Taylor Hebert Dungeon Girl Part 25 (Patreon)

Amy yawned as she closed her math book. “Done, let’s beat up some ninjas before we figure out what we’re going to grab for dinner.”

“I’m game,” Gothic agreed as she opened the menu for the ninja game she’d been playing for the last hour so she could save her game, “assuming Taylor can make the dungeon.” 

“Let’s find out,” Taylor replied as she dropped her costume on her equipment doll, quickly getting dressed for dungeon running.

“That’s so cheating,” Amy complained as she started pulling her various armor pieces out of her bag.

Taylor stuck her tongue out at Amy.

“I should probably change in the bathroom considering the only thing I can wear under my suit is my boxers,” Kid Win admitted as he grabbed his suit and headed for the bathroom.

“We’re going to have to get him a different costume,” Gothic pointed out as she worked on putting her armor on.

“I’m open to suggestions,” Kid Win replied as he walked into the bathroom then shut the door.

“If nothing else, we could make some demonic leather armor,” Amy suggested.

“Not a bad idea, let’s start with boots.” Taylor opened her crafting menu to the entry for her movement boots then tossed in two pieces of demonic leather, a lightning cat sinew, and a Sephiroth feather then hit create. She knew it was a waste of an epic feather but they weren’t all that hard to get in the grand scheme of things and she wanted him to be able to keep up in case they had to flee.

“Demon boots?” Kid Win asked warily. 

“We skinned some demonic rhinos in a dungeon. You need boots and I needed to test the material.” Taylor looked at the resulting brownish red boots. “Huh, that worked better than I was expecting.”

Amy turned and looked at the boots Taylor was holding. “No shadow dye?”

“No real point, I was just testing to see if the demon leather was worth using.”

“Is it?”

Taylor shrugged. “Not really, they have decent armor and give a small boost to charging speed but they don’t have any resistances.”

Gothic stretched her arms over her head. “In that case we should probably buy some goose or chicken feathers in bulk and use the leather to increase our leatherworking.”

Amy finished pulling on her boots as she considered Gothic’s idea. “I have a feeling the cops and the PRT would appreciate having comfortable armored boots that give them an extra 20 to 30 percent more speed and let them jump a couple extra feet.”

“Works for me,” Taylor agreed as Kid Win opened the bathroom door. She glanced at his damaged leggings and sock covered feet as he walked out then tossed him the boots. “The boots should cover the worst of the damage.”

“Thanks,” Kid Win agreed as he looked at the brownish red leather boots. “I’m going to have to remake my entire suit,” he complained as he walked over and sat down in an empty chair so he could pull his boots on.

“Look on the bright side, it gives you a chance to improve everything,” Taylor replied as she walked over to the bathroom door. She reached out and grabbed the knob then focused on the game they’d been playing and what she knew about the world from the walkthrough she’d read. She kept everything firmly in mind as she tapped into her power and opened the door revealing a dark alleyway covered by a yellow film. “Looks like we’re going to have be careful.”

Kid Win looked up from tying his boots and studied the strange dark yellow almost orange film across the doorway. “How much worse are yellow dungeons than blue dungeons?”

Amy turned to look at Kid Win. “Yellow generally means the mobs have a decent chance of cutting through your armor and you should pay attention unless you want to die horribly. We’re guessing red and black are worse.”

“Fun,” Kid Win replied sarcastically as he finished lacing up his boots.

“We should be fine as long as we don’t split up,” Taylor asserted as she pulled an extra theater mask out of her pocket and tossed it to Kid Win. “That should give you a bit more protection than your visior.”

“Thanks.”

“How come you didn’t go with a full mask?” Taylor asked as she used her equipment page to look through her pockets for one of her extra shadow cloaks.

Kid Win huffed. “The PR consultant complained that a mask made me less approachable.”

“That sucks,” Amy complained.

“It should help keep you from getting the lower half of your face blown off,” Taylor argued as she pulled an extra shadow cloak out of her pocket and tossed it to him.

“Preaching to the choir,” he replied as he stood up and swung the shadow cape over his shoulders then hooked the clasp on the front and pulled the hood up. “How do I look?”

Gothic glanced at his red and gold armor then at the shadow cloak. “Like someone in Gryffindor mugged Shadow Stalker.”

Kid Win laughed. “Harsh but fair.”

Taylor checked the charge on her cold pistol then walked over and locked the door and closed the curtains. “That should keep anyone from seeing the dungeon entrance.”

“Probably for the best,” Amy replied as she walked toward the dungeon entrance.

“It’s clobberin time,” Gothic said enthusiastically as she ran into the dungeon.

“Wrong comic,” Amy muttered as she followed her doppelganger into the dungeon.

Kid Win shook his head as Taylor followed the girls into the potentially life threatening dungeon without any hesitation. “Why are the cute girls, insane?” He took a breath then stepped into the eerily silent dungeon. He wasn’t sure which was worse, the filthy area the exit portal illuminated or the dark stretches of the narrow alley that the light didn’t reach. “Looks like we’re at the end of the alley.”

“Not really a surprise,” Taylor replied as she studied the barely visible wild looking homeless man sitting between two broken wooden boxes with a tattered blanket wrapped around him. “What can you tell us about the ninjas running around?”

The man looked up at Taylor with eyes that had seen too much. “The police tried to deal with them but bullets don’t hurt them.”

“They’re immune to bullets?” Kid Win asked warily. He knew the cops hadn’t been effective in the game but he’d just assumed video game logic or numbers.

“It’s a mystical thing, you’ll have to take them out in hand to hand combat. If you get into trouble, take a break at the pizza parlour and have a nice refreshing pizza.”

“Right…” Kid Win trailed off as he realized he wasn’t going to get anything else out of the man.

Amy glanced at the entrance to the alley. “Where do we start?”

“Carefully,” Taylor replied as she ‘dropped’ into stealth mode and headed for the entrance to the alley.

Gothic frowned as they slowly worked their way toward the entrance of the alley, knowing it would be a lot easier if they could see worth a damn.

Kid Win winced as he accidently kicked a tin can or something that sounded like a tin can as it bounced away from him. “Sorry.”

“I don’t remember the game being this dark,” Amy complained.

Gothic snorted. “The main character is a mutant raccoon, I’m fairly sure he’s got better night vision than we do.”

Taylor brought her pistol up as she caught a flicker of movement and two glowing red eyes and unleashed a steam of ice and arctic cold. She used the rather dim illumination from the stream of cold to target the fast moving form and blast it with lightning from her glove.

Gothic raised her hands and unleashed a stream of lightning from each glove at the half seen figure charging them.

Kid Win quickly twisted the dial on the side of his laser pistol to the max ‘safe’ setting when he realized the lightning was barely slowing the ninja down then aimed at the monster’s head and pulled the trigger.

Taylor twitched as a stream of dazzling red energy burned away the shadows and bored a hole through the ninja’s head. She blinked as the ninja turned into pixels and dropped something she could barely see as the beam cut out and the shadows reclaimed everything. She tried to blink the after image out of her eyes as she turned to look at Kid Win. “Does the PRT know your pistols can burn holes in people?”

“Yeah, that’s why they have a dial and a safety switch.”

Taylor walked over, reached down and picked up the loot then looked at her tooltip, happy that the writing was faintly glowing so she could read it. ‘Disguise item: Demonic Ninja outfit +3 stealth, glowing red eyes. Warning, potential allies might be fooled as well.’

“Anything good?” Amy asked in a whisper.

“It’s a disguise item that grants a small bonus to stealth and gives you glowing red eyes,” Taylor replied as she put the ninja outfit in her pocket.

Gothic snickered. “Sweet, I’m going to have to make a Sith outfit.”

Amy shook her head. “Sounds like a fantastic way to get labeled a villain.”

“Sounds like a great way to blow off steam, a couple fake lightsaber duels-” she raised her hands and sent two streams of lightning at the fire escape where another ninja was setting up to jump down at them with a raised sword.

Kid Win winced slightly as the ninja screamed as he fell off the fire escape. He brought his pistol up and fired as the ninja landed on his feet looking far less injured than he would have liked. He shot the ninja in the chest then jumped back as the ninja tried to cut his arm off. He quickly pulled the trigger several more times as the ninja lunged toward Amy.

Amy raised her hands and unleashed lightning then stumbled back as the ninja smacked her in the face. “Shit!”

Gothic tapped into the wind aspect of her gloves and sent the ninja sprawling as he lunged for Amy with his sword.

Taylor drew her vampiric dagger then tackled the distracted ninja, she ignored the ninja’s rather feeble attempt to toss her off his back as she viciously stabbed him until he died.

Kid Win stared in shock as the ninja turned to pixels under Taylor. “What the hell? I can burn a hole through him and he’s ‘fine’ but you stab him a couple of times with a dagger and he dies?”

“To be fair, it’s a really nice dagger,” Taylor replied as she picked up the book he dropped. “Art of Swords. I wonder if this covers anime sized swords.”

Gothic whispered, “I think we’d have to be a hell of a lot stronger than we are.”

“Let’s hope we can pick up enough for everyone,” Kid Win replied as he glanced warily at the entrance to the alley, wondering how many more ninjas were waiting to ambush them.

“It would certainly help.” Taylor glanced between the rest of the group. “Who wants the book?”

“I can wait,” Kid Win replied with a shiver, knowing he’d get his ass handed to him in melee combat.

“Same,” Amy agreed in a voice slightly above a whisper.

Gothic shrugged. “I’ll take it if you don’t want it but I’d rather stick with ranged weapons until we can grind our skills up to something approaching reasonable in Winslow.”

“Same,” Taylor agreed as she opened the book. She absently read the tooltip outloud, “Do you want to learn to use swords?” then touched the floating yes. Her grin turned to a slight frown when her new sword skill bar only filled halfway before vanishing. “Apparently increasing your knife skill doesn’t boost your sword skill all that much.”

“Just because the pointy end still goes in the bad guy doesn’t mean they’re the same,” Amy replied in a whisper as she headed toward the street. 

“Fair enough,” Taylor whispered as she followed Amy.

Amy carefully looked around the corner and bit back a curse as she saw a ninja balanced on one of the streetlights watching the street, something she probably wouldn’t have noticed except he cut off part of a neon beer sign in the background. She frowned as she noticed two red dots in a bush half a block away. She carefully ducked back around the corner then whispered, “We’re going to have to be careful.”

Taylor used the wall for partial cover, lined up her shot then shot the ninja perched on the streetlight with her cold pistol. Her smile at seeing the ninja take a tumble off the streetlight turned into a scowl as the ninja managed to swing around the pole and land on his feet. She took another shot and scowled as he managed to dodge three of her next four shots. She dodged behind the wall as the ninja tossed a handful of throwing stars. “Damn it.”

Gothic unleashed two streams of lightning at the ninja as he tossed a smoke pellet at the group then dashed forward in an attempt to get up close and personal with his hands and feet.

Kid Win scowled as he realized he couldn’t shoot anyone without hitting his friends thanks to the smoke. “Damn it!”

Amy screamed as the ninja grabbed her by the arm then tripped/threw her into the wall, “Shit!” She managed to catch something with a wild swing.

“Damn it!” Taylor shouted as the ninja hit her in the face. She lashed out and felt a hit on her arm then something connected in the smoke with a satisfying crunch.

Amy staggered as something hit her in her nose. “Fuck!”

Gothic tapped into the wind aspect of her gloves then played the stream of lightning charged wind across the fight, clearing the smoke and tagging the ninja who was setting up to hit Amy in the back.

Kid Win gleefully shot the ninja in the back of the knee now that he could see his target. “Let’s see you try to-” he reflexively dodged as the ninja turned and tossed several daggers at him. 

Gothic concentrated on directing the streams of lightning at the ninja as she heard an anguished scream from behind her that was most likely Kid Win.

Taylor used the ninja’s distraction to bury her knife between his ribs which caused the ninja to twist toward her which gave Amy a shot at his neck. 

Amy reached up and around with her knife and cut the ninja’s throat. “Die!”

Taylor sighed in relief as the ninja turned into pixels and dropped a book and a small cloth pouch. “Fucking ninja.”

Gothic turned and hurried over to help Kid Win get the dagger out of his shoulder. “Yeah, you’re going to need better armor.”

“No shit,” Kid Win bit out as she removed the dagger and healed his arm. “Sorry.”

“I just pulled a knife out of your shoulder, you’re allowed to be snippy,” Gothic replied as she examined the throwing knife.

Amy grumbled as she pulled a healing potion out of her bag and drank it, wanting her headache gone and her nose fixed. She sighed in relief as the pain vanished and her headache evaporated. “That was messy.”

Taylor reached down and picked up the book and the small bag. “Could have been worse but it could have been a lot better,” she admitted as she read the tooltips. “Smoke pellets and a Foot’s Guide to Ninjutsu.”

“How much more of the dungeon were you planning on doing?” Kid Win asked warily.

Gothic spoke up before Taylor could answer, “We should probably call the guys and ask them if they have any night vision gear, this would be a lot easier if we could actually see our targets.”

“It would also keep them from pouting when they learn we went exploring without them,” Amy pointed out as she scanned the street, trying to make sure there weren’t any ninjas sneaking up on them.

“Might as well,” Taylor agreed as she headed back toward the entrance. “If nothing else, it will give us a chance to make some better armor for Win.”

“Win?” Kid Win asked with amusement as they followed Taylor.

“I’m trying out alternate names, we can’t exactly call you Kid Win without raising some red flags.”

“Justice Lad?” Gothic asked with amusement.

Amy snickered. “Sir Victory?”

Kid Win gave Gothic a dirty look. “I’m not British and Lad? Seriously?”

“Kid Fantastic?” Gothic asked with amusement they reached the exit.

“Not a chance, I’d rather not have any connection to an idiot savant mad scientist if I can help it.”

Taylor cut in, “Not to ruin the fun but the sooner we’re out of the dungeon the sooner we can stop worrying about getting ambushed.”

“She’s got a point. Still if you don’t come up with a decent name soon, we’ll have to call you Future Cowboy.” Gothic grinned as she stepped through the entrance.

Amy snickered as she followed Gothic wondering how long it would take Chris’s alternate to break down and use his middle name.

“Not a chance,” Kid Win muttered as he followed the girls.

Taylor took a last look around the alley then stepped through the exit. She felt the tension in her shoulders fade as she glanced around the well lit office. “I think we need a better plan next time.”

Amy pulled her cell phone out of her pocket bag. “I’ll call the guys, see if you can outfit George in some decent armor.” She scrolled down her contact list until she found Randal’s number and hit send.

“George?” Kid Win asked.

“Richard?” Gothic asked, knowing it was Chris’s middle name.

Kid Win frowned slightly as he considered going by his middle name. He’d rather go by Chris considering it was easy and familiar but if he couldn’t use Chris his middle name wasn’t a bad choice. Besides, his grandfather called him Richard enough that he’d answer to it, much to his father’s annoyance. “Sure, we can go with Richard.”

Taylor walked over to her computer and brought up her new art program. “In that case, let’s see if we can figure out what designs you want on your temporary armor.”

“I have a couple ideas,” Richard replied as he walked over to look at her screen.

Randal answered his phone on the third ring, “What’s up?”

“We just got our asses kicked by sneaky ninja feet, do you have any night vision goggles we can borrow?” Amy asked hopefully.

“Ninja feet?” Randal asked, picturing a pair of bare feet flying around kicking people.

“We decided to try a Teenage Mutant Ninja dungeon, they make it look easy,” Amy admitted as she wandered over to see what Taylor was drawing on the computer.

“You got beat up by ninja minions?” Randal asked in disbelief.

“They were mobs and ninjas but they could take a lot of abuse before they died.”

“Define a lot.”

“Kid Win managed to burn a couple holes through one of the ninjas, it barely slowed him down.”

“I feel slightly better about your tactical retreat,” Randal admitted.

Amy snorted. “Just a bit. We managed to take out three of them before we decided to come back and ask about night vision goggles.”

“I don’t have any at the shop and I have another hour before I can close up for the day but Player 2 has schematics for a pretty cool set of night vision goggles.”

“Thanks, I’ll give him a call,” Amy agreed as she studied the armored figure on the screen as Taylor added a couple details here and there. 

Randal sighed. “I can’t believe you guys decided to run TMNT without us.”

Amy rolled her eyes. “We needed to pick up some decent melee skills.”

“Did you get anything useful?” Randal asked excitedly, thinking about all of the strange almost tinkertech from the show.

“Neverland managed to pick up swords and martial arts books before we left so it wasn’t a total loss.”

“Now I’m jealous.” Randal glanced up at the clock. “Call Player 2…” he trailed off as the door opened revealing an old lady with a large ring of keys. “Duty calls, see you in an hour.”

“Have fun,” Amy replied with amusement then ended the call.

“Any luck?” Gothic asked hopefully.

Amy scrolled down to Kevin’s name then hit the call button. “Kevin should be able to make some goggles.”

“That would certainly help,” Taylor agreed as she glanced at the yellow dungeon entrance.