Mist of Shadows
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Myst in DC (Side Story) part 6
🕑 Added 2020-02-15 17:54:19 +0000 UTCRain grinned as the fog cleared enough for her to see the ancient wizard tower they were going to explore. “This is going to be awesome!”
Kenzi shook her head. “With any luck, we’ll be in and out of the crypt before anyone decides to harass us.”
“That’s the plan,” Lexie replied with a grin as she used her clairvoyance ability and looked for the jewelry box on the large bone pile that should contain the mount token. “Neat, I’ll be right back.” She teleported to the jewelry box on the large pile of bones in the creepy looking crypt under the graveyard behind the tower.
“Fuck!” the undead hunter screamed and shot the ‘child’ that was obviously trying to steal his mount before he could grab it.
Lexie spun around when she heard something bounce off her force field. “Hey!”
“You’re not stealing my mount!” the hunter shouted as he sent his giant crab to attack Lexie.
“Jerk!” Lexie darted forward and kicked the giant crab as it tried to slash or grab her with a large claw, sending its shattered corpse crashing into the hunter. She turned and quickly checked the jewelry box with her X-Ray vision skill. “Jackpot!” she squealed when she spotted the mount token, much to her surprise. She quickly teleported the figurine out of the chest and stuck it in her inventory then spun back around to look at the hunter as he managed to extract himself from his dead pet. “You shouldn’t shoot at people.”
“You shouldn’t try to steal people’s mounts, I was here first,” the hunter argued, deciding that diplomacy might work better than combat considering she’d killed his crab with one kick and had something that let her tank his opening shot.
“Fine, if you’re going to be a poor sport about things, you can have it jerkface!” Lexie lied then stuck her tongue out at the hunter and teleported back up to the group. “Mission accomplished.”
“Any trouble?” Rain asked.
Lexie grinned at her sister. “Nope, just a cranky undead hunter complaining about me stealing ‘his’ mount.”
“Is he going to cause trouble?” Kenzi asked.
“I doubt it,” Lexie said smugly. “I told him he could have the jewelry box and I’m fairly sure he didn’t see me teleport the mount figurine out of the box so we’re good.”
Kenzi laughed as she held her hand up. “High five.”
Lexie snickered as she flew over and gave Kenzi a high five. “Since we’re here, we should hit the dungeon.”
“You realize the place is horribly dangerous, right?” Velana asked, having second thoughts about taking the children inside now that they’d already gotten a mount.
“Yes, which is why we’re going to cheat.” Rain activated her ring and phased out, vanishing from view. “Nothing physical should be able to touch us while we’re phased and our force fields should block the rest.”
“What if they don’t?” Kenzi asked, thinking about the ghosts that wandered the halls.
“We’re precogs, if we reach a point where we’re actually in danger, we’ll teleport out of the dungeon and find something easier,” Lexie promised.
“Fine, but you’re going to check every room,” Kenzi ordered as she flew her carpet down toward the entrance of the tower.
“Deal!” Lexie said enthusiastically as she followed the rest of the group toward the dungeon entrance.
Velana frowned as they got close enough to see the entrance to the dungeon through the fog and saw a male vulpera hunter with a tiger and a female purple haired undead in robes near the entrance. “Parley?”
The fox-like humanoid turned to look at the void elf’s group as they flew closer, curious how the child was flying without a mount. “We don’t want any trouble, we’re just waiting for the dungeon to reset.”
“Cool,” Kenzi replied as the group flew over and let their summoned carpets vanish. “I’d rather not get into a fight as the munchkin isn’t a player.”
“Dragon?” the undead mage asked as she studied Lexie, not sure what else would have that much mana or have a flight spell.
“Nope, I just have a lot of magic,” Lexie said as she studied the strangers’ gear. “I’d love the ability to turn into a dragon but that would probably require improving the drake elixir and I’d need the recipe.”
The undead laughed. “Tell you what, if you can figure out a way to permanently restore my humanity, I’ll give you the recipe and one of my extra Vials of the Sand which should let you change into a drake, I’m tired of not being able to feel anything or enjoy the taste of food.”
“That would suck,” Kenzi said as she glanced around, a touch unnerved by the fog because of how easy it would be for the various ghosts to hide in.
Rain circled around the undead mage, curious about the obsidian claw on her belt that let her drain people’s health and convert it into mana. ‘A couple of tweaks and running through dungeons should be a decent way to recharge my mana pool.’
“Would getting turned into a worgen count?” Lexie asked, figuring that was the easiest way to change her race that wouldn’t require a lot of upgrading of local transformation items.
The undead mage considered the question for a couple of seconds, weighing the pros and cons. “As long as I keep my mind…” she trailed off when she noticed Lexie’s grin. “You have something in mind, don’t you?”
“Yep, I found Arugal’s notes when I raided his tower.” Lexie pulled a set of shackles out of her inventory. “These should change you into a worgen which should restore your humanity.”
Rain carefully and silently used the gemino charm to make a physical copy of the mage’s obsidian claw then stuck it in her inventory and went back to studying the claw so that she could duplicate it.
The undead mage glanced between Kenzi and Velana. “Is she serious?”
“Yeah, she’s serious, do you have the flask?” Kenzi asked.
“Not on me but I can grab it. I dropped everything valuable in my bank when I realized people could steal anything that wasn’t soul bound when we die,” the undead mage replied.
Lexie quickly checked her precog ability to see if the undead mage would actually give her the flask if she helped her. She was a touch surprised to realize that the mage was actually honest. “In that case, here.” She pulled an extra magic girl necklace out of her inventory and tossed it to the mage. “Put that on first, it should swap your racial abilities to general abilities so that you don’t lose them when you swap to a worgen.”
“Were you a GM?” the vulpera asked.
Lexie shook her head. “I wish. Having the ability to conjure magical artifacts out of thin air would be awesome.”
The undead mage looked at the tooltip for the necklace, a bit surprised that there wasn’t a cooldown and that it appeared to be a legitimate transformation. ‘Fuck the horde.’ She put the necklace on then changed into her new magical girl form, rather amused by the purple sparkles that danced over her before fading away.
“You look a bit different but at least you don’t look like a corpse,” the vulpera said as he studied his friend’s face.
“I’ll take it,” the mage replied as the tiger sniffed her. “Summon me back in five?”
“Sure,” Kenzi agreed, looking forward to seeing if the girls could create elixirs that turned people into actual dragons.
Lexie watched the undead cast her teleportation spell and vanish. “How happy are you with the Horde?”
The vulpera shook his head. “I’m not, most of the vulpera have been hanging out in Shattrath City, Dalaran or Silvermoon as the blood elves are fairly reasonable or at least pragmatic.”
Kenzi nodded. “I think a lot of it has to do with the Sunwell offensive and all of the help they had from various adventurers getting the Sunwell restored.”
“The trolls were always sort of insular and the taurens have basically closed Thunder Bluff to anyone that isn’t tauren because a group of trolls killed Magatha Grimtotem and a decent number of her clan before jumping off the ledge with her body.”
Velana shrugged. “Considering she poisoned Cairne Bloodhoof in the game, I can understand why they’d want to deal with her before she caused trouble.”
Lexie turned her attention to the unicorn figurine in her inventory as the adults discussed the various factions and about how the Horde would likely morph into something else once the Forsaken were wiped out. ‘Huh, it actually creates a unicorn shaped spirit and imprints the spell to summon it which means I should be able to upgrade the spirit,’ she sent to her sister.
‘Something to play with,’ Rain replied as she floated over to look at the group of adventurers waiting on the bridge to head into the side entrance. ‘You’d think at least some of the adventurers would have something more interesting than trinkets that give a small random stat boost.’
‘Yeah, I’m not terribly impressed with the magical gear,’ Lexie replied, knowing that her father’s strength gear would let normal people toss armored cars around which was vastly more impressive than anything she’d seen on the locals.
Rain giggled when she spotted one of the group’s signet rings. ‘I take it all back, I just found a really awesome ring that I’m going to have to duplicate.’
“We should probably summon Tina back,” the fox-man suggested.
“Sounds good,” Kenzi said as she headed over toward the summoning stone.
‘What does it do?’ Lexie asked as she followed Kenzi, curious if she could copy the summoning stone.
‘It reduces the damage an enemy deals you by 10% for 4 seconds after the first time you hit them,’ Rain replied as she studied the ring with her upgrade ability. ‘I know that doesn’t seem like a lot but we can probably boost it to something more reasonable like 50% for 10 minutes or maybe even 80% or 100%.’
‘Can you picture Kal having that for a fight with Metallo?’ Lexie asked with amusement then blinked and stared when she realized that she could probably use the summoning stone to summon the rest of her family to the dungeon as it reached across dimensions. ‘So, how much trouble do you want to get into?’
‘What do you mean?’ Rain asked as she turned her attention toward the eye shaped broach one of the mages was wearing.
‘I mean we might be able to summon our folks or siblings using the summoning stone,’ Lexie replied as she studied the stone.
‘Mom would probably want to take over the raid and Dad would open a portal back home and ground us for making him worry,’ Rain replied as she tried to figure out how to duplicate the broach that refilled 2% of the wearer’s maximum mana when they killed anything stronger than a mostly harmless critter.
‘Maybe but if we don’t summon them and they find out we could have, we’re going to be in a lot of trouble. Besides, I’m fairly sure I can convince Dad that we weren’t intending to use the portal device which should get us off the hook for ending up here.’ Lexie was fairly sure she could convince her mother of that at any rate which should be enough to get them out of too much trouble.
Rain considered her options and realized that as much as she wanted to hit the dungeon, cutting their losses was probably better considering her mother had magical lie detection powers. ‘Fine, let’s try to summon your mother, we can probably talk her into letting us smash the dungeon before we summon Dad.’
‘It’s worth a shot,’ Lexie replied as the previously undead mage reappeared next to the fox-man and Kenzi. “Here.” She tossed the mage the shackles. “That should let you permanently change into a worgen.”
“Thanks,” Tina replied as she handed Lexie the elixir that would give someone the ability to change into a drake, figuring it was worth it just for the necklace. She turned to look at her friend. “If this doesn’t work, kill me and take the shackles off.”
“No problem,” Sam replied.
Tina stuck her tongue out at Sam for the fact that he hadn’t even hesitated then put the shackles on and smiled as her race changed from Forsaken to Worgen on her character sheet and she changed from her magic girl human form to a half beast worgen form. “Holy shit!”
“Are you okay?” Sam asked warily as he studied his beastial friend.
“It actually worked!” Tina squealed excitedly. “The race entry on my sheet changed and I have the worgen special abilities along with my undead abilities…” she trailed off as she swapped to her new human form. “Can I hug you?”
“Yep!” Lexie replied with amusement after sticking the drake elixir in her inventory so she didn’t lose it.
“How many shackles do you have?” Sam asked as Tina picked Lexie up and hugged her.
“I can make more, they’re not that hard,” Lexie said with amusement as Tina swung her around.
“You’re an enchanter?” Sam asked, a bit surprised that they hadn’t just found the shackles.
“Sorry,” Tina said as she set Lexie down. “I’m just happy that I’m not an undead abomination anymore.”
“Don’t worry, I’d feel the same way,” Lexie assured her then looked at Sam. “And yeah, I’m working on learning enchanting.” She turned to look at the summoning stone and checked her precog to see if summoning her mother would result in trouble with demons, thankfully it didn’t. “I should probably see if I can summon my mother before we hit the dungeon.”
Sam grinned. “On that note, we should probably get back to trying to farm the nightmare mount, best of luck,” he said as he headed for the dungeon.
“Thanks again,” Tina said then followed Sam, happy that she wasn’t stuck as an undead monster.
“Best of luck,” Velana offered, glad that some of the people on the Horde side, weren’t assholes.
“Let me guess, you decided that asking permission is better than forgiveness?” Kenzi asked with amusement.
“Pretty much,” Lexie admitted as she walked over to the summoning stone and focused on her mother.
0o0o0
“How are they doing?” Zatanna asked as she walked over and sat down on the couch next to her daughter while Sabrina flopped down on the recliner next to Dawn.
“You didn’t miss much beyond them flying to a creepy tower and Lexie putting some flight cookies up on the auction house,” Amanda said as she walked into the living room from the kitchen with a plate of nachos and sat down next to April.
“Rain is being sneaky and Lexie just got a magical potion to give her an alternate dragon form,” April said as she grabbed a nacho. “Thank you.”
“Nice, I wouldn’t mind being able to turn into a dragon,” Zatanna said as she reached over and grabbed a chip off her daughter’s plate.
“Chip thief,” Amanda complained dramatically as her mother ate the stolen chip.
“Yep!” Zatanna teased as she grabbed a cheese, salsa and sour cream covered chip.
Amanda mock pouted at her mother. “You could make your own.”
“I could but it’s more fun stealing yours,” Zatanna replied with amusement.
“Do you want me to put it back?” April asked as she looked at her sister.
Amanda leaned over and kissed her twin. “Nope, you’re fine.”
“Okay, good.” April ate her chip.
Sabrina blinked when a popup appeared in front of her asking if she wanted to be summoned by Lexicon Shadows. “Huh, apparently I just got a summons to Karazhan.”
“You’re going to summon the rest of us, right?” April asked hopefully.
“Sorry, we need someone responsible to stay here while we have fun,” Zatanna teased.
Dawn laughed at the look on April’s face.
“Mom!” April complained.
Zatanna snickered as she patted her daughter on her head. “Fine, you have two minutes to grab your gear and get dressed...” she trailed off as her daughter went from not wearing anything other than her rings and necklace to wearing her combat gear. “Oh, right.”
“Ready,” April said cheerfully.
“In that case, you can come if Sabrina can summon us,” Zatanna said, not seeing a problem with taking a trip considering they had several methods of returning and enough safety gear that they could probably kill just about anything short of a god by themselves.
Amanda used her ring to change into a purple dress with her favorite black boots. “Sounds fun.”
Sabrina checked with her precog and didn’t see a problem with bringing the group and a lot of whining and pouting if she left anyone behind. “No worries, I’ll summon everyone when I get there.” She accepted the summon and glanced around the fog covered courtyard where she appeared after a moment of darkness. She smiled when she saw Lexie standing next to a large slab of stone and some friendly looking strangers.
“Mom, I can explain…” Lexie trailed off as she realized that her mother felt amused rather than angry about their unplanned trip.
Sabrina managed to look halfway serious and avoid snickering for a couple of seconds then pulled Lexie into a hug. “Save it for the project write up when we get back.” She smiled at Kenzi and Velana. “Speaking of having fun, do you have enough room for a couple more people on your run?”
“Do they have decent magical defenses?” Kenzi asked, knowing there was a limit to how many people she could keep track of in the dungeon.
“Everyone has force fields and gear to protect against magic and mental influence, we should be safe enough.” Sabrina reached out and sent Myst a mental message, ‘Are you alive?’
‘Last I checked,’ Myst replied with amusement as he glanced through one of the magic books the mages had let him read. ‘When did you get here?’
‘A couple of minutes ago, Lexie summoned me to a dungeon. Why haven’t you picked the girls up?’ Sabrina asked.
Velana glanced at Kenzi. “I’m game if you are.”
“Sure. The dungeon can handle ten people which means we have room for five more if you’re coming,” Kenzi said, happy to have parental permission to take the children into the dungeon, even if they were more durable than her or Velana.
‘I didn’t want to ruin their adventure or take over,’ Myst replied.
“Who are we grabbing?” Lexie asked as she touched the summoning stone.
‘Do you really want to miss their first dungeon run?’ Sabrina asked as she pretended to consider her daughter’s question. “Zatanna, Dawn, April and Amanda are excited about going so we might as well start with them.”
‘Toss me a summons, I’ll bring the camera,’ Myst replied as he left the study that the guildmaster had let him use, happy that he’d already duplicated everything.
‘Sure.’ Sabrina replied. “You should probably summon your father, he could use a break from researching ways to kill demons.”
“Which makes ten.” Lexie was just hoping her father let them have fun and didn’t hog all of the monsters himself.
Comments
Tom smith
I think I’m enjoying this side story more than the original. Love both though. Going to read xander bottle now.
Mist of Shadows
Good to know, feedback is nice.
mpop
I definitely enjoy the main story more but the side story isn't bad.
