Myst in Worm (Gamer) Part 10 (Patreon)

“Critical success: Life Tap Book created. Luck increased by 1!” the system’s ethereal voice announced.

“Weird,” Myst muttered as he stared at the hardbound book that showed a picture of a naked woman on the cover, kneeling in a ritual circle with blood leaking from a dozen cuts scattered about her body. “Yeah, that can’t be healthy,” he grumbled as he opened the book, curious what type of useful and demented skill the book would give him.

“What can’t be healthy?” Victoria asked as she flew/crawled over the barricade they’d set up to block the entrance to the bookstore.

“Life Tap, it lets me burn health for mana,” Myst replied as he carefully closed the book then grabbed a lab book and started scribing a copy.

“That sounds painful,” Victoria replied as she flew over to the table where Myst and Amy were sitting.

“Most likely,” Amy agreed as she looked up at her sister. “Did you get anything interesting?”

Victoria grinned at Amy. “Five nice tops, three pairs of silk underwear, a couple of pairs of jeans, a DVD drive for a computer, a universal remote, a new game system I’ve never heard of and two video games you might like.”

“That’s it?” Amy asked.

“I also picked up a bunch of clothes that should be taken to Goodwill and a basketball game but I already have it. I’ll probably give it to Dennis unless Myst wants it?”

“Nah, I’m good,” Myst replied as he finished scribing a copy of the book and stuck it in his inventory. “Cash?”

“Just over 1500 which is pretty damned good for like thirty minutes of smashing zombies,” Victoria said cheerfully.

“You made 1500 in,” Amy glanced at her watch, “twenty seven minutes?”

“That is counting the zombies outside but yeah, pretty much,” Victoria replied with amusement. “Best. Job. Ever!”

“Says the flying brute,” Amy replied dryly. “Which games did you think I’d like?”

“Space Vixens, Starship Racing and Magic Girls: the Naughty Years,” Victoria replied as she pulled both of the games out of her inventory and handed them to Myst and Amy.

Myst grinned as he started reading the back of the box, rather impressed by the mix of elements and the quality of the graphics. “I haven’t played a decent racing game in a while.”

“Magical high school adventures?” Amy asked absently as she read the description on the back of the box. “Learn to summon magical girls, use ancient spells, fight your friends, seduce the teachers or your fellow classmates and keep the school safe from tentacle monsters and lust demons.”

“It sounds amusing,” Myst said as he skimmed over the description on upgrading your spaceships and the RPG elements that went with the racing. ‘Great, that looks addictive, I’m supposed to be dealing with the gangs and preparing for the end of the world.’

“It’s a porn game,” Amy complained, knowing Carol would flip her shit and throw it away if she found it, which basically made it useless as she wasn’t going to play it at the hospital.

“Nah, it’s an RPG and educational aid that happens to have erotic elements,” Victoria argued, managing to keep a straight face for a couple of seconds before snickering. “Fine, it’s a porn game but it looks decently solid. I’m sure Dennis would love a copy.”

“We’ll have to look into making a copy.” Myst opened the temporary Life Tap book and hit yes when the popup asked him if he wanted to learn the spell, causing the book to vanish. “Yeah, this is going to suck, 100 life burned for 100 mana, double tap then heal and repeat.”

“No pain, no gain, right?” Victoria asked with amusement.

“Do you want to test it?” Myst asked as he stuck the video games in his inventory.

“Not particularly. We should head to the food court, the zombies seem to drop stuff related to the location where they spawned.” 

“And you want food that zombied touched?” Amy asked in disbelief.

“They should be wrapped, worst case, we use a soul recovery spell,” Victoria joked.

“On the one hand, my ability would probably tell me if there was something wrong with the food, on the other hand, it dropped in a zombie dungeon, yuck,” Myst complained as he grabbed another book and started scribing the meditation book.

“Now you’re just being squeamish,” Victoria replied as she floated back towards the barricade.

“Corpse explosion!” a voice from outside said a second before the barricade exploded and half a dozen zombie cheerleaders rushed into the bookstore.

“Gah!” Victoria sputtered as she wiped at the bits of zombie sliding off her force field.

Amy raised her hands and shot a cold beam at the nearest zombie, trying to slow it down and keep it away from her.

“Critical success: Flight Book created, Luck increased by 1!” the system’s ethereal voice announced.

Myst raised his hands and blasted the fat zombie cheerleader that managed to slip past Victoria with a surprising amount of skill and grace for a zombie, covering it in frost and causing it to slow down.

Victoria kicked the zombie in front of her, causing it to fly back out of the shop and hit the geeky looking young man in black robes that was watching the zombies without fear, knocking him off his feet and causing the zombie to turn into motes of light. She grabbed two zombies by the throats and slammed their heads together, crushing their skulls and turning them into motes of light.

“You’ll join my undead army!” the geek shouted angrily as he got to his feet. “Corpse explosion!”

Victoria jumped backwards as the nearest zombie exploded and showered her with gore. “You fucker!” she shouted as she charged forward and put a fist through the center of the nerd's chest and ripped his heart out in a short lived explosion of gore.

"You're hot but that was cold," the necromancer said as he dissolved, leaving a large pink gem and a book.

Myst slipped out of his chair then vaulted over the table and kicked the zombie cheerleader in the face. He grunted when he hit the table and rolled to his feet, more than a little annoyed that his kick had failed to significantly hurt the overweight zombie.

Victoria flew back over and punched the zombie going for her sister, turning its head into rotting salsa and splattering her sister with zombie bits.

“Vicky!” Amy sputtered as she wiped at her face.

“A little help here,” Myst complained as he kicked the zombie in the face which merely took a step back without looking overly injured.

“You’re doing fine, just think of it as practice,” Victoria replied as she watched the fight.

“Right,” Myst replied as he pulled his gun out of his inventory and shot the zombie cheerleader in the head, causing it to turn into motes of light and drop a wallet. “That was annoyingly loud,” he grumbled as he put the gun back in his inventory. He cast soul recovery on himself to get rid of the ringing in his ears then hit Amy with the spell for good measure. “That should help.”

“Thanks,” Amy replied as she glared at her sister. “You should have just hit both of them.”

“One zombie isn’t a big deal and he said he needed to dust off his martial arts skills,” Victoria replied as she picked up the cash from the ground.

“Yeah, that was before I remembered they don’t feel pain,” Myst replied as he walked out of the shop and picked up the book the wannabe necromancer dropped. “Manifest Undead, okay, that’s actually useful.”

“That sounds like a good way to get in trouble with the PRT,” Amy warned.

“As long as they can’t reproduce, it should be fine,” Myst argued as he put the book in his inventory.

Amy shook her head. “Undead aren’t exactly PR friendly, so yeah, you should probably avoid using it outside of dungeons.”

“Fair enough,” Myst agreed as he headed back into the shop. “Do we want to hit the food court or head out and reset things? I’d rather not accidentally summon another boss.”

“We have a Vicky, we should be fine, right?” Amy asked, not sure how dangerous the bosses were but the one they had seen was more annoying than anything else.

“I’m not actually sure,” Myst admitted as he walked back over and sat down. ”The only reason I knew there were bosses is because my power mentions summoning one if we kill too many mobs and just so you know, emo boy only counted as a mini or sub-boss.”

“What’s too many?” Victoria asked.

“No idea,” Myst replied as he grabbed a lab book from his inventory and worked on scribing a permanent copy of the Flight book. “I’m fairly sure we’ve already killed 50, so, probably more than that. For all I know, it could be 87 or 103 or 250. As for the boss, it could be anything from a zombie Armsmaster to one of the Triumvirate.”

“In other words, anywhere from ‘we’d have trouble dealing with it’ to ‘we might as well just quit now because we have no hope of winning,” Amy mused. “In that case, we might as well finish scribing some books then head out and reset things.”

“We’ve already killed more than fifty,” Victoria mused, knowing that she’d killed at least that many inside and a couple of dozen outside. “We’ve probably killed more than…” she trailed off as she heard dozens of creatures lurching down the hallways. “You probably shouldn’t have used the gun.”

“Fight or flight...” Myst trailed off as Vicky flew out of the room. 

"It's flight and fight!" Vicky called back over her shoulder, her smile filled with excitement.

“Yeah, stupid question on my part,” he muttered as he stuck the permanent Flight book in his inventory.

“You were expecting something else?” Amy asked dryly. ‘At least she’s no longer projecting joy at everyone while beating up gang members.’

“Not particularly,” Myst replied as he handed Amy the flight book then started scribing another copy. “This should let you fly which should get you out of range.”

“Yes!” Amy squealed as she quickly used the book, wanting to be able to fly on her own even if she liked having her sister carry her places. “Ten miles an hour isn’t very fast and it requires fifty mana in the tank but it doesn’t cost anything to use which is nice.”

“Fantastic,” Myst replied as he finished his copy of the Flight book.

“Die!” Victoria shouted as she gleefully used the stone bench to take out a swath of zombies.

He quickly used the book then headed for the door. “We might as well work on increasing our ranged skills…” he trailed off as he walked out and saw the army of zombies that were packed into the hallway and coming towards them from both directions. “Fly!”

Amy used her new skill and flew up into the air, glad that she still had over fifty mana even if she was going to have to work on her control. “I’m not going to be much help, I’m barely at fifty mana.”

Myst used his new skill and jumped into the air, floating up towards the ceiling. “Don’t worry about it, your sister should be able to kill everything...”

“Congratulations, you’ve summoned the Zombie Boss!” the ethereal voice announced.

“Vicky!” Myst complained, knowing that she’d obviously destroyed a lot more zombies than she’d implied.

“Loot!” Victoria said cheerfully as she went to town on the zombies.

“How do you spank a brute and make it count?” Myst asked as he sent a beam of frost into the army of zombies charging towards Victoria, drifting backwards from the force of his spell. 

“Good question,” Amy replied as she watched her sister gleefully splatter the zombies with her stone bench. “Are you planning on sharing this with the wards?”

“That depends on the PRT and what they’ve done with Sophia. I’d rather just sell items that grant flight, if I can get them approved for use, I can start selling to everyone.”

“I can’t see the police or PRT being happy with increasing the number of movers in the city by a couple of hundred,” Amy said as she watched Victoria toss a stone bench at the swarm of zombies that Myst was slowing, causing them to shatter and turn into motes of light.

“How is that any different than tinkers selling flight gear?" Myst asked as he swapped targets and continued blasting the swarm of zombies.

"Price and your gear wouldn't need maintenance," Amy replied with amusement.

"I figure just about everyone that isn't a kid can afford a thousand dollars, that would give me an almost endless stream of income."

"Yeah, I have a feeling the PRT are going to have issues with your plan."

"That just means I need to sell them a more expensive and faster version," Myst replied with a grin.

"Same with local law enforcement, right?" Amy asked dryly.

"Sure, I could even put transmitters there or something to keep them from being stolen. I wouldn't want someone shooting a cop for his flight gear." Myst was hoping he could figure out a decent way to make the cops bulletproof or at least resistant at the same time, it would go a long ways towards fixing some of the problems with the city.

"Speaking of problems, do we have a plan for dealing with the zombie boss?" Amy asked.

"Yeah, it's called Vicky smash," Myst replied as he shifted targets.

"Vicky smash!" Victoria said cheerfully as she tossed a massage chair through the group that Myst had been freezing.

"This feels like having the pyromaniac play with matches for therapy," Amy complained as she watched Victoria toss a planter at the next group of zombies.

"Just think of it like a tire that someone keeps putting air into," Myst replied. "If they get too full, they explode."

'In case I forget, thanks for the new powers,' Taylor said over the party chat.

"And blowing off steam keeps them from exploding," Amy agreed.

'No worries, I have a couple more tricks you might like,' Myst replied as he carefully twisted around and blasted the other group of zombies that Vicky hadn't killed yet. "Exactly."

'Oh?' Taylor asked, curious what other tricks he could share.

'Yep, you'll have to wait until tomorrow, they're not exactly things you can practice in the hospital,' Myst replied.

'Nice. What are you up to?' Taylor asked as she floated up then let herself slowly sink back towards the bed. She was fairly sure she wouldn't be able to use her levitation in combat, as it required a certain relaxed mindset, but it would be great for scaling buildings and moving around the city.

'Just killing zombies and relaxing,' Myst replied, fairly sure that Taylor would assume he was playing a video game.

'In that case, I'll try to grab some sleep. Do I need to leave the group?' Taylor asked, figuring she should at least try to drift off a bit even if she wasn't tired.

'You should be fine. Night,' Myst replied as he twisted around to watch Victoria destroy the last of the zombies. "Having fun?"

"Hell yeah!" Victoria replied as she started picking up the cash the zombies had dropped. "I'm getting paid to smash zombies." She blinked when she noticed that Amy wasn't just hovering but was moving forward as she floated towards the ground. "When did you pick up flight?"

"Right after the zombie army showed up," Amy replied cheerfully as she landed and grabbed the pair of twenties a zombie dropped. "This could be habit forming."

Myst laughed as he floated down to the ground next to a five dollar bill and a pink crystal. "Nothing like doing something you love." He glanced at his cash total then reached down and grabbed the loot and stuck it in his inventory. "Hopefully the boss doesn't cause us too much trouble."

"Hopefully," Amy replied as she picked up a pair of sheer silk panties and a wad of twenties. "At least some of them have a decent amount of money."

"It's a decent start," Myst replied as he continued looting.

"Do you think Aunt Sarah wants a toaster?" Victoria asked as she flew over to where a fancy looking toaster was sitting on a wad of fives.

"She was hinting about needing a new one before Christmas," Amy said as she picked up a dollar that was under a rib bone. "Do you want the ribs and teeth?"

"They're supposed to be useful for crafting," Myst replied as he grabbed a pink soul gem and stuck it in his inventory. "If nothing else, I can probably sell them on the auction house."

"Do you care if I take the toaster?" Victoria asked.

"Go for it," Myst replied as he picked up a zombie rib and stuck it in his inventory.

"Do we have a plan for dealing with the boss beyond tossing things at it?" Victoria asked, knowing the zombie boss would be dangerous for her sister and Myst.

"Not really, I don't even know what it looks like…" Myst trailed off as he realized he was being stupid. "Actually, scratch that, I have a stranger rating, I'm going to see if I can figure out what we're dealing with before it finds us."

"Scream if you need help," Victoria said as she continued grabbing loot.

"Or you know, use the party chat feature," Amy suggested dryly.

"That's probably better than screaming," Myst said as he adjusted his stranger ability so that no one other than the girls could see him and flew down the hallway. 'This would be a lot easier if I could just grind levels until my stats were insane and I didn't have to worry about getting splattered from a glancing blow. Fine, if I can't grind levels, I'll just have to use gear to make up the difference as much as possible,' he mused as he headed towards the entrance.

"Or I'm going to need to recruit people," he muttered as he flew past a sporting goods store. 'Okay, who can I recruit? Uber and Leet shouldn't be hard, just let them use the zombie dungeon for a couple of movies. The Travelers should jump at the chance if I can cure Noelle which shouldn't be impossible, just grab something that removes her powers and have Amy fix her.'

'Othala? I could probably bribe her with healing her eye,' he mused as he flew around the corner and saw the entrance. He wasn't particularly comfortable with helping a Neo-Nazi, but her ability would let them tackle dungeons that would be suicidal without her help and it wasn't like she'd be getting levels or anything more than cash and her eye back. 'Screw it, if it helps me get powerful enough to help save the world, I can deal with improving a biggot's life. On that note, Purity would probably help if I could get rid of Lung and I was already planning to deal with him.'

Myst sighed as he reached the entrance and saw a massive four story tall undead monstrosity with grey skin that was stomping around the parking lot waiting to crush them. 'I have good news and bad news,' he sent over the party chat.

'What's the bad news?' Amy asked.

'The boss is a twenty some odd foot tall undead abomination,' Myst replied as he stepped out where the boss should be able to see him and waved, ready to dash back into the mall if it noticed him. 'Please don't notice me, please don't notice me.' He let out the breath he'd been holding as the zombie showed no signs of noticing him despite looking in his general direction.

'What's the good news?' Victoria asked, thinking about the various tactics she'd used against the Empire's giant twins.

'He can't see me and he's probably just a brute rather than a spell casting necromancer,' Myst replied as he headed back inside to help collect the loot and do a bit more planning now that he had a better idea what they were dealing with.

'In other words, we should be able to break his legs and then pound him from range?' Victoria asked as she continued picking up cash and pink crystals.

'In theory,' Myst agreed, not sure how his enhanced durability would stack up against Victoria's strength. 'I'd avoid getting close.'

'Does the ID barrier collapse once we've defeated the boss?' Victoria asked, wondering if it was like some computer games where the castle or level collapsed when the boss was defeated.

'It shouldn't but this is the first time we've fought an actual boss,' Myst replied, not sure exactly how his power worked.

'Which means, we should finish looting,' Victoria replied as she glanced at the hallway which was scattered with bills and the occasional zombie rib and tooth.

'Yeah, maybe we'll get lucky and the boss will despawn,' Myst suggested, fairly sure that wasn't a 'risk'.

'Bite your tongue, it probably has some killer loot,' Victoria replied with amusement, looking forward to testing her skills against someone that she could go all out against without feeling guilty or getting in trouble.

'Fine.' Myst walked over to the bench and sat down. 'Worst case, we run and try to come up with a way to break the barrier despite the boss.' He pulled a temporary book out of his inventory then worked on scribing a copy of the book the necromancer dropped while he waited for the girls to finish looting.

0o0o0

'Just don't let it grab you,' Myst warned as he watched Victoria 'sneak' over to a mid size sedan while the zombie boss was facing the other direction.

'I wasn't planning on getting close,' Victoria replied as she picked the car up and tossed it at the giant zombie's knees, wanting to limit its ability to move around the parking lot.

Myst grinned when the zombie's left knee snapped sideways with a horrible crack and the massive creature stumbled sideways as its leg gave out. He stared as Victoria picked up an old pickup truck and tossed it at the giant zombie. 'Yeah, how are there any villains left?'

'Unwritten rules, you're not supposed to kill villains because they're needed to help fight the Endbringers and killing heroes is a good way to get a kill order,' Amy replied.

'Right,' Myst replied absently as Victoria started tossing everything she could find at the zombie in an attempt to destroy it.

'This would be easier if I had a decent weapon,' Victoria complained as she easily dodged the car the giant zombie tossed back at her.

'Light post?' Amy suggested, a little annoyed that she couldn't see the fight, but happy to be out of the way where she couldn't be splattered like a bug.

'Good call!' Victoria grinned as she flew over to a light post, wrapped her arms around the base and pulled with all her might, ripping the large metal pole out of the concrete.

'Right, brute,' Myst complained as he watched Victoria swing the massive lamp post around like a chunk of foam a couple of times to get a feel for the weight. He sighed as she flew over and started pounding in the boss's head. 'Yeah, that's completely bullshit.'

'Welcome to my life and why I stay out of cape fights,' Amy grumbled. 'Just be happy she's on our side.'

'I am, I just wish I could have been more helpful,' Myst admitted as the giant zombie burst into a wave of glittering black fog and vanished, leaving a necklace of fingerbones, two books, three red potions, a large pink crystal and a stack of cash. 'At least my attempt to do the responsible thing and break us out of the dungeon didn't work.'

"Booyah!" Victoria shouted as she tossed the mangled light post over her head then flew down to look at the loot.

'And that's a wrap, the boss is dead and I don't see an army of zombies or anything coming to kill us,' Myst sent over the party chat as he walked over to check the loot.

'In that case, we should probably grab the loot and reset the dungeon so we can do it again,' Amy suggested as she flew outside and looked at the destruction the fight had caused.

"You want to do it again?" Myst asked in surprise as he turned and stared at Amy as she walked over.

"Hell yeah!" Vicky agreed.

"Not particularly but you have two more books to copy, which likely means even more bullshit powers, and I could stand to work on my flight and ranged skills. Besides, I'm wide awake. If I go home, I'd just be staring at the ceiling for a couple of hours," Amy admitted.

Myst picked up the necklace and dropped it in his inventory so he could look at the tag. "Nice, five points of vitality."

"I'm not sure five points of vitality is worth wearing a necklace of bones," Victoria complained as she picked up the stack of cash and started counting it.

"Says the girl with the force field," Amy said dryly.

Myst picked up the two books and the soul stone and stuck them in his inventory. "Life draining and mana draining, these should come in useful. The potions are low level healing potions, less powerful than our current skill with soul recovery."

"What are you going to do with the potions?" Victoria asked as she looked at the three red potions.

"I'm dropping them in the auction," Myst replied as he ran a quick search for recovery potions.

"How much do you think you'll get?"

"There are several similar potions selling for around 12,000 by the same seller which means they'll probably sell quickly if I set the buyout option at 10k," Myst said as he dropped the potions on the auction house and set the buyout at 10k. "That should do it."

"Does that mean we can keep the six grand?" Victoria asked hopefully.

"Sure, split it with Amy," Myst replied, not particularly concerned with the money as he could always farm zombies or rob the Merchants.

“Then we are definitely going to want to kill another one of these,” Victoria said, “because they pay well, but first… what place is open where we can wash off the zombie bits and possibly get a bite to eat?”