Mist of Shadows
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Mist's Jumps Part 26
🕑 Added 2017-10-31 08:26:28 +0000 UTC“You have goblin silver in your vault, if you want to rent the items for your lifetime, you’ll have to pay ten percent of the value.” The goblin sneered at the two children in front of him that had been stupid enough to follow him without a guardian.
Belladonna scowled at the goblin that was sneering at them from the open vault door. She felt stupid for getting separated from her mother to check her vault just because the goblins had been impatient. “Our family bought them fair and square or won them ages ago.” She wasn’t sure if that was actually the truth but she was too pissed to care. “You’re a thief.” She gestured at the goblin and blinked as the goblin stepped closer so that she hit him.
The goblin grinned. “You hit me, you’ve broken the rules, your vault will be seized to pay the fine.”
“You’re insane!” Bella shouted at the goblin as she took a step backwards. “Mom!”
Jack stared in horror as the goblin gave Bella a ‘casual’ shove which pushed her off the path and into the darkness below. He ignored the goblin’s casual and smug comment, “Oops, she tripped.” as he shouted, “Bella!”
The goblin’s sneer vanished as the boy’s shadow came alive, changed into a snarling girl made of shadow and jumped at him. “Wh-” his shout was cut off as the shadow girl managed to grab his pike and drive the spike on the end into his throat.
Jack stared in shock at the shadowy humanoid as she pushed the goblin off the ledge. “What?”
Bella shouted up from the ‘next’ landing down, “He tried to kill me!”
Jack kept his attention on the shadowy girl until she smirked at him then vanished. He pulled his attention off where the girl had been and carefully moved over to the ledge so that he could see Bella. He was relieved to find that she was standing on a ledge twenty feet down next to a dead goblin. “Anything broken?”
“No, I landed on my feet. I’m calling Mom…” she trailed off as a party of twelve goblins marched around a bend in the path toward her.
The goblins looked at the dead goblin then shouted, “Die!” as they charged her.
“Shit…” She trailed off as the twelve goblins suddenly exploded into chunky goblin salsa. She stared as she saw her mother behind the goblins, calmly walking toward her with her red hair waving in a non existent wind looking madder than she’d ever seen her. “Mom?”
Willow asked, “Where is Jack?”
“I’m up here!” Jack called out.
Bella stared at the dead goblins in shock. “How?”
“Magic,” Willow replied as she walked over and pulled her daughter into a hug. “I’m glad you’re safe.”
Jack asked, “I don’t suppose you know a spell to get up here so that we can loot the vault before they decide to steal everything?”
Willow orbed up to the ledge with Bella that Jack was standing on. “I might know a spell or two.”
Jack stared at Willow. “How? The place is supposed to be warded against apparition.”
“There are other forms of teleportation that aren’t as well known.” She smiled at Bella. “Let’s loot your vaults before they try to steal them.” She felt guilty for not just telling Mist to take care of the various vaults but she hadn’t thought the goblins would be quite this stupid.
Bella shivered as she looked down over the edge. “How are we going to get out of here?”
“I’ll teleport us back to Mist’s base once we’re done looting the vault.”
“Why would the goblin push me off the ledge?” Bella asked shakily.
Willow let go of Bella with her left hand as she started them moving toward the open vault. “No idea but I’m going to find out.” She reached out with her telepathy to try to figure out what was wrong with the goblins.
Jack nervously glanced back and forth down the path. “There was a shadowy girl here earlier. She pushed the goblin off the ledge before he could get me.”
“A shadowy girl?” Bella asked with a note of disbelief.
“I know it sounds crazy,” Jack admitted.
Willow shivered as she felt the goblin’s greed and cruelty and realized just how stupid the wizarding world was for allowing them near their money. “We’ll talk about it later.” She led the way into the trust vault. She had an idea what the shadowy girl might have been given who Jack’s mother was but she didn’t want to get into a discussion about jumping and other worlds until they were out of the back home or at least somewhere safe. She glanced at the piles of gold coins scattered around the vault. “It’s almost not worth bothering with,” she smiled as she saw a goblin silver tiara sitting on a stand. “Almost.”
Bella stared at the large piles of gold in surprise. “What do you mean? Did you know we’re rich?”
Willow frowned slightly as she realized that being able to farm the Diablo cow levels and item worlds had screwed with her sense of wealth. “I guess you’re right, it’s a lot of gold.”
“You’re lucky,” Jack whispered as he stared at the gold coins.
Willow walked over and picked up her daughter’s tiara off the stand and held it out. “Here.”
Bella accepted the tiara. “What am I supposed to do with it?”
“Put it on and think about your actual vault.” Willow smiled as Bella put the tiara on then vanished.
Jack blinked. “Portkey?”
“Something like that,” Willow admitted as she pulled an expanded bag out of her inventory. She held the bag open then used her projection magic to cause the various piles of gold to levitate up then spin around and fly into the bag.
Jack ducked as he warily watched the flying gold coins. “Where did you learn that?”
“Here and there,” Willow replied teasingly.
“Right, where did it send Bella to?” Jack asked warily.
“I’m not sure where it’s located but the tiara should have sent her to the group’s stash.”
“You’re not sure?” Jack asked in disbelief.
“The stash is hidden, the tiaras take us there and back.” Willow frowned slightly as several of the coins stayed on the otherwise empty vault floor. “Weird.” She used her identify power on the nearest coin that her spell hadn’t picked up. “Ah, that explains it.”
“Explains what?” Jack demanded.
“The remaining coins are fakes, I’m guessing the goblins scatter them around so they can charge wizards that try to spend them.”
“Why the hell do wizards put up with goblins?”
A goblin spoke up from the door, “Most wizards are lazy and stupid, kill them.”
Willow gestured and conjured a barrier over the entrance. “Best of luck with that.” She reached out and grabbed Jack’s arm then dark whispered to Jack’s vault. She put the bag of Bella’s gold in her inventory then pulled out another bag. “We should probably hurry before they come here looking for us.”
Jack looked around at the piles of gold. “I’m rich…” he trailed off as he realized the piles looked about the same height as Bella’s vault had. “How much gold does the clan have?”
“No idea, I’m pretty sure we stopped counting a long time ago.” Willow gestured toward the tiara on the stand. “You might as well put it on and make sure your sister isn’t getting into too much mischief.”
Jack frowned as he walked over and picked up the tiara. “It’s a bit girlish.”
“It could be worse, you could have to wear magical panties to get to the stash.” Willow snickered at his blush.
Jack grumbled as he picked the tiara up and put it on his head. He stumbled as he appeared in a large cavern filled with gold, treasure chests and all manner of treasure straight out of a pirate movie. “Holy shit.”
“Right there with you,” Bella admitted as she noticed a particularly large fist sized ruby sitting on a pile of gold coins taller than she was. “How the hell?
“No idea, maybe it’s fake?”
Bella shook her head. “It doesn’t look fake. Some of the loot is glowing with magic but it doesn’t feel like the beds Mom conjured.”
Jack frowned slightly. “Do you remember that ever happening before we came to England?”
Bella asked as Willow appeared, “No, maybe Dad knows?” She turned her head to look directly at her mother. “What’s going on?”
“What do you mean?” Willow asked as innocently as she could.
Bella narrowed her eyes, scrunched her nose up and pointed a finger at her mother. “You’re being shifty.”
“Oh?”
“We’ve been planning the trip to England and Hogwarts for the whole summer and you never mentioned Hermione and Puck.”
“Would you believe me if I said it slipped my mind?” Willow asked with amusement.
“No.” Bella quickly drew her wand and pointed it at Willow. “Who are you?”
“Your mother, I’d tell you to put your wand away but I’m pretty much immune to hostile magic.”
Bella hit the woman ‘pretending’ to be her mother with a stunner then blinked as the spell fizzled. “What the hell?”
Jack asked, “Are you crazy?”
“It didn’t work!”
“Of course it didn’t work.” Willow was actually sort of impressed that Bella had at least tried to prove her claims.
“What did you do with my mother!” Bella blurred forward and slammed her off hand into Willow’s stomach sending her flying through the air. She stared in shocked disbelief at the wall where the person that looked like her mother had slammed into it hard enough to fracture the rock.
Willow absently rubbed the back of her head. “That’s not how I pictured this going.”
Jack glanced back and forth between Bella, Willow and the shadowy girl that was standing between him and the girls. “What the hell is going on?” He focused his attention on the naked shadowy girl. “Who the hell are you?”
The girl smirked at him then vanished.
“What the hell is going on?” Jack pulled his attention back to Bella and Willow or at least the creatures pretending to be them.
Willow sighed. “Sorry, I think I’ve spent too much time around Xander lately. Let’s get something straight, I really am your mother Bella, I’m just older than you think.”
“Prove it,” Bella demanded.
“Your favorite Dungeons and Dragons character is your baby dragon wizard, you used to steal your Uncle Xander’s cookies and your Aunt Tara’s apple pie.”
Bella relaxed slightly. “To be fair, my dragon is awesome and Tara always saved the second slice of pie for me.”
“Not disputing the stolen cookies?” Willow asked with amusement.
“Technically he gave them to me but I used puppy dog eyes, they’re super effective.”
“That still doesn’t explain who the shadowy girl was,” Jack complained, a bit freaked that Willow wasn’t more freaked about the strange girl.
Willow turned to look at Jack. “Your mother has the ability to create a shadow servant, I wouldn’t be surprised if you ended up with a version of her ability.”
Jack shook his head. “Mom’s never mentioned that.”
“There is a reason for that, beyond the fact that she likes secrets. Speaking of secrets, think about your skill lists and your status screens.”
“What are you talking about?” Jack asked with a touch of annoyance as he wasn’t in the mood for riddles or jokes.
Bella blinked then stared in shock as two game like windows opened in her field of view. “It’s like a video game, cool!”
“Great, now you’re both messing with me,” Jack grumbled.
“Just think really hard about getting a skills window.” Bella frowned as she looked over her skill window. “What is FISS?”
Willow said, “Flight, Indestructibility, Speed and Strength, it’s how you punched me into the wall and why I didn’t go splat.”
“Oh, why do I have powers that I’ve never heard of any witch having?” Bella asked warily.
“Because we’re actually eldritch abominations from beyond the outer dark…” Willow managed to keep a serious expression for all of two seconds before she started giggling.
Jack was just about to open his mouth to say something that wasn’t all that flattering when a skill window appeared in his vision. “Woah.”
“Mom!” Bella complained.
Willow glanced over at the various artifacts she could see scattered around their section of the cave. “To tell you the truth, when we jump between worlds, we sort of reincarnate for a while before we wake up.”
“Right…” Jack trailed off as he realized that she actually looked serious. “Wait, you’re actually serious, aren’t you?”
“More or less.”
“If that’s true, how come I don’t remember my last life?” Jack asked suspiciously.
“Because you were only a couple of months old when we jumped the last time.”
Bella asked, “How old are you?”
“Older than I look.” Willow stuck her tongue out at her daughter. Truth be told, she wasn’t sure how she was supposed to count that anymore, did she count the time she’d lived through or the years her memories spanned.
Jack shook his head. “Changing the subject, is this the vault where you keep all of your treasures?”
“Something like that.” Willow glanced around the massive cavern filled with gold, so called ‘priceless’ artifacts and reagents. She had a feeling it was going to take weeks to sort through the vast pile of treasure and move everything to labeled treasure chests in the Slice of Heaven. She muttered as she tapped into her projection ability, “A little scrying.” She focused on the Dryad potion and faked a scrying power so that she could find it without searching all over the place. “Found it.” She conjured a glowing green hand over the dryad potion.
Jack frowned as he looked at the large green hand pointing at the ground on the other side of some large piles of gold coins. “Is that yours?”
“I conjured it to help me find a particular potion,” Willow replied as she started making her way around the piles of gold. She wanted to secure the potion before someone accidently broke the almost irreplaceable cordial poking around.
Jack turned to look at Bella as she whispered, “I think we’re going to have to ask Dad if Willow went insane.”
“Or Auntie Tara, she doesn’t lie,” Bella pointed out in a whisper.
“Good call,” Jack replied as he started following Willow.
Willow picked up the dryad cordial and put it in her inventory. “Now that I’ve found the dryad potion, we should probably head back and make sure people know to stay away from the goblins.”
Bella shivered as she thought about the goblins. “What are we going to do about them?”
“We’re going to tell Buffy and your Uncle Xander that they tossed you off the path and tried to kill you.”
Jack almost felt sorry for the goblins or at least he would have if they hadn’t tried to kill Bella. “Good.”
0o0o0
Eldritch purple energy leaked from Mist’s eyes and fingers as he stalked into Gringotts in his ‘normal’ adult form. A bolt of purple lightning lanced out from his shoulder with an almost deafening crack of thunder as one of the guards he’d stalked past gestured gestured at him with his weapon and said something derogatory in gobbledygook. He ignored the charred goblin as he shouted, “Die!” and unleashed a storm of lightning into the bank causing various bodies to explode and goblins to die screaming.
Selena poked Mist in the shoulder. “You’re drifting again, what’s up?”
Mist pulled his attention away from his rather happy daydream and back to the rocky beach in front of them. He’d managed to hold things together while Jack, Bella and Willow had explained about the goblins trying to kill Bella but he was rather furious with the goblins and himself for not making more of a point in warning his family and friends about the goblins. Sadly, he hadn’t considered it a priority because they hadn’t pulled any remarkably stupid shit until later in the fic this world was supposed to be based on. “Just thinking about killing all of the goblins.”
“Don’t worry about it, between Xander and Buffy on the warpath and Sirius moving the Black Family’s caves with Albus’s property moving staff, they won’t last a month thanks to the rather draconian and nasty contracts they signed with the Ministry.”
Mist took a breath then let it out as he tried to relax. “That doesn’t change the fact that they tried to kill my daughter.”
“Tried being the keyword,” Selena pointed out. She wasn’t entirely sure the goblin had meant to do anything more than injure Bella by pushing her off the ledge, not that she was going to mention that fact to Mist, wizards could fix broken bones and heal most injuries short of death and it had only been a twenty foot fall. Most likely they’d intended to injure her then charge her for medical attention.
“So I’m just supposed to let it go?” Mist asked as he reached down and picked up a rather flat rock. He resisted the urge to crush the rock to fragments as he flipped it over in his hands.
“No, you’re supposed to trust that Xander and Buffy will deal with the demons and not teleport to the bank and burn it to the ground.”
“I wouldn’t use fire, it might spread,” he replied as he tossed the rock into the water surrounding his Slice of Heaven island.
Selena watched the rock skip several times before it sank. “You’re allowed to be pissed, you’re just not allowed to go off the handle.”
He reached down and grabbed another rock. “I’m dealing, I haven’t blasted the goblins to ash and I gave Bella a hug and a project to keep her from thinking about it.”
“Bella is going to kill you once she realizes that just moving the crates to the warehouse would let the computer index everything.”
He smiled for the first time since he’d learned about the goblins trying to kill his daughter. “Probably, I’ll just blame Willow and Hermione for not telling her.” He tossed the rock, only managing to skip it three times.
“Feeling better?” Selena asked.
“I’ll get there.”
“What’s next on the list and don’t say killing the goblins?”
Mist shook his head slightly. “I wasn’t going to. I’m not going to blame the entire race for the actions of one goblin that is already dead.”
“Seriously?” Selena asked in disbelief.
“I can afford to take the moral high ground, they’ll be dead thanks to their own greed in a month or so,” Mist pointed out.
Selena snorted. “I’m not sure that actually counts as taking the moral high ground but fair enough. How long do you think it will take to make sure all of the kids can use their powers without hurting anyone or bringing down the castle?”
“I have a couple of avatars working on it, they should be fine in a couple of days considering my teaching perk and their enhanced mastery perks.”
“Any word on the Dryad project?” Selena asked.
“Willow found the dryad potion in the stash which means we’re one step closer to turning a bunch of people into dryads. She’s working with Hermione on making some of the potions they found the recipes for in the vaults under the prison world’s Hogwarts. Our dryad potions might not be as crazy as the potions from the story but they’ll be good enough.”
“Are you planning on sending Dryad trees to the moon?”
“I wasn’t planning on it, I have a better idea,” Mist replied smugly.
“Oh?”
“I was thinking about letting them have the prison world after we looted the vaults under Hogwarts of the important stuff.”
“Which would give them at least one tree that no one else can get to.”
“The Faerie Queen might be able to get there but I doubt she’d have a problem with her dryads being extra safe.”
“Point…” Selena trailed off as Iris flew toward them while giggling.
Mist smiled as his and Dawn’s daughter slowed to a stop in front of them. “Having fun?”
“Yep! Flying is awesome!” Iris said enthusiastically.
“It can be, do you want to race?” Mist asked with amusement.
Iris giggled as she flew over and poked Mist on the arm. “Tag!” she turned and flew off.
Mist laughed as he flew into the air and ‘chased’ his daughter around the small island.
Selena grinned as she headed off to find a couple of ‘volunteers’ to help sort through the various artifacts in the stash so they could upgrade their equipment.
0o0o0
Ginny looked up from her book as Sin appeared out of thin air sitting on her bed with a frown on her face. “What’s wrong?”
Sin pouted. “My friend Taylor stole our giant spider hunting mission which means we need a new project.”
Ginny had to resist the urge to cheer about not having to go into a dark monster infested forest to hunt giant spiders. “That’s too bad.”
“Yep, which is why I have a new plan. We’re going to kidnap Ron and delete most of his negative traits.”
“Delete his negative traits? I don’t think obliviating him is going to help.”
“I wasn’t planning on obliviating him, I was planning on tossing him into a magical room that turns a person’s mind into a garden that I can prune.”
“Right.” Ginny ignored the insanity of having such a room as she considered her brother’s personality, ‘Would fixing some of his bad behavior, really be a bad thing?’ After a few seconds of thinking about all of the times that he’d been an ass to her just during the summer to say nothing about the rest of her life, she realized that even in the worst case, Ron being dead, she’d be better off. “Would there be anything left?”
“We might need to grab the twins and patch things using cuttings from their mental garden. I’ll have a better idea once we toss him into the garden.”
“What do you need me to do?” Ginny asked warily.
“I just need permission to sneak in and stun them.” Sin used her X-ray vision to look through the wall into Ron’s room. ‘Damn, he’s a slob.’
“Permission granted as long as you don’t hurt Fred and George.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it. I’ll be right back.” Sin turned invisible then teleported to Ron’s room near the door which was just about the only clean spot in the room. She frowned slightly as she noticed that Ron was looking at an old Quidditch magazine rather than any of his school books that were neatly stacked on the table which probably meant that he hadn’t touched them since his mother had put them on the table. She hit Ron with a stunner then gestured at the room and used a touch of magic to clean everything and organize things. She glanced around at the nearly spotless and organized room. ‘That’s better.’
She walked over, picked Ron up then stuffed him in her inventory. She turned her attention toward the twin’s room and used her X-ray vision to look through the wall. She wasn’t all that surprised that both of the twins were reading an old battered potion book. She teleported to a spot near the door. “Greetings pranksters.”
Fred drew his wand and pointed it toward the door. “Who said that?”
Sin smirked as she dropped her invisibility revealing the fact that she wasn’t wearing clothes. “Hello.”
George stared in shock. “Are you seeing what I’m seeing brother mine?”
Fred ran his gaze over Sin’s body. “I doubt it because there is a hot naked lady in our room.”
“Same, best side effect ever from one of our potions?”
Fred pulled his attention up to Sin’s face. “Except we weren’t brewing anything.”
George sighed. “That’s what I was afraid of, who are you and why are you here?”
Sin chuckled. “I’m Ginny’s fairy godmother, I need help with a prank on Ron, will you help?”
“Your Ginny’s fairy godmother?” Fred asked in disbelief.
“Yep, so will you help us prank Ron?”
“What type of prank and what do we get out of it?” George asked warily knowing that his mother would blame them for any pranks that befell anyone in the house.
“I was planning on cursing him to eat with his mouth shut for a couple of months. If you help, I’ll make sure the Gryffindor Quidditch teams gets new brooms.”
“Deal,” they both agreed at once.
“Excellent.” Sin gestured and stunned them both. She snickered as she walked over and stuck them in her inventory. She teleported back to Ginny’s room. “Okay, I got them.”
“Where?” Ginny glanced around.
“I stuck them in my inventory.”
“Inventory?” Ginny asked in confusion.
“It’s like a computer…” Sin trailed off as she remembered who she was talking about. “It’s a game thing, it’s sort of like a large invisible bag that keeps things in frozen in time.”
“Oh, okay.”
Sin orbed up to Mist’s Slice of Heaven with Ginny.
Ginny turned and looked around the area filled with pools, stone columns and naked girls. “Where are we?”
“We’re in my friend’s base, the mental garden is this way.” Sin grinned as she led Ginny to the entrance to the warehouse.
Mist’s avatar said, “What do we have here?”
“We’re going to toss Ron in the mind garden and do some pruning.”
“Best of luck. Try not to cut out too much of his personality.”
“That’s why I grabbed the twins, so I could patch the missing bits…” Sin trailed off as Mist’s avatar pulled a large glass jar out of his inventory.
Ginny read the label on the jar, “Mad Science Jar?”
“It’s basically a jar we have to pay into whenever we come up with a crazy project.” Sin focused on Mist’s avatar. “How does my plan qualify as mad science?”
Mist’s avatar down his nose at her. “Let’s ignore the fact that you’re planning on cutting apart Ron’s personality for a minute, you’re planning on patching the holes with bits copied from the Weasley Twins, what part of that sounds sane?”
“But the twins are awesome,” Sin pointed out.
“They’re okay but what happens if you copy their genius but not their restraint or morals or something that keeps them from going off the rails completely?”
“Like what?” Sin asked.
“Like their completely understandable fear of having their mother show up if they step too far out of line.”
Sin sighed as she pulled several gold coins out of her pocket and stuck them in the mad science jar. “Fine.”
“Have fun.” Mist’s avatar put the jar back in his inventory.
Sin led Ginny into the warehouse then over to the door to new warehouse attachment. She pulled Ron out of her inventory, opened the door and tossed him into the mind garden room. “That should do it.”
Ginny frowned as she looked through the doorway at the black wilted garden filled with weeds. “Is it supposed to be a weed garden?”
“Having a garden filled with decayed weeds probably isn’t the best thing for your mind to look like but the room is probably working as intended.”
“I knew he was a lazy ass but I wasn’t expecting this.” Ginny frowned as she looked around. “Where do we start?”
“We look for useful positive traits and I get cuttings so I can replace them after we wipe his mind.”
Ginny pointed at a half patch of ivy. “What’s that?”
Sin glanced at the patch of ivy. “His loyalty.”
“Why is it half dead?”
“Probably because he’s willing to be loyal for coin?” Sin asked as she walked over to take a sample. Sure, it wasn’t as nice a flower as she would have liked but it was a start. She was hoping flipping his alignment with the ‘cursed’ helm helped his personality and gave her more flowers to get samples from.
Ginny stared as she looked at a massive blackened and rotting tree in the middle of the garden that overshadowed everything. “What is that?”
“That is his greed.”
Ginny shivered as she looked around at the twisted garden. “Great…” she trailed off as she realized that finding something to save was going to take a decent amount of work.
0o0o0
Pandora turned away from looking at her reflection in the enchanted mirror and over at Jack. “Sorry Jack, I don’t notice a difference, what did you see?” She stepped out from in front of the mirror, trying not to snicker as she knew exactly what the mirror did thanks to her identification ability.
Jack stepped in front of the mirror then gestured at the extremely hot girl in the mirror. “That.”
Sarah studied the half naked girl in the mirror, she was wearing the same shorts as Jack and they shared similar features but the reflection was very much a girl. “She’s cute.”
“I’ll second that,” Zoe admitted.
Phoenix walked over holding a notebook. “You make a cute girl Jack.”
Jack turned to look at Phoenix. “Thanks?”
Ruby asked, “Do you know what the mirror does?”
Phoenix grinned. “It shows what a person would have looked like as a nymph. If you say the command word, you can pull the nymph out of the mirror for a night of fun.”
“That’s pretty cool, can we try it?” Leah asked hopefully.
Phoenix resisted the urge to snicker at her daughter. “I don’t see why not.”
Pandora reached over and touched the mirror where Jack’s hand was reflected. “Desire.” She pulled the imagine out of the mirror.
Jack stared in shock at the girl that stepped out of the mirror. “Hi?”
The girl smiled seductively at Jack. “Hey sexy.” She glanced over at Pandora. “Want to have a threesome?”
Leah blushed as she realized what the girl was talking about, “Oh, that type of fun.”
Pandora shook her head. “Sorry, not with my half brother but you knew that, didn’t you?”
“Doesn’t mean a girl can’t dream. What about with your sisters?” the nymph asked hopefully.
Ruby blushed as she glanced at Pandora. It wasn’t fair that her sister had an older teenage form when she was stuck at eleven.
Jack shook his head. “She’s as bad as Mom.”
The nymph licked her lips. “Oh, that could be fun.”
Phoenix smirked. “Piper is going to freak about the mirror.”
“Probably.” Pandora gently picked the giggling nymph up and put her over her shoulder. “I’m going to have some fun, anyone that wants to watch is welcome to come with us.”
Jack glanced at Phoenix then his half sisters then decided to hell with it, you only live once and followed Pandora. Maybe she was joking about letting him watch but maybe she wasn’t and the nymph was hot even if she was just a reflection of him.
“On that note, have fun.” Phoenix turned and headed back toward the stash of artifacts to see what else she could find that was interesting.
Ruby said, “We should make sure they don’t get into too much trouble.”
“Right,” Leah agreed.
“At least we get to see Jack embarrassed.” Zoe giggled as she followed the group not really understanding what the big deal was.
Sarah shook her head then followed the rest of her siblings.
0o0o0
Ginny felt queasy as she looked away from Ron’s body as he floated out of the River Styx and back to shore, he looked more like a human shaped piece of charcoal than a human. “Is he alive?”
“He’s still breathing,” Sin replied as she watched Ron’s ‘dead’ and burned flesh regenerate thanks to the duplicated ambrosia she’d covered him with. She reached out with telepathy and searched Ron’s rather blank mind for any spark of personality. She knew a Lethe elixir was supposed to be able to restore lost memories but if there was anything to restore in his mind she couldn’t find it with her telepathy.
Ginny asked, “Do you have enough cuttings to fix him?”
Sin resisted the urge to sigh, shake her head or tell Ginny the truth unlike what she’d told the younger girl the last dozen times she’d asked about fixing her brother’s head, “He’ll be fine.” Truthfully she didn’t know if he’d be fine or if he’d end up a hollowed out shell of his former self even after they put his mind back together. She’d taken a decent number of cuttings from Ron’s mental garden while he was his normal ‘evil’ self and after she’d stuck the helm of opposed alignment on him but she doubted she actually had enough cuttings to completely fix him without something going terribly wrong or him ending up a pale copy of someone else because of the skills they’d need to patch. “Let’s worry about it after I put him back together.”
Ginny glanced at her brother’s still healing body. “Mum’s going to freak when he sees his hair.”
“Tiffany should be able to fix his hair easily enough.” Sin orbed the group back up to the Slice of Heaven near the warehouse door.
Mist’s avatar winced slightly as he saw Ron’s body. “At least he’s still unconscious. Are you going to be able to put him back together?”
”His name isn’t Humpty so there is always a chance.” Sin smiled at Mist’s avatar as she floated Ron in front of her as she walked into the warehouse.
Ginny wasn’t sure what Sin was talking about but was hoping it wasn’t as bad as it sounded.
Sin walked over to the garden of the mind door and tossed Ron through the door. She walked into the empty garden plot that was Ron’s current mental landscape and started working on planting the various cuttings she had in such a way that the plants had room to grow. Twenty minutes later she was out of cuttings and sure that waking ‘Ron’ up would end up with a rather traumatized wizard with a hell of a lot of holes in his memory and skill set. “I think we’re going to have to get creative.”
“Creative?” Mist asked as he walked up to the door with Pandora.
Sin turned to look at Mist. “I saved what I could that wasn’t creepy or broken.”
Mist glanced over the large sections of bare dirt. “But he’s missing entire sections of his personality, memories and basic skills?”
Sin turned and looked at Mist and Pandora. “Yeah, I’d been planning on patching holes with cuttings from the twins but he’s missing entire sections,” Sin admitted reluctantly.
“Considering you’ve already erased his mind, how are you going to fix it?” Pandora asked.
“Doormaker, if I can jump around the local multiverse finding bits and pieces, I can make a better Ron.”
Mist glanced at Ginny then looked at Pandora. “Care for an adventure?”
Pandora said, “Sounds fun.”
“How long will this take?” Ginny asked warily.
Sin shook her head. “Don’t worry, I’ll get someone to cover for you and Ron with polyjuice.”
“In that case, sign me up,” Ginny agreed as she was curious about seeing a different world.
Pandora asked, “How do we get Ron out of the room?”
“I think we just leave the room then will him out of it.” Mist shrugged. “If nothing else, we can leave and try to close the warehouse door, it should expel him.”
Thankfully it was easy enough to extract Ron from the room just by exiting it and willing him free. From there it was just a matter of turning invisible then orbing ‘down’ to near the Weasley’s house after sticking Ron back in Sin’s inventory.
Luna spoke up, “Nargles.”
Mist jumped as a voice came out of a tree next to the path that led to town. “Nargles?”
“Yes Nargles, they’re creatures that live in mistletoe and travel through time and space in a blue box.”
Mist briefly considered using telepathy to figure out if she actually believed in the various creatures she talked about then quickly abandoned that plan as the girl was a Lovegood and some things, just weren’t done.
Luna turned to look at Ginny. “I’m disappointed that you didn’t invite me for your adventure.”
Ginny frowned. “I thought you’d made us invisible?”
Pandora snickered. “She’s a Lovegood, just go with the flow.”
“I’m sorry, you’d need a per…” Mist trailed off as she pulled a folded up piece of paper out of her pants pocket, “mission slip.”
Luna smiled as she vanished from the tree she’d been sitting in and reappeared near the group holding the permission slip out. “Here.”
Mist accepted the letter and read it to himself, ‘Luna has permission to go with Ginny on an adventure to various worlds and to bring back a pet if she finds a good one.’ He noticed that it was signed by Pandora and Xenophilius Lovegood. ‘I really should be immune to this type of crap, that means it was probably Alice sending a message back in time or something.’ He shrugged. “In that case, welcome to the party.”
Luna said, “Thank you.”
Pandora focused on finding a world where Ron had a better work ethic than their lazy version and opened a portal. “If I opened the right door, this Ron should have a decent work ethic.”
Mist walked through the portal. “He can’t be much worse.” He reached out toward the Weasley family home with his telepathy and winced as he realized that the only people living there were Arthur, Percy and Ron. It didn’t take long looking through memories to figure out that this version of Molly Weasley had been killed with the twins that fateful Halloween in addition to the Potters and the Longbottoms. It didn’t take him long to realize that this particular Ron had grown up bitter, vengeful and dedicated to making the entire wizarding world pay in pain and blood for the loss of most of his family. This version wasn’t really any smarter than the other Ron, just far less lazy and with a work ethic that even Hermione would consider over the top. “What were you aiming for?”
“A world where Ron has a decent work ethic,” Pandora admitted as she followed everyone through the portal then let it close.
“I think you succeeded a bit too well. Ron lost half his family when he was a child and blames the wizarding world. He’s basically a budding sociopath that is trying to get skilled enough to kill all of the Death Eaters.”
“What are his chances?” Ginny asked.
“He’s got a decent amount of power and he’s not actually brain damaged so there’s a decent chance he’ll do some damage before someone kills him.”
Luna glanced around with a slight frown on her face. “Too many Nargles around.”
Ginny asked, “Now what?”
Sin said, “Now I sneak over to the Burrow, stun Ron and take some cuttings of his positive traits.”
Pandora said, “While you’re doing that, I want to check out Diagon Alley, I’ll be back in twenty minutes.”
“Have fun.” Mist turned to look at Ginny as Pandora dark whispered away and Sin teleported to the Burrow. “What do you think of Sin?”
“She’s certainly an odd faerie godmother,” Ginny admitted.
Mist gestured off to the side of the path and conjured a picnic table, chairs and a tea set. “Tea while we wait?”
Luna tilted her head slightly as she looked at Mist. “Where is your hat?”
Mist pulled his top hat out of his inventory and put it on his head with a flourish. “Is that better?”
“Of course, everyone has their part to play,” Luna pointed out as she walked over and started pouring four cups of tea.
Ginny glanced between Mist and Luna. “Or we’ll be late?”
“Very very late,” Luna agreed.
Mist sat down at the table and resigned himself to having tea.
Comments
Mist of Shadows
Thanks.
Alex Wierzbicki
Very good work
