Mist of Shadows
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Mist's Jumps Part 32
🕑 Added 2017-12-22 10:40:27 +0000 UTCLanfear screamed in shock as a gateway she couldn’t feel opened under her feet dropping her thirty feet above the ground.
Pandora reached out with her magic and caught the dark witch once she cleared her door then closed it. “Hello Lanfear or should I call you Mierin Eronaile?”
Lanfear tried and failed to reach the source as she glared at the shockingly beautiful young woman standing in the middle of a forest holding her up with the power despite the fact that they were in a stedding and she couldn’t sense her ability to channel. She glared at Pandora. “Who told you that name?”
“Does it matter? You were a bitch before you burned a hole in the pattern and unleashed your dark god so I don’t really see a reason to answer though I am curious about something, have you found the access keys yet?”
Lanfear glared at Pandora. “Where did you learn about those?”
Pandora plucked the information out of her head with her telepathy then dark orbed the female access key to her hand. “Aginor sends his thanks by the way.”
“How did you do that!” Lanfear demanded.
“It’s amazing what you can learn with a couple of hints.” Pandora pulled her copy of the skull of corruption out of her inventory then pointed it at Lanfear and activated it.
Lanfear stared in shock as a duplicate of her appeared near the woman. “What?”
Pandora quickly backhanded the duplicate forsaken killing her instantly. “I want you to understand, you have no hope of rescue or salvation and no one knows where you are.” She put her staff of corruption back in her inventory. “When I burn you from the pattern there will be nothing left for your god to bring back. Then again, he’s dead so he wouldn’t be bringing you back to life regardless.”
Lanfear stared in shock at the woman as she thought about the empty pit of doom that was nothing but rock now. “How did you hear that?”
Pandora smiled coldly at the dark magic user. “Who do you think killed him?”
“Liar!”
Phoenix smirked as she dropped her invisibility spell then dark whispered next to her niece. “Let me guess, she didn’t believe you?”
Lanfear stared at Phoenix. “What was that?”
“I can teleport.”
“That’s not possible.” Lanfear wasn’t sure how she’d stolen the access key but it had to be a trick, there was no way some wilder had figured out how to teleport things when they hadn’t been able to in her own time.
“Probably because I look cute and innocent.” Pandora shrugged. “Just because you can’t teleport doesn’t mean other people weren’t able to figure it out, Aginor is a genius after all.”
“You’re one of his creations aren’t you?” Lanfear glared at the two women.
Phoenix clapped her hands lightly three times as she smirked. “Give the girl a prize.” She finished in her head, ‘For jumping to the wrong conclusions.’
“The Great Lord would have known.”
Pandora said, “What can I say, Aginor was a sneaky bastard. He wanted something in reserve if the other Chosen turned on him so he stuck us in a stasis box and hid the box in a place he could find.” She had a feeling she’d been spending too much time with Sin lately because winding the crazy magic user up was way too amusing.
Lanfear asked, “What do you want?”
“Nothing right now, I’m looking through your mind for secrets and weaves.”
Lanfear stared in horror as she realized that Aginor hadn’t made all of his mind reading creations stupid. “I’ll kill that bastard when I get out of here!”
Pandora hit Lanfear with a stunner. “Best of luck with that.”
Sin smiled slightly as she watched her invisible avatars continue working on copying Lanfear’s various talents and skills. “How long are you planning on leaving her alive?”
“That depends, do you want to get Amelia here to see if she can fix her arrogance? I wouldn’t mind using a couple of cloning potions considering her strength in the power is rather impressive.”
“You’re the most evil whitelighter I know.”
“Nah, that’s my cousin Chris, he’s a lot worse than I am.”
“Keep telling yourself that,” Phoenix said with amusement as she opened a door under Asmodean. She caught him with telekinesis before he hit the ground then closed the door as she didn’t want any interruptions from the pack of dark sisters helping him. “Asmodean, such promise as a child, such arrogance.”
Asmodean reached for the power and scowled as he found it out of reach. “You’ve made a mistake.”
Sin reached out and checked the man’s mind. “No, you are Joar Addam Nessosin are you not?”
He glared at the group of women. “What do you want?”
“Your memories of the music of the Age of Legends, your talents and your power.”
He gulped. “My power?”
“Ah yes, Aginor found a way to steal someone’s power a couple of days before the bore was sealed,” Pandora lied as she pulled out the skull of corruption and copied him. She stepped forward and killed the copy by punching into his chest and ripping his still beating heart out.
Asmodean stared in shock as the man that looked like him collapsed. Maybe it was an illusion but that didn’t explain how she’d moved that fast unless that was also an illusion. “So you’re going to kill me?”
“That’s up to you, behave and we might keep you as our bard for a while, don’t and you’ll die in pain.” Pandora crushed the copied heart with her fingers then dropped it.
He shivered as he glanced between her evil smirk and her blood covered hands. “I have no problem playing music.” He didn’t see a point in having a confrontation in a stedding when he didn’t have a well and couldn’t channel and she obviously could.
Pandora hit him with a stunner as she didn’t want him to see the body vanish or hear the next bit. “We should probably call Fred.”
Phoenix shook her head. “That was cold.”
“Eh, it’s just mana and a framework.”
Sin pulled her phone out of her pocket then scrolled down to Fred Weasley’s number and hit enter.
Fred picked up after a couple of seconds. “Hey Sin, what’s up?”
“We captured some dark magic users, we need to use your binder.”
“Where do you want me to open a door to?” Fred asked.
Sin glanced up, “Fifty feet above me should work then just fly down.”
“Sure, that works. How soon do you need us to get here?”
“How soon can you get here? I’d rather bind the two dark magic users I have before I work on the rest.”
“Give me five to tell Lee to lock up.”
“Sounds good...” Sin trailed off as a crazy man in dark rags appeared out of thin air on the other side of the clearing. “Might want to hurry.” She ended the call.
Pandora stared at the man with flames for eyes. “Ishaemeal I presume?”
He shouted, “I am the Lord of the Grave!” as he tossed a raging inferno of corrupted black fire at the group.
Pandora brought her hands up and opened a door right in front of the fire that opened facing the man’s back. She stared in shock as the man managed to annihilate himself. She hadn’t actually expected her trick to work considering what it would take to hurt her father, then again having an attack that could cut through all defenses probably counted as enough of a threat considering her father’s specialties. “What the fuck was that?”
Sin shivered as she watched the black flames trying to spread over the ground. “I’m guessing that was Mist’s dark god. It would explain why he could use magic inside the stedding.”
“I’m really glad I didn’t try to tank that or deflect it.”
Phoenix opened a door into Shadar Logoth then gestured at the flames that were trying to spread and shouted, “Flames!” as she dark orbed them through the door. She closed the door before the flames could spread back through the door. “Well, that happened.”
“I’m going to kick Dad in the shin the next time he picks up a stupid drawback,” Pandora grumbled.
“Hopefully it stays dead…” Sin trailed off as a door opened fifty feet up and Tonks, Fred and George flew out of it with their wands at the ready. “Hi guys.”
Fred asked, “Is everything alright?”
“We dealt with the attacker or at least I hope we did.” Phoenix turned her attention toward Lanfear and started scanning her.
“Who are your floating prisoners?” Tonks asked as she let the door close then floated down to the ground with Fred and George.
Pandora spoke up, “Lanfear and Asmodean, they were two of the Dark One’s generals before he was sealed away at the end of the Age of Legends.”
“In other words Death Eaters.”
“Much worse, more like if Grindelwald had won the war then started mass slaughtering muggles to turn them into monsters and other inhuman experiments.”
George asked, “If that’s the case, why are they still breathing?”
Sin said, “We’re copying their talents and skills first and then I’m going to give them a couple of good whacks with my mallet to cure their mental issues that aren’t genetic then Amelia can give them a check up before we make clones for breeding experiments.”
“Why?”
“They’re both a couple of hundred years old, they know things that the rest of humanity has forgotten. Once I’m through copying all of their skills and fixing their mental issues, I’m going to toss them into the garden of the mind room and take cuttings then stick the helm of opposite alignment on them and take more cuttings until I can piece together something that isn’t broken as shit.”
Phoenix laughed as she got several unlocks for minions. “Or we just scan them. I just picked up a pattern for a channeler as well as a Dreamwalker unlock and an unlock for Chosen.”
“You can make Chosen?” Pandora asked in disbelief.
Phoenix frowned slightly as she brought the Chosen unlock up. “Ah, not exactly. This basically allows a channeler to channel power from a god if the god allows it.”
Pandora said, “That could be useful depending on what perks they get from using a neutral source of magic.”
Fred pulled the binder out of his inventory. “How do you want to do this?”
Sin gestured toward Pandora. “Make Pandora a ring then we can grab the rest of the Forsaken and bind them. That should give everyone enough time to get settled and create skill books of everything they picked up so we can start trading.”
Pandora was just glad getting a ring only required her to stick her finger in a hole in the binder for fingers then channel a bit of magic into the binder while concentrating on what she wanted the ring to look like. She smiled as she looked at the five pointed star in a circle on the face of her new ‘golden’ ring the binder created for her. She wasn’t sure what the ring was actually made out of but she doubted it was actually gold. “If this works like I think it will I can change the colors when I bind people.”
Phoenix said, “That could work nicely for binding Aes Sedai, have the background match their Ajah color then fill in the rest of the areas with the other colors.”
“What do we do for Black Ajah members?” Sin asked.
“Use black for the background and leave the Ajah they betrayed off of it?”
“That works.” Pandora gestured and floated Lanfear toward them so that she could bind them. “Actually, if we can get this working, we might as well grab the Forsaken from Willow’s world and the world that Mist owns while we’re at it.”
Sin said, “I’m pretty sure Dawn or Mist has a list of Black Ajah members that we could use to start grabbing people.”
Phoenix glanced around the forest clearing. “We should set up some type of prison or at least shelter before we start grabbing a bunch of dangerous criminals.”
Pandora looked at Phoenix and Sin. “I’ll deal with that and the rest of the Forsaken while you take a door to Willow’s world and collect a copy of the skill books and let Willow know that we’re dealing with her Forsaken problem.”
Phoenix reached out and ruffled her niece’s hair. “See, she’s already giving orders like a pro.”
Pandora asked, “Do you have a better idea?”
“Nope.” Phoenix smiled as she opened a door to outside the Winespring Inn in Willow’s world.
0o0o0
“I’m still not sure your plan is going to work,” Leah complained softly as they walked toward their father’s study.
“We’ll never know unless we ask,” Scarlet pointed out as they reached the open door to his study.
Mist looked up from the map he was studying. “What’s up?”
“Have you figured out what you’re going to do about the Seanchan yet?” Leah asked hoping he hadn’t figured out what to do with them yet.
“Nothing concrete, why?”
“If we relocate all of the Seanchan on your world to an abandoned mirror world can we have the island?” Scarlet asked hopefully.
Mist raised his eyebrows. “You want to claim an entire continent on my nice shiny new world?”
“You have lots?” Leah asked hopefully as she looked at her father with puppy dog eyes.
Mist shook his head. “You also have lots of siblings.”
“What if we make it a group project?” Scarlet cut in.
“Oh?” Mist asked as he tried to keep from laughing.
“If we give everyone the chance to help then they can’t complain when we get a nice shiny country out of it if they don’t want to work for it.”
“That could work. Either way, I’d rather keep the channelers.”
“Obviously,” Leah agreed.
Mist frowned slightly as he thought about the logistics of moving millions of people in something approaching an orderly fashion that he could live with. “Assuming for a second that I agree to your crazy deal, how would you move the rest of the people without causing everyone to die of hunger in a couple of months?”
“We can either replace the Empress and order the return early then just send them all through doors to the other world or we could use Harry’s snow globe trick and move farms, towns and cities to the empty world.”
“That’s slightly nicer than just using a spell to transport them all to the new world with just their basic gear. Talk to Umy and see if you can come up with a decent plan that doesn’t kill everyone.”
“Does that mean we can have the continent?” Scarlet asked hopefully.
“Who or what are you planning on repopulating the country with?”
Scarlet smiled at her father. “Cute channelers, witches, various magic users, some minions and fox and cat girls.”
Mist laughed. “In that case, if you can come up with a decent plan that leaves us with all of the channelers, angreal, ter’angreal, sa’angreals and notes on channeling the empire has, then sure, you and your siblings can have it as long as you take care of it.”
Leah squealed, “You’re the best dad!”
“I know,” Mist replied with amusement.
Scarlet asked, “Do you know what Willow was planning on doing with her Seanchan?”
“You could always call her,” Mist pointed out.
“Good point.” Scarlet turned toward the door then stopped as she saw an unfamiliar face. “Hi?”
Vivian stopped in the doorway with a smile on her face as she glanced between Scarlet and Leah. “Oh, more cute girls can they spank me?”
Mist shook his head to clear it of mental images he didn’t want. “That’s up to them, girls meet Vivian, I ‘won’ her in the raffle.”
Leah smiled as she glanced over Vivian’s body that her sheer clothes did very little to hide. “I like her.”
“Do you want to help us take over a country?” Scarlet asked with amusement.
Vivian looked over at Mist. “Boss?”
“Have fun storming the castle, I’m going to go chat with Willow.” Mist smiled slightly as he watched the girls ‘haul’ Vivian off with them to plot, have sex or find Umy. ‘At least she’s nice.’ He focused on Willow’s world then opened a door. He stood up then scowled as he looked down at the blighted landscape that wasn’t Emond’s Field or even close as far as he could tell. He floated through the door then frowned slightly as he realized that he couldn’t sense what direction Egwene was in which meant it was probably the wrong world. “Great, this is going to take forever.” He let the door close behind him then flew south so see if he could find something that passed for civilization.
0o0o0
Willow followed Egwene, Jack, Sin and Amelia through the door into the stedding then blinked as she saw a few dozen bodies sprawled out on a bunch of sturdy wooden tables. “How many copies of the Forsaken did you grab and why do some of them look different?”
Pandora finished using the binder to ‘tattoo’ the wrist of one of the Asmodeans with a pentagram tattoo then looked over at the new arrivals. “I started with the ones from here, your world and Mist’s world then got a little carried away.”
Jack held his fingers a couple of inches apart. “Just a bit sis.”
Pandora stuck her tongue out at her brother then looked back at Willow. “Apparently if you go far enough to the left or right when opening doors, you get different Forsaken. If nothing else it means they have different talents and skill sets which is good.”
Egwene scowled as she saw several of Moghedien’s alternates. “At least this way we can put them to work.”
Jack shivered slightly as he looked at the collection of unconscious channelers that were all powerful enough to reduce cities to ash. Sure they were currently in an area that prevented them from using magic but that didn’t change the fact that they were extremely dangerous magic users and very likely to hold grudges.
Amelia worked on scanning the various channelers hoping to unlock some interesting.talents and skills.
Pandora gestured and orbed Asmodean to the area where she’d dropped the rest of the bound channelers then turned to look at Willow. “I’m planning on binding a decent number of the channelers on Dad’s world to get rid of the institutionalized stupidity, do you want me to bind yours?” She grabbed the next person and stuck their wrist in the binder.
Willow frowned as she weighed the ‘right’ to be free against the arrogance and insanity of the White Tower and the various other groups of channelers she knew about. “Bind them, I remember the later books and how stupid, stubborn and delusional the White Tower was.”
Egwene sighed as she thought about her time in the Tower. “Be happy you only read about it, I remember dealing with the idiots, if you’d said the sky was blue they’d have argued about the shade of blue for days if for no other reason than they wanted to annoy people and drag their feet so they could get their way even if it was completely stupid.”
Sin looked at Pandora as she pulled her large ‘wooden’ cartoon hammer out of her hammerspace. “Do you want me to walk around and hit everyone in the head with my mallet to cure their mental issues?”
“That would probably help,” Pandora replied as she orbed the version of Grendel that she’d just bound to where she’d sent the others that she’d already bound. “I’m more worried about their genetics than I am their sanity for my breeding program but having them saner would help.”
“Sweet.” Sin grinned as she started hitting the various unconscious Forsaken in the heads with her nifty ability that let her cure mental issues. She knew it wouldn’t really fix them but they should be easier to deal with.
Amelia finished her latest scan then swapped to scanning the next unconscious person. “I should be able to fix most of their genetic issues once I finish scanning them. What are you planning on doing with them once you’re done binding them?”
Jack winced slightly as he watched his mother gleefully whack a bunch of people on the head with her cartoon mallet. ‘If only that technique worked on her.’
Pandora smiled slightly as she moved onto binding a Forsaken that she didn’t recognize. “My gender swapping power has a retroactive component which means if I change one of the men into a female, ‘she’ would have been trained as a female in the Age of Legends.”
Egwene smiled grimly as she looked down at one of the Semirages. “I have a feeling Damer Finn would love to pick the brain of a male Semirage.”
“I know I would,” Jack said as he pulled his attention off one of the half dressed Lanfears that his mother smacked with her mallet.
“Most likely, if nothing else, it should help fill in the gaps in our education.” Sin was looking forward to seeing what they could learn with their various skill cheats.
Egwene turned to look at Pandora. “Don’t forget to add Mazrim Taim to the list of dark channelers to grab, the man is an arrogant bastard but he’s as strong as most of the Forsaken and I’d rather not have him running around free if I can help it.”
“Good call, grab mine as well,” Willow said as she worked on scanning the binder.
Pandora absently gestured at the rest of the unconscious bodies. “I’ll grab him as soon as I finish binding the rest.” She wasn’t sure Mazrim was a dark friend at this point in the timeline but he was enough of an ass in the books that she’d rather deal with him before he became a problem. She orbed the unfamiliar Forsaken she’d just finished binding to the area Fred and George were watching then moved the binder to the next person.
Amelia asked, “Where are you sending them?”
“It’s just through the trees, I have Tonks and Fred and George copying their skills and talents.” Pandora gestured behind her then grabbed the hand of one of the Rahvin copies she’d collected and stuck it in the binder. She stuck her ring against the indentation then fed a little magic into the machine as she’d done dozens of times before and bound the Forsaken to her ring. “I’m going to be here a while, feel free to wander or whack the rest of the Forsaken.” She gestured and orbed him to the other area then grabbed the next idiot.
Sin grinned as she finished whacking the last table full of people in a blur. “Sure, I’m always up for hitting idiots in the head with cartoon hammers.” She giggled as she headed toward the trees.
“I wish I’d had that skill back in my world, it would have helped a lot,” Amelia grumbled as she followed Sin.
“Same,” Egwene agreed.
“Is there anything I can do to help?” Jack asked.
Pandora bound the next idiot as she explained how he could help, “You could hit everyone with another stunner to make sure Sin didn’t wake any of them up but they should be out for hours.”
“Sure.” Jack walked around the tables hitting everyone with a stunner just to make sure they were out for the count.
“Has everyone finished making their skill books yet?” Pandora was looking forward to assembling all of the channeling talents so she could start improving her talents with upgrade.
Willow pulled a ‘ring’ of wooden titles out of her inventory. “We actually went with wooden titles that we could snap for the skills this time as they’re a lot easier to store.”
“Wooden titles?” Pandora asked as she turned to look at the wire ring of tiles that Willow was holding.
Willow handed her the ring of tiles. “Pretty much, you just run a wire through them then copy the collection as a set.”
“I guess that’s more convenient than carrying around a truckload of books,” Pandora admitted as she put the ring of labeled wooden rectangles in her inventory.
Jack hit the last couple of unconscious people with stunners to make sure they were unconscious as he really didn’t want them waking up before they were bound on the off chance they had some trick up their sleeves. “How long do you think this is going to take?”
Pandora turned back and grabbed the next Forsaken. “Maybe another ten minutes to finish binding the idiots then a couple minutes to use the new skill tiles, why?”
“I’m just trying to figure out how much time it would take to bind an entire village of channelers.”
“Why would you need to?” Willow asked warily.
“The Sharans have entire villages filled with channelers scattered around Shara, there are thousands of mirror worlds.”
“You can’t just run around enslaving everyone.” Willow glanced warily at where Pandora was doing exactly that. “Or at least you shouldn’t.”
Jack snorted. “Of course not but the Ayyad sided with the dark god in the books which means that at the very least we should remove them from our worlds or bind them before we jump.”
Egwene spoke up before Willow could reply, “Technically they fought for Demandred but he’s right, they were willing to fight for the Dark One because of a prophecy.”
Willow frowned slightly as she realized they had a couple of good points even if enslaving a bunch of villages sounded more than a bit drastic and evil. “Fine, that still doesn’t explain how you expect to be able to sneak in and bind everyone before someone notices something and starts trying to kill you.”
Jack smirked. “It’s actually remarkably easy, we simply move the villages into snow globes at night using Harry’s trick then move the snow globes into a stedding before we send people in to capture everyone.”
Egwene had a feeling that Jack’s plan would work surprisingly well. “What happens if they have a well?”
“We’re nigh immune to magic and we have the bracelets which makes us immune to channeling, we’ll be fine.”
“How would you deal with the rest of the Sharans?” Willow asked hoping he had a better idea than sending an army in to deal with them as that promised to be rather messy.
Jack shrugged. “We could always open a door to a world where something went drastically wrong and they need the help then use a teleportation spell or projection to teleport everyone through that we don’t want.”
“Not a bad idea,” Egwene agreed.
“There are some ethical concerns about relocating people,” Willow complained.
Pandora snorted as she sent the last of the Forsaken to the other site then turned to look at Willow. “I don’t care, it would take years or centuries to rip the rot out of the Seanchan culture and I honestly don’t care enough to bother when I can solve the problem by relocating them to another world to start with.”
“What gives you the right?”
“Power and my father owns the world.” Pandora used a touch of magic to cause her eyes to glow with eldritch green flames. “We’re not talking about nice people, we’re talking about monsters in human form that enslave women with magic, we’re talking about an empress that thinks it’s funny to make men put an a’dam bracelet on to see if they die which they do if they can use magic. Fuck that, I’m not going to put up with that level of insanity and I know damned sure that Dad isn’t going to which means we basically have two choices, we relocate them or we go to war. If we go to war, I am my father’s daughter, I will rip their empire apart and the streets will run red with blood. It’s far easier to just use a couple of spells to relocate all of the Seanchan and Sharans to other worlds.”
“And that is why my sisters are scary,” Jack grumbled.
Pandora stuck the binder in her inventory. “Let’s go see if Amelia has fixed their mental issues. If nothing else we can gender flip the Forsaken and copy all of their new skills before we let Riley get some blood samples for cloning.”
Willow sighed as she realized that Pandora had a point, the Sharans and Seanchan weren’t something she could just ignore.
0o0o0
Ranma frowned slightly as he felt a massive pulse of magic and the dozen Shaido Aiel he was ‘sparing’ with suddenly dropped unconscious. “Damn it Scarlet, you couldn’t have waited until after I was done sparing?”
“Opps?” Scarlet asked sarcastically as she dusted off her hands and stood up from where she’d been kneeling on the ground. She glanced at the three open doors she’d opened before she started her spell to make sure they were still open then looked over at Ranma with a smile.
Leah rolled her eyes. “It’s not like they were much of a challenge.”
He turned to look at Scarlet. He hadn’t been all that impressed with their skill but he’d been having fun tossing them around while they tried to kill him for trespassing. “No but they had a couple of interesting spear techniques that I might steal.”
“Eh, if you want better spear techniques ask Mat, these guys might be Aiel but they’re not all that good compared to the other clans and Matt is one of the best period. Besides, this is a decent test for dealing with the Seanchan.” Scarlet smiled as nine of the unconscious Aiel and their gear turned into orbs of dark ‘light’ then flew through the doorway on the left while the other three turned into motes of light and flew through the doorway on the right.
“I know the dark lights are the idiots you’re banishing to the empty world but where do the other two doors go?”
Scarlet said, “The middle door goes to the stedding on Mist’s starting world where they’re binding channelers and the other door sends them to the waste in Mist’s starting world where they can hopefully bolster the number of decent Shaido.”
Ranma blinked as he spotted hundreds of glowing orbs in the distance coming their way, most of them dark. “How far does your spell extend?”
“Unless I screwed up, the spell should reach the edge of the Shaido’s lands and judge them all.”
Ranma winced slightly as he realized that he probably needed to work on his magic a bit more as he was fairly sure he couldn’t have pulled such a spell off. “You’re going to banish all of the Aiel aren’t you?”
“That depends on Willow and Dad. We have a decent idea what Willow’s world is like, we still need to check Dad’s world before we make any grand plans.”
Leah smiled as she saw group of two dark orbs and one light orb fly through the middle door. “Hopefully Dad’s world is interesting.”
Ranma asked, “Hopefully. How long do we have to stay here?”
“I should stick around until we’ve collected everyone, you’re free to loot the nearest hold if you want.”
“What’s left?” Ranma asked curious how badly she’d screwed the Shaido.
Scarlet frowned as several hundred dark orbs went through the left door. “Anyone that was a decent human being was sent with all of their possessions, the rest were sent with basic supplies. That means there should be a lot of gold, silver, jewels, silk and other valuables left if you want to take a look.”
“Considering the crap most of them caused in the books, might as well see what we can steal.” He turned and headed for the closest hold which was only a couple of miles away.
Leah giggled then ran after Ranma, singing, “A looting we will go, a looting we will go!”
Scarlet was fairly impressed with her spell, it was far easier than trying to dig them out with soldiers.
0o0o0
Mist glanced away from the massive army of screaming shadowspawn that were camped on the bank of both sides of the river he was floating over and down at his cell as he scrolled through his contact list. ‘I need to organize this better.’ He selected Willow’s number then hit enter as he glanced at the massive white stone tower in the middle of the city that was itself in the middle of the river. ‘At least there are some survivors.’ From what he could tell from reading minds, most of the rest of the ‘wetlands’ in this particular world had already fallen thanks to massive trolloc hordes though parts of Andor and Tear were holding out if only because the various commanders wanted Tar Valon dealt with first before they attacked places with decent defenses.
Willow picked up just after the second ring. “What’s up?”
“I was wondering if I could talk you into bringing me a copy of your tree and Buffy’s Ferula Gemina?”
“Is that screaming in the background?”
“Yeah, I’m floating over Tar Valon in a random world, there is an army of shadowspawn that are screaming their heads off, probably because they can sense me.” He tossed a fireball down at a group of trollocs trying to charge across one of the bridges.
“Why do you need the Ferula Gemina?”
“Because I want to take some shadowspawn apart and see what happens.” Mist smiled as the group of shadowspawn died screaming.
Egwene leaned in close to Willow’s phone as she asked, “How much help are you going to need?”
“I can sense at least a couple of dozen dreadlords in the army so I wouldn’t mind some help and a copy of the binder so we can catch them all in a reasonable timeframe but I don’t need any help.”
“No worries, Pandora has a copy of the binder.” Willow opened a door half a dozen feet in front of Mist. “Pandora, Leah, Egwene, Sin and Jack, go help Mist while I track down Buffy and the Ferula Gemina.”
“Aye aye boss lady,” Sin said with amusement as she flew through the door.
Willow opened another door above Buffy as the rest of the group flew through the door. “Hey.”
Buffy nearly lost her practice blade as she heard Willow’s voice above her. “Damn it Willow.”
Jack stared down at the army of monsters as the rest of the group spread out a touch. “That’s a lot of monsters.”
Willow opened a person sided door now that she knew she wasn’t going to hit anyone. “Do you have the Ferula Gemina with you and do you want to kill monsters?”
“Yeah, it’s in my inventory,” Buffy replied as she walked through the portal then looked at the other portal into the air and flew through it. “What’s the…” she trailed off as she looked at the massive army that surrounded the city. “I hope you don’t expect me to kill that?”
“Not by yourself,” Willow replied as she followed Buffy through the portal then let both doors close.
Mist shook his head. “No, I can deal with the monsters, I just wanted to play with the Ferula Gemini.”
“I see how it is, I’m just a poor unappreciated Slayer.” Buffy mock pouted.
Sin reached out and patted Buffy on her head. “Don’t worry, we still love you.”
“Thanks,” Buffy muttered as she studied the army of shadowspawn.
Egwene asked, “Do we have a plan other than burning them to ash?”
Leah turned to look at her father. “Any idea how we’re going to prevent them from just rushing the city once we start killing them?”
“I was planning on sticking the city in a snow globe,” Mist replied as he studied the city’s layout.
“You can do that?” Jack asked in disbelief.
“I’ve been upgrading Harry’s trick for a while so yeah.”
“In that case, let’s send our pets to cause a distraction while we try to find the dreadlords.” Sin summoned her projection and mentally sent it down to play with the shadowspawn.
Jack summoned his projection and sent it after his mother’s projection. “Have fun.”
“There is something disturbing about that ability,” Egwene complained as she summoned her own version of their power and sent it after the trollocs. “Now what?”
Buffy summoned her projection then pulled out a copy of her Ferula Gemina and handed the copy to her projection. “Blast any fade you see then kill them, maybe you’ll get something interesting.” She knew she didn’t have to explain her plan as she controlled her projection but she wanted the rest of the group to know the plan and it seemed to help if she explained things to her summon as she didn’t have to micromanage.
“That works.” Mist turned to look at Pandora and Leah as Buffy’s creation flew down to attack the shadowspawn. “Leah and Jack, you can help me put the city in a snow globe while everyone else goes looking for channelers to steal.”
Willow said, “Stun them and orb them into empty snow globes.”
“Sounds good.” Buffy had a feeling they were going to do a lot of fighting for the next year.
Comments
Mist of Shadows
I figured it was easier than stashing a bunch of actual books.
Alex Wierzbicki
Good work really like the idea of wooden tags, I was going with data tablets that had a bunch of skills.
