Mist of Shadows
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Taylor Hebert Dungeon Girl Part 8
🕑 Added 2018-06-05 05:06:04 +0000 UTCTaylor yawned as she locked the front door then headed into the kitchen to grab a soda. ‘At least I don’t have classes tomorrow.’ She wasn’t sure which classes she’d end up in but at this point any class without idiots would be fine. She grabbed a root beer out of the fridge then headed back to the living room. She sat down then popped the top on her soda and took a drink. ‘If I’m going to be a real hero, I’m going to need some type of ability to get around the city other than hoofing it. The problem is where to store it when I’m not using it as a hero, maybe I can get a summonable mount like in a video game?’
She glanced over at the door to the broom closet as an idea formed in her head. “Can’t hurt to try.” She got up, walked over to the door and focused on what she wanted as she opened it. She frowned slightly as she looked at the yellow film over the entrance that looked out over a dark alley. “I can probably get away with scouting things if I grab my armor.” She worked on finishing her soda as she used her free hand and equipment page to swap into her armored gear. She smiled as she saw the entrance change to blue now that she had her armor on. “That helps.” She set her empty bottle on the table then walked into her dungeon.
Taylor carefully made her way toward the entrance of the alley then stopped and stared as she saw a bunch of ABB gang members speed past on glowing hoverboards while waving their guns around like lunatics. She turned her attention to the broken down cars on the side of the road then looked at the gutted buildings. ‘I’m never going to catch any of the idiots without a board.’ She ducked back into the alley a bit when she saw a small group with Neo Nazi tattoos zoom pass the alley. ‘Yeah, I’m going to need a board.’
She pulled her elemental lightning pistol out of her pocket and waited for the next group of riders to come by. Thankfully it didn’t take more than a minute before a group of three people wearing biker leathers riding on glowing hoverboards came around the corner and into her field of view. She gleefully made a mental note about their neat looking magic staffs as she aimed at the man in front and fired. She winced slightly as her shot caused the man to tumble off his hoverboard and face plant in a very painful and lethal manner. She mentally noted the fact that he’d dropped a book as she shot the second man then jumped back as the third brought his staff up. She winced as the man sprayed the area she’d been standing in with a stream of fire. ‘This can’t end well.’
Taylor waited for the flames to stop then stepped out and shot the remaining gang member in the head. ‘That wasn’t as bad as I was expecting.’ She smiled as she glanced at the three glowing hoverboards that were hovering a foot off the ground waiting for her. She glanced around then ran over and grabbed the closest hoverboard then frowned as she looked at the popup window. “Temporary magical hoverboard, used for getting around the dungeon. Son of a bitch.” She opened up her crafting menu and tossed the board in the salvage box then hit accept.
Taylor smirked as she got a hoverboard pattern then frowned as she read the next message, ‘Elemental Pistol Crafting tab renamed to Magical Crafting. Weird.’ She picked up the book on piloting hoverboards then the other hoverboard and headed back to her alley as she didn’t want to be in the street when the next group of gang members came by. She opened the book and smiled as information flowed into her mind. “At least I’m not going to be falling on my ass.” She opened her magical crafting menu and looked at the board. ‘Skateboard deck plus crystal… yeah, I’m guessing this is the basic model.’
She closed her crafting menu then got on the hoverboard and carefully headed into the street. Thankfully with her new skill it wasn’t that hard to stay on the board though she had a feeling it was going to take some practice before she was pulling off any really impressive tricks. She made a note of where her alley was then headed down the street looking for trouble. It didn’t take her all that long to figure out that the ‘city’ was overrun by gangs on hoverboards and that some of them were magic based and some were tech based. Sadly, trying to salvage any of the tech based hoverboards netted her the same annoying message, ‘Insufficient Engineering Skill.’ It was more than a little annoying if she was being honest though not unexpected.
On the plus side, the mobs dropped parts for crafting boards both magical and not which would be nice once she figured out how to assemble them. She blinked as she came around the corner and saw Kid Win standing next to his board in front of the PRT building. “Hello?”
Kid Win turned to look at Taylor. “Ah, fancy a race?”
Taylor ignored the little voice telling her this couldn’t possibly end well as she replied, “Sure, what are we betting?”
“If you beat me, I’ll give you my notes on hoverboards. If I win and I will because it’s in my name, you pay for dinner.”
“Sounds fair, rules?” Taylor asked curious what type of race the Tinker would suggest.
“No shooting at each other, no hitting each other and I have the borders marked out with drones.”
Taylor decided not to question the insanity of a hero running races when the city was in ruins. “Okay, let’s go.” She blinked as Kid Win jumped on his board and took off like a bat out of hell. “Fuck!” She flew after him, doing her best to avoid all of the various obstacles along the nightmarish course. It quickly became apparent that he had an unfair advantage as he knew just when to turn or duck. Sadly, she lost the first race and the next five, thanks to his piloting skill. Thankfully he took cash in payment because while he might have been interesting, having to eat seven meals in a row with the guy would have eaten up her available time and patience. Luckily his skill didn’t seem to improve as her skill got higher which meant that she managed to win by the end of the seventh race.
Kid Win sighed as he came down for a landing. “Damn, you managed to beat me. I guess I’ll have to practice more for next time.” He pulled out a book out of thin air and handed to her. “Here.”
Taylor looked at the book. ‘Kid Win’s Guide to Hovercrafts.’ She briefly considered saving the book for Randal or Kevin then decided she could always come back and try again. She opened the book then looked at the new crafting menu that opened. “Engineering…” She trailed off as she looked at the various options, they all required a decent amount of parts to assemble. ‘I have most of these, I can probably find the rest at an electronics store.’ She looked down at where the salvage box was located on her other crafting menu and frowned as she saw two boxes, ‘Examine Part and Salvage components.’ She smiled as she realized her new engineering skill would come in rather useful. “Thanks, this should help me put together a better board.”
“No problem, you should be able to find plenty of parts on the various gang members, no idea where they’re getting their boards but it’s useful. If you’re looking for a real challenge, you can find Rune over by the hospital, fair warning she cheats.”
“I might have to try that later.” Taylor wanted some backup before she challenged Rune to any type of match or challenge. She smiled as she headed back toward where she’d left several tech based boards to see if she could salvage them for parts or at least designs. She had a feeling she’d be spending a bit of time in this particular dungeon farming supplies to make hoverboards. Sadly though not unexpectedly, the temporary boards didn’t give her any supplies though they did give her patterns which was almost as good.
0o0o0
Danny walked into the house then paused as he saw the glowing skateboard like object hovering over the coffee table. “Taylor, when did you get a hoverboard?”
“Earlier today,” Taylor replied with amusement.
“New dungeon?” he asked as he closed the door behind him.
“I needed something to get around, on the upside I also picked up an engineering skill that’s probably tinkertech quality.”
“So you’re an actual tinker now?” Danny asked warily.
“Ah, maybe? I have several patterns for hovercraft, including hoverboards. I’ve managed to figure out how to build the components for the components that I need to build the boards so, maybe?”
Danny took his coat off then hung it on the rack as he asked, “Have you taken anything else apart?”
Taylor winced slightly. “The old toaster oven in the basement. Sadly I don’t get all of the components I need to rebuild stuff when I salvage things.”
“I thought there were supposed to be extra parts when you take things apart and put them back together.”
“Not so much. I’m pretty sure that only works on comedy T.V. shows.”
“So, what are you going to do with your new hoverboards?”
“Sell them to people? Mostly I was thinking about showing Amy and using it to get around when I’m out being a hero.”
“Sounds fun and potentially dangerous, just make sure you’re wearing your helmet and your ring of feather fall.”
“It’s not a ring of feather fall, it’s just lets me fall without taking damage from the sudden stop at the end.”
“Close enough. Does that mean you’re going dungeon running again tonight?”
“Considering tomorrow might be my last day off until the weekend, I’d like to.”
He smiled at Taylor. “Sounds reasonable. Do you want to wait for dinner or grab something on the way to meet with your friends?”
“I’ll just grab something along the way.”
“Good, that means I can eat the rest of the leftover pizza.”
“Ah, yeah, about that, I might have eaten it already.”
“Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal!”
Taylor raised an eyebrow. “You’ve been watching Earth Aleph shows again haven’t you?”
“One of the guys at work used it, it seemed to fit,” Danny defended himself.
“In that case, I’m going to grab my stuff and collect my friends.” Taylor grabbed the hoverboard she’d cobbled together and stuck it in her pocket.
“Have fun.” He turned and headed for the kitchen to see what he could find for food.
Taylor headed out of her house then started ‘jogging’ toward town. She pulled out her cell phone and called Randal.
“Hey, what’s up?” Randal asked excitedly.
“I have a hoverboard, do you want one?” Taylor asked with amusement.
“Do bears shit in the woods?”
“I live in the city, but I’d assume so.”
“To be clear, yes I want a hoverboard.” He muttered under his breath, “Smartass.”
“I learned how to make them, I figured you’d want one.”
“You can make them?” Randal asked with poorly concealed glee.
“Magical and technological.”
“Yeah, I’ll call Kevin and you can call Amy, I was just about to close down the shop anyways.”
“Sounds good. Be there in twenty minutes.”
“Twenty?” Randal asked curious why it was going to take so long.
“I’m running there or grabbing a bus.”
“Why aren’t you riding your hoverboard?”
“Because I’d have to find somewhere to change into my costume.”
“A bike would probably help.”
“See you in twenty.” Taylor ended the call then called Amy.
Amy picked up on the third ring. “Hello?”
“Do you want a hoverboard?” Taylor asked.
“Ah, what?”
“I figured out how to make hoverboards, I figured you’d want one.”
“Right, where are you?” Amy asked with amusement.
“Heading to Randal’s shop.”
“I’ll meet you there. I’ve got some things to finish up here.”
“Excellent.” Taylor ended the call then put her phone back in her pocket as she continued running. She wasn’t a huge ran of running, but she needed the exercise.
0o0o0
Kevin looked up as Taylor walked through the door into the shop. “Let’s see it.”
“Give me a second to catch my breath,” Taylor replied as she glanced over at Amy and Randal and around the room to make sure there wasn’t anyone else there. She reached back and locked the door then pulled her hoverboard out of her pocket and dropped it.
Kevin smiled as the hoverboard hovered a foot off the ground. “Okay, I’ll admit that’s impressive, where can we learn to make them?”
“You have to beat Kid Win in a race in a dungeon to get the notes on how to make them, it unlocks engineering. I took apart a toaster and got a pattern for it. So, yeah it’s useful for more than just hoverboards.”
Kevin stared at Taylor. “Wait, you can get patterns by disassembling things?”
“It wouldn’t be worth nearly as much if you couldn’t add things to it. Don’t get me wrong hovercrafts are neat, but they’re not that useful.”
Randal cut in before Kevin could say something he really shouldn’t, “How does the dungeon work?”
“All of the gangs plus some weird magic gangs are on hoverboards running around in a ruined version of the Bay. They generally drop parts for hoverboards and occasionally books.”
“Books?” Amy asked.
Taylor stepped on the hoverboard. “Yeah, books on riding the hoverboards. Oh, and apparently Rune is also somewhere in the dungeon, but she cheats according to Kid Win.”
“Cheats how?” Kevin asked.
“He didn’t say but she works for the Empire so... proficiently and aggressively? I don’t know, I didn’t race her or even see her. I wasn’t exactly looking either.”
“How many parts are we talking about here?” Amy asked curious how long they’d be farming parts for.
“It depends, if I have to use off the shelf components, lots, if it’s loot, it’s mostly plug and play. I have enough for two hoverboards, sadly the power supplies are a less common drop.”
Kevin twitched as he resisted the urge to start ranting. ‘Hold it together, I’ll get engineering then I’ll reverse engineer the rest of my gear starting with my tools. Then we’ll see who’s laughing.’
Randal glanced at Kevin warily. “Let’s armor up while Lootz passes out the books then start farming.”
Taylor snorted then handed out copies of the hoverboard riding books as everyone put their adventuring gear on. She was just glad that she’d gotten as much practice riding as she had because she didn’t really want to stick around while the gang raced him again and again, trying to get enough skill to beat him.
Thankfully with Randal’s ability to snipe people as soon as they got in his line of sight, it was easy enough to get three temporary hoverboards for the rest of the group and start farming what they needed in order to make more boards.
By the time they made it to Kid Win, Kevin was more than a bit antsy and twitchy, wanting the book that he was hoping would solve all his tinkering problems. He asked, “So, you going to race him or are we?”
“I figured I’d just knock it out then we can leave and do it again for the next person unless you really want to do it yourself. Just keep in mind the more time we spend here the less time we have for other dungeons or farming parts.”
“Considering it’s a school night, yeah.” Amy didn’t want to be here forever and she didn’t have anything to prove about her piloting skill.
Kevin sighed. “Okay, knock it out of the ballpark.”
Taylor floated over to where Kid Win was. “Up for a race?”
Kid Win smirked. “Hell yeah, let’s do it. I’ll give you my notes if you win, you can buy me dinner if you lose.”
“Deal,” Taylor replied then pushed off the ground as Kid Win headed for the finish line.
Amy watched them fly off. “Now what?”
Randal shrugged. “We might as well farm parts while they’re gone.”
“I get the first copy, right?” Kevin asked hopefully.
Amy said, “Considering I got the alchemy book, sure.”
Randal briefly considered joking about saying he wanted the first copy then decided that Leet would probably kill him or at least go off the deep end. “Sure, no worries.”
“Thank you,” Kevin replied with relief as they headed toward a side street where they could find more gangs.
0o0o0
Kevin jumped up in the air and screamed, “Yes!” as Taylor crossed the finish line before the hero. “We win!”
Taylor was fairly sure she won on nothing but skill this time, because her crafted board sucked worse than the temporary board she’d had last time. She hadn’t really noticed just wandering around with the group, but she’d certainly noticed once it got time to race. Thankfully she’d managed to compensate for the board’s issues well enough to eek out a win though it was closer than she’d have liked.
Kid Win sighed as he handed the book over. “Damn, I was looking forward to having dinner with you.”
“Another time,” Taylor replied with amusement as she handed the book to Kevin. “Here.”
Kevin’s hands shook as he reached out and grabbed the book, half expecting it to vanish. He opened the book then stared in shocked disbelief as a crafting menu appeared and started filling in with hundreds of schematics related to hovercraft and the parts and tools to make everything. He stared in shock at the experience bar at the bottom of the menu that was quickly going through levels. He jumped in the air and shouted, “Yes! There is a god!”
Taylor raised her eyebrows. “Oh?”
“I just became a level fifteen Tinker, Tinkers are awesome!”
“Okay… wait, level fifteen?” Taylor asked in surprise.
“Ah, yeah, why what level are you?”
“Two,” Taylor replied with a glare.
“Oh, right, I’m just lucky?” Kevin asked hoping they’d buy his excuse.
Amy snorted. “You want to try that again Mr. Tinker?”
“Do secret identities mean nothing to you?”
“For one thing, New Wave, for another, you just admitted to getting fifteen levels in a skill after reading a book that got Lootz one level.”
“Okay, fine, so I’m a Tinker with a crappy specialty.”
“What is your specialty?” Amy asked curious what Leet’s specialty actually was.
“Everything but only once, sadly it’s also component based which really sucks. I’m hoping the engineering skill fixes that.”
Taylor shrugged. “As long as you don’t use it for evil, we’re good.”
Kevin blinked. “Really? Does that mean you know who we are?”
Taylor nodded her head as she replied, “Nope, just that you’re a tinker and he’s really good at shooting things and opening locks.”
Randal laughed. “In other words, plausible deniability?”
“Something like that.”
“Screw that, we’re going to have to film some of our runs,” Randal pointed out now that the cat was out of the bag.
Amy had a feeling Carol would shout at her for her next statement but she was going to make it anyways, “There’s always rebranding.”
Kevin shook his head. “But then we can’t show the world what we can really do.”
“It does keep them off the street causing problems and they have been good recently.”
Taylor frowned slightly as she looked at Amy. “As long they pretend that everything is a hologram, I guess I don’t mind opening dungeons for their shows as long as they’re not being criminals. We’ll need some different costumes though.”
Amy frowned slightly as she considering what Carol would say about her even associating with criminals. After a few moments of thought she realized that she really didn’t care, either Leet and Uber cleaned up their act or Taylor would stop opening dungeons for them. She couldn’t see either of the men willingly giving up the chance to run around blowing things up in dungeons so they’d be on their best behavior. Besides, compared to most villains they were pretty small time. “I’m going to need a different costume.”
“I’ve got some ideas. Let’s finish looting people on the way out then we can have Kevin make the boards.”
Kevin turned to look at Amy as he asked, “Why me?”
“Because I want to see what you can make with fifteen points of skill.”
“Fair enough,” Kevin replied as they headed for the entrance.
0o0o0
Kevin glared suspiciously at the two identical hoverboards that he’d just finished assembling out of the parts they’d farmed.
“I’m sure they’ll be fine.” Randal patted Kevin on the shoulder then stepped back a couple of steps and moved directly behind his friend as if to use the skinnier man as a shield.
“You’re an ass.”
“Old habits,” Randal replied unrepentantly.
Taylor smiled as she held out her hand toward Kevin. “Here, let me check to see if they’re going to explode.”
Amy snickered from behind the wrecked car she was planning on using for cover if something went wrong.
Kevin handed Taylor the first hoverboard. “Here.”
Taylor looked at the popup. “Damn, I’m going to have to steal this when I race Kid Win.”
“It’s safe?” Randal asked warily as he glanced around the deserted street.
“Define safe? It’s not going to explode if that’s what you mean, though I’m not sure I’d call it safe, it’s a high end racing hoverboard. I have a feeling you’d want some magnetic boots if you wanted to use this to full effect.”
Amy winced. “I’ve seen plenty of motorcycle accidents.”
Kevin frowned slightly. “Sadly, I’ve already made magnetic boots.”
“Do you have the pattern in your crafting menu?” Randal asked curious how extensive his collection of patterns was.
“Let me check.” Kevin grinned slightly as he opened his menu and found a decent collection of boots designed for working with the hoverboards. “I have a decent collection, I might even have the parts for a pair of boots...” he trailed off as he noticed a pattern for upgrading boots with magnetic inserts. “I’ve got a pattern to upgrade boots that looks easy enough.”
“Does it have any downsides?”
“It says it adds about five ounces total, so not really anything to write home about.”
Amy shrugged. “In other words, less than steel toed boots.”
Taylor pulled her shoes that added +1 cuteness out of her pocket and handed them to Kevin. “See if you can upgrade these, I want to see if your upgrade damages the cuteness quality before I risk something important.”
Kevin looked at the red shoes suspiciously. “They have a cute quality?”
“That’s what my popup says. Either way, I’m planning on feeding them to my magical salvage menu, I just want to see how well they upgrade first and win everyone else some books.”
Kevin looked over at Amy. “Does the car have speakers?”
Amy looked in the window. “They’re blown.”
“So, that’s a yes,” Kevin replied as he pulled his multitool out of his pocket and walked over to the car to work on stealing the speakers for the magnets.
Taylor picked up the second board and looked at the popup. “Looks identical.”
“I’d kiss you but you might shoot me,” Kevin replied as he managed to get the speaker box open and the magnet out. He tossed the magnets and the shoes into the ingredients section then hit accept. He blinked as he blurred through the creation process. He looked at the resulting shoes, they didn’t look different but that wasn’t surprising as he remembered pulling the shoes apart, carving out a section of each shoe them carefully sticking slices of the magnets in the shoes then gluing everything back together or at least he knew that’s how he would have done it if he didn’t have the menu cheat and didn’t want to play with electromagnets. “That’s going to take some getting used to.” He handed Taylor the shoes.
Taylor looked at the popup for the shoes. “They’re still cute and they give a +10 boost to staying on a hoverboard with the proper magnetic panels built in.” She swapped the new shoes for her boots then stuck her boots in her pocket. “This is going to rock.”
Randal said, “I’m looking forward to picking up the engineering skill.”
“Same,” Amy agreed.
Taylor grinned as she stepped on the hoverboard and her feet locked in place like they were supposed to. “I’ll be back in a bit with Amy’s book, see what you can salvage.”
“Sounds good.” Kevin grinned as he looked at the car as Taylor flew off to challenge Kid Win. “Anyone want to help me rip apart a car?”
“You’re going to toss everything in your salvage box, aren’t you?” Amy asked amused about Kevin’s enthusiasm.
“Hell yeah, I want more patterns.”
Randal sighed as he walked over to check the trunk of the car for a tire iron. “Do you remember that old salvage yard at the docks?”
“You mean the one that’s for sale and has been closed for years?” Kevin asked absently as he started taking the other speaker apart.
“That would be the one. I’m fairly sure that we’ll be able to toss together working cars or boats from scrap with the right equipment and our new menus. Even if we could open a dungeon and make the cars, we’d never be able to get them out of a standard door.” Randal frowned slightly as he looked at the stripped out trunk.
“Shrink ray?” Amy asked with amusement.
“One of the first things I burned off my tech tree,” Kevin admitted.
“That sucks.”
“Pretty much the story of my life until I met Lootz.”
Randal cut in before Kevin got too depressed, “Either way, we should be able to get the place from the city for a song and dance. That would give us water and street access and a couple doors we can use for Lootz’s dungeons without anyone wondering why lights are on in a closed shop.”
“Wouldn’t we need to use actual names?” Amy asked curious what his plan was.
“Not if we send you or Lootz to the PRT to register as an independant. Once you have a cape identification you could use it to buy the property.”
“At which point we’ll have access to all of the salvage in the yard?” Kevin asked with amusement.
“Exactly, we can turn the scrap into cars and boats then sell them for enough money to buy one of the docks which we can use to hold some of the boats we’re going to make.”
Amy shook her head. “We’d still need to deal with the ships blocking the harbor.”
Kevin tossed the speaker into his salvage box and hit accept. He smiled as he added a speaker pattern to the list of things he could make. “I can probably rig up something to filter the water and collect the fuel left in the bottom of the tanks then we can just cut them up for scrap.”
“Wouldn’t that be stealing?”
“Only if we don’t pay for the salvage rights,” Randal pointed out.
Amy frowned slightly as she considered Randal’s idea, it would give them a place to tinker and it would help clean up the bay which would bring in jobs but it also sounded like a decent amount of work. Between school, healing at the hospitals, sleeping and running dungeons she wasn’t sure how much extra time she was going to have, then again, nothing said Taylor couldn’t get an extra book so they could have someone else working on that aspect of their plans while they worked on other projects. “It would be nice to have a place we can work on larger projects.”
“Hell yeah,” Kevin agreed as he continued working on taking the car apart for patterns while they waited for Lootz to get back.
