Traveling Magic Shop Part 19 (Patreon)

Myst smiled when he walked back into the game room and saw Taylor and Amy wearing a copy of the rogue pants along with their sweatshirts and floating a couple of inches off the ground. "Any trouble with the costumes?"

"Not yet," Taylor replied as she let herself drop back to the floor, keeping most of her attention on Vicky as the blonde slipped out of her pants.

Myst closed the door and turned to look at the phone booth where Vicky was already taking off her panties. "Going for a second costume?"

"Rose mentioned that we might be able to combine the costumes using the box and a lightning spell," Vicky replied as she dropped her underwear and spun around to give everyone a nice view, on the off chance that it helped boost her costume and because she liked the attention.

"Makes sense," Myst agreed, pulling his attention away from Vicky long enough to check the costume to make sure it wasn't cursed.

"Can you check the new costumes?" Rose asked Myst, wanting to make sure they weren't cursed.

"Already did, it's fine," Myst replied with amusement as he turned his attention back to Vicky.

"Fantastic," Vicky replied with a grin as she grabbed the sheer green shirt.

"Rose mentioned your ability to give people warlock powers and the mental defenses, how much would you charge me?" Amy asked, hoping she could afford it.

"Not sure," Myst admitted as Vicky pulled the shirt over her head. "On the one hand, it doesn't cost me anything, on the other, it's my power and it's valuable. I'm open to suggestions."

"Naked jumping jacks," Rose suggested, only half joking.

Amy pulled her attention away from her sister long enough to glare at Rose. "You're evil."

"I'm not evil, I'm just naughty," Rose replied with a smirk. "If I was evil, I'd have suggested letting me spank your ass or have Harry shape change into Vicky so you could have sex with him."

"That's fucked up," Vicky complained as she grabbed the pants and worked on pulling them on, taking advantage of her flight.

'Sounds fun,' Amy thought, wondering if she could talk Harry into it. 'Yeah, I might need therapy.'

Myst glanced at Amy then used his Upgrade ability to check to make sure Taylor and Aisha's costumes weren't cursed before he forgot.

"So you're saying you wouldn't want to watch yourself have sex?" Rose asked Vicky, curious if she could talk Vicky into letting her play with her breasts for a bit.

"Not with Amy," Vicky complained, unwilling to admit that she wouldn't mind watching 'herself' have sex, at least once as long as it wasn't with her sister.

"That hurts," Amy complained. "Am I that ugly?"

"You're my sister, it's weird," Vicky argued as she buttoned up her new pants.

"Do you know how many masters are running around, it's worth it," Amy stated, trying one last ditch attempt to get Vicky on board with the crazy idea.

"We can probably knock off a stash house," Vicky suggested, trying to come up with something else.

"I'd totally fuck him for powers, in either form," Aisha piped up, not seeing what the big deal was since she'd do a lot of questionable things for powers.

Harry used his shape changing powers to change into Vicky. "Works for me."

Aisha flashed Harry a smile then looked at Myst. "What do you think?"

"I think you're all crazy," Myst replied with amusement then sighed when the bell over the front door rang, letting him know that he had another customer to deal with. "I'm going to deal with the customer, don't let Rose talk you into doing anything too crazy."

Rose stuck her tongue out at Myst.

Myst laughed as he walked back into the main room, shutting the door behind him. He focused on the average looking blond teenager with a bowl cut that was holding a couple of hundred dollar bills in his hand and looking around the shop in excitement. "Welcome to the magic shop, can I help you?"

"I found a flier that said you had cards that would teach people actual magic!" Greg blurted out, not bothering to stop to breathe.

Myst checked the teen's stats with his Upgrade ability, curious if he had enough magic to use the cards since a lot of people didn't even have a magic stat. 'Huh, he actually has magic, that's probably why the shop gave him a flier,' he mused as he spent the mana to boost the guy's magic score from three to eight, so that he'd have enough to get started. "If you're looking for magic, you've come to the right place," he assured the teen as he walked behind the counter so he could grab the cards.

"What type of cards do you have? Can I toss fireballs and lightning bolts or summon mystical animals?" Greg asked excitedly.

"The cards are random," Myst replied as he started pulling packs of cards out of the box under the counter and setting them on the counter, glad that someone had the right attitude toward magic. "You're going to want a nice collection and you'll have to work up to the more impressive spells."

"I have money," Greg assured the shopkeeper as he set three hundred dollar bills on the counter, glad that he'd run into a junkie that had 'mugged' him for his bag of tacos and paid him almost four hundred dollars more than they were worth before rushing off.

Myst glanced at the rumpled hundreds on his counter, half tempted to ask about the money before deciding that he didn't really want to know. "Do you want some of the artifact cards? They're great if you're playing the game."

"Can they teach me how to make them so I can be a hero?" Greg asked hopefully.

'Considering his wisdom, he'll probably need a mentor to get him started,' Myst mused as he started ringing up the cards. "You might be able to learn something about the artifacts if you grab one of the devices that let you project the cards but I'm not going to promise anything, they're a bit weird, unlike the spell cards."

"I'll take it, I want to be a hero!" Greg blurted out, not worried about wasting his money since the money had basically just dropped into his lap.

'How do I keep the kid from getting himself killed?' Myst thought as he took a seat on the stool so he could look through the devices for something that might help. He glanced over the various devices that interacted with the cards then grabbed the unfamiliar handheld game machine that looked like it had a card reader built into it. He looked at the post-it-note that the shop had stuck on it. 'Dungeon Madness: This device allows you to teleport into a dungeon where you can increase your stats by killing monsters and instantly learn spells by scanning cards. That should make it easier to pick up all of the spells, should I save that for Taylor? Screw it, she's got an insane power, the kid needs the help.'

"Did you find something?" Greg asked hopefully.

"Yeah," Myst replied as he stood up, feeling a lot better about the kid's chances if he had the device.

"What does it do?" Greg asked, not sure how the device that looked like a knockoff gameboy with a card scanner would help.

"It basically lets you teleport into a monster filled dungeon where you can kill monsters to increase your stats and scan cards to instantly learn spells and get magical items that you can use to kill the monsters. You should be able to learn the spells without it but the device will basically give you a boost."

"Pay to win?" Greg mused.

Myst shrugged. "You still have to kill the monsters, the cards just help."

"How much?" Greg asked, fairly sure he couldn't afford it.

"Ninety nine, ninety nine, as in just short of a hundred dollars," Myst replied, not really worried about the money and just going with the price on the post it note.

"Deal!" Greg exclaimed.

"How many artifact packs do you want?" Myst asked as he tossed a handful of artifact cards on the counter.

"One third artifacts," Greg stated as he pushed the hundreds closer to the shopkeeper.

"Sure," Myst replied as he started ringing everything up, glad that he'd decided to grab the machine since he seemed set on being a hero.

"Awesome!" Greg blurted out when he opened one of the packs that he'd bought and realized the picture of a half naked witch was waving at him. "They move?"

"Magic," Myst replied with a grin as he pushed the pile of cards that the teen had bought over to his side of the counter, grabbed the cash and put the rest of the cards away. "Enjoy your game, let me know if you have any problems with it."

"Sure," Greg replied absently as he looked through the cards that he was going to have to hide from his parents.

"You should probably take the cards to one of the tables, there's more room," Myst suggested as he walked over and grabbed an empty box from the back room.

"Oh, right," Greg replied as he pulled his attention away from the last card in the first package that had a witch sitting on a throne with a naked succubus standing next to her and clumsily tried to stack the packages of cards.

Myst walked back over and set the box on the counter. "This should help."

"Thanks," Greg replied as he awkwardly worked on putting the cards in the box.

"You're welcome," Myst replied as he helped Greg put the cards in the box, wanting his counter clear in case someone else came in to buy things and knowing he'd get carried away opening all of the cards if he didn't say anything, mostly because he'd have done the same thing if their positions were reversed.

"Do you have a bunch of cards?" Greg asked.

"Not yet," Myst replied as the bell rang. He glanced at the door as three men in their twenties of Asian descent and a guy with a demonic mask and a grenade belt walked into the shop. "Welcome to the magic shop, how can I help you?" he asked as he tossed the last couple of packs into the box.

"You need to pay protection money," the guy in the mask stated, trying to sound menacing.

'If I were a hero, I'd try to stop them, but I can't help people if I'm dead,' Greg told himself as he grabbed his box and moved over to the furthest table from the counter, wanting to get out of the line of fire but not wanting to get shot for trying to leave.

Myst used his Upgrade ability to check Oni Lee's powers and blinked when he realized the man didn't have any powers which meant that he wasn't Oni Lee. 'Seriously?' he thought as he quickly checked the 'grenades' and guns the guy was wearing and realized they were just props. He checked the rest of the guys for powers. "Before I call the police for being terminally stupid, I have to ask, is this a prank or a movie?"

"No," the guy in the mask replied as he grabbed one of his 'grenades'. "If you don't give us the money, I'll blow the place up."

"This isn't going to end well, last chance," Myst warned him when he saw shadows gathering behind the men.

"Are you fucking stupid gweilo? Give me the money!" the man in the mask snapped, already stressed out about wearing a copy of Oni Lee's mask in the city and just wanting to get things over with so he could leave.

"Don't…" Myst trailed off as nine shadow tentacles exploded out of the shadows. Six of the tentacles grabbed the idiot in the mask and slammed him into the ground as the rest of the tentacles wrapped around the other three idiots, wrapping around their necks and holding them in place. He winced as Rose slammed the masked man into the ground a second time, hard enough that he heard something snap. "He's not a cape!" he called out, trying to make sure Rose didn't murder him.

"Oh, sorry," Rose replied as she walked out of the game room.

Greg froze in place when turned and saw the terrifying girl that was wrapped in shadows, looking like some type of shadow demon.

"Does that mean I can't devour his soul?" Rose asked in a voice that sounded twisted and unnatural because of a cantrip.

"Fuck! Please don't kill us!" one of the guys screamed.

"Why is it always tentacles?" one of the men whimpered as he covered his ass with his hands.

"Ben made us do it!" one of the guys blurted, trying to avoid ending up devoured, ripped apart and tossed in the trash or handed over to the real Oni Lee.

"Heroes don't kill people," Vicky said as she walked out of the back room wearing her jacket over her Rogue costume. "Amy, we need a medic."

"On it," Amy replied as she ran over to check the guy that Rose had slammed into the ground.

'This is going to be a clusterfuck,' Myst thought as Amy checked to make sure that the idiot would survive. "Do we need to call the PRT since one of them was pretending to be a cape or the police since none of them are actually capes?"

Vicky shook her head. "They'd be out on bail in a couple of hours and the PRT would probably complain about excessive force and give you a recruitment speech."

"I could just toss them in the bay, less paperwork," Rose suggested.

"What the fuck is wrong with you?!" one of the guys demanded.

"You know how some people have issues? I have subscriptions," Rose replied, using her magic to twist her voice into something low and inhuman when she said subscriptions.

Harry smiled as he created an illusion over the lower half of his sister's face of a mouth filled with fangs and dripping blood, causing one of the thugs to faint.

"We just wanted enough money to leave the state!" one of the remaining guys wailed, wishing he hadn't let Ben talk them into doing something this stupid.

"I fixed his neck and skull fracture, he'll have a hell of a headache when he wakes up but he'll survive, I don't think he was using his brain for anything, anyway," Amy offered, fairly sure you had to be terminally stupid to pretend to be Oni Lee.

"Fuck it, it's not worth the hassle," Myst complained, not interested in dealing with the police when Rose had already put the fear of God in them and they'd been using props. "Keep your nose clean."

"Yes sir!" one of the guys blurted before his 'buddies' could open their mouths and make things worse.

Myst watched the guys haul their friend out of the shop, leaving the broken oni mask on the ground. "That was annoying."

"How did you know that he wasn't a cape?!" Greg blurted out.

Myst turned to look at the teenager who looked strangely excited about being around capes now that he wasn't in danger. "We're not in the docks and the guy looked nervous."

"I just assumed he was a cape which is why I knocked him out," Rose admitted, a bit annoyed that the assholes wouldn't be spending the night in jail.

"Makes sense," Greg agreed as he turned and focused on Rose. "Are you a changer?"

"Shadow manipulation," Rose replied as she dropped the shadows she was using to conceal her features, prompting Harry to drop the illusion of monstrous teeth a second later. "Where did you put the combination box?"

"Give me a minute," Myst replied as he walked into the backroom to grab the box that combined things when you hit it with lightning.

"Combination box?" Greg asked.

"It combines things when you hit them with lightning," Rose replied as she walked over to look at Greg's cards and the strange game system. "What's with the game?"

"It's supposed to teleport the player into a monster filled dungeon where they can learn to be a hero," Greg explained, looking forward to kicking ass and chewing bubble gum, though he wasn’t sure what flavor was required and how much he would need for each trip.

"How does that work?" Amy asked as she walked over to look.

"I'm not sure," Greg admitted as he turned the game on, hoping it wasn't too complicated.

"There's probably a menu," Rose told him, thinking about the CYOA book.

Greg looked at the image of a dungeon hallway over the New Game option, hoping the game's graphics were better than the opening screen. "It says New Game and Continue and continue is grayed out."

"You should probably grab a stack of cards…" Myst trailed off as he walked back into the room as Greg pushed the start button and vanished. "I should probably start skipping the explanations and just scream freeze or stop."

"Probably," Amy agreed, knowing that groups of people were generally stupid, especially when they were panicking.

"How do we get him back?" Vicky asked, surprised that everyone wasn't more concerned about sending a civilian into a monster filled dungeon.

Myst set the hat box sized metal combination box on the counter. "He'll show up when he dies or when he quits, probably."

Amy raised her eyebrows. "Probably?"

Myst held his thumb and index finger a centimeter apart. "There's a small chance that he'll reappear where the Earth was when he started the game, which means he'll end up in space considering how fast we're moving."

"Then why did you let him use it?!" Vicky demanded.

"He's messing with you, he has a defective sense of humor," Rose assured Vicky before she could start ranting.

"It's how I deal with stress," Myst replied with amusement as Taylor and Aisha walked out of the game room. "I checked the game before I sold it to him, he'll be fine."

Vicky made a mental note to make sure Denis didn't spend a lot of time with the shopkeeper in case his 'sense of humor' was contagious.

"Why was Greg here?" Taylor asked, having recognized his voice.

'Greg? Weird, he seemed normal enough, I've been reading too many fanfics lately,' Myst mused. "He wanted to be a hero so I sold him a game that would let him improve his stats and give him a jumpstart when it comes to learning magic."

"We can always use more heroes…" Vicky trailed off when she saw a framed scroll in the case under the counter. "I call upon the Starlight Realm to restore a soul. Is that a resurrection scroll?"

Myst glanced at Vicky then checked where she was looking. He squatted down and grabbed the framed scroll and used his upgrade ability to check it. "Huh, it's limited to the current realm and it will only bring back three people before it crumbles to dust."

"How much?" Taylor asked, wondering how much she'd have to sell or steal to bring her mother back.

Myst checked the post it note. "Twenty thousand."

"That's annoying," Rose grumbled, annoyed that she couldn't use it to bring her parents back.

"Do you accept trade?" Amy asked, thinking about her aunt.

"I don't think I can, not for this," Myst admitted, getting the sense that he needed to sell it, especially if he wanted it to show up again.

"I can probably talk my dad into selling the car," Taylor mused, knowing he'd sell everything they owned if it meant bringing her back.

"I just need one person brought back, partners?" Vicky asked Taylor.

"Deal," Taylor agreed.

"Any idea how we're supposed to come up with the money since I doubt Mom would write us a check?" Vicky asked Amy.

"Probably not," Amy agreed. "I know a couple of people that would probably pay for healing but I'd rather not open up that can of worms."

"You should rob the gangs," Aisha suggested.

Vicky shook her head. "That sounds like a good way to get on their shit list and we don't have secret identities, they'd probably firebomb our house."

"Only if we get caught," Aisha argued. "If we grab the Supergirl costumes and pick up a couple of spells, they're not going to connect the dots."

"Especially if we combine the costumes and talk Myst into upgrading everything," Rose suggested, happy to have an excuse to get the girls to strip again.

"I'll see if I can make some disguise rings," Harry said as he walked around the counter and headed for the workshop, wanting to make sure his new friends wouldn't get themselves into trouble.

Aisha grinned. "This is going to be awesome!"

"Or a dumpster fire," Amy grumbled.

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