Mist of Shadows
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Mist's Jumps Part 34
🕑 Added 2018-01-08 11:18:26 +0000 UTCMist smiled slightly as he flew over the blighted mountain with Abby and scanned the land on the other side of the mountain looking south at what was once Malkier. Despite knowing that the land was a twisted nightmare filled with monsters, there was a certain beauty in looking down at the land and seeing the thousands of lakes spread across the land. He knew the scene was a lie but that didn’t make it any less impressive. “If it wasn’t for the general aura of death and rot stretching across the land, it would almost be beautiful.”
Abby hovered in place as she took in the scene. “Any ideas on how you’re going to fix it?”
“One step at a time,” Mist replied as he flew toward the ground to find a place to set up Willow’s tree. He knew that if he stopped to think about it, he’d start getting overwhelmed about how much work they’d need to do to fix both worlds. Thankfully, the next step was decently easy, find a spot in the Blight that they could plant Willow’s tree then use their new singing ability to cause the tree to pull in the surrounding corruption until there was nothing left of the dark god’s corruption in the region. At least that was the theory, he doubted that the tree would rip the corruption out of the various shadowspawn or even the tainted monsters but it was a decent first step. He smiled slightly as he headed toward the ruined towers he could see in the distance.
Abby frowned slightly as she took in the sights as she flew after Mist. She had a feeling it was going to take years to deal with all of the corruption in the world, both mystical and political. She slowed to a stop as he stopped fifty feet above the largest ruined tower. “What’s the plan?”
“We need a place to plant the tree where we’re not going to get mobbed by shadowspawn or tainted plants.” He glanced at Abby, “Do you have your bubble head charm up?”
“Of course, I’d rather not deal with the stench, why?”
“Because breathing in acidic vapor can’t be good for our lungs even if it probably wouldn’t kill us thanks to our various perks, I’d rather avoid it.” He used his projection power to dark orb anything valuable from the bottom of the lake to a spot fifty feet from shore.
Abby smiled as she looked down at the curious collection of coins, blades, vases, pitchers and other odds and ends that might be ter’angreal that Mist’s magic had brought to the surface. “We should probably do the same for the city.”
“It was probably looted by the trollics that sacked the city but there might be something worth saving. We’ll take a look when we rebuild the city.” He turned his attention back to the ‘small’ island in the middle of the lake as he reached out with his magic and created a slightly domed airtight forcefield a few feet over the lake and island and about thirty feet of the shore. “That should keep the explosion contained to the lake.”
“Explosion?” Abby asked warily.
“I don’t want to go swimming to kill the various monsters in the lake so I’m going to cheat.” He used his projection power to temporarily transmute a decent amount of the bottom of the lake into Fluoroantimonic acid which reacted violently with the surrounding water and everything in it.
Abby twitched as the entire lake rumbled and tried to burst through Mist’s shimmering force field in a massive surge. “Shit!”
Mist frowned as he saw a tentacle of a monstrous beast smash into the shield sending cracks through that section of it. “Damn, those things are nastier than I thought.” He reinforced his shield before too much of the acidic as hell vapor escaped the crack then focused on the section of the water below it and changed it to acid to make sure the beast was surrounded by acid. He smiled as lake monster frantically smashed against the shield for several seconds before going still. “Chemistry for the win.”
“Chemistry, right. How long is the mess going to take to clean up?” Abby asked warily.
“Eh, the acid will change back to water in about ten minutes, give or take, plenty long enough to make sure everything in the water is quite dead.”
“That’s rather nasty.”
“But effective,” Mist replied with amusement.
“You probably could have just turned the water into vapor or something then killed the monster.”
“But that wouldn’t have been as much fun,” Mist replied with amusement.
Abby smirked at Mist. “Three words Mist, Mad Science Jar.”
He opened his mouth to argue then shrugged. “Yeah, I got nothing.”
“In that case, I’m going to deal with all of the tainted critters in the ruins.” Abby reached out with her projection ability and teleported all of the tainted creatures and plants from the city into the water.
Mist snorted as he saw thousands of plants and creatures of various size appear in the acidic lake with his x-ray vision. “Now who’s making a mess?”
“You were going to have to clean the lake up anyways so stop pouting.”
He grinned as he floated behind her and gently pulled her into a hug. “I’m not pouting, I’m just teasing you.”
Abby giggled as she relaxed into his arms. “I know, it’s just a lot to deal with. We need to restore magic in Buffy’s world, clean up the Blight, kill the shadowspawn and find all of the cultists then start improving everyone’s quality of life without turning the world into a polluted wasteland.”
“Technically, we don’t,” he pointed out.
Abby laughed. “Bullshit and you know it, we’d never hear the end of it from Buffy and Giles if we didn’t kill all of the monsters.”
“Or the munchkins or the whitelighters,” Mist agreed as he absently watched the lake bubble and rumble as the acid continued reacting with everything it came in contact with.
“Exactly, so how are we going to fix it?”
“Pandora has a plan for restoring magic to Buffy’s world that should work. Harry has a decent plan for dealing with the shadowspawn here and in various mirror worlds that looks promising and we have a plan for dealing with the Blight. Once we have the Blight cleansed we can create some telepathic minions and have them root out the various cults and nobles that are corrupt beyond all hope of redemption.”
“So most of them?” Abby asked with a touch of amusement.
“I don’t recall most of them being all that bad outside of Amadacia or the King of Cairhien but we’ll have plenty of time to sort out the political crap once we sort out the real problems.” Mist tightened his grip slightly with his right hand and fished his phone out of his pocket with his left hand. He flipped his phone open then dialed Willow’s number.
Willow picked up after the third ring. “What do you need?”
Mist frowned slightly as he noticed that Willow seemed a bit annoyed or at least frustrated by something. “Did I call at a bad time?”
“Yes, no, maybe?” Willow asked as she watched Sin try to drive the local Tara to orgasm on her bed with her tongue while her and Mist’s Tara played with her alternate’s breasts.
“I’m not a mind reader or at least I’m not over the phone, which is it?”
“Sin talked Tara into having sex with her and Tara for my viewing pleasure, they’re cute.”
“In that case, I won’t keep you but we’re like twenty minutes away from being ready to plant your corruption eating tree.”
“Good, have Hermione roundup everyone that can sing and we’ll meet you there in thirty or forty minutes.” Willow ended the call then stuck her phone in her inventory and settled in to watch the show.
Mist smiled as he scrolled back up to Hermione’s number and hit enter. “At least she was having fun.”
Abby snickered. “I wouldn’t have minded watching Sin have sex with Willow and both Taras.”
“Same. I’m sure you’ll get a chance eventually.” He was just glad that the other Tara was having fun or at least unwinding a bit.
Hermione picked up the phone before it had finished ringing twice. “Any luck?”
“More or less, I talked to Willow, she needs thirty or forty minutes to finish a project, can you round up everyone that can sing?”
Hermione smirked as she half listened to Anakin rant at Yoda for thinking that he’d kill a bunch of children. “Sure, I have a feeling Anakin has some issues to work through before he’s ready to help us shop for tech.”
“In that case, I’ll see you in a few.”
“Love you,” Hermione replied then ended the call. She looked over at Obi-Wan. “Something came up, do you need anything before we leave for a couple of days?”
Obi-Wan glanced at Luke who was glancing between Anakin and Yoda warily not knowing who to support then looked back at Hermione and Xander. “No, the potions your friend tossed on us seem to have restored our youth and we have plenty of food for the time being.”
Xander snorted. “He helped break the galaxy, he can help fix it.”
“Heard that I did,” Yoda replied grumpily.
“You were supposed to Kermit.” While he knew that the current problems the Star Wars galaxy had weren’t completely Yoda’s fault, he’d allowed the senate to pull the Jedi into a war they had no business being in charge of.
“Work on your lightsaber training when you return we shall,” Yoda replied firmly then went back to his ‘discussion’ with Anakin in a slightly lower voice.
Xander grinned slightly as he turned to look at Hermione. “Where to?”
Hermione opened a door back to Willow’s world. “Willow’s world to pick up everyone that can sing then we can start cleansing the Blight.”
“Then it’s back here to help with Luke’s training, right?” Xander asked curious what she was planning.
“Unless something else comes up or they decide to join us in.” She stepped through the door.
Obi-Wan sighed as he realized he couldn’t just jump through the portal and avoid the rest of the ‘discussion’ with Anakin. “Thanks for bringing my friend back, I thought I’d lost him.”
“You’re welcome, just remember that Anakin isn’t Darth Vader and you’ll be fine,” Xander stepped through the door to Emond’s Field then turned and looked at Obi-Wan, “eventually.”
Hermione let the door close. “Hopefully they’ll be done arguing by the time we get back to train.”
“Are you sure you want to bother?” Xander asked.
“We have the time and I want to be able to honestly tell people that I was trained by Yoda even if no one back home would believe me.”
He chuckled as they headed for the inn.
0o0o0
Buffy took a sip of her water bottle as she glanced between the newly healed Green Man and a decent collection of the Ogier treesingers that Illyria had recruited to help cleanse the Blight. Everyone was taking turns singing to help pull more corruption in through the various warded doors Lily was opening to various parts of the Blight. They could have done everything without the Ogiers but this was something they could help with and earn a hell of a lot of good will from just about everyone on Willow’s world so cutting them out of it would have been pointlessly cruel. The best part as far as she was concerned was that the corruption in the Green Man’s wound hadn’t been any less vulnerable to the tree than the rest of the corruption in Malkier. She turned to look at her son as he walked over with Sarah. “Any regrets going first?”
Liam rubbed his throat then coughed. “Not particularly though singing for over an hour without a proper warm up wasn’t the best idea in the world. I’m just glad we’re cleaning up the rest of the Blight in shifts.”
Sarah glanced over at where her sister Leah was singing in front of the massive gem tree. “Hopefully we can start breaking things into shorter sessions now that we have a decent area cleansed.”
“Hopefully,” Buffy replied as she handed Liam her water bottle. “Here.”
“Thanks Mom.” He accepted the bottle then took a drink.
Sarah glanced over at Faith and the other Leah who were near the shore of the lake holding rifles in case more Draghars showed up. “Hopefully, Iris’s idea pans out for dealing with the shadowspawn.”
“I’m almost afraid to ask what my niece suggested,” Buffy admitted with a touch of amusement.
Sarah grinned. “She reminded us that we have a bunch of people with a flaw that makes them like catnip to shadowspawn. If we put them above the dungeon tower on brooms or flying carpets the shadowspawn should charge through the one way doors so they can gleefully kill everyone with the shadowspawn magnet flaw.”
“That could work, especially if they’re invisible.”
Sarah smirked as she pulled a milkshake out of her inventory and started sipping it.
“Where did you get that?” Liam asked in surprise.
“Mistville, I just had to dodge a couple of ninja pirates and death eaters but it was worth it.”
Buffy frowned slightly as she thought about Mist’s crazy town, it was rather useful if you could put up with the insanity but there were reasons they normally only made a trip there once or twice a month if they could avoid it, mostly because everyone that lived there was a little crazy. She turned to look at Xander as he walked over. “How did Star Wars go?”
Xander smirked as he stopped in front of the group. “Hermione killed the Emperor and we freed Anakin from Carbonite so pretty good.”
“Anakin was stuck in Carbonite?” Sarah asked in disbelief.
“Yeah, apparently the real Anakin Skywalker sided with the Jedi so the Emperor stuck him in carbonite and activated a ‘loyal’ clone. He was ‘discussing’ things with Yoda when we left, something about the green muppet thinking he was a mass murdering psychopath.”
“Ouch, did you at least get a lightsaber?” Liam asked hopefully.
Xander grinned as he pulled a copy of the emperor’s lightsaber out of his inventory. “I stole the Emperor’s saber after Hermione killed him.”
Buffy grinned as she looked at Xander’s lightsaber. “Oh, shiny.”
“You can have one once you’re certified in lightsaber operation, we don’t want your cutting off someone’s head as they’re walking past,” Xander replied with amusement as he put the lightsaber back in his inventory as Willow rang a bell.
“Fine, I’ll take a couple of classes,” Buffy complained as she headed for the tree to take another shift singing so they could pull corruption in faster. She was hoping to get a decent amount of the corruption pulled out of Willow’s Blight by nightfall so the group could work on fixing her world or at least this version of her world tomorrow.
0o0o0
Rahvin glared at the unfamiliar red haired teenage looking girl wearing a simple green silk dress that opened his cell door. If waking up chained to an uncomfortable bench without the ability to sense the source hadn’t helped his mode, sending a child to attend him certainly put him in a worse mood. “I’m going to kill you and your master when I get out of here unless you let me go.”
Pandora laughed. “You don’t have a hope in hell of even hurting me let alone him. Besides, I forbid you from trying to hurt anyone or talking.”
Rahvin opened his mouth then closed it angrily when he realized that he couldn’t form any words.
“Cat got your tongue? No worries, it’s better this way.” Pandora smiled slightly as she picked his next question out of his head with telepathy, not that she’d really needed help it to guess his what he would have said next. “I found an interesting ter’angreal that binds people. No, I’m not going to release you until I’m done with you, yes I can read your mind. What do I want? I want what everyone wants, power beyond all sanity or responsibility and you’re going to help me get it.”
‘Great Lord take her, she’s insane,’ Rahvin thought bitterly as he stared at the obviously unhinged girl.
Pandora smiled slightly. “How can you help? I’m glad that you asked, you happen to have access to the pool of corrupted energy your dark god left behind, I want it or at least I want you to use it on my behalf.” She gave him a few seconds to think that he might make it out of this alive then crushed his hopes with her next statement. “I’m going to open a portal to somewhere outside of the stedding then we’re going to step through, you’re not going to channel until I tell you to. Once we’re through, I’ll open another portal where you’re going to link with the tree on the other side of the portal. Once you’ve established a link, you’re going to channel your god’s power into the tree so that it can cleanse and purify your god’s corrupted power. Yes, I’m well aware that channeling that much of his power will cause you to go insane or burst into flames but that’s fine, I’ve already copied all of your skills and taken blood samples to use to make the next generation.” She opened a door to an empty spot in the Shadow Coast region in an alternate mirror world. “Don’t attack me or try to kill yourself or run.” She gestured and unlocked his chains with a touch of magic. “Step through.”
Rahvin wished he could scream as his body moved of its own accord through the gateway ‘Where the hell did she learn to make a gateway?’
“Don’t try to destroy or injury the tree or anyone else.” Pandora opened a door to the Sunnydale crater where Mist, Rand and a bunch of other people with various magical singing abilities had gathered to make sure the tree wouldn’t get corrupted. “Ready?”
“We’re ready!” Mist called out then started singing a song of growth and health to help the tree stay uncorrupted. He had a feeling the copy wasn’t going to be as corruption resistant as Willow’s original tree but as long as they kept singing it should work. He was just glad this was the last of the corruption they had to deal with for a while because he was getting rather tired of singing after the last couple of days the group had spent cleaning up the Blight in various mirror worlds. He’d cast a fidelius charm on Willow’s version of the tree and talked Leah and Faith into watching the tree with a couple of golems until his dragon minion was done growing that he was planning on using as a guardian.
Pandora gestured at the tree. “Link with the tree and channel your god’s power into the tree.”
Rahvin wished he could have attacked her or resisted her command as he linked to the tree and channeled his god’s power into it, his only comfort was that the Great Lord was dead and couldn’t kill him for wasting his gift. Not that he’d have ever been able to channel anywhere near as much of the Great Lord’s power if he’d been alive, that honor had been reserved for Ishmael. Not that anyone sane would touch the Great Lord’s power unless they had no other choice as it was additive and incredibly destructive to the person using it. He felt a rush of power and confusion as he poured the Great Lord’s power into the strange tree which didn’t burst into flames, twist or do anything he was expecting. The tree merely grew larger and sprouted strange gem like apples as the strangers sang and he pushed more and more dark magic into the tree hoping that he could overload it and destroy it before he went blind and insane from channeling the Great Lord’s power.
Pandora wasn’t terribly surprised when Rahvin eventually then fell apart like a dropped sack of rotten potatoes then burst into flames. “That’s nasty.”
Mist studied the massive tree as he continued singing for another few seconds to make sure the corruption was dealt with then gestured for everyone to stop. “Let’s take a ten minute break to get something to drink then Pandora can grab the next Forsaken.”
“Sounds good to me,” Rand agreed as he accepted a cup of tea from Violet. “Who are you using next?”
Pandora said, “Balthamel, he has massive rage issues and no real talents outside of his knowledge of history which I already copied.” She’d also copied his various channeling talents and skills but there hadn’t been any surprises there.
“Decent choice.” He didn’t care for any of the Forsaken but Balthamel had ran various breeding camps during the War of Power to make sure Trollocs had enough humans to eat.
Violet made a mental note to talk to Pandora about going after some of the death eaters once they were finished cleaning Willow and Mist’s worlds up, Harry might be willing to live and let live but she wasn’t that nice.
“In that case, I’ll see you in ten minutes.” Pandora closed the door then walked back through the door then into the hallway of the jail she’d built. She walked to the next door and looked inside. “How are you doing Lanfear?”
Lanfear looked at her jailor warily. “What do you want?”
“I have ten minutes before I’m putting Balthamel to death for being useless, I want to test a new weave, are you interested in helping?”
“What does it do?” Lanfear asked suspiciously.
“It basically makes an evil version of you.”
Lanfear snorted. “That’s impossible.”
Pandora smirked as she used her father’s duplication spell and copied Lanfear.
Lanfear jumped back against the wall as a naked version of her appeared in her cell. “This is a trick.”
Pandora gestured and froze the copy in place as she tried to lunge for Lanfear’s throat. “Don’t attack her.”
The copy whined, “Blood so red, let me make pretty pictures master.”
Lanfear lashed out with her hand and hit what she’d hoped was an illusion and found her shoulder solid if a touch squishy and warm. “She’s real…” she trailed off in disbelief as she realized the damned wilder had done something they’d thought impossible in the Age of Legends. “How?”
“Magic and no, I’m not showing you the weave.” Pandora smiled as she noticed the magical mark on the clone’s wrist was the same as Lanfear’s which meant she could control the clones without sticking them in the binder which was rather useful. She resisted the urge to set Lanfear on fire as she skimmed her mind and found half a dozen half formed ideas on how to get the spell out of her before she killed her.
“What are you going to do with her?”
Pandora smiled at Lanfear. “I’m going to toss her in a machine that boosts her magic and damages people’s sanity then I’m going to fix her sanity and put her to work.”
“You can increase someone’s ability to channel?” Lanfear asked hopefully.
“Yes, are you interested?” Pandora asked curious what Lanfear would offer.
“Yes, I’m sure we can work something out. I have experience and power, I’m sure I could be useful to you.”
Pandora felt like laughing as she looked through Lanfear’s thoughts. ‘Right up until you stab me in the back. Still, it might be worth tossing her in the mana infusion pod to see how badly overcharging the chamber fries her mind. Let’s see, I probably have five minutes to get her to the chamber, charge it up then turn it on before I need to grab Balthamel.’ She pulled her copy of the helm of opposite alignment out of her inventory then stuck it on the copy’s head.
The copy twitched as the helm rewired her brain.
“Stay here, don’t try to escape.” Pandora gestured toward Lanfear and unlocked her manacles. “Come with me, don’t try to hurt anyone or free them. I want to see how much power I can infuse you with before you explode.”
“Explode?” Lanfear asked frantically as she found herself following the red haired woman out of the cell despite her best efforts.
“Hopefully not but we’ll see how it goes.” She led Lanfear down the hall past the other cells and past her recreation of Sin’s Garden of the Mind and to the room she kept her mana infusers. “Get in the pod and we’ll see how much magic we can give you before you explode.” Normally she wouldn’t experiment on people but the Forsaken were murderers and worse and she wanted to test the limits of the machine on people that no one would care about if they died.
Lanfear gulped as she walked over and got in the rather high tech looking pod. “Where did you find this?”
“I built it. There are other paths to immortality than your dead god.” She closed the pod’s lid then cast a sleep spell on Lanfear so they might be able to make it through the infusion process without her lashing out with her new magic and destroying the jail and the rest of the prisoners. She placed her hand on the plate on the machine and channeled a tenth of her massive mana pool into the machine then pulled the lever to start the infusion process. “That should be enough to crack her mind like an egg. Not that it matters, I was going to have to do a lot of pruning in her mental garden anyways.” She created an avatar to watch the infusion process and keep an eye on her test subject then headed back to collect Balthamel so they could work on draining the rest of the dark god’s energy to make more apples.
0o0o0
Sin stepped into the strange copy of her Garden of the Mind that Pandora had built in the prison she’d built and glanced around. It looked more like something out of a rotting twisting copy of Wonderland than what a mental garden should look like. “I think your copy of the garden is borked.”
Pandora took a couple of steps back from the creeping vine that she was attacking with a machete. “The garden works fine, she’s just more than a little insane.”
Sin frowned slightly as she saw a twisted looking black tree in the middle of the garden. “What is that?”
“I’m fairly sure that’s her pride.” Pandora gestured toward a patch of blue and green striped mushrooms. “I’m fairly sure that’s her self loathing and that,” She gestured toward a sickly looking violet in a patch of shadow, ‘is either her kindness or her empathy, I’m not sure which.”
“Other than the whole dark cultist bit, is there any reason she looks completely nuts?” Sin asked as she glanced at a patch of blue and black colored nettles that she was reasonably sure represented the subject’s need to be a bitch.
“I used a copy of Dad’s mana infuser to overload her brain with mana.”
Sin glanced around. “Why didn’t you hit her with the sanity mallet?”
Pandora scowled as she used her machete to hack through the creeping vine that was trying to wrap itself around her foot. “I’ve hit her a couple of times. I’ve also tossed her in the mana infuser more than a couple of times.” She gestured around at the twisted plants. “I want to clear out most of the baggage and transplant some the traits from her alignment flipped clone and Vivian to see if I can build something interesting.”
“Just make sure you hit her with my sanity technique when you’re done and never take the magical binding off, I don’t trust her. I don’t trust her alignment flipped clone either.”
“Yeah no, considering all of the things Lanfear did in the War of Power, they can stay in a pocket realm for the rest of their life popping out babies.”
Sin started working on clearing the patch of nettles. “How sure are you that Amelia dealt with all of her genetic issues?”
“Fairly sure. If not we’ll fix them in the next generation. I’m fairly sure that I’ll be able to make her stable enough mentally to live a quiet life of contemplation when she’s not drugged to the gills with fertility potions but trusting her would be insane without a couple of years of study and telepathic scans.”
“Who are you going to have raise the children?” Sin asked.
“Someone sane and not overly bothered by who their parents were? I was thinking a nymph version of Andromeda, I mean Tonks turned out decently sane.” Pandora figured she could try a few different sets of caretakers to see if it made any difference.
The nettles vanished as Sin finished hacking them apart. “For a given value of sane.”
“Sane enough for government work,” Pandora replied with amusement.
Sin turned and stared at Pandora in disbelief. “I can’t believe you went there.”
Pandora snickered. “Speaking of sane, when are you and Dad checking on the Aes Sedai in the snow globe?”
“Probably as soon as we finish up here, he wanted a progress report on your project.”
“What are you going to tell him?” Pandora asked a touch nervously as she hacked at some of the evil looking plants.
Sin glanced at the large twisted tree in the middle of the garden. “That you need a chainsaw.”
“I was planning on using my sword, I’m just not sure how much damage it will do when it falls,” Pandora admitted.
“Let’s find out!” Sin gestured and blasted the tree apart with lightning.
Pandora blinked a couple of times as she tried to get the spots out of her vision. Thankfully the large tree fell away from them rather than on them. “That was a bit drastic.” She frowned slightly as the fallen tree evaporated leaving behind a mess of destroyed plants and leaves as well as a large stump. “That’s one way to do it…” she trailed off as everything the tree had been shading started growing wildly. “This is your fault.”
“I’m not the one that nuked her brain with the mana infuser,” Sin replied as she started working on clearing some nasty thistles that were trying to grow into large bushes.
“This is why I wanted to clear the rest of the crap first and plant some decent virtues and traits before cutting the massive tree,” Pandora complained as she went to work clearing the worst of Lanfear’s other personality traits and memories.
“Live and learn.” Sin wasn’t overly worried about the extra time it was going to take them to sort out Lanfear’s mind as the delay should give Mist enough time to finish collecting everyone useful from the town in the Blight.
0o0o0
Mist scowled as he landed outside of the twisted and ramshackle town in the Blight. He wasn’t sure if it was a testament to Ishmael's insanity or if it was an issue of logistics because of its location in a cursed land but most of it looked to have been constructed by drunk idiots which was pretty sad considering how many centuries the settlement had been there. He smiled slightly as several trollocs he could see on the wall turned to look in his general direction despite the fact that he was currently invisible. ‘That’s a bit of an annoying flaw, at least I don’t have to sneak in.’ He pulled his stopwatch out of his inventory and hit the button that stopped time. “Best watch ever.”
He scanned the badly designed town walls in case he ever needed a pattern for a terminally shitty town for some insane reason. He walked around the partially opened gate then walked down the street scanning things and people to see if he could get any interesting patterns. He paused as he saw a veiled man with filed teeth that was glowing with magic potential. “Interesting.” He scanned the man and frowned slightly as he looked at the two patterns that popped up on his HUD. “Soulless Husk, this unit has no soul which leaves him with no real creativity, initiative or morals. Samma N’Sei, trained combat channeler that is a twisted reflection of an Aiel.” He closed the two popup notices then continued on his way scanning the townsfolk and buildings.
Thirty minutes later he felt like screaming in excitement as he finishing scanning a large building that almost looked decently constructed and got a pattern for a Samma N’Sei headquarters, a combat channeler training area that produced random channeler minions and a town unlock for controlling who could channel in the town or city. “Makes this whole damned trip worth it.”
He flew up a hundred and fifty feet so he could look down on the sprawling town then pushed the button on his watch to start time flowing. He pulled a mostly empty snow globe out of his inventory and duplicated it then focused on the shadowspawn in the town. He reached out with his magic and dark orbed all of the shadowspawn into the first empty snow globe for later disposal by everyone’s thanatos minions. Normally he wouldn’t bother but some of the munchkins hadn’t spent any real effort on their minions yet. He stuck the snow globe with the shadowspawn into his inventory then focused on the town and transported the channelers to the second empty globe. He put the snow globe in his inventory then focused on the town and transported the entire sprawling thing into a new snow globe. He put the snow globe away then looked at his watch. “I’ve got enough time to scan the forges before I should get back.” He turned and flew north to scan crap and to rescue anyone he needed to.
0o0o0
Siuan Sanche felt like she was seeing double as she glanced between the copies of her friend that were standing in her office then over at the other Moiraine’s strange friends. The dark haired young woman with impossible strength in the power was perhaps the easiest to understand and wrap her mind around, Egwene al’Vere was merely an insanely beautiful girl with impossible strength wearing a silk dress that slowly changed between a dark blue and deep green, Sin on the other hand sent her blood racing and looked like something out of a dream that made her want to toss her on the desk and have fun with her despite the people watching, it was more than a little disturbing. The worst was the strange twenty something ‘man’ that had more potential power with the female half of the source than anyone in living memory other than the girl he was with. It was rather disconcerting how calm the man was standing in the heart of the Tower like he didn’t have a care in the world. Unlike the women, his clothes weren’t exceptional at first glance, merely well crafted black leather pants and boots and a long sleeved red silk shirt of a style she didn’t recognize that showed off his rather impressive muscles to great effect. She pulled her attention back to her Moiraine with a good deal of mental effort. “Your last message put you in the west of Andor which was a fair distance to travel even before the recent troubles with armies of shadowspawn, explain, now.”
The local Moiraine said, “Mist has the rather strange ability to teleport between locations without crossing the space between and bring people with him.”
“Can ‘he’ teach us?” Siuan demanded still not quite sure that he was actually male despite Moiraine saying it.
Mist resisted the urge to complain about her not addressing him directly. “I could give you the ability to teleport but I doubt you’d pay my price so let’s save ourselves the trouble and pretend I can’t.”
“Price?”
Mist laughed softly as he gestured toward the local Moiraine. “It involves Moiraine, your desk and a paddle.”
Siuan blushed as she realized what the strange man had implied. “How dare you!”
“Eh, I said you wouldn’t meet my price...” Mist trailed off as he saw a glow spring up around Siuan which meant that she’d embraced the source. He smirked slightly as she used a weave of air to try to flick his ear and it evaporated thanks to his bracers or possibly his magic absorption. “Something the matter?”
Egwene snorted. “Off to a great start Siaun.”
Siuan ignored the young woman’s disrespect as she demanded.“How did you do that?”
Mist grinned at Siuan. “You didn’t honestly think I’d come anywhere near the tower without proper defenses against channeling, did you?” He knew he shouldn’t troll Siuan as she’d had a rather horrible last couple of months but he didn’t see a point in letting her think she could walk all over him.
“You have a ter’angreal?”
Mist recognized the greedy look in her eyes. “I have several and before you start your shit about ter’angreal belonging to the tower, mine were given to me by the person that created them so they aren’t the property of the Tower.”
“We’re getting off topic,” Moiraine cut in before Siuan could say something to get herself in trouble.
“My apologies I was having fun tweaking Siuan’s nose. Let’s talk business, we’re currently in a pocket realm sort of like the ways only not as large. On the plus side, we don’t need to deal with the army of shadowspawn that were surrounding the city, on the downside, I imagine at some point food will become an issue if it hasn’t already.”
Siuan glared at Mist. “You expect me to believe that the entire city was moved rather than surrounded by an illusion and a barrier?”
Moiraine spoke up, “Take my word for it, the city has been placed in a pocket dimension where it’s safe.”
Siuan turned to stare at Moiraine. “What?”
“He has the ability to relocate locations to self contained pocket realms.”
Siuan narrowed her eyes as she glared at Mist. “Let me guess, this is where you squeeze the Tower for everything you can get?”
Mist shrugged. “Not even remotely. I’m perfectly willing to restore the city to its previous location or find an alternate location in a safe mirror world to move the city and everyone inside. I moved the city because your world was beyond saving with the forces you had at your disposal. That said, I have several things to offer that I think you’d be willing to trade for.”
“Like the ability to move cities or teleport?”
“If you’d like and can meet my price.”
“What price is that?” Siuan asked suspiciously.
Egwene spoke up, “We want the Black Ajah members you have in your city.”
Siuan turned to glare at Egwene. “Assuming such women even exist, why would you want them?”
“Because we have a ter’angreal that can bind them to follow orders and a number of severed men that used to be able to channel, we might as well see if the next generation is useful for something.”
“You’d force them to have children rather than just kill them?”
Sin spoke up, “Channeling runs in families, let’s put the black hearted bitches to some use. Besides, all we’d have to do is lock them up and give them gruel and tell them that they’d get better food and books if they get pregnant.”
The local Moiraine asked, “You have a method to find the dark sisters?”
“Of course, we simply bind everyone then ask them where their loyalties lie.”
Siuan snorted. “And give you an army?”
Egwene cut in, “No, we’d be giving you control of all of your Aes Sedai, Accepted and Novices, no more arguing pointlessly with the Hall, no more listening to them complain that we can’t do this because of tradition and no more Novices or Accepted running off with some idiot.”
Sin almost purred as she leaned over the desk giving Siaun a rather nice view of her breasts, not that her yellow silk dress didn’t already, “Where has tradition gotten you?”
Siuan pulled her attention off of Sin’s assets with an effort of will. “You’re asking me to enslave everyone.”
Moiraine almost felt sorry for her friend’s alternate, Sin and Egwene knew just the right levers to pull and the right bait to hang in front of her. “You can free everyone once the current situation is handled.”
Siaun snorted. She knew if she bound everyone then freed them, they’d turn on her. Still, the chance to destroy the Black Ajah was tempting. She stomped on the little voice in her head whispering that it would make things so much easier if the Hall couldn’t argue with her. “What else are you willing to share?”
Mist shrugged. “You name it, I can probably provide it for the right price, anything from gold, jewels and ter’angreal to increased strength with the one power.”
“That’s impossible.”
Mist gestured at Moiraine. ”If you’ll notice our Moiraine has more strength in the power than her local version.”
Siuan stared in shock as she realized that the other Moiraine was stronger, she hadn’t noticed earlier because the difference in strength was slight and she’d had other things on her mind but there was a difference which certainly helped their claim. “Can he really increase someone’s strength in the power?”
“That and more,” Moiraine agreed. She wasn’t sure how many tricks Mist actually had but she’d seen enough over the last couple of days to know that he could deliver on just about any promises he made.
“What are you?” Siaun asked Mist in disbelief.
Mist smiled faintly. “Someone from another world with more than a couple of tricks up his sleeve.” He turned as he heard several people approaching the door. “Company.”
Leane Sharif knocked on the door.
Siaun called, “Come in.”
Leane opened the door then walked in with Verin Sedai and Pandora. “Verin insisted she needed to speak with you.”
Mist glanced at the tall willowy copper skinned woman dressed in a green dress then at the plump Aes Sedai that was carrying a ledger.
Verin glanced at Pandora then reached out and shut the door behind her as she really didn’t need the upcoming conversation made public. “The young lady spun an interesting tale about the Black Ajah and about a method for dealing with it.”
Siuan glanced at Pandora, compared to the rest of the strangers she was dressed normally enough in a blue dress. “You’re as strong as Mist.”
Pandora shrugged. “He’s my father.”
Siuan turned to look at Mist. “How old are you?”
“Older than everyone in the room other than Verin,” Mist admitted.
“Why involve Verin?” Siuan asked warily.
Mist grinned at Verin. “Because if she’s anything like our world’s Verin she has a list of a decent number of the Black Ajah members.”
“Why is this the first I’ve heard of this?” Siuan demanded
Verin ignored Siuan’s question for the moment as she studied the man before her. “Your daughter mentioned your name, you’re in my notes.”
“Oh?” He wasn’t surprised that his name was in her ledger considering the city was from his starting world, he was just curious what reason she had for putting his name in her ledger.
“You were mentioned as a potential recruit because of your ability to travel through darkness.”
“Traveling through darkness, that’s news to me.”
“A large collection of black stars was how your method of travel was described.”
“Ah, I can see how someone would get the wrong idea.” He gestured and used his dark orbing power to teleport Siuan’s inkwell a foot to the left.
Siuan twitched as her inkwell disappeared and reappeared without crossing the space in the middle. Whatever ability he’d used didn’t feel twisted or evil. “What was that?”
“It’s called dark orbing, mostly because of the color. I can also use a version where all of the motes of light are blue, it’s just a lot more visible at night than the darker version.” He gestured and orbed her inkwell back to where it had been.
“How?” Leane asked suspiciously.
“Magic, my original world was a bit weird.” He doubted Verin had more than the basics on his back story so implying he didn’t grow up on this world shouldn’t be a big deal. Besides, he wasn’t all that interested in explaining about being a jumper when he wasn’t going to stick around long enough to care.
Moiraine cut in before things went off topic, “I’m not sure how many Black Ajah members are left in the Tower but I suspect a few stayed.”
Verin was just glad that Pandora had managed to free her from the oath against betraying the Dark One. “At least a hundred members of the Black Ajah are still in the Tower.”
Siuan turned and stared at Verin. “You’re serious.”
“I’ve been studying them for years, trying to get an idea of what they wanted and who they were.”
“Explain.” Siuan wasn’t all that happy to learn of the extent of the rot in the Tower.
Mist tossed his daughter, Egwene and Sin a mental message as Verin told an interesting ‘story’ about hunting the Black Ajah without actually admitting to being a member of it, ‘How trustworthy is she?’
Pandora replied mentally, ‘She’s much like the Verin from the series, she got a bit too curious and got told to join or die so of course she joined up so she could learn enough to take them down.’
Egwene asked, ‘What are we actually going to do with the Black Ajah?’
‘I have an idea for dealing with the Black Sisters that might be worthwhile.’
‘What’s that?’ Mist asked warily as Siuan grilled Verin on which Aes Sedai were cultists.
‘The first step is binding everyone then having them meditate in front of a copy of Mist’s corruption eating statue then we’ll have them use my generous donation glove to give away their powers to sane channelers and walk the ‘sane’ girls in front of the nymph mirror. I’d rather have the nymphs reproduce anyways. We can send the former channelers through the door to the foxes and snakes to get ter’angreal like in the story.’
Sin smiled slightly as she thought about how much work it had taken to piece Lanfear’s mind back into something resembling a working mind. ‘Let me guess, you don’t want to try to piece together a hundred personalities?’
‘Not really, rebuilding her mind into something useful was more work than most of them are worth.’ Pandora figured it would be easier to make copies of people that hadn’t fallen to the dark side than fix the ones that had.
‘That’s a better plan than trying to fix a bunch of crazy nymphs,’ Egwene agreed mentally.
Siuan looked at Mist. “How soon can you start?”
Mist pulled his attention back to the Siuan. “How soon can you get everyone here to bind?”
“Let’s start with the sitters and the heads of the Ajahs,” Siuan replied grimly.
Comments
Mist of Shadows
Thanks.
Mist of Shadows
Thanks.
Alex Wierzbicki
Good stuff
