Mist of Shadows
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Mist's Jumps Part 45
🕑 Added 2018-03-19 22:57:49 +0000 UTC Mist walked over to the closest unconscious death eater of the group of unconscious idiots. “Ugly bunch.” He focused on the death eater and used his darklighter power to check to see if he would be of benefit to society if he was allowed to go free, he wasn’t surprised in the least to find out that he wouldn’t be useful. He checked the man’s mental stats with upgrade and sighed when he realized it was really just the man’s greed and upbringing that had led him to be a complete prick. “If he hadn’t been raised by a bunch of blood purists he might not have turned into such a bastard or maybe if he’d had more empathy.”Harry snorted. “Probably a lack of empathy of maybe he was just fucked up in the head.”
Mist reached down and touched the death eater on the shoulder then checked his genetics for negative recessive traits with biokinesis. “Could be worse.” He tweaked the ten he found then glanced at the faded dark mark on the man’s arm and dispelled it. “No point in having them bonded to the idiot.”
“Yeah, I wouldn’t either.”
Mist cast his new house elf spell on the man and shivered slightly as the man’s form twisted and shrunk into the rather ugly form of a house elf. “Yeah, that’s a creepy spell.”
Hermione scowled as she looked at the new house elf. “This can’t end well.”
“Probably not but it should be interesting.” Mist pulled the Loliblade out of his inventory then scanned it. He brought up the pattern on his HUD then looked it over. “Let’s see, tweak the age to eighteen and tweak it so it remains a bracelet rather than changing to a g-string and I’ve got a bracelet that should turn the idiots into useful house elves.” He made the tweaks then channeled mana into constructing his new bracelet.
Harry sighed as he looked around at the various unconscious death eaters. “It’s a good thing we have mental shields, I can’t see the ministry or Dumbledore taking us kidnapping ‘upstanding’ purebloods well.”
Puck snorted. “I’m fairly sure that would depend on how much money we bribed them with and our reasons for Dumbledore. Then again, it would depend on how insane the local Dumbledore is.”
Mist smiled as he watched the new bracelet finish forming. “Cold but true. Then again the local Dumbledore in the story this world is supposed to be based off isn’t insane or evil, so he’d probably understand especially if we admitted that we’re not children.” He checked to make sure he’d created the bracelet correctly with his identification power then slipped the bracelet on the house elf and watched as he changed into an attractive human sized busty eighteen year old elf girl with pointy ears. “That’ll work.”
Mione shook her head. “It’s a good thing they’re death eaters.”
He teleported the bracelet off her wrist and back to his hand. “I wouldn’t be doing this if they weren’t. Just think of it as an alternate prison sentence, not really that hard considering all of the crap they’re guilty of.”
“Does that mean we can’t turn Fudge into a house elf,” Eris asked hoping they could turn him into an elf as her version had been particularly creepy trying to set her up with the ‘right’ type of people.
“I’m fairly sure that falls under public service personally considering he was perfectly willing to send innocent people to Azkaban so he could be seen as doing something.” Mist studied the next death eater then turned him into a house elf. “We should drain his power, he’s a moron and I’d rather not spread his genetics around.” He moved to the next death eater and started looking at his stats and genetics.
Hermione frowned slightly. “We can use him to test your idea for boosting skills.”
Puck shook her head. “You’re going to need to put a few hundred dollars in the mad science jar when we get back.”
“Probably worth it,” Mist replied as he finished fixing his current target’s genetics. He removed the man’s dark mark then turned him into a house elf. He put the new bracelet on him which turned him into an attractive busty elf girl. “At least they look better this way.”
Harry shook his head. “Eh, they’re still male as far as I’m concerned.”
“True enough,” Mist agreed as he moved to the next death eater. “It would go faster if you helped sort them.”
Puck laughed. “How are we sorting them?”
“The idiots go in the pile we’re going to kill to grab cosmic skills after getting them to transfer their magic and the others get turned into female elves.”
“So all of them?”
Mist frowned slightly. “No, I mean intelligence, not just idiotic upbringing.”
“Right, just most of them then,” Puck replied with amusement as she headed toward the collection of death eaters to help sort them.
“Probably.” He didn’t really have a problem with most of the death eaters ending up dead, he could always grab dark wizards from other worlds to mix in to get more genetic diversity.
0o0o0
Mist looked up from glancing through the various game guides and graphic novels that were spread out on the gazebo table as his daughter orbed in. “What’s up?”
Pandora glanced over at the magical school that Hermione had told her about then at her father. “I wanted to try to talk you out of a copy of your libromancy skill.”
“Let’s hear your pitch,” Mist replied with amusement.
“You’re going to need to give someone the ability to test if we char each other’s books because just lending it to someone wouldn’t be enough of a test. I’m trustworthy and your first born and probably the first person that has flat out asked, right? Besides, if you give the ability to Hermione, we’ll probably only see her for holidays or maybe weekends. So can I have a copy?”
“As long as you promise to be careful about which books you pull things out of.” Mist pulled a skill book out of his inventory and handed it to her.
Pandora stared at the book in surprise for a second then gleefully took it and opened it before her father could change his mind. She squealed in delight as knowledge flowed into her mind on how to jump into books and pull things out of them. She jumped forward and pulled him into an enthusiastic hug. “Love you Daddy!”
Mist laughed as he returned the hug. “I know, so where are you going first?”
Pandora gave him one last squeeze then let go. “I was thinking about grabbing something from one of the porn without plot stories, any suggestions?”
Mist reached down and grabbed one of the mangas he’d picked up from the bookstore. “Here, the main character is an ass that uses a magical ring to change into a girl so he can sneak into the girls shower. He also has some magic x-ray vision shades that let him see through clothes if he wants.” He handed the manga to Pandora.
Pandora flipped through the manga. “Huh, no lesson learned or character growth, just look at the naked girls we can draw, yeah, let’s see if this works.” She reached into the manga and pulled the ring out which slightly charred the manga. “Anything?”
Mist sighed as he looked at the slightly charred book. “Yeah, it looks charred.”
“Rats, I was hoping it wouldn’t.” She reached in and grabbed the sunglasses and pulled them out which charred the book the rest of the way. “At least the sunglasses look neat.” She duplicated the ring and sunglasses then set the originals on the table and put the duplicates in her inventory. “You picked up the book in Surrey, right?”
“That’s where I grabbed all of them, why?” Mist tossed her an image of the bookstore with telepathy.
Pandora grinned as she glanced down and saw the sexy magic shop mini adventure book. “Because I’m going to jump to an alternate dimension and see if it’s charred. Maybe pick up an alternate Harry and Hermione while I’m at it if I can find a pair that want to come on an adventure.”
“If you steal the boy or girl that lived, kill Voldemort so you don’t doom the world.” Mist glanced over at where Harry and Eris were ‘stealing’ magic from the house elf death eaters by ordering them to give the other female elves their magic with a generous donation glove. He didn’t really blame Hermione for heading back to Diagon Alley to do some retail therapy at the bookstore.
“That’s the plan,” Pandora agreed.
“Good to know.” Mist turned and stuck his tongue out at Pandora.
“I’ll be back in a bit.” Pandora opened a door to the alley behind the bookstore in a world with a Girl That Lived and a Hermione that would want to leave with her then stepped through the door.
Mist frowned slightly as he watched the door close. “I should probably start designing the town if we’re going to get a bunch of students.”
Pandora glanced up at the dark sky then turned invisible and insubstantial then walked through the wall into the bookstore. She glanced around the empty store then phased back in as she headed for the adult section of the bookstore. She quickly looked through the books and smiled as she found a perfectly uncharred copy of the manga she’d charred pulling the ring and sunglasses out of. She quickly checked the book to make sure it was the same. “This should make Dad happy.”
She picked up the graphic novel with a sexy looking female knight in rather impractical sexy magical armor on the cover. “Aurora and the Knights of the Round Table, this could be interesting.” She quickly looked through the book, “Nice intro to Aurora and Merlin then a nice two year training timeskip then a couple quests where she’s hunting monsters and then a knighting ceremony where she’s fucking the other female knights.” She knew it was basically porn with a paper thin plot but Aurora had looked pretty impressive killing the monsters and she didn’t get fucked by them like a number of hentai so she could probably use it for training Hermione and Harry’s alternate.
Pandora duplicated the graphic novel then put the original in her inventory and put the copy on the shelf. She headed over to the game section of the shop and looked through the collection until she found a copy of the sexy magic item shop adventure module. She copied it then put the copy back on the shelf. She dark orbed to the Dursley house.
Aerial glared at her cousin. “Stay the hell away from me Dudley.”
Dudley snorted. “Make me bitch.”
Pandora scowled as she stepped into the living room and saw Vernon sitting in his chair ignoring his son harassing his niece with an umbrella. She used telepathy to get a basic idea of life at the Dursleys, it wasn’t good and probably wouldn’t improve as Dudley got older. ‘At least Aerial is a cute redhead.’ She dropped her invisibility as she said, “Excuse me, my name is Pandora o’Shadows. I’m Aerial’s new guardian angel, the last one was dropped into the Pit for gross incompetence.”
Vernon jumped up, “See here, I won’t have this freakishness in my house.”
Pandora summoned her flaming sword and conjured an illusion of black angel wings on her back. “You seem to be under the delusion that I give a fuck what you want.”
Dudley shrieked, dropped the umbrella and ran for the stairs like the hounds of hell or an avenging angel was after him, demonstrating more intelligence than his father.
Vernon stared in horror at the pissed off looking woman with the flaming sword and angel wings. “You can’t be here, wards…” he trailed off warily as she was standing there despite the protections the headmaster had claimed to put up.
“Obviously I can.” Pandora looked at Aerial. “Ready to leave?”
Aerial weighed her options, she could stay with her crazy family that hated her or go with a flaming sword wielding angel that was supposedly her new guardian angel. It was perhaps a bit telling that she’d rather leave with a perfect stranger than stay with her family. “Let’s go.”
Vernon sputtered, “You can’t just take her.”
“You’re going stop me?” Pandora asked with dark amusement.
“They’ll find her.”
“They’re welcome to try, let’s go.”
“We provided her clothes, you can’t just take them.”
Pandora stared at Vernon. “That’s your argument? You gave her second hand clothes and damn near starved her at points and you think you’re entitled to lord it over her?” She conjured a fifty pound note then cursed it to make sure that people thought it was counterfeit and pressed charges on anyone that tried to spend it as long as their name was Dursley. She also cursed it to keep showing back up like a bad penny. She dropped the note on the ground. “That should cover it. If you take a swing at Aerial as she’s leaving I will cut your arm off.”
Vernon eyed the fifty warily as he backed away from the obviously insane guardian angel.
Aerial glared at her aunt’s idiot husband then ran over to her guardian angel. “Let’s go.”
Pandora opened a door close to Hermione. “Go ahead.”
Aerial warily stepped through the door in thin air onto a sidewalk in front of an average looking house.
Pandora dropped the illusion of wings then dismissed her sword and stepped through the portal.
Aerial watched the door close warily. “Where are we?”
“Recruiting a witch for our adventure.” Pandora reached out with her telepathy and checked the people in the house. ‘Great, she’s in the foster system, parents died in a car wreck, the foster parents just care about a check, no real abuse just a whole lot of don’t give a damn about any of the six foster children they have.’ She sent a mental message to this world’s Hermione, ‘Psst, do you want to go on an adventure?’
Hermione twitched as she heard a voice in her head asking about adventure. ‘What?’
‘Do you want to go on an adventure?’ Pandora asked with amusement.
‘Great, I’m losing it and talking to myself.’
‘Nope, my name is Pandora, I’m a guardian angel of a sort, I’m here to spring you.’
‘Really?’ Hermione asked hopefully as she glanced around the small room she was in with Delores, one of the other foster children that was a bit of a thief and bitch.
‘Really really, I can teleport you out of your room if you grab your stuff.’
‘I don’t have that much stuff, most of it was put in storage.’ Hermione got off her bunk bed and grabbed her trunk which had all of the books and clothes she’d been allowed to take that people hadn’t stolen. ‘I have it.’
Pandora dark orbed Hermione and her trunk to the sidewalk with them. “Welcome to your new life of adventure.”
Aerial stared at Hermione. “That’s neat, can you teach me?”
Hermione shook her head. “That wasn’t me.”
Pandora gestured and cast a muggle repelling ward over the three of them. “One of my magical talents is called orbing, it basically lets me teleport people.”
“Now what? I can’t see my foster parents just letting me leave, they like the money my trust fund and the state pays them too much to let me leave.”
“We’re not going to ask them, we’re going to wander off and have an adventure, if you’re up for learning to be a magic using knight.” Pandora scanned the house with her x-ray vision then looked at the study where they kept all of the bank information.
“Magic is real?” Hermione asked warily as she thought about the various strange things that had been happening since the crash.
“Yep, you both have a decent amount of magic.” Pandora smiled as she found one of the statements from the bank that handed Hermione’s trust fund. She stuck her hand behind her then dark orbed the statement to her hand then stuck it in her inventory.
Aerial shook her head. “Don’t we need supplies for an adventure? I barely even own the clothes I’m wearing, hell you pretty much paid Vernon for them.”
“Money isn’t really a problem if you’re a witch or at least it’s not a problem if you’re not an idiot and I’m not.”
“What do you mean?” Hermione asked hoping there was a way to conjure money or something to tide her over under she could get access to her trust fund at eighteen.
“One of the most basic spells a witch or wizard learns is repairo which repairs things. That lets you grab old broken things from second hand stores or pawn shops and repair them with magic then sell them, not exactly hard and it pays quite well.”
Aerial said, “Just about anywhere is better than staying with my Aunt and Uncle.”
“I’d rather not stay with my foster parents.” Hermione scowled as she thought about her annoying new family of broken children and disconnected adults.
“In that case, let’s have an adventure.” She dark orbed the three of them back to the bookstore in Surrey. “Don’t worry, they’re closed for the night.”
Aerial twitched as she found herself in the local bookstore. “I’ve been here, I got yelled at once about how it wasn’t a library when I ducked in here to avoid my cousin.”
Hermione had to resist the urge to complain about them trespassing. “Now what?”
Pandora glanced between the two girls. “That depends on what you want.”
“What do you mean?” Aerial asked suspiciously.
“Do you want to go to an old fashioned magic school with a couple bad teachers or do you want to learn to be a magical knight or how to teleport from place to place with little more than a thought? You’re already witches, I could give you clothes and supplies and set you up with a room at a hotel for a couple of weeks with all expenses paid, you’d get a letter inviting you to a magical boarding school and I’d wish you luck and leave or you can come with me and I’ll teach you things you can’t imagine.”
“Nothing is free, what do you get out of this?” Aerial asked.
“I wouldn’t say nothing, I’ll give you supplies and set you up with a hotel for free because no one should have to live with idiots, especially not two cute intelligent witches. On the other hand, if you want to learn how to be a magical knight I can take you to a place where you can learn to defend yourself and hunt monsters, a rather profitable profession. I’ll also toss in a free healing spell and rings of nourishment, you’d never have to worry about food again.”
“I’d never be hungry again?” Aerial asked a bit desperately.
“Nope, I’ll even toss in a magical feast that will boost your defenses before you go on your adventure.”
“This sounds too good to be true, what’s the catch?” Hermione asked suspiciously.
Pandora smiled at Hermione. “Three things, a year of service after your knight training is done, your permission to clone you and your word that you’ll teach a year at my father’s magic school to share your knowledge.”
“You want to clone us? Is that even possible?” Aerial asked in disbelief.
“Lots of things are possible with magic though that’s not something you’ll find at Hogwarts which is the free option.”
“A year of service and a year teaching?” Hermione asked warily.
“You get an adventure or two in strange lands and I get to learn your skills when you get back.”
Aerial glanced at Hermione. “What do you think?”
Hermione studied Pandora’s face. “What type of service would you expect for the year?”
Pandora shrugged. “Anything that doesn’t injure you.”
“I’d rather not be ordered to hurt anyone else either and I want access to a library and a generous stipend for living expenses and books.” Hermione was rather tired of not having new things to read.
“Would I get paid a fair wage for being a servant?” Aerial asked thinking about how she’d been an unpaid servant her whole life, one more year wouldn’t be so bad.
“As I said, money means very little to me, I don’t mind paying you a generous salary.” Pandora held out her hand toward Aerial. “Deal?”
Aerial had a feeling she was making a mistake but she really didn’t want to go back to the Dursleys again and being a knight sounded awesome. She reached out and shook Pandora’s hand. “Deal.”
“Is this like a faerie deal where we can’t back out?” Hermione asked curious what she was signing up for.
Pandora shook her head. “I’m not fey, my deals are just deals though I am a powerful witch so breaking a deal without a good reason isn’t a good idea.” She held out her hand. “Deal?”
“Deal.” Hermione shook Pandora’s hand.
“Excellent, let’s get you outfitted.” Pandora opened her building menu and looked through it until she found a decent magical trunk then started building two of them.
Hermione stared as a motes of light flew out of Pandora’s fingers and quickly formed two trunks. “How long will they last?”
“They’re permanent, they’re also larger on the inside so you can stick the clothes I create inside.”
“You were serious about clothes and supplies weren’t you?” Aerial asked hopefully.
“Of course.” Pandora snapped her fingers and conjured each of the girls several sets of sturdy clothes. “That should help.”
Hermione stared at the clothes. “Just like that?”
“Just like that.” Pandora smiled as she took her copy of her magical book her father had picked up in the pokegirl world out of her inventory and duplicated it twice. She put her copy back in her inventory then handed the girls each a copy. “These should allow you to learn magic and most mundane studies to a reasonable degree, can I trust you not to lose them?”
Hermione hugged the book to her chest. “I’ll keep it safe.”
Aerial nodded. “Same.”
“Learn what you can, while you can, they’re on loan during your stay with the knights.” Pandora was planning on giving them the magical training books but she wanted Hermione and Aerial to have a reason to be studious rather than lazy like a certain redhead. “Try not to act surprised when I tell them you’re from noble families.” She cast a quick protection from disease on both girls then twisted it so that it would be permanent. She pulled Aurora and the Knights of the Round Table out of her inventory then set the book on the ground and pulled everyone and their luggage into it.
Aerial blinked as she found herself on the grounds of a castle looking at several cute female knights in rune etched armor and a man in his thirties wearing brown robes that looked like a scholar or a monk that was standing next to a girl about her age or maybe a year older. She gulped as the group of people turned and looked at them. “Ah, hi.”
Merlin raised his eyebrows. “I’d say welcome to Camelot but people don’t usually appear out of thin air so I’m going to have to ask your names.”
Pandora piped up, “Pandora o’Shadows witch of legend and guardian angel. My charges, Lady Aerial Potter and Lady Hermione Granger. We’re here to talk to you about enrolling them in knight school.”
Merlin shook his head. “We normally only take nobles, do you have any proof that they’re nobles?”
“My word, my honor, my sword and my gold,” Pandora replied with amusement.
“Excellent, I’m sure that we can get everything sorted. I was just about to introduce young Aurora to the trainers, the girls can come with me then we’ll discuss fees and living arrangements.”
“Of course.” Pandora doubted it would take more than a couple of hours to sort things out with the girls’ enrollment, remove Aerial’s scars and the fragment of Voldemort and throw the girls a feast with a copy of the gryphon from Morgana’s world then she’d jump out of the book and jump back in to pick them up toward the end of the book.
0o0o0
Mist glanced down at the crystal beach town he’d just finished creating near the school. He’d mixed some traits from Hogsmeade with some traits from several college towns and tourist trap beach towns he’d scanned over the last couple of years and come up with a magical town that should give the students a nice safe place to spend time and money when they weren’t studying for their various classes. “Mission accomplished.”
Hermione pulled her attention off the rather empty crystal town that she knew would fill up rather quickly with minions. “Have you figured out how to recruit my alternate?”
“Hogwarts doesn’t send out their letters until July, I’m just going to show up before that and offer her a place in my school. We have fantastic teachers which is something Hogwarts can’t claim and we’re on a tropical island. I can also offer her a portkey that will take her back and forth from school which means her parents will still get to see her every day unlike Hogwarts. Not to mention we’ll be offering normal classes in addition to magical ones, something they should appreciate.”
Hermione smiled as she thought about how much her parents had complained about the lack of normal classes at Hogwarts. The only reason they’d agreed to let her go to Hogwarts was they hadn’t found a better alternative for her to learn magic. “That could work and I can’t see them turning around and sending her to Hogwarts after they sign the paperwork especially since Hogwarts is a boarding school that doesn’t teach normal subjects even though it would have helped.”
“Exactly.”
“If we’re going to have the students commute via portkey, we might as well see about recruiting people from a number of worlds.”
Mist grinned as he thought about his daughter. “I think Pandora is already working on recruiting one of your alternates.”
“It can’t be that much worse than your crazy plan to create a magical empire of female house elves.”
“Eh, we’ll see. Besides, I’m using the modified Loliblade so they’re cute female elves, not really the same.”
Hermione shook her head. “Hopefully everything goes according to plan and we get an interesting world out of it rather than a nightmarish hell dimension.”
“We can hope.” Mist gestured at his clothes and changed them into slacks and a nice shirt. “Ready to recruit your alternate?”
Hermione glanced down at her shorts, t-shirt and tennis shoes then cast an illusion over herself to make it look like she was wearing professional clothes. “Do you have the pamphlets?”
Mist pulled a pamphlet out of his inventory. “Yes.”
“In that case, let’s go. We should be able to catch them before they leave for work.” She cast a weak S.E.P. field over the two of them to keep people from noticing their arrival then orbed Mist and herself to her alternate’s front porch. She glanced around to make sure no one had noticed their arrival then reached out and rang the doorbell.
“Hopefully.” Mist smiled as the door was opened by a casually dressed man in his mid to late thirties.
Mr. Granger glanced at the two young adults dressed in suits. “Can I help you?”
“We’re with the Shadow School of Magic.”
“Right, we don’t give donations to quacks.”
Hermione smiled as she held her hand out and conjured a ball of black fire. “We’re not quacks and we’re not looking for donations.”
Mr. Granger blinked then stared at the glowing ball of black fire that shouldn’t exist. He wasn’t sure how the hell you’d even fake black flames outside of a movie. “Ah… then what do you want?”
“We run a school for gifted children, both in intelligence and magic and would like to offer your daughter a place where she can learn magic.” She let her ball of fire vanish.
Mist smiled as he held out the pamphlet. “This might help.”
“Not aliens then?” Mr. Granger sighed as he realized he owed his wife twenty pounds because of a bet they’d made about the strange things that happened around their daughter.
“She’s a magic user.”
“How? My wife and I are normal.”
“You’ve never been normal dear, might as well invite them in,” Mrs. Granger called out from the living room.
Hermione smiled as her dad’s alternate let them into the house and she saw the rows of bookshelves filled with books. “Thank you.”
Mrs. Granger frowned slightly as she spotted Hermione. “You look a lot like my daughter.”
The younger Hermione studied the new person, same bushy hair, same eyes and general face, it was a bit unnerving really though the woman was also way prettier than she’d ever be. “She’s way too pretty to look like me.”
Hermione said, “I don’t know, I bet you’ll be a knockout when you grow up.”
“What was this I heard about a magic school and how much will it cost?” Mrs. Granger asked suspiciously.
“Next to nothing, we provide free lunch, books, journals and a reasonable amount of potions ingredients.”
“Reasonable amount?” Mr. Granger asked.
“As in enough to get through the basic lessons, if they want to do more than the basics we sell additional supplies at the shop in town.”
“Free of charge? What’s the catch?”
“No catch, we believe that magic should be free to everyone, we can also use magic to duplicate the books and most of the supplies so we’re not exactly out any money for the non magical supplies. We grow most of the potion ingredients and food at the school. The teachers and staff are paid out of a trust which leaves us very little to worry about financially.”
The local Hermione asked, “Do you have proof that magic is real?”
Hermione gestured and conjured a long stemmed glowing red rose. “How about that?”
“Neat.”
Mrs. Granger asked, “I don’t suppose we could visit the school before we decide?”
“Of course.” Hermione gestured and orbed the group to the school. “Normally I’d use a portkey to get here but this is easier.”
Mrs. Granger stared at the large castle then looked over at the beach. “Where are we, it’s evening and warmer than it should be in England.”
Mist shrugged. “That’s because we’re not in England. We’re basically a bit south of Hawaii.”
“Instantly?” Mr. Granger asked with disbelief.
“Yeah, basically. Teleportation is one of the skills they teach here.”
“You have parents day, right?” Mr. Granger asked hopefully.
Hermione laughed as she realized that her alternate’s parents were seriously considering signing her alternate up. “Yes, we have days that parents can come visit. We also have choir and various other events that you’ll probably want to come see.”
“Let me see the pamphlet.” Mrs. Granger held out her hand. “Then we can talk to some of the teachers.”
0o0o0
Hermione blinked as Pandora appeared in the middle of her room. “Here to collect us?”
“Are you ready to go?” Pandora asked hopefully as she studied the attractive fourteen year old girl in front of her. While she wasn’t a muscle bound freak, she was certainly more athletic looking than their Hermione had been at fourteen.
Hermione looked down her nose at Pandora. “Did know this place didn’t have showers before we upgraded things? Or that mucking out stalls is character building? I like killing monsters as much as the next magic knight but I want time to read, save us, please?”
“Okay, it wasn’t all bad was it?” Pandora asked.
“The first spell I learned was a cleaning spell, the next was a bubble head charm for dealing with cities, they stink, a lot. They throw shit in the streets in places, I’m glad Camelot isn’t that bad but Paris is horrible!”
“I can see where that would be a problem, why were you in Paris? It’s full of French people,” Pandora teased.
“We were monster hunting, we got paid well for that particular mission.”
Aerial scowled as she walked into the room. “Do you know bad the water has to be to make someone sick even after you boil it?”
Pandora twitched. “Can’t say I do.”
“No idea, we used conjured water.” Aerial stuck out her tongue at Pandora.
“Yeah, I wouldn’t trust the water there, it was brown,” Hermione complained.
Pandora made a mental note to get everyone she sent to this world a never ending flask of water or lemonade. “In that case, do you need to say goodbye to anyone before you leave?”
“Not really, most of the girls are in Scotland on a monster hunt for a few weeks. I’m sort of annoyed at Merlin because he was being an ass.”
“Oh?”
Aerial snickered. “He locked the library and left a note that she spent too much time there and that she should spend some time outside.”
Pandora raised her eyebrows. “I’m surprised you didn’t set him on fire.”
“He left with Aurora and the rest of the girls or I would have,” Hermione complained.
Pandora was fairly sure that was exaggerating a little, probably, maybe. “Don’t worry, there are plenty of books where we’re going.”
“We can come back and set him on fire at some point, right?” Hermione asked hopefully.
“Locking the door to the library is worth hurting him?”
“No but it's worth setting his beard on fire, he’s rather fireproof for some reason he won’t share, which is another annoying thing.”
Pandora shrugged. “He’s probably part demon or dragon or something.”
“He’s something,” Hermione muttered.
“Either way, I’m ready to grab a nice long shower and get a burger,” Aerial stated firmly.
“We can do that,” Pandora agreed.
“Good, how much stuff can we take with us?” Hermione asked.
“Do, have any magic items from this world?”
“No, all of good stuff went to the senior knights or Merlin.”
Pandora smiled slightly as she thought about the group’s Merlins, she couldn’t see them stealing magic items from a bunch of cute girls unless they were dangerous. “Now I see why you want to set him on fire so much.”
“Pretty much,” Hermione agreed.
“Keep your notes and anything sentimental, I’ll replace the rest of the stuff that came from here once we get out of here.”
“In that case, we’ll leave it for one of the other girls.” Aerial walked over and started sorting through her stuff. She had no problem tossing most of her clothes as they were either homespun crap or hand me downs that didn’t quite fit as well as she’d like.
Hermione quickly started sorting her notes, books and clothes, mostly by tossing her clothes on the bed. She only had one even halfway nice dress that Pandora hadn’t conjured for her and she was find with leaving it for one of the other girls. She liked the other knights well enough but the world was more than a bit behind the times.
Pandora smiled as she glanced at Aerial’s behind. ‘I’m going to have to drag them into a manga with a nice hot shower and soap, lots of soap.’ She was rather relieved that her protection from disease ward was still up on both of the girls. ‘At least they’re alive if a bit snarky.’ She was rather impressed that it only took five minutes for the girls to be ready to leave. She pulled everyone and their trunks out of the book. She smiled as she looked at the graphic novel sitting on the desk that looked char free. Apparently the odd piece of paper and non magical bracelet wasn’t enough to even singe the book which was nice to know. She reached down and picked up the book and stuck it in her inventory. “Welcome back.”
Hermione glanced around the bookstore. “Where are we going?”
“To a manga with a shower then we’re going to get Aerial a burger before she goes crazy.”
“Too late, she’s already crazy.”
Aerial snorted as she walked over to the adult section with Pandora. “It’s not like you wouldn’t have jumped that ogre if you’d been there.”
“I wouldn’t have done it with a knife.”
“I didn’t jump him with a knife, I had a sword when I started that fight.”
“What happened?” Pandora asked.
“Bastard had an enchanted sword breaking cup, I mean seriously, who does that?” Aerial asked with a bit of annoyance as she remembered the fight.
“Anyone that doesn’t want their nuts chopped on?”
“Ogres aren’t supposed to be that smart,” Aerial complained.
Pandora glanced between Aerial and Hermione. “So where did the dagger part of that come from?”
“He grabbed me after I hit him in the nuts with my sword and lifted me up, so I jabbed the broken sword into his eye.”
“Sounds fair.” Pandora smiled found a manga about a pervert spying on a high school Volleyball team in the shower and the girls chasing him down to exact painful and bloody revenge. She flipped to a page that showed the last girl leaving the shower room. She flipped through a couple more pages then flipped back once she realized it was after school and no one else would be using the showers for the rest of the day. She pulled the group into the shower room when quickly silenced and locked the entrance as she didn’t want anyone interrupting. “We should have at least twenty minutes to get you clean or at least cleaner.”
“Shower!” Aerial gleefully charged toward the showers.
Hermione shook her head. “Where are we?”
“In a random shower room in a town that probably doesn’t exist.” Pandora smiled as she watched the two cute girls strip out of their clothes and get under the hot water. It wasn’t that they were particularly dirty as cleaning spells worked wonders and they’d been able to take baths, short showers and dips in various rivers now and then but that wasn’t quite the same as having all the hot water you could want.
Hermione tilted her head as she noticed Pandora was watching them the same way as a number of her fellow knights did. “No free shows, get over here and get my back.”
Pandora briefly considered saying something about the girls owing her a year of service but decided to hell with it and walked over to wash Hermione’s back as that was basically what she wanted to do anyways. She conjured a nice soft wash rag and some strawberry scented soap then got to work washing Hermione’s back.
Aerial frowned slightly as she noticed the water wasn’t soaking into Pandora clothes. “Did you enchant your clothes to repel water?”
“Doesn’t everyone?” Pandora asked with amusement.
“If I’d known it was possible, I would have done it.”
“It would have made a few of our missions a lot better. I’m just glad our armor can’t rust because it’s conjured,” Hermione complained as she worked on washing her arms while Pandora washed her back.
Pandora stopped her hand as she reached the top of Hermione’s cute bottom with her washrag. “Don’t worry, enchanting is on the list of things we’ll be teaching you.”
“Are you going to wash my back next?” Aerial asked hopefully.
“Sure, I’m done with Hermione’s back.” Pandora replied as she moved over to start washing Aerial’s back.
Hermione worked on washing the rest of herself as she watched Pandora carefully wash Aerial’s back. ‘Spending a year with her might not be so bad.’
Comments
Mist of Shadows
They charred the crappy book (the one with the shades and ring) to test things because it didn't matter. There was nothing of value in it and they wanted to run some tests. For the most part, yeah, they'll be scanning things. The book with the cat talisman, they wanted to see if duplicating things helped. I.e. they were running tests. But yeah, they can scan things and leave without charring things and they will on important stuff.
DeerHeart
Love the story, but I have to ask.... They're builders(with unglody levels of mana) that can enter books, why are they charing them? Why not simply jump in get blueprints and jump back out then make the item?
