Mist of Shadows
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Taylor and the Twisted Game Part 8
🕑 Added 2021-09-25 09:27:36 +0000 UTCUber tightened his grip on the sword he was in the process of sharpening and stepped forward when the group of twelve ugly ass men that looked like rejects from the Teeth rushed into the room holding nasty looking swords and axes.
"Welcome to hell fuckers, you belong to us!" the leader of the group announced as he rushed towards the nearest tech, who happened to be some type of green haired blood elf demon hybrid with wings.
The busty red haired blood elf wearing a pair of translucent shorts and a fishnet shirt froze in the middle of assembling a musket, unpleasant memories rushing back of almost dying in an alley.
"Eat plasma!" Leet shouted as he flipped one of the mental switches in his head and summoned his steampunk plasma rifle. He pointed it at the idiot charging him and pulled the trigger, not seeing a reason to play nice since they were trying to enslave him.
Sherrel looked up from the connection she was welding when the entire room lit up from the beam of twisted purple energy spewing out of the end of Leet's blaster. "Nice!"
Leet swept the beam of energy through the group of idiots, cutting them in half like a plasma torch through butter then turned to look at the guard that was calmly leaning against the wall playing with a puzzle. "Do we have a problem?" he asked, surprised the guard hadn't already attacked him for attacking the idiots.
The dwarven guard snorted. "Not my monkey, not my problem. You're an engineer, this is the workshop, if people want to volunteer to be test subjects, that's hardly my problem."
"Makes sense," Leet admitted after a couple of seconds of watching the guard work on the puzzle he was playing with to make sure he wasn't going to attack him. 'Since when were the guards reasonable?'
"Can I have your gun for a blowjob?" Sherrel asked hopefully after turning her torch off and lifting her welding mask.
"Seriously?" the girl with the fishnet shirt sputtered.
Sherrel shrugged. "I've done worse and it's a really nice gun."
Leet studied the busty teenage girl with purple hair and cat ears that was wearing overalls without a shirt for a couple of seconds, his mind conjuring interesting images. "Sorry, it's actually a skill that scales with my engineering skill," he admitted reluctantly as a blue haired girl with elf ears walked into the room holding a piece of parchment.
"It's broken as hell," Uber muttered as he looked at the new girl's mismatched gear.
"Can you sign my guild slip?" Ziz asked as she looked at the four people in the room.
"What type of guild?" Uber asked.
"It's basically a leveling guild for mages and engineers, you don't have to stick around but if you do, I'll help you level," Ziz explained.
"How the hell did you already get level thirty four?" Sherrel blurted when she noticed the girl's level.
Ziz gestured towards a hammer and lifted it off the workbench with her telekinesis. "I'm a telekinetic and I can fly, I merely flew to a dangerous zone, picked the monsters up, flipped them upside down and bashed their skulls against the rocks until they stopped moving."
"That would do it," Leet admitted. "What's the name of the guild?"
"Mages of the Apocalypse," Ziz replied with a grin.
Leet glanced at Uber. "What do you think?"
"I think we could use the help, especially if we keep running into idiots trying to force us to work for them," Uber admitted as he held his hand out for the parchment. "I'm Uber, my friend is Leet, can we get a name?"
"I'm Wings." Ziz handed him the parchment and a marker then turned to look at the girl with the fishnet shirt. "What's your handle?"
"Ember, I'm a Shadow Pyromancer, a mix of mage and rogue," Ember replied, glad that she'd found someone to help her get stronger.
Uber finished signing then handed the parchment and marker to Leet. "What's your class Hyper?"
Sherrel turned to look at Uber. "I'm an Eldritch Rider, it's basically a mounted arcane knight, you?"
"I'm a Frost Knight, basically a mage with armor training and rune swords," Uber replied with a grin while Leet signed the sheet. "Which means I can tank."
"I can heal if we need a healer," Ziz assured them, happy that she'd found a group that might be useful with a bit of training.
Leet handed Sherrel the sheet and marker. "How are you planning on making us stronger?"
Ziz smiled at Leet. "I'm planning on killing all of the monsters as we fly east to Loch Modan, the Mo'grosh Stronghold has ogres that should be worth a decent amount of experience and there are plenty of mineral nodes on the way to help increase your mining."
"In other words, you're planning on power leveling us?" Uber asked thoughtfully as Sherrel handed Ember the signup sheet and marker.
Ziz nodded. "I'll basically lift the monsters up and spin them around so they're not facing you and you can blast them until they're dead. Once we clear out the stronghold a couple of times we'll go somewhere more dangerous and do the same. It should only take a couple of hours to get everyone up to a reasonable level."
"I'm game," Leet said cheerfully, knowing they'd be safer if they could get ahead of the pack and set up a base somewhere.
"What are you planning on doing once we cap out?" Uber asked.
"We're going to bring the apocalypse to the legion and steal their loot," Ziz replied with a grin, figuring she might as well have some fun before she destroyed the last boss and left.
"Works for me," Ember said as she handed Ziz the signup sheet, happy that she'd found a group that could help her get stronger.
"For the loot!" Sherrel said cheerfully as she started sticking her tools back in her inventory, looking forward to taking out some frustration on the various monsters now that she was sober and clean for the first time in years.
0o0o0
Void wasn't sure which was worse, the fact that Stalker was humming a festive tune while she skinned the last of the prisoners or the fact that she wasn't particularly good at humming but was doing it anyway. He turned to look at Noelle and Skitter. "Where are we going next?"
Noelle glanced between Missy and Taylor. "How do you feel about teleporting to Ironforge and running to the summoning stone at Gnomeregan?"
"That would be fantastic," Void said, narrowly avoiding squealing in excitement as he thought about all of the stuff he could salvage from the abandoned gnome city/dungeon.
Sophia snorted. "That place is a nightmare of twisted corridors and most of the loot sucks unless you're an engineer."
"I'm an engineer," Void pointed out.
"I'd rather hit the Scarlet Monastery first then come back and crush the place for the schematics and the loot," Sophia argued. "The monastery is straightforward and we won't have insane engineers blowing up sections of the dungeon that could kill us if we're in the wrong place."
"Point," Void admitted.
Noelle turned to look at Sophia, doing her best to ignore the far too realistic skinned bodies sprawled on the floor of the dungeon. "How are you planning on getting to the Scarlet Monastery in a reasonable amount of time?"
Sophia gestured towards Taylor. "Skitter mentioned being able to teleport anywhere and she has the ability to summon her alt which means using the meeting stone to grab us should be easy."
Admin shook her head. [I'd rather not get killed and have to spend a week messing with low level crafting because we got impatient.]
"She'd need a couple of levels before I'd be willing to risk it," Taylor argued.
"We have an entire army of idiots outside the gates and Noelle is durable enough to rip through everyone like tinfoil, does your alt have any of the perks that boost experience for defeating players?" Sophia asked.
Taylor nodded. "Admin has the general experience boosters and the boost for defeating players."
"That makes it easy," Sophia replied with a smirk. "We just have Warp twist things so we can get to a safe place in the hills that overlooks the area outside of the city then she warps space and we have Void grab the idiots that are attacking people. Admin can tag them before we knock them unconscious which gives Skitter the chance to stick a bunch of bondage gear on them and drain their experience so they'll be less of a problem for everyone else."
"What happens if we screw someone over that is just trying to escape?" Taylor asked warily.
Sophia shrugged. "You can't make an omelette without breaking a few eggs. Joking aside, it should be pretty obvious, the assholes are probably smiling when they're trying to stab people."
"You'd know," Missy muttered under her breath.
"We should probably grab masks if we're going to piss off a bunch of murder hobos," Void pointed out, not wanting to deal with people looking for revenge if they could avoid it.
Sophia conjured a bondage mask and tossed it to Void. "That should stop people from seeing your face or name."
"I'm not wearing a bondage mask," Void complained, glaring at Sophia.
"Suit yourself," Sophia replied as she went back to skinning the last prisoner. "You had a good point about masks, I'd rather not have a bunch of lunatics have a reason to screw me over."
"I meant an actual mask," Void grumbled as he dropped the mask into his inventory so he could look at the description. "It gives people that rape the person wearing it additional experience, we can probably find something in one of the shops that works better."
"He's right, it's just going to encourage people to cause trouble," Missy pointed out.
"Most of the more legit masks are going to cost an arm and a leg. Besides, we're looking for assholes, not people just trying to level." Sophia finished skinning the last corpse then stood up.
Noelle scowled as she thought about people touching her. "I'm not going to lie, I don't like the look but I can put up with it for twenty or thirty minutes if it means we can avoid having people try to get revenge."
"I think I can fix the look." Taylor pulled a cloth bandit mask out of her inventory that she'd taken off one of the Defias rogues, opened her Transmogrification menu and tossed it in the box. She hit the button to acquire the pattern then conjured a bondage mask.
"Transmogrification?" Sophia asked, thinking about the buttplugs she'd handed out.
"Yep," Taylor replied as she tossed the conjured mask in the box. She selected her bandit mask pattern then hit the button to transfigure it and read the description. "It doesn't fix the experience issue but it shouldn't be obvious and it hides your name and face which should cut down on the number of people coming after us."
Missy held her hand out. "I'll take one."
"Same," Noelle and Sophia replied at the same time as Void held his hand out.
Taylor tossed Missy the first mask then conjured another bondage mask, dropped it in her transfiguration box and hit the button, changing it into a bandit mask. 'At least some of the bondage gear has an actual use.'
0o0o0
Cassie stared in disbelief as the demon she'd struck with her multi-ton rock merely pushed himself back to his feet before tossing a volley of shadow bolts at the party. "Shit!"
Arthur gestured with his staff and sucked the balls of shadowy energy flying at the group into another dimension then waved his staff and blasted the winged demon as it flew towards the group with a look of rage on its face. "Hit it again!" he shouted when his blast failed to kill it.
Cassie slammed her massive rock on the prone demon, crushing its head against a rock and pinning it in place. "Open fire!"
Riley blasted the demon with frost bolts while Arthur blasted the shit out of it with his power until it stopped twitching. "Is it dead?"
Cassie lifted her rock up then slammed it down on its head, crushing it like a watermelon dropped from a second story window. "I think we're good."
Riley gave the rest of the blasted landscape a glance then turned to look at Cassie. "Any ideas?"
"No clue," Cassie admitted as she checked her level while her pixie flew down to loot the demon, "but I got most of a level from it."
Arthur glanced at his experience bar. "Same."
Cassie grinned when she checked her pixie's inventory. "Nice, a recipe for a felcloth bag we can probably sell to a tailor for a decent amount, a set of leggings that boost shadow damage by 64 and stamina by 21 that are a lot better than what I'm wearing, a leather belt that increases your magic damage and healing, two bags and a helmet for a shaman that increases casting stats and fire and shadow resistance while increasing damage and healing."
"Any agility on the helmet?" Riley asked.
"No, just stamina, magic and spirit," Cassie replied as she checked the bags. "Holy s-crap, we just got 331 gold and 74 silver."
"Is that normal?" Riley asked.
"Not remotely," Cassie replied as she worked on crushing the rest of the demons in the area with her giant rock of doom. "Any objection to giving Arthur the helmet?"
"Nope, it's basically caster gear," Riley replied with a grin. "Can I have the belt?"
"Sure, I can't use it, it's technically leather armor." Cassie waited until her pixie flew back over then pulled the loot out of her inventory and passed it out, causing the money to automatically split into thirds.
"Thanks," Arthur replied as he swapped the new helmet for the crappy helmet he'd found earlier. "At least masks and helmets are different items."
Cassie swapped the leggings for the junk she'd been wearing. "How do I look?"
Riley turned and looked at Cassie. "Like you're wearing black panties and leg warmers."
"At least the stats are good," Cassie replied as she 'slowly' swung the carpet around and headed north. "Let's head back to the ogre stronghold, that should give the demons a chance to respawn, then we can update our hearthstones at the alliance stronghold and teleport to Ironforge to do some training before we head back and kill more demons."
"Works for me," Arthur replied as he took potshots at the various monsters scattered around the twisted landscape.
"Mine!" Riley called out when she spotted a node that she could actually mine.
"I see it," Cassie replied as she flew towards the ground so they could grab another skill point.
Arthur hovered in place and worked on shooting anything that came near the girls, mixing in the occasional spell now and then so that he got practice using his magic. 'At least my normal powers work, this would be a lot harder to deal with if they didn't.'
0o0o0
Amy glanced away from the beaker that was collecting the oil from the oily blackmouth she'd caught when she heard footsteps and looked at Taylor, wondering what it was like to have your head a bit off center but not quite brave enough to try it. "I thought you were running around with Noelle."
"They're working on boosting Admin's level so I'm taking a break," Taylor replied as she walked over to look at what Amy was working on. "Anything interesting?"
Amy shook her head. "Not really, it basically just involves 'bleeding' the fish and purifying the oil, not what I'd call interesting even if it's useful in a couple of water related potions and a fishing enchantment. Do you have the vials?"
"Yep, I grabbed them when I picked up alchemy," Taylor replied as she opened her inventory and pulled a box of vials out.
"Picked up alchemy? What did you drop?" Amy asked with a frown, surprised that she'd give up any of her skills for something they had covered.
"My bonus engineering skill from one of the extra symbiotes," Taylor replied with a smirk as she set the box on the table.
Amy stared at Taylor for a couple of seconds then started giggling when she realized her new friend had broken the system. "How many professions did you pick up?"
"Everything other than whoring," Taylor admitted as she pulled one of the broken buttplugs out of her inventory and tossed it into her Transmogrification box. "Even if it wasn't creepy, it's basically useless after character generation."
[The rest of the professions are more useful], Admin agreed.
Amy glanced across the courtyard where everyone was still working. "Have you told anyone else?"
Taylor shook her head. "No, it basically removes the skill from the symbiote/items which means you'd need a bunch of symbiotes and we're already having trouble making sure people have enough supplies to keep them busy."
"Can you turn them back into symbiotes?" Amy asked hopefully.
Taylor selected the symbiote look and hit the button, transforming the buttplug back into a wiggling tentacle. "Looks like it," she replied as she held the symbiote out for Amy to touch.
"This has been used, hasn't it?" Amy asked warily.
"I washed it," Taylor assured her.
Amy reached out and touched the symbiote, glad that her power made bacteria a non issue for the most part.
[That's how that worked!] Shaper said enthusiastically.
Taylor glanced around, trying to figure out where the other voice had come from.
[What did you figure out?] Admin asked Shaper.
[I should be able to fix it], Shaper replied to Admin as she looked over the changes between the original symbiote and the mutated symbiote. [Does she have a mutated symbiote that isn't broken?]
[Mutated symbiote?] Modular Systems asked as her host finished making the scope he was going to use for the gun he'd created, tweaking the idiotic design into something more useable and removeable as permanently mounting a scope was a stupid design choice as far as she was concerned.
[We're playing with new biological systems, have you learned anything about their engineering yet?] Shaper asked.
[The creation process is weird and the results often use exotic energy!] Modular Systems explained excitedly, sounding like the shard equivalent of an overly excited teenager.
Taylor frowned as she glanced around, trying to place the words she couldn't quite make out and wondering why the voice sounded different.
[You should show her the mutated symbiote that isn't broken], Admin suggested.
"Good point," Taylor replied as she pulled one of the symbiotes out of her inventory that wasn't broken and held it out for Amy to take a look at.
"Thanks," Amy replied as she checked the second symbiote and compared them. "Okay, I should be able to fix this or even modify it to be more useful. Have you tried making any jewelry yet?"
"Nope, I gave all of my ore to the engineering and jewelcrafting guys," Taylor replied as she turned to look at the people working in the engineering shop. "Do you think Kid Win made anything interesting?"
Amy glanced at her fish that was still draining into the beaker. "It's worth a shot, let's check."
"Sure," Taylor replied as she followed Amy. "How are you doing for levels Admin?"
[I'm up to level 13], Admin replied with a smile. [You should be able to pick up some experience when you get here as the troublemakers are currently tied up.]
"Good to know," Taylor replied as they walked over to where Chris was attaching a scope to his old fashioned musket and where Armsmaster was working on a pair of goggles, much to Dragon's amusement. "Any luck?"
"It's a bit frustrating," Colin complained as he gestured towards the goggles he was working on. "If it was just a game, I'd ignore it but the more I create, the more 'sense' it makes or maybe I'm just going crazy the more I work on it."
"Are you getting extra schematics?" Chris asked.
Colin stopped and stared at Chris. "Extra schematics?"
"I've been tinkering with the designs, the scope schematic I got from the trainer suggested welding it to the gun like an idiot, I used two extra bolts and mounted it in a way I can just take the scope off if I want to change it and I got a better schematic when I finished," Chris explained.
[How do I update his list!] Efficiency demanded.
Taylor nibbled on her lip to keep herself from asking if people had heard a different voice asking about a list. 'Yeah, I probably shouldn't give them a reason to think I'm going insane, I'll just ask Amelia to check my head later.'
[You can't change it, you can just add to it], Modular Systems explained as she tossed the information to Admin, Efficiency and Analysis.
[Thank you], Analysis replied as she scanned the information packet.
[Much appreciated], Admin replied as she filed the details away for use with her own skills.
"I've been trying to improve the efficiency but I haven't had much luck and I didn't want to waste supplies," Colin admitted.
[That's because half of it doesn't make sense], Efficiency complained.
"It just takes practice," Dragon offered. "I'll try writing a reference manual when I finish leveling my engineering and enchanting."
[Smug], Analysis offered.
Amy turned to look at Chris. "Speaking of projects, have you managed to make any interesting jewelry?"
Chris shrugged. "A bunch of copper jewelry and bronze settings for future projects but I need to increase my level and get more training before I can make anything interesting, why?"
Amy glanced between Armsmaster and Dragon. "I was just curious if there was something worth wearing."
"Not yet, I've been more focused on tinkering," Chris admitted. "I'm a little annoyed that you can't extract the gems without breaking them."
"Look at the bright side, it gives you a source of magic dust for use in enchanting," Taylor pointed out.
Chris shook his head. "I'd rather have the ingredients."
[Level 15], Admin said cheerfully.
"You could always take a hammer to them and break the gems, that would probably let you save the metal," Taylor pointed out. "If you'll excuse me, I need to do some crafting before I have to hit a dungeon."
"Best of luck," Dragon offered.
"Thanks," Taylor replied with a smile then turned and headed for the house.
Amelia smiled as she headed back towards the alchemy workshop, figuring she'd ask Chris about buttplugs they could transmogrify when the adults weren't right there. "Back to alchemy."
0o0o0
