Taylor Hebert Dungeon Girl Part 26 (Patreon)

“I got it,” Gothic called as she jumped up and ran over to the door. She opened the door then blinked and took a step back as she came face to face with Darth Vader. Her hands were half way up to blast him with lightning before she noticed the shopping bag he was holding and changed plans. She let lightning crackle over her hands as she exclaimed, “You’ll never take me alive Imperial Scum!”

Kevin quickly held up his hands as he glanced warily at the lightning dancing over Gothic’s gloved hands. He was fairly sure she was just messing around but he really didn’t want her frying his armor. “Okay, I surrender, take me to your leader.”

“Blah, you’re the worst Vader ever,” Gothic complained as she took another step back so that he could walk past her.

“Forgive me if I don’t want to test how my armor stands up against magical lightning while I’m wearing it,” Kevin complained as he reached down to the control device on his belt. “Besides, I’m not Darth Vader, I’m Commander Shepard!” he exclaimed as he turned his hard light projector off, revealing his mostly black power armor.

“Nope, sorry, Commander Shepard is in a league of her own,” Gothic replied as she locked the door then headed over to her computer.

Taylor made a mental note to look up who Commander Shepard was.

“Yeah, Shepard could headbutt a krogan and have them fall over,” Richard pointed out with amusement.

“Fair enough,” Kevin admitted as he walked over and handed Taylor the bag of night vision goggles. “Randal pulls off a better Shepard anyways.”

Taylor pulled one of the goggles out of the bag, it looked like a blacked out ski visor with a knob on the side. “How do they work?”

“You put them on then adjust the light magnification with the knob and hope you don’t run into anything with a flash grenade or a flare because they don’t have any light compensation built in.”

“Why the hell would you do that?” Richard asked in shock.

Kevin smirked at the look on Kid Win’s face. “I’d been up for like thirty hours and was basically mainlining caffeine when I built the prototype. IV bags aren’t just for blood.”

“Right, because that’s healthy,” Amy muttered.

Kevin laughed. “The truth is, I’d already burned the best types of flare compensation on a different visor.”

“What happened to your other visor?”

“Armsmaster, bastard tossed an EMP grenade at me, slagged my visor and my first suit of power armor. I had to use the manual release and bail, it’s probably in a PRT vault gathering dust or in a landfill.” Kevin sighed.

“Ouch,” Gothic muttered.

“Pretty much, I’ll probably work on recreating it once I have some better magic defenses in case my power tries to kill me while I’m making it rather than when I try to test it,” he explained.

Richard shook his head. “That sucks, man.”

“It used to be worse, at least now I have enough engineering skill to realize when stuff is borked.” Kevin turned to look at Taylor as he figured out a workaround. “Do you have enough mana to upgrade our theater masks with vision protection?”

“Yep, already taken care of,” Taylor replied as she pulled a crystal out of her pocket. “Here.” She tossed him the crystal. “That should let you learn the enchant.”

“Thanks.” Kevin opened his enchanting menu and salvaged the enchanting crystal then enchanted his mask with the new enchant. “We should probably check the difficulty level now that we have the night vision goggles.”

“Good call,” Gothic agreed, knowing that the ninja would be much easier to deal with if they could actually see them.

Richard frowned slightly as he looked at the visor that Taylor was holding. “With a bit of work, I can probably tweak them so they’ll pick up infrared,” he offered.

Amy sighed as she realized they’d completely forgotten about the scrolls from the Diablo dungeon that highlighted enemies so you can see them in the dark. “I can’t believe I forgot about the infravision scrolls we picked up in Diablo.”

Taylor rubbed her nose. “Now I feel like an idiot.”

“Join the club,” Gothic agreed as she started looking through her expanded pockets.

“Are we ready to head back in?” Kevin glanced at the clock on the computer. “We’ve got another thirty or forty minutes before Randal shows up, we might as well take care of some prep work just to make sure we aren’t ganked by mooks this time.”

“Prep work?” Amy asked.

“The demonic wings have a glide enchant that we haven’t really played with, the cat ears have noise protection and danger sense and we still need to salvage more cars today if we want to keep up with the work crew that is sorting things,” he listed off.

Gothic grinned as she pictured the ninja stumbling around blind. “How many flash grenades do you have?”

Kevin smirked. “Nine, Randal and I clashed with some Empire thugs a couple months ago when they interrupted a video.”

“You beat them up?” Amy asked in surprise.

“Nah, that was Randal, I just borrowed their van full of drugs and guns when they were distracted, drove it to the police station and double parked it with the back doors open.”

“Let me guess, you conveniently forgot to turn in the grenades and the cash?” Gothic asked with amusement.

“Leaving cash or grenades around just seems criminally incompetent. I mean, what if a child found them?” he asked as innocently as possible, causing some laughter.

“Let me enchant our masks, then we can mess around in the yard with the wings and see if we want to add the gliding enchant to our cloaks.” Taylor pulled her cat ears out of her pocket and tossed them in her salvage box. She grinned as she looked at the cat ears pattern and the two enchants it gave her. “Danger sense and hearing protection, nice.”

Kevin smiled as he opened his engineering menu and pulled up his explosives tab. “Let’s see what we can make that will fuck them up.” 

0o0o0

James blinked as he drove past the gate into the salvage yard and saw several more stacks of cars missing.

Joe raised his eyebrows as he noticed the same thing. “We were only gone for ten minutes getting coffee and burgers, how the fuck...”

“No idea,” James muttered as he parked the car and turned the engine off. “Either way, best not to ask too many questions considering the silence clause in the contracts.”

“Can we at least leave the tarps and ask them to write down what type of vehicle they dismantled?” Ben asked hopefully, knowing that sorting the shit would be a hell of a lot easier if they actually knew what type of vehicle the parts came from.

“It would certainly make things easier…” Joe trailed off as a figure in a blue and black costume flew over the fence on a hoverboard. “How much are they paying us again?”

“Fifty an hour unless we hire someone else,” James replied as he got out of the car.

Randal spun his hoverboard around and floated down to the car parked in the driveway. “How’s the sorting going?”

James shrugged. “Decent enough though we’ll probably have more issues once they start salvaging the boats and such things. It would be a lot easier if we knew what type of vehicle the parts came from.”

Randal glanced around the yard at the various stacks of cars, scrapped motorcycles and boats. “Sounds reasonable. Speaking of saving time, if you run into something you can’t figure out with a minute or so of looking, toss it in one of the space chests, we’ll figure it out.”

James sighed in relief as he realized the cape was going to be reasonable. “Sounds good.”

“If that’s everything, I’ll leave you to it.”

“That’s everything I can think of,” James replied.

“In that case, best of luck,” Randal replied as he turned his hoverboard and flew up to the second story landing.

James glanced at Ben and Joe then started walking toward the collection of parts they needed to sort. “Let’s get to work, we’ve got another hour before we’ll have to set up lights.”

Randal stepped off his board then knocked on the door. “Anyone here?”

“Yeah, it’s open,” Taylor called out as she finished taking the empty pistol magazine apart.

Randal opened the door then walked in and closed it behind him with his foot as he looked at his friends. “Looks like you’re ready for the dungeon.”

“Mostly.” Taylor grabbed a pair of wire cutters off the desk and cut the spring as close to the bottom of the magazine as she could then pulled the sliding metal bar out that was attached to the spring. “Don’t need that.”

Randal set his hoverboard against the wall then walked over to look at what Taylor was making. “What are you working on?”

“With any luck, a magical magazine I can swap out when it runs out of energy,” Taylor replied as she set the wire cutters on the desk then pulled a light socket, a plastic pipe cap and a cylindrical focusing crystal out of her bag.

Richard shook his head. “This is like watching a trainwreck.”

Taylor stuck her tongue out at Richard then carefully stuck one end of the crystal in the pipe cap then the other end in the light socket. “That should do it.”

Kevin laughed. “Nah, it’s more like watching a steampunk mad scientist create something that makes physics cry.”

Gothic snickered. “Everyone needs a hobby.”

“Right,” Amy muttered sarcastically thinking about her alternate’s tendency to ‘fix’ people.

Randal ignored the shiver of unease as he watched Taylor cut up the spring with the wire cutters then use epoxy to affix the cap and the light socket to the magazine shell with the spring acting like crude brackets. “We’re going to have to make a proper bracket at some point.”

“I’m more worried about getting it to work,” Taylor admitted as she attached the light socket wires to the metal on the top of the magazine then carefully put the magazine back together.

Richard had to resist the urge to snicker as the magazine case didn’t actually fit back together because of the width of the light socket and crystal. “Now what?”

“Now we cheat,” Taylor replied as she reached into her pocket and pulled out a roll of duct tape.

Richard shook his head. “This can’t possibly end well.”

“Heathen,” Kevin said with a snort. “Never doubt the power of duct tape!”

Randal turned to look at Amy. “What can you tell us about the ninja dungeon while we’re waiting to see if Neverland’s new project explodes?”

Amy turned to look at Randal. “Not much, it was a dark city filled with ninjas, we only fought three of them, and many healing potions were needed.”

“It’s not going to explode,” Taylor grumbled absently as she worked on taping the magazine together.

Gothic snickered. “Hopefully.”

Taylor absently flipped Gothic off.

“Any time,” Gothic replied with a grin.

Taylor opened her mouth to respond then closed it as she finished taping the magazine closed and her tooltip popped up. “Poor quality homemade elemental magazine.”

Kevin spoke up, “That’s better than I was expecting.”

“It’s called bullshit,” Amy grumbled good naturedly.

“You probably should have used the workshop,” Randal reminded her.

“Probably, I’m just glad it worked,” Taylor replied as she tossed the magazine in her salvage box and hit accept. She glanced at the pattern that popped up then looked at the ingredients she got back. “Metal brackets that don’t look like springs, a damaged case and a pot metal capped mana crystal.”

Richard asked, “How long do you think it will take to jury rig one of the pistols?”

Taylor stood up then walked over and locked the door as she replied, “Anywhere from a couple of seconds to several days of careful design work. I’ll worry about it after the ninja hunt.”

“Do we have any ideas-” Amy stopped talking as she heard a gunshot from maybe a block or two down the road. “Shit.” She quickly grabbed her Panacea robe from her bag and pulled it on over her armor.

“Let’s go.” Taylor unlocked the door then pulled her hoverboard out of her pocket and ran outside.

“I’m starting to hate this town,” Kevin grumbled as he followed the girls outside then over the stacks of cars as another gunshot rang out.

Gothic scowled as they cleared the last stack of cars and got a decent picture of the scene at the restaurant next door, one guy with a gun standing ‘watch’ presumably against one of the civilians interrupting or calling the cops while two guys held an older looking man in an apron by his arms while a third guy punched him. “Hey!”

Vince waited until the thug with a gun turned to look at the group of capes flying in on hoverboards then picked up the old metal chair he’d been sitting on, quietly and quickly walked up behind the man with the gun and hit him over the head as hard as he could, having worked as dockworker for a number of decades it wasn’t a friendly tap. He ignored the unconscious or dead thug crumpling as he swung the back of the chair and took out one of the guys holding Charlie then brought the heavy chair back around and took out the man’s legs that had been hitting the owner of his favorite pitstop.

Gothic raised her hand and blasted the last uninjured gang member with lightning which caused him to drop to the ground screaming and twitching. “Stay down!”

The man with the broken legs managed to scream out something about Lung getting revenge between his broken sobs.

Vince sighed as he set the chair down then helped old Charlie take a seat. “Try not to move, you probably have a couple busted ribs.” 

“Pan, if you’ll heal the owner, I’ll make sure none of the idiots die,” Gothic suggested as she checked on the thug that had gotten hit over the head. She quickly rebuilt the damaged part of his skull, patched up most of the actual brain damage, made really near sighted so he’d never work as a lookout again then moved to the next thug.

Amy looked at the owner as she asked, “Permission to heal you?”

Charlie said, “Please.”

“Since when do you wear a mask?” Vince asked curious who had talked her into finally getting some decent armor. 

Amy reached out and touched Charlie’s hand and started repairing his various injuries as she replied, “Neverland reminded me that there are a lot of idiots in the world and gave me a decent suit of armor.” Her regular exposure to Gothic’s habit of upgrading people she liked eroded her own reluctance to do more than heal, so she started to reinforce his failing organs and remove all the aches and pains age had given him. 

“True, like these idiots.” Vince glared down at the unconscious thugs. “At least the Merchants could take a hint after you beat the crap out of their guys and left them for the cops.”

The man with shattered knees screamed, “Lung is going to kill you all!”

“Nite, nite!” Gothic smirked as she dropped the man unconscious then made sure none of his major arteries were nicked by boneshards. “He’ll never walk again without a limp but he’ll live.”

Amy finished enhancing the old man. “That should be everything.”

“Thanks,” Charlie sighed as he looked at the window the idiot had shot out. “Great, another window and another couple days lost arguing with my insurance company.”

“I know a couple of guys, we can get it fixed for cheap,” Vince offered.

“Thanks, I’d sell the place if there was anyone stupid enough to buy it.”

“What’s wrong with it other than the window?” Taylor asked as she studied the rundown building.

“Besides the fact that the ABB wants the area? I’m fairly sure the roof is more patch than original thanks to my old insurance company burying a clause about not covering damages by capes in the contract and the new insurance company saying they don’t cover pre-existing damage. Hell, most of the machines are getting old which means it’s just a matter of time before I can’t justify keeping it open.”

Taylor considered the various issues he’d mentioned, she couldn’t see the ABB leaving well enough alone but the restaurant was a stone’s throw from the garage so it wasn’t like the ABB weren’t going to be a problem either way. ‘I can deal with the repairs with a song and the land will skyrocket in value once we get rid of the ships blocking the channel which means worst case, I’ll just sell it.’ She glanced at Gothic who seemed to read her mind and gave her a thumbs up then looked at the depressed looking owner. “How much do you want for it?” 

“Seriously?” Charlie asked surprised that someone would be interested in buying the money pit, especially since he’d laid out all of the issues with it.

Taylor shrugged. “I’d have to run it by the team and see what we can afford, but I don’t see why we couldn’t help you out. We have a tinker so the machines aren’t a big deal and we know a couple of people that do roofs.”

Vince spoke up, “If nothing else, the Dock Workers Association is just down the way.”

Taylor had to resist the urge to laugh as she agreed with Vince, “Not a bad idea. I hear they are really solid people.”

Charlie turned to look down the road as he heard a police siren coming their way. “Let me get you some milkshakes on the house and deal with the police then I’ll grab the accounts and see if you still want to buy it.” He was really hoping they could, it would let him retire and go somewhere without a bunch of gangs.

“Sounds good,” Taylor agreed.