said, thinking about the various curses she'd heard of that were finicky at best.
"How do you want to do this?" Robin asked as he glanced between the altars.
"No…" Myst trailed off as he concentrated on the altar and a visual display appeared over the altar much like the game and the alchemy altar. He disenchanted one of the muffled boots to pick up the enchantment then selected an unenchanted pair of boots and a petty soul gem from his backpack. 'Let's hope this doesn't take forever.' He hit accept, instantly turning the leather boots into magical boots that would muffle the sound of someone walking around and partially filling up the enchanting gauge he could see floating at the top of his menu.
Kara grinned when Myst smiled. "Let me guess, it has a menu?"
"Yep," Myst replied cheerfully, glad that it hadn't taken more than a second to enchant the boots. "I'm going to grind my enchanting until I run out of soul gems or crap to enchant. Someone should grab the alchemy gear from the bag and finish grinding their alchemy skill. When we run out of ingredients or soul gems, we'll close the portal and grab another bag. If you want to get the most use out of the gear, grab the black robe that boosts restoration and drink one of the restoration boosting potions."
"Sounds good," Kara replied as she started looking through the backpack. "What does the alchemy gear look like?"
"Silver circlet with a sapphire, two silver rings with sapphires, black leather gloves and a silver amulet with a sapphire, you should be able to feel the difference," Myst assured her as he got to work disenchanting the collection of magic items so he'd unlock the enchantments. "We've got an hour and a half before we're swapping saves to my Oblivion save so I can steal a spell altar and pick up some enchanting books."
"What's the difference?" Robin asked as he looked around the cave.
"Enchanting in Oblivion was based on your spells," Myst replied as he disenchanted a pair of boots that gave him the ability to increase his carry weight. "I'm going to have to figure out a better way to enchant things than using souls."
"I can't see Hades appreciating it," Diana warned her.
"If it makes you feel better, I'm reasonably sure that I'm not actually binding people's souls to the items, just trading souls to some extremely powerful creatures in another dimension and they're the ones supplying the energy for the enchantment," Myst 'assured' her.
Diana shook her head. "I'm not sure that's actually better."
"Same," Myst admitted, hoping he could figure out a way to power his enchanting skill without resorting to using real souls. 'I'd use the Joker's soul but that would probably result in a cursed magical item that turns people insane.'
"Do you want me to keep working on the other game?" Robin asked.
"No point, we're not going to get far enough," Myst replied as he worked on disenchanting a set of robes that had fortify alteration and mana regeneration as a single enchant.
"Just figured I'd offer," Robin replied, then ran at the wall and kicked off of it, figuring he'd work on his acrobatics while he waited his turn, since he had the blessing from the magic stone.
0o0o0
Myst glanced up from his notebook as Kara and Diana walked out of the portal with Robin following them. "Did you get everything enchanted?"
"Everything that wasn't enchanted other than Kara's uniform," Diana replied, not surprised that she hadn't been able to improve her armor.
"Thanks for giving us the cave, Robin is a bit twitchy about his secret identity," Kara said as she walked over and grabbed another soda. "I stuck lightning and fire absorption on my boots, water breathing and poison resistance on my left toe ring and fortify restoration and magic resistance on my right toe ring. I'm leaving my uniform and cloak unenchanted until we get better enchants because I can't replace them."
"Makes sense," Myst agreed, knowing they were bound to find better options once they started exploring everything Final Fantasy had to offer but happy with the gear they'd managed to cobble together. "What did you end up sticking on your costume?" he asked Robin.
"Fortify regeneration and resist poison on my new favorite ring, fortify illusion and resist magic on my other ring so I can toss up night eye without worrying about burning mana and pull off some fun tricks while avoiding getting turned into a newt or blasted out of existence by mages and fortify strength and hand to hand on my gloves." Robin glanced down at his boots, fairly sure Batman was going to yell at him for being reckless or want his own pair of boots once he realized what his could do. "I enchanted the boots to fortify speed and muffle so I can move around better. My chest piece absorbs fire and lightning and my cape absorbs cold and gives me levitation which lets me pull off flight."
"Ish," Kara cut in.
"Says the kryptonian," Robin muttered.
"You're the one that hit the ceiling," Kara pointed out.
"And your mask?" Myst asked, knowing he'd enchanted it.
"Fortify destruction and alteration, which lets me blast things and cast water breathing without burning mana," Robin replied smugly, rather happy with his gear. "I also enchanted a necklace with lockpicking and bonus agility in case I run into something I can't open."
"Makes sense," Myst replied, glad that he'd grabbed a decent collection of spellbooks and enchanting books from Morrowind and Oblivion since it increased their options. He twitched when he felt a church bell ring without actually hearing it. "Did anyone else hear that?"
"Hear what?" Robin asked as he glanced around.
"A bell," Myst replied as he glanced at the clock. '11:49?' He turned to look at Robin. "Do you have the time?"
"What type of bell?" Kara asked, wanting her to be more specific since she could hear thousands of bells in the background, sounds that normally faded away when she wasn't focused on them unless something drew her attention to them.
"Eleven fifty and eight seconds," Robin replied.
"In that case, I'm guessing that's my ten minute warning bell and the fun ends at midnight," Myst said thoughtfully. "Or I'm hearing things."
"Either way, I think we should call it a night," Diana stated, not seeing a point in risking their safety to grab anything when they could just wait a week or at least another fifteen or twenty minutes to make sure the portal wasn't going to collapse at midnight.
"We should probably have Green Lantern scan you again to see if you still need to find a temple or if your cure disease potion fixed your genetic damage," Kara suggested.
"It's worth a shot," Myst replied, fairly sure that if the overpowered cure disease potion hadn't fixed the damage, he'd have to try a heal spell. If that didn't work, he'd need a wish which wasn't impossible, just harder to track down and more expensive.
Robin glanced at the portal. "Are you going to leave it open to see if it shuts on its own?"
"Yeah, just a minute," Myst replied as he ran into the portal and over to the enchanting altar. He reached down and picked up the altar then ran back through the portal, doing what he'd wanted to do every time he played the game, steal one of the altars just sitting in a cave. He carefully set the altar down next to the bed then ran back for the alchemy altar. He picked up the altar and ran back, knowing he had more than enough time. "Do we want to steal a couple more before we're out of time?"
Kara glanced at the various expanded chests and backpacks scattered around the floor. "Where would you put them and how much do you think the floor will support?"
"Here and there and we might need you to grab some of the backpacks," Myst replied as he walked over near the door and carefully set the altar down.
"On it," Kara replied as she floated off the ground and picked up some of the backpacks, knowing they were several hundred pounds each with all of the magical weapons and strange ore samples.
Myst dashed over to the enchanting altar and focused on it, getting a menu that was slightly less restrained than the version in the game. "Huh, the menu is different, it might work better out here."
Diana smiled as she thought about how much some of the artificers back home would love to study one of the enchanting altars. "Grab them. I'll call the girls, we can grab a truck. You can crash at the embassy for the next couple of days, we have space."
"Thanks." Myst closed the door then opened it again to the save with the cave. He ran in and grabbed the alchemy altar and ran back to the room. "At least the altars aren't that heavy."
"Can you get the door?" Diana asked Robin as she floated off the ground and grabbed the altar from Myst, wanting to avoid damaging the room with the altars.
"Sure," Robin replied as he jumped some of the chests they'd collected and opened the door to the hallway then stepped out of the way. "I'll go ask someone about the service elevator."
"Thanks," Diana replied as she floated into the hallway with the altar.
Kara glanced at the clock, noting that they still had six minutes. "I'll get the other one," she said as she flew over and grabbed the backpack then carefully grabbed the enchanting altar. She flew back out of the portal then followed Diana out into the hallway with the altar. "We'll be back in a bit."
"I'm not going anywhere," Myst replied as he looked at the various chests they'd collected that he was going to have to sort through eventually. 'At least I'll have plenty of potions and random weapons to sell in the various D&D worlds.'
