Mist of Shadows
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Part 6 Mist's jumps
🕑 Added 2017-06-27 00:26:09 +0000 UTCEgwene looked up when she heard a knock on the doorframe and saw one of the girls that had checked on her earlier. “Am I a prisoner?”
Mist smiled at the still defiant young woman on the infirmary bed. “If you mean are you still confined to the infirmary, yes. If you mean, are you a prisoner? No, you’re free to go as soon as Amy clears you.”
“I feel fine,” Egwene admitted, rather amazed that she actually felt fine.
“I’m sure you do but you were pretty banged up.” Mist walked over and sat down in the chair.
“What happens now?”
“We’re actually in a mirror world. We rescued over five hundred Aes Sedai, two thousand novices and a thousand accepted. We also captured seventy three sul’dam and fifty damane.”
“I want the reds that tortured me punished,” Egwene replied coldly.
“I have a feeling that most of the reds are going to wish they were dead by the time I’m done with them. I consider severing channelers murder unless exceptional care is taken to give them a reason to live.”
Egwene could see the logic there or at least a reasonable amount of care in the case of men. “Elaida kept threatening to sever me if I didn’t swear to obey her. She burned out my eye after I spit in hers. I’m still shocked that your friends could regrow my eye.”
“It’s a gift.” Mist was just glad that his group had as many biokinetics as they did.
“What are you going to do to them?”
Mist considered not telling her then decided that he might as well. “I have a ter’angreal that allows someone with the ability to channel to give away their power.”
Egwene stared at him. “No one in their right mind would give up their power.”
“I also have a’dam and sul’dam that would be willing to help punish criminals. I have a feeling that after a couple of hours or days being mentally ripped apart they’ll change their tune and give away their power if it means an escape from being tortured.”
“What do you get out of it?” Egwene asked.
“I’m trying to stabilize this world’s Isle of Madmen then jump to a different mirror world and collect the channelers there and so on until we have enough to build a nation of channelers. There are bound to be some of the channelers that can’t be saved and are mad and or evil. By transferring the powers to someone I can trust, it’s a net gain. You’d get more powerful and we wouldn’t lose anything. Of course, I’d ask that you have children at some point but that’s only a request.”
“Aes Sedai don’t normally have children…”
“And where has that gotten them?” Mist asked with a touch of amusement mixed with annoyance at people’s stupidity.
Egwene sighed. “You have a point. Can you travel to other mirror worlds or just mine?”
“My friend can open doors to a bunch of different mirror worlds. I’m planning on creating copies of everyone from the Two Rivers that can channel to help with managing the country I’m planning on creating.”
“Copies?” Egwene asked unsure what he meant.
“I have the ability to create potions that copy people.”
Egwene shook her head. “That should be impossible.”
Mist held out ‘her’ hand and conjured a ball of fire over it. “Can you feel that?”
“No… but I’ve ran into people I couldn’t feel before.”
Mist grinned. “Go ahead and toss a shield over me.”
Egwene embraced the source and tossed a shield over the other girl and frowned as nothing happened with the fire that she couldn’t feel. “Create something else.”
Mist gestured and conjured a blue rubber ball. “Like that?”
Egwene stared at the ball. “How did you do that?”
“Magic. I can’t use your style of magic but I have other types of magic that I’ve picked up in other worlds.”
“Why do you need me?” She let the power go because her shield was obviously not working and she didn’t feel like wasting her energy when she might need it.
“Because in a year or so I’ll be pulled into another world and leave this one behind for a while. It’s the price of my power, that means that I need someone to take over when I’m gone. You have charisma and the ability to lead. You’ve also trained with Aes Sedai, Wise Ones and have some knowledge of Windfinders and Seanchan.”
“The broken fragments of the tower won’t follow me and I’m fairly sure even the rebels already elected someone else once they heard I was dead,” Egwene admitted reluctantly.
“In that case, to hell with them. We’ll recruit the people we can, judge the rest for any crimes they’ve committed then send them back to try to salvage things on their world. I’m sure there are plenty of worlds where we can collect people that want to learn and set up an interesting country of magic.”
“I’m going to need some proof that you can do what you claim and talk to people but I’m done playing their game. If you really can steal the power from the Black Ajah and other criminals, I’ll take it and help you build an empire.” She knew they were going to need an army to fight the last battle.
Amy walked in carrying a bowl of soup. “You need to eat then you can walk around a little bit and get some exercise.” She walked over over and handed the bowl of soup to Egwene. “Here.”
Egwene looked at Amy. “Was she telling the truth?”
Amy glanced at Mist. “Probably she doesn’t usually lie about the important things.”
Mist shrugged. “It’s a bad habit, I never really cared to remember two versions of events and I don’t like lying to myself.”
“How much stronger do you think I’ll get?” Egwene asked then started eating her soup which turned out to be quite a bit better than she’d been expecting.
“I’m not sure, if nothing else your talents should improve. I have a couple of tricks that might help with sharing talents if we can get a group of trustworthy people.” He was hoping his ritual of unification would share magic talents. Either way, he wanted to play around with giving people the local magic before he used the mana infuser on himself because he really didn’t want some of the drawbacks that came with channeling.
“Speaking of tricks, you should probably swap back to your normal form,” Amy pointed out.
Egwene frowned. “Normal form?”
“Fine, ruin my fun.” Mist swapped back to his male form.
“You’re male?” Egwene asked in surprise.
“Mostly. I have a couple of female forms but mostly I’m male.”
“Why swap to a female form?”
Mist grinned. “Which are the Aes Sedai more likely to stop if they see a strange person walking around in the tower, a male or a female?”
“There are warder trainees but most of them stay out of the Tower proper.”
“Exactly,” Mist replied with amusement.
Amy made a shooing motion toward the door. “Let her eat in peace.”
“I’ll be in the other room working with Umy.’ Mist turned and headed out of the room.
Egwene watched the man leave. “I have a feeling the next few days are going to be strange.”
Amy snickered. “Welcome to my life.”
0o0o0
Elayne Trakand stared in surprise as Egwene appeared with a man in his early twenties for their meeting in the World of Dreams. “Who is that?”
Mist glanced around the slightly shifting landscape, he knew how to navigate the dream world thanks to the training his perk had given him but it was still his first time in the dream world. He glanced back at the reddish golden haired queen. “My name is Mist.”
A different Egwene stepped out of the shadows. “A better question is who the girl is that is pretending to be me?”
Elayne glanced back and forth between the two women that looked like her friend. “Show yourself.”
The mirror world Egwene said, “I’m from a mirror world.”
Egwene glanced at Mist. “Who is he?”
Mist shrugged. “I’m a traveler of worlds. Egwene didn’t quite believe me about being in a different mirror world or about being a dreamer.”
Egwene asked, “Why are you here?”
The mirror Egwene scowled as she thought about the Tower. “I was captured by the Tower and tortured, Mist rescued me when the Seanchan attacked.”
Elayne gasped, “Tortured?”
Egwene asked in surprise, “The Seanchan actually attacked the Tower?”
The mirror Egwene scowled as she thought about the Seanchan. “Yes on both accounts. Elaida is a sadist.”
Mist shrugged. “I’m not sure where the exact change between the worlds happened but in the other world Elaida had someone declare that Egwene had been stilled and executed. Rand took it badly and brought her personal tower down on her ears then told the rest of the Aes Sedai to elect someone more reasonable. They didn’t, the Seanchan attacked a couple of days later and I rescued a bunch of Aes Sedai, novices and accepted and relocated them to the Isle of Madmen.”
Elayne twitched as she remembered listening to some of the seafolk talk about the cursed island. “Why there?”
“It’s out of the way and there are channelers that could stand some training. Either way, I just wanted to point out that your plan to turn the harbor chain into heartstone isn’t all that sound. There is a very good chance that they’ll capture you.”
“How did you know about that?” Egwene asked.
“Because that’s how I got caught,” the mirror Egwene replied.
Mist shrugged. “I’m not saying that you couldn’t make it work for you but honestly, I have other plans and Elaida is already dealt with.”
Egwene asked, “What did you do?”
“I had one of my people sneak into the Tower and capture her. We’ll replace her with a body double using an inverted weave and then we’re going to be purging the Tower of the Black Ajah. After that, I’m going to put her on trial for the murder of Siuan Sanche’s warder. Once she’s convicted I’m going to have a friend use an a’dam on her until she breaks.”
Elayne stared at Mist. “How did they manage that?”
Mist snorted. “With weaves to hide their power and change their appearance, with stealth skills that you wouldn’t believe and with a will to deal with the heart of the problem.”
“You can’t just go around killing the heads of state.”
Mist snorted. “Sure I can, it helps prevent war. Some of the so called nobles are deeply stupid. Speaking of stupid, listen to your warder, just because a viewing says that you’ll give birth doesn’t mean you’ll be sane or in good health when you do. Also ward the hell out of the waygate in your city before an entire army of shadowspawn use it to destroy Caemlyn.”
“I have guards,” Elayne defended herself.
“Yeah and the Shadowspawn will be coming with an army. All it takes is a small group of darkfriends to kill the guards then your city is overrun with trollocs. Weave some bars of air around the area and tie them off after inverting them.”
Elayne asked, “How do you know so much about the source?”
“Because I have friends that have magic. Either way, if you’re interested, I have a number of ter’angreal that we recovered from the other Tower if you want to study them.”
Elayne glanced at the mirror Egwene. “I would love to help but my channeling is a bit suspect right now. What happened to the mirror version of me?”
Mist used his ESP to get the location of Elayne’s bedroom and workshop and a layout of the palace. “She’s running her country and busy. Either way, I’ll leave you to your plotting as time flows strangely between realms.” He turned to look at Egwene. “Try to get some actual sleep, you’re still healing.”
“I’ll try but there are things she needs to know,” Egwene replied.
“I know.” He ‘stepped’ out of the dream and sat up on the conjured bed he’d been using to take his nap. He blinked as he spotted Laura sitting on a chair reading a book. “How long was I out?”
Laura glanced down at her watch. “About fifteen minutes.”
“That’s shorter than I was expecting. Do you want to copy a queen while I go hunting dark friends?” Mist asked hopefully.
“Oh?”
“Elayne has a rather nice talent for creating ter’angreal, I wouldn’t mind a couple copies.”
Laura shrugged. “I don’t see why not, as long as Hermione is willing to build her more than a basic personality.”
“Cool, that gives me a chance to clean house and kill a bunch of dark friends.”
“Let’s check with Hermione first.” Laura put her book in her inventory then got to her feet and headed for the main room where Hermione was probably chatting with Umy.
“Sounds good, Lily should be able to give us a lift to Caelym to speed things up.”
0o0o0
Laura almost felt like shouting boo at the guards on the queen’s chamber that she’d just managed to walk past, sure she was invisible and her shoes had a muffle enchant but that wasn’t any reason for the guards to get complacent. She slipped through the main room and into the queen’s chamber. She glanced around to make sure there weren’t any hidden guards or maids then pulled a clone potion out of her inventory and poured the potion on the queen which created a duplicate pregnant reddish blonde haired young woman wearing a night dress the same as the queen. She cast a town portal spell back to their base then helped the clone through the portal. ‘At least that worked.’
She waited a couple of seconds then closed the portal. She looked down at the peacefully sleeping queen then pulled a red marker out of her inventory and carefully drew a line across the queen’s throat being careful not to press hard enough to wake her up. She put the marker back in her inventory then walked over to the window and looked out. She teleported to the garden she could see then flew up and out of the castle grounds. She smiled as she slowly flew over the city, taking in the sounds and sights while she waited for Mist to finish hunting darkfriends.
Normally she would have felt worse about scaring the woman by proving that it wasn’t hard for someone to slip into her room but she could stand a wakeup call. Besides, she had a feeling that having a decent number of her guard get murdered in the middle of the night was going to be stressful enough.
0o0o0
Xander looked up as Mist and Laura walked into the room. “How did the mission go?”
Laura shrugged. “I copied the queen and flew around a bit until Mist was done.”
Mist walked over and sat down on one of the ‘stone’ chairs they’d built into the walls. “Surprisingly easy, my avatars are still working on tracking down the dark friends’ contacts and their contacts’ contacts but I have a feeling we’ll have a few hundred filled soul gems by the time we’re done.”
“Hoping that you can get rid of dark cultists in the city if you kill enough of them?” Xander asked.
“In the city would be a good start. Either way, once we’re done with the city, I want to finish sorting all of the Aes Sedai and start trying to socialize the captured channelers we’re bringing in.”
“After that?”
“I have a dark elf clone in my status pod with a bunch of abilities. I wouldn’t mind copying him a couple of times and upgrading Egwene with various immunities once we start pushing power into her.”
Laura walked over and sat down on the bench near Mist. “You’re planning on killing her Skull of Corruption copy in the stedding, aren’t you?”
“At least a couple of times once we have her empowered. Considering her talents and power with the local magic, I’d be stupid to create a temporary clone of her anywhere other than a stedding that blocks her power. After that, I’m planning on using my main character power to unlock her potential and give her a mana pool.”
Xander asked, “What are you planning on grinding to increase her levels?”
“I’m not sure. I wouldn’t mind grabbing a copy of Nynaeve's angreal and leveling the hell out of it.”
Laura grinned. “I’m sure we can ask her or better yet, jump to an alternate world where she didn’t find the stash of artifacts and copy them.”
“Considering they found it in the Kin’s storeroom that has possibilities.” Mist wouldn’t mind having a copy of the Bowl of Winds and some of the communication ter’angreal might be useful for keeping in touch with various groups if they could make the ter’angreal work.
Xander said, “We should ask Lily or Ranma when they wake up.”
“Sounds like I plan.” Mist turned to look at Selena walked in from outside. “Any luck?”
Selena walked over and sat next to Mist. “No, genetics certainly play a part but they’re not the entire story. The dark elf clone’s genetics shifted when he was given power but changing the genetics of the copy that Noelle created didn’t give him any magic. It’s a little frustrating.”
Mist smiled as he pulled her into a hug. “Don’t worry, I’m sure that you’ll figure something out.”
“I’ll have a better idea once we start learning abilities using magicite though we should probably have the clone try it first.”
Xander frowned slightly. “That seems a bit mean.”
“It is but considering some of the inherent issues with the local magic system, I’d rather not find out after I learn a spell that someone can stick a collar on me and expect it to work,” Selena replied firmly.
“You let Willow stick a collar on you last Halloween.”
“That was a joke, this is very much not. I don’t mind collaring the crazy magic users because we don’t have a viable alternative for some of them until we deal with their corruption with the statue but that doesn’t mean I have to like it.”
Laura asked, “And the Aes Sedai?”
“Some of them need to die,” Selena’s scowled as she thought about the women that had tortured Egwene, “and some of them need to die screaming. That doesn’t change the fact that I don’t want them to be able to hold me with an a’dam.”
Mist gave her a light squeeze. “The a’dam should be a function of a channeler’s ability to link. Hopefully we can pick up the best parts and skip the crap.” He’d trade an inability to link to other magic users for protection from turning and a’dams even if those shouldn’t be an issue in other locations.
Laura said, “We should know more tomorrow when we start running the clones through various item worlds to boost their level.”
“On that note, I’m going to head back to the house and crash.” Xander pulled his cell out of his pocket and hit the return button.
Laura looked at Selena. “Speaking of sleep, I should probably check on Sin’s progress with the Forsaken before I crash out.”
Mist frowned slightly. “That reminds me, I should hunt down Graendal before she causes more problems.”
“Best of luck. Do you need any backup?”
“I was just planning on stopping time then walking through her defenses with my medallion then sticking an a’dam on her and the rest of the people with her, though that reminds reminds me, I need to find a copy of the Domination Band so that I can do the same to Aran’gar.”
Laura nodded. “There might be one in Ebou Dar.”
“If not, I’ll ask Ranma or Lily to open a portal to a world where it’s still in the museum. Actually, scratch that, I have an avatar that can fly down there while I check in with everyone.”
“Probably a good idea, Riley has been in the lab a bit too much, it always makes me a little nervous when she gets new projects.”
Selena snickered. “She’s just working on trying to figure out what the magic genetics mean.”
“Best of luck on that mess.” Mist let go of Selena then teleported across the room. “Let’s go.”
Selena pouted. “Hey, you were a comfy backrest.”
“Later,” Mist replied as he walked out the door.
0o0o0
Lily frowned slightly as she glanced around the green tinted museum. “I don’t think I’ll ever get used to the nighteye enchant.”
Mist smiled as he teleported the Domination Band out of its case and to his hand. “I’m just glad that I picked up a power to see in the dark.” He duplicated the collar and two bracelets then stuck the copies in his inventory. “Should I put the original back or hit it with a gemino curse?”
Lily snorted. “Just make a fake, the original is nasty.”
Mist hit the originals with a gemino charm then put the originals in his inventory and teleported the fakes into the case. He used telekinesis to adjust the pieces so it didn’t look like they’d been moved. “That should do it.”
Lily asked, “Is there anything else you want to grab while we’re here?”
“I wouldn’t mind copying the heartstone figurines and the angreal.” Mist frowned as he noticed the broken access key. “Actually, I wouldn’t mind grabbing the broken access key and seeing what we get out of the item world. If nothing else studying the enchantment might be interesting.”
Lily smiled as she glanced around at some of the pieces on display. “You might as well grab copies of everything.”
Mist walked over and picked up the access key and duplicated it. He put the copy away then put the broken access key back on the table where he’d grabbed it. Normally it would have been rather useless as it was broken and the massive statue it should have linked to was gone at least in his world but he was hoping it provided insight into linking ter’angreal to sa’angreal.
He copied the Dark One’s seal so that he could study how ter’angreal linked to shields then copied the six heartstone figurines to study or sell as needed. He walked over and picked up the figurine of a naked woman with long hair and copied the angreal. “This should help the girls.”
Lily asked, “Where to next?”
Mist set the original angreal back on the table and put the copy in his inventory. “An Ebou Dar where the girls didn’t loot the Kin’s storeroom.”
Lily focused and opened a door to just inside the Kin’s storeroom on another mirror world. “After you.”
Mist walked through the door and looked around the dusty room. “I’m glad that I have an identify ability.”
Lily walked through the door then let it close. “The muggle repelling charms should fade in an hour, with no one the wiser.”
“Good, I’d rather not screw things up if I can help it.” Mist extended his magic senses and started looking through the junk that the Kin had saved. A lot of it didn’t have anything to do with the power but some of it did. He smiled as he found a jeweled metal belt. He used his identify ability on the belt. “This should help. It lets a channeler store the power for use in steddings or while shielded.” He copied the belt then put the original back. “This could take awhile.”
Lily grinned. “In that case, I should probably head back and pick up Noelle and Egwene, she can help us go through the stuff and help us figure out who to copy in the Two Rivers.”
“If you’re heading back, you should probably grab Hermione if she’s free. She could use a break from ripping through Mesaana’s head for secrets.”
“Sure, just try not to cause too many problems.” Lily opened a door back to the base on the other world and stepped through.
Mist grinned as he went back to sorting through the mess and copying things. He smiled brightly when he found the metal bracelet and ring set angreal with the tiny key. He copied the angreal then put the original back. He smiled as he copied the copy three times then used his Let’s Make It Better power from Unholy Heights to boost the copied angreal by double. He put the boosted angreal in his inventory. Even if it didn’t help him it would help Egwene and the rest of the girls he gave copies to. He had a feeling the monsters inside of its item world would be a bitch to deal with though.
He spent the next few minutes sorting through things until Lily opened a gate and walked in with Hermione, Noelle, James and Egwene. “I found some neat stuff.”
Egwene glanced around the dusty and chaotically organized room. “I don’t think anyone comes here that often.”
Hermione asked, “How do you want to do this?”
“We look through the boxes, copy everything that has to do with the power then repack the originals. After that, I wouldn’t mind heading to the Two Rivers to see who we can copy.”
Egwene asked, “Where do we start?”
Mist gestured at a couple of crates. “Pick a box and start.”
0o0o0
Mist studied the rectangular fort that consisted of several towers stacked on each other that was nestled in a forest. Despite the strangeness of the construction it managed to look somewhat elegant. He would have rather been copying and collecting people from various mirror worlds but he wanted to take care of a couple of problems in the main world before things went pear shaped like they had in the books.
He focused on the wall of the fort then looked through it with his temporary x-ray vision. He pushed the button on his stopwatch to freeze time then teleported inside the fort. He wasn’t sure if the wards would trigger or ignore him because of his medallion but he wanted to have Graendal dealt with before she realized there was a problem. He carefully worked his way through the fortress, trying his best to ignore the various scantily clad servants that were under heavy mental influence. He frowned slightly as he reached the throne room and found a voluptuous woman with red gold hair sitting on the throne in a purple silk dress that was almost sheer. ‘I’ve seen prettier people but she was certainly decent looking. Pity she’s insane.’
He pulled an a’dam out of his inventory then walked over and put the collar around her neck. He glanced down at her hand and slipped her golden pinky ring angreal off and put it in his pocket. He frowned slightly as he turned and saw a rather attractive black haired woman in a low cut dress fondling a servant girl. “Aran’gar.” He pulled out the collar of the Domination Band set and stuck it around Aran’gar’s neck. He walked over to the uncomfortable looking Aes Sedai and pulled another a’dam out of his inventory and put it around her neck.
He reached out with his magic senses and checked for any other magic users then smiled when he found none. He pushed the button on his watch to unfreeze time then quickly hit the servants with stunners. “Hello Graendal, Aran’gar and extra.”
Graendal twitched as she tried to channel and found that she couldn’t and that her stomach felt like rebelling violently. “How?”
Mist smirked as he tossed a stunner at the confused Aes Sedai dropping her unconscious. He looked at Aran’gar. “Give me an excuse and I’ll cut your arms and legs off and leave you a cripple.”
Aran’gar glared at Mist. “What do you want?”
“I want to know everything you both know about the power and I want you to stop causing chaos.”
Graendal said, “These won’t hold us forever. Someone will rescue us.”
“Maybe they will, maybe they won’t but if you cooperate, you might live to see freedom, don’t and I’ll make sure not even your dark god can bring you back from the dead.”
Aran’gar asked, “How would you do that?”
“I’d toss you into the world of dreams and balefire you,” Mist lied. He had no intention of killing them when they knew things that no one else did.
Aran’gar shivered as he realized the man had done his homework. “What do you want?”
Mist smiled coldly. “I want the world, I’m building an empire of channelers, you’re going to help with training, one way or another.”
Graendal asked, “How are you going to get enough people?”
“I’m going to collect them using the portal stones.”
“If you join the Great Lord, you could have immortality and power.”
“I already have immortality. I don’t need your dark god’s twisted ‘gift’.”
“That’s not possible,” Aran’gar replied.
“Magic can do wondrous and terrible things but I’d rather have your cooperation.”
Aran’gar asked, “What do we get out of it?”
“If you don’t cause problems, once I’m done assembling my country and al’Thor kills or seals the dark god away, I’ll leave you in a nice quiet world bound to never hurt anyone but alive and immortal. The other option is that I rip the knowledge out of your mind and you spend the rest of your lives in a useless daze.”
Graendal shivered as she realized that she was going to have to ‘hope’ that Moridin would come rescue her and depending on his ‘mercy’ was a fool’s errand. “I’m sure we can come to some type of arrangement.”
“In that case, I’m going to grab some friends and they’ll walk you through my portal.” Mist pull his phone out of his pocket and dialed Hermione’s number. He waited until she answered then said, “I successfully collared the two forsaken and black ajah member, I’ll open a town portal but I need some channelers to collect them.”
“I’ll send a couple of channelers through. How are you planning on curing the servants?” Hermione asked.
“I have a couple of ideas. If they don’t work, you’ll probably have to see if you can fix it.” Mist opened a town portal to the base. “I just opened the portal.”
“I see it.” Hermione sent three of the more trustworthy greens through to use the a’dams then walked through with Egwene and ended the call.
Mist glanced over the three green Aes Sedai then smiled at Hermione. “Thanks for coming.”
Hermione frowned as she looked at the two forsaken and read their minds to check on the last couple of minutes to make sure they hadn’t managed to do anything to Mist. “This is going to be like digging through a cesspit.”
Mist handed the two bracelets that connected to the collar around Aran’gar’s neck to the Aes Sedai. “Considering how much they know, it’s probably worth it.”
Egwene scowled at the two Forsaken.
“True.” Hermione scanned Graendal’s mind looking for anything of interest they should loot. She had a feeling that Sin would enjoy looting the woman’s wardrobe. “Take her through and put them in the stedding so no one can find them. The last thing I need is the Dark One sending a minion to rescue them.”
Aran’gar scowled as the two Aes Sedai put on the bracelets that connected to his collar. He studied their faces so that he could track them down later and kill them when he got free. Still, until he figured out how the man had appeared out of thin air without either of them realizing he’d been there, he was going to play it safe.
Mist waited until the Forsaken and Aes Sedai were gone before he asked, “Any ideas for dealing with compulsion?”
Hermione said, “Let’s just stun them and pick up Nynaeve and have her try to sort them out.”
“Not a bad idea,” Egwene agreed as she glanced around the room.
Mist grinned. “Look on the bright side, we picked up two Aes Sedai from the Age of Legends which means better training for our people.”
“Where are you going next?” Egwene asked.
“I’m thinking about heading up north. I want to kill a couple of eyeless and turn them into magicite.”
Hermione blinked. “Why?”
“Because they can sense magic and slip through shadows. I’m curious if we can grab versions that aren’t tainted.”
Egwene shook her head. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”
Hermione frowned as she thought about the tainted monsters. “Don’t use the magicite yourself, we still have some Seanchan thugs that aren’t decent people you can use as test subjects.” She wouldn’t have put up with most of the thugs except they were useful in defending the base from the locals and for tricking the various groups of crazy natives into chasing them through doors to other mirror worlds.
“I wasn’t planning on it,” Mist admitted. He wanted to run a bunch of tests before he risked any of his friends getting corrupted. The golden statue was nice but there was no point in taking chances with his friend’s sanity if he could help it.
“In that case, help us with the servants then you can head up and cause some havoc in the north, just remember to wear your cloaking dagger and medallion.”
“I haven’t taken either of them off since I got here, you shouldn’t either.”
“I don’t go anywhere without my copies,” Hermione agreed.
Egwene asked, “Are there any traps we should worry about?”
“There are a couple on Graendal’s bedroom but they only target channelers so I’ll deal with looting her room.”
Egwene said, “In that case, I’ll help Mist grab the rest of the servants.”
“Sounds good.” Mist turned and headed for the next room where there were some servants wandering around.
0o0o0
Mist frowned as he flew down and landed in the creepy sprawling town in the blight. He could feel the fear, madness and hate that seemed to flow off of everyone in the town. He scowled as he saw a Myrddraal walking down the street. He knew killing the creature would probably alert the Dark One that something had gone wrong but at this point he wasn’t sure he cared. The so called ‘last battle’ was coming no matter what they did. He pulled his copy of the Staff of Corruption out of his inventory, pointed it at the Myrddraal and activated it. He smiled as the copy charged the original. He let them duke things out for ten seconds then he used his telekinesis to twist the copy’s head 360 degrees. He smiled grimly as he used telekinesis and ripped the monster’s head off in a shower of black tainted blood. He reached out with his magic and created a magicite out of the magical creature.
He teleported the magicite to his hand then stuck it in his inventory as the original Myrddraal looked around and sniffed the air. ‘That’s not going to help, I can’t be heard, seen or smelled asshole.’ He cast soul trap on it then teleported the creature’s sword into its head which killed it instantly.
He smiled as he reached out with his ESP looking for Slayer. It didn’t take long to find the man that shared headspace with another mind. ‘Got you, bastard.’ He flew to the inn where Slayer was staying then looked through the wall and teleported into the man’s room behind him. He pulled a clone potion out of his inventory and then hit him in the back with a super charged stunner which dropped the man unconscious. He hit him with the potion which created a clone that looked around the room in confusion. He opened a town portal then shoved the clone through the portal for his avatars to deal with.
He closed the town portal then cast soul trap on the man. He pointed his copy of the Staff of Corruption at the man then activated it. He smiled as he lashed out and bashed the man’s skull open then spun around and killed the temporary copy and turned it into magicite. He picked the magicite up and put it in his inventory in his magicite bag. He looted the man’s gold and a couple of personal effects then teleported back outside to start hunting down corrupted channelers.
He wasn’t sure if he could cure them but he was hoping that Hermione could rewrite their brains enough to get them to meditate on the golden statue which should rip most of the corruption out of them. He had a feeling that Hermione was going to have to do a lot of rewriting minds for the people that he caught. He reached out to a decent group of his avatars and directed them to turn invisible then open town portals and join the fun.
He smiled as he floated along the streets turning everyone that he saw into marbles for easier transport. Harry Potter magic wasn’t all that great at combat magic compared to magic from certain worlds but it was excellent for transfiguring people or objects. He had a feeling that Moridin would show up eventually to ruin his fun but until then he was looking forward to seeing how many people he could capture.
0o0o0
Mist wasn’t nearly as impressed with Moridin’s combat ability as he probably should be but when you can have an Avatar teleport behind someone and hit him in the back with an overpowered stunner at point blank range, the man’s combat ability wasn’t much of an issue. He had his avatar turn the man into a marble and stuff it into his inventory. He had a feeling they’d have to address the link Rand shared with Moridin but he wanted to sift through everything Moridin knew about the power and various caches of ter’angreal before he dealt with him in a more permanent fashion. He smiled as he left his avatars to deal with the rest of the town as he flew north to the forges. He worked on destroying the forgers and transmuting the prisoners into white marbles for easier sorting of the innocent and guilty as he knew that the forgers weren’t particularly picky about their victims.
He wasn’t terribly surprised when an abnormally tall Myrddraal showed up.
Shaidar Haran shouted, “You should not be here!” as he twisted his head slightly as he ‘looked’ around trying to spot the person causing problems.
Mist wasn’t sure if the annoying creature could see him or if the creature was just reacting to the fact that something was killing the shadowspawn and causing problems. He pulled his copy of the Skull of Corruption out of his inventory and pointed it at the creature then copied the creature. He watched the temporary copy toss black fire at Shaidar Haran and do his best to kill him as he pulled a copy of Azura’s Star out of his inventory. He put the copy in his pocket then cast soul trap on Shaidar Haran then cast ultima twice on the two monsters that were fighting each other.
Thanks to his Soul of Thamasa the two ultima spells created four explosions and wiped out the two figures and left a large mostly circular crater. He ignored the feeling of what passed for Shaidar Haran’s soul flowing into his soul trap as he twisted the temporary clone’s essence into a chuck of magicite. He smiled slightly as he noticed a book at the bottom of the crater next to the newly formed magicite. He teleported the two objects to him then turned and flew away from that section of the world as fast as he could just in case the dark god could reach out and smite the entire area. He sent a mental message to his clones to retreat as he flew south.
He figured he’d have his avatars sneak back and level the place later but for the moment, he was going to take what he could get and leave. He headed toward one of Moridin’s stashes of ter’angreal and Zomaran. He wanted to check how evil the creatures were or if they were just constructs. If they were just constructs he wouldn’t mind seeing if he could use them to hand out some powers as they weren’t aggressive and they had the ability to read minds.
0o0o0
Aisha smiled as she reached up with her soul trap enchanted knife and slit Mazrim Taim’s throat in the middle of a meeting with some of his cronies. She lunged forward and drove her knife into the next target’s eye then jumped through a wave of fire trusting to her medallion to keep her safe. She blurred forward and dropped the corrupted Ashaman with a well placed kick to his nuts then lashed out and dropped the man unconscious. She blurred around the room dropping people then pulled her wand out of her inventory and transfigured the unconscious men into marbles that she stuffed into a bag.
She looked down at the dead channelers. She was a touch sad that they had to kill Taim and the other man rather than break him and get his magic but people needed to think that he’d been killed. She looked at the man she’d killed and transfigured him to look like an average male. She pulled her enchanted dagger out of the man’s eye socket and replaced the dagger with a normal one. She walked over to the door and opened it then walked out, trusting in her power to keep people from noticing her as she searched for the Myrddraal and Black Ajah hiding somewhere on the grounds.
She had a feeling that dealing with the rest of the turned channelers was going to take a clean up crew but she was fairly sure that by killing the Myrddraal they could at least delay anymore plans to cause problems for a few days until they could get one of the group’s mind readers there to sort through everything. He she made a mental note to practice with her ring until she had a better grip on the psionic abilities it offered as they’d be useful.
0o0o0
Mist was less than amused as the days wore on and they worked on sorting through the various Samma N’Sei and people from the Town in the Blight. The problem was that at least half of the people were evil because they’d grown up that way or were just twisted assholes rather than because they’d been turned evil with magic. On the upside, that made torturing them until they gave up their magic to a minion slightly easier to justify. Still, he was glad that he’d left that particular job to the sadistic sul’dam and minions because it was more than a little horrifying if he stopped to think about it.
On a happier note, the group had managed to get a Zomaran clone to live through praying to the golden statue by giving it a transfusion of Ranma’s blood first. After that, it was a simple matter to rebuild the creature’s eyes after the statue burned them out because of their link to the Dark One. From there, it was just a matter of copying the dark elf then transferring the various boosts off the copy to the Zomara then turning the Zomara blue with a Sims genie potion.
After that, they transferred all of the magic potential and talents they’d collected to the Zomara so they could copy him several times after giving him enough scholars tea to boost his intelligence to a semi reasonable level.
Mist was planning on hitting one of the Zomaras with one of his four permanent boosts then copying him a decent number of times once they got all of the dark channelers processed. He was also planning on killing a few temporary copies for magicite at points during the process so that the group could learn the world’s magic without ending up channelers or at least that was the plan.
0o0o0
Tara smiled as Mist, Egwene and Harry walked back into the main hall. “Any luck?”
Mist held up a silver and ruby bracelet connected to four rings by chains as well as a matching silver and ruby belt. “We got lucky, I managed to steal a sa’angreal and well off the item god.”
Egwene smiled at Tara. “We’re going to be able to destroy the Shadow’s forces with this.”
“Not to mention that the angreal got a lot more powerful once we maxed it out,” Harry pointed out.
Tara said, “I’m glad that you managed to avoid dying.”
“Tiffany and Hermione’s durability boost helped.” Mist put the belt in his inventory then duplicated the sa’angreal four times. He put the original in his inventory to put on his shelf for study. He focused and used his Let’s Make It Better power and improved one of the copies to double power and efficiency. He grinned as he looked at it with his identify ability. “It’s almost enough to make me wish I could use it.”
Egwene smiled as she stared at the bracelet. “The Tower would kill for your abilities.”
“Lots of people would.” Mist duplicated the improved sa’angreal three times and handed the copies to Egwene. “Here. Now you can give one of them to the other Egwene and Aviendha.”
“I have a feeling they’ll appreciate them even if some of the Aes Sedai complain.”
Mist shrugged. “Let them. Most of the Aes Sedai have lost touch with reality.”
Egwene had to agree about most of the Aes Sedai losing touch with reality. “We’ve been cloning and recruiting like mad, what’s next?”
“I wouldn’t mind sabotaging Demandred’s plan to recruit the Sharans if I can find him. Other than that, I’m not terribly sure what to work on. I wouldn’t mind slipping Perrin a medallion so that he can’t be killed out of hand by some dark channeler. Beyond that, I’m not sure. If I knew where the rest of the Forsaken were, I’d track them down but the other version of you already grabbed this world’s Mesaana. I wouldn’t mind upgrading the rest of the ter’angreal jewelry so we can hand out copies if we need to.”
“What about the Seanchan?” Egwene asked with thinly controlled rage as she thought about the invaders.
“The remaining thugs don’t have that much loyalty to us or Seanchan, they do what we pay them to do but we should probably send them back home at some point now that we have our own people to relocate the natives to other worlds.”
Tara sighed. “I just wish we could fix the cultural insanity.”
“Good luck with that,” Egwene muttered.
Harry sighed. “Hopefully a few years without getting attacked will help.”
Mist shrugged. “I wouldn’t mind recruiting a version of Mat that is slated to die, maybe from your world or another world to turn our recruits into a force that can crush the Seanchan and the White Cloaks.”
Harry glanced at Egwene then looked at Mist. “I like that idea. I want to free as many damane as possible once we get things set up a bit more. We have magic to grow crops, we have crockpots that can feed a great deal of people that you can copy. With food not being a problem, we can afford to recruit as many people as we want to, within reason. We can build structures and towns with magic which means that we’re really only limited by how much land we have.”
“How are you planning on rescuing the damane?” Egwene asked.
“Simple, we use conjured gold and jewels and we buy as many of them as we can. The gold and jewels will vanish a few days later which leaves the slavers even worse off. Where we can’t buy the damane, we steal them. Once we’ve done this for a few weeks we send people in and work on collaring the sul’dam. If we capture enough of them, the Seanchan empire won’t have enough channeler support to do much of anything. If we loot the imperial treasury, they’ll have issues paying for the war they’re trying to start.”
Egwene nodded. “It’s a start.”
Mist smiled. “We should do the same thing with silk, other supplies and tools.”
Tara frowned as she thought about the peasants that would suffer if they took their idea too far. “Just as long as you don’t do it with food, peasants starve, the nobles don’t.”
“I’m not trying to wipe the Seanchan out, just keep their insanity from spreading to the mainland.”
Harry said, “In that case, I’ll talk to Umy about the best way to cripple their ability to cause war.”
“That reminds me, I need to talk to Albus about charming a flying carpet or two.” Mist figured having flying scouts would help.
Egwene smiled at Harry. “I’ll come with you, I need to talk to Lily and Noelle about making another trip to the Two Rivers so I can recruit or copy some people.”
“Sure,” Harry replied as he turned and headed toward the other room where Lily and Noelle had been plotting with Umy earlier.
Mist watched Egwene and Harry leave. He had a feeling they’d be going to a decent number of mirror worlds in the next couple of months. “I think we might need a vacation jump after this.”
Tara turned to look at Mist. “Probably. I know our telepaths are going to need a break after sorting through the hundreds of prisoners and thousands of evil people in the Town. Riley and the biokinetics have been working their tails off figuring out who is worth trying to cleanse.”
“Hopefully we’ll have that wrapped up before too long so that we can work on mastering the magicite we have.”
“Any luck with the book that dropped off the creepy Myrddraal?”
“It’s a book for an avatar spell. It doesn’t seem tainted and our test case isn’t showing any signs of insanity so it’s probably safe enough,” Mist admitted reluctantly.
“And the magicite?”
“Tainted as hell, on the upside, it’s nothing we can’t deal with by letting a minion master the abilities then create a spellbook to share the spells after meditating on the golden statue for a few hours.”
“Anything useful?” Tara asked curious what the team had found.
“A decently low cost spell to teleport through shadows, a spell to mark a person’s soul with a personal mark which is more than a little creepy and a spell that creates a zone where channeling doesn’t work as long as you maintain it.”
Tara frowned as she thought about the spell to mark a person’s soul. “I think creepy might be an understatement.”
“I’m not planning on sharing that particular spell outside of the group.”
“For the best. Have you figured out a way to deal with the Blight yet?”
“I have a couple of ideas I wouldn’t mind running by you,” Mist replied with amusement.
Tara smiled at Mist. “Go for it.”
“I picked up a land purification spell from the Master of Magic priests. I was thinking about using the spell altar and combining it with fiendfyre so that the spell only consumes corruption. If I can figure out a way to purify the Dark One’s energy then I might be able to dump a lot of it into a copy of my magic receptacle.”
Tara shook her head. “Or you might go insane and burst into fire or disintegrate.”
Mist grinned at Tara. “That’s why I’ll be using an avatar at worst. I’m actually planning on using magic items to do most of the work. If I copy a purity pearl then transfer its pure nature to some adamantium then have Egwene change the adamantium into some bastard version of heartstone then coat it with oil of permanence it should survive the dark god’s magic, at least for a while.”
“And how are you planning on purifying it?”
“I’m planning on using my rather impressive magical talents to twist a purify land spell into something that will purify the energy as it’s being pulled in. We have enchanting skills for a reason. If I make more copies of the cloaking dagger and transfer the hiding effect, we should be able to pull in corruption and dark energy and channel pure magic into copied magic receptacles without the shadow finding the devices, at least in theory. In theory that would weaken the dark god or even lobotomize him if we did it enough.”
Tara frowned slightly. “We should probably run the energy through a couple of devices to make sure that it’s pure but that’s a decent start. You’ll probably want to make a copy of the golden statue and somehow include the copy in your insane plan.”
“It’s not insanity if it works,” Mist defended himself.
“It is if it only works by pure dumb luck,” Dawn pointed out as she walked into the room.
Mist mock pouted at Dawn. “Fine, what do you suggest?”
Dawn snickered. “It sounds like a decent first step. If nothing else it should give us stuff to siphon for years.”
“As long as it’s pure.” Tara really didn’t want to drain tainted power if she could help it.
Mist opened a portal to his warehouse. “I’ll work on designing the spells if you want to work on the physical design and rune work for the collection machine.”
“Sounds good to me.” Dawn grinned as she walked into the warehouse.
Tara wasn’t completely sold on Mist’s project but as long as they used avatars and were careful, they should be okay. Either way, building the device shouldn’t be a problem. “Sure.”
Comments
Alex Wierzbicki
good work as always
