Mist of Shadows
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Taylor and the Twisted Game Part 36
🕑 Added 2022-01-25 11:29:10 +0000 UTC"Any luck?" Amy asked, not taking her eyes off the group of eight naked women on the air mattress, mostly because they were cultists but also because they were decently attractive women.
"Everyone picked up at least a couple of points in various talents and half of them got a temporary boost to their strength, not to mention the various temporary talents everyone picked up," Taylor replied as she finished writing her notes on the last cultist's talents and affinity changes.
Amy glanced over at Shaper. "Anything?"
"Yes." Shaper pulled her hand away from the cultist she was examining and held out her hand for the notebook. "Can I see your notebook?"
"Sure," Taylor replied as she handed Shaper the notebook.
Shaper glanced at the changes to Sheriam's talents and affinities and compared it to the rest of the women she'd checked, wanting to make sure she was correct before she told them her theory.
Amy glanced over at her sister. "Having fun?"
Vicky glanced over at her sister. "Less than you but more than I was expecting. It would have been better if Skitter had grabbed a couple of male strippers."
Taylor shook her head, fairly sure at least half of the women would have objected for various reasons. "I'd rather not give a group of random strippers magic, even if it's only temporary."
"Do you think Dean is willing to volunteer?" Amy teased, watching her sister out of the corner of her eye to see her reaction.
Vicky raised her hand to flip her sister off and stopped when she realized that wasn't the worst idea in the world, mostly because it might let them pick up more magic or improve their talents and because Dean was a pain in the ass to shop for. "Depends on how I phrase things and if we're tag teaming people."
Amy opened her mouth then closed it as images of her sister and Dean in a threesome jumped into her mind. "Forget I said anything. Did you find anything Shaper?" she asked, trying to change the subject and wishing she had brain bleach for the image of Dean.
"I found a link between genetics and elemental affinities and genetics and strength in the power but I wasn't able to find a link with their talents or at least there weren't any changes in their genetics if their affinities didn't change," Shaper explained.
"Did the ritual fix my magic?" Lanfear's clone demanded as she walked over.
"Let me check," Taylor replied as she used her inspection ability on the clone. 'So much for the ritual 'reawakening' the ability to channel.' She held her hand out for the notebook. "I need the notebook for a second."
"I'm done with it," Shaper said as she handed Skitter the book.
Taylor flipped back to the page she'd written for the clone's abilities and compared the numbers, not particularly surprised to find some of her weakest talents had improved enough that she might be able to use them. "I want to test something." She stuck the notebook in her inventory then conjured a mana ruby and tossed it to Lanfear's clone. "See if you can use the gem like a well."
Lanfear's clone connected to the ruby and grinned when she realized there was a decent amount of magic in the ruby. She pulled some of the magic out of it and created a glowing ball of light, almost fumbling the weave when the magic felt strange. "The magic feels dead," she paused as she realized that was the wrong way to describe it, "not dead, passive? Passive works, I don't have to fight it like saidin or surrender like saidar, it's just there."
Amy frowned as she studied Lanfear's clone. "I thought you said her ability was broken."
"Her access to the source is broken, her ability to channel is genetic," Taylor replied, a bit surprised that her idea had actually worked.
"Makes sense," Lanfear mused. "There's a difference between being severed and burned out. The Dark One can give channelers access to his power but he can't do the same if you don't have the ability to channel."
"Can I try?" one of the Aes Sedai asked.
"If you try to attack anyone, I'll break your arms," Taylor warned her.
Jeaine Caide glanced around at the forest. "Beyond the fact that we're in an abandoned stedding and I know that my warder is over a thousand miles to the east and north, I'm not sure where we are and you've got enough power to burn the Tower to the ground, I'm not running."
"Go ahead," Taylor told Lanfear's clone.
The clone pulled more magic out of the gem then tossed it to the Aes Sedai. "If you try anything stupid, I'll kill you. Treat it like an angreal, you just sort of reach into it."
It took Jeaine twenty seconds of fumbling before she figured out how to use the ruby and pulled in the rest of the mana, causing the gem to crumble and vanish. "Sorry…" she trailed off as she realized the strange girl wasn't wrong, it wasn't saidar and it didn't feel tainted like saidin was supposed to be. "Strange."
"Don't worry about the gem, they're supposed to fall apart, they're just a magic construct," Taylor explained, fairly sure Dennis would have made a joke about being heartbroken over the lost gem. 'Hopefully he's having fun wandering around town.'
"What do you mean strange?" Amico asked as she continued to play with Asne's breasts, unwilling to end the ritual until she got the most out of it she could but curious about the stranger that was filled with something that wasn't saidar.
"I don't feel a rush and I don't have to surrender, I just have to direct it," Jeaine explained as she created a ball of light over her hand. "How many of these can you make?"
"As many as I want, provided I'm willing to pay the cost in energy," Taylor replied, happy that some of the more annoying game aspects didn't transfer over, like only being able to have one of certain items and magical items soul binding when you put them on.
"Do you need assistants?" Jeaine asked thoughtfully as she wove a ball of fire to test her ability with fire, finding it a bit easier than it used to be.
"If you make it back from the other world, you'll have enough power to help," Taylor replied, figuring she might as well paint their banishment in a positive light on the off chance that they actually made it back.
"That's where you got your power, isn't it?" Asne asked, looking forward to getting strong enough to challenge the entire Tower.
"I earned my power killing monsters, you can do the same," Taylor replied, not seeing a point in mentioning the trick with the items and red riding hood spell or any of the rest of the tricks the Aes Sedai wouldn't have a clue to try or even really understand.
"Provided you're willing to put in the effort," Amy added, fairly sure none of the Aes Sedai would manage to beat Kil'Jaeden before a group of capes claimed the rest of the spots, if only because the Aes Sedai weren't familiar with videogames.
Amico glanced between Skitter and Vicky. "Why are some of you stronger?"
"Amelia and I went as mages," Taylor lied.
"Why should we trust you?" Marillin asked warily.
Taylor turned to look at the skinny woman with watery blue eyes. "Realistically, do you have a choice? Even if I let you escape, you'd be running for the rest of your lives, the light side wants to hang you and your god doesn't appreciate failure so I doubt you'll fare much better if his people find you. I made a deal that I'd send you somewhere the Tower couldn't find you if you agreed to test the ritual. You fulfilled your side of the ritual, I'll keep mine. I'm reasonably sure none of the Dark One's minions can reach you in the other world and I know the Tower can't, which means you've got a chance to do something useful with your lives, I suggest using it."
"What do we need to know about the other world?" Jeaine asked, not seeing a point in sticking around now that she had a death sentence hanging over her head.
"I suggest reading the class descriptions carefully and avoiding being an undead abomination, it's not worth it. Beyond that, I'd concentrate on improving your skills and read the traits carefully that you get for leveling," Taylor replied as she pulled her headset out of her inventory. "Who wants to go first?"
"I'll go first," Amico said as she let go of Asne. 'Power and immortality and a world where I don't have to deal with the Tower, works for me.'
Taylor walked over and put the headset on the naked woman then flipped the switch, sending her to the game world or at least the character generation menu.
"I'll go next," Asne offered when no one else spoke up.
Taylor stuck the headset on the woman with a large nose then flipped the switch sending her on her way then quickly did the same for the rest of the Black Ajah members, a touch surprised that none of them tried to flee. "That went better than I was expecting, I was half expecting one of them to make a break for it."
"They were probably expecting the Dark One to send minions to kill them," Lanfear's clone replied.
"Can he?" Amy asked.
"No, for all his power, he needed his Chosen to manage his armies and direct his followers unless someone was stupid enough to travel to his prison and talk to him in person," Lanfear's clone replied with a shiver, glad that she'd never have to make the trip to the Pit of Dhoom.
"Do you know how to kill the Dark One?" Vicky asked, figuring she might as well ask.
The clone shrugged. "Lanfear was under the delusion that you could kill him if you could channel a massive amount of power into him but Lews Therin tried to seal him away and the Dark One's counterattack tainted the male half of the source for three thousand years, I don't think her plan would have ended in anything other than tears, even if it worked."
Shaper pulled most of her attention away from going through Aginor's medical knowledge and focused on Lanfear's clone. "How is the source tainted?"
"There's a film of his tainted energy over it that every channeler has to reach through to touch the source," Lanfear explained. "In theory, the amount of taint should be decreasing every time someone touches the source but you're talking about drops of water in a lake."
"I might have a couple of ideas," Taylor admitted as she sent her puppet that was in her mansion working on fishing to find Illidan and ask her if she had any ideas for draining a bunch of tainted magic. "One of my friends has extensive experience dealing with corruptive magic and finding ways to use it."
"Illidan?" Amy asked thoughtfully.
Taylor nodded. "She's an expert when it comes to fel energy and magic and Jaina should be able to keep her on task."
"Hopefully," Amy muttered, not wanting to see the amount of damage Illidan could do if she went insane. "You should probably test purge and cleanse on people before you let her anywhere near tainted magic."
"If you're looking for a bunch of tainted magic users, there's a twisted town in the blight not far from Shayol Ghul that has a decent number of twisted channelers," the clone offered. "Ishamael bragged about his project where they'd convert Aiel channelers that walked into the blight to die to the Dark One's service using thirteen myrddraal and thirteen channelers."
"You're telling me there's a way to corrupt people?" Taylor asked warily.
"Just channelers, they basically flood the Dark One's power into the channeler and it warps their minds and possibly replaces their soul with some twisted construct as they're never the same," the clone explained.
"Lovely," Taylor muttered, making a mental note to step up her plans or leave the world if she couldn't find a way to cripple the local dark god. "Is there anyone else that should go on my kill on sight list?"
The clone nodded. "Slayer, he's probably the most dangerous assassin the Dark One has now that you've banished the Chosen. He's a dreamwalker and he can slip into and out of the world of dreams, using it to teleport around and sneak into just about anywhere that isn't protected by a dreamspike or in a stedding."
Taylor cast mind vision on Slayer and saw the same creepy tavern filled with cloaked figures and myrddraal. "That looks like a winner. Summoning in three, two, one." She summoned the man, wanting a teleporting assassin dealt with before he started wrecking things.
Slayer reached for his sword when he found himself elsewhere and froze when the strange purple skinned women with pointy ears reached out and touched him before he could dodge, mostly because he tried and failed to slip into the dream world. "What did you do!" he demanded.
"I disabled your body so you can't do something stupid," Shaper replied as she studied the tall middle aged man with red hair that was going white at his temples. "There is a high probability that he's related to the red haired boy in town, most likely an uncle given his genetics."
"That complicates things…" Taylor trailed off as she looked at his abilities with her inspection ability. "He has two souls in his body or attached to his body and he's a dreamwalker."
"How do you know that?" Slayer demanded.
"Magic and Ishamael sold you out," Taylor replied then cast her charm spell on him. "Who are you?"
"Luc Mantear or Isam Mandragoran depending on the day or Slayer, we both like hunting wolves," Slayer replied, despite his best intentions.
"Why do you work for the Dark One?" Taylor asked, curious if he had a halfway decent reason.
"Because we'll get immortality if we win and we like killing people," Slayer replied.
"Do you have any ter'angreal or stashes of gold?" Taylor asked.
"I have some gold in the town, if you let me go I'll take you there," Slayer promised.
Taylor frowned as she looked into his blue eyes, that seemed devoid of any empathy or compassion. "And then you'd try to kill me?"
"Of course," Slayer replied despite his best effort to keep his mouth shut.
Taylor turned to look at Shaper. "Can you dump his long term memory and scramble his brain or remove his dream walking ability?"
Shaper nodded. "I'll do both. Removing his dream walking ability shouldn't be hard and I need practice on people that I don't care what happens to."
"Wait!" Slayer blurted. "Don't you want information about the people I've killed or what happened to Luc Mantear?"
"I honestly don't care," Taylor replied, knowing that she wouldn't want to know that she was related to a monster.
Shaper reached out and touched his neck and started turning his brain into mush, making sure that he wouldn't be able to remember much of anything then modified his dream walking ability until it was useless. "That should do it."
Taylor opened a void portal to the void then kicked him through and closed it, wanting to make sure the system didn't repair his mind and that he didn't die in the world where the Dark One could grab his soul. "Do you want to start on the people that weren't on Verin's list on the off chance that they aren't actually Black Ajah while we wait for Illidan and Jaina to come up with ideas?"
"Might as well, worst case we'll just have Lost Memory's host erase their memory of the conversation," Vicky suggested, fairly sure she shouldn't be fine with killing people but finding it hard to care when the cultists were basically trying to destroy every world their dark god could reach.
Amy shook her head. "I'm fairly sure heroes aren't supposed to edit people's memories."
Vicky gestured at Skitter. "Do you want to let them freak out because they were abducted by aliens or remember our rather distinctive power?"
"I don't think I can fix the glowing bit," Taylor admitted, making a mental note to look into something that would hide her magic.
"Fine," Amy grumbled, not particularly happy with the idea of erasing people's heads but unwilling to let a cultist have easy access to a princess either. "If the tips don't check out and she flips out to an unreasonable degree, we'll just wipe her memory of the last ten minutes."
Taylor cast her mind vision spell on Elaida Sedai, finding her in an expensive looking room with an exceedingly beautiful teenager with sapphire blue eyes and curly red gold hair and a silk dress. "We might need to wait…" she trailed off as she had a brief vision of watching the red haired girl naked on her back with Rand al'Thor fucking her on a large bed while two other naked women watched with amused grins, neither of the girls being Egwene. "Or not."
"Or not?" Amy asked.
"I had a vision of the girl Elaida is with, she's probably important." Taylor focused and summoned the girl in Elaida's field of view. "Hello."
"Light!" Elayne gasped in shock when she vanished from the palace and reappeared in a forest with three strange girls and two freakishly tall people with weird colored skin and pointy ears. "What are you?"
"Void elves," Taylor summoned Elaida as she reached out and waved her hand through where Elayne had been as if she was looking for an invisible person.
Elaida stared at Taylor. "What are you?"
Taylor used her inspection skill on the severe looking woman in a red dress, more than a little surprised that she had the same oath as Moiraine rather than the twisted oath the Black Ajah had. "As I just finished telling the lady, we're Void elves. As for why we interrupted your evening, we had testimony from several Aes Sedai that you were a member of the Black Ajah, I wanted to make sure you weren't considering you had access to the princess."
"There is no such thing!" Elaida snapped.
"There are over two hundred members of the Black Ajah, roughly one fifth of Aes Sedai, would you like to ask an Aes Sedai about it?" Taylor asked, wondering what it would take to get her to believe her.
"You're lying! Do you know how much trouble you're in!" Elaida demanded, too angry and assured of the Tower's power to care that she was in a stedding and the strangers were holding a great deal more of the power than they should be able to despite how impossible any of those things should be.
"For kidnapping a suspected Black Ajah member for a candlemark? I don't really care and I doubt the Amyrlin will either when I tell her that the Black Ajah is gone," Taylor replied.
"No, for kidnapping the princess of Andor!" Elaida snapped.
"You're a princess?" Taylor asked Elayne, not particularly surprised that she was a princess but surprised that Elaida would just blurt it out.
"Yes," Elayne admitted, hoping she wasn't making a mistake.
"My apologies for the trouble, princess but we had to be sure, we had Aes Sedai tell us that Elaida was a member of the Black Ajah," Taylor replied as she checked Elayne's abilities to see if she had any special abilities because she was royalty. 'No ties to the land or anything that screams noble but she has five decent affinities, high ratings in cloud dancing and ter'angreal creation and she's got the same talent as Egwene for learning weaves quickly, nice.'
Elaida glared at Taylor. "You're obviously lying!"
"Or they were lied to," Elayne pointed out, trying to keep the peace before things turned nasty with a group that could pull them out of the palace without anyone noticing.
"Or she's enough of a bitch that people thought she was a cultist," Vicky said as she floated off the ground and flew over to inspect the princess's dress.
"You're obviously…" Elaida trailed off when she saw Vicky flying. "How are you doing that!"
"Magic space whale bullshit," Vicky replied as she examined the girl's dress. "You'd look better in silk that glittered but I guess if this is just for wandering around the palace, it works."
"What's wrong with my dress?" Elayne sputtered.
"Nothing, I've just seen better and you're a princess," Vicky replied as she pulled one of her dresses out of her inventory and showed Elayne the translucent mage silk dress that technically covered everything it should cover but would certainly show off her curves and a lot of skin. "Now this beauty will stop arrows and knives and look fantastic on the ballroom floor."
"I'm going to have you executed!" Elaida snapped, seeing red because of the dress.
Amy stared at Elaida for a couple of seconds then sighed. "How stupid are you?"
"What?" Elaida sputtered, not used to anyone speaking to her with that much disrespect.
"You're ranting about having us executed after we explained why we grabbed you and offered to take you to an Aes Sedai to vouch for us. You're obviously terminally stupid and your survival skills are pathetic," Amy said scornfully.
"You think you can threaten the daughter-heir?" Elaida demanded, trying to get them to understand the amount of trouble they were in.
"The princess is perfectly safe, we'll return her to the palace safe and sound once we've made our offer to teach her magic rather than making her travel to the Tower where she isn't safe and certainly won't enjoy the next ten years of boring drudgery."
"Elayne, we're leaving!" Elaida declared.
Taylor gestured towards the edge of the stedding. "You're free to go, there's a town a couple of days that way."
"What type of training and what would I learn?" Elayne asked, ignoring Elaida's glare.
"How would you like to learn to fly?" Taylor asked with a grin as she floated off the ground.
Elyane glanced at Elaida. "Do you see any weaves keeping them in the air?"
"It's obviously a trick!" Elaida snapped, angry that she couldn't figure out how they were faking flying.
"That's the other problem with Aes Sedai, they just have to think they're telling the truth," Taylor pointed out. "Do you really want to sign your name in the novice book and spend the next ten to twelve years taking orders from anyone higher ranked than you then spend the next two hundred years arguing with the Tower's leadership about the best course of action for the country? Surely, Elaida, mentioned how strong you are, you'll end up Aes Sedai unless you seriously screw up and then you'll be stuck with some of the stupidest rules in the world. Do you have any idea how many times your mother has to lie to people to keep the country running?"
"Not really." Elayne frowned as she considered the woman's point. "Considering some of the nobles, a lot."
Elaida glared at Taylor. "She's going to the Tower if I have to drag her there myself."
"Shut up, the grownups are talking," Amy said, getting tired of the woman's yapping.
Elaida stepped forward and slapped Amy. "Stay out-" whatever else she was going to stay was cut off as Shaper blinked forward and grabbed Elaida by the neck and lifted her off the ground.
"Headset," Shaper said as she held her hand out towards Skitter.
Taylor pulled her headset out of her inventory and tossed it to Shaper.
"Actions have consequences." Shaper stuck the headset on the struggling Aes Sedai then flipped the switch, causing her to vanish.
"Where did she go?" Elayne asked warily.
Shaper turned to look at Elayne. "Somewhere she can learn some humility and or self control, with any luck you'll never see her again."
"You can't just make an Aes Sedai vanish," Elayne sputtered.
"That is obviously not true considering she's gone and she'd not coming back," Amy replied.
"How am I supposed to explain this?" Elayne asked, knowing her mother was going to flip her lid.
"That's easy, I have a friend of mine that's good with illusions, I'll drop her in Elaida's chambers and she'll pretend to be Elaida long enough to hire some servants. They'll pack her stuff and a large box that is large enough to stuff a princess in then she'll leave after telling a servant that you didn't want to do your duty and be a proper Red so she was leaving and Andor could rot. By the time anyone realizes you're missing, she'll have left with the princess sized box and be out of the city on her way back towards Tar Valon. At some point my friend will swap her disguise and vanish and the Tower will have lost the daughter-heir."
Amy shook her head. "That seems like a good way to start a war."
"Not if she turns up in a couple of days, having knocked the bitch out and ridden a horse through the night to get back," Taylor pointed out. "The Tower will sputter and hang Elaida out to dry."
Elayne shook her head. "I'd still need someone to teach me control and how to channel."
"That's easy," the Lanfear clone said cheerfully then cast her teaching spell and taught the princess how to embrace the source without staying calm or any of the backwards crap the current Aes Sedai taught. "Now you just have to practice."
Elayne blinked when she realized she knew how to channel and wouldn't have to fumble anymore. "How did you do that?"
"Magic," Lanfear's clone replied with a grin. "Should I teach her more than the basics?"
"We should probably start with something simple for each of the five elements then we can head to town and introduce her to the others, it's Winternight and there will be dancing tomorrow," Taylor suggested.
"Others?" Elayne asked.
"Channelers," Taylor replied with a grin. "Just don't tell people you're a princess, this gives you time to get to know everyone and gives you a chance to actually meet people that aren't falling over themselves to help or to agree with you."
"Will you teach me to fly?" Elayne asked hopefully.
"Only if you wear the dress," Vicky suggested.
Elayne looked at the dress. "My mother would lock me in my room for a month."
"Your mother isn't here and no one is going to connect the lovely Elayne that showed up in a village without fanfare for a holiday with the princess," Vicky pointed out.
"Fine," Elayne admitted, knowing it would be nice to have an adventure even if she wouldn't be able to talk about it without getting in a lot of trouble.
"Cool, you might as well give her the flight ability," Taylor suggested, fairly sure Elayne would have a lot more fun practicing with the rest of the villagers than stuck in the Tower with the Aes Sedai.
"With pleasure," Shaper replied with a grin.
