Mist's Jumps Part 23 (Patreon)

Xander looked up from his video game as Faith and Pandora entered the game room wearing strange soot covered robes. “How did your project go?”

Faith snickered as she walked over and sat down on the large wooden table. “It could have went worse.”

Pandora snorted. “Apparently half trained goblin mages aren’t a match for dragon mages, who knew?”

“Everyone that has seen one of your dad’s dragon characters?” Xander asked sarcastically.

“Point.” Pandora walked over and stood next to Faith.

“Why were you using goblin mages to attack dragons?” Mist asked as he walked in.

Faith said, “Because we needed to destroy the upgraded goblins before they could make it back to their tribe and breed.”

Mist glanced back and forth between Faith and his daughter. “How much did you upgrade them?”

Pandora smiled sheepishly. “All the way up to purple which is a step past blue.”

“Any particular reason you needed to upgrade them all?” Mist looked down his nose at his daughter.

“I might have been stealing magic from them,” Pandora admitted reluctantly. 

“How?” Xander asked.

“I made a glove of generous donation and convinced them that they’d blow up if they kept their magic…” Pandora trailed off as she noticed Xander’s look of disbelief.

Mist shook his head. “Let me get this straight, you upgraded the goblins into rather powerful magic users then convinced them to give you their magic, then fed them to dragons?”

“More or less. Though to be fair, I wasn’t planning on attacking any dragons, I was planning on using the goblins in a dungeon I’d heard about, the dragons were just in the area.”

He felt slightly better that his daughter hadn’t intentionally antagonized a couple of dragons. “Right, what else did you do?”

“I might have used my conversion ritual to change them into partial witches so they could boost Faith’s power then we sent them near the dungeon and two smallish dragons decided they were target practice.”

“Did any of them survive?” Xander asked curious just how nasty the dragons were.

Faith snorted. “No, we can pretty much confirm that the dragons are immune to magic or at least heavily resistant to any one else’s magic.”

“Anyone else’s magic?”

“The dragons used spells to turn invisible then started tossing boulders at the goblins.”

Xander blinked. “Boulders?”

Faith held her hands apart about three and a half feet. “They were counting as they hit the goblins, I think it was a game. When the goblins tried to flee, one of them conjured a massive stone ring around the clearing so the goblins couldn’t escape.”

Mist rubbed his face with his hand. “Please tell me they can’t track the goblins back to us.”

Pandora said, “Considering the goblins barely looked like goblins after the conversion ritual, I doubt it.”

Faith spoke up, “Considering how much fun the dragons were having with their game and the fact that the dungeon is on the edge of the clearing, I doubt the dragons care where the goblins came from.”

Xander spoke up, “When did you create the generous donation glove?”

Pandora blushed slightly as she turned to look at Xander. “In the Trek jump. I realized that Dad’s Ocampa project could use some tweaking. By creating a generous donation glove I could control exactly how much magic someone donated which means that a magic user could ‘temporarily’ donate their magic then get the exact same amount back after their friend/neighbor/child knocked a girl up. That meant that I could set up a custom of donating your magic to your friends before they had children then getting it back after the child was conceived or born.”

Mist grinned. “I guess that’s what I get for not paying enough attention to my projects.”

“Yep, does that mean you’re not mad?” Pandora asked hopefully.

“Of course not, I was hoping they’d improve over time, you jump started the process by centuries.”

Xander spoke up, “I have a question, how much magical power did you get from the goblins?”

Pandora smirked Mist. “Enough that Dad is going to have to work to catch up.”

Mist looked down his nose at his daughter. “We could always have a contest if you think you can beat me in a duel.”

Pandora quickly shook her head. “I’m not falling for that, you’ve had years and years to practice.”

“Speaking of practice, I should probably put some more effort into monster hunting, I’d hate to be shown up by my daughter even if she’s cheating.” Mist stuck his tongue out at Pandora.

Faith snorted. “You’re just pissed that you didn’t think of it first.” 

“It’s not cheating if it works,” Xander pointed out.

Mist turned to look at Xander. “In that case, I’m going to hit one of the ancient dungeons to see if I can net enough experience to upgrade my magic enough that I’m not hopelessly outclassed by my daughter.” He mock pouted at Pandora then orbed ‘down’ to one of the last dungeons.

Xander shook his head. “Hopefully he doesn’t get killed trying to increase his magic.”

Pandora winced as she realized her Dad might get hurt on her account. “Sorry.”

Faith waved her hand absently. “Don’t worry about it, even if something manages to kill him, he’ll just reappear in his warehouse.”

Pandora said, “In that case, let’s grab some ice cream while I try to figure out what to do with the rest of the goblins.”

“I might have a couple of ideas.” Xander wanted to test the helm of opposed alignment to see how well it worked before giving Noelle a copy for use with her clones.

0o0o0

Mist scowled as he appeared at the entrance to the frozen dungeon rather than in the dragon’s vault where he’d been aiming. “So much for cheating.” He glanced at the various wooden signs people had stuck in the ground near the entrance, ‘Cold resistance is required, Platforms are slick, Don’t use cold damage moron, Fire is useless against the might of Gormixargath, Mimics are bad!’ He frowned slightly as he noticed one of the signs had a section torn out of it in the middle, “The last… is a trap. So much for reality being the same as the game.”

He stepped into the snow and ice covered dungeon and stared at the eight foot tall ice ‘statue’ that almost reached the ceiling at the end of the short hallway. He took a cautious step and found himself sliding a couple of inches on the iced floor. He scowled slightly as he attempted to fly and found that he couldn’t. 

A deep and ominous voice shouted, “Flight is forbidden!”

Mist scowled as he pushed at his power to no effect other than to have the voice repeat his message. He knew that you couldn’t use overland flight spells in dungeons in the game version of the world but he’d been hoping that the rule wasn’t absolute against all types of flight. He gestured and frowned as his firespell failed to form. “Seriously?”

“Fire is forbidden!”

Mist scowled as he ‘remembered’ about the anti fire wards on this particular dungeon until you killed the dragon at the end of it at least once. He pulled out his flaming sword of doom and sighed as the raging inferno flickered and died. He returned his ‘flaming’ sword back to his inventory and pulled out his main sword. “So much for the easy method.”

He took a step then another step and slid toward the golem that lurched to life as he passed the halfway mark. He tumbled between the golem’s legs and tried and failed to spin around correctly as he slid into the spiked wall at the end of the hallway. He scowled as the golem spun on a dime, lurched forward and slammed his overly large fist into him slamming him back into the ice spikes. Thankfully he was durable enough that it was merely annoying rather than painful.

He reached out with his mimicry power and copied the golem’s ability to ice walk. He kicked off the wall and slammed his fist into the golem hard enough to create several large cracks in its chest. He brought his blade up and blocked a punch then brought it down on the construct’s arm severing it. He stepped forward and kicked the golem with all his considerable might which obliterated the golem and sent his other foot out from under him as his new ice walking power wasn’t quite up to the task of keeping him stable.

He stared up at the ceiling for several seconds then pulled himself to his feet and glanced down the left corridor. He ‘knew’ the right corridor was nothing more than a trap and monster filled dead end in the game but that might be different in reality. He created an avatar that had thirty percent of his power. “Have fun.”

The avatar replied sarcastically as he headed down the right corridor, “Yeah, right.”

Mist smiled as he carefully headed down the left corridor. He knew that in the game he’d reach a room with groups of ice elementals then some ice hounds patrols then chambers with ice wizards and eventually large groups of ice witches and golems then a rather massive dragon that only a couple of high end guilds had ever beaten. The minibosses in the game had been randomly generated from a rather large list so he wasn’t sure what would be waiting for him but he was hoping it wasn’t one of the monsters that ignored physical durability and armor.

He walked around the corner and grinned slightly as he saw an entire snow covered room ‘filled’ with animated snowmen and rather large snowflake shaped floating ice sculptures. Unlike the game which only had five different hats there were dozens of different hats and none of the carrot noses he could see where exactly the same. He glanced toward the other side of the large chamber at the raised section where the rather large twelve foot tall snowman with a black silk top hat and a red and yellow scarf was ‘standing’. ‘Frosty, great.’ He was hoping that his necklace kept him from being turned into a defenseless snowman by Frosty but he wasn’t counting on it.

‘At least the elementals and basic snowmen are stupid in the game.’ He turned down the corridor and cast several walls of lightning so they filled up the corridor then walked back to the room and cast Ultima in the middle of the room. He wasn’t overly surprised when none of the mobs died as this was one of the last dungeons and the various creatures were supernaturally tough to a rather disturbing degree. He ran back down the corridor through the various walls of lightning. He held out his free hand and summoned gail force wind to help keep the elementals and snowmen in the lightning walls as long as he could.

He scowled as the snowmen and elementals proved highly resistant to lightning. ‘What the hell? They weren’t this bad in the game.’ He stumbled back in surprise as one of the snowmen dashed forward far quicker than you’d expect a snowman to move and slashed him with its wickedly sharp ‘wooden’ hands leaving three rather painful and deep gashes in his chest despite his armor. He lashed out with his sword and counterattacked three times which caused the snowman to melt once it died. 

Mist staggered backwards as the snowman exploded and a ‘shockwave’ of cold and ice shards hit everything around healing him and all of the remaining monsters for a significant amount of health. He created an avatar at half strength to fight next to him so they couldn’t get behind him or pull him to the ground by weight of numbers.

The avatar pulled an extra copy of his sword out of his inventory then hacked at the floating snowflake. He frowned as his blade failed to damage the floating snowflake. “Fucking conceptual shit.”

“No shit.” Mist pulled his stopwatch out of his inventory and pushed the button. He sighed in relief as all of the enemies stopped moving. “Any bright ideas?”

“We could always try to reset the dungeon by leaving. Worst case, they follow us out and we destroy them with fire. Best case, we can come back and actually pull it like we’re supposed to.”

Mist frowned slightly as he considered his options. “Or we just toss up walls of air and do a fighting retreat. The mobs didn’t respawn all that fast in the game, I doubt they respawn as quickly in reality.”

“No clue but I guess it’s worth a try,” the avatar agreed.

Mist reached out and wove several physical barriers around the various monsters to cut them off from each other and keep them from coming after them in a mob. “Let’s see if I can kill the elemental on the left. Try locking one of the elementals’ magic down.” He unfroze time then put his watch in his inventory. He ignored the ice elemental’s first ice spell as he concentrated on the elemental and tried to lock its powers down. He grinned as he quickly double cast two ultima spells and they managed to managed to reduce the two elementals by a small fraction of their health. He lost his smile a second later as the elementals merely cast two large area wide ice spells that filled up their health meter despite the fact that they shouldn’t be able to cast. He gestured and tried to orb one of them away and scowled when it didn’t work.

“Fuck it.” He dashed down the corridor and summoned his BFG9000 and opened fire on the elementals. He scowled slightly as the weapon barely made a dent in their health. He made a mental note to upgrade the BFG9000 as he let it vanish.

Mist’s avatar smiled slightly as he managed to block the second elemental from following Mist. “Pull it around the corner and burn it down, I’ll hold this one.” He unleashed magicka style lightning on it, not because he was expecting it to do any real damage but because it didn’t cost him any mana and he could keep it up for a long time which would hopefully keep the elemental focused on him rather than Mist.

Mist continued tossing ultima spells at the elemental as he ‘pulled’ it down the corridor. He scowled as he realized how stupid he was being as the elemental healed a decent chunk of damage with a single target overpowered ice spell. He cast reflect on the ice elemental and smiled when its next ice spell bounced off the reflect spell and hit him instead. He was just glad that he had cold absorption rather than cold resistance as the spell healed a frightening amount of damage. He ignored the various ice spells the elemental tossed at him as he ‘burned’ it down with ultima. He smiled as he managed to kill it and he gained some of the creature’s ice affinity, magical power and skill. “This might actually work.”

He grinned as he headed back to start dealing with the rest of the monsters.

0o0o0

Buffy scowled as she pulled her hood up against the rain and the wind as she watched a group of lizardmen haul a group of humans onto a crude platform from her hiding spot near the edge of the forest. “This sucks.”

“Just give the word, I can fly over there and crack some skulls,” Victoria whispered back as she looked over the collection of non human humanoids that were going to bidding on the slaves.

“They’d just kill the slaves,” Riley replied as she tried to get a decent count.

“We could always try to buy them then set them free…” Victoria trailed off as all of the humans vanished in blue sparkles.

Chris snorted as he finished his gesture that had orbed the humans back to Dawn’s town. “Or we cheat.”

Riley said various things as she used her voice mimicry power to project a voice to various locations in the crowd, “The kobold did it, the wolfman did it, the lizardmen are cheating us, kill the orcs.” She used a touch of telekinesis to pull a rather shocked orc’s spear into a lizardman’s throat then projected a male voice from the orc’s mouth, “Kill them all!”

Buffy frowned as she watched the crowd of monsters turn on each other, “You’re way too good at that.”

“Probably,” Riley replied as she opened her inventory.

Victoria asked, “How long do you want to wait before we go in there and start smashing them?”

“Probably until they start fleeing…” Chris trailed off as Riley pulled out her BFG9000. “Riley?”

“Give me a second, I need to line up my shot.” Riley aimed and fired at the middle of the crowd then closed her eyes as the large fast moving ball of green energy flew from her oversized gun.

Buffy blinked as the ball exploded in the middle of the dry area and lanced out with a hundred green bolts of lightning which obliterated every living thing they touched with a thunderous boom. “What the hell was that?”

“That was my BFG9000.”

“Bullshit, I’ve seen Mist fire his BFG.”

“He never bothered to upgrade his, I upgraded mine.” Riley grinned as she put her BFG9000 back in her inventory.

Victoria asked, “How did you get enough power cells for that?”

“I converted it to run on a mana battery then tied a mana generator into the battery so that it’s always topped off.”

“That was an option?” Victoria asked in disbelief.

“Why do you think I have a mad science jar?” Riley asked as she headed toward the clearing with a skip in her steps to see if they had any worthwhile loot.

Buffy shivered as she remembered just how damned scary their tinker was when she put her mind to it. “I’m starting to feel under geared.”

“Same,” Chris replied as he followed Riley.

Victoria made a mental note to work on her weapons and armor a bit over the next couple of months as she followed Chris and Buffy to loot the monsters. “Have you given any thoughts to having a child?”

Buffy almost stumbled over a root as she glanced over at Victoria. “What?”

“Amelia was talking about asking Mist to knock her and Amy up at some point.”

“The only way I’d consider that is if I could skip the first couple of years,” Buffy admitted.

“That would be nice.” Victoria would rather not deal with diapers if she didn’t have to.

“We could always talk to Mist about taking a jump with a mass import option,” Chris pointed out.

“We’ll see.” Buffy tossed the idea around in her mind as they worked on looting the bodies, it wasn’t like they’d ever have to worry about money again or people to help babysit.

0o0o0

Mist frowned as he walked back into the chamber with Frosty. He mentally reviewed what he knew about the boss fight, the two most dangerous abilities were its rather brutal short ranged frost aura that did more cold damage the longer you were in it and a snowball flurry debuff ability that temporarily reduced a character’s max hit points by 10% every time it was used which meant the battle couldn’t last longer than eight to ten minutes depending on how often the boss used his special attack. He wasn’t terribly worried about the boss because he should be immune to the debuff because of his magic absorption and the cold aura because of his cold absorption. That left some physical damage which shouldn’t be impressive enough to hurt him as the mini boss couldn’t cut through his armor or durability unlike the other snowmen. 

He glanced at the two sets of stairs leading up to the ledge the boss was on, the left stairs were trapped and the right stairs occasionally turned into a slide which would cause the tank to slide back to the main floor and the mini boss to launch volleys of hard hitting snowballs at the group that caused confusion to random targets which usually resulted in the death of the raid if the confusion wasn’t dispelled fast enough. The main method of dealing with it was to run into the edge of the cold aura when the stairs turned into a slide, with enough practice you could get hit for one tick then dodge out of the effect once the boss cast his mass confusion spell. The other way to deal with it was to have something to break the effect or have a rare trinket that made you immune to confusion and or mind control. 

Mist briefly considered calling his avatars back that were looting side passages then raised his blade and jumped up to the platform where Frosty was ‘standing’ and brought his sword down on the massive snowman as hard as he could. He smiled as a decent chunk of the mini boss’ hit points vanished. He dodged the boss’ swipe and counter attacked ten times in a blur. He frowned slightly as the mini boss fell apart leaving a silk hat, a carrot, a sliver of sapphire and a glowing chunk of ice behind. “So much for grabbing his weird spells.” He focused on his blade and toggled the counterattack option off, it was fine for a game or hunting random monsters but he wanted a bit more control of his actions in the dungeon. He reached down and picked up the black silk hat and looked it over with his identity power. ‘Changes you into a snowman while equipped, less armor and durability but gives immunity to cold and you can conjure snowballs, much like the game then.’ He tossed the hat into his inventory then picked up the carrot and looked at it. ‘A carrot wand that shoots a beam of cold, might be worth duplicating for the guards.’ He stuck the carrot wand in his inventory then picked up the chunk of glowing ice.

He could ‘remember’ the first couple of times his guild had tried the dungeon, they’d spent hours farming the trash mobs for enough ingredients to craft enough resistance gear and potions so they weren’t instantly splattered by the massive amount of cold damage the various mini bosses dealt. The only saving grace of the dungeon in the game was that the raid could be reset so they could ‘farm’ the first boss. Of course, it hadn’t been easy to start with, they’d used thousands of gold coins worth of consumable resources to close the gap between the amount of resistance gear they had and what they needed to survive the brutal mini bosses. He examined the chunk of glowing ice with his identify option. “Use for a permanent 1% increase to cold absorption and cold damage you cause. That might be useful if I can upgrade it enough.”

He picked up the sliver of sapphire and smiled as he realized that it was part of the legendary frost staff that boosted the entire raid’s cold resistance by a flat 20% as long as they were within a hundred yards. He stuck the shard in his inventory as well as the chunk of magical ice then turned and headed down the hallway toward the next section of the dungeon.

Thankfully the rather large ice hounds he ran into didn’t have the ability to bite through armor or anything weird which meant it was a simple matter of cutting them down. After that it was a simple if annoying task to skin the beasts. He stuck the large freshly skinned blue ice hound pelt into his inventory. Normally he wouldn’t skin a dog but the pelts could be used to make cloaks that dealt frost damage to anyone that hit them. He looked up as a blast of cold washed over him and noticed the six blue clothed wizards standing at the end of the hallway. “Parley?” He frowned slightly as the ice wizards each conjured several large ice spikes and sent them at him at near ballistic speed. He felt everything slow as he used his enhanced speed to pull his pocketwatch out of his inventory and push the button. 

He smiled as he walked around the ice spikes that were frozen in place then walked over to the ice wizards. “Apparently not.” He stuck the pocketwatch in his pocket and his sword back in his inventory then worked on stripping the ice wizards down to their underwear. He wasn’t sure how much of their durability and magic came from their equipment but he was tired of playing nice.

Abby asked from down the hall, “Is there a reason you’re stripping the wizards?”

Mist turned and stared at Abby and Selena who were carefully walking toward him trying not to slip on the slippery ice. “They didn’t need their equipment. What brings you down here?”

“Do you have any idea how weird it is when the people you’re talking to suddenly freeze in place?” Selena asked with a touch of amusement.

“Ah, right. I got tired of trying to dodge spells and attacks when the floor is slicker than snot and I can’t fly.”

Abby shrugged. “Cool, have you found anything interesting yet?”

“A hat that causes the user to change into a snowman, a carrot wand that shoots a beam of ice and a chunk of magical ice that permanently gives someone 1% more cold absorption and increases the cold damage they do by 1% when used.”

“That’s neat, so what’s next?” Selena asked curious what else they could find in the dungeon.

Mist gestured at the ice wizards, “There should be another couple of patrols of ice wizards and ice hounds then some patrols of ice witches and golems then a large group of ice witches with a mini boss witch. After that there is a rather large chamber and a massive dragon that we need to deal with.”

Abby raised her eyebrows. “How are you planning on killing the dragon?”

“That one is easy, I have a dragon slaying sword.”

“You think it will work?” Selena asked warily.

Mist shrugged. “It’s a fiat backed dragon slaying weapon, the boss is a dragon so yeah, I’m pretty sure it will work. If not, I should be able to escape down the narrow corridors and come up with a better plan. One way or another I’m killing that damned dragon so I can farm the dungeon with fire magic.”

Abby snickered. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were upset about your daughter being a more powerful magic user.”

“Not really, she stole the magic from 200 upgraded goblin sorcerers, I’m just trying to be able to give her a run for her money.”

Selena shook her head. “How can we help?”

“Help me strip the rest of the wizards and witches and tie everyone up so they’re easier to kill-” he cut off as several dozen flying ice cats crashed into him and started trying to gnaw through his armor and skin. “What the hell?”

Abby turned to look at a rather tall and angry looking white haired ice witch in a long icy blue dress holding a staff that glowed with a cold blue radiance. “Why isn’t she frozen?”

Selena raised her hand and tossed an ultima spell at the witch then stared in disbelief as the witch counterspelled it. “Fuck…”

Mist used chain lightning on the flying ice cats then got back to his feet. He used his deflection power as the witch sent a storm of ice shards their way. “That’s not going to cut it.”

The witch shouted, “You shall be destroyed for the glory of Gormixargath the Undefeated!”

“You mean unpronounceable right?” Mist raised his hands and started chain casting ultimas at the boss to test her spell resistance. He smiled as the boss’s ice storm refilled his mana pool by a decent amount. He frowned slightly as he noticed her mana bar barely move with each ultima he hit her with. ‘Great, she’s got a mana shield and a lot of mana.’

Selena gestured and conjured chains around the witch’s hands or at least tried. She scowled as the spell was countered. “How the hell did they deal with her in the game?”

“Lot’s of melee…” Mist trailed off as several dozen ice spikes burst out of the floor and several dozen swirling blades of ice appeared to fill the corridor so they couldn’t close the distance. He didn’t remember that from the game. He used his yellow power ring and created a large yellow hand around the boss’s legs and yanked her through her own blade barrier. Sure it wasn’t nice and it wasn’t pretty but it got the boss in melee range which let the girls grab her arms and start syphoning her magic.

Mist worked on scanning the mini boss as the girls held the furious witch in place. He ignored the popup that appeared as he finished scanning her and pulled out his sword. He cast dispel on the witch then lunged forward and buried his blade into her chest up to the hilt.

“You’ll never defeat Gormixargath…” she trailed off as she died.

Mist lowered the witch to the ground with his yellow construct hand then dismissed it. “I’m starting to hate this place.”

Selena smiled as a pair of boots, a shard of sapphire and a book appeared out of thin air on the boss. “I don’t know, I could get used to it.” She picked the book up and looked at it with identify. “Sweet, it’s an ice cream conjuration spell.”

“I’m not sure if that’s even remotely fair,” Abby complained.

“Why?” Mist asked absently as he glanced over the extremely powerful witch minion he’d just unlocked.

“Because we just killed the second to last boss in one of the hardest dungeons in the world and all we got was a spell to conjure ice cream.”

“Would it help if the I told you the ice cream came with a percentage based heal?” Selena asked with amusement.

“Yes, yes it would.”

“Sadly, I’ve been told not to lie,” Selena replied with amusement.

Abby muttered, “Rats.”

Mist looked down his nose at Selena, “It regenerates people, right?”

Selena snickered. “Thankfully yes.”

Abby glared at her sister. “Meanie.”

“In that case, I want a copy.” Mist reached down and picked up the boots and looked them over with his identify power. “Boots of Winter’s Heart, increased agility, the user can walk normally on ice and they add +10% cold absorption.”

Selena snorted. “Yeah, I think I would have hunted down the developer and kicked him in the nuts for the boss only dropping one time.”

Mist absently put the boots in his inventory as he scowled at the boss. “I’m a touch more annoyed that the caster didn’t drop caster boots, fucking druids.”

Abby frowned as she looked at Mist. “Druids?”

“Sorry, I played WoW too much, there was way too much leather caster gear which only druids could really use, unless you were a shaman and then you got chain mail caster gear and shield offhands that were better than what I could use and came with more armor than my entire set of magical cloth armor.”

“You’re still bitter about a game you haven’t played in years?” Abby asked with amusement.

Mist sighed as he reached down and picked up the fragment of sapphire then pulled his blade out of the mini boss’ chest. “When you put it that way, maybe I’m being unreasonable.” He stuck the piece of sapphire in his inventory and smirked as it stacked with the other fragment which meant that duplicating the fragments probably wasn’t off the table.

Abby picked up the dead witch and put her in her inventory.

“Do I want to know why you’re sticking the mini boss in your inventory?” Mist asked warily.

“Riley might be able to use it for science or to create clones or something for when we go to the Harry Potter jump.”

“You could have just said no,” Mist muttered as he pulled his stopwatch out of his pocket. He unpaused time then hacked down the six ice wizards almost before they could move. “In that case, you might as well grab the wizards.” He had a feeling that his ice magic was going to get a massive boost by the time he was done clearing out the dungeon.

Abby frowned as she looked at the dead wizards. “Are you going to leave any for the rest of us?”

Mist briefly considered explaining that he got 10% of their magical power and skill or ability in a discipline then decided that it wasn’t worth explaining as they’d just want a copy of his ability and he’d rather not give all of his tricks away in case something went wrong and he had to stop one of his companions from doing something crazy. “Sure, as long as I get to kill the dragon.”

Abby raised her eyebrows as she looked at Mist. “What does the dragon give you?”

“It should give us the ability to use fire magic in here which means it will be a lot easier to farm the place.”

Selena frowned slightly. “In that case, we should probably clear to the dragon then invite all of the adults to come kill the dragon with us.”

“That’s going to be really messy or anticlimactic, I’m not sure which,” Mist admitted as he pulled out his cellphone to call Hermione so she could collect everyone.

Abby worked on stuffing the dead wizards in her inventory as she replied, “Let’s hope for anticlimactic.”

0o0o0

Leet scowled at the massive dead dragon that Mist had killed with one hit of his sword. “That is fuckshit!”

“Language,” Piper snapped reflexively even though she thought the same thing.

Dennis spoke up, “I sort of have to agree with Leet here, one hit kills on dragon bosses, what the fuck?”

Mist smirked. “Best fifty points I ever spent.”

“Wish I’d had that in the tournament,” Harry muttered under his breath.

Amelia shook her head. “Do we at least get to hit the boss the next time?” 

“Suit yourself, I think I’m going to go play with the fire dungeon as soon as I reforge the legendary sapphire staff.”

Uber asked, “What’s required for that?”

“I take one of the dragon’s leg bones and take it to the dwarves, do a bunch of seriously underpaid quests for them so they’ll carve the dragon bone into a mold then I put enough sapphire shards into the mold to fill it. Once that’s done, I take it to an ancient dragon and pay him a king’s ransom or I use magic on the mold to heat it and I’ll have the staff.”

“All that that for 20% cold resistance?” Wyatt asked with disbelief.

Mist nodded. “Then we grab the fire shit and the air stuff and earth… so that we can give the raid resistance to a bunch of elements while we fight the final boss without taking up a whole bunch of slots for resistances.”

Leet stared at Mist for a couple of seconds. “Right, I’m all for game completion but seriously man, we have absorption to most of those and immunity to the rest, why bother?”

“Because he’s trolling us,” Rose complained.

“I’m not trolling, I just want the pattern of a staff that buffs an entire raid group. Besides, I’d like to collect some decent gear from the dungeon.” Mist turned his attention to scanning the dungeon now that the boss was dead, he wanted to know how to duplicate the elemental lockout and the no flying zones.

Phoebe looked away from the rather large pile of gold behind the dead dragon. “Like?”

“Like the gem the dragon dropped that boosts frost damage if it’s attached to a staff, that’s pretty cool.”

Aisha asked, “We’re going to have roast dragon, right?”

Prue turned and looked at Aisha in disbelief. “You want to eat the dragon?”

“It said it was going to eat us and we have a cheat for getting stuff out of eating monsters, so yeah I wouldn’t mind eating it.”

Leo shook his head. “The fact that it was sentient doesn’t bother you?”

“Not particularly, no,” Aisha replied.

“Ice dragon burritos,” Fred muttered.

Leo looked over at Piper, “Help me out here?”

Piper shook her head. “We either leave it to rot or reset or we eat it and hopefully get something that we can use to keep our family safe.”

Riley reached over and covered Aisha’s mouth as she noticed her smirk. “No, not happening, don’t go there.”

Aisha snickered as she reached over and pulled Riley into a one armed hug.

The other Phoebe turned to look at Aisha and Riley. “I’m missing something.”

“It’s better that way,” Phoenix pointed out.

Uber spoke up, “We should probably skin the dragon before we cut it up and turn it into steaks.”

“I could use some new dragonhide gloves,” Harry agreed.

Buffy shook her head. “I can’t believe you’re going to eat the dragon.”

“It was going to eat us,” Xander pointed out.

“It was sentient.”

Vista snickered. “You do realize we’ve been eating the cows from the Diablo cow level for years, right?”

Buffy turned a little green as she processed what Vista had just said, “What!”

“You didn’t think we had that much meat frozen, did you?” Paige asked in surprise.

“Yes! What else have we been eating that we shouldn’t?”

“Your lucky charms were made with real leprechauns,” Leet lied sarcastically.

Buffy turned to glare at Leet.

Chris had to resist the urge to smirk as he spoke up, “I’m pretty sure your new lizard skin purse was made out of real lizardmen.”

Buffy and Piper turned to look at Chris. “What?”

“Does that mean Tricks were made with real rabbits?” Tiffany asked with a mock horrified look on her face.

Lily spoke up, “No.”

James nodded playfully behind Lily.

Buffy turned to look at Riley. “You said the purse was made out of alligator skin.”

“Yep, that’s what I said.” Riley smiled as Buffy turned back to glare at Leet.

Pandora muttered under her breath, “And you believed her?”

Abby asked, “So, who is actually going to skin the dragon?”

Uber sighed. “I’ll do it.”

Mist smiled as several schematics for restricting dungeons in various ways popped up on his HUD. “Better you than me.”

Phoebe glanced at her alternate who had glanced at her. “We’ll count the gold.”

Riley made a mental note to get some blood from the dragon for cloning after people weren’t paying so much attention as Uber walked over and started skinning the dragon with his adamantium skinning knife.

Taylor spoke up from the middle of her horde of giant spiders. “What’s next?”

Dawn said, “I wouldn’t mind taking a break to organize our equipment then taking a shopping trip to the capital so we can pick up a blacksmith and several other professions the town needs. After that, I say we hit the dungeon again like a ton of bricks if it’s reset.”

“It might take a couple of days for the dungeon heart to restore everything depending on how much mana the dungeon heart has,” Tiffany pointed out as she walked over to help Phoebe count the coins and treasure part of the loot.

Leet smirked. “We can always play with the rest of the dungeons, I want to try liquid nitrogen in the fire dungeon to see if it works.”

Fred said, “That could be fun.”

“It would certainly help with killing some of the fire elementals we’re bound to run into,” Mist admitted.

Hermione asked, “Speaking of elementals, do you have enough skill points to buy any interesting skills you can share?” 

“Let’s check.” Mist opened his system menu and looked at his skill options.”I can buy mana regeneration, fast casting or multicast. I can also buy black magic and red magic for cheap, not so much white magic or holy magic.”

Tara spoke up, “Really, it’s like two skill points for holy.”

Mist looked at the rather high double digit cost for buying white magic and holy magic. “Do you mind buying them and sharing them via books, because I can’t afford holy magic and white magic is expensive.”

Prue raised an eyebrow. “You just killed a dragon and you’re telling us you can’t afford holy magic?”

“It’s more expensive depending on how your class lines up, I’m a battle mage, not a priest.”

Tara smiled slightly as she thought about her list of expensive skills. “If it makes you feel better, learning dark magic would cost 99 points.”

Willow winced as dark magic was decently cheap. “Right, dark magic bad.”

Hermione shrugged. “I’m probably about the same as Mist for magic, most of it is cheap other than Holy.”

Harry spoke up, “I think we need more fighters because all of my fighting skills are expensive.”

Xander laughed as he thought about how cheap all of his magic and fighting skills were. “Don’t worry, between Buffy and I we have you covered on the fighting front.”

Sin snickered, “I can certainly share some seduction skills.”

Prue shook her head. “I have some interesting research skill options.”

Faith looked over at Aisha. “I think Aisha and I have the group covered for rogue skills.”

Aisha gave Faith a thumbs up.

The Piper that wasn’t standing next to Leo said, “Let’s get the dragon taken care of then we can head back and make sure Umy hasn’t duct taped the children to a wall yet.”

Laura looked away from the dead dragon she’d been studying. “I’m not taking that bet.”

Uber spoke up, “If you want to leave a couple of people as guards, I’ll keep working on skinning the dragon if you want to head back?”

“Sounds good, I’ll stick around.” Xander wouldn’t mind sticking around the dungeon and exploring so that he knew where he was going when he came back.

“I’ve got tinkering to do,” Leet admitted.

“Have fun,” Uber went back to skinning the dragon, glad that he had a nearly indestructible knife for the job.

Sin raised her hand. “Does anyone want to fuck me on top of the dragon?” She frowned slightly as the group turned and looked at her with various expressions of disbelief. “What? I want to get some pictures for my scrapbook.”

“Not happening…” Cordelia trailed off as she noticed Leet and Dennis’s hands up. “Freaks.”

Laura dropped her hand as she glanced at Lily and James. ‘Maybe later.’

Wyatt glanced at Piper and Leo and decided he’d never hear the end of it.

Leet smirked at Cordelia. “It’s our first large dragon kill, hell we should all line up so we can take a picture.”

“I’ve got a camera.” Sin created an avatar.

Sin’s avatar said, “Everyone line up in front of the dragon so we can get a group picture.”

Leo decided it wasn’t worth arguing against the insanity as Sin’s avatar directed everyone where to stand.