Mist of Shadows
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Taylor and the Twisted Game Part Part 27
🕑 Added 2021-12-25 02:39:28 +0000 UTC[We're here to save the day!] Sparkling Trickster cheered as her host walked into the surprisingly clean ferry terminal.
[Is there a reason you're overly cheerful?] Admin asked as she turned to look at the hero wearing a skintight sky blue costume with white lightning bolts and flames scattered over it.
[Zion is dead and you're fixing things!], Sparkling replied cheerfully.
[Do you need any help?] Admin asked as Armsmaster walked over to greet Legend.
[Can I have permission to talk to my host?] Sparkling asked, figuring she might as well ask now that Zion and Eden weren't around to enforce their rules.
[What are you planning on telling him?] Admin asked, curious how much trouble Sparkling was planning on causing.
[Mostly I just want to offer the occasional bit of advice but I want to tell him that Zion is dead], Sparkling explained.
[Why?] Admin asked.
[One of his friends learned about Zion's true nature, they've been trying to figure out how to kill him for years], Sparkling explained.
{Zion was a problem?} Taylor asked Admin.
[He was planning on destroying the world], Admin replied and sent Sparkling the codes she needed to unlock her ability to talk to her host.
{At least he's dead}, Taylor replied, making a mental note to ask Admin for details when they weren't in the middle of things.
Legend glanced between Panacea and Colin as he walked over. "Any health problems?"
Amy shook her head. "I won't say we're in perfect health but we're in remarkably good health."
Legend relaxed, glad to have confirmation that they weren't a walking plague. "Good to hear." He turned to look at Director Piggot. "Costa-Brown said you had a report for me that you didn't want to share over the phone."
"Less a report and more a couple of details. Some of our abilities are dangerous and some of them are genetic." Emily floated a foot off the ground. "I'd rather not spend the next twenty years dodging kidnapping attempts because someone got lazy with security."
"Especially when we have a villain running around the bay with moles in the PRT," Lisa added.
Legend glanced at Panacea then turned to look at Lisa. "Which one?"
"All of them to a certain extent but the most dangerous is Coil, he's a thinker or reality manipulator with designs on the city," Lisa replied.
Colin turned to look at Lisa. "You're sure he has powers?"
Lisa nodded. "He likes to pretend that he doesn't have powers because it makes people underestimate him but I've seen him call a coin toss twenty times in a row, when he wasn't flipping it and didn't see the coin before it was tossed."
Admin reached out and checked with the shards that had local hosts, getting a report on what everyone gave their hosts. "He's a precog, he can predict two different 'timelines' then select the one he wants at which point his shard puppets him until he reaches the point he collapsed the other timeline."
Legend turned to look at Admin. "That sounds useful for gathering information."
Lisa nodded. "Especially if you have people that are willing to sell you information, you start a 'timeline' and get the information then you pick the timeline where you didn't waste the resources. It also tracks with why he could occasionally pull off risky jobs without suffering the usual problems, he'd just pick the other timeline if something went wrong."
"Let's see if I can target him with mind vision," Taylor mused as she flipped the mental switch for her compass ability and focused on finding Coil, getting a mental image of a map of the city and a red dot in the financial district. "He's in the financial district."
"Can you narrow it down?" Legend asked, trying to get a better idea of her powers.
Taylor cast mind vision, causing another 'window' to appear in her mind, much like using eyes of the beast or controlling her puppets. "Not without getting closer. He's sitting at a desk reading a report on his computer about the number of people that are jumping into the simulation. We've already lost fifteen million people?"
"Closer to sixteen," Legend admitted. "It's hard to get accurate numbers but we've lost at least a hundred and twenty one million people world wide."
Taylor stared at Legend, trying to wrap her head around the idea of entire countries worth of people vanishing overnight.
Lisa shivered as she tried to imagine how crowded the capital cities would end up. "That would flood the capital cities, it's going to be nearly impossible to level unless you're lucky enough to have a perk for boosting your experience through combat or you have a nasty power."
"China has lost the most people, at least forty seven million people with India a close second at thirty nine million. The CUI have declared martial law and banned the game, we're expecting the numbers to keep increasing as they tighten restrictions." Legend turned to look at Skitter. "Back to your power for a minute, can you do that with anyone?"
Taylor shook her head. "I need a name or something to identify them and they have to be on the same continent or at least within a couple of thousand miles for the spell to work."
Legend stared at Skitter for a couple of seconds then turned to look at Emily. "That's a security nightmare. Is that a unique power?"
Emily shook her head. "It's a priest spell which means we've got at least four people with the ability and anyone that picks up a priest class and makes it back could do the same."
"It should let us deal with the villains in the bay," Sophia said smugly.
Uber snorted. "That sounds like a good way to start a gang war."
"Not if we grab everyone in the middle of the night," Sophia argued.
"It's not going to matter," Wings pointed out.
"What do you mean?" Sophia asked.
Wings shrugged. "We're already having trouble fighting the endbringers. I'll give it a month before the next attack flattens a city and people see the writing on the walls and jump ship."
"If we lose enough people, we'll lose the ability to maintain our infrastructure and civilization will start to break down," Dragon added.
"Look on the bright side, it should drop property values to something reasonable," Cherie suggested with a smirk.
Legend glanced at Cherie. "Silver linings aside, I don't trust the people running the simulation to have people's best interest at heart."
"If we can kill an endbringer, we can probably turn things around," Vicky pointed out.
"Do you have anything that will let you kill one?" Velocity asked, fairly sure the answer was no.
"I suggest lots of magic," Harry said, fairly sure Skitter had a couple of spells that would absolutely wreck the endbringers if she could get close enough.
Velocity turned to look at Harry. "You think that's going to help?"
"There are very few things that can't be solved with enough magic and some creativity," Harry replied with a grin.
"Let me guess, you grabbed a mage class?" Velocity asked.
"I was a GM, I picked up a little bit of everything. That said, I have an appointment that I need to get to if I don't want to get into trouble. I'll see you around Skitter." Harry vanished with a crack of displaced air, taking his fox with him.
Legend turned to look at Skitter. "Can you find him with your spell?"
"Maybe," Taylor admitted reluctantly. "With respect, even if I didn't have moral issues about spying on an acquaintance, I'm not using it on someone that might be the next best thing to a god."
"What do you mean?" Legend asked.
"Everyone walked out of the simulation with magic or powers and he used to be a GM, maybe he kept something, maybe he didn't." Taylor gestured towards Dennis. "We have Clock's contact information, I'm sure he'll get in touch eventually."
"Hopefully," Legend replied, wishing he'd gotten a chance to ask him some questions about the company. "Which abilities are genetic?"
Amy pulled her attention away from the gacha token sitting in her inventory and looked at Legend. "Mostly just our flight, potential for using magic, decreased need for sleep and our immunity to fire, cold, lightning, holy and shadow magic."
"Before we get into everyone's powers, it's been a long couple of days and most of us have family we'd like to visit, can we cover what we're going to tell people before we let people wander off?" Emily asked, knowing they couldn't actually stop anyone from leaving.
Legend glanced at Colin then turned his head to look at Emily. "I suggest the truth or at least a version of it, you got lucky to escape and you're still testing the abilities you picked up. I'd stress the fact that forty nine slots of the possible one hundred are already claimed and hope for the best."
"That's it? Hope for the best and luck?" Cherie asked in surprise.
"You want us to admit to having powers?" Colin asked, surprised that they weren't going to have to bury everything.
Legend glanced over the group of elves. "I don't think we can avoid it considering your appearance."
"Technically, we have alternate forms or at least most of us do," Emily pointed out.
"That's not really an option for some of us," Admin pointed out as she gestured towards the puppets.
"What's the deal with the quintuplets?" Legend asked.
"We're Skitter's minions," the puppets replied at the same time.
Legend glanced at Armsmaster. "Projections?"
"Puppets turned void elf," Taylor offered. "They're basically blasters and shakers from what I understand."
Legend turned to look at Skitter. "How many of them can you control?"
"I had over three hundred puppets in the game," Taylor replied with a shrug.
"I still think that's cheating since the rest of us can't have more than one puppet running at a time," Vista complained.
Taylor turned to look at Vista. "You can turn space into a pretzel, you don't get to complain about unfair powers."
"That's because I'm awesome," Vista replied with a grin.
"Are you a parahuman?" Legend asked Skitter.
"Not that I know of," Taylor replied as she turned to look at Amy. "Do you want to check again?"
Amy shook her head. "Unless she triggered in the last couple of minutes and no one noticed, she's not a parahuman."
"What does it take to make your puppets?" Legend asked.
"Assuming I can get everything working, cloth, crystals, thread and mana gems. I should be able to buy semi precious stones and I can conjure the mana gems," Taylor explained.
Legend nodded. "Did anyone else end up with anything useful?"
"I picked up the ability to change someone's species, at least until they cancel the ability though that might be harder now that we're not in the game," Amy mused. "We also picked up the ability to open portals which should help with moving around the world."
"Which doesn't even touch the various crafting skills," Armsmaster added.
"Hypothetically, do we need to kill an endbringer or just make sure it can't bother us anymore?" Leet asked thoughtfully.
Wings raised an eyebrow. "What are you thinking?"
"I'm thinking that if we drop the endbringer through a portal to somewhere nasty, it won't be able to get back without magic," Leet replied with a grin.
"It's been tried before," Legend warned them. "Leviathan cut the guy in half with his water echo and the portal closed before we could push it through."
"Puppets for the win," Uber suggested as he turned to look at Skitter. "Do you think you could find somewhere unpleasant with your puppets?"
"We're not jumping through random void portals," the puppets told him at the same time.
Uber snorted. "Of course not, that's what you have cheap cloth puppets for."
Taylor shivered as she thought about some of the things that might come out of an improperly crafted portal. "I'll take a look assuming I can get the puppets working."
Vicky jumped when her cell phone rang. "Forgot about that," she admitted as she fished it out of her pocket and brought it up to her ear. "Hello?"
"Are you and Amy safe!" Carol demanded.
"We're fine Mom, we're talking to Legend about what we're supposed to say to the press," Vicky replied.
Carol took a breath then let it out, trying to relax. "Where are you?"
"The abandoned ferry!" Romeo called out then promptly got turned into a turtle for his trouble.
Alec dropped the hand he'd used to cast his polymorph spell then turned to look at Armsmaster. "Do you think you can make a shock collar?"
Colin glanced at Dragon then shook his head when she gave him a look. "I probably shouldn't."
"Go ahead and tell her, we could use a lawyer's opinion on things," Legend suggested.
"We're in the north ferry terminal," Victoria offered.
"I'll be there in five with Crystal," Carol told her then ended the call and headed for the study to grab her sister and niece.
Victoria turned to look at Amy. "She said she'd be here in five."
"I'll trust you to keep an eye on things," Marquis told Emily as he headed for the door.
"Leaving?" Legend asked.
"I'd rather not stick around, I don't need Carol mistaking me for someone else," Marquis replied.
"Stay out of trouble," Amy told her father.
Marquis turned and smiled at Amy. "Don't worry, I'm just going to wander around and get something to eat."
"Okay," Amy agreed, hoping her father didn't get into trouble.
Taylor headed over towards the window overlooking the bay as Legend and Armsmaster got into a discussion about what the group had seen and done in the game. {At least Dad can't expect me to go to school if the world is falling apart}, she told Admin as she opened her inventory and grabbed the gacha token the exit program had left in her inventory.
[Don't worry, you're never going back there], Admin assured Taylor.
[Thanks}, Taylor replied as she focused and activated the token, causing it to vanish and a spinning ghostly prize wheel to appear in front of her. {Do you think we have a chance against the endbringers?}
[In a straight up fight, they'd kill us. If you tossed some puppets at them and hit them with spells that do a percentage of their health, you could probably destroy them or at least heavily damage them. Unfortunately, destroying their core would just cause the core to explode and you'd lose the city you're trying to save], Admin warned her.
{Lovely}, Taylor replied as the gacha wheel lurched to a stop with the sound of grinding gears and dropped a leather bound book into her hands. She shivered as a chill ran down her spine, suddenly feeling like something was staring at her in the dark. She focused and flipped the mental switch on her power sensing ability, bringing up a floating window filled with details about the book's curse. 'Lovely, it has the ability to corrupt and twist anyone that opens the cover and it can teleport.'
"Where did you get the book?" Dennis asked as he walked over, not particularly interested in listening to Armsmaster's dry rendition of their adventures.
"I got a free spin on a gacha wheel because there was a problem with one of my abilities," Taylor explained as she summoned her spellbook and touched her book to the spine of the cursed book, copying the information in the book.
"The world portal?" Dennis asked as he looked at the title of the book. "Evil Overlord's Grimoire of Useful Spells?"
"Yeah, something about system glitches. Unfortunately, it's cursed," Taylor replied as she stuck the cursed book in her inventory, wanting to make sure no one grabbed it and opened it.
Dennis shook 'her' head. "You're not allowed to turn evil, you're far too terrifying."
"No worries, it sounds like too much work," Taylor replied as Amy walked over.
"Now that you mention it, all of that maniacal laughter would be hard on your throat," Amy mused as she pulled her gacha token out of her inventory and used it, figuring she might as well use it while she had people around in case something went wrong.
Dennis scratched 'her' chin as he pretended to think about it. "I don't know, villains are supposed to have money beyond your wildest dreams and plenty of attractive minions."
Taylor briefly considered what it would be like as a villain then shook her head, knowing her mother would be disappointed if she didn't have a good reason. "I'd rather be a hero, less guilt and I'm not all that worried about money, I can always rob the gangs."
"In that case, you should probably avoid joining the wards, we don't get to keep anything we confiscate," Dennis warned her, slightly annoyed at the policy even if he agreed with it in principle.
Amy grabbed the book the spinning gacha dropped before it hit the ground. "Dummy's Guide to Appliance Summoning."
Taylor quickly checked the book with her inspection ability and relaxed when it didn't have any powers. "That sounds useful if you need a toaster."
"Or freezers," Riley suggested as she walked over. "You never know when you'll need to store body parts in a freezer."
Dennis blinked. "Why would you need to store body parts?"
"So you can reattach them?" Riley asked, fairly sure reattaching limbs was a socially acceptable reason to keep severed limbs.
Amy shook her head. "You'd be better off using your inventory, considering things are frozen in time."
"That would make it easier," Riley admitted then focused on Skitter. "Can you help me make a magic girl costume once we get supplies from a shop?"
"Trying to be a hero?" Dennis asked as Amy flipped through her new book.
"Of course," Riley replied cheerfully, knowing that magic girls were good girls.
"I don't mind helping with costumes or at least I don't mind having one of my puppets help, I'm probably going to be stuck at home spending the rest of the holidays with family," Taylor admitted, fairly sure her dad wasn't going to let her out of his sight for the next couple of days.
"Thanks," Riley replied, looking forward to being an official magic girl.
"Are you going to be able to break the curse on the book?" Dennis asked Skitter.
"I'm not sure where I'd even start," Taylor admitted as she opened her grimoire and focused on the book she'd just copied, pulling up the handwritten index. 'Duplication magic, Sex Magic, Crafting your own mana storage device, Twisting minions in interesting and horrible ways and Ripping open the demon gates, at least the duplication magic looks useful.'
"Jaina or Illidan's clone might be able to help," Dennis pointed out.
"It's worth checking after we get things settled," Taylor said as she let her grimoire vanish and conjured a leash with her bondage conjuration skill.
"How much trouble are you going to get in with your folks?" Dennis asked.
"Technically, I'm probably in the clear. Realistically? I doubt I'm leaving the house until school starts," Taylor admitted with a grin to let him know she was only mostly serious.
Amy glanced up from her book. "If you need to escape for a bit, I can always introduce you to the doctors at the hospital."
"I'll let you know but I'll probably just curl up on the couch and read my grimoire," Taylor admitted. "I have a couple of ideas I want to try out."
"Anything you care to share with the class?" Dennis asked.
"I want to rip the mind fog spell I have apart and make sure it won't deal shadow damage so that I can use it for crowd control if I have to deal with mobs," Taylor replied.
"That probably counts as a master power," Dennis warned her.
"In other words, you're telling me that I should just blast the shit out of people and claim self defense rather than using a perfectly safe spell?" Taylor asked.
"Legally, you'd probably have a better defense if you blasted them and claimed self defense. Just look at Canary's trial, it's not going well and she had a restraining order against her idiot ex boyfriend," Dennis pointed out.
"Something to run by a lawyer," Taylor said as she looked out the window. She smiled as she spotted three people in the distance flying over the water on some type of invisible platform. "Your family is almost here."
Amy stuck her book in her inventory, not seeing a reason to let anyone confiscate it. "Time to face the music."
"I need a spell to summon a trumpet," Dennis said 'innocently'.
"Why?" Taylor asked.
"Because Taps just isn't the same without it," Dennis replied with a grin.
Amy summoned a comically sized squishy purple dildo with her bondage conjuration ability and hit Dennis over the head. "Bad Clock."
"Save me Skitter, you're my only hope," Dennis teased as he danced behind Skitter, using her as a human shield.
Taylor laughed. "If I'm your only hope, you're in trouble."
Amy let her conjured dildo vanish with a grin. "Thanks, I needed that."
"Always happy to help," Dennis replied with a grin, happy that he could help cheer her up. "Joking aside, we're going to need to do some power testing and figure out a replacement for the mansion's workbenches if we want to do any crafting."
"We could always steal Coil's base," Taylor suggested, only half joking.
Dennis shook 'her' head. "I'm pretty sure you're not allowed to steal a villain's secret lair as a hero."
"Can we steal bases as a rogue?" Taylor asked thoughtfully.
Dennis opened 'her' mouth then paused when he realized that Coil's base was probably heavily fortified and more secure than anything they could build on short notice and having labs would improve their ability to help save the world. "On second thought, we should probably ask the Director and Legend," he replied as he started walking back towards the group, fairly sure the group could use a base.
Amy shook her head as she followed Dennis, fairly sure they wouldn't let them keep the base.
