Copy Protection Void Part 7 (Patreon)

Mist followed the girls outside and did his best to ignore the pair of whitecloaks he could see walking down the street toward them, a touch annoyed that the young man on the left didn't actually have a cloud of gray around his head. 'Is that because you're a halfway decent person or because you're an asshole that didn't buy into their shit?'

Egwene's clone turned and walked into the alley, knowing it was easier to open a gateway from places that you knew or places that you'd opened gateways to. "Don't freak out, don't touch the edges and hold your questions until we're through."

"Through…" Min trailed off as a window to somewhere with a large tree opened against the wall. "What is that?"

"That's a gateway," Mist told her as he quickly walked through the gateway to prove that it was safe.

"I have so many questions," Min muttered then followed Mist through the gateway, figuring if they had bad intentions she was already screwed.

Egwene's clone walked through the gateway then closed it and dropped the source. "Welcome to Emond's Field."

"You can travel?" Min asked as she turned around to look at the girl, knowing the talent was supposed to be lost thanks to one of Verin's lectures while she was studying her gift.

"I can do a lot of things," the clone replied with a smile. "I'm Egwene al'Vere, one of them."

"One of them?" Min asked

"I'm a copy of the local version so you'll probably see another version walking around," the clone explained.

Mist grabbed his sunglasses from his belt pouch and put them on then pulled the bunny ears out of his gift box and looked at the description. "Huh, that's one way to get a volleyball team."

"Volleyball?" the clone asked, looking at the strange pink headband that Mist was holding that had long fluffy pink ears.

"It's a game, you play it with four people, a net and an inflated leather ball," Mist explained as he double checked the description, wanting to make sure he wasn't missing something.

"How does that have anything to do with the strange headband?" Min asked.

"Sorry, my glasses give me information about magical items. The headband came from my magical ability," Mist explained.

"You can channel?" Min asked warily.

"I can't channel," Mist assured her. "I just have a weird gift, sort of like your visions. Killing shadowspawn occasionally gives me strange magical items or the ability to conjure clothing."

"That sounds unbelievable, can you prove it?" Min asked.

Mist made a flourish with his hands and conjured a red silk cloak. "It will keep you warm if you're cold or cool if you're too warm and it's waterproof. You can also change the colors if you're wearing it and you concentrate on changing the colors."

"Are you sure he can't channel?" Min asked the clone warily.

"Moiraine already checked by shielding me when I created stuff," Mist replied with a smile as he handed her the cloak. "You might as well keep it, I can conjure more."

"Thank you?" Min replied as she accepted the silk cloak, verifying that it felt like silk and wasn't an illusion.

"What does the headband do exactly?" the clone asked.

Mist focused on the bunny ears. "The bunny ears give people with magic an understanding of the rules of the game and the ability to conjure volleyballs and a magical outfit."

"That's it?" the clone asked as Min put the cloak on.

"Let me finish," Mist complained. "It also permanently increases your height by an inch, adjusts the size of your breasts, leaning towards generous but reasonable sizes and changes your hair color to match a color of the rainbow if you wear it for longer than twenty minutes at a time. If you wear it for an hour in one stretch, it permanently turns you into a tall attractive sixteen year old girl with rainbow colored eyes."

"That's one way to stick out in a crowd," Min mused, interested in the height increase but not in having her hair changed to a color that would attract a lot of attention from the whitecloaks.

"Do you have to have magic?" Min asked, thinking about her aunts.

"Not for the height increase or getting changed into a teenager." Mist put the bunny ears on his head and smiled when he realized he knew a spell for conjuring volleyballs and a different spell for conjuring a magical outfit. He smiled as he pushed some of the mana he'd gotten from killing the shadowspawn and cultists thanks to the loincloth into his new spell and created a volleyball.

"Is it magic?" Egwene's clone asked.

"No, it's just a ball," Mist replied as he tossed the ball to Egwene's clone. He took the bunny ears off and smiled when he realized that he still knew how to conjure a ball and create a magical outfit. "Huh, I might have accidentally found a good way to test people for magic potential."

"Because people that have magical talents get knowledge and people that don't have magic would have to wear it for twenty minutes to notice anything," the clone mused. "Can I borrow the bunny ears?"

"I've already picked up everything I need so, yeah, sure, you can borrow them," Mist told her as he pulled the rubber stamp out of his gift box and checked it with his glasses. 'Huh, if I didn't know I was on a reality show, this would have made me wonder.'

"Anything good?" the clone asked.

"That depends, do you want a better healing talent?" Mist asked with a grin.

"How long does it last?" the clone asked, wondering about the catch.

"Take a look," Mist replied as he took his glasses off and handed them to Egwene's clone, figuring she'd want to see herself.

The clone put the glasses on and looked at the stamp. "The ink fades but the power and mental changes remain, I can see a lot of Aes Sedai lining up to get stamped, except maybe the red ajah."

"Why not the red?" Min asked.

"Because you need someone of the opposite sex to stamp you, meaning they'd have to put up with a man seeing them naked," the clone explained.

"It's the same for men, but I doubt most of them would care, not in the same way," Mist offered, knowing he'd jump at the chance to improve his healing talent if he could channel even with the side effects.

"What do you get out of it?" Min asked.

"The first time you get your ass stamped, your modesty decreases and you get a healing talent or your healing talent increases. The second time, your attraction to girls increases and your healing talent improves. The third time increases your desire to show off your body but it dramatically improves your healing talent so it's probably worth it."

"Does it say how much your modesty drops?" Min asked, curious how it worked.

The clone shook her head. "No, which means you might end up being fine with walking around town without your clothes or you might just end up fine swimming naked in a stream with friends."

"I doubt you're going to walk around naked when it's an actual problem, it says your modesty drops, not your common sense," Mist pointed out. "Either way, we should probably check in with Moiraine then do some dancing."

"Dancing?" Min asked.

"It's Bel Tine," the clone replied as she headed for the door to the inn, wanting to grab something to eat before they figured out what they wanted to do about the whitecloaks near Baerlin.

"Works for me," Mist agreed, curious if Nynaeve had managed to ward the waygate or if they'd run into problems.

0o0o0

Mist pulled his attention off the group of giggling girls on the village green that were trying on the bunny ears to see if they had the potential to use magic and looked at Moiraine as she walked over. "Did Nynaeve have any trouble warding the waygate?"

"No, she's remarkably good at wards," Moiraine admitted. "How much do you know about Nynaeve's life?"

Mist sighed. "Bits and pieces of her past and a decent amount about the next two years of a future that isn't going to happen. I know she's a decent person and the person that I'd want healing me if I got injured. She's one of the few people of this age that ever fought one of the forsaken and won and that was with only a couple of years of experience. I'm looking forward to seeing what she can do with fifty years of experience and a proper set of defensive ter'angreal."

"Which forsaken did she fight?" Moiraine asked, curious about the forsaken.

"Moghedien, she's the weakest in power when it comes to the forsaken but she's still one of the strongest channelers around. She's weaker than Nynaeve's full potential but not by much and she had a hundred and eighty years of practice," Mist said as both Egwenes walked over.

"She's also willing to run when she runs into trouble," Egwene offered, a touch impressed by Moghedien's talent for surviving, even if she'd never admit it.

"Can we borrow you for a few minutes, we want to use the stamp," Egwene's clone said.

"Sure," Mist replied.

"Do you mind if I come along?" Moiraine asked. "I'd like to use the stamp at least once and I'm curious about the mental effects."

"Do you mind?" Egwene asked her clone.

"I don't mind," Egwene's clone replied then turned to look at Mist. "Do you mind?"

"That's fine," Mist replied, not seeing a reason to object to seeing Moiraine's behind or at least enough of her behind to stamp.

"We can use my room," Egwene offered as she started walking for the door to the inn.

Mist followed the girls through the crowded common room and up the stairs to Egwene's room, glad that she had her own room as it made things a lot easier. "How do you want to do this?"

"I was planning on going first," Egwene's clone said as she turned away from the group and hiked her dress up until everyone could see her bare butt. "Start with one stamp, I want a chance to compare notes before getting the next one."

"Which lets me decide if it's worth it," Egwene said, trying to ignore the fact that 'her' ass was on display.

Mist pulled the magic stamp out of his belt pouch then walked over and carefully pressed the stamp to the clone's left cheek, leaving behind a blue five pointed star the size of a quarter. "That should do it, do you feel any different?"

The clone thought about the question for a couple of seconds then pulled her dress off and set it on Egwene's bed, leaving herself in her loincloth and her sheer halter top. She turned to look at Egwene. "It's strange, I remember being nervous about men seeing me in the sweat tent but I'm not the least bit bothered by the fact that Mist can see everything."

'I guess she wasn't joking about the loincloth,' Moiraine mused, wondering if she would have noticed the fact that loincloth wasn't proper clothing without being told that it had a minor compulsion like effect on it so that people would view it as acceptable clothing.

"Any desire to walk through town without your clothes?" Egwene asked.

The clone shook her head, knowing she'd never hear the end of it if she ran around the town naked. "And listen to the complaining? Not a chance."

"What about running around in just your loincloth?" Egwene asked.

"I'd want boots and I'd probably wear the top so I don't bounce around as much," the clone replied thoughtfully. "It might be fun to tease friends but I don't have a desire to show off or an aversion to showing off."

"If Mist asked would you let him play with your breasts?" Egwene asked, ignoring the fact that her ears were starting to get red, mostly because she was trying to figure out where the line was before she used the stamp.

The clone glanced at Mist then focused on Egwene. "That's a bad example, it's Mist. I'd let him do a lot of things that I wouldn't let someone else do. Mat would probably be a better example, I'd probably let him run his hands over my body if we were playing a trick on someone or on a mission but I'm not interested in him, he's too much of a rogue at heart."

"I'd be as red as a beat, but I'd probably do it in the right situation, he's a damned good friend," Egwene admitted.

"How are we going to test this?" Mist asked, wondering if they could find someone in the village that needed healing.

"I have a knife," the clone said as she grabbed her new belt knife that she'd already cleaned with hot water and soap off her belt and handed it to her twin. "Just make a small cut on the top of your arm, if I can heal it, we'll know it works."

"This is a bad plan," Egwene complained as she made a small cut on the top of her arm.

The clone embraced the source and wove Nynaeve's healing weave, using all five of the elements, causing the wound to knit back together and vanish as if it had never existed.

"I'd call that a successful test," Mist offered, happy to get confirmation that the stamp worked.

Egwene wiped the knife off on a washcloth then handed it back to her clone. "Do you want to go next?"

"If you want." Moiraine turned to face away from the Mist and hiked her dress until he could stamp her ass, hoping that she wasn't making a mistake but willing to take the chance if it meant improving her ability to heal people.

Mist took a second to enjoy the view then carefully stamped her ass, trying to be 'professional' about it or at least not an asshole. "That should do it. Do you feel any different?"

"I'm a Cairhienien noble, I didn't have a lot of modesty to start with," Moiraine replied with a touch of amusement as she let her dress fall back into place. She spent a minute coming up with questions and answers to various questions before deciding that she had a bit less modesty than she'd had before getting stamped but not enough to worry about.

Egwene sighed as she turned around and hiked her dress so that Mist could stamp her behind.

Mist stamped Egwene's behind. "That should do it."

"Thank you, I think," Egwene replied, finding it a bit strange to go from being embarrassed about Mist seeing her butt to not caring in the slightest. 'Probably better than having Rand stamp my butt, he'd die of embarrassment.'

"I want another stamp," the clone said cheerfully as she turned around and pointed at her unstamped butt cheek.

Mist placed the second stamp on her other cheek across from the first one. "Any changes?"

"Not really, Rand's still attractive, Egwene is pretty but it's like looking in a mirror, she doesn't really do anything for me and Moiraine is too short, sorry," the clone apologized.

Moiraine smiled at the clone. "Just because you're attracted to girls doesn't mean you're attracted to every girl," she offered, thinking about her time as a novice. "And just because you're attracted to girls or certain girls doesn't mean you're not attracted to men."

"So, nothing to worry about?" Egwene asked.

"Not really…" the clone trailed off as someone knocked on the door. "What do you need?"

"Lessons?" Bodewhin asked hopefully.

The clone walked over and opened the door then stopped as she realized that Bodewhin was more attractive than she remembered, in an I want to kiss you sort of way. "You might as well come in."

Bodewhin walked inside. "Is there a reason you're not dancing?"

"We're boosting our healing talents," the clone replied as she closed and latched the door, wanting to make sure no one walked in on them.

"How?" Bodewhin asked, having already been told that talents never changed.

"One of Mist's ter'angreal can increase your healing talent if you're willing to decrease your modesty," the clone explained.

"What do I have to do?" Bodewhin asked without hesitation.

The clone turned so that Bodewhin could see her behind and pointed at the stars on her butt. "Basically, if a person of the opposite sex stamps a channeler's behind with the magic stamp, they'll lose some of their modesty and get an increase to their talent for healing. If they get two stars, you'll end up being attracted to females."

"Three and you'll end up flaunting your body which is why we're stopping at two, at least for today," Egwene told her.

"Not like he hasn't seen it before," Bodewhin said as she turned away from Mist and hiked her dress up, revealing her butt.

"What?!" Egwene sputtered out.

Bodewhin snickered. "We've been swimming in the waterwood before and my shift doesn't really cover anything when it gets wet."

"I haven't been swimming in a while," the clone mused, wanting to see Bodewhin naked. 'At least it's no worse than drooling over Rand.'

"I'm not going swimming until the weather improves," Bodewhin stated, ready to have the cold over with for the year or at least until the fall.

'Makes me wish I had my local memories. Then again, I didn't actually exist before I got here, so that never happened,' Mist mused as he took a couple of seconds to enjoy the view. "How many stamps do you want?"

"I can get the rest later, right?" Bodewhin asked, wanting to make sure she could pick up the third one at a later time if it proved safe.

"Yeah," Mist assured her.

"In that case, just two. Mom would ground me if I got three and I started flaunting myself like Calle," Bodewhin admitted, fairly sure her mother would ground her if she knew that she'd shown Mist her butt or shown off as much as she had in the Waterwood.

Mist reached down and carefully applied two stamps to her butt, leaving two blue stars on her rump. "That should do it, you might want to hold your dress like that for a minute until the ink dries."

"Okay," Bodewhin replied. "How long will it take to learn the basics?"

Moiraine turned and hiked her dress so that Mist could stamp her behind again, not seeing a reason to mention that Mist hadn't said anything about the ink having to dry for anyone else since the girl had a faint smirk and looked to be enjoying herself. "I'll take a second one."

Mist pulled his attention away from Bodewhin's butt and stamped Moiraine's butt a second time. "Did you want another stamp, Egwene?"

"Just do it before I change my mind," Egwene muttered as she hiked her dress up enough that Mist could stamp her behind.

Mist quickly and carefully stamped Egwene's behind before she could change her mind then put the stamp in his belt pouch. "We should probably give everyone a chance to relax and get used to the changes before people get a third stamp."

"Good, I don't need my evil twin flirting with everyone," Egwene stated, finding her attention drifting to Bodewhin's butt. 'At least she's a friend and she's staring at my clone which means I've got a shot. What about Gawyn? I haven't even met him in this life and Bodewhin thought he was attractive. Great, now I'm trying to justify a love triangle.'

Moiraine let her dress fall back to the grown. "How are you planning on teaching her?"

Egwene let her dress drop back down as she turned to look at Mist. "I was thinking about using a link but we might have a better way if Mist is willing to part with his blacksmithing crystals?"

"That depends, are you interested in actually doing the work and willing to teach people?" Mist asked Bodewhin.

Bodewhin let her dress fall back down like it was supposed to. "I'm willing to learn and I'm willing to teach."

Mist pulled the two blacksmithing crystals and handed the normal blacksmithing crystal to her. "Lick that and you should get a blacksmithing skill."

Bodewhin licked the crystal and blinked when it vanished and she realized she knew an insane amount about setting up a forge and crafting things with metal, including armor and weapons. "That's a trip, we might need to look into finding a copper mine or buying some metal from Baerlon, I know how to make some stuff that would probably sell."

"Just wait until you start making heartstone, you could retire off one piece," the clone told her, knowing they'd need to make a couple of pieces if they wanted to fund the school until they figured out a better way to fund everything.

Bodewhin shook her head. "That sounds boring, I want to see what I can make. For the record, thank you, thank you and thank you for the crystals."

Mist smiled as he handed her the crystal. "You're welcome. Same as before."

Bodewhin licked the crystal and blinked when she realized that she knew a number of ways to infuse magic into metal to create power wrought weapons and magical items that had nothing to do with the power if she had a way to fuel their creation and or the right supplies. "Ooh!" she squealed as she thought about all of the things she could make.

Mist reached out and tapped Bodewhin's arm, updating her pattern and getting her attention. "Are you still with us?"

"Sorry, I was thinking about everything I'm going to have to make," Bodewhin replied as she focused on the present. "I'm going to need to borrow Master Luhhan's forge to create the pieces I need to set up an arcane forge."

"Just remember not to put him out of business," Egwene warned her.

"I'm not going to, I'll be making magic items and things to sell outside the village," Bodewhin assured her, not interesting in taking over the mundane side of smithing.

"How do you make an arcane forge?" Mist asked Bodewhin.

"You can make a cheap forge using earth and fire to collect rock and shape it into a basic forge, then you just use magic to infuse crystal into metal for the elemental infusion nozzles that control the amount of fire you're putting into the forge. Toss in some rune work to focus the arcane energy you're pouring into the forge and you've got a forge that doesn't need mundane fuel as long as you have a couple of magic users to help. With a bit more effort and the right type of gems, I could have the forge hot enough to forge adamantite."

"What is adamantite?" Moiraine asked, having never heard of it.

"It's an incredibly strong metal that will slice through most materials like a knife through butter, it's an extremely rare metal and generally comes from meteorites or the plane of earth," Bodewhin explained, wondering if she could find enough of it to make some tools.

"I'll keep an eye out," Mist told her, fairly sure adamantite didn't actually exist in the Wheel of Time world but figured he might be able to get it via his gift menu as it seemed random enough and was certainly grabbing things from other worlds.

"That would be fantastic," Bodewhin replied with a smile, thinking about how much easier it would be with a couple of adamantine tools for shaping metal. "I'm going to need a hammer."

Mist conjured a loincloth for Bodewhin. "This should help with the heat coming off the forge though it won't do anything about sparks."

"That's what aprons and gloves are for," Bodewhin replied as she accepted the loincloth. "How does this help?"

"It keeps the wearer comfortable at any temperature, including standing next to a forge," Mist replied with a smile, looking forward to watching her smith in the loincloth. "It also counts as acceptable clothing, which means no one will complain about you wearing it in public. It also permanently boosts your mana pool by a little bit per cultist or monster you kill which means you'll have a well of mana that doesn't require using the source with a bit of work."

Egwene's clone used a little bit of her own mana to create a hovering ball of soft light. "It's nice because channelers can't see it unless they have mana."

"I'll have to make some armor," Bodewhin mused as she reached down and grabbed the hem of her dress. She pulled her dress over her head, giving everyone a nice view of her curvy body as she dropped the dress on the chair. "Do you like what you see?"

"Yes," Mist replied without any hesitation.

Egwene sighed but didn't pull her gaze off Bodewhin's body. "It's probably just as well that we didn't give you a third stamp."

"There's a difference because teasing friends and showing off for the idiots," Bodewhin replied with a smile as she worked on putting the loincloth on. "Besides, he gave me two skill crystals that I can use to make a very good living, that's worth a bit of a show."

"They were gifts but the view is appreciated," Mist assured her.

"She's going to need a shirt so she doesn't bounce around while we're dancing," the clone told Mist.

"Sure," Mist replied as he conjured a halter top for Bodewhin. "This basically makes it so you'll be able to jump further if you kill shadowspawn."

"Does everything you can conjure involve killing shadowspawn?" Moiraine asked, trying to get a better idea how his strange ability worked.

"No, the boots don't get better if I kill monsters and the cloaks are just magical cloaks that change color, stay warm and are waterproof," Mist argued.

"It's just everything else," Egwene's clone teased as Bodewhin finished tying the tie on her loincloth and grabbed the halter top from Mist.

"Close enough," Mist admitted.

Bodewhin finished putting the halter top on then smiled at Mist and the Egwenes. "Let's go dance, I want at least a couple of dances with each of you."

"Sounds good," Mist agreed.

"This is going to be fun," Egwene's clone said as she opened the door, revealing her mother standing there with her hand up to knock on the door and a tray of honey cakes in the other.

Marin al'Vere glanced between Bodewhin and Mist then focused on her daughters, still finding it a bit weird that she had an extra. "I was just going to ask if you wanted to taste test the honey cakes?"

"Yes," Bodewhin replied as she reached out and grabbed one of the honey cakes.

"Thank you," Mist told her as he grabbed one of the honey cakes.

"Thank you Mom," Egwene told her as she grabbed a honey cake, a bit surprised that she didn't even question her clone or Bodewhin's choice of dress.

"Thank you," Egwene's clone said as she snatched a honey cake, eager to see if they tasted as good as she remembered.

"Go ahead," Marin told Moiraine.

"Thank you," Moiraine replied as she took one of the honey cakes. "Elisa stuck the rabbit ears on my head when I wasn't paying attention, can I talk to you tomorrow about training?"

"Of course. If I'm not around, I'll make sure someone can answer your questions," Moiraine assured her, knowing that Egwene and Nynaeve would be able to teach everyone in case she ended up leaving early.

"I need to get back to work, enjoy your dancing," Marin said then headed back down the hallway.

Bodewhin sighed in relief when Marin left, glad that she hadn't asked about her clothes. "Let's go."

Mist smiled as he followed the girls, figuring the whitecloaks would be easier to hit in the dark anyway.

0o0o0