Mist of Shadows
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Myst in DC (Side Story) Part 2
🕑 Added 2020-01-04 12:26:10 +0000 UTCRain looked up from her latest attempt to create a decent knock-off of the orc’s legendary belt when her sister walked into the library. “Any luck with smithing hammer?”
“More or less,” Lexie said as she walked over, trying to hide her smile at the fact that Rain had obviously used a few cleaning spells on the room before setting up.
“Let me guess, you had a complication?” Rain asked, thinking about some of her own issues with trying to copy the so-called Legendaries without better supplies. She wouldn’t have even bothered but the enchantments were new and interesting and she was hoping she could use them to bribe her father into only being grounded for a week or two.
Lexie pulled a silvery looking smithing hammer out of her inventory. “I had to overpower the gemino charm to get it to copy the hammer’s base form, probably because of the magical silver.”
“At least it worked. I didn’t even try to copy the belt after the first spell failed, I just copied a green sash and created a knock-off which is probably why I had a lot of trouble duplicating everything, Dad makes it look easy.”
“That’s Dad,” Lexie replied with amusement. “Either way, I managed to copy the most important part so I’m calling it a win. My hammer gives a smith a 3% chance to imbue anything they craft with an ‘indestructible’ trait which basically makes it so it won’t take damage.”
“We should be able to upgrade the 3% to something approaching useful. No luck on the repair function?” Rain asked as she studied the hammer with her upgrade ability, wanting to be able to duplicate it later if she had to.
“Nope, which is a little annoying considering the repair charm is basic first year magic,” Lexie complained.
“Technically, it’s a first year spell for a wand waving wizard, the two styles of magic aren’t all that similar,” Rain reminded her sister.
“How did your project go and are you ready to hand everything over when they get back with the disenchanting rod and gold?” Lexie asked, changing the subject.
“I managed to copy the interesting enchantments off the Legendaries, the most useful being the one that heals .2% of your maximum health every thirty seconds if you’re within about two feet of an enemy.”
“Upgrade for the win,” Lexie said as she glanced over the collection of knock-offs that her sister had copied with her upgrade ability, most of them were almost as powerful as the originals while some of them were basically crippled versions of the originals that they’d have to improve. “Did you have any luck duplicating Poppy’s legendary shoulders?”
“Nope, I’d need more than a couple of quick glances considering Legendaries are a pain in the butt to copy.” Rain was fairly sure she’d be able to make better copies with better materials and more time to study the magic but she didn’t have either.
“They’re Legendaries for a reason,” Lexie said, feeling slightly better about her failure to create a perfect knock-off of the smithing hammer.
“On the other hand, the undead mage’s creepy shoulder pads have an insanely neat enchant that I managed to copy,” Rain said cheerfully as she gestured toward the creepy shoulder pads on the bench.
“Oh?” Lexie asked as she glanced at the shoulder pads with spikes and miniature skulls on it that looked like something the undead mage would use. “Huh, they come with a force field and have an extra harvesting enchant layered on top, yeah, that’s certainly from a game. Still, if it wasn’t for upgrade, I’m not sure the enchant would activate enough to matter but the ability to basically conjure enchanting materials, crystallized mana and health and mana potions out of thin air is pretty awesome, especially if we can boost it from less than a percent to something like 100%.”
Rain snickered. “I’d settle for 20 or 30 percent to be honest but yeah, a hundred would be extra awesome.”
“We should probably upgrade the force field so that it works even if there is only one enemy near us then we’ll have a decent shield to go with our rings,” Lexie said cheerfully as she glanced at the various duplicated shoulder pads, checking the enchantments. “How many copies were you able to make?”
“A few, they’re not Legendaries, just neat,” Rain said with amusement as she pulled a streamlined set of black shoulder pads out of her inventory and tossed them to her sister. “You’ll probably have to increase their durability but I managed to cobble things together.”
“No critical strike boost?” Lexie asked jokingly as she checked her new shoulder pads, fairly sure they’d explode if they tried to stuff anything else on them without upgrading the material.
Rain stuck out her tongue at her sister.
“Let me guess, they’re a bit unstable?” Lexie asked as she studied the way the magic flowed through the shoulder pads.
“They’re a work in progress,” Rain admitted, thinking about the various first attempts that she’d stuck in her inventory because they’d ended up mismatched and lumpy when she’d moved the magical qualities around. “They boost magic, speed, stamina, agility and strength in addition to the shield and harvesting enchant, I’m just glad they didn’t explode.”
“How long will it take to move the various magical qualities to the gear that Poppy created?” Lexie asked, wanting to get started upgrading her new raiding set.
“Probably an hour, I want to make sure I don’t make a mistake and I’m still trying to figure out if I want sparkles or glowing gear,” Rain mused.
Lexie shook her head. “Are you trying to make everyone stop and stare?”
Rain stuck her tongue out at her sister. “We’re going to stand out anyways, we’re barely four feet tall and we have huge mana pools compared to the locals. I doubt we can pass as gnomes which means we might as well have fun.”
“Or we can just tell people that we work for a really scary adventuring group and they gave us gear,” Lexie suggested. “It’s not like we’re actually going to be keeping the gear longer than it takes to find someone that needs awesome gear or sell it on the auction house.”
“Does that mean you don’t want glowing boots?” Rain asked with amusement, knowing that they could just use their clothing rings if they wanted to look silly.
Lexie shook her head. “I’d rather not look completely out of place, we’re going to have enough trouble getting the various vendors to take us seriously. Besides, we’re not in a game and we’re not Naruto, trying to sneak around in glowing gear is a bad idea.”
“Point,” Rain admitted a touch reluctantly as she picked up a set of soft black leather boots off the workbench. “Did you find any decent weapons?”
“Not really, the priest had an intelligent evil dagger that I can’t copy, probably because it’s intelligent. My gemino charm failed on the mage’s sword and I’m not sure what the mage’s offhand is made of but I couldn’t duplicate it either. On the upside, the orc had plenty of samples of metal in her backpack that I was able to duplicate which means I’ll be able to create swords that are actually reasonable instead of multiple times our size or funny shapes that really shouldn’t work.”
“Yeah, I don’t see the point of a sword that would get stuck in people or caught on armor,” Rain said as she opened her equipment page and dropped the boots in place of her shoes, causing her ring provided shoes to vanish.
“I’m guessing some of the idiotic designers think the stupid weapons look cool or maybe they were dropped on their heads as children.” Lexie frowned slightly as she considered the collection of duplicated gear on the workbench. “It’s almost a shame to return their gear.”
“Not really, I don’t want a group of skilled monster hunters after us and we’ve already copied everything useful other than their cursed weapons,” Rain explained as she stood up and stretched. “What are you going to make the swords out of?”
“I found a faintly glowing metal that causes extra damage against undead and demons if it’s properly forged. I’ll probably steal some of the properties of the saronite sample and possibly some azure ore for strength as it’s supposed to be nearly indestructible after you finish forging it. I’ll also toss in some of the silver properties from storm silver for extra fun.”
“In other words, you’re basically going to be mixing and matching properties until the basic blade will kill a greater demon?” Rain asked sarcastically.
“I doubt it will actually work as well as I’d like but that’s what upgrade is for,” Lexie said cheerfully.
“Sounds like a good start,” Rain said as she focused on her boots and upgraded the materials it was made of, improving the leather soles and fabric until the boots were the next best thing to indestructible. “This would be easier if we had copies of Dad’s mana regeneration bracelet.”
“Yeah, well, we don’t,” Rain muttered, still slightly annoyed that their father hadn’t copied his bracelet for them as it would have made everything easier. “On the upside, we can always copy the mana regeneration per second enchant to all of our gear then upgrade everything until we’re bringing in tens of thousands of mana a second.”
“Hopefully, it would certainly make upgrading things easier. I’m going to work on the swords and a set of bracers, do you want me to work on an extra pair?”
Rain looked at her sister with a less than amused look. “I’d rather not carry around a bulky shield if I can help it, at least outside of the dungeon.”
“Does that mean you’ll put together the rest of the gear?” Lexie asked, wanting everything put together and upgraded before the other party got back.
“That’s the plan,” Rain replied as she turned her attention back to her collection of duplicated gear. “We’ll probably have to do some raiding to find the really interesting magical items.”
Lexie giggled as she thought about the various magical items they’d already found. “This is going to be awesome.”
“Best of luck on the swords,” Rain said absently as she went to work moving the enchantments from the various knock-off leggings to her frostweave leggings.
“Thanks,” Lexie replied as she left the room, eager to get started on her new swords.
0o0o0
“They should have taken me with them,” April complained as she watched her sister’s attempts to forge a sword out of the material she’d cobbled together.
“Maybe next time,” Zatanna teased as she ruffled her daughter’s hair.
“Promise?” April asked hopefully.
“Nope,” Zatanna replied with amusement, much to her daughter’s frustration.
“Dad!” April complained. “Mom is being mean.”
“No, she’s just trying to keep you safe.” Myst winced slightly as Lexie’s first blade shattered when she dropped it in the tray filled with oil. “I have a feeling her new material is rather temperamental.”
“Just a bit,” Dawn said sarcastically as she watched Lexie glare at the sword. “At least she’s not cussing up a storm.”
“Give it time,” Harry joked as Lexie picked up the sword and glared at it until the cracks flowed back together. “Okay, that’s cheating.”
“Upgrade for the win,” Lexie said as she cheerfully took a couple of test swings with her new blade.
“I’m not sure if that counts as lazy or intelligent,” Hermione said thoughtfully as the television switched back to show Rain dressed in her new gear. “Other than the slightly steampunk glasses and the shoulder pads, I don’t think she’d get too many weird looks walking down the beach in the summer.”
“I’m a little disappointed that she didn’t go with sparkles,” Zatanna admitted.
“That’s because you’re a stage magician,” Myst said with amusement. “I probably would have went for a creepy cloak of darkness without anyone to hit me with a newspaper.”
“I really need a spell to conjure newspapers,” Dawn teased. “Going with shorts and a shirt over her armored swimsuit isn’t a bad look.”
“The real question is, how likely are we to attract the notice of the Burning Legion if we open a portal?” Harry asked.
“Shit!” Myst cursed as he got a flash of an endless army of demons pouring out of various portals scattered around the world. “Ripping open a portal just became a last resort.”
“Precog?” Hermione asked.
“Yeah. I’m guessing the first portal got someone’s attention, we’ll have to wait until they’re a bit more distracted before we rescue the girls short of an emergency.” He was fairly sure the fight would end badly for the Burning Legion depending on where the portals opened, but he wasn’t willing to risk an invasion unless his daughters were in mortal danger.
“We should probably give Diana and Kent Nelson a heads up just in case we have to open a portal to save the girls,” Dawn suggested.
Harry twitched as his phone started vibrating in his pocket as the Imperial March started playing despite the fact that he’d muted the ringer. He fished the phone out and answered it, “What’s up?”
“Get your ass over to France!” Constantine snapped. “I need help closing a demonic portal.”
“How many demons?” Harry asked, wondering if things were connected.
“A small army that is quickly changing into a large army, shit…” Constantine cursed as he saw a large twenty foot tall six armed female demon duck out of the portal. “We’re going to need a heavy hitter. They have a twenty foot tall Shiva knock-off and a few hundred eight to ten feet tall demons that are ignoring the police’s handguns.”
Zatanna pulled her phone out of her coat pocket and answered it when it started ringing. “I’m a little busy.”
“I don’t care,” Batman snapped. “There is an army of demons coming out of a portal in Gotham, I need help,” he admitted reluctantly.
“We’re on our way,” Zatanna assured him. “What type of demons?” she asked as Harry and Hermione vanished with cracks of displaced air, teleporting to France.
“Shit!” Myst cursed as he recognized the emergency ringtone on his phone.
“They’re twelve to thirteen feet tall and have wings, they’re also tossing around green flames that burn anything they touch,” Batman explained as he tossed a car at one of the demons, pinning it against an abandoned building, rather happy that he’d taken the upgrade when Myst offered as the demons were playing for keeps.
“Have someone open the case labeled ‘In case of demonic incursion, break glass,’ in the base and grab the Winchesters, they’re enchanted against demons, I’m on my way,” Zatanna assured Batman.
Myst pulled his phone out of his pocket and answered it as he headed for the hallway, “Hello?”
“Thank you,” Batman said as he tossed a batarang at the demon’s eyes, causing the demon’s head to explode in a fountain of goo. He ended the call then ran and tumbled under the next demon, driving his fist into the demon’s crotch as hard as he could on his way to the next demon. He shivered slightly as he watched Harley beat one of the demons to death with a sledgehammer while ranting about how they didn’t get to walk into her town and mess up her girl’s night out. ‘At least there is nothing in her parole about killing demons,’ he thought as he called the Mountain.
“Nelson here,” Kent said as he adjusted the wards over the large globe he used to keep track of magical threats. “We have a problem.”
“How bad is it?” Myst asked warily, knowing that Kent wouldn’t call the emergency line for something simple.
“There are at least a hundred portals scattered around Earth spewing forth demons, we’re going to need all hands on deck, I’m putting on the helmet,” Kent explained, knowing Myst would understand and might be able to get the helmet off if something went wrong.
“I’ll do my best to deal with Fate if your ring doesn’t keep him from taking control,” Myst assured him. “Zatanna is heading to Gotham to help Batman, we’ll be spreading some heroes around, where do you want us?”
0o0o0
“Remind me to give some of the ore to Hephaestus, maybe he can figure out the best way to forge it into something useful without cheating,” Lexie said as she set the faintly glowing swords on the table.
Rain glanced away from the worgen shackles and looked at the swords that her sister had forged. “Let me guess, you cracked it?”
“I cracked it, it came out warped and I screwed up the tempering. So yeah, you name it, it went wrong,” Lexie admitted, slightly annoyed that she hadn’t done better even if it was a cobbled together mess of a metal.
Rain checked the swords with her upgrade ability. “Two separate sources of extra damage to undead and demons and two sources of enhanced durability which means we should be able to cut loose without worrying about breaking our swords. How the hell did you get an extra source of sharpness and critical strike?”
Lexie snickered. “The warrior had an Adamantite Sharpening Stone in her stuff, I made copies and used them on our swords then upgraded the results to be permanent.”
“I’m fairly sure most people would call that cheating,” Rain teased as she handed her sister a stack of clothes from the bench. “One set of awesome clothes.”
“Thanks,” Lexie said as she started swapping out her clothes for the upgraded gear. “Huh…” she trailed off as she sensed someone in the area. “Do you feel that? Someone is fishing across near the dock.”
Rain reached out with her telepathy and checked. “Hmm, apparently this world has void elves, we should probably tell her that a group of horde are showing up in a few minutes.”
“Go for it, I’ll pack everything up, I want to take a stab at copying their bags,” Lexie said as she finished swapping to her new gear, wanting to test things before she auctioned them or gave them away.
“Sounds good,” Rain said as she walked out onto the balcony then flew off toward the dark blue haired elf woman with light blue skin wearing leather hunting gear and a strange shadowy four legged dragon/lizard like creature she could see across the small section of water that separated her keep from the mainland.
Velana Shadowstrike looked up in surprise and almost dropped her fishing pole as a child flew over without a flying mount. “How the heck?”
“Magic,” Rain replied with amusement as she hovered over the ground, looking at the elf with a fishing pole in her hands. “Just to let you know, there are a few horde players that are coming our way to collect their friend’s stuff. They should be reasonable but the undead mage that was with them earlier decided to attack me so you might want to be careful.”
“And you survived?” Velana asked a bit surprised that the child had managed to escape.
“I’m tougher than I look and probably meaner.” Rain smiled when she looked at the ornate bow the elf had on her back with her upgrade ability and noticed that it conjured its own arrows and did a ridiculous amount of damage compared to most of the bows she’d seen. “Neat bow.”
Velana smiled at the floating girl. “Thanks, I farmed the Sunwell dungeon until I got it, mostly because it looks cool. I wasn’t actually expecting to use it. You obviously know about the game, how did you end up a kid?”
“Mostly because I’m a kid and I fell through a portal. Having a shiny class would be nice but I don’t.”
“Ouch, you could always try talking to the mages,” Velana suggested, noticing that the girl had mana. “They might be able to teach you a couple of spells, I’ve been trying to learn now that I have mana and no one is keeping me from learning spells in the name of game balance. It’s a bit weird going from playing a character with no mana to being a character with mana but I’m doing the best I can.”
“That would be a bit weird,” Rain agreed. “I might be able to help you learn magic if you’re so inclined.”
“Oh?” Velana asked, not sure how the kid would speed up the annoyingly long process of learning the basics but willing to at least listen if it kept her from having to do a bunch of quests for the various trainers.
Rain took a quick look through Velana’s memories, trying to figure out the best way to describe her ability to give people skills with telepathy. “Sort of like the trainers from the game, if I know the spell I should be able to give you the spell, provided you can cast it.”
Velana raised her eyebrows. “Do you have any proof that you know magic?”
“You mean beyond flying? Sure, my keep is right behind me,” Rain said cheerfully.
Velana blinked as a small island and keep appeared where Silverfang Tower should have been. “How did you hide Silverfang Tower?”
“With magic,” Rain replied with amusement.
“So, what do want for your help because I’m not sure what I can offer if you can hide an entire keep?” Velana asked.
“Help with dungeons and I’d like to took at your gear to see if I can duplicate it,” Rain said cheerfully, wanting access to the bow so she could figure out how to copy the enchantment that conjured arrows as she was fairly sure it would sell.
Velana twitched. “I’d rather not have my gear disenchanted.”
“Ack!” Rain twitched as she thought about disenchanting an artifact. “Why would they do that? This isn’t Elder Scrolls, at least those guys have the excuse of learning the enchantments when they break them. I don’t need to break anything, I just need to look at it real hard.”
“And you can duplicate magical items?” she asked in disbelief.
“Pretty much.” Rain pulled one of her duplicate shoulder pads out of her inventory and tossed it to the hunter. “Take a look at the shoulders.”
“They’re…” Velana trailed off as she realized the cloth shoulder pads weren’t bind on pickup or equip or anything of the sort and that they only had half of the stats they should. “They only have half the stats they should and the mods are crippled.”
“I didn’t say I was an expert and they’re Legendaries or the original was, that’s pretty good work for five minutes and no epic mats.”
“Five minutes?” Velanna asked in surprise, starting to see the possibilities if the girl was telling the truth.
Rain took her shoulder pads off with her equipment page and tossed them to Velana. “This was one of my better attempts.”
Velana caught the shoulder pads and almost dropped them when she looked at the tooltip. “How did you get strength and agility on caster gear with an epic bonus?”
“I’d say magic but you’d probably be tempted to smack me.” Rain snickered. “I know I would. But yeah, I moved the strength and agility properties off other pieces of gear.”
Velana opened her mouth then closed it as she realized the girl wasn’t lying or she was the best liar she’d ever seen. “Do you have any idea what the alliance would do for that type of ability?”
Rain snorted. “They’d probably want to stick me in a gilded cage and I’m here for adventure.”
“You’re six…” she trailed off, not sure how old the tall girl was. “Or maybe seven? You’re not supposed to be having adventures, not on that scale.”
“Why does everyone keep telling me that?” Rain asked with a pout, not seeing the problem with having adventures.
“Because you’re a kid, your adventures should be building a treehouse.”
“Oh.” Rain grinned. “Do you know of any magical trees?”
“Nothing safe, at least not in the area,” Velana said, deciding not to mention the corrupted saplings and the furbolgs because of the danger or the night elf tree because of the distance.
“Either way, do you want better gear?” Rain asked hoping she could convince the experienced adventurer to help.
“How long would you need to look at my bow?” Velana asked, not seeing a problem with at least getting to know a girl that could modify gear.
“Twenty or thirty minutes. It depends on how much of a pain in the butt it is to duplicate. Either way, I should be able to improve it if you’re interested in helping me run some dungeons or at least recover gear from them.”
“What type of spells can you give me?” Velana asked, curious what tricks the girl had already discovered.
“Flame strike, Frostbolt and Cone of Cold are easy enough,” Rain offered, fairly sure that she could give the hunter the spells she’d learned from the mage as they came from the same world.
“I’m not saying that I’ll take you into a dungeon but I’ll help you get pieces of dungeon gear if you can upgrade my weapon,” Velana offered, unwilling to take a kid into a dungeon but not willing to pass up the opportunity to upgrade her bow.
Comments
Mist of Shadows
Yeah, he could stand to do a bit of work on his precog ability or at least how much he has it clamped down.
Mist of Shadows
Thanks.
Patrick Sandhop
Myst might want to fine tune his precog a little more. Maybe an upgrade could yield a series of timelines shown with probability levels.
Alex Wierzbicki
Awesome
