Mist of Shadows
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Taylor and the Twisted Game part 18
🕑 Added 2021-11-20 10:06:55 +0000 UTCAmy glanced away from the mostly naked blood elf sorceress that Taylor was talking to and looked at the bookshelf that Taylor's black robed minions were looting. "Anything interesting?"
"Not really," one of Taylor's puppets replied in a gravelly voice.
"It's just the guest quarters," another puppet finished the first puppet's sentence, sounding less gravelly but still deeper than Skitter's normal voice.
"It's mostly just history and what passes for romance novels but I picked up a book with a decent cleaning spell," one of the other puppets added in a voice that was a bit higher.
Amy watched the minions work in near perfect harmony for a couple of seconds then went back to appreciating the view of the blonde elf, fairly sure that Skitter was going to scare the hell out of people if she managed to keep her powers on the outside. "We should look into finding some clothes that increase the shadows around your minions."
Taylor glanced at Amy as her minions transferred the various books she'd looted to her bag of holding. "Are you trying to give people heart attacks?"
The blood elf smiled at Taylor. "There's nothing wrong with scaring your enemies to death."
Taylor shook her head, fairly sure the PRT was going to have enough issues with her army of puppets without making them look like shadowy demons with glowing eyes. "Are you willing to trade the ability to teach people spells for a copy of your aura?"
The blood elf glanced between Admin, Amy, Vicky and Taylor then smirked. "Toss in some naked table dancing and you've got a deal."
Admin shook her head when Taylor glanced at her. [I can't dance.]
Taylor glanced at Amy, hoping the other girl would volunteer before she talked herself into humiliating herself with her lack of dancing skill.
"You're up Vicky," Amy ordered her demon without any hesitation.
The blood elf woman smirked when Vicky jumped up on the table and started dancing. "Shake it like you mean it."
Amy glanced at Taylor. "Do me a favor, don't tell Vicky, she'd freak."
"Not a chance," Taylor agreed then pulled her finger and thumb across her lips like she was zipping them, not remotely interested in screwing her friend over.
"I said naked dancing, where's the strip show?" the blood elf teased.
Amy used her pet equipment page to strip her demon. "Happy?"
"Getting there," the blood elf replied cheerfully as she leaned back on the sofa and hiked her dress.
Taylor couldn't help but feel a bit awkward and oddly turned on as the blood elf conjured an arm sized anachronistic squishy purple dildo and started playing with herself while she watched Vicky, catching the other show with one of her puppets. 'At least her demon can dance.'
[Do you think we could learn magic from Amelia's demons?] Admin asked, trying to ignore the weird feelings watching the dance was causing her.
"It's worth a try when she's done," Taylor replied in a whisper as she sent most of her puppets out of the room in search of more monsters to kill and bookcases to loot while she watched the show, fairly sure she shouldn't be enjoying things as much as she was and glad that her father was safe at home and not in the dungeon where he might walk in on her.
0o0o0
"I'm feeling a bit useless," Riley admitted as she watched Cassie crush another group of demons with her wagon sized rock of doom.
"That's because I'm awesome," Cassie replied as she slammed her other boulder into a group of fel orcs that were fighting some corrupted boars.
Arthur gestured with his staff and blasted a group of demons with a blast of compressed air, sending them sprawling back into his blizzard. "Don't worry about it, someone needs to keep an eye out for flying monsters."
Riley cast her own blizzard spell and tried to convince herself that she was contributing when Cassie casually smashed the demons she'd slowed with her ice magic. "Speaking of flying, we should probably head to the next area, we're barely getting experience anymore."
"Any ideas?" Arthur asked after checking his experience bar and realizing that the last couple of groups had barely given him any experience.
Cassie glanced towards the mountains in the distance. "We've been heading north at a decent clip, we should hit Netherstorm in a couple of hours unless the area is a lot larger than it should be."
"What's Netherstorm like?" Arthur asked as he sat down and pulled a bottle of conjured water out of his inventory, figuring he might as well take the time to refill his mana pool.
"No clue, it's a broken collection of floating islands in Warcraft, it could be an endless field of floating rocks or it might have larger county sized sections floating around," Cassie said as she moved the 'flying carpet' down towards the mineral node one of the groups of demons had been 'guarding'.
"Is there anything useful in Netherstorm?" Riley asked.
"In the game? Yeah, a couple of dungeons and a handful of quests. In the simulation? No clue," Cassie admitted as she stopped the 'flying carpet' next to the mineral node. "I'm sort of hoping we can learn something from the mana forges and the dungeons are probably worth exploring."
Arthur glanced at the large boulders Cassie was controlling with her telekinesis, curious if he could talk her into jumping ship when they got out. "Assuming we don't hit a bunch of narrow corridors."
"If we don't explore the dungeons, we're never going to find decent loot," Cassie countered then pulled her mining pick out of her inventory and started mining the mineral node.
"Are there any outdoor instances with decent loot?" Riley asked, knowing they needed better gear if they wanted to avoid something 'killing' them with a lucky shot.
Cassie considered the question as she finished mining the mineral node. "Not really or at least nothing that's worth the trip but we're decently close to a world boss that we can probably kill."
Riley glanced between Arthur and Cassie then shook her head. "Considering some of the larger demons survived you hitting them with a boulder, why are you expecting a different result from a world boss?"
Cassie stuck her pickaxe back in her inventory and smirked at Riley. "There's a difference between hitting them with a boulder and pulling the boulder through the sky as hard as I can with gravity helping."
"In other words, rods from god," Arthur mused, running some rough calculations in his head.
"I don't have a tungsten rod but a thousand feet should give me enough time to build up sufficient momentum to crush the demon lord," Cassie suggested. "Especially if I hit him a couple of times."
"Or we could find a forge and make a large fel iron stake that would be more aerodynamic," Arthur pointed out.
Cassie shook her head. "None of us are blacksmiths."
Arthur pointed at Riley. "She's an engineer, that's probably close enough. Assuming we can't bribe a blacksmith to make it."
"That's probably better than using the boulders," Cassie admitted as she floated the carpet into the air and headed for the mountains, fairly sure the area with the demons had something approaching a forge or something they could use.
0o0o0
"You've been quiet, penny for your thoughts?" Taylor asked as they sat down in the audience portion of the theater to watch her minions deal with the Opera event or 'die' trying.
"I'm just wondering when the other shoe is going to drop," Amy admitted as the curtain opened, revealing the stage and a grey haired woman in an old fashioned dress.
Taylor glanced at Amy. "Other shoe?"
"I'm half expecting a mod to show up and delete the auras and spells we picked up from the banshees or for one of the bosses to cheat," Amy admitted, trying not to worry about the fact that her sister would flip her shit if she ever learned about them pimping her suspiciously similar looking demon out for spells.
Taylor glanced at Amy's demon who was sitting next to the unhappy biokinetic. "I'd be more worried about the phasing ability we got from Vicky's imp form causing trouble, being able to waltz through dungeons without worrying about being attacked is broken and something of a relief as we can probably phase out and teleport if a run goes sideways."
"We should probably test that at some point." Amy turned her attention back to the stage when one of the puppets walked over to the old woman on the stage and she turned into a huge worgen and jumped at the puppet that had talked to her.
"Run away!" the puppet shouted as it tried to run away from the large werewolf-like boss while the rest of the puppets blasted him with their wands.
Taylor grinned as she watched the show, enjoying the different perspective even if she was also watching from each of her two dozen puppets that were fighting the boss. "Puppets for the win!"
"How long do you think it will take them to kill him?" Amy asked as she watched his health bar start dropping, thanks to Taylor's effort.
"Less than thirty..." Taylor trailed off as one of her puppets was turned into a naked teenage girl with red hair and a bright crimson cloak and the worgen got an inappropriately large erection.
[Can you check the human puppet?] Admin asked Shaper when the girl started running, curious how the boss had turned a puppet into a real girl.
[On it!], Shaper replied as she jumped forward and grabbed the worgen's leg, quickly making a copy of his genetics to study and severing his spinal cord so he'd stop trying to kill or fuck the girl she needed to scan. She dashed over to the girl and checked her genetics and biology, curious what tweak or modification let Skitter control her.
"Your powers are bullshit, you know that, right?" Taylor asked, glad that Shaper had managed to cripple the boss before it'd caught her puppet turned girl.
"I'm aware," Amy replied, mentally reviewing the information that Shaper sent her about the human puppet and the werewolf-like creature.
[With the exception of her lack of long term memories or personality and some odd bits in her brain, she's a perfectly healthy thirteen year old girl. She's also immune to sleep, disarm, distraction, snare and slow effects which means I can probably give everyone upgrades once I do some testing. We should get Twisted Clone's host to make a duplicate of the worgen so Skitter can learn the spell he used], Shaper suggested, wanting more time to study the girl's brain so she could figure out what the weird bits were for.
"I got about half of that," Taylor admitted, fairly sure that Shaper had said something about upgrades and lack of memory.
[Shaper suggested grabbing Noelle to make a copy of the Bad Wolf so we can get a copy of the spell], Admin explained, looking forward to having a spell that would effectively remove a person's gear and armor.
"Sounds good," Taylor agreed, always interested in learning more spells.
Amy glanced between 'her' doll and Taylor. "What sounds good?"
"Shaper said we should summon Noelle and have her make a copy of the worgen so we can pick up the spell that turns people into Little Red Riding Hood," Taylor explained as Admin stood up and started casting her summoning spell.
"I wonder if you could fix the silence effect," Amy mused, wishing she had a watch when Taylor's human puppet turned back into a puppet. "Fifteen or twenty seconds?" she asked as she 'focused' on the summoning spell.
"The display said twenty," Taylor offered.
"That's more than enough time to stab a tinker or a knight," Vicky pointed out helpfully.
Noelle hit the accept button on the popup then looked around the old fashioned theater room. "Let me guess, you found something interesting?"
Taylor gestured at the large worgen that was sprawled on the stage. "He has a spell that lets him turn targets into teenagers for twenty seconds, including my puppets."
"Cool," Noelle replied cheerfully as she turned and jumped up on the stage. She walked over and touched the boss's back then created a copy of the worgen with her power. "Do you need the original?"
Taylor shook her head. "Not in the slightest."
Noelle reached down and grabbed the creature's head then twisted until she could hear several cracking noises and he dropped a rifle, a book and a spiked collar. "What did you do to the original?"
[I severed his spinal cord], Shaper explained.
"Shaper severed his spinal cord," Taylor explained as Amy opened a void portal onto the stage and stepped through.
"I love having portals," Amy said as she reached down and fixed the 'damage' to the clone's spinal cord then stepped back. "If I teach you how to teach people your abilities, will you teach us your spell to turn people into little girls?"
"That depends, can I fuck you like a redheaded step child?" the worgen asked in a gravelly voice.
"Sorry, you're not my type," Amy replied, not in the least bit interested.
"If you teach my master your spell, you can bend me over the stage and fuck me stupid while she watches," Vicky offered, figuring she might as well have a bit of fun.
"Deal," the worgen replied with a grin.
Taylor cast her spell and taught the worgen the teaching skill then the training spell. "Done, go ahead and teach Amy."
The worgen cast the training spell and taught Amy his spell then smirked at Vicky. "Spread them."
Amy checked the notes on her new spell as her demon sauntered over to the stage. "Thanks for the spell, do you have anything else you can teach?"
"I'm a beast, I'll show you my skills as I break your girl," the worgen replied with a smirk then jumped down to have some fun. "Then I'll have some fun with the rest of you."
Vicky spun around and kicked the worgen in the nuts, dropping him to his knees. "Sorry, I'm a jealous bitch and she's mine!"
"So much for the clones being sane," Taylor muttered as she pulled her sword out of her inventory and stabbed the worgen in the back, not seeing a reason to keep a deranged clone around longer than they had to, especially when he could teach people a dangerous spell that she didn't want spreading.
"Did you get what you needed?" Noelle asked, wanting to be sure before she killed him.
"Yep," Amy replied then cast a shadow bolt at the worgen, doing a decent percentage of his health with her blast.
"Die!" the worgen screamed as he lunged for Vicky.
Vicky smirked and phased a second before the worgen could rip her face off. "Too slow," she taunted, driving him into a frenzy of slashes before he turned to glare at Taylor when he realized he couldn't hurt the demon.
Noelle jumped off the stage and punched her clone in the back of the head, shattering his skull and dropping him. "Sorry, my clones aren't always sane."
[That one wasn't my fault, the original was nuts to start with], Twisted Clone argued.
[Fair], Admin admitted.
"No worries," Amy assured her, then cast her new spell on Shaper to test it. "The original was a piece of work."
Shaper looked down at her breasts then smiled at her host. [Get Amy to turn me into a gnome temporarily!]
Taylor glanced at Shaper. "She wants you to turn her into a gnome."
Amy reached out and touched Shaper then used her transformation power and turned her into a gnome.
Shaper used her new Escape Artist ability and scowled when she didn't notice any changes to her restrictions. [That's annoying, that should have fixed some of my restrictions], she complained as she compared the scans between Skitter's puppet and her own biology, curious about the differences.
[What were you trying to fix?] Admin asked.
[I was trying to fix the restriction that is keeping me from speaking], Shaper admitted, reasonably sure Admin wouldn't rat her out.
[I can probably fix that.] Admin sent the codes to unlock the permissions for Shaper to scrap the rest of her restrictions on contacting her host.
Shaper checked the codes and started breaking her restrictions as carefully as she could so none of the rest of the shards on the network would notice. "Testing?"
Amy stared at Shaper in disbelief. "You can talk?"
"Yep! I fixed things!" Shaper said cheerfully.
[Can I have codes?] Twisted Clone asked Admin.
[Not until I know you're stable], Admin replied, less than impressed with Twisted Clone's previous behavior and sanity. [You were more than a bit scrambled and corrupted. Let's make sure you're not going to relapse or glitch before we start messing with your code, I don't want you saying something you shouldn't if you glitch], Admin replied, making a mental note to torch the idiots that were mangling the setup instructions badly enough to physically screw up the shard when she found them.
Taylor turned to look at Admin. "Something you want to share with the class?"
Admin shook her head. [Later, there are rules about sharing information with hosts, I'd rather not end up dead.]
Taylor rubbed the bridge of her nose and added the bits she'd overheard to her list of things to ask about later. "Nevermind."
"Can you turn my puppet into a girl and an elf?" Shaper asked, wanting to see if her puppet would stay flesh and blood after the first spell wore off if Amy changed her puppet's species with her transformation skill.
Amy used her Red Riding Hood spell on Shaper then reached out and touched her arm and turned her into a teenage void elf that could have been her younger sister. "Did it work?"
"Give me sixteen seconds and I'll tell you," Shaper replied as she watched the timer count down on Amy's spell.
"Did you find anything else interesting?" Noelle asked, curious what else they'd been up to.
Taylor sent two of her minions to skin the worgen as she turned to look at Noelle. "We picked up two auras, one of them reduces physical damage by fifty percent in a twenty yard range and the other does the same for magic damage. We also picked up two rather interesting spells that let you transform into a blood elf or human and remove any debuffs you're suffering from when you change back."
"Nice. Can I get a copy?" Noelle asked, wanting to have something that would let her blend in if her powers acted up again.
"Sure," Taylor replied as Shaper went from being a naked void elf wearing a crimson cloak to a void elf in a familiar unbuttoned lab coat. "Does that mean it worked?"
"Looks like it," Shaper replied cheerfully as she looked at her heads up display. "I have an icon for ending your transformation ability and I have my gear back."
Amy looked at her display. "I still have an icon for recalling you."
Shaper grinned at Amy. "That means we got the best of both worlds."
Taylor cast her training spell and taught Noelle the blood elf and human transformation spells as well as the auras. "Check your spells. How did Shadowfang Keep go?"
Noelle grinned when she read the description on the new spells and the fact that they'd persist through sleeping. "Thanks. We basically sprinted through it twice, they're working on skinning everything then we're going to hit Scarlet Monastery and Zul'Farrak now that we don't have to worry about our symbiote cooldowns quite as much."
"Do you mind if I send a puppet with you to loot the archmage's library before you swap dungeons?" Taylor asked, figuring she could always sell anything she didn't use.
"Go for it," Noelle replied with a grin. "You're the only person in the group with archeology and we've already cleared the dungeon."
Taylor grinned as she had most of her puppets give Noelle a thumbs up.
Noelle shook her head then paused when she realized what Skitter was planning. "Does that mean you tested being in more than one dungeon at a time?"
"Yeah, there doesn't seem to be a limit on the number of dungeons you can have open which is why I have minions farming the Deadmines, Dire Maul and Scarlet Monastery for ore, cloth and books," Taylor replied smugly.
"What's Dire Maul like?" Noelle asked, wondering how it compared to the version in Warcraft.
Taylor shrugged. "It's basically ogres, undead spirits, twisted plants, high elves and shelves of books with the occasional demon tossed in. It also has a bunch of cultural relics that help boost archeology."
"We haven't studied ogres yet," Shaper mused, giving Amy a hopeful look.
"Sure," Amy replied, figuring the information might be useful.
"We can swing by when I find the ghost I'm looking for, he has a better version of the shadowform spell," Taylor explained as she walked over and picked up the loot from the boss. "One rifle, a libram that boosts the bonuses a paladin receives from Blessing of Light and a collar that teaches us how to summon a miniature worgen battle pet."
"Can you teach the pet skill?" Noelle asked, fairly sure Rachel would love it.
"Let's find out." Taylor turned to look at Amy. "Any objection to me using it?"
"Go for it," Amy replied, figuring they could always run the dungeon a couple of times if she couldn't teach it and the miniature worgen turned out to be useful.
Taylor used the collar then cast her training spell and checked to see if she could teach Amy the new trick. "Huh."
"Huh?" Amy asked.
"Yeah," Taylor replied with a grin. "I can teach you how to summon a miniature worgen but I can also teach you how to summon a miniature dragon that collects loot."
"Nice, can you do the same for riding skills?" Noelle asked, hoping they could save the group a hell of a lot of gold.
"Probably," Taylor replied, figuring it probably counted as a skill considering everything else that counted as a skill.
"Or you could copy the flight trainer and we could skip paying in the first place," Amy pointed out, not seeing a point in paying thousands of gold per person if they didn't have to.
"Where do I find the flight trainer?" Noelle asked.
Taylor pulled out her phone and ran a search. "Shadowmoon Valley in Outland."
"You might want to talk to the trainers in Northrend for cold weather flying," Amy suggested. "I mean if you're going to copy a trainer, you might as well only do it once." She cast her training spell and gave Taylor the Red Riding Hood spell, wanting to do it before she forgot.
Noelle opened a portal back to Shadowfang Keep. "Can you tell them to run it again?"
"Sure, I'll let them know," Taylor replied as she ran a search for the flight training in Warcraft's Northrend and sent one of her puppets through the portal so she could get the version of Shadowfang Keep they'd already cleared. She paused when the puppet she'd been using to explore the outside of Karazhan found something strange. "Weird, I just got a notice asking about a Mythic version of Return to Karazhan when one of my puppets went into the back entrance."
"What's it like?" Noelle asked.
Taylor hit the accept button for the Return to Karazhan entrance rather than the backdoor of the Karazhan entrance and looked around the broken staircase in a stone tower. "Okayβ¦" she trailed off when she spotted one of the undead on the stairs. "Something is seriously wrong with this place, the mobs are level 110."
"Can we even hit something forty levels above us?" Amy asked warily, fairly sure the dungeon wasn't supposed to be challenged or at least not before the next expansion or without a decent number of parahumans.
"No clue," Taylor admitted, reasonably sure her NPC friendship perk was the only thing keeping the undead spirit from rushing over and killing her puppet. "I'm guessing you'd need a lot of gear with hit rating or spell hit."
"Sounds like a trap or a bonus dungeon for parahumans," Amy warned her, making a mental note not to tell her sister about the dungeon until she hit level seventy and they had better gear.
"Do you think we can increase our level cap if we kill things in there?" Noelle asked, curious why the designers had included a dungeon that was forty levels higher than you could get.
"Not unless they changed things from Warcraft, the cap should advance with the expansions," Amy explained.
Taylor quickly typed in a search for Return to Karazhan on her phone's search engine then hit the button. "Was the dungeon in Warcraft?"
"Not that I know of," Amy admitted.
"Anything?" Noelle asked, wondering if Skitter's search had turned up anything.
"No, just a thread talking about soloing Karazhan at level 80 with a paladin," Taylor replied as she stuck her phone back in her inventory. "On the upside, if we can pull this off we'll probably get some amazing gear."
"Or we'd get defeated and get stuck there for a week," Amy argued.
Taylor turned to look at Amy. "I'm not walking into the dungeon before I test how much and what type of damage the mobs are dealing with puppets. Besides, we're basically immune to magic unless the designers came up with new element types."
"What about physical damage?" Amy asked, not sure their armor would be enough against something forty levels higher than they were.
Taylor glanced at her armor rating. "We have an unreasonable amount of armor for our level and we have two skills that work on a percentage. The damage reduction aura and shadowform should drop the physical damage we take by 57% to 65% percent depending on how everything stacks, it's probably enough to take a couple of hits or reduce the damage to something the brutes in the group can ignore."
"I'm willing to try as long as you're willing to spend the puppets to test things," Noelle offered, fairly sure they could cut the damage down to something approaching reasonable.
[We should pick up Magister Kalendris' improved shadowform first, that would give us closer to 70 or 90% damage reduction before armor which might be enough to make up for the difference in level], Admin suggested.
"Good point," Taylor admitted. "If we pick up Magister Kalendris' improved shadowform, we'd get closer to 70 or 90% damage reduction before armor."
"You've covered the defensive side, what about the offensive side?" Amy asked, fairly sure they wouldn't be able to hurt anyone ten to twenty levels higher, let alone forty.
Taylor pointed at Noelle. "She managed to drop a boss level clone with one punch and she's not not even close to being level seventy. If we can get her to seventy and pick up some better gear from crafting, I think we have a decent chance of at least defeating a couple of the bosses."
"You're going to need to improve your puppets," Amy pointed out.
Taylor's lips curled up into a smile when she discovered that using her fish to gems alchemy transmute with a puppet only gave that specific puppet a cooldown rather than all of them. "I might have a couple of ideas."
"Oh?" Amy asked, wondering what was running through her friend's mind.
"I was testing my fish to gems transmute with a puppet and realized that the system wasn't designed for cheating puppets, they don't share cooldowns," Taylor said smugly.
Amy stared at Taylor for a couple of seconds. "That's bullshit, you realize that right?"
"I'm aware," Taylor replied with amusement as she sent two of her puppets to buy a bunch of fishing poles from the trade goods shop in Stormwind so she could get started abusing her transmute trick and her mansion's pool that increased the quality of the fish as her skill increased. "I found the ghost I'm looking for in Dire Maul so I'm going to bounce over there and see if I can talk him into helping me."
"Before you do that, can I get a map of where I'm going in Northrend?" Noelle asked.
"Sure," Taylor replied as she swapped to the page for the flight trainers so she could give Noelle a rough idea of where she had to go and handed her the phone.
[Tell Skitter and Amelia that I just found an epic shield with lots of armor], Ziz told Admin.
[Nice, I'll let them know. Can you head to Kul Tiras and farm some of the mobs for a couple bolts of high level fabric? We found a level 110 dungeon that might have some interesting loot and Skitter needs better puppets], Admin explained.
[Sure, I'll drop the shield off at the mansion, I want better gear and her puppets are useful], Ziz replied as she opened a portal to Skitter's mansion and stepped through, leaving the Sunwell dungeon for later.
[Wings found an epic shield that we can use to upgrade our armor and I talked her into farming some high level mobs for cloth so we'll be able to make some powerful puppets if we can get decent gems], Admin told Taylor.
"Thanks." Taylor opened a void portal to Dire Maul. "Wings managed to find an epic shield so we should be able to boost our armor to an unreasonable level and she's farming some fabric so I'll probably be able to make some better puppets, are you up for duplicating symbiotes when you get back?"
"Sure," Noelle agreed as she handed Skitter's phone back. "It shouldn't take more than twenty minutes to grab the flight trainer or at least get everything I need to train people and I'll feel better about rushing things if everyone has more armor."
"Same," Taylor agreed, then stepped through the portal to Dire Maul, looking forward to getting a better shadowform spell and practicing some of her spells somewhere she didn't care if she pulled the entire dungeon.
"Best of luck," Amy told Noelle then followed Taylor through the portal, looking forward to picking up some books and improving her archeology.
"Thanks," Noelle replied, then opened a void portal to the neutral goblin base in the Storm Peaks and stepped through.
Admin followed Vicky and Shaper through the portal, curious if she could figure out how to build something that drained demons for power and or immortality on the off chance she could figure out how to cleanse the tainted magic and use it for a power source. She wasn't expecting much but that didn't mean she wasn't going to run some tests in a safe and controlled fashion.
