Mist of Shadows
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Taylor Hebert Dungeon Girl Part 18
🕑 Added 2018-07-10 01:22:49 +0000 UTC Taylor smiled as she headed down the hall. She paused as they walked past the office and got to the student store. “Books, pencils, pens, candy, soda, notebooks, shirts, sweatshirts, backpacks, calculators and bouncy balls.”Gothic said, “Yeah, the teachers occasionally give out Arcadia Dollars that you can use to buy things.”
Taylor didn’t remember the student store from Arcadia selling books but she’d barely glanced at the shop when she’d been to the real Arcadia for her placement test. “Now I just need to figure out how to earn enough money to buy the books.”
The girl behind the counter asked, “How good are you at art?”
“Could be better,” Gothic admitted.
Taylor turned to look at the girl behind the counter. “Nothing to write home about, why?”
“Mrs Jones tends to give out prizes or Arcadian Dollars to the students with the best projects each class.”
“I don’t think I’ll be winning any art contests anytime soon,” Gothic admitted.
“She also pays quite well for models.”
“Models?” Taylor asked.
“Only real way to practice drawing people,” the girl pointed out.
“How much is quite well?” Gothic asked curious how much the job paid.
“Up to one hundred, but usually about fifty for only twenty minutes of work.”
Taylor raised her eyebrows in surprise, sure it wasn’t real money but a brand named soda cost an Arcadian Dollar which meant the dollars were worth about fifty cents depending on how you looked at it which meant the teacher was paying 25 to 50 dollars for twenty minutes of work, which wasn’t bad. “I’ll see how it goes.”
“Cool, have fun.” The girl looked at a freshman guy as he walked up with cash in hand. “What can I get you?”
He smiled at the girl behind the counter as he held out an Arcadian dollar. “A date but I’ll take a coke.”
Gothic ignored the guy’s clumsy attempt at flirting with the student clerk as she gestured down the hall and started walking. “I know where the art room is.”
“Sounds good.” Taylor glanced at the various students standing next to lockers or walking around as she quietly followed Gothic down the hall past a bunch of closed classrooms. It felt a bit weird to be able to walk down the hall without everyone staring at her. She wasn’t sure if it was because she was in a dungeon or if people just didn’t care, either way it was leagues better than dealing with Winslow in the real world. She made a mental note to see if the dungeon Winslow was flammable.
“Here we are,” Gothic said as she gestured toward the open door next to an empty display case set into the wall.
Taylor frowned slightly as she looked through the doorway at the various students that were sitting behind easels waiting for class to start. “I’m still not sure about this. I don’t like being the center of attention, it makes me feel exposed.”
“You’re a cape, be brave.” Gothic smiled encouragingly as she walked into the art room.
Taylor shivered slightly as several of the students turned to look at them as she followed Gothic over to the grey haired woman in the front of the class. She was a touch surprised that the teacher could get away with a lazy unprofessional ponytail and wearing jeans with a paint stained sweatshirt then she remembered that she was the art teacher.
The teacher looked at Taylor and Gothic. “You must be our models for today.”
Gothic grinned as she looked at the platform in the front of the room with a wooden chair. “What do you want us to do?”
Mrs. Jones studied the two of them. “I was thinking about having people draw today, but as there are two of you, I think this is a perfect time to work on colors and painting.” She looked at Taylor then at Gothic. “Perhaps a side view, with Amy behind doing your hair?”
“That doesn’t sound too bad,” Taylor admitted.
“Excellent, off with your clothes and get onstage so we can start.”
Gothic grinned as she almost bounced over to the stage and started taking off her clothes.
Taylor bit back her initial response as she realized two things, no one was snickering, not even the boys scattered around the room and second, she was in a dungeon, they weren’t real. The only one that would remember seeing her naked was Gothic and they’d changed clothes together last night in her room.
She forced herself to smile woodenly as she marched over to the stage and started stripping, kicking off her shoes and socks. She did her best to ignore the little Emma like voice in the back of her mind whispering insults about her looks or lack thereof as she sat on the chair and slipped her pants off. “A little help,” she asked Gothic, unsure of her balance with the way she was trembling. She shivered slightly as Gothic laid a hand on her neck and her stage fright faded, washed away by a surge of adrenalin.
“Better?” Gothic asked softly.
“Much,” Taylor said leaning back into her while she kicked off her panties.
Mrs. Jones gestured for Gothic to move forward a bit. “You’re going to want to turn a bit so you’re sort of facing the class at an angle while you braid her hair. The class should start drawing the chair while I finish getting the girls set up.”
Taylor took her shirt off, half expecting people to laugh about her ‘lack’ of breasts, but thankfully everyone seemed strangely professional or at least quiet in their amusement. She relaxed a little more as she realized that this was nothing new to the students.
Gothic shifted so that she was a bit more on display. “How’s that?”
“Your stance and angle looks fine, is it comfortable?” Mrs Jones asked as she walked toward the other side of the class so she could see how things looked from several other angles.
Gothic shifted a touch until she was more comfortable then reached out and gathered up Taylor’s long luxurious hair and draped it over the back of the chair. “Yes.”
“In that case, start braiding her hair, if I say stop, rest your hand on the back of the chair and hold that pose.”
Taylor tried not to squirm, cringe or jump off the chair and flee as Gothic started braiding her hair, an intimate act that no one had done for her since Emma went nuts. ‘Deal with it Taylor, she made her choice.’ Her nipples stiffened slightly as Gothic’s fingers smoothed out any tangles and practically molested her scalp, drawing a satisfied sigh from her, as a tiny smile lit up her face.
“Stop.” Mrs Jones grinned as Gothic managed to make it look natural. “Perfect, don’t move for the next twenty minutes.”
‘Easy for you to say.’ Taylor was just glad that she sitting rather than standing like Gothic.
0o0o0
Mrs. Jones glanced at the clock. “Time!”
“Does that mean we can move?” Gothic asked hopefully.
“Yes, that means you can move,” Mrs. Jones replied as she started walked around the room looking at the paintings on the various easels as the students started putting their stuff away and heading for the sink so they could wash their brushes out.
Gothic quickly let go of Taylor’s hair then shook her hands a few times trying to get the feeling back into her hands and fingers now that she could move. “Thanks, they were almost falling asleep.”
Taylor shifted in her chair, relieved that she could finally move. “Twenty minutes doesn’t seem like a long time, until you can’t move.”
“You get used to it,” Mrs. Jones replied with amusement, as she studied one of her student’s paintings. “Not bad, but I think you embellished a bit here and there.”
“Artistic licence?” the girl asked hopefully, watching the two models get dressed out of the corner of her eye.
Mrs Jones shook her head. “A B-cup would be artistic license as she is almost there, however a C-cup is edging toward fabrication.”
“Sadly,” Taylor muttered as she pulled her shirt over her head.
“Do I have to fix it?” the girl pouted.
Mrs. Jones frowned slightly as she studied the painting. “Hmm, just put some purple or blue highlights in their hair and everyone will think it was intentional.”
“Thanks,” the girl replied as she grabbed a clean brush and got to work as the bell rang.
“You can leave when your brushes are cleaned and put away. Anyone that wants to stay during lunch may.” Mrs. Jones grinned as she headed over toward her models for the day so that she could pay them.
Taylor sighed in relief as Mrs. Jones pulled a roll of student bucks out of her pocket and peeled off five tens for each of them. “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome, you did great. You should take a minute to look over everyone’s work.”
“Sure,” Taylor replied uncertain if she actually wanted to see the paintings people had painted of her or if she just wanted to leave without looking at naked paintings of herself.
Gothic grinned as she bounced over to the easels and started looking at the paintings. “Sweet! These are pretty good.”
“They’re my advanced class,” Mrs. Jones said proudly.
“I can see why.” Gothic turned to look at Taylor. “You should see this, they’re awesome!”
Taylor glanced toward the door then forced herself to walk over to where Gothic was looking at the various paintings. While she wasn’t an expert when it came to art, she doubted anyone that knew them would have a hard time recognizing their faces in the first couple paintings, though she couldn’t remember the last time she’d looked that content, much less while naked in public. “Okay, I’ll admit these are pretty neat,” she said, wondering at the fond expression on Gothic’s face in the paintings as she’d braided her hair.
“See, told you,” Gothic replied with amusement as she watched a seventeen or eighteen year old guy put the finishing touches on a hauntingly beautiful painting. “Damn…”
He grinned as he looked at Gothic. “I try.”
Taylor turned to look at the canvas Gothic was entranced with and stared when she saw the figures in the middle of the canvas, they were easily recognizable as them, but at the same time there was a ethereal beauty to the figures she couldn’t put her finger on, it was more than a little eerie. “What are you going to do with the white space?”
“I’m probably going to paint a dragon once Mrs. Jones grades it,” he admitted with a grin.
“Don’t let me stop you,” Mrs. Jones spoke up as she continued looking through the various paintings.
He picked up a pencil and a piece of paper and started sketching out the dragon he wanted to paint. “Do I get extra credit?”
“I can’t give you better than an A+ so probably not.”
“Curses, foiled again,” he replied good naturedly as he worked on sketching a dragon, so he’d know where to start painting.
Taylor was a bit torn as they spent a few minutes looking at the various paintings. She’d love to have some of these paintings on her wall, because they were just that good, but at the same time she doubted putting naked paintings of herself on her bedroom wall would go over well with her father, no matter how warm it made her feel. She waited until they’d finished looking at all of the paintings then asked, “Where do you want to go next?”
Gothic said, “We have enough money for a book each and I wouldn’t mind picking up an art book if it works like your other dungeon books.”
“Same,” Taylor agreed as she headed back toward the student bookstore, seeing the work the students had done made her want to stretch her own artistic skills in a way she hadn’t before.
The girl at the counter smiled as they walked up. “Picked up some cash I see.”
“Yep, how many art books do you have?” Gothic asked.
“Two, Intro to Art and Digital Art for Dummies.”
‘Easy come, easy go.’ Taylor handed her the five Arcadian tens. “I’ll take the Intro to Art book.”
The girl pulled a thick textbook from the ether and handed it to Taylor. “Enjoy.”
Taylor accepted the heavy tome then quickly opened the front cover. She grinned as it vanished into a shower of light and her crafting menu sprouted a new tab at the same time an art experience bar appeared in her field of view. She watched the experience bar quickly fill then reset once it hit the end of the bar. ‘Better than starting at level one.’ She smiled at the girl behind the counter. “Thanks.”
“Hopefully it helps,” the girl replied, apparently not caring or even even seeing the book vanish.
“Anything?” Gothic asked as she studied Taylor’s expression.
“I’m trying to figure out how to use my new tab but it looks worth grabbing,” Taylor replied as she played with her options.
“Awesome.” Gothic flashed the clerk a smile as she held out her money. “I’ll take one.” She grunted as the girl took her money then handed her a copy of the same book she’d handed Taylor. “Heavy.”
“Just a bit,” Taylor admitted.
Gothic opened the book then smiled as a translucent menu appeared in her field of vision that looked like something you might see in a virtual reality game. “Sweet! It comes with a menu.”
Taylor smiled at Gothic’s enthusiasm. “Yeah, it makes it easier though it looks like you can freehand stuff if you want.”
“We’re going to need supplies,” Gothic replied excitedly as she played with her new skill.
“I have plenty of notebooks and art supplies at home, thanks to the lockers at Winslow.” Taylor closed her menu as she turned and headed for the exit.
“Cool,” Gothic replied as she turned and started following Taylor. “How do I close the menu?”
“You basically just think really hard about it vanishing or appearing…” Taylor trailed off as she saw a teenager and his mother walk out of the entrance. ‘Shit!’ She started breathing again when she caught sight of them through the window next to the door. ‘Okay, it just looked like they walked through the entrance.’ She walked over to the security guard standing near the door to the office. “Excuse me, can you see the glowing green portal?” She pointed toward the exit portal.
“Portal?” He quickly turned to look then scowled as he realized there was nothing there. He around and glared at Taylor. “Funny, now run along before I toss you in detention.”
“Sorry, thought I saw something,” Taylor replied as she headed toward the portal.
Gothic followed Taylor through the green portal in the doorway. “What was that about?”
Taylor glanced around the empty garage, just to make sure the teenager and his mother hadn’t actually used the dungeon exit. “Just making sure the dungeon inhabitants can’t leave through the entrance.”
“Makes sense,” Gothic agreed as she glanced around. “So what now?”
Taylor shut the door to the dungeon then opened a town portal to her bedroom. “Now we grab some supplies and practice until dad gets home or until Amy gets done with her event or the guys call.”
“Works for me,” Gothic agreed, figuring it was a good chance to work on their new skill.
0o0o0
Taylor twitched and almost drove her pencil through her paper as the doorbell rang. “Hello?”
Amy pulled her hand away from the button as she called out, “It’s me.”
“Got it.” Gothic giggled as she bounced up from the couch and ran over to the door.
Taylor looked down at the half finished sketch of the vase of fake flowers on the end table as Gothic opened the door for Amy. “How was the charity event?”
“Annoying…” Amy trailed off as she walked in and noticed stacks of paper on various surfaces. “Paperwork?”
“Nope, art,” Gothic replied proudly as she shut and locked the door.
“I’m fairly sure she shouldn’t have sugar,” Taylor muttered as Gothic enthusiastically pulled/directed Amy over to the couch so she could look at her collection of drawings.
Gothic flipped down next to Amy and handed her a stack of drawings. “Take a look.”
Amy carefully looked through the stack of still life drawings of living room objects with a touch of amusement. “I’m guessing this means you picked up an art book?”
Taylor set her clipboard with her half completed drawing on the table. “Yeah, no real combat use, but it’s relaxing.”
“Cool, how hard was it to get?” Amy asked as she absently looked through the collection of drawings.
“Emotionally or physically?” Taylor asked as she thought about modeling in front of the class.
Amy looked up from the drawings so she could see her friend’s face. “Both?”
“It wasn’t that bad,” Gothic said as she handed Amy a different stack of drawings.
“Only because the students weren’t real,” Taylor reminded her.
“What are you talking about?” Amy asked, curious what Taylor was rambling about.
“The girl at the student store in the dungeon said that modeling for the art class paid well so we went to check it out because the books are 50 student dollars each.”
“Not seeing a problem yet,” Amy said as she looked through the new stack of drawings, they were certainly better than she could do which wasn’t all that surprising considering Taylor’s power was complete bullshit.
Taylor snorted. “Yeah, she neglected to mention we’d have to take our clothes off.”
Amy stared at Taylor in surprise. “At the school?”
“Yeah, that’s what I thought.”
Gothic shrugged. “It’s just art.”
Amy turned to look at Gothic. “Please tell me you’re not planning on running through the streets naked or anything.”
“Of course not,” Gothic paused a second to let Amy relax then continued, “I’d be wearing shoes, I’m not crazy.”
Taylor snorted, trying not to laugh.
Amy rubbed the bridge of her nose once she realized that her doppleganger was messing with her, or at least she hoped Gothic was just messing with her. “That wasn’t nice.”
“No but it was funny,” Gothic teased Amy.
“You’re both insane, you know that right?” Amy asked as she glanced between her friend and doppelganger.
“What did I do?” Taylor asked incredulously, grinning widely.
“You’re the one that made the dungeon we found her in,” Amy pointed out.
Gothic snickered as she looked at Taylor with an exaggerated pout. “Does that mean I get to call you Mommy?”
Taylor snorted. “Considering how much you like flirting, hell no.”
“Rats, I’ll just have to settle for seducing my sisters,” Gothic replied teasingly as she leaned against Amy.
‘Good luck with that,’ Amy thought to herself as she looked through the various drawings, trying to ignore the thoughts that brought to mind.
Taylor’s lips curved up into an unconscious smile as she looked at the two girls leaning against each other, it was nice to have friends again. “Okay, moving on, do you want to hit a dungeon?”
“Sounds more fun than discussing the charity event,” Amy grumbled.
Gothic snorted. “Let me guess, plenty of insinuations about the size of the donation increasing if you gave the rich old men or their trophy wives a tuneup?”
“Pretty much,” Amy admitted.
“I wonder if the hospital has a list of the donors,” Gothic mused.
“What are you thinking?” Amy asked warily.
Gothic said, “I’m thinking that ten million a head buys a lot of vacations, cars and a place to live.”
Amy turned to look at her doppleganger. “That doesn’t sound very heroic.”
“Correct me if I’m wrong but even heroes have to eat. Taylor is nice enough to give me a place to crash but other than you and Vicky, I don’t really have a family which means I need to earn my own way.”
“You could always get a real job,” Amy suggested halfheartedly.
“I could probably sell drawings and paintings for change, thanks to the art book, but we’re talking real money for healing a couple old people. As in never needing to work again, after one weekend of smiling at the rich old broads and bastards.”
Amy turned and looked at Taylor. “Let’s go hit stuff before my evil half convinces me to get myself in trouble.”
“Three cheers for Vicky style therapy,” Gothic replied with amusement as she jumped up and started shadowboxing.
Taylor grinned as she watched Gothic’s antics. “I should probably make her some decent armor before we jump into anything too dangerous.”
“That would be great, thanks.”
“That reminds me, I need to work on my knife skill, want to hit Winslow?” Amy asked, wanting to start with something easy and decently mindless after her day at the charity event.
“Sure, we can do a run or two before the guys get done with work and we hit something more interesting, let me grab an extra knife book for Gothic.”
0o0o0
Amy took an unconscious step back from Taylor and the forge as a demonic looking dagger appeared in her hand. The wavey crystal blade dripping darkness like blood and looked like something out of Stephen King’s nightmares. “What the hell?!”
Gothic shivered as she noticed the shadows in the crystalline blade were pulsing, almost like it was breathing. “Is it breathing?” she couldn’t help but ask.
“Shouldn’t be…” Taylor trailed off warily as she looked at the tooltip for the dagger. “Enhanced glass Vampiric blade of Shadow Lightning. Life drinking and increases base mana by 20, high chance to stun the target. It doesn’t say anything about eating souls so we’re probably good.”
“Probably?” Amy asked warily.
Taylor shrugged. “I picked up the enchantment from a demonic anvil and tossed a vial of essence of Sophia into the mix, what did you expect, sunshine and rainbows?”
Gothic giggled. “Dibs on shadow enhanced power armor.”
“Why do I feel like I’m the only sane one here?” Amy asked rhetorically.
“Because you’re in denial?” Gothic asked with amusement.
Taylor snickered as she set the dagger on the bench, tossed a chunk of enhanced glass into her crafting menu, added in another strip of lightning leather and a vial of shadow for good measure then hit create. She smiled as she ‘went’ through the motions of forging the dagger as her ten second counter ran out.
Amy took another step back as a dark purple glass dagger appeared in Taylor’s hand that looked to be covered in dark crimson almost black blood that seemed to absorb the light in places. She watched in horrified fascination as several drops of blood fell from the blade only to vanish before they hit the floor. “Yeah, okay, your power is disturbing as hell.”
Taylor looked at the tooltip for the dagger. “Life drinking, stun chance, mana… looks good to me.”
Amy shook her head. “If by good you mean evil then sure, we can go with that.”
“Dibs!” Gothic called out excitedly.
Taylor turned to look at Amy. “Does this mean you don’t want one?”
Amy considered how useful a life drinking blade would be considering she couldn’t heal herself then sighed. “Do you have one in pink? Maybe with kittens and rainbows on it?” she asked sarcastically.
“I don’t…” Taylor trailed off as she noticed a toggle for adding artwork to her creation. “I’ll see what I can do.” She snickered as she tossed in the required material then hit the toggle and smiled as it pulled up her art tab. “Looks like I can engrave things, let’s see, you wanted rainbows and kittens, right?”
“Might as well just toss in Skittles for the rainbow,” Amy sarcastically.
“Hmm, can I do that?” Taylor muttered, not catching the fact that she was being sarcastic. She quickly sketched out a cat and rainbows on the blade then looked through her options to dye the blade. ‘Gummi berries actually work? Nice.’ She added enough gummi berries to complete the rainbow then closed the art tab and swapped the lightning cat leather out for a strip of the leftover mini boss leather. “Okay, let’s see if this works.” She hit the create button and watched the forging scene play out in fast forward, forging the blade, etching the designs then crushing the berries and infusing the blade with magic.
Gothic blinked as an elven glass dagger that shimmered in all the colors of the rainbow appeared in her hand, the image of a small cat seemed to dance along the blade. “Is that cat moving?”
Taylor looked at the dagger’s tooltip. “Vampiric blade of deflection… huh, that actually increases your armor verses ranged weapons. Gives you 20 mana and life drinking.”
“I’ll take it,” Amy said, glad that her dagger didn’t look like a demonic weapon from a satanist’s workshop.
Taylor carefully handed Amy her dagger and the cat moved closer to her hand, the paws almost seeming to come out of the blade for a second before she snatched her hand away, shivering.
“That’s not Hello Kitty, that’s Hell No Kitty!” Amy exclaimed. “Still… I kinda like it.”
“Hell yeah, no one messes with my sister,” Gothic said gleefully.
Taylor handed Gothic the other blade. “Let’s go stab Sophia,” she said with a bright smile that almost matched Gothic’s.
“You take way too much enjoyment in that,” Gothic pointed out.
“Two years of hell,” Taylor replied as she grabbed the dagger off the bench and headed toward the entrance.
Amy followed Taylor and Gothic out of the forge and into the Winslow dungeon, she wasn’t planning on admitting how enjoyable stabbing the copies of Emma was, mostly cause she could remember her from several office parties.
Taylor let Gothic and Amy take the lead on the first part, so they’d gain enough skills to deal with the girls with weapons when they got to Sophia.
Comments
Patrick Sandhop
Oh absolutely.
Mist of Shadows
It's even better when it's guilt free combat therapy. :)
Patrick Sandhop
Ah, combat therapy. Truly a staple of the super-heroic genre.
