Mist of Shadows
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Taylor and the Twisted Game Part 26
🕑 Added 2021-12-21 10:56:48 +0000 UTCTaylor blinked when Kil'Jaeden's head exploded from her mind blast spell and she found herself floating in a black void. 'At least we're done second guessing ourselves and running around like lunatics trying to grab everything we can steal.'
A deep voice announced, "Congratulations on defeating the mythic version of the last boss of the expansion. Please fill out the exit form to have your flaws and drawbacks removed."
Taylor grinned when a floating view screen appeared in front of her showing a portrait of her void elf form wearing nothing save a crimson cloak near the top of the page and a list of her flaws and drawbacks on the rest of the page, complete with sliders or buttons under each drawback. She glanced over the page to make sure there wasn't a timer counting down then started reading from the top. 'Revert the changes and keep your demonic and dwarven appearance?'
"No thanks," Taylor muttered as she swapped the slider to keep her current upgraded species then flipped the next toggle so that she could switch back and forth between her pre-game human appearance and her void elf form. 'Keep current changes, current changes,' she mused as she worked her way through the physical options related to her stat bonuses.
'Remove Revealing Armor disability completely or add the option to your transmogrification ability? I guess I didn't have to spend so long transmogrifying things,' she mused as she added the option to her transmogrification ability.
"Keep your flexibility and remove the attention drawback, drop them both or keep them both?" she considered the question for a couple of seconds then flipped the toggle to keep the flexibility and drop the drawback part of things. She happily scrapped the next couple of drawbacks, having no use for cum sticking around longer than it should, being a lightweight when it came to alcohol or walking around looking like a goth.
She briefly considered just tossing the delicious fluids flaw before deciding to drop the negatives where people would come after her because of it.
'Lewd weakness? Gone, same with unfavorable enemies and destructible armor. No point in keeping pipsqueak or jailbait either.' She adjusted the toggle and frowned slightly when her character doll grew several inches. "At least I didn't go with a viking or troll."
She double checked all of her toggles then hit the next button, causing the floating window to vanish.
The same deep voice announced, "Experience boost x4 will be converted to a general skill growth ability, defeating worthy opponents will temporarily increase the growth rate. Quest compass will be converted to a thinker ability to find people or things. Your bag of holding will be converted to an inventory ability. Your phone will be converted into a spell to conjure a burner phone. Your mansion will be relocated to a pocket dimension. Unexpected Error: Your current Favored Enemies list is in conflict with your purchased Favored Enemies, restore to default settings?"
"Keep my current list," Taylor replied, fairly sure her current favored enemies was the modified collection that Amelia had grabbed from her father.
"Favored enemies updated: 100% bonus damage and 100% decreased damage from humans, undead, demons, blood elves and elementals. Inspect character ability will be converted to a unique skill to identify extraordinary powers. Protect will convert to a once a month divine shield with a twenty minute duration that is broken if you attack anything," the voice announced then continued talking after a couple of seconds of silence, "Hades Industries would like to apologize but additional testing found the World Portal option caused stability issues with the simulation, as such we've had to remove the ability."
"So much for going back," Taylor muttered.
"We have included a portal spell to your pocket dimension and a free gacha spin on the cosmic gacha machine in order to make up for the inconvenience. Your hobble skirt symbiote will convert to an increased crafting speed, the ability to breathe underwater, a teleport ability that you can use every three hours and a talent that heals you for 3% of the damage you deal. Do you have any questions?"
"What about my stats and skills?" Taylor asked.
"Your current stats, minus the stats you received from items will be applied to both of your alternate forms. Possible error: You appear to have defeated the boss without items, would you like me to run additional scans?" the voice asked.
Taylor froze as she thought about the brief vision she'd experienced when she'd been worried about forgetting something and the 'correct' response to the voice's question, "No thanks, I lost a bet," she lied, hoping she wasn't making a mistake.
"Understood," the voice replied. "We'll imprint your skills on your mind and soul so that you won't forget them."
"How-" Taylor paused as her character sheet appeared for a brief second before her entire world exploded in agonizing pain. She'd probably never know which hurt more, the lightning that wracked her body with spasms or the arcane formulas and symbols being burned into her mind but seeing her impossibly impressive stats for one brief second made it worth it. Thankfully the pain only lasted about ten seconds before she blacked out.
Taylor blinked a couple of times when she found herself standing in the lobby of the abandoned ferry terminal in Brockton Bay surrounded by a large group naked people. She had just enough time to glance down and realize she wasn't wearing anything before Admin pounced on her and hugged her. "Hi."
"I'm still here!" Admin squealed cheerfully as she spun Taylor around, glad that she could stay with Taylor and start fixing the network now that she was out of the simulation.
Amy pulled her attention away from Jaina and Illidan's clones and stared at Admin, surprised that she'd actually said something.
"Good!" Taylor agreed, a touch annoyed that she couldn't sense the puppets she'd left in the simulation but ecstatic that she still had Admin and the five puppets that she'd taken with her into the dungeon. 'At least I picked the best puppets to take with us.'
Noelle looked down and sighed in relief when she could see her legs. 'At least I have one form that looks reasonably normal.'
Harry absently pet his ghost fox as he glanced around the dust covered lobby. "Any idea where we are?" he asked as he quickly counted the people they'd taken with them. 'Forty eight, everyone made it, that's better than some of the tests unless Frank was lying.'
Colin flipped the new mental switch in the back of his head and shifted to his human form, going from being a naked void elf to a fully armored human. "If I'm not mistaken, Brockton Bay."
"Any idea why we ended up here?" Cherie asked as she checked everyone out.
Lisa glanced between Stalker, Ember, Void and Vista. "Probably because most of the people are from here and it's a decently secure and neutral location."
"Could be worse," Brian said, trying not to stare at any of the naked model quality women but finding it a challenge.
"I don't suppose anyone can conjure some clothes?" Void asked hopefully, unwilling to swap back to his normal appearance because he didn't want to give away his secret identity in case he didn't end up joining the wards.
Vicky swapped back to her normal appearance, her street clothes reappearing. "Sorry, I'd need cloth and tools."
"Makes me wish I'd been wearing a mask," Dean admitted, torn between being disappointed that Vicky had changed back and relieved that she'd changed back.
"Yeah," Chris agreed, trying to distract himself from the naked women by thinking about tinkering.
Emily swapped back to her human form and smiled when she noticed how loose her clothes were in certain places and tight they were in others. "Panacea, can I talk you into checking our health?"
Amy turned and stared at the director, surprised by the fact that she actually looked in decent shape rather than half dead and fat. "I thought there were restrictions on accepting parahuman medical assistance for directors?"
"They mostly involve talking to a shrink for a couple of weeks, a review board and a lot of paperwork. I'm already looking at a ton of paperwork, enforced vacation time and time with a shrink assuming I don't lose my job for having powers," Emily explained.
"Good point." Amy changed back to her normal appearance, complete with wool socks and pale pink pajamas then walked over, touched the director's arm and checked her health.
Taylor gestured and used her cleaning spell on the floor then stared in disbelief when every trace of dust, piece of trash or speck of mold vanished from the entire room leaving the place looking like an entire team of professional cleaners had worked the place over after being told that they'd be paid overtime. "Huh, we're going to need to be careful with our spells."
"This is going to make cleaning the kennels a lot easier," Rachel mused as she absently scratched her puppy between his ears.
Ezra glanced towards the doors. "Does anyone have any suggestions for staying in touch without handing our names over to the PRT? No offense but I don't trust the politicians or most of the directors to have our best interest at heart."
"She has a point," Wings agreed, knowing that various factions in the U.S. government would try to abuse the information if they weren't careful.
"I suggest the PHO boards, they have decent security and they don't keep logs of where people log in because of the villains that use the site," Dennis suggested, knowing you couldn't be forced to turn over logs that you didn't have.
Chris frowned when he realized he didn't recognize the girl talking about the boards even if she was strangely familiar. "Who are you?"
Dennis gasped dramatically. "I'm shocked that you don't recognize your best friend, shocked I tell you."
"How the hell?" Chris blurted when he realized why the girl looked familiar.
Dennis gestured towards Skitter. "Blame Skitter."
Taylor turned to look at Dennis, surprised that he actually made an attractive girl. "You knew the risks."
"Joking aside, having an alternate form is useful," Dennis replied, not particularly bothered by having his alternate form be female, especially since he'd gotten to keep his insanely boosted stats thanks to Skitter's Red Riding Hood spell and 'fixing' it would have screwed his stats over.
Romeo Vasil shook his head. "You're insane."
"Probably," Dennis replied as he levitated off the ground a foot, happy that he could still fly.
Jess smiled at Luke. "Enjoying the scenery?"
"No comment," Luke replied with a grin.
Emily looked away from Dennis and focused on Amy. "Give me the bad news."
Amy shook her head. "I don't have any, you're in excellent shape, you're probably still immune to various damage types, you don't have any pathogens in your body and you're not a parahuman as far as I can tell."
"Does that mean we can't join the wards?" Ember asked, annoyed that they might stop her from helping Sophia clean up the city.
"No, it just means it's probably going to take a couple of weeks to make sure our powers stick around," Emily replied, more than happy to pick up another mage for the wards, even if they were going to have to work on nonlethal combat options.
"Not to mention, do a lot of power testing," Arthur added, looking forward to seeing what he could do with his magic since it seemed a bit more freeform than it was in the simulation.
Taylor used her bondage conjuration power and conjured a catsuit then focused and brought up her transmogrification window. She focused on the robe she wanted and smiled when the menu opened to the correct page and entry. 'That's an upgrade,' she mused as she transfigured the catsuit into a plain black robe.
"Are you going to conjure robes for the rest of us?" Lisa asked hopefully as Skitter slipped the conjured robe on.
"Sure," Taylor replied as she tied the robe closed and started working on conjuring/creating robes for everyone.
"Ezra and Clock have a point, let's get everyone checked over then we should figure out how to keep in touch," Vicky suggested, trying to make things easier.
Romeo scowled at Vicky. "What makes you think you're in charge?"
"Nothing," Vicky replied with a shrug. "I'm just trying to move things along so I can let my family know my sister and I are safe."
Valentina glared at her younger brother. "Stop being an ass Romeo."
"Make me-" Romeo's sarcastic reply was cut off as Alec's polymorph spell turned him into a small turtle.
"Enough!" Alec snapped as he glared at the rest of his younger siblings. "I left to escape the family drama, fucking behave or else."
"Language!" Riley complained.
Alec turned to look at Riley, opened his mouth to complain then reconsidered when he saw the look in her eyes. "Sorry." He turned back to look at his siblings. "I'm immune to your magic, you're not immune to mine. You will behave or I'll turn you into a small animal and turn you over to the Director after having Hijack turn your powers off for a couple of weeks."
"Isn't that illegal?" Chastity asked Armsmaster.
Colin turned to look at Chastity. "It doesn't cause any damage and the laws related to using harmless powers on family members you're responsible for get fuzzy."
"Nice, can we keep him like that?" Aroa asked hopefully as she studied the turtle that was looking around in confusion.
"Waste of effort," Valentina replied absently as she glanced between Cherie and Jean-Paul. "They're going to need therapy."
"Not my problem," Cherie replied before Alec could.
Alec shrugged, unwilling to admit to agreeing with Cherie.
Aroa flipped Cherie off. "Fuck you."
"Wouldn't be the first time," Cherie replied with a smirk at her sister.
Wings reached up and snapped her fingers, the sound echoing in the room and causing everyone to turn and look at her. "Enough bickering, you can argue and complain on your own time, we've got things we should probably cover while Panacea is making sure we're not contagious or infected with anything."
"What type of stuff?" Aroa asked as Panacea touched her arm to check her health.
Wings glanced at Emily. "Let's start with information security, I'd rather not have to worry about some idiot in the PRT getting the bright idea to draft us so they can experiment on us when they read our files and realize that at least some of our abilities are genetic. I might not care about my safety but my children probably won't have my durability and if someone does something stupid and gets someone I care about killed, I'm going to resort to drastic measures and I'd rather avoid that, mostly because my friend or child would still be dead."
Emily scowled as she thought about some of the politicians and directors that she'd had to deal with over the years. "I wish I could say it wasn't a possibility."
Colin nodded. "We should probably keep everything on paper or on a laptop that isn't connected to the network."
"I don't have a problem with that," Emily replied, not particularly enthusiastic about someone like Tagg getting a hold of the test results.
Wings gestured at Jaina and Illidan. "We're going to need proper identification for Jaina and Illidan's clones and Skitter's puppets. Rachel needs someone to look at her case file because the judge and the lawyers involved in that mess should be disbarred."
"I just want to take care of my dogs, not having to run if the cops show up would be nice," Rachel admitted.
"We'd rather not get in trouble for walking around town," the five puppets said at the same time.
"Can they change back into puppets?" Chris asked.
"No or at least I can't feel the mental switches anymore," Taylor replied as she handed Noelle a robe. "I wouldn't even if I could, they're alive and we're out of the simulation."
"Thanks," Noelle replied as she slipped the robe on.
"Do you think you can recreate the symbiotes?" Ember asked Amy.
Amy considered the idea as she finished checking the last of Alec's siblings. "I'd need biomass and I'd want a lab with proper biological containment systems and some assistants in case something goes wrong."
"I'm going to have to kick some of this up the chain," Emily pointed out.
"Most of us picked up at least one healing spell, we should probably sort out the paperwork," Amy pointed out as she walked over and poked her sister's arm so she could check her biology.
"Between cleanse, cure disease and our various healing spells, we could probably clear the hospitals fairly quickly," Vicky mused. "How much trouble would we get into if we set up a clinic and offered cheap healing?"
"From Mom or the hospital's legal department?" Amy asked sarcastically as she poked Dean's arm so she could check his genetics.
"From the legal department," Vicky replied.
"Technically NEPEA-5 only applies to parahumans," Lisa pointed out. "Realistically, the various hospitals in town and the surrounding area would try to shut anything down that impacts their bottom line to that extent. Having one parahuman healer in the area brings in business, having a group that is willing to charge twenty to fifty dollars to completely cure someone of whatever is ailing them is a serious threat to their business."
"Especially cure disease," Dragon added. "If all you have to do is fly to the East Coast and pay fifty to a hundred dollars to get a serious disease cured permanently, you're going to because the flight is cheaper in the long run than dealing with the disease."
Chevalier shook his head. "That sounds like a good way to destroy the medical industry."
"Not really, you're still going to need emergency rooms and doctors for treating less serious problems or diagnosing problems." Lisa turned to look at Skitter. "Unless Skitter is willing to make a couple of thousand clones and scatter them around the world, I don't think you'd be in danger of seriously damaging our ability to research diseases."
"Not particularly," Taylor admitted as she handed Chastity a robe. "Doing the same thing day in and day out would probably cause me to burn out, especially if I'm trying to do the same thing with a hundred puppets. I got pretty tired of waiting for resource nodes to respawn."
"What about making some type of healing device?" Uber asked thoughtfully.
"I have a notebook filled with schematics for healing devices that I can't get to work anymore that might be worth reverse engineering," Leet admitted.
Dragon smiled at Leet. "I'd love to take a look."
"I'll get you a copy of my notebooks," Leet promised.
Emily spun when someone knocked on the door and stared when she saw Velocity through the glass doors. "How did they find us?"
"My suit has a tracking beacon," Colin admitted.
"Amelia, can you check me next?" Marquis asked, wanting to get cleared before he left so they wouldn't have an official reason to go after him and toss him in a cell long enough to prove that he was supposed to be in the birdcage.
"Sure," Amy replied as she walked over and checked her father's health. "You're in perfect health, same as everyone else I've checked."
"In that case, we might as well let him in," Emily said as she headed towards the doors.
Romeo twitched when the polymorph spell broke and he turned back to normal. "You're an asshole."
"No shit," Alec replied as he accepted a robe from Skitter. "Thanks."
"You're welcome," Taylor replied as Wings gestured and the glass doors swung open.
Velocity glanced between the director and Armsmaster. "Is it safe to come in?"
"We're in the process of discovering that but everything checks out so far," Emily replied.
"How many vans do you want us to send?" Velocity asked as his phone rang.
"None, we've got flight," Emily replied.
Velocity stared at the Director as he pulled his phone out of his pocket and pushed the button then brought it to his ear after looking at the caller ID. "Velocity speaking."
"Please hand the phone to Director Piggot," Rebecca Costa-Brown ordered.
"Yes ma'am," Velocity replied then handed the phone to Emily.
"Hello," Emily replied after bringing the phone to her ear.
"What's the situation?" Rebecca asked.
"We managed to bring forty nine people out of the simulation when we beat the last boss of the current expansion. Panacea is in the process of making sure we didn't come back with any biological agents or health problems, it seemed reasonable to check given the unusual situation and the fact that we had her onsite," Emily explained.
Rebecca sighed in relief, glad that they hadn't lost one of the best healers in the world. "Good, I'd hate to lose someone of her ability. That means there are fifty one more slots available provided the company didn't lie. Did you manage to acquire anything for your trouble?"
"A number of schematics that Dragon and Armsmaster are looking forward to testing, including a low maintenance force field belt that should stop conventional firearms and several abilities that don't seem to be related to parahuman abilities," Emily offered.
"That would be useful depending on the cost. What type of abilities?" Rebecca asked.
"Most people that escape the game are going to be level seventy, that means they'll walk out of the simulation with a low to mid tier brute rating, some type of striker or shaker rating depending on their classes and a minor changer rating that lets them swap back and forth between their normal appearance and their character's appearance," Emily explained, pausing as she tried to figure out how to explain things without pissing everyone off and making them scatter to the winds.
"Most people? Does that mean you got something else?" Rebecca asked.
"Because of unique abilities that I'm not covering over the phone or putting down in a digital report, we managed to pick up flight and share a large collection of spells and tricks, including a water breathing spell that lets us give someone the ability to breathe underwater for thirty minutes," Emily explained.
"Were you able to recruit any of the rest of the people?" Rebecca asked, wondering what she wasn't saying.
Emily glanced between Chevalier, Armsmaster and Arthur. "We have three heroes and most of the local Wards in the group that came back. If we can sort through the paperwork involved with recruiting non parahumans with powers, we'll pick up another Ward. We might be able to recruit a couple more once the legal department gets done ripping apart a judge and a spineless defense attorney that shouldn't have a license to practice."
"Make sure you get contact details before everyone leaves," Rebecca ordered, knowing Contessa was having trouble pathing anything related to the simulation. "I'll call Legend and have him swing by to collect your report and to help figure out what you're going to tell the news about your escape. I'd rather not admit anything but you weren't the only people that ended up with phones in the simulation, word is already spreading of your escape. Do you think your abilities are permanent?"
"Probably," Emily admitted, not surprised that people already knew they'd escaped. "I'll cover the reasons with Legend but I suspect I'll be out of a job by the end of the year."
"You could always join the Protectorate," Rebecca suggested, fairly sure she wouldn't take it.
Emily glanced over at Alec's siblings, fairly sure they were going to cause trouble if someone wasn't around to keep them in check. "No thanks, I'd rather keep an eye on the rest of the mages."
"Before I go, is there something we should know about the simulation that you didn't put in your reports?" Rebecca asked, knowing Eidolon was going to want to jump into it as soon as he learned that you could get powers.
"Three things, we built a city in the Ruins of Alterac so that halfway decent people would have somewhere to live, the dungeons don't have a minimum level which means they're an excellent source of experience if you have a power that can keep you from getting killed. I'd be careful of the GMs and naming your character anything too strange or problematic, the GMs deleted Heartbreaker for being dangerous and someone named Zion for threatening the GMs and hacking. Other than that, they probably won't have too many issues though I wouldn't send a female into the world without powers. I got lucky in that I ended up in the same place as Armsmaster and the rest of the group," Emily admitted.
"I'll talk to Legend, he'll be on his way shortly," Rebecca said then ended the call and called Legend, knowing that him making a trip from Boston was more believable than her flying across the country in a reasonable timeframe.
Emily handed the phone to Velocity. "Do you have any scratch paper?"
Velocity pulled a pocket notebook and miniature pen out of his pocket and handed it to her. "Here."
"Thanks," Emily replied as she turned and walked back to the group. "Legend should be in town in ten to twenty minutes to help us figure out how to spin our story so we don't have a couple of million people jumping into the game in an futile attempt to get powers."
Cherie opened her mouth then scowled when she realized someone had silenced her.
"Do you honestly expect us to stick around?" Marquis asked.
"It would make things easier," Emily admitted as she handed the notebook to Dennis. "You have a bunch of PHO accounts, sacrifice one of them and write it down a bunch so the leaders of each group can get in touch."
"Sure," Dennis replied as he worked on writing one of his less used handles down, knowing this wasn't the time for jokes.
"We need to work together to figure out a story we can live with that doesn't cause a massive amount of chaos and the Chief Director is sending Legend to talk to us. If you don't like what he has to say, you're free to leave," Emily promised.
Marquis glanced at Amy then focused on the director. "Fine, I'll stay."
"Don't start," Valentina snapped when Romeo smirked and opened his mouth to say something stupid. "You're going to behave or I'm going to wash my hands of you."
"I wasn't going to say anything," Romeo lied.
Taylor tossed Grue a robe, glad that he'd been the last person that needed one and turned to look at Velocity. "What's it like being a hero?"
"It depends on the day," Velocity replied. "It can be boring and it can be terrifying and everything in between. Are you planning on being a hero?"
"I'll have to talk it over with my family," Taylor replied, fairly sure she had better things to do than wander around the city looking for trouble, at least until she got some actual training.
Comments
Mist of Shadows
Once they realize he's gone they'll try to figure out where he vanished to, because they're not going to believe (at least not right away) that it was that 'easy' to get rid of him.
Mist of Shadows
It's going to go further, yes.
mpop
And thirty seconds after the call Rebeckas brain will catch up to the part about Zion being deleted. Que fainting.
Ken T.
Yay, thier out. Hope this story goes on a bit now that their out.
