Mist of Shadows
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Dawn and Reincarnation Part 47
🕑 Added 2021-01-19 07:52:46 +0000 UTC'Suits!' Dawn squealed mentally when she opened the large cabinet near the airlock and found five space suits. 'It's like they don't even care about recycling or maybe the suits are cheap enough that no one cares?' she mused as she scanned the suits. 'Okay, that explains why they didn't care, very little radiation shielding and you're basically screwed if something hits you.'
Dawn tapped into her new powers and deconstructed the suits, smiling as the suits broke into motes of light and flowed into her gloves, adding the material to the new material storage section of her inventory. 'Okay, stop worrying about spacesuits when you can loot a stardrive or at least scan it.'
She shut the cabinet then walked down the hallway, doing her best to keep at least one foot on the 'ground' so she didn't float off the ground. 'Magnetic boots for the,' Dawn sighed as she realized that she'd released her left foot before firmly planting her right foot and was now floating slowly towards the ceiling and end of the hallway, 'loss. Screw it, you can play with zero gravity later.'
Dawn glanced at her floating automap then slipped through the shadows and out of the shadows in the drive room. She glanced at the four crystal disks on the ceiling that were glowing with a soft light that illuminated most of the room then looked at the large unimpressive metallic sphere attached to the floor and ceiling by eight metal rods. 'So much for neat visual displays or even a relaxing hum,' she mused as she scanned the sphere.
Dawn stared at the insanely complicated schematic for a couple of seconds before deciding that she needed to find a Drive Systems for dummies book or hand the schematic to Fred or Elizabeth to see what they could make of it. She pulled up the ship's schematic and smiled when she realized that some of the details on the drive system had been filled in. She traced some of the cables to the emitters on the hull. 'Warp field emitters? I guess that makes more sense than being able to push a stable field through all of the rooms in a ship without frying people's brains like Star Trek.'
"I'm almost done pulling one of the weapon systems, we'll be leaving in ten minutes," Griff said over the com system.
"No problem, I'm heading back," Dawn assured him. 'Right after I scan a couple of things.'
"Just giving you a heads up." Griff smiled as he continued disconnecting cables, glad that she hadn't caused him any trouble unlike some of his previous clients. 'It should take an hour to check all of the parts I grabbed, that should give Dawn plenty of time to explore the Calnarri ship and not enough to get into trouble, probably.'
Dawn scanned the flat screen monitors mounted on the wall then checked her automap and shadow jumped to a crawl space that ran along the hull. She scanned the hull material then turned her attention to the emitter that was buried in the hull, figuring the more scans of critical systems she had the easier it would be for someone to figure out how everything worked.
0o0o0
The first thing that hit Rose when she stepped through the portal to the island was the heat and humidity, it felt like stepping into a greenhouse. "Is it always this hot?"
"So far, you'll get used to it," Tara assured her sister.
Sabrina Morningstar laughed. "This is nothing compared to parts of hell."
Fred grinned when several half naked young ladies smiled at their group before continuing on their way. "The dress code is certainly better than Hogwarts."
"Absolutely," George agreed.
Ginny pulled her attention away from a muscular young man with muscles in all the right places that was practicing with a sword and watched a group of naked girls a couple of years older than her run past the group. "Mum would explode."
"That's why we're not telling her or Ron," Fred said firmly, knowing his brother would make a fool out of himself.
'Interesting patterns,' Luna mused as she scanned another channeler, looking forward to exploring the island a bit and relaxing before she headed back to the Nexus to grab another job.
"Can we get out of the sun before Ginny catches fire?" Rose asked, knowing her friends burned fairly easily.
"Funny," Ginny muttered, knowing her friend had a point. She blinked when she turned and noticed the large metal ring sticking up out of the ground. "What's with the metal ring?" she asked as Tara followed Rose through the doorway and let it close behind her.
"That's our ring of adventure," Puck spoke up before someone could actually explain.
Elizabeth pulled her attention away from the large ring and looked at Spike. 'That's one way to put it.'
Giles took his glasses off and rubbed the bridge of his nose, not sure if he should correct Puck or let him try to shape the pocket dimension it created. 'That's probably better than creating a pocket dimension where Voldemort is trying to kill them.'
"Ring of adventure?" Ginny asked with a raised eyebrow, not sure she believed her friend given his warped sense of humor.
Puck gestured towards the ring. "It makes pocket dimensions. Basically imagine Hogwarts reimagined through the lense of Playwizard as a naughty all girls school where the teachers are allowed to publicly paddle girls for misbehaving, the ring can take you there."
'And to a lot of other places,' Elizabeth mused, thinking about the various girls Dawn had already collected.
Ginny stared at Puck, not sure if he was messing with her as no one else was calling bullshit. "Seriously?"
"Yep," Puck replied, doing his best not to break out laughing at the conflicted look on his friend's face, fairly sure she was imagining Rose naked judging by the blush on her face that ruined her attempt to look offended.
"Sounds like an interesting place to read about," Nick said thoughtfully.
"Or recruit people from," Elizabeth added.
Sabrina's lips twisted into a slight smile as she shook her finger at her boyfriend. "Specifically Hogwarts or anywhere?" she asked, looking at Puck.
"It's specific to the person, you'd probably find a warped version of The Academy of Unseen Arts," Willow said, fairly sure sending the daughter of the devil through something that made her fears manifest was a horrible idea but still curious what they could find.
"You can test the ring later, we should compare notes," Giles suggested, wanting to sit down for a bit and get something to drink as he'd been running through a forest for the last half an hour.
"Fair point," Puck suggested as he started walking towards the large tent some of the girls used for training when they were working on linking and lectures.
Rose pulled her attention off the group of half dressed teenagers that were sparring with wooden practice blades and followed Puck. "How do you get anything done with so many distractions?"
"You eventually get used to it." Tara smiled at Rose then followed Puck over to the large tent where Moiraine was showing six teenage girls a weave.
Puck waited until Moiraine had finished her weave before he interrupted. "Can we borrow the tent for a bit?"
Moiraine glanced between Puck, Xander and Giles then looked over the rest of the group. "Of course." She turned to look at the girls. "You're free to wander until your next class but keep working on your linking." She turned to look at Giles as the girls scattered. "New recruits?"
"They're magic users from a different world," Giles said as he walked over and sat down in one of the chairs. "Any luck with the other Aes Sedai?"
"More than I was expecting," Moiraine admitted. "Apple finally lost patience with the constant harassment and told them to stop harassing the crafters or she'd get Rand to toss them in the ocean. It only took tossing a couple of them in the ocean before the rest decided it wasn't worth harassing them."
Willow grinned as she thought about some of the crap she'd had to put up with because of her version of The Tower. "Good. I'll write up a request list once I've had a chance to talk to the girls and they've had a chance to relax."
"Crafters?" Luna asked, making a note to get more scans.
"Basically magical item crafters," Willow replied.
Luna shook her head. "Yeah, it's never a good idea to harass Enchanters."
"Speaking of enchanting, what new skills did everyone end up with?" Puck asked, glancing around the group.
"Enchanting and magitech," Giles admitted, a bit uneasy about having skills that he didn't actually remember learning.
"Magitech?" Elizabeth asked excitedly. "Does that mean you know how to use an infernal machine?" she asked with a grin.
"It's more like a magical version of steampunk or turn of the century technology though there are some techniques that should boost electronics," Giles said, fairly sure he was going to have to make a list or discuss things with one of the techs because he was still 'remembering' things he could do.
"What type of enchanting?" Willow asked, wishing she'd picked up Enchanting rather than the strange ability to turn into a less than impressive werewolf.
"I know how to infuse an item with magic to create various interesting and useful magical items including flying carpets, rings of protection and endless candy dispensers. I'll come up with a list when I have a chance to relax," Giles offered, fairly sure it was going to take some brainstorming to 'remember' everything he could do.
Elizabeth grinned at Giles. "I'm also going to want a list of your magitech creations or at least a rough idea of what you can do."
"I'll see what I can do," Giles promised. "What did you end up with?"
"Nothing as nice," Elizabeth complained. "Just the ability to conjure a magical blade that can damage ghosts and some basic psychic powers, like telekinesis, telepathy and object reading."
"Telekinesis and telepathy?" Moiraine asked, not familiar with the words.
"Moving things with my mind and reading surface thoughts," Elizabeth explained.
"In other words, we should take you to a casino?" Fred asked with amusement.
Rose laughed. "That sounds like a good way to get in trouble."
Elizabeth shook her head. "Just because I can tell if people are bluffing, doesn't mean I'd have the right cards." She glanced at Xander and Willow. "What about you?"
"I ended up a sky pirate and a red wizard, basically a thief that can pilot flying ships and a magic user with a balance of healing and destructive spells," Xander explained. "Willow picked up a decent collection of destructive magic."
Giles turned to look at Spike. "What did you get?"
"Wand based magic, magitech and alchemy," Puck replied with a grin. "I found a book on magitech a couple of years ago and I've been practicing."
"A couple of years ago?" Giles asked. "I barely had a week of extra memories."
"Maybe an hour," Elizabeth offered.
Willow glanced at Luna. "We've been running around with Luna for a year."
"Best minions ever, does that mean you're quitting?" Luna asked with a pout, giving Xander and Willow her best puppy dog eyes look.
"We've got friends that need help but if you need us," Willow offered, feeling bad about leaving Luna in a lurch even if she could make more minions.
"I'll be okay, friends are important." Luna smiled at Willow and Xander. "I could stick around for a bit, it looks like the island could use some help with infrastructure."
"You're not wrong," Xander said, thinking about the list of projects he wanted finished before they started recruiting more people. "I don't want to get carried away without Dawn but I can show you what I have so far."
Xander turned and looked when he felt a portal open. "And we have an Ethan."
Giles turned to look in the direction that Willow and Xander were looking. "That's a bit disconcerting."
"You get used to it after a while. How did you end up at Hogwarts?" Xander asked, glancing between Puck and Tara.
"I found a magic mirror over winter break back in first year, I wished I had a family and Tara stepped out," Rose offered.
"Hermione didn't believe her, so she had to check which is how we got Puck and Neville wanted more family which is how we got Kylie and Draco being a stalker is how we got Celeste and Nova Black," Tara explained.
"Thankfully, they're his cousins and not related to Lucius because they're hot," Puck said with a grin.
"Sounds like a minion device," Luna mused.
"Minion device?" Moiraine asked.
"It's basically a device or magical item that creates monsters or people for a particular purpose," Luna explained.
"Which would make sense, my early memories are a bit spotty," Puck admitted.
"How many people did the mirror create?" Moiraine asked, glancing at the large ring in the courtyard.
Fred glanced at George. "One twenty? One forty?"
"It's hard to say, not everyone stayed at Hogwarts but we've got at least thirty to forty in each house and four houses and those are just the people we know about," George added.
"I'm not complaining, it gave me Tara," Rose said as she grabbed Tara's hand.
"Don't worry, I'm not going anywhere," Tara assured her.
"The Tower would have happily murdered people for such a mirror," Moiraine said, thinking about their declining numbers.
Fred nodded. "The Ministry of Magic has searched Hogwarts for it at least three times over the last couple of years so they can lock it away."
Xander raised his eyebrows when he spotted the blood stained rips in Ethan's ninja outfit when he walked over to the tent. "What the hell cut you?"
"Excalibur," Ethan replied sarcastically as he set the bundle of swords on a chair then flopped down into another chair. "I need a fucking drink."
"What happened?" Giles asked, a bit surprised that something had managed to actually hurt his old friend considering his strange durability.
"It turns out that being mostly immune to mundane damage doesn't cover getting hit by magical swords thrown by powerful ninja lords," Ethan complained.
"Better you than me," Xander joked, glad his friend didn't actually look hurt.
Ethan absently flipped Xander off. "Not really, you have regeneration, I had to burn a fair amount of mana putting myself back together."
"At least you got some decent weapons out of it," Willow said, looking forward to learning to duplicate them.
"Point," Ethan admitted.
"Now that we've dealt with the basics, what's the plan for getting rid of Voldemort?" Rose asked.
Luna smiled at Tara. "That depends, how do you feel about looting a vault?"
"Depends on the owner of the vault," Tara replied with a grin.
"Bellatrix Lestrange, she should have one of Voldemort's horcruxes in her vault. If not, she's generally a horrible person and doesn't need her money," Luna said, figuring it was a good place to start even if they couldn't find the cup.
"I have no objection to robbing her blind," Tara said, thinking about Neville's parents.
"Horcrux?" Moiraine asked.
"A Horcrux is basically a soul anchor, Voldemort basically ripped his soul apart and tied the fragments to magical items to keep himself chained to the mortal world," Luna explained.
Moiraine stared at Luna for a couple of seconds as she tried to wrap her mind around cutting your soul apart in an effort to stay alive a few more years or centuries.
"I'd rather make a deal with my father for immortality," Sabrina Morningstar muttered.
'Or copy Dorian's painting,' Nick mused, fairly sure Lucifer was the only one that could pull something like that off but it might be worth looking into.
"Dorian Grey?" Elizabeth asked, catching his thoughts.
"Yeah, he runs a club, he's been alive for centuries," Nick explained.
"Something to look into," Luna mused.
Tara turned to look at Giles. "How comfortable are you with curse breaking a vault?"
Giles shook his head. "I suggest sending Faith in there, Xander's nearly immune to magic and he can just resummon her if something happens."
'15%,' Faith said in the back of Xander's mind.
'At least,' Xander replied. "I'm always happy to steal from a bunch of cultists."
"We'd still have to find the rest of his horcruxes," Ginny said.
"I should be able to find the rest," Luna assured them.
Nick laughed. "Don't worry about it, Sabrina and I are good at sympathetic magic. Give us twenty minutes and something with a fragment of his soul in it and he'll be dead or wishing he was dead. If you want, we can probably get all of the Death Eaters at the same time."
Giles nodded. "I'm sure we can come up with something."
"What's a Death Eater?" Moiraine asked.
"Basically cultists that think a dreadlord would be able to and willing to give them power after they help him topple a country or take over the world," Willow explained.
"In other words, they're deluded fools?" Moiraine asked, knowing none of the Forsaken would willingly share power if they could avoid it.
"Basically," Xander agreed as he summoned Faith. "Let's get looting."
Tara focused and opened a door to Bellatrix's vault. "Just remember, half the stuff is probably cursed."
Nick stared at the piles of treasure straight out of a movie. "Apparently being evil pays quite well."
"Generally, until the heroes kick down your door, loot your vaults and steal your princesses," Faith said as she walked through the doorway into the vault.
0o0o0
Dawn duplicated the high end spacesuit that Griff had loaned her with her duplicate trick then dropped the copy into her inventory, opened the restroom doors and headed to the cargo doors, leaving the original suit on the group where Griff had said to leave it. "Thank you for the trip, it was well worth the credits."
"I'm glad you had fun," Griff replied as he opened the cargo door, rather happy that he'd basically gotten paid for doing what he was already going to do. "If you need to go back, feel free to look me up."
"We'll see how it goes," Dawn said as she jumped down to the deck and headed for the shopping district, figuring she'd do a bit more shopping before she tried to find a room for the night so she could check on the island. She'd barely made it out of the docks when a doorway opened in front of her and she saw Tara. "Hey."
"How was your spacewalk?" Tara asked with a grin.
"Fantastic," Dawn said as she ducked through the door and pulled Tara into a hug, wondering who the other Builder was that she could sense. "I also ran into a version of Harry Potter and Hermione Granger, beat that."
Tara laughed as she let the doorway close. "I spent the last four years at Hogwarts as the sister of the Girl That Lived and Hermione has a wicked flexible tongue, so does Rose for that matter."
"Okay, you win," Dawn admitted with a grin she let Tara go.
"What have you been up to other than jumping around a spaceship?" Tara asked as she led the way over to where Xander and Faith were counting coins.
"Not much, I dropped into an alien space station in a stripclub that Harry was remodeling earlier today and I've spent the last couple of hours scanning alien ships so I can build my own spaceship," Dawn explained as she followed Tara over to where Xander was working on sorting the loot they'd grabbed from Bellatrix's vault.
"Twi'leks or Orion slave girls?" Xander asked with amusement as he got to his feet.
"The girls in Harry's club looked human other than their skin colors," Dawn replied as Xander hugged her. "Miss me?"
"Always," Xander replied. "Okay, technically no because Willow and I just woke up a couple of hours ago but I would have if I'd known. Besides, do I need an excuse to hug one of my girls?"
"Nope," Dawn replied with a grin. "Where did you find a Builder?"
"You mean Luna?" Xander asked.
"Probably," Dawn replied as she glanced down towards the tent where she could feel her presence. "Builders can sense each other."
"Is it going to be a problem?" Tara asked, hoping she hadn't made a mistake bringing Luna to the island.
"It shouldn't be," Dawn assured them, fairly sure Luna would need permission to build anything on her island. "When do I get to meet the Hogwarts crew?"
"They're grabbing sunlight rings for the redheads and some snacks while Sabrina and Nick work on fine tuning the ritual to destroy Voldemort," Xander explained as he stretched.
"Sabrina and Nick?" Dawn asked.
"Sabrina is basically part angel, part witch and Nick is a warlock that swapped over to worshipping Hecate. Sabrina's other half, Sabrina Morningstar needs a place to crash for a bit because of issues with paradox," Xander explained.
"Yeah, I think I'm going to need a couple more details," Dawn admitted.
0o0o0
