Mist of Shadows
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Dragon King Part 11
🕑 Added 2021-04-06 09:10:37 +0000 UTC"You'd better have a good reason for stealing Path," the man that looked a fair bit like a certain actor growled as he stalked over with a blonde girl about Jean's age that was holding a glowing magical blade.
Myst glanced between the girl's sword and Logan's adamantium claws that were dripping a green substance he was fairly sure was alien blood then focused on Logan's face. "I didn't mean to steal her, my ability summoned a box, she was in it."
"Relax, I'm fine," Jean assured Logan, smiling at her friends.
Logan gestured back at the dead aliens he'd cut his way through to reach her group. "You call being in the middle of an alien invasion fine?"
"It's basically a pocket dimension with monsters to fight for loot," Jean explained as she walked over and hugged him.
"Like training?" Logan asked as he carefully hugged Jean, making sure he didn't cut her with his claws.
"Exactly, only better, we get paid," Jean replied with amusement as she let him go. "Thanks for coming to rescue me."
"You're welcome," Logan replied as he turned to look at the group of people with her, his gaze jumping between the 'adults' of the group. "Is there a reason you let a couple of children come on a dangerous mission without armor?"
Dawn grinned at Logan. "Our clothes are enchanted to provide armor which basically gives us a force field."
"We also gave Jean regeneration and various elemental immunities before we came here," Myst said as he looked at the blonde girl's abilities with his upgrade ability. 'Illyana Nikolievna Rasputina, Magick. Damn, I'm going to have to trade for some of her abilities.'
"How did you give her regeneration and how long will it last?" Logan asked warily.
"It's permanent. I have the ability to create skill books or tokens that basically let me copy powers and abilities from creatures and people," Myst explained as he pulled a skill book out of his ring's storage.
"Does that mean you could copy my regeneration?" Logan asked warily.
"Or Illyana's magic." Myst held the book out towards Logan. "This should give her eternal youth, don't let her use it until she's at least twenty."
Jean snorted. "I'm not stupid, I don't want to be stuck as a child."
"Eternal youth? And you're just giving it away?" Logan asked with a raised eyebrow. "What's the catch?"
"No catch, we're just trying to help," Dawn assured him.
Myst glanced between Logan and Illyanna. "Jean was nice enough to let me copy her powers which means I owe her. Besides, it takes less than five seconds to create skill books, why not give her immortality so she can keep you and Illyana company?"
"Let me guess, you want to copy our powers?" Logan asked.
"Wouldn't you?" Myst asked with amusement. "My regeneration ability comes with a decent bit of durability but it cuts out if I take enough damage to kill me."
"Where as mine doesn't," Logan admitted.
"Basically. I'm not interested in copying your bone claws, they seem like a hassle but your regeneration would help keep myself and my friends alive." Myst turned to look at Illyana. "I'd love a copy of your skill with white magic."
Illyana smiled at Myst. "What are you offering?"
"Regeneration and durability, immunity to fire, cold, arcane damage, shadow magic and 'nature' damage which generally includes poison. I'm also willing to toss in some magical clothes," Myst offered.
"Can I get a copy of Jean's abilities?" Illyana asked hopefully.
Myst glanced at Jean then looked at the blonde magic user. "I don't have any problem handing out copies as long as Jean is okay with it but you should probably skip picking up a copy of her empathy ability considering you're the ruler of a dimension filled with demons."
Logan snorted. "That sounds like a good way to go insane. If you already have Jean's abilities, why not just knock us out and copy our powers?"
"Let's ignore the moral issues and look at the practical issues." Myst gestured at Illyana. "You have someone that can jump dimensions and you have a particular set of skills and friends. I don't need a pissed off sorcerer supreme popping in to cause trouble or waking up to find my head severed by adamantium claws or my memory erased by Xavier."
"He makes a good point," Jean pointed out.
"You're saner than most of the people we've run into recently," Logan said, thinking about the various monsters they'd run into over the last couple of years that wanted to exploit Jean or Illyana's powers. "I don't have any objections to letting you copy my powers in exchange for extra abilities."
"Can I try to copy one of your claws with magic?" Hermione asked hopefully.
Logan held his hand out. "I doubt it will work but go ahead."
Hermione gestured at Wolverine's claws. "Gemino."
Dawn stared in shock when half of a claw appeared in front of Hermione and fell to the ground. "Did you seriously just copy adamantium?"
Myst looked at the claw with his upgrade ability. "It's not a perfect copy but it's close enough."
"Gemino!" Hermione chanted as she gestured at Wolverine's claws, putting more magic into it than the previous spell and creating a metal 'claw' that was several inches longer than her first attempt. "Partum gladio," she chanted as she gestured at the second claw, changing it from a long curved blade into a saber blade with a tang with several holes in it. "It's not perfect but it should be good enough."
"Can I talk you into making one of those for Jean?" Logan asked.
"That depends, are you willing to give me a couple of pointers in how to use mine before you leave?" Hermione asked, knowing most versions of Wolverine in the comics were actually pretty good with a sword while some were exceptional.
"We're not in a hurry," Logan replied, figuring it would be time well spent if it got Jean a decent weapon.
Myst reached down and stuck the copied piece of claw in his ring's storage, figuring he'd upgrade it later. "On that note, we should probably start looting."
Hermione reached down and stuck her new sword in her spatial ring. "I'll transfigure a hilt later."
"Are you looking for something in particular?" Logan asked Myst as they started walking towards the town.
Myst shrugged. "Alien tech, electric cars, music CDs, books, writing supplies, white boards or anything else we can use to teach people. We're basically stuck running a country in a low tech fantasy world."
"In other words, everything. Do you have extra storage rings we can use?" Jean asked hopefully.
Dawn pulled three storage rings out of her spatial ring and handed them to Myst. "Can you boost them?"
Myst glanced over the details for the rings then started boosting them so they'd hold a couple of warehouses worth of stuff. "Yeah, you're getting better at making them."
"I'm trying," Dawn replied with a grin.
"How do they work?" Illyana asked as she studied the plain looking gold rings that Myst was pouring torrents of mana into.
"You basically just touch the rings to something and think about storing it." Myst handed the rings to Jean then turned his attention towards the alien he could see in the distance working on repairing a crashed ship that looked like a generic transport ship you might find in Star Wars or various other science fiction shows. He opened his skill book menu and looked through the alien's collection of skills. "Don't kill the alien until I grab his skills."
Laurena pulled her attention away from the strange horseless carriage she'd been studying. "What does he have?"
"Energy weapons, engineering for starships and energy weapons, the Val'ran Language, electronics repair, starship piloting and an engineering talent," Myst replied as he worked on copying all of the alien's notable skills.
"No useful abilities or traits?" Zara asked in surprise.
"Nah, they're actually more prone to disease and poisons than humans on average," Myst replied as he finished copying and using the skill books. "We should probably knock him out so we can mine his brain for lessons, the books only give the basics."
Logan snorted. "That sounds a bit sketchy."
"Worse than killing him?" Myst asked as he tossed a stunner at the alien. "The pocket dimension is going to collapse in eight hours and he's basically twisted and evil."
"Point," Logan admitted as the alien dropped unconscious. "Jean, scan the rest of the aliens to see if they have any useful skills and if they're hiding. We can start looting once we've dealt with the aliens." He glanced at the high tech motorcycle parked in front of a diner. "I don't suppose we can keep one of the rings and the bike?"
Dawn smiled at Logan. "You can keep all three rings, I can always make more."
"You're welcome to keep the bike, Westeros has horrible roads and I can turn into a dragon and fly," Myst replied with amusement as he used his telekinesis to levitate the unconscious alien towards the group so he could stick it in his ring. 'It shouldn't be that hard to use a confusion spell to convince him to teach a class or create lesson plans.'
"You can turn into a dragon?" Logan asked with a raised eyebrow.
"Is that something you can share?" Jean asked hopefully.
"Yes to both of those," Myst replied with amusement. "I can also give you an alternate form that might be useful for undercover work."
"That sounds useful for a rainy day," Logan mused.
Myst reached out and shoved the unconscious alien into his ring when it got close enough then headed deeper into the town, rather happy with the collection of shops he could see. 'Art supplies, books, electronics, paper and groceries, this worked better than I was expecting.'
0o0o0
Lyanna Stark smiled as the portal closed behind Wolverine, Jean and Illyana. "I'm going to miss them."
"Eventually," Myst muttered, more a little happy to have a break from the insane training they'd been put through for the last two weeks. The fact that he'd asked for it didn't really make it better, mostly because Wolverine had taken advantage of their various training boosters, ludicrous regeneration and their ability to create hellish pocket dimensions to get everyone that participated into shape and up to a 'basic' level of skill.
"Just think of it this way, we managed to get about fifty years of dedicated training in combat, magic and psionics in two weeks of hell thanks to the paddle and your sister's aura," Dawn teased, happy about the increased skills.
"It was fun," Rhaenys said cheerfully, glad that her alternate form had let her learn to fight with the rest of the group as she never wanted to feel helpless again. "Now what?"
"I vote we grab some ice cream and enjoy one of the hot springs before we head back to King's Landing," Dawn suggested.
"I wouldn't mind decompressing for a bit," Myst admitted.
Lyanna glanced between Dawn and Myst. "That means relaxing, right?"
"Close enough," Dawn agreed with a grin.
Zara glanced at Laurena. "We've got a couple of hours to waste before it gets dark."
"Good point," Laurena agreed. "We might as well hit the Ironborn when they can't see shit."
Selena looked up from the teaching guide she was reading that they'd looted from the first pocket dimension. "Speaking of the raiders, make sure you record any land they own."
"Are you planning on stealing their iron mines?" Laurena asked with a raised eyebrow, not sure what else they had that was valuable.
"I'm not planning on stealing anything, I'm suggesting we give them a chance to destroy themselves and their culture," Selena suggested with a smile that didn't reach her eyes.
"How?" Lyanna asked, curious if she had a plan that would actually deal with the Ironborn for more than a generation or two.
"If Myst gives the land the raiders forfeited by being murderous bandits to a group of blue skinned women, the remaining Ironborn will likely resort to raids and other illegal behavior to get it back from people they'd consider inferior."
"Hags? Where are we going to get enough volunteers?" Myst asked.
Selena gestured towards the paddle hanging on the wall. "Give me a hundred upgraded slime girls and a week and I'll have them functional humans or at least hags with a decent collection of spells and a basic understanding of northern culture, including worshiping the old gods which should inflame a decent number of the Ironborn. A whisper here, a whisper there and the Ironborn will be lining up to murder them at which point, we'll send more girls to claim the land the dead don't need."
'Which would go nicely with our plan to hunt down all of the drowned priests,' Zara mused.
"What if the girls get hurt?" Rhaenys asked in concern.
Myst shook his head. "It shouldn't be hard to hand them magical clothing and upgrade their durability and strength. It helps that most of the Ironborn only live on the coasts."
"I'd drink to having less Ironborn around," Lyanna said.
"Let's see how long it takes to make a minion." Myst focused on his slime summoning spell and summoned a purple slime. He looked at the happy looking slime that was smiling and cranked its intelligence up to well average for a human then upgraded the rest of its stats to match. He upgraded the slime to a slime girl, causing the slime to change into something that looked a lot like a female mannequin made out of purple jello with green eyes. He quickly created a skill token in the form of a stick with a basic understanding of language and handed it to the slime girl. "Break that."
The slime girl broke the stick and blinked as a whole bunch of concepts were imprinted on her mind. "Boss?"
"Don't worry, we'll get you sorted," Myst promised her as he created a skill token stick for reading and handed it to her. "Break it, it should help."
The slime girl broke the stick and blinked as she realized she knew how to read. "Thank you!"
Myst quickly gave her a basic skill for culture and etiquette or at least what passed for reasonably polite behavior then created a skill token for magic and a copy of his upgraded hag form. "Break those and transform."
"Okay boss," the slime girl replied as she broke the tokens. She focused and transformed into an attractive and busty blue skinned teenager with long purple hair that looked similar to Myst's form but not identical.
Myst glanced at his HUD. "Less than a minute and I can probably speed things up if we make a list of skill tokens I just make things in batches."
"Is that good?" the girl asked, hoping the boss was happy.
"It's a good thing," Myst assured her.
Dawn shook her head. "So much for taking things easy."
Selena laughed. "Don't worry about it, go and relax, I'll see how far we can get in an hour. You can always make more later."
"Good point." Myst gave the slime girl a smile. "Be good for Selena, I'll see you in an hour."
"I'll be good!" the slime girl assured him enthusiastically.
"I trust you," Myst replied then headed for the door. "Let's go."
"I need to figure out how to summon Harry," Hermione muttered as she followed Myst out of the classroom they'd constructed with magic and up the trail that led to the hot springs.
0o0o0
Laurena wasn't sure if she should be impressed or annoyed that capturing all of the Ironborn Raiders sailing on the ocean had taken her and Zara an hour and seventeen minutes. On the one hand, they'd captured a few thousand raiders which was impressive, on the other hand they could basically reach out and locate the raiders with telepathy then teleport above the ship, knock everyone out and loot the ships before portkeying them to the Dothraki sea so they'd never sail again or return to the ocean.
It would have taken less time if they hadn't had to search a bit further south to find Euron Greyjoy's ship than they'd expected and if Zara hadn't spent two minutes throwing up and dry heaving after reading Euron's mind. His ship had been the only ship they'd neglected to empty of crew before portkeying it a thousand feet above the Dothraki Sea, in fact she'd magically locked all of the doors and set it on fire before turning it into a temporary portkey.
She'd been reasonably certain that the 'Drowned God' was either nonexistent or a demon after destroying the fleet of ships but the next twenty seven minutes, eighty nine slashes with her sword pretty much proved it as she systematically wiped out the remaining drowned priests without any god or demon voicing their displeasure, at least not that she could hear. "All of the adult Greyjoys are dead or captured, do you want to head to Pyke and claim it?" she asked Zara over their mental link.
"It would make things easier," Zara agreed. "Besides, what was it Myst said, possession is nine tenths of the law?"
"Something like that," Laurena replied then reached out and sent Myst a mental message, "We've taken care of the raiders and killed all of the drowned priests, do you want us to capture Pyke?"
"It would make things easier to sort through everyone's crimes and erase knowledge of the drowned god. It would also make the rest of the traditional Ironborn go nuts," Myst replied, figuring it was a good start for removing a blight from the land.
"Weren't you the one saying people had the right to believe what they wanted?" Laurena asked over the link.
"Officially yeah, and I'll respect that right when people aren't worshipping a murderous piece of shit," Myst replied as he continued working on creating skill tokens for the new slime girls. "If people reserve their right to pay the iron price, they can pay the dragon price."
"You realize we didn't have to shift into dragons, right?" Zara asked with amusement.
"Details," Myst replied with amusement. "Selena should have the first group of girls trained up enough to hold the castle. Do you need more rings?"
"It wouldn't hurt," Zara replied, figuring it would be easier if they didn't stick the civilians in the same rings as the raiders and they'd already filled up more rings than they'd expected to.
"Dawn made a couple extra, you can pick them up when you pick up the girls," Myst replied, looking forward to being able to relax and put the war behind him, at least until the next problem showed up.
"We'll see you in a bit, we need to check to make sure everyone we dropped in the Dothraki Sea actually died, no point in taking chances with some of those bastards," Zara said as she opened a portal to the general area where she'd dropped the ships.
"Good idea," Myst replied as he glanced around the classroom filled with naked blue skinned teenagers that were sitting quietly at their desks, absorbing the lesson about Illyana's magic that Selena was teaching them with an intensity that was a bit unnerving. 'At least they don't look identical, just like they're all from the same clan. I'll probably have to tweak the next batch a bit but this should work for now.'
0o0o0
