Traveling Magic Shop Part 32 (Patreon)

"Are you sure you don't want to just burn it to the ground?" Harry asked Myst thoughtfully, thinking about some of the things Taylor had said about the school.

"If we burn it to the ground the corruption will spread," Myst replied, unwilling to torch the school with the students inside, mostly because at least some of them didn't deserve to be set on fire. He was less sure about the staff but figured some of them might be decent people.

"Meaning the rats would jump ship and end up in the other schools?" Harry asked as he watched an officer put a teenager in the back of a squad car.

"Yep," Myst agreed. "On the bright side, Leet and Uber already made their movie and Blackwell should be gone by Christmas, there's no reason to leave it a broken travesty."

"And this has nothing to do with freaking out everyone in the school and causing a bunch of teachers heart attacks when they realize the entire school has shifted and changed?" Riley asked, knowing that she'd have to make sure no one died in the panic.

"Nope," Myst lied as he focused on a freshly pressure washed section of the school and upgraded the percent of the school that was graffiti free, spending the mana to boost it to a hundred percent. "Pretty sure I could have leveled the place for less mana than it cost me to clean it."

"Like I said, a couple of cans of gas over the break would be easier," Harry argued.

"As much as I'd like to watch the place burn, Taylor would be at the top of the list of suspects right now," Myst explained as he spent the mana to boost the condition of the school and to remove the asbestos, causing his mana to drop by a noticeable amount for a second before his mana regeneration refilled the tank. He smiled when he spent the mana to increase the quality and durability of the windows, causing the windows that he could see to double in size and all of the cracks to vanish.

"Do you want me to make a list of all of the teachers’ various crimes?" Riley asked.

"Might as well," Myst agreed. "It seems like a good time to clean house."

"How long do you think it will take to get them to recertify the school?" Harry asked Myst.

"That's why we're doing it before the break," Myst replied as he spent the mana to increase the school to five floors and improve the elevators so they wouldn't break down as easily, causing the school to twist and change before their eyes, growing quite a bit taller.

"Armsmaster should have a gizmo to check everything in a couple of hours and he'll probably get called in to investigate," Riley pointed out.

"You should probably upgrade the roof," Harry pointed out as the bells in the school started ringing, indicating that someone had noticed the changes.

"Might as well," Myst agreed as he spent the mana to upgrade the roof, wanting to make sure it wouldn't leak for a couple of centuries. He spent the mana to upgrade the general structure to make sure it would survive an endbringer hitting it or a cape fight as he watched a group of students pour out of the front doors in a mostly orderly fashion.

"Shit!" Riley cursed, having picked up the girl's terror at getting knocked off the stairs with her Telepathy. "Back in a few, someone got knocked off the stairs."

"Shit," Myst cursed as he pulled a bottle of cider out of his pocket and tossed it to Riley, hoping he hadn't just gotten someone killed.

"Thanks," Riley replied as she flew toward the school, using her Telekinesis to make sure the girl didn't fall to her death.

"So much for having some harmless fun," Harry pointed out, feeling less amused about the entire situation now that they'd caused someone potentially lethal injuries.

"I might have gotten a bit carried away," Myst admitted, hoping that Riley could get to them in time.

"It was probably just the straw that broke the camel's back," Harry pointed out, thinking about what Taylor had said about the school.

"At least the cider should fix their physical and emotional damage," Myst said, glad that he'd brought Riley to make sure everyone stayed reasonably calm about things.

"Now what?" Harry asked, wondering how they were going to fix things.

"How do you feel about replacing one of the teachers and making sure everyone has some free cider while they're waiting for the buses and parents to show up?" Myst asked.

"Might as well see if we can fix everyone's mental issues since you probably gave them a couple," Harry replied as he started making his way toward the parking lot where they were trying to corral the students.

0o0o0

Rose looked up from one of the magic cards she was studying when the bell over the door rang and stared at the dark robed figure who was levitating a thrashing and struggling fifteen or sixteen year old girl in front of him that was bound in glowing chains and wearing an old fashioned and short silk slip that didn't leave much to the imagination. "What's going on?"

"My ex-apprentice couldn't keep her hands off my grimoires," the man complained, his voice sounding unnaturally deep. "Do you accept trades?"

"For what?" Rose asked warily, getting a bad feeling about the mage with a classic villain’s goatee and shoulder length black hair.

The man glanced at the children that were playing cards at the table then focused on the girl that was sitting on the counter. "I need to replace some books and I don't need an insane apprentice."

"You can't just sell people-" Vicky grabbed her throat when the man gestured at her and she found that she couldn't talk.

"How much will you give me for her?" the man asked, 'ignoring' Vicky while keeping track of her out of the corner of his eye in case she tried to attack him.

Rose studied the strangely familiar looking girl that was silently screaming at everything, wondering why she was familiar. 'Screw it, if I don't take her, he'll probably just kill her or toss her into an asylum.' She sighed as she realized Vicky was probably going to get violent. "Do you want it in gold or store credit?"

Vicky turned and stared at Rose, surprised that she was going along with things.

Amy reached out and grabbed Vicky's hand to check her voice and to make sure she didn't charge the obviously dangerous and possibly insane man with powers. "Relax."

"Credit," the mage said as he floated his ex apprentice over to the counter, glad that he'd managed to get something out of the girl since The Company wouldn't buy her for a reasonable amount because of her connection to a bunch of eldritch abominations and gods and lack of sanity. "Where can I find the books?"

"Just go through the door," Rose replied as she gestured toward the door to the book room, figuring it was worth a couple of books just to keep the dangerous mage from flipping out and attacking Vicky when she got physical.

Vicky floated out of the chair and angrily gestured at her throat, wishing someone would fix it so she could bitch the asshole out.

Taylor waited for the man to leave then cast her new curse breaking spell on Vicky. "Let me know if that worked."

"Testing?" Vicky asked, relieved that Taylor had been able to break the spell. "We need to stop him, you can't sell people and using powers on people without permission is illegal!" she complained, glaring at the door to the book room that the man had walked through.

"We have bigger problems," Rose said as she focused on the chained up teen that was glaring at her and trying to wiggle out of the chains. "Screw it," she muttered as she reached under the counter and grabbed one of the bottles of cider that Myst had heavily boosted in case of problems. She conjured a pair of shadow tentacles to hold the strange girl's mouth open then walked over, popped the lid on the cider and poured it down her throat, figuring she could always apologize later.

Belle stopped thrashing and blinked a couple of times when she realized that summoning a bunch of eldritch abominations to take over the world would be a horrible idea, mostly because there wouldn't be a world left when they were done.

"Feeling better?" Rose asked as she dismissed the shadowy tentacles.

Belle nodded, knowing the Beast's spell would keep her silent while she was chained up.

"Are we going to unchain her?" Vicky asked.

"That depends, do you want to stay with your master?" Rose asked the chained up girl.

Belle shook her head, wanting nothing to do with the monster that was indirectly responsible for her father's death and her current situation.

"We'll break the chains once we finish making the deal," Rose assured her, "no point in letting him know that we cured your insanity."

"We should be arresting him," Vicky grumbled.

Rose turned her head to look at Vicky. "I'm not picking a fight to the death with a warlock over him wanting to ditch an insane apprentice."

"To the death?" Vicky asked.

Rose glanced at the door to the book room, wanting to make sure that the door was still closed. "Last I checked we don't have a prison in the shop and the PRT isn't particularly good at containing parahumans, never mind trumps with powers they're not equipped to handle or understand which means we'd have to kill him and I'm not sure if he's done anything that I'm willing to kill him over."

"Fine," Vicky grumbled, realizing that Rose had a point even if she didn't like it.

Rose frowned when the warlock walked back out of the book room holding four leather bound books and a comic book. "That was fast."

"I knew what I wanted," the mage lied as he walked over, not seeing a point in admitting that he'd stopped time or that he'd made several copies of various books before the shop had decided that copying the books had counted as stealing and set his latest copy on fire while he was holding it.

"Excellent," Rose lied as she pulled a gold coin out of her pocket and dropped it in the coin box under the counter to cover the warlock's purchases so that the books would be hers to trade rather than the shop's as she didn't want to complicate the girl's life just in case the shop actually did classify her as merchandise.

The warlock pulled Belle's contract out of his robe and handed it to Rose. "She's your problem now."

"How do I break the chains?" Rose asked.

"They'll break after I jump dimensions," the warlock replied then snapped his fingers and vanished, causing the chains around Belle to vanish.

"Prick!" Belle complained. "Thank you!" she blurted when she realized that she wasn't silenced anymore.

"What happened?" Rose asked.

"My father was traveling through the forest on business when he found an abandoned castle and picked a rose as a present for me. The Beast saved him from a pack of wolves and accused my father of stealing the rose. He was going to toss him in a cell over it until he explained that he'd picked it as a gift for me."

"Told you we should have arrested him," Vicky complained.

"Technically, he owned the land," Belle admitted. "He used to be a noble before a witch cursed him and turned him into a beast. The Beast offered me a deal, in exchange for magic lessons and letting my father go, I had to agree to help keep the castle clean and organize the library until my sixteenth birthday."

"How old are you?" Amy asked.

"Fifteen, I'll be sixteen in a week," Belle replied. "Everything would have been fine if it wasn't for Gaston."

"Gaston? Is that the Beast?" Vicky asked, hoping for a reason to go after the warlock.

Belle shook her head. "No, Gaston was a local hunter that all of the girls adored for reasons I don't remember."

"Don't remember?" Amy asked.

"No," Belle admitted. "I can remember faces, people and knowledge but I don't actually remember my life before I read the cursed books. I remember that I lived in the town with my father and that he was an inventor and a clock maker but I don't actually remember living in the town or spending time with my father."

Taylor winced. "That's horrible."

"Everything has a price," Belle said, knowing she should feel worse about losing her memories of spending time with her father but she'd already cried her eyes out over his death and she'd gotten her revenge on Gaston so there wasn't any point in torturing herself over something she couldn't change. "Gaston killed my father so that he wouldn't break the marriage contract he'd tricked my father into signing while he was drunk."

"Lovely," Vicky muttered sarcastically.

"At least he's dead," Belle said, not sure how to feel about her rage-filled revenge while she was insane, mostly because you weren't supposed to enjoy torturing people.

Rose unrolled the contract and skimmed it then started reading it from the top, trying to figure out a way to break the contract that wouldn't result in something nasty happening to Belle.

"What's with the outfit?" Vicky asked.

"It's my official apprentice costume," Belle complained, annoyed that she'd missed that particular detail in her contract.

"And he's a pervert," Vicky complained.

'Nothing wrong with appreciating the view,' Amy thought, idly wondering if she could talk Harry into wearing something skimpy while looking like her sister. 'I need a de-lusting spell.'

Rose frowned when she found a virgin clause in the contract that would have prevented the warlock from having sex with his apprentice. 'Why the hell would you put a virgin clause in the contract and make her wear something that practically screams ravage me? Protection and training until her sixteenth birthday? Virgin sacrifice or maybe he was planning on selling her?'

"Can you break it?" Taylor asked Rose.

"Theoretically but there are a lot of clauses to prevent magical tampering which means we're probably better off just waiting a week," Rose suggested, not seeing a point in messing with the contract when it would fall apart in a week. 'Has to follow orders as long as they're not harmful.'

"I can wait a week," Belle replied, not seeing a problem with picking up another week of magic lessons before she tried to figure out what she was going to do for work. "It gives me a chance to figure out what I'm going to do when the contract is up."

"If nothing else, we can probably pay you to help us organize the books in the back room," Rose offered.

"That would be fantastic, the Beast destroyed my doll and broke or stole most of my implements," Belle complained.

"Implements?" Vicky asked.

"Magical focuses, they're basically quasi magical items that are enchanted with runes," Belle explained.

"Doll?" Taylor asked, wondering if it was like a voodoo doll.

"I can animate a doll to create a servant which gives me a couple of magical talents, like the ability to chill a drink or teleport to my doll or recall it," Belle explained, not seeing a reason to mention some of the more dangerous things she could use her doll for.

"How did you end up insane?" Rose asked, wondering if the warlock was lying about the books.

"I read some of the Beast's books that I shouldn't have," Belle admitted.

"Cursed?" Taylor asked.

"Probably," Belle agreed. "They were dark and twisted and talked about creatures hiding in the space between… something. They had a way of pulling you in and getting under the skin that wasn't natural."

"The books in the shop should have warning labels if they're dangerous and once Myst gets back he can make sure nothing can screw with your head," Rose assured her, making a mental note to have Myst check her sanity with his Upgrade ability.

"Myst?" Bella asked.

"He's the shopkeeper and my dad, I'm just filling in for the day so he can have some fun away from the shop," Rose explained.

"Thank you for helping me out," Belle told her, glad that someone had saved her from her insanity and stopped her from doing something completely idiotic like unleashing a bunch of eldritch nightmares on the world in an idiotic attempt to get more power or possibly redecorate? ‘I am so glad I’m sane now.’

"What type of magic can you do?" Amy asked, curious what she'd picked up.

"Without my implements or my doll, I'm limited to cantrips, basically lighting candles or cleaning things," Belle admitted, deciding not to mention that she could create magic eating amulets on the off chance that the girls weren't as nice as they appeared and she needed a trick up her sleeve.

"That sucks, can you replace your implements?" Vicky asked, surprised that Belle wasn't more pissed at the warlock for breaking her stuff.

Belle focused on Vicky. "I'd need tools and some basic components but yeah, I can replace everything with some work. What type of magic do you have?"

"Flight and a couple of spells that I learned from the cards," Vicky replied as she gestured at the cards on the table.

Belle turned her attention to the enchanted cards on the table. "I wish I had a talent for ritual magic."

"You don't need a talent, you just need magic," Rose told her as the bell over the door rang and an older woman walked in. "Welcome to the Magic Shop, how can I help you?"

"Do you have anything that would let me curse my daughter's boyfriend? He's a piece of shit and my daughter puts up with it because he's really good in bed," the woman complained.

"I generally don't recommend curses for dealing with family but I've got just the thing to deal with an asshole boyfriend," Rose said as she walked over to the box filled with cheap rings that Harry had enchanted and grabbed one of Harry's 'failed' projects. "This ring protects you from unfair criticism by stabbing people with illusionary needles, it's painful but completely harmless and free of bad karma."

"Do you have any proof that it works?" the woman asked.

Rose slipped the ring on her finger with a smirk. "Say something mean."

"You're fat and ugly as-fuck!" the woman cursed when it felt like something stung her eye. She blinked a couple of times as the pain faded. "How much?"

"A hundred dollars, it's a nice ring," Rose told her as she slipped the ring off.

"Deal!" the woman replied without any hesitation. "Sorry about the insult but you told me to," she pointed out as she pulled her wallet out of her jacket pocket and grabbed a hundred.

"It's fine," Rose assured her as she collected the money and handed her the ring. "The ring is a bit clingy so she'll probably forget that she's wearing it half the time."

"Perfect," the old woman replied with a smile, looking forward to never seeing her daughter's boyfriend again unless he changed his ways, which was entirely possible if Pavlov was anything to go by.

"Pleasure doing business with you," Rose told the woman with a smile, knowing the ring wouldn't do much if the insults were deserved.

Vicky shook her head when the woman left. "That's probably illegal, you realize that right?"

"This isn't England, I doubt any of the US’ current laws cover magical items and being an asshole should be punished," Rose argued. "Besides, if he doesn't insult her, he won't have to worry about getting stabbed by needles."

Vicky shook her head. "I'm glad that I don't work for the Protectorate."

"Protectorate?" Belle asked.

"They're basically law enforcement agents that use enhanced abilities to deal with criminals with special abilities," Rose explained.

"Do we have to worry about them?" Belle asked.

Amy shook her head. "They're generally pretty reasonable unless you're using mind control."

"Good to know," Belle mused, making a mental note to not mention the staff that she could make that let her control people that didn't have magic.

Taylor frowned when Belle's stomach rumbled. "When was the last time you ate?"

"I don't know," Belle admitted. "Things got a bit weird after I started reading the books and it got hard to focus."

Rose gestured and conjured a chicken sandwich and handed it to Belle. "This should tide you over until Harry gets back, I'm not much of a cook."

"Harry?" Belle asked.

"My brother," Rose replied.

"Your brother cooks?" Belle asked.

"He enjoys it," Rose replied with a shrug. "I can make a couple of things but I don't really have the patience to make anything special."

"What do you like to do when you're not watching the shop?" Belle asked and took a bite of her sandwich.

"I like reading and learning magic," Rose replied. "I grew up in the shop and the shop jumps locations every couple of weeks so I've seen a lot of different places."

Belle finished chewing her bite of the delicious sandwich. "Wouldn't that make it hard to make friends?"

"Quite the opposite, I'm good at making friends, I'm just not good at keeping them because we're always moving," Rose explained.

Taylor sighed. "I'm going to miss you when you're gone."

"We'll figure something out," Rose assured her, making a mental note to look up ways to send messages between dimensions so she could keep track of her new friends. She turned to look at the door when the bell rang. "Welcome to the magic shop, how can I help you?" she asked the guy in his late teens or early twenties that walked into the shop.

The guy pulled his attention off Belle with a bit of difficulty. "Do you have any lamps? I need something for a spooky movie."

"Let's take a look," Rose replied as she headed for the door to the furniture section.

"What type of books do you like?" Amy asked.

"Adventure and fantasy, the village was sort of boring and the people were happy never doing anything new," Belle complained, not sure how to feel about the fact that she couldn't actually remember interacting with the village or the people… beyond that one time she had sang about how boring they were and offended practically everyone, that had stuck around for some reason.

"It's generally better than cape fiction," Amy agreed.

"Cape fiction?" Belle asked after finishing another bite of her sandwich.

"Stories about heroes or villains, they usually get the details wrong, sort of like stories about police work," Vicky offered.

"Like Sherlock Holmes?" Belle asked.

"Something like that, yeah," Amy agreed as the bell over the door rang and Riley and another girl walked in.

Riley glanced at Taylor, glad that she was wearing a mask. "Can you check her power? She just triggered."

Taylor turned her attention to the vaguely familiar teenage girl with pigtails that was probably a freshman or still in middle school and stared at the girl when she realized that her power didn't have any conflict drive, which was a first. 'No point in 'fixing' a mild drive to experiment and build things,' she mused, willing to trust the feeling that messing with the girl's power would be a bad idea. "She's a flying brick with the ability to surround her hands with force fields that increase her strength and ability to grip things. She's also a trump that can create a link between tinkers that increases cooperation and can temporarily copy specialties if the tinker is within a thousand feet of her."

"That's probably my fault, I was in the area," Riley offered.

"Trump? Triggered?" Belle asked, not understanding the words.

"Trumps can alter powers, their own or others. Triggered is what we call it when someone gets parahuman powers," Vicky explained, wondering how she'd ended up a flying brick with the ability to generate force fields around her hands and a trump ability to link tinkers since a trump's trigger usually involved other capes.

"What happened?" Belle asked, not realizing that the entire situation was traumatic.

"The teacher was an idiot and freaked out when the windows changed and told the class to run," the girl complained. "I got stuck on the stairs and one of the jocks shoved me out of his way and I fell over the edge and grabbed a rail. I really wanted to avoid falling to my death but I was slipping and no one was helping me."

"I found her floating in place with a crushed rail in her hands," Riley explained. "I gave her a cider and convinced her to come get her power checked."

"It's fine, she doesn't have a conflict drive and it's not going to cause her trouble," Taylor assured them.

"I don't think the adrenaline has worn off yet because I feel fine," the girl replied, fairly sure near death experiences were supposed to be more traumatic but she felt great. "What are you playing?"

"Wicked, it's a new game," Taylor explained.

"Do you need another person?" the girl asked, figuring she had a couple of hours to kill before her parents got home so it wasn't like anyone would miss her if she wasn't home at her normal time.

"Sure," Vicky replied then started explaining how to build a deck, figuring the more they could distract the girl from her trigger the better she'd be in the long run.

0o0o0

"Welcome to the Arcane Gateway," the twenty-something man behind the counter offered dryly as Myst and Harry walked into the 'magic shop' at the mall, barely looking up from the comic he was reading. "Can I help you find anything?" he asked in a flat voice that practically screamed, 'Fuck off so I can get back to reading my comic.'

"Crystal balls?" Myst asked as he looked around the new age shop, looking for things that he could enchant, sell in the shop or bribe Riley with for fixing his screw up.

"Over by the wall," the guy replied, gesturing at one of the walls. "Just don't expect them to actually work."

"Let me guess, you've had complaints?" Myst asked as he walked over to the section of the shop with crystal balls.

"Every now and then someone comes back and complains that our crystal balls don't work or that our curses didn't give someone warts," the man complained. "It's all a crock of shit if you ask me but it's a job."

"Whatever pays the bills," Myst agreed as he looked over the shop's lackluster collection, trying to figure out how the hell they managed to actually sell anything at the prices they were charging. 'Maybe they're just running a tax scam or they're laundering money for one of the gangs?'

"How do you stay in business?" Harry asked, resisting the urge to blow the guy's mind and prove that magic was real, if only because he'd have a hard time proving that he wasn't just a parahuman.

The guy gestured over to the section of the shop that sold RPG books and dice. "Mostly RPGs, expensive crystal dice, stupid teenage girls with their daddy's credit card and the fact that the rent is cheap."

"Makes sense," Myst agreed as he grabbed half a dozen of the nicer looking crystal balls and walked over to the counter. "Rune stones?" he asked as he set the crystal balls on the counter.

The man pointed over to the section with the stones that had runes carved into them. "Are you making a movie or something?" he asked, surprised that Myst was actually buying more crystal balls at once than he'd sold in the last seven years.

"With my D&D group," Myst replied as he headed over to grab the runestones.

"Cool, you should probably buy some incense," the guy suggested.

"No thanks," Myst replied, thinking about some friends of his that had used incense to try to cover up the stench of pot back in high school, try being the operative word. "We have a guy that does CGI effects and some of the girls have enough incense to kill a chain smoking demon lord, I don't need more."

"I had to try," the guy replied with amusement then went back to reading his comic book.

"No worries," Myst assured him as he looked through the collection of stones with runes carved into them, looking for stones with bits of precious or semiprecious stones in them that he could upgrade.

Harry wandered over the gaming section to take a look to see if they had any dice or books that caught his interest.

0o0o0