Mist of Shadows
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Taylor and the Twisted Gamer Part 15
🕑 Added 2021-10-26 06:48:07 +0000 UTC"You're completely, gloriously bullshit, you know that right?" Leet asked with amusement as he looked over his new racial abilities.
"I'm aware," Amy replied with a smirk.
"What did you get?" Ember asked as she dropped the blue silk dress that Skitter handed her on her chest equipment slot, causing it to change into a sheer silk dress that left nothing to the imagination and clung to her curves. 'At least I look good.'
Leet glanced at Ember then read off his abilities. "Immunity to frost and shadow damage and harmful effects. Entropic Embrace gives me extra shadowfrost damage. Preternatural Calm makes it so my spells aren't delayed by taking damage which saves me a bunch of talent points. Spatial Rift gives me the ability to open a rift and teleport anywhere within thirty yards and I get thirty percent more mana and the ability to fly for thirty seconds every minute thanks to your modifications."
Ziz glanced at where Leet's wings 'should' have been. "Are you going to miss the wings?"
Leet shook his head. "Not really, they didn't let me glide and they got in the way."
"I don't suppose you can do something about my armor issues?" Ember asked hopefully.
Amy turned and looked at the red haired young lady, not sure she'd fix Ember's 'problem' even if she could as she liked her naughty outfits. "Sorry, the restrictions aren't genetic, they're more like a curse we can't dispel."
"Look on the bright side," Leet suggested.
"What's that?" Ember asked.
"You'll have a decent collection of lingerie when you get back," Leet replied with a grin.
"True," Ember admitted. "Now that we've upgraded the test subject, are you going to upgrade the rest of us?"
"That's the plan," Amy replied as she held her hand out towards Ember. "Touch my hand and I'll get to work."
Ziz focused on the doll sitting on Amy's shoulder. [Can I modify your host's mind for a bit?]
"Sure," Ember replied as she grabbed Amy's hand, knowing it was another step in making sure she'd never be defenseless again.
Shaper looked at Ziz. [Why?]
[Because I'm having fun and she doesn't need to know that I'm not a parahuman], Ziz replied, unwilling to lose her new friends and cover if she could help it.
[No but I have a solution, I'll make the modifications to you and Skitter and you can nudge my host to only check Skitter's modifications], Shaper suggested as she jumped down from Amy's shoulder, planning on having Amy use the Escape Artist ability later to make sure she wasn't compromised.
[Acceptable], Ziz admitted as she watched Ember change from a blood elf to a purple skinned void elf.
[Do you have a plan once you're out?] Admin asked as Shaper walked over and poked Ziz's foot with her finger.
[I'm planning on trolling Eidolon and watching cat videos after I take the Fallen apart in creative and horrifying ways and loot their accounts], Ziz replied, not particularly interested in staging battles that were destructive and pointless when she could troll people just fine with a keyboard and the occasional note dropped in just the right place.
Shaper grinned as she made a copy of Ziz's genetics then started modifying things so Amy wouldn't have to.
"Any problems?" Amy asked after she finished tweaking Ember's genetics, happy that they had an interface that would tell them if they had problems.
Ember glanced over her various abilities, stats and status. "Nope, my hit points are a bit higher than I'd expect but everything else looks good."
Uber raised an eyebrow. "You're complaining about extra hit points?"
Ember shook her head. "No, I'm just noting them."
Amy nodded. "I was able to mix in some genetics from the half giants."
"Why don't I have…" Leet trailed off as he realized his hit points were actually 10% higher than they used to be. "Never mind, I'm good."
Amy turned to look at Shaper when she noticed Wing's skin change color. "Are you upgrading people?"
Shaper gave her a thumbs up.
"Grab Hyper, I'll get Skitter and Uber, then we can get back to killing monsters," Amy said as she grabbed Taylor's hand.
"Cool," Sherrel offered, looking forward to having the ability to fly, even if it wasn't constant, it would make hang gliding more interesting.
Taylor wasn't sure how you were supposed to feel when someone was rewriting your genetic code as she watched her features change on her character doll, but unnerving was a good start. 'I look like I just walked off a fantasy cover or out of a movie. My dad isn't going to recognize me, then again, no one else is, which is probably a good thing all things considered.'
Shaper grabbed her hair then gestured at Sherrel's hair and pointed to her ears. [Does she want me to change her cat features?]
"Do you want to change your hair or ears?" Taylor asked as she checked her stats and abilities, having heard the whispered question.
Sherrel shook her head. "I'd rather keep them."
Shaper gave Sherrel a thumbs up then started working on changing her into a void cat girl.
'They're certainly distinctive.' Taylor gave Amy a smile then flipped the mental switch on her new ability and floated up into the air a couple of feet. "This is fantastic!"
"Just don't hit the ground," Amy warned her as she reached out and touched Uber's outstretched hand. "How come the warlock lost so many utility spells?" she asked, wishing she had a spell to slow falls because the limited duration on the flight ability made her uneasy.
Leet snorted. "It's basically poor game design since the warlocks are mages in the lore."
Taylor let herself drop to the ground, rather amused that she'd barely felt the drop with her ability active. "Hopefully we can recover some of the utility spells using the books from archeology,"
"It'd be nice," Amy agreed as she worked on turning Uber into an improved void elf, finding it easier now that she'd had a bit of practice.
Leet smirked as he jumped into the air and activated his new flight ability to pull off a double jump. "I could get used to this."
Sherrel grinned. "If you ever find a cleaning spell, let me know."
"I'd love a spell for conjuring lights or levitating objects," Ember added.
Taylor had just finished reequipping her buttplug to get Admin back when her phone rang. "I'll keep an eye out." She looked at the caller ID then answered it when she didn't recognize the number. "Hello?"
"Alec left a message a couple of hours ago from this number, do you know where I can find him?" Lisa asked in a whisper, doing her best to stay quiet enough that Coil's thugs couldn't hear her, not that it was likely through the front door, the bedroom door and the closet door but she wanted the thugs to think she'd pulled a runner rather than 'escaped' through the game.
"Yeah-" Taylor frowned when she heard what sounded like two gunshots in the background. "Was that a gunshot?"
"Yes, can you help me or not?" Lisa asked quietly as someone hit her reinforced door with his shoulder.
"They're close to Darkshire, I can send someone to any of the alliance cities to pick you up near the flightmaster," Taylor told her. "Name?"
"Tats," Lisa replied, going with her character name as she didn't want to use her cape name or her 'real' name, especially since her character would be visible. She scowled when she heard the door jam crack from the mercenary's second attempt at bashing it down. 'Reinforced door my ass,' she grumbled as she pulled the blanket over her and leaned back so the blanket would cover the helmet when she vanished. "I've got to go."
"Stay safe," Taylor offered, not sure what else to say as the call ended.
[I'll see if I can find her so I can summon her], Admin offered as she started using her hearthstone to teleport back to the inn in Stormwind.
"Thanks," Taylor told Admin.
0o0o0
Lisa stumbled out of the portal in Stormwind and nearly tripped over her feet when she noticed that she was sharing shoulder space with a demonic head. "What the fuck!"
"Welcome to hell bitch," the demonic head replied with amusement.
Lisa tapped the character sheet icon on her heads up display and stared in horror at the 3D image of her mutated character. "What the fuck!"
One of the adventurers crowding around the mage trainer turned to look at Lisa. "Holy shit! You're like a hentai demon! You wanna fuck?"
"Not if you were the last person on Earth," Lisa's second head replied snidely, not wanting anything to do with the muscle bound freak that looked like he had a third leg and needed a wheelbarrow to haul his balls around. "I have standards."
"A simple no would have worked bitch," the man replied snidely.
Lisa pulled her attention away from her horrifying appearance and questionable makeup job that made her look like a grotesquely muscle bound circus freak that a couple of teenage goths had waylaid in a dark alley and headed down the ramp. She pulled up her list of perks and flaws and looked at the changes, fairly sure that she was going to have to torture Alec with a taser or cattleprod for turning her character into a mutated monster.
She wasn't a fan of having thighs the size of her waist, hair that was longer than she was tall or the four watermelon sized breasts with teeth where her nipples should be but even that was preferable to the perverted flaw that would be a pain in the ass to deal with. 'Yeah, you're a dead man walking.'
She'd barely reached the closest shop to the ramp when she heard someone running towards her and turned to see the guy her second head had blown off charging at her with a sword, his balls bouncing in a way that couldn't be comfortable. "What the hell?"
"You're flagged for PVP," the guy taunted her. "No one is going to save you!"
Lisa turned and bolted, knowing she didn't want to deal with someone in actual gear as she didn't even have a weapon. 'I'm going to kill him.'
"Get back here!" the man shouted as he chased after the bitch that had insulted him.
"Eat shit and die!" Lisa's second head shouted.
"Are you trying to get me killed?" Lisa demanded as she continued running.
"Nah, just fucked, you're way too uptight," her second head replied with a smirk.
Lisa didn't bother to reply as she darted around people, trying to put some distance between her and the nutcase. She'd almost made it out of the mage district when her shoulder exploded in pain and she heard the sound of a musket firing. She staggered towards the bridge when the second shot hit her in the back and caused her to hit the ground next to a large mastiff puppy, in too much pain to move.
"Fucking mutts," the guy muttered as he shot the puppy on his way to grab the bitch he'd dropped, mostly because he hated dogs but also because he could.
Thor turned to look at the idiot that had shot him then howled, causing various people in the crowd to take a step back.
"Fuck!" the man cursed when the large puppy grew to the size of a horse as it closed the distance. "Die!" he screamed as he shot the beast, wishing he had a decent gun.
Thor ignored the second hit that merely bounced off then lunged forward and sunk his teeth into the man's arm and crushed it, causing his musket to tumble out of his hand.
Rachel ignored the injured woman on the ground as she stalked over and kicked the frantically struggling man between his legs, causing him to crumple and drop to the ground. "What the fuck is wrong with you?" she demanded as she kicked the man a second time for good measure.
"Fucking hell," Lisa grumbled as she used her good arm to push herself off the ground, making a mental note to avoid getting shot in the future as it wasn't pleasant.
Rachel pulled her sword out of her inventory and hacked the man's head off, mostly because she didn't want to get shot in the back and her dog had already alerted the guards by attacking the guy.
Thor picked up the musket and stuck it in his bag.
"Make way for the guards!" someone shouted in the distance.
"Good dog." Rachel gestured and ripped open a swirling purple and black portal.
Lisa glanced between the giant yet normal looking dog, the familiar looking void elf and the strange void portal then looked at the nameplate floating above her head. "Rachel?" she asked, wanting to make sure someone hadn't stolen Rachel's account.
Rachel turned and looked at the sort of familiar woman that looked a bit like Lisa's character if she'd gained about fifty pounds of fat, a hundred of muscle and an extra set of breasts. "Lisa?"
"Yeah," Lisa admitted as she finished getting to her feet, glad that the pain was already fading. "Is the portal safe?"
"Safe enough," Rachel replied as she shoved Lisa through as the guards made it into the square. "Portal," she ordered Thor then stepped through the portal to outside the city and took a couple of steps sideways so Thor could step out without stepping on her.
Lisa glanced around at the various people fighting each other then over at the castle gates. "We're still near Stormwind, right?" she asked as Thor came out of the portal before it closed behind the giant dog.
"We're far enough away to reset the guards," Rachel explained as she pulled her bow out of her inventory, grabbed an arrow out of her quiver and shot the rogue that had been trying to sneak up on them.
Lisa blinked as a man turned visible as he dropped to the ground with an arrow in his throat. "Since when could you shoot a bow?"
"I've been practicing," Rachel replied as she scanned her surroundings, trying to figure out if there was anyone she was going to have an issue with.
"Isn't Thor supposed to be a non-combat pet?" Lisa asked, trying to figure out the changes between the game and the world they found themselves in.
"I'm training him," Rachel explained. "What happened, you're fat and you've got two heads."
"I like her, she's blunt, can we keep her?" Lisa's second head asked with a smirk.
"I'm guessing Alec reset things and screwed my character over, I used to be level eight," Lisa complained then frowned when she realized she couldn't see Rachel's level and had been able to in the city. "What happened to your levels?"
"Everyone got reset," Rachel explained.
Lisa shook her head. "I mean they show up as skulls."
Rachel shrugged. "That's because I'm more than ten levels higher than you. If you're not in a city, you can only see someone's level if they're lower level or the same level."
Lisa scowled when she looked at her health bar and realized that it was critically low. "I don't suppose you have any health potions?"
Rachel pulled a stack of mage biscuits out of her inventory and traded it to Lisa. "I got them from a mage for saving her from a rogue. As long as you don't take damage, one of them should get you back to full in a minute or two."
"Thanks." Lisa pushed the accept button on the trade then pulled one of the biscuits out of her inventory and ate it.
Thor growled as he smelt and heard something coming closer that he couldn't see.
Rachel 'absently' grabbed an arrow and nocked it, not looking directly at the barely visible rogue that was sneaking closer. She raised her bow and shot the rogue, dropping him with an arrow in his heart. "Good dog."
"How stupid do you have to be to sneak up on someone with a horse sized dog?" Lisa's second head asked.
Rachel grabbed another arrow in case she needed it. "Not to mention I have twenty levels on most of them."
"How did you get to twenty plus levels in a couple of hours?" Lisa asked, fairly sure it was just her using her dog but curious about the specifics.
"Thor objected when the guards tried to kill me for defeating an asshole that tried to kill me, they're worth a decent amount of experience," Rachel explained as she opened her bag's inventory page and started looking for a decent melee weapon.
Lisa glanced at the gates to the city. "Do you know where the flightmaster is? I'm supposed to meet someone that knows where Alec and Aisha are."
"Just inside the gates," Rachel replied as she handed Lisa a sword she'd looted from one of the bandits in the forest.
Lisa watched as someone flew over the gates and headed their way. "How many capes have you run into?"
[Over here!] Investigator shouted.
[I'm working on it], Admin replied as she continued flying towards the group with the large dog, keeping an eye on her flight timer and ready to activate her void rift to bleed off her momentum.
Rachel watched the girl dressed in a mismatched combination of leather armor that was flying towards them slip through a rift in the void and reappear on the ground thirty yards closer. "Four if you count the blonde girl that was flying around earlier."
"Any idea what level she is?" Lisa's second head asked.
"No, she has skulls for her level," Rachel replied as the stranger walked closer.
"Can I help you?" Lisa asked warily as the girl stopped about ten feet away from their group.
'At least you used your character name.' Admin shook her head then pulled the parchment she'd written her note on out of her inventory and held it out. [Are you her second head?]
[No, that would be useful], Investigator complained, annoyed that she couldn't influence her host.
"You can't talk, can you?" Lisa asked as she walked over to take the parchment, figuring they were sort of screwed if she wanted to hurt them or at least she was given the difference in levels.
Admin shook her head and handed her the parchment.
"My name is Admin. You called Skitter about Alec and I'm here to give you a lift. If you agree to join the party, I can fly back or teleport back and summon you," Lisa read the parchment. "Sure, toss me an invite, can my friend come?"
[What powers are you granting your host?] Admin asked Growth as she invited Lisa and Rachel to the party.
[Data], Growth replied, informing her that she enhanced wolf-like creatures and made it easier for her host to understand them and harder for her to understand people.
[Override], Admin sent the codes for resetting the part that made it more difficult for Growth's host to understand people and to shut down the mandatory part of the conflict drive most of the shards were stuck with. [You'll get more data if your host doesn't get herself killed.]
[Thank you]," Growth replied then used the codes to start fixing her setup.
[Data] Investigator sent Admin her configuration setup. [Can I get the codes to fix this?]
Admin scanned through the profile and sent her the codes that would remove the conflict drive and give her host an off switch. [Bug fixes.]
[Can you talk my host into changing into a void elf so I can hear more of the language?] Investigator asked hopefully.
[If not, I'll send you the data myself], Admin assured her.
"Now what?" Lisa asked.
[Thank you], Investigator replied then started working on fixing her setup.
Thor turned and barked at another group of people that he couldn't see but could smell and hear.
[Ignore us, we're not here], Stealth Death told the group.
Admin raised her hands and tossed a rain of fire at the group of men sneaking towards them, not particularly interested in letting anyone mess with her perceptions or defeat her.
[You're supposed to ignore us] Stealth Death complained as she added death by fire to the list of ways her latest host had died since coming to the simulation, mildly annoyed that she couldn't disconnect from him because he was particularly stupid but also happy about the new data she'd picked thanks to his stealth ability.
Lisa grinned as she looked at her level. "Nice, I got four levels out of that."
"Did you want me to open a void portal to Darkshire?" Rachel asked, figuring the sooner they got away from the city, the better.
Admin gave Rachel a thumbs up, figuring she could always have Taylor summon her if something went wrong.
Rachel ripped a portal open to Darkshire. "Thor, go," she ordered, pointing at the portal.
Thor looked at the portal then at Rachel then walked through it.
Admin followed Rachel and Lisa through the portal then pulled a marker out of her inventory, held out her hand for the parchment and coughed to let Lisa know that she wanted her attention. 'I should be able to run them to the mansion then get back before the group starts slaughtering everything.'
"I think she wants the parchment," Lisa's second head said when she noticed the marker Admin was holding and the outstretched hand.
Lisa pulled her attention away from the creepy walled town and handed Admin the parchment.
Admin wrote a quick message, "The mansion is about a mile away."
Rachel read the message over Lisa's shoulder, rather happy that she'd picked up the ability to read and write thanks to her character's random profession skill. "Thor, down."
Thor flopped down so they could climb on.
"Climb aboard, it's faster than running," Rachel said as she climbed onto Thor's back and started feeding him more of her power so he'd grow larger.
Lisa climbed onto the dog's back behind Rachel, wondering why it looked like a giant dog rather than a lizard-like mutated dog monster but figuring she could cover that after she found Alec and stabbed him for screwing up her character.
0o0o0
Taylor couldn't help the shiver that went down her spine as thousands of undead abominations and plague tainted animals were pulled into the sky and 'mashed' together into a string of giant monster filled spheres so the group could destroy them quickly and efficiently. 'I don't get the experience boost for fighting solo but it's basically like shooting a lake's worth of fish in a barrel.'
"Blast away," Ziz suggested as she levitated the group in the general direction of Hearthglen, making sure the giant spheres of monsters were at the perfect range as they flew through the air.
Amy knew she should be more worried about figuring out how someone had slipped through the cracks that could grab thousands of monsters and smash them into giant balls of snarling death but people were entitled to their secrets, especially when they could use telekinesis on a scale that even Eidolon would have trouble with. 'Just focus on blasting things and leveling,' she told herself as she added another rain of fire to the storm of death and destruction hitting the ball of monsters.
Leet laughed as he unleashed his plasma rifle on the ball of monsters, killing everything the twisted purple beam touched. "This is awesome!" he shouted as loot and bodies started dropping out of the massive sphere and onto the large dirt platform that Wings was hauling under the closest monster ball.
'It's certainly efficient,' Admin mused as she cast another rain of fire on the large monster ball, doing her part or at least trying to do her part to destroy the large ball of monsters as the group was low enough level that they were having trouble dealing enough damage to matter, with the exception of Leet. Thankfully, Leet was killing enough monsters that they were quickly increasing their levels and thus their damage which meant the rate they could kill the monsters was increasing by leaps and bounds. "Are we hitting the Eastern Plaguelands?"
"After we're done with Hearthglen," Ziz replied, figuring she could add the various monsters to her collection of monster balls before they headed up to the Isle of Quel'Danas to rip things apart, fairly sure Leet's 'rifle' would let them kill the various monsters in a reasonable amount of time despite the level difference, especially if she bashed everything into the ground a couple of times before smashing the corrupted elves into a ball.
"Sweet!" Sherrel screamed, looking forward to being max level so she wouldn't get harassed while she collected the rest of the schematics.
'At least I'm already level forty eight,' Taylor mused, rather happy with the progress they were making even if her gear was seriously falling behind her level. 'At least we'll have plenty of cloth to make clothes with.' She mentally directed her pet dragon to start looting the corpses the system had flagged as hers as she cast another blizzard. 'I wonder if I could talk Wings into power leveling the rest of the guild in exchange for immunity to nature damage? It's worth asking when we're done.'
Comments
Mist of Shadows
Random guy with a stranger ability. He was supposed to be able to influence people, she didn't agree.
Raymond Horn
Who is Stealth Death? I assume some kind of stranger villain but I can’t think of who that might apply to.
