Mist of Shadows
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Taylor Shard Keeper Part 1
🕑 Added 2021-06-19 09:51:38 +0000 UTCTaylor blinked when she went from being stuck in her locker filled with a nightmarish collection of biohazard material to floating in space looking at a spiral of stars and a cloaked figure holding a scythe. "What the hell?"
"Perhaps the next time you ask for help you shouldn't include the 'anyone or anything' part of that but you have my attention," the cloaked figure replied in a pleasant sounding feminine voice that sent a shiver down Taylor's spine.
"Are you a villain?" Taylor asked nervously, more than a little freaked out by the fact that it felt like she was floating.
"Everyone is a hero in their own story," the figure replied. "I merely provide opportunities and possibilities."
"Such as?" Taylor asked warily, half convinced she was hallucinating.
"Enough power to rebalance the scales and save your world," the figure replied with amusement.
"You're just giving away power?" Taylor asked with a raised eyebrow.
"More or less, you agree to provide me entertainment and you get the power to make a difference or you can go back to the locker and forget about this conversation," the figure replied with a shrug.
"Let's not," Taylor replied, doing her best not to tell the mysterious and probably dangerous villain where to stick it when it came to going back into her locker.
"Fair enough, we shall have to tweak your body, mind and soul but we have the technology to make improvements," the figure said cheerfully.
"What's wrong with my soul?" Taylor blurted.
"Currently, it would fracture into," the figure gestured at the spiral galaxy behind her, "pieces."
"That sounds painful," Taylor admitted.
"I don't know that there would be enough left to feel anything but yeah, let's avoid that, too much paperwork." The figure glanced down at her watch. "In the interest of speeding things up because the last guy didn't take my advice, I'll just make some changes to the standard template and get you on your way."
Taylor stared at the clipboard that appeared in the figure's hands. "Standard template?"
"Basically, you get a method of immortality and control of four shards or pocket dimensions of varying sizes. Three of them cost energy to spend time in and one of them gives you energy, it's part of the cosmic balance," the figure explained as she quickly filled out the form.
"Ah, don't I get a choice in the matter?" Taylor asked.
"Do you want to explode because you didn't balance something right? I wasted a lot of time explaining things to the last guy and he still blew up," the figure replied then signed the bottom of the page in a flourish. "So, yes, no, do you want powers or not?"
"Yes but…" Taylor trailed off as she found herself back in the school in front of her open locker with filth spilling out of it, which smelled worse than she remembered. She was almost glad that her glasses were smeared with something that made everything blurry because it kept her from focusing on the nightmare her locker had turned into. 'Am I a teleporter?' she asked herself as she started walking towards the janitor's office, wanting to make sure that someone got punished for turning her locker into a hazardous waste site.
'Zero Energy, which means three of my shards are locked,' Taylor's thought process ground to a halt when she realized that she could 'feel' a counter in the back of her mind and a connection to four shards, three of which were locked. 'I guess that's one way to become a parahuman, you'd think someone would have mentioned strange people in robes, then again maybe there are rules, she seemed in a hurry.'
The next forty minutes were a bit of a nightmare, mostly because everyone started screaming when they saw her and the janitor was shouting, thankfully the EMTs and cops that showed up because someone called the police about a bioterrorism threat were less than impressed with the staff's response and hustled her into a biohazard tent so that Panacea could figure out what she'd been exposed to.
Taylor had barely made it out of the portable shower and gotten a change of clothes when the crowd had started to turn into a mob thanks to some of the students wanting to avoid being locked up in a contaminated building until they figured out what was going on. Never mind that twenty or thirty minutes of sitting in class wasn't going to make them any more contagious.
Thankfully the National Guard with the CDC didn't have an issue shooting some of the more annoying teachers that wouldn't listen with tasers when they tried to leave because it caused everyone to reevaluate how everything was going to work.
"What the hell happened?" one of the CDC doctors asked after she finished cleaning the cuts on Taylor's hands with disinfectant.
"I've been being harassed for the last year by Sophia Hess, Emma Barnes and Madison Clements, today they took it to an whole new level of stupid," Taylor explained, hoping that the doctor would take things more seriously than the school. "I've tried to get someone to listen for over a year but the principal keeps ignoring me and sweeping things under the rug, probably because Emma's father is a divorce lawyer. Not that I can understand why that should matter over harassment issues but I'm not sure what else it could be."
"I'll make sure the investigators take a good look at the three of them, do you have any evidence?" she asked, hoping she could make the team's job easier.
"I have an entire folder at home detailing the times and locations of various incidents and names of the people that witnessed them, including several teachers that just ignored things. The girls also used the school's email to harass me so there should be records in addition to the things I saved," Taylor replied, feeling strangely calm or at least focused unlike she usually got when she thought of her ex-friend and Sophia.
"Give me a minute." The doctor pulled out her phone and called her tech monkey. "McGee, I got a lead."
"What do you need?" Richie asked his co-worker, ignoring her joke.
"The girl from the locker mentioned some names of people that have been harassing her for almost a year. Can you check Taylor Hebert's school email account, there should be a number of harassing emails from various students. See if you can get a list of names and make a copy, I don't want any evidence going missing."
"No chance of that, I've already pulled the drives on the server," Richie replied as he worked on connecting the first drive to his machine so he could get access to the information. "The principal was being a bitch and didn't understand that I didn't need a warrant."
"Meaning there's probably something to find," the doctor replied as Panacea walked in. "I've got to go, Panacea just got here."
"No worries," Richie replied when ended the call and got to work, happy that the network tech had been more than willing to provide a supervisor password which would make his job easier and raise less red flags when he had to explain how he'd cracked their security.
"Do I have permission to heal you?" Panacea asked as she held out her hand.
"Yes," Taylor replied, wanting to make sure her blood wasn't going to start rotting or something weird.
Panacea reached out and touched the girl's hand with her finger and checked her body. "You're lucky, nothing particularly nasty got into your cuts which is a miracle considering the shit on your clothes."
"Lucky," Taylor muttered, fairly sure she wouldn't have gotten shoved into a locker if she was actually lucky.
Panacea healed the girl's cuts then worked on killing the bacteria in her system that shouldn't be there. "It could be worse, I've killed the bacteria and healed your cuts which means you won't come down with anything nasty."
"Thank you." Taylor blinked as part of her power activated and energy flowed into Panacea, causing the other girl to jump.
"Weird," Panacea muttered as she reached out and checked the other girl again, starting to wonder if she'd just imagined the weird shock when she didn't find anything odd about the girl's biology. 'You're just trying to get out of checking a bunch of idiotic teenagers.' She forced herself to smile. "You're good."
"Thank you for coming in," the doctor said, relieved that they weren't going to have to stick everyone in tents for a couple of days while they waited for blood tests which is what usually happened in situations like this.
Panacea shook her head. "I'd rather catch things before I have a couple of thousand people rotting from the inside out."
"How likely was that?" the doctor asked, wondering if she was exaggerating and by how much.
"Some of the stuff on her clothes would have been lethal if it had gotten into her bloodstream and I wasn't there to help," Panacea warned the doctor. "Whoever locked her in the locker is lucky they didn't kill her, they certainly could have. Where do you want me to start checking people for exposure?"
"I'll show you, we can drop Ms Hebert off on the way," the doctor said as she headed for the entrance to the medical tent.
0o0o0
Taylor flopped herself down on her bed, feeling emotionally drained from explaining the last year and change to the investigator and her father and yet too wired to sleep. 'At least the investigator believed me, now I just need to figure out how to turn a minor brute rating and perfect vision into something that lets me be a hero.'
"Yeah, that sounds like a good way to die," Taylor muttered as she glanced at the clock. 'It should take Dad at least fifteen minutes to make dinner, that's enough for a quick look at the only shard that actually gives me energy.'
It took staring at the ceiling for a couple of minutes before she managed to slip into sort of a zen state where she felt like she was slipping towards the shard in the back of her mind. Of course, that broke the zen feeling which caused her to have to start over. "Getting closer."
Thankfully for her peace of mind it wasn't particularly hard to slip back into the sort of trance state she'd discovered. After a couple of false starts, she found herself slipping between dimensions, going from sprawling on her bed to standing in the middle of a stone chamber with a padded leather table in the middle of it. "Weird, now what?" she muttered as she glanced around the room, not particularly surprised that she didn't find any doors or other exits.
"Please take off your clothes and ring the bell, one of our masseuses will be with you shortly," a pleasant sounding voice announced.
"Gah!" Taylor jumped and spun around when she felt a pair of hands touch her hips. She almost lost her balance when she looked down and saw two pairs of blue hands and arms and larger breasts than she was expecting to find. "What the fuck?" she sputtered when she realized her skin was blue and that she had extra arms. She stared at the arms coming out of her side under her 'normal' arms, more worried about her extra arms and blue skin than her extra cup sizes. "Changer?"
"Can I get some help?" Taylor asked. "Please?" she asked then walked over and tried to ring the bell.
"I'm sorry, you don't meet the requirements to use this item," the voice said.
"What the hell?" Taylor stared at the bell for a couple of seconds then tried to sit on the table only to stop as there was some type of force field over it that wouldn't let her.
"I'm sorry, you don't meet the requirements to use this item, perhaps less is more in this case," the voice said cheerfully.
"Great, it's like a bad computer game," Taylor muttered as she pulled her halter top off. She carefully poked at her purple nipples then dropped the halter top and slipped her pants off. She wasn't sure if she should be relieved or annoyed that she could climb on the table without any problems. She reached over and tried pulling the chain.
"I'm sorry, you don't meet the requirements to use this item, try to relax first," the voice teased.
"Try to relax? Yeah, I can't see that happening," Taylor muttered as she lay down and pulled the chain, slightly surprised when there wasn't any resistance. She stared when an attractive teenager that looked like one of her favorite actresses appeared in a burst of fire and purple smoke wearing a rather sheer genie outfit. "What's going on?"
The 'genie' smiled at Taylor. "I'm going to give you a massage then I'm going to fuck you until you melt which should give you plenty of energy."
"What?" Taylor sputtered.
"Let me guess, you didn't bother reading the instruction manual?" the girl asked as she walked over.
"I didn't get one," Taylor complained.
"In that case, consider me the tutorial girl," the girl said as she gently poked Taylor's shoulder with her finger. "You're a bit tense, do you mind if I get started on your shoulders?"
"Fine," Taylor replied, figuring a shoulder massage might help. "Why do you think I'd want to fuck you?"
"Because I'm adorable and I'm good with my hands," the girl replied as she started working on massaging Taylor's shoulders. "Besides, you're going to need energy to stay in the other realms and to buy things from the shop."
"What type of things can I buy?" Taylor asked, trying not to focus on the other girl's hands, wondering if she had a power or if she'd just been starved for touch and affection for too long because it felt really good.
"Magic cloaks, rings, boots, hoverboards, potions and magic books. In other words, your typical adventuring gear as well as crafting supplies. You'll also need energy to spend time in your other shards which means you'll have to spend time in here getting fucked," the girl explained.
"Great," Taylor muttered, not particularly impressed by her power so far. "Do all of my abilities take energy?"
"Your various vision based powers don't require energy, nor does your immortality, supernatural reflexes or your magic," the girl replied as she continued working on the knots in Taylor's shoulders.
"Magic?" Taylor asked in disbelief.
"You're basically a magic user," the girl replied with amusement. "Most Shard Masters collect objects in their shards and use them for fun and profit in their old world. You'll also be able to absorb knowledge out of books which is a pretty cool power that doesn't take energy."
"When you say immortality, do you mean I'll live forever or do you mean I'm ageless?" Taylor asked, knowing there was a difference.
The girl laughed. "Both, in your case you can't be harmed outside of this particular shard which means you're basically indestructible."
"You said various vision powers, how many do I have?" Taylor asked, trying not to think about her father dying of old age.
"Night vision, Telescopic vision, X-ray vision, Immunity to Illusions and a paralyzing gaze that should come in useful for stopping criminals or rampaging monsters," the girl explained as she started moving down Taylor's back.
"In other words, I can take a hit and see through walls," Taylor mused, fairly sure her power would come in handy for spying, especially if she could learn to read lips.
"Or clothes," the girl offered with amusement.
"What can you tell me about my other shards?" Taylor asked, trying not to think about that particular use of her X-ray vision.
"I've already covered the shop which leaves the Shard of Exploration and the Shard of Adventure. The Shard of Exploration gives you a dimension filled with monsters, magical plants and interesting ingredients for you to explore and discover. The Shard of Adventure gives you a world to explore and people to interact with, it's currently set to Generic Isekai but you can reset it if you spend a thousand energy," the girl explained as she worked on Taylor's back.
"How much energy do I get from here?" Taylor asked, trying to put things in context.
"Provided you're engaged with the scenario, thirty two energy a minute," the girl replied. "Of course, it takes 100 points to exit, which means you'll need to spend at least three minutes in here to break even."
"Lovely, what if I need to exit in a hurry?" Taylor asked.
"Your world should be frozen while you're in a shard realm unless you specifically disable that feature," the girl replied as she skipped over Taylor's panty clad butt and started working on her legs, figuring she'd come back to it when Taylor was a bit more comfortable.
"That's useful. In other words, I get energy in here then jump into my adventure shard and pick up some magic weapons to use as a hero," Taylor mused, trying not to focus on the girl's hands and how nice it felt to have someone touch her in a positive way.
"Unfortunately you can't take items out of the Shard of Adventure, just skills," the girl explained.
"What about the Shard of Exploration or the shop?" Taylor asked.
"They wouldn't be all that useful if you couldn't," the girl replied with a grin. "One of the best ways to get gear you can take into all of your other shards is by learning crafting skills in your Shard of Adventure and using the ingredients from your other shards to make decent gear."
"Weird," Taylor muttered, wondering if the rest of the capes had this many problems with their powers or if it was just her. "Anything else I should know?"
"Probably, but that doesn't mean I'm going to tell you," the girl replied with amusement.
"Why not?" Taylor asked.
"Because it's my job to seduce you which means I should keep some of the more valuable secrets for trading purposes," the girl replied.
"And you think I'm going to let you fuck me for a couple of secrets?" Taylor asked.
"No, I think you're going to let me fuck you because I'm fantastic and you need energy to buy supplies and to get fantastic magical skills if you want to be a decent hero," the girl replied as she worked on Taylor's calves. "Besides, I'm basically part of your power which means you're basically fucking yourself if that helps."
Taylor closed her eyes and tried to look at the problem from different angles while trying and failing to ignore the girl's hands massaging her calves. 'Do I care? It's not like Mom wasn't at least a little bi given some of her stories and it's my power, does it matter? I'm not hurting anyone and honestly, not telling my father about Emma did more harm than letting a girl fuck me for magic is going to so yeah, no, I don't care.'
The girl smiled as Taylor finally relaxed. "Oil?"
"Sure," Taylor replied, deciding that she was going to enjoy herself.
0o0o0
Taylor giggled as she went from feeling exhausted and sticky to feeling like she'd just woken up from a nap. She glanced at the clock then took a second look when she realized it hadn't changed. 'Huh, I guess she wasn't lying about the world being timelocked when I'm in a shard.'
She checked her hands to make sure they were the right color. 'No weird side effects and I feel better than I've felt in years, best power ever!' She rolled to her feet and stretched. 'Okay, I've got a ten minute cooldown before I can jump shards which means I need to figure out something to entertain myself with,' she mused as she walked over to her bookshelf and started skimming the titles.
"Coding or an actual story?" she mused then grabbed the coding book and blinked when a floating screen appeared in front of her and started playing a documentary on coding, complete with sound. "Yeah, because that's not distracting," she muttered as she picked up the Hobbit in her other hand and walked over to her bed, the floating window floating along in front of her without the video glitching or jumping. 'Okay, that's actually reasonably useful.'
She felt a bit weird when the documentary ended and it felt like she'd read the entire book cover to cover and understood it. 'Is that better or worse than Uber? I guess we'll find out once I start layering programming books.'
She glanced at the clock. 'Huh, five minutes for an entire textbook, nice!' She focused on the Hobbit and smiled when a video window appeared and started playing a video of the book. Three minutes later it was like she'd read the book again and watched some rather amusing clips that certainly fit her idea of the book more than the Earth Aleph movie she'd seen a copy of.
'I should grab some medical books and martial arts books,' she mused as she concentrated on her shop shard and tried to jump. She grinned as she ended up in an old fashioned shop that seemed to be a mix of a fantasy magic shop and an antique shop. She looked down at herself and blinked when she realized that her skin was grey and that her breasts were translucent and filled with purple mist. "Yeah, because that's normal," she muttered, wondering if she was going to look strange in all of her shards.
"Welcome to the Unseen Emporium, is there anything in particular you're looking for?" the white haired man in a black business suit behind the counter asked with a smile.
"Books on learning magic, flying brooms? What do you recommend?" Taylor asked.
"That depends, how dangerous is your world?" the man asked thoughtfully.
"I've got a bunch of super powered assholes running around causing trouble and we have monsters that can destroy cities and sink islands that cause problems every couple of months," Taylor explained.
"Oh, one of those, have you considered portal magic?" the shopkeeper asked.
"I've never actually used magic," Taylor admitted.
"Oh, right. So much for leaving. I can sell you a flying broom fairly cheap," the man offered.
"What counts as cheap?" Taylor asked.
"One hundred energy," the man offered. "Or I can sell you the book to make them for say 200?"
"That seems more useful, let's go with that," Taylor replied then blinked when she felt her available energy drop by 200 points. "That takes some getting used to."
"You'll get used to it," the man replied as he pulled a book off the shelf and set it on the counter. "Can I interest you in anything else? I have a magical transformation item that gives you a really neat outfit and a mask so you can keep your secret identity secret."
"How much?" Taylor asked suspiciously.
"50 energy," the man offered.
Taylor raised an eyebrow. "Why so cheap?"
"I picked it up from a merchant that was selling a bunch of stuff, I think he was just trying to get out of the business," the man replied with a shrug.
"It's worth looking at," Taylor admitted. "I'll take it."
The man grabbed a silver ring with a green gemstone from under the counter and set it on the book. "I've got a special and you've got energy to burn, if your world is as dangerous as you say, perhaps you'd like a safety net," the man mused.
"What type of safety net?" Taylor replied, not sure she trusted the guy.
"One scroll of resurrection," the man replied smugly.
"How much?" Taylor asked after a couple of seconds of staring at him, trying not to look like she was willing to break the bank on it and failing miserably.
"One thousand energy should do it," the man replied as he grabbed a scroll from the shelf.
Taylor briefly considered haggling then figured to hell with it, she didn't want to piss the guy off as she could afford it. "Done."
The man smiled as he handed Taylor the scroll. "Enjoy, do you need anything else?"
"Do you have any cheap enchanting books?" Taylor asked.
The man shook his head. "I'm afraid the rest of my enchanting books are quite expensive and behind the counter, it stops people from attempting to walk off with them or read them without buying them. Nothing against you but I know people and people are people."
"Figures," Taylor admitted as she picked up her book, ring and scroll. "I'll be back when I have more energy to spend."
"Thank you for shopping at the Unseen Emporium, please come again," the man replied with amusement.
"Of course," Taylor replied as she focused on leaving. She was just glad that returning to the real world didn't have a cooldown unlike traveling to her shards. She opened the scroll and said the words before she could reconsider the insanity of trying to bring someone back from the dead or talk herself out of trying. "Annette Rose Hebert, A.K.A My Mom…" she finished the spell by naming the target in a unique way and trailed off when her mother appeared in her birthday suit looking rather confused.
Comments
Mist of Shadows
Thanks.
Mist of Shadows
Not sure I should answer that.
Robert Buniff
Ok this looks really good. Can't wait to see where it goes.
Tom smith
So is she connected to the entity network?
