Traveling Magic Shop Part 7 (Patreon)

'What's with the cheering?' Myst wondered as he made his way back to the main room with the adventure book, curious if someone had won a difficult match or something. He froze when he reached the doorway and saw one of the local girls shoot a ball of multicolored light out of a black wand. He watched the glowing ball of light shoot across half the room before it exploded in a burst of harmless sparkles that fell to the ground like fireworks. "What's going on?"

"She learned it from a card!" Rose squealed excitedly, looking forward to learning everything she could from the cards.

"Sorry?" the girl offered when she turned and saw the shopkeeper standing in the doorway.

"Don't worry about it, no harm done," Myst replied as he used his Upgrade ability on the twelve year old, curious how much magic potential she had. 'More than I was expecting,' he mused as he checked her intelligence and the rest of her abilities. 'She's not a genius but she's not exactly slow either. Nice to know that learning spells from the cards doesn't require an excessive amount of talent or background knowledge, just a touch of magic and some dedication.'

The girl sighed in relief that she wasn't going to get in trouble.

"Where did you get the wand?" Myst asked.

"The spell changed a stick into the wand," she explained.

"Incendio!" one of the boys that had been trying to learn to cast a fire spell shouted as he waved his hand. "Why isn't this working!" he demanded, getting frustrated that he'd failed while a girl had succeeded with her spell.

"Because you're doing it wrong," a thirteen or fourteen year old boy told him as he gestured, showing the 'proper' hand motion. "You need to focus on pushing your mana into the spell as you say the incantation."

"You're full of it," the angry boy complained.

The older boy gestured off to the side where he wouldn't hit anyone and chanted, "Incendio!", causing a vaguely sphere shaped burst of purple flames to shoot out of his hand, hit a suit of armor near the wall and bounce across the room and catch a kid's hat on fire.

"Shit!" the kid with the burning wool hat shouted as he pulled it off and tossed it away from him before it could burn him.

Myst glanced at the quickly burning hat that was on the tile floor then focused on the young man that had cast the spell, figuring the hat wasn't worth saving at this point. "You should probably avoid using the spell inside until you've done a bit more practice."

"Yes sir!" the boy blurted, glad that the shopkeeper wasn't screaming at him.

"That was fantastic!" the boy that had lost his hat exclaimed. "Can you teach me!"

"I'll certainly try," the older boy offered, glad that no one had gotten hurt.

Myst pointed towards the door. "Outside, preferably somewhere you can't burn anything down."

"Right," the boy agreed as he worked on picking up his cards, eager to do more practicing.

'At least the nobles should be focused on leaving for the tournament,' Myst thought as he walked over to the counter in case the children wanted to buy anything before they rushed out to practice. 'So much for keeping a low profile,' he mused, looking forward to seeing the changes spreading magic would cause.

Myst sold a couple of tins of breath mints while he waited for the customers to clear out then walked over and locked the door and flipped the closed sign once the last person left, not seeing a problem with closing early since he wanted to chat with Harry and Rose a bit and sort through the trinkets that he'd picked up over the last year.

"Can I use the book?" Rose asked hopefully.

"You're going to need a couple of defensive trinkets first," Myst told her, unwilling to risk their lives without taking some basic precautions.

"How long will that take?" Rose asked, wondering if this was a trick to keep her from using the book.

"About five seconds," Myst replied with a smirk as he reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out one of the rune carved copper bracelets that he'd made for the kids. His smirk vanished when he checked the bracelet to make sure the disease resistance and defensive enchantments hadn't failed and realized that they'd lost nearly sixty percent of their power. "At least it still has the framework," he mused as he spent enough mana to upgrade the disease resistance to immunity.

"What?" Rose asked.

"There's a limit on the quality of things that you can take out of the adventure world," Myst explained as he used mana to upgrade the bracelet's force field, wanting to make sure Rose would survive her adventures.

"Does that mean we shouldn't take things into the book?" Rose asked.

"I'm pretty sure the restriction only applies to things from the book world," Myst replied as he used mana to boost the durability of the bracelet, wanting to make sure it wouldn't get damaged.

"What does it do?" Rose asked excitedly.

Myst tossed Rose the bracelet. "It's not perfect but the bracelet should help keep you from getting sick or hurt while you're on your adventure."

"Does that mean you're actually letting me go?!" Rose blurted out.

"Just promise me that you'll be safe and keep the bracelet on, it can't help if you're not wearing it," Myst told her as he walked over and sat down at one of the tables, hoping that nothing horrible happened to her in the book since he didn't think he'd be able to forgive himself.

"I promise," Rose agreed.

"This is going to end badly," Harry muttered as he walked over so he could look at the book, hoping his sister didn't run into anything too dangerous.

"Probably," Myst agreed with him as he set the book on the table, fairly sure he was making a mistake.

"I'll be fine," Rose assured them, not wanting Myst to change his mind.

"What type of magic do you think she'll learn?" Harry asked, curious what they'd end up learning.

"No clue," Myst admitted, curious if she'd end up in a twisted version of Hogwarts or if she'd end up somewhere else. "You might as well open it, if you don't like the choices, just close it," he told Rose.

Rose reached out and opened the book, forgetting for a second that she'd wanted to listen to a story about Myst's adventure and that opening the book would erase the story. 'Choose your own adventure,' she read the first bit then slowly sounded the rest of the choices out in her head as some of the words weren't familiar.

'Tokyo Monster Patrol(Elementary School)? Yeah, that's asking for trouble,' Myst thought when he read the first choice of destinations. 'Godric's Hollow Talent Show(Middle School)? Magic show? Can't be worse than Sunnydale, the High School Years or the Twisted Forest Adventure(Apprentice Witch and Cook). The Lair of the Goblin Queen sounds like a lot of combat, probably not a good choice for a kid either.'

"Godric's Hollow-" the rest of what Rose was going to say was cut off as she vanished and the book flipped to the next page.

"That was where Mum and Dad lived," Harry said.

"It was probably the best choice," Myst said as he studied the drawing of a naked teenage girl with bright red hair standing in front of a mirror that showed Rose as a child.

"The tr-ou-ble, trouble with wishes?" Harry asked, reading the title over the drawing.

"Yeah," Myst replied as he skimmed the first couple of lines of the story, trying to figure out how safe the story was to read out loud. 'Twisted wishes? Yeah, that never ends well.'

"Is that Rose?" Harry asked, wondering why his sister was old in the story.

"Probably, let's find out," Myst replied then started reading, "Once upon a time, there was a magic princess and she lived in a magic shop."

"Is Rose a princess?" Harry asked.

"You don't have to actually be a princess to be a magical princess, it's a thing," Myst told him.

"Okay," Harry replied, fairly sure it didn't work that way.

"Or at least that's how this story should have gone if a certain child hadn't found a genie, that should have remained lost for the rest of eternity, while cleaning the shelves," Myst read, making sure to add the right inflections to his voice. "Have you ever seen a genie?"

Harry shook his head. "If we had a genie, the old guy would have taken it."

"That's fair," Myst agreed, knowing he'd have done the same as long as the genie was halfway reasonable and he couldn't set them free. "The delighted genie decided to reward the girl for freeing her, with her heart's desire, a lifetime spent with her family. Of course, there was a small catch, the genie had been locked away for a good reason, she delighted in twisting wishes and torturing anyone that desired to use her power."

"Bugger," Harry complained.

"Yeah," Myst agreed, wondering if he should skip ahead to make sure Rose was safe in case he needed to pull some shenanigans to get her back.

"What happened?" Harry asked nervously, worried about his sister.

"The genie tossed her into a dark and monster filled world where her magic was sealed and where she'd grow bitter and become a villain, dooming her to a life of pain and suffering."

"Can you kill genies?" Harry asked with a frown.

"Not that I know of," Myst replied, fairly sure that they wouldn't have locked the genie away if they could have killed her. "Unfortunately for the genie's plans, a group of has-been musicians sold their souls for a come back tour, prompting an overworked and underpaid talent agent to make Rose an offer, one summer of service for magical powers."

"What's the catch?" Harry asked.

"No clue…" Myst trailed off as he flipped the page and saw a drawing of a half naked teenager with wild red hair that came down to her butt, heart shaped purple glasses that hid her eyes, fingerless gloves, an open vest that didn't hid her generous breasts and a skirt made out of black ribbons that didn't look like they'd hide anything if she moved.

"Is that Rose?" Harry asked, annoyed that someone had stuck her with a yucky costume.

"Probably," Myst admitted, then went back to reading.

0o0o0

Rose stared at the sleazy looking man with slicked back hair that was wearing a fuzzy purple business suit and holding a clipboard with a contract on it. "Let me get this straight, you're a talent scout for the demon of lust and you're willing to give me magical powers in exchange for carrying a bunch of washed up musicians for the duration of my summer break?"

"Basically," the demon replied with a shrug. "It turns out that a couple of people made some wishes to make damned sure the assholes would never make a comeback which is why we're having to side step the problem by using new talent and doing a bit of rebranding."

"Let me see the contract," Rose told the demon, knowing better than to agree to anything without reading it and doing her best not to seem too eager to get magic, something that her local self had wanted ever since she'd found out that her magic was sealed when her brother had gotten his Hogwarts letter two years ago.

The demon handed his mark and possibly his salvation the clipboard and the contract, wishing his boss wasn't a fan of such a shit group.

"Connection to a carnal pit of lust?" Rose asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Cut me some slack, I had to blow most of the budget just setting up the tour and you're not exactly a princess of hope and love," the demon argued, annoyed that he needed someone with latent magic to make the contract work so he couldn't just grab a random girl off the street.

Rose snorted when she got to the part about losing her soul if she went back on any of the contract details. "I'm not giving you my soul."

"That's part of the standard contract, as long as you don't break the contract, you'll be fine," the demon assured her, lying his ass off as there were several clauses in the contract that basically contradicted themselves and would almost assuredly result in the girl losing her soul if she couldn't dance in between raindrops.

"Right," Rose muttered as she continued reading the contract, finding several clauses that she'd have to void if she was serious about getting magical powers. 'It's just as well I'm not four anymore,' she mused, knowing she wouldn't have been able to understand the contract as a child and trying not to think too hard about the fact that she was almost five and almost thirteen at the same time. She nibbled on the bottom of her lip to keep from smiling when she saw a tow truck pull up next to the expensive looking car he'd stepped out of. "I think they're going to tow your car, you might want to check on that."

The demon turned and blinked when he realized that a tow truck had pulled up to where he'd parked his cherry red Porsche next to a hydrant. "Son of a bitch!"

Rose waited until the demon had turned around then grabbed the pen and started making changes, knowing she'd have to be careful and not go overboard if she didn't want him spotting the changes. She crossed out 'her' on the part that was talking about losing her soul and wrote an 'a' over the crossed out word, knowing she had an extra one to get rid of before it drove her insane. She changed 'can' to can't for the part about stealing her powers, hoping that would stop them from stealing her knowledge of the spells even if they figured out a way to break the connection to a pit of carnal energy when they decided to invoke some of the idiotic clauses.

She turned the tiny pentagram with almost impossible to see runes near the part talking about punishments for breaking the contract into a dot by filling it in then flipped to the back page and continued reading through the contract. 'At least I don't have to do anything nasty with the band, in fact, this implies that I'll lose my soul if I do. Yeah, this whole contract is what you’d expect from a demon.'

0o0o0

Frank pulled his attention away from the demon girl's hockey game that he was watching on the television when he heard a chime ring, letting him know that someone had modified one of the contracts that he'd prepared. He summoned his copy of the contract in question and quickly scanned it, easily noticing the changes as they were glowing red. "A soul? Can't steal the powers rather than can? Nice try but that's why people keep me on retainer…" he trailed off when he glanced at the name attached to the contract. "Dark Sleaze Entertainment?"

He checked his notebook and scowled when he realized they were three days late paying his retainer fee, something that annoyed him because they were chronically late and he'd complained about it several times, which had increased the consistency of their lateness rather than fixed it. "Fuck it," he grumbled as he called DSE's HR department.

"Hello, how can I drop your call?" Ed asked.

"This is Frank with Dark Contracts, your agents are supposed to warn me about changes to contracts so I'm calling to lodge a complaint," Frank complained.

Ed rolled his eyes, figuring it was another bullshit complaint. "Which agent?"

"Agent Smith," Frank replied, not seeing a reason to include his first name since that would actually be helpful and would let them identify the agent in a timely fashion.

"Do you know how many agent Smith's we have?" Ed demanded.

"I'm not sure how that's my problem, just send out a reminder to all of your agents that are named Smith," Frank told him.

"Fine," Ed grumbled. "Is there anything else?"

"No, I'm just required to inform your company by contract," Frank told him then ended the call, knowing it would piss the guy off which would likely cause trouble. He smirked as he went back to watching the game, wondering if the asshole would lose his head over fucking the contract up.

0o0o0

Rose plastered a smile on her face and signed the modified contract as the demon walked back over looking annoyed. "Okay, I just need your signature and we're good to go."

"The office signs that…." the demon trailed off as Rose pulled a lighter out of her pocket, flicked it and brought it near the contract. "What the fuck?!" he blurted out, knowing that his boss would skin him alive if he let her burn it, since it contained the magic for the transformation and musical talent.

"My mother is a witch, I'm not leaving my name on an unsealed contract, sign it or I burn it and you can find someone else to save your bacon," Rose told him.

"Fucking drama queens," the demon complained as he took the pen and signed his name on the line, knowing he had to be in London in thirty minutes to meet with his boss and the band and that he'd be in serious trouble if he didn't have their lead singer ready to go.

Rose dropped the clipboard as a wave of dark purple dust erupted out of the contract. She barely had time to question her recent life choices before the purple dust swirled around her and transformed her, giving her half a foot of height, a couple of cup sizes and what felt remarkably like brain freeze from eating too much ice cream. "I need a mirror."

The demon smirked as he conjured a person sized mirror for the dark magic girl, wondering how much he could get for her when the summer gig was up and some of the contract’s penalty clauses kicked in.

Rose ignored the creepy demon she was probably going to have to kill as she stared at the drop dead gorgeous young woman that was staring back at her, hoping she looked half that good when she got older because damn she was hot.

"What do you think?" he asked.

Rose twisted around so that she could see herself from a couple of different angles. "I'm not a fan of the vest, it keeps catching on my nipples and my Mum is going to go ballistic over the skirt considering how much it shows when I move."

"Part of the contract I'm afraid," the demon replied with a smirk, not sounding at all sorry about her magic girl costume.

"Your funeral," Rose muttered as she turned sideways so that she could look at her behind. "Nice."

"It certainly is, now get your ass in the car bitch, we need to meet the band in London," the demon ordered her.

"You realize that we're going to have problems if I don't check in, right?" Rose asked.

"Let me put it another way," the demon replied as his eyes started glowing red, "unless you want to void the contract and give me your soul, get your ass in the car you stupid bitch."

"Fine," Rose muttered as she stomped toward the expensive looking car parked in front of the school, knowing her bracelet would keep her safe if he tried to hit her and wanting more time to figure out her collection of spells before she started a fight with a demon.

0o0o0

"She shouldn't have gotten in the car," Harry complained, unhappy that his sister had made a deal with a demon.

"She didn't have a lot of choice," Myst grumbled, not particularly happy with the sleazeball agent either. "Should I keep reading or should I just read ahead?"

"Keep reading," Harry said.

Myst nodded and continued reading, "Rose wasn't impressed by the company that managed the band because they were creeps and didn't care that the band kept flirting with her despite her complaints. Of course, that sort of behavior stopped when James Potter showed up and turned the sleazy agent inside out and promised to do the same to the rest of the company and the band if they laid a hand on his daughter."

"Go Dad!" Harry cheered, glad that someone was looking out for her and wishing that he was still alive.

"The company tossed a couple of hundred thousand dollars at Rose for the trouble and the show continued," Myst said as he flipped to the next page, showing a picture of a topless Rose on stage in front of thousands at a rock concert on one side of the page and a picture of Rose hunting monsters on the other. "Diva by day, monster hunter by night, the great and terrible Rose Shadowstorm Potter took the world by storm."

"You're making that up aren't you?" Harry asked.

"Just a bit," Myst told him then continued reading about her various gigs, 'skipping' the part where Rose was dealing with crazy fans and the fact that she was stripping on stage and the part where one of the band members was gruesomely eaten by monsters after their second gig when he went out back for a smoke. "They lost the guitarist after the second gig, his heart gave out."

"Sorry, not sorry?" Harry said, not sure how to feel about the creep.

"Pretty much," Myst agreed then continued reading, "they replaced the guitarist with a guy from Georgia that could play a guitar like the devil himself. Things went well until their seventh gig where they lost their backup drummer to a fan."

"What happened?" Harry asked, figuring he'd ask his sister for the details when she got back.

'Yeah, I'm not telling him that a rabid fan bit his junk off and he bled out,' Myst thought, wondering if the company had cursed the band after taking out insurance on them or if it was someone else. "She was rich and she married him, probably for the best, he wasn't much of a drummer any more because of age related problems."

Harry gave Myst a suspicious look, fairly sure Myst was skipping at least a third of the text though it was hard to tell as he was reading quickly and the text was sideways.

"It's fine," Myst assured him, "they picked up a girl that could sing like an angel and play the drums like a legend. Let's see, where was I? Right, things took a turn for the weird when they swung through Vegas but as they say, what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas."

"Really?" Harry asked.

"That's the claim, but it never really sticks," Myst warned him. "The band's next gig of note was in a sleepy little town called Sunnydale, that's where they lost their other original guitarist and ran into some vampire hunters."

"Vampire hunters?" Harry asked, curious why anyone would want to fight vampires.

"I'm guessing their hometown has a vampire problem," Myst said as he turned the page and saw a picture of Rose kissing Xander at the Bronze. He quickly and silently read the part about Rose flirting with everyone in the Scooby gang and giving them a private show at Buffy's house, not seeing a point in grossing Harry out. He sighed when he flipped the page and saw the annoyingly detailed drawing of a naked Dawn sprawled on top of an equally naked Xander and Willow on the couch at the top of the page. 'Probably just as well I didn't upgrade the picture quality and that the drawing is of the aftermath and not of the orgy.'

"Sleep over?" Harry asked, completely missing the context.

"Apparently," Myst replied as he skimmed over the awkward discussion that Rose had with the Scoobies over breakfast. "Rose spent the rest of the day with her new friends then sang a couple of songs at the Bronze."

"You're skipping things," Harry complained.

"Do you want to read about your sister licking ice cream off a girl's nose and mushy stuff?" Myst asked.

"No," Harry admitted.

"There you go," Myst replied as he quickly read the rest of the page to himself about Rose flirting with the gang before leaving with the rest of the band the next day. "They picked up a werewolf guitarist to replace the guitarist they'd lost then spent the rest of the summer bouncing around American cities until the day the company sent another agent to collect their souls."

Harry winced. "Is Rose okay?"

"Let me check," Myst replied as he skipped a couple of pages and checked the ending to make sure she was fine. He sighed in relief when he saw a picture of Rose walking toward a school bus rather than something horrible. 'Rose spent the last couple of days of summer relaxing before she went back to school, happy that she'd had a fantastic summer but looking forward to some peace and quiet.' He flipped back to where he'd left off and gave Harry a smile. "It's fine, let's see how it ends."