Mist of Shadows
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Taylor Hebert Dungeon Girl Part 23
🕑 Added 2018-07-31 00:51:01 +0000 UTC Danny sighed in relief as Taylor walked back up the stairs, looking none the worse for wear from her scouting. “Anything?”“Nothing good,” Taylor complained as she made her way over to the group. “There are a couple dozen hell knights and blue succubi just in the first large chamber.”
“Great,” Kevin muttered sarcastically.
“Blue? Like the mini boss?” Vicky asked warily.
Taylor sighed. “Pretty much. I tossed a rock at a stalagmite on the other side of the chamber, the succubi managed to hit it over a dozen times with their blue starbursts before it hit the ground.”
“That was reckless,” Amy complained at the same time Kevin asked in disbelief, “A dozen times?”
Taylor shrugged. “I had cover and a straight shot to the stairs. We needed to know how they’d react.”
“Now we know, like fucking anime ninjas,” Kevin grumbled, thinking about how skilled they’d have to be in order to hit a small object with almost no warning.
Vicky scowled as she thought about getting hit by a couple dozen burning baseball sized balls of doom that had no problems cutting through her shield. “Time to reset the dungeon.”
Gothic spoke up, “I have to agree with Victoria.”
Randal glanced between Gothic and Victoria. “Same. I’d be happy to come back with better gear and an actual plan but without a couple grenades or some decent combat spells, I don’t like our chances.”
Taylor opened a portal back to the garage. “In that case…” she trailed off as Victoria’s cell phone rang. “Right, everyone out, we’ll take a break.”
Victoria pulled her cell phone out of her pocket and glanced at the caller ID as Randal and Kevin followed Danny through the portal. “It’s Mom.”
“Better you than me,” Amy replied then stepped through the portal.
Gothic snickered then followed Amy through the portal.
Victoria stepped through the portal then answered her phone. “Hello?”
Carol’s voice came out of the speaker on Victoria’s phone, “I need you to come home. We’ve been asked by the police to assist on serving several warrants now that the Merchants have lost their cape support.”
“What about Amy?” Victoria asked as Taylor stepped through the portal then let it close behind her.
“I’d rather not risk her getting hurt, this is going to be messy,” Carol admitted.
“Can we tell them about the thievery rings?” Amy asked in a whisper.
“Just a second.” Vicky covered the mic with her hand.
Danny whispered, “I don’t see why not, Armsmaster already saw your masks and cloaks.”
“Go for it, how many do you need?” Taylor asked in a voice slightly above a whisper.
“Good question.” Vicky uncovered the mic. “Neverland might have some tinkertech protective devices I can borrow, how many cops are going to be in the line of fire?”
“At least two dozen,” Carol replied, not sure about using tinkertech devices but willing to leave that up to the police in charge once they were briefed on their use.
Taylor gave Victoria a thumbs up as she opened her enchanting menu. ‘Let’s see, the gold enchant would give them a bonus to hit which is probably the best prefix I’ve got that I can stick on a ring when they don’t need resistances.’ She selected gold and thieves then pulled up her collection of cheap rings and started enchanting them.
Vicky frowned slightly as she realized that she was actually a touch disappointed at being pulled away from beating up demons to help deal with the remains of the Merchants, something she would have been rather gleeful about helping with just a couple days ago. “I’ll be home in less than ten minutes.”
Carol said, “Sorry about the last minute notice, but this is a real chance to help the city.”
“I know, I’ll be there.” Vicky ended the call. “So much for hitting Diablo again tonight.”
Randal shrugged. “Don’t worry about it, it gives us a chance to try to figure out how to make some Gummiberry Juice and clean up the yard a bit.”
Taylor moved the finished ring to her left hand then started on the next Gold ring of Thievery.
“Speaking of potions, do you mind if I take a couple healing potions that dropped in case some of the cops get injured?” Vicky asked hoping they wouldn’t mind just in case one of the officers got shot.
“Sure, we’ve got plenty,” Danny replied as he started looking through his pockets for extra healing potions.
Amy pulled her extra magical loot bag out of her pocket then started filling it with extra healing potions from her pockets. “We should probably look into enchanting their bulletproof vests at some point, but the rings should help.”
Kevin briefly wondered how much the bag of healing potions would sell for on ebay then decided that he probably didn’t want to know. ‘At least with the gold I’m never going to have to worry about money again.’
“Thanks.” Victoria turned to look at Amy. “Are you okay with staying behind?”
Amy sighed as she continued filling the bag with clearly labeled healing and cure poison potions that she’d made. “Carol has a point, the clean up is going to get messy. I’d rather keep my identity as Panacea firmly associated with healing. I don’t need someone trying to kill me at school. Besides, I have a few dozen cure poison potions I was going to drop off with the hospital when I dropped in, I don’t have a problem dropping them off early.”
Gothic said, “Worst case, we’re just a portal away.”
“Point,” Victoria admitted as she grabbed the rings Taylor handed her. “Thanks.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll make enough for everyone in New Wave,” Taylor replied as she grabbed a potion of mana from her pocket. She drank the mana potion then went back to work enchanting while the rest of the group loaded Victoria up with potions.
0o0o0
Taylor capped the glass bottle of Gummiberry Juice with a cork that Gothic had just handed her then looked at the tooltip to make sure it was the same as touching the cauldron. “Gummiberry Juice, giant strength, five minutes per bottle, looks perfect to me.”
Kevin absently handed Randal a dollar as he glared at the large cauldron filled with Gummiberry Juice or at least a reasonable facsimile. “I can’t believe that actually worked.”
“All hail the internet,” Randal replied smugly as he put the dollar in his back pocket.
Amy snorted as she thought about the clip Randal had showed them about the grandma type Gummi Bear trying to teach the young female Gummi Bear how to make Gummiberry juice. “And the fact that I’m not an impatient child.”
“Probably helps,” Gothic agreed as she finished filling another bottle. She handed it to Taylor then started filling an empty potion bottle as Taylor corked the bottle. “How many cars do you think we’ll be able to salvage today?”
Kevin shrugged. “Probably a couple stacks, assuming we can salvage the cars and they’re not too heavy to lift.”
“If they’re too heavy, we’ll just get Vicky to toss them into her salvage box.” Amy frowned. “We should have had her toss a car or a bike in her salvage box to test it.”
Kevin shook his head. “I’m fairly sure her skill isn’t high enough to get much of anything back, which is sort of a problem.”
“In other words, you’re saying that you and Taylor should be doing the bulk of the salvaging?” Gothic asked with amusement.
“Probably, we have the highest skill ratings, unless you’ve been working your tail off?” Kevin asked with raised eyebrows.
Randal shrugged. “Mine isn’t horrible.”
Danny picked up one of the filled bottles then headed for the door. “Let’s start with two people per car, it cuts down on the number of cars we can salvage but it should keep everyone from hurting themselves.”
Kevin grinned as he grabbed one of the Gummiberry potions and followed Danny. “Works for me.”
“Should we watch or finish bottling everything?” Gothic asked as she finished filling another bottle, handed it to Taylor then grabbed an empty bottle.
“We might as well finish, it will take them a couple minutes to figure out where to start,” Taylor replied as she corked the bottle.
“I should probably make sure they don’t do anything too crazy,” Randal stated as he headed outside.
“Same.” Amy snickered as she followed Randal.
“Have fun, we’ll be out in a minute or two.” Taylor was hoping they could finish bottling the Gummiberry Juice before the guys got started.
Kevin glanced around the salvage yard. “Any idea where to start?”
“Let’s start with the crap and work our ways to the old muscle cars around back, some of them might be salvageable,” Danny replied as he headed for the closest broken down car which happened to be an old station wagon.
Kevin frowned as he looked at the station wagon that had certainly seen better days. “Looks like a decent test case.”
Danny winced slightly as he walked around the car and saw the smashed in driver’s side door. “I’m a touch surprised they didn’t fix the door.”
“It’s an older car,” Kevin muttered as he glanced at the peeling paint and mold on the seats where he could see through the filthy windows.
Randal swapped his power to a mechanic’s skillset as he walked over to look at the car Danny and Kevin were examining. “It probably has a bent frame. Judging by the water damage to the seats where the plastic leaked and the faded duct tape, I’d say it’s been here a while but not more than ten or fifteen years, which means they’d probably driven it into the dirt before they dumped it here.”
“Just seems a waste,” Amy complained as she looked at the sad looking faded blue station wagon.
“I’m pretty sure every car in the lot has a story,” Randal replied with amusement as he gestured toward the stacks of cars piled in ‘neat’ lines. “Decades of history.”
“At least we’ll make better use of the pieces than letting them rust away to nothing or rot,” Amy said.
Kevin moved to the back of the station wagon then looked at Randal. “Set your watch for four minutes and fifty seconds.” He smiled as he saw Gothic and Taylor walking out of the garage. “When it goes off, shout time so we have some warning, I’d rather not tear something in my back or worse when the potion wears off.”
“Give me a second,” Randal replied as he worked on setting the stopwatch on his watch as Gothic and Amy walked over. “That should do it.”
Danny smiled at Taylor. “Get everything bottled?”
Taylor smiled at her father. “Yeah, it would have been easier with a spigot on the side of the cauldron, but we managed.”
“Something to consider for next time,” Danny replied as he uncorked the potion. “Ready?”
Kevin opened his engineering menu then uncorked his potion. “Go.” He drained the potion bottle then tossed it to Taylor.
Randal pushed the button to start the timer as Danny downed his potion. “Hopefully this works.”
Gothic caught the glass bottle Danny tossed her then watched as the guys picked up the station wagon like it weighed as much as a fiberglass canoe. She was more than a little surprised when the station wagon vanished and hundreds of car parts sort of floated to the ground around Kevin. “Cool!”
“Next!” Kevin shouted as he gleefully ran toward the next car to salvage.
Danny laughed as he ran over to the next car, intent on salvaging as many cars as they could before the potion wore off.
Amy smiled as she watched the small white car turn into parts. “Any idea how we’re going to get our cars licensed when we build them?”
“I was thinking about hacking the DMV or maybe bribing one of their inspectors,” Randal admitted.
Amy raised her eyebrows. “Is there a legal way to do it?”
“Yeah, several. You can go through the PRT as a Tinker or you can deal with the DMV, it just requires a number of fees and red tape.”
Taylor sighed as she glanced at the various pieces that might have if she was being generous make up ¾ of a car. “We might need to hire someone to deal with that side of the business.”
“Wouldn’t be a bad idea,” Randal agreed as he watched Kevin and Danny salvage an older looking sports car with a crumpled hood, rotted tires and a blown radiator. “I’m looking forward to making a hover car.”
“At least we’ll have plenty of parts.” Gothic had a feeling they’d have to jump through a few hoops with the PRT but it might be worth it. “Speaking of parts, should we grab some treasure chests and start sorting stuff?”
“Might as well,” Taylor agreed.
Randal said, “I need to stick around so I can warn them when they’re running out of time but we should probably get all of the parts organized.”
Gothic grinned as she headed back toward the garage to grab some chests. “Let’s grab a couple.”
Amy shook her head. “Go for it, I want to make sure someone that can heal is out here in case something goes wrong.”
“Good idea,” Taylor agreed as she turned and followed Gothic.
0o0o0
Taylor glanced over at where her father was sitting in a booth chatting with Randal and Kevin about what they’d need for a hover car then glanced back at Kid Win who was sipping his milkshake with a rather adorable grin on his face. “You still lost.”
Kid Win smiled as he set his milkshake on the table. “I might have lost the race, but I got to eat dinner with three cute girls, I can’t say I’m disappointed.”
Gothic snickered. “He’s got a point.”
“Fair enough,” Taylor admitted. She was just glad the others had agreed to take a break from picking up the ‘unending’ pile of car parts they’d managed to salvage and get something to eat.
Amy opened her mouth to disagree with him on being cute then closed it when she saw a heavily modified and garishly spray painted armored hover car fly by. “Since when did they have armored cars in the dungeon?”
Kid Win turned and looked out the window. “Shit! Squealer is going to rob a bank.” He grabbed his hoverboard and ran for the door, his milkshake forgotten. “I’ve got to go!”
Taylor grabbed her board and ran after him. “Damn it, no dying!” She knew she was being a bit ridiculous, because he was just a dungeon mob, but she didn’t want to have to start over with a Kid Win that didn’t remember their races together… or hadn’t called her cute.
Gothic winced as she watched the heavily armored flying vehicle demolish a police car with one shot from some type of energy cannon mounted on the side of the vehicle. “This can’t end well.” She grabbed her hoverboard which she’d left leaning against the booth and followed them out.
Amy winced as she grabbed her board and headed for the doors as the guys did the same. “I hate being the only sane person in a room.”
Danny snorted as they headed for the door. “Welcome to the club.”
The first thirty seconds of chasing the insane Tinker and dodging like a fiend were enough to convince Taylor that she really needed some grenades for dealing with Tinkers or maybe some type of E.M.P. weapon, because trying to damage the hover car’s electronics with her lightning wasn’t working.
Kid Win frantically dodged to the side as he saw the hover car start to spin around. “Shit!”
Squealer spun her car around 180 degrees so that she could use her more powerful energy cannons on the damned heroes chasing her. Her voice came over the speakers, “Die!”
Taylor felt her heart lurch as a sphere of energy hit Kid Win’s board sending him careening toward the pavement. She dove as fast as she could, trying to catch him before he hit the ground.
Danny screamed as he saw Taylor hit the ground with the dungeon version of Kid Win landing on her, “Amy!” He brought his cold pistol up and worked on providing a distraction, hoping Amy could save Kid Win.
Kevin pulled a fist sized rock from his bag as he flew toward the armored hover car as fast as his board would go. He tossed the rock inside the barrel of the hover car’s main gun as he blew past.
Taylor rolled out from under the groaning hero, grabbed her fire pistol and started shooting the underside of the hover car, hoping that she could hit something vital as it didn’t look as thickly armored on the bottom.
Gothic flew up as she saw the main gun start to charge then flinched as it exploded.
“How the fuck is it still in the air?” Kevin asked absently as he spun his board around so he could shoot the damaged section of the craft.
“No idea, keep shooting!” Randal shouted as he held the trigger down on his fire pistol, sending a stream of fire into the damaged section of the vehicle.
Taylor grabbed Kid Win and jumped out of the way as the hover car dropped like a brick, falling fifteen feet and crashing into the ground.
Randal continued blasting the downed hover car until the door opened and Squealer staggered out, a rather curvy dirty blonde young woman only wearing a pair of dirty overalls that she was almost popping out of and the top half of a welding mask. “Any idea…” he trailed off as Danny raised his hands and blasted Squealer with lightning until she turned into pixels, his expression one that would have made Emperor Palpatine turn in his lightsaber. ‘Yeah, probably not the best time to ask about recruiting her.’ He grinned as he saw the overalls, book, and welding mask she dropped. ‘Cool, decent drops at least.’
Danny ignored the loot as he ran over to check on Taylor. “Are you hurt?”
“I don’t think so, give me a second.” Taylor helped Kid Win sit down so that he was off his feet as she could see his boots and leggings were a mangled mess from getting hit. “How much pain are you in?”
“I think I broke my ankle but I’ll survive,” Kid Win admitted as he tried not to think about how bad the director was going to yell at him for losing his board or how much his legs hurt from the shrapnel that had made it through his armor.
“Good, Gothic or Panacea should be able to fix you up.” Taylor stretched her arms then moved each leg to see if anything hurt, thankfully the pain from Kid Win landing on her was already fading as he hadn’t actually done any damage. “I’m fine...” she trailed off as her father cast his new healing spell on her. “I could have done that.”
“Now you don’t have to,” Danny replied as he pulled her into a hug. “You’re not supposed to scare me like that.”
“I have a ring that protects me from falling damage,” Taylor reminded him.
“I get that, doesn’t mean it’s not terrifying seeing your only child take a flying leap off a hoverboard going, I’m not even sure how fast. Not to mention Squealer could have hit you with her cannon.”
Taylor resisted the urge to sigh at her father’s overprotective streak. She was reasonably sure the energy cannon would have counted as lightning or fire and she had immunity to the first one and decent resistance to the second. “That’s why I have armor and my thievery ring, I’m also pretty good at dodging.”
Danny took a breath then let it out, trying not to snap at his daughter. “That’s not the point.”
Gothic walked over and touched Kid Win’s chin with her fingers. “Nothing’s broken, your ankle is just sprained and none of your cuts are life threatening, thanks to some pretty nice armor.” She fixed his sprain. “Okay, I fixed your ankle. Let’s get your boots off so I can dig the fragments out.”
“I know, I wasn’t expecting to have as much trouble with her as a we did,” Taylor admitted sheepishly.
“On the upside, she dropped a book,” Randal pointed out, trying to distract people before things got heated.
“And a welding mask,” Kevin added as he walked over to look inside the hover car to see if there was anything he could salvage for patterns or loot.
“Fine, check the loot.” Danny reluctantly let Taylor go. “We’ll talk about this later.”
“Right,” Taylor agreed unenthusiastically as she walked over to look at the loot. ‘At least I have school in the morning. Great, never thought I’d be happy about school.’
“Piggot is going to kill me for losing my board,” Kid Win complained.
Gothic smirked. “You could always join our team then you wouldn’t have to worry about the PRT,” she tempted him, trying to see if she could get him to leave the dungeon since Taylor had worked so hard to save him.
Kid Win winced as he pulled his partially mangled left boot off and metal burrs from the pierced sections dug into his wounds. “Tempting, but I’d miss my Tinker budget.”
Amy snorted. “I happen to know how much the PRT gives Tinkers, we can do better.”
“A lot better,” Kevin agreed absently as he disconnected the pilot’s steering wheel.
“We’re really recruiting him?” Randall asked Taylor curiously.
Taylor considered it for a second and nodded with a small smile. “Yeah, I think we are.”
“Alrighty then,” Randall said with a grin.
Taylor walked over and picked up the welding mask then looked at the tooltip. “Nice, the mask protects against any vision based attacks or effects.”
“Enchantment or tinkertech?” Randal asked, curious if they could add the ability to their masks.
“Strangely enough, magic,” Taylor replied as she put the mask in her pocket then picked up the book. “A Need for Speed: a Tinker’s Guide. Anyone object if I use it?”
“Would it help?” Kevin asked jokingly before he hissed, “My precious!”
“I’m trying to be nice here,” Taylor pointed out as she absently ran her fingers down the spine of the book.
Amy laughed. “No objections here.”
“Or here,” Gothic called out as she worked on pulling bits of metal and crap out of Kid Win’s legs.
“Go for it,” Randal replied as he scanned the street for trouble, thankfully the streets seemed empty enough which was a nice change.
“You’ve got the most skill other than Kevin and he probably doesn’t need the book,” Danny pointed out.
“I can wait,” Kevin agreed, knowing that he could always use his Tinker ability to make something then examine it with his Engineering ability to add it to his collection of patterns.
Taylor opened the book and smiled as her engineering tab opened, showing a new jury rig option. She pulled up the jury rigging page and read through the greyed out options. “Jury rigging, more speed at the cost of stability, more armor at the cost of speed, quieter running, substandard parts at reduced durability… looks useful.”
Amy said, “We’re going to have to farm Squealer.”
Randal frowned as he studied the remains of the hover car. “Not until we make some better weapons or at least ones specifically spec’d for her and her flying tanks.”
“I have to agree,” Danny said, knowing that they’d gotten lucky taking down Squealer’s flying tank without taking any serious injuries in return.
Taylor picked up the overalls. “Comfortable Female Overalls, +2 to Engineering, always comfortable…” she muttered, “+4 to attractiveness.”
Kevin stepped out of the hover car with the disassembled dashboard. “We’re breaking those.”
“Works for me, I’m not wearing anything that Squealer wore without running it through a couple gallons of bleach first,” Taylor agreed.
“Good point,” Randal agreed as he studied the dashboard that Kevin had ripped out of the hover car. “I’m surprised you didn’t loot the kitchen sink.”
Kevin flipped him off while Danny was looking the other way. “The sink was welded to the frame and the rest of the machine is background.”
Randal opened his mouth to ask if he was joking and then closed it, it was Squealer after all.
Amy sighed. “As much as I hate to say it, I should probably head to the hospital in case there were any innocent people caught in the Merchant raid.”
“Do you need any help?” Gothic asked.
“Nah, I’ve got it. Help Kid Win get settled into his new workshop.”
“What makes you think I’m going to abandon the Wards?” Kid Win asked.
Gothic laughed. “A virtually unlimited tinkering budget and many cute girls?”
“So, where’s my new lab?” Kid Win asked, half serious.
Taylor opened a portal back to the garage. “Right this way.”
