Myst in Worm (Gamer) Part 14 (Patreon)

Uber twitched as someone knocked on the window despite the fact that he'd only glanced away for a second. "Fuck!" he swore as he glanced back and saw a cloaked stranger with glowing red eyes in a pit of inky darkness an inch from the window. "Don't fucking do that!"

Myst grinned as he stepped back away from the van so that Uber could open the door. "Sorry about that, I couldn't resist," he explained as Uber got out of the van.

Leet laughed as he got out of the passenger side. "I would have done the same thing."

"That's because you're an ass," Uber complained good naturedly.

Myst glanced over Uber's Luigi costume, a touch surprised that they weren't wearing better costumes but the over the top fake mustaches and large sunglasses would probably do a decent job of wrecking facial recognition software while keeping people from screaming cape.

"How the hell did you get that close?" Uber complained as he studied the cape that looked like a leather clad dark sorcerer.

"I'm a Stranger and a Trump," Myst replied as Leet walked around the van dressed like Mario, carrying an old and worn yoshi themed backpack.

Uber frowned as he realized none of the people in the parking lot were paying them any attention. "How come no one is pointing and staring?"

Myst rubbed his chin, pretending to consider the question. "No idea, you look a bit suspicious."

"I was talking about your cloak," Uber said as he studied Myst's cloak. 'I wonder if he has more, that would make an excellent costume for sneaking around."

"I have selective invisibility," Myst replied with amusement. "Joking aside, are you ready to have your mind blown?"

"Hell yeah," Leet cut in before Uber could ruin things.

Myst reached out with his magic and pulled them into a rat filled dungeon. "In that case, welcome to the apocalypse or maybe just night of the R.O.U.S."

Uber twitched as a large dog sized rat scampered over the hood of a car. "How dangerous are the rats?"

"About what you'd expect for giant rats," Myst replied as he pulled his berserk sword out of his inventory as the large rat charged the group. "It's clobberin time!" he said cheerfully as he charged the unsuspecting rat and easily cut its head off, a touch surprised at how easy it was to get the timing right.

Uber stared in disbelief as the rat turned into motes of light and left a roll of something that looked like leather. "Did the rat just drop loot?"

"I wouldn't be much of an RPG character if monsters didn't drop loot," Myst replied as he walked over and picked up the roll of leather and stuck it in his inventory.

"Can I get a party invite?" Uber asked, curious how Myst's skill grinding ability would interact with his own power.

"That depends, are you interested in making a show in exchange for the schematic?" Myst asked as he looked at Leet.

"Hell yeah!" Leet replied as he tossed Myst a USB stick, figuring he owed him for the levitation power, if nothing else. "Can we get started?"

"If you want, sure," Myst replied as he dropped the USB into his inventory. "In that case, let's test how our powers interact. Invite Uber, Gamer's party."

Uber grinned when the translucent window appeared floating in front of him. He quickly hit accept then focused on becoming the best guitarist in the world and laughed as he started getting messages about his skill improving. 

"This is going to be awesome," Leet said cheerfully as he opened his backpack and took out a golden sphere the size of a tennis ball and a camera.

"Instruments 6, 12, 16…" Uber sighed as his skill gain slowed to a crawl. "How high do the skills go?"

"My Iron Will skill maxed out at 100 but it could be different for each skill." Myst pulled his Iron Will orb out of his inventory and held it out towards Leet, curious if it helped with his tinkering. "Here, touch this, it should help with Master effects."

Leet finished mounting the camera on the snitch then reached out and touched the orb and grinned when he read the popup. "Cool, it boosts our resistance to mind altering effects by 50%. Wait, does this make me immune to caffeine?" he asked warily, hoping he hadn't just made a horrible mistake.

"No clue," Myst admitted, rather amused by the concern in Leet's voice.

"You haven't tested it?" Uber asked as he pulled his attention away from his skill list and looked at the orb Myst was holding, trying to figure out if the negatives were worth it.

"I don't usually drink things with enough caffeine to notice but my Iron Will gives me a 100% resistance to mental effects and it didn't stop a pain relief potion from working so I think you'll be fine," Myst assured them.

"I should probably cut down on my caffeine intake anyways," Uber admitted as he reached out and touched the orb, hoping to hell it didn't screw up his ability to use caffeine. He hit accept then focused on becoming an exceptional kazoo player, laughing when his new skill increased by a point. "Kazoo skill for the win, that brings my new Instruments skill up to 17."

"Let's see what we're working with," Leet said as he grabbed the remote and sent the snitch up in the air to check things out.

"We're going to need a theme for the next show," Uber mused as he mentally reviewed their extensive list of video games to see if anything jumped out at him.

"Best of luck with that," Myst offered as he opened his enchanting menu and dropped one of the extra steel swords into the box. "I'm going to work on my combat skills." He selected the Blade of the Weeping Cold enchant and hit the button.

"Do guns work on the rats?" Leet asked.

"Probably but the noise might bring an entire swarm," Myst warned them as he examined his newly enchanted and blue tinged blade. '13 points of cold damage every hit and I shouldn't be able to feel it.' He grabbed his new sword and walked over to a car. "Okay, here goes nothing."

Uber winced as Myst tapped the car with his sword and he felt a blast of cold air. "Striker powers?"

"Nah, I enchanted the sword," Myst replied as he glanced at his Health Bar.

"Like Dauntless?" Leet asked excitedly.

"Nothing that impressive." He pulled up his character sheet and looked at his hit points then looked at his combat log. "I just enchanted it to deal 13 points of cold damage in a 5' radius."

Uber sighed as he focused on becoming the best enchanter in the world and his power gave him nothing, just like when he'd tried to learn psychic powers and various other video game abilities. "Can you teach us Enchanting?"

"No idea," Myst admitted as he headed towards one of the rats that was trying to sneak closer to their group. "Even if I could, you'd need a hell of a lot of mana to make it worth it and you're nowhere close."

"How do we increase our magic?" Leet asked eagerly.

"You practice magic skills," Myst replied as he stabbed the rat, causing a blast of cold and the rat to snarl and snap in his general direction. He glanced at his health then hit the rat a couple of times as it charged towards Leet and Uber. "Just die already!" he complained as the rat ignored him and charged the visible targets.

Uber shifted his stance then kicked the rat in the throat, stunning it.

"Back up so you're not in range!" Myst reached down and stole a point of Dexterity from the choking rat, bringing his Dexterity up to 41.

Success: Steal Attribute increased by 1!

'One step closer to being able to spam the ability,' Myst mused as he went to town on the rat with his sword after a quick glance to make sure Uber had jumped back out of range and at his health bar to make sure he hadn't lost more health than he'd thought.

Leet frowned as the rat finally turned into motes and vanished after a couple more hits than it probably should have taken. "We're going to need better weapons."

"Probably," Myst admitted as he leaned up against a car while he waited for his mana to regenerate enough that he could heal himself.

'I thought your pain reduction potion ran out, why are you at half health?' Amy said in a private message while she absently listened to her teacher ramble.

'Yeah, I'm just working on my cold resistance and sword skills while Uber and Leet try to figure out what type of show they want to do,' Myst replied as he opened his auction account and ran a search for customizing ID barriers.

'You have Uber and Leet with you? How did you get in contact?' Amy asked.

'I sent Leet a party invite, I needed some combat armor and he had some old schematics,' Myst replied as he scanned the list.

'You're going to use something Leet designed?' Amy asked in concern, wondering if Myst had hit his head.

'I have a skill for detecting problems and most of his problems should be on the manufacturing end,' Myst replied as he bought a book on creating themed ID barriers. 'If not, I'll just scrap it and bother Armsmaster.'

'Just make sure you have someone around that can heal when you test it or have someone else test it, like Vicky, she has a force field,' Amy suggested. 

'That's probably a good idea. If it blows up, she'd survive and if it catches on fire she can always stick it in her inventory,'' Myst replied as he watched the snitch dodge a pigeon.

'That's probably better than her ripping it apart,' Amy replied.

Myst tapped his sword against the car repeatedly until he was at less than a third of his health then healed himself with soul recovery. 'I need to figure out a general all purpose enchant for removing pain or at least lessening it for training,' he mused as he checked his frost resistance. 'Another point of cold resistance, not bad. Not great but at least I'm getting there.'

He glanced over at Leet and Uber who were trying to kill the giant pigeon with small balls of fire and a giant sized spatula. "Okay, where the hell did you get the giant spatula?"

"It's a hard light hologram." Uber grinned when he managed to knock the pigeon out of the air with his spatula. "Score!"

Myst raised his right hand and shot the pigeon with a beam of frost, causing it to freeze up so that Leet could torch it with a ball of fire. "Fire isn't supposed to behave like that," he complained as he watched several small balls of fire shoot out of Leet's wrist weapon.

"Says the guy with a magic stat," Leet replied sarcastically.

"Just go with Tinkers are bullshit, it makes it easier," Uber suggested.

"Speaking of bullshit, you didn't mention anything about giant pigeons," Leet complained as he checked his fireball launcher as he didn't want to overtax the system and give it a reason to explode.

Myst shrugged. "It's a rat dungeon and pigeons are basically flying rats, it fits the theme."

"That's not…" Leet trailed off as he considered Myst's response and realized that he had a point. "We're still going to need better weapons."

"I have a hunting rifle in the van, we can always edit the soundtrack if we need to," Uber suggested.

"In that case, I'll stay out of the way and work on my cold resistance and sword skills," Myst said as he went back to tapping his sword on the frost covered car hood, keeping an eye on his health so that he didn't get too low.

0o0o0

Myst glanced up from reading the book on ID barriers as Leet screamed and his health bar started dropping at an alarming rate. "So much for a nice quiet break..." he trailed off as he heard a series of gunshots. 'Is anyone dead?' he asked over the party chat as he headed in their direction, knowing that Leet had already stopped losing health so he'd probably be fine.

'Just Leet's pride,' Uber replied over the party chat as he shot another rat as it came out from under a car and ran towards them.

"Fuck you!" Leet complained as he did his best to keep pressure on his thigh, trying to keep the blood from leaking out of the nasty bite wound, a small trickle of blood leaking from beneath his hand. "It tried to rip my nuts off!"

"I told you to wear a cup," Uber joked as he lined up his next shot, happy they had a healer in the group because the rats were rather nasty. He shivered as hundreds of giant rats practically poured out from under cars or ran out from behind them, forming a massive swarm as the tide of fur surged towards them. "Fuck!"

Leet ignored the pain as he bolted towards Myst. "Drop the barrier, now!"

Myst glanced up at the flying camera drone that was probably still recording and waited until the last possible second before breaking the barrier, figuring they could use it for their show. "That went better than I was expecting. Please tell me the snitch was recording and I didn't traumatize Leet for no reason."

Uber laughed as he looked around, happy to be safe. "Nah, it should have gotten everything."

"Medic?" Leet asked as he went back to putting pressure on his wound,

"I got it, just keep pressure on it," Uber said as he pulled a bandage out of his pocket.

"Don't bother, I've got it." Myst cast Soul Recovery on Leet then used his cleaning spell to remove the blood before someone freaked out and called the police.

"Huh," Leet muttered as he poked his leg where he'd been missing a chunk of flesh. "Damn, you should sign up for a healer, they always need more."

"It's on the list of things to take care of the next time I visit the PRT." Myst pulled his Soul Recovery book out of his inventory and handed it to Leet. "This should let you do the same."

Leet stared at the book. "Seriously? You could sell this for," he shook his head, "I'm not even sure how much you could sell it for."

Myst shrugged. "Feel free to pay me in copies of schematics."

"Done!" Leet opened the book and hit accept before Myst could change his mind, causing the book to vanish. "Thanks."

"You're welcome, the world doesn't have enough healers," Myst said as he grabbed the healing book from his inventory and handed it to Uber. "Just in case something blows up."

"Thanks, we could have used this more than a couple of times," Uber said as he opened the book and hit accept after reading the description. "Thank you."

Myst smiled as the snitch flew over. "Do you have enough footage or do we need to go back?"

"I'm not going back without better weapons and a cup," Leet said as he started walking towards the van, already thinking about which energy weapon to grab as he had several that he hadn't managed to live test because he didn't need the PRT overly concerned about his stuff.

Uber shrugged. "I wouldn't mind taking a break and grabbing the dune buggy we modified for Mario Kart."

Leet paused as he realized that would let him grab some of his larger weapons. "That's not a bad idea, we could do a chase scene then mix in some ground combat."

"Sounds good, I need to grab lunch anyways," Myst said as he headed towards the sub shop. 'Toss me a message when you're back, I'm going to work on getting a better dungeon,' he explained as he walked past an older couple that were giving Uber and Leet suspicious looks.

'Sounds good,' Uber replied as he followed Leet.

Myst adjusted his stranger rating so that people that weren't Merchants could see him as he walked into the shop, forgetting for a second that he was wearing his cloak. A fact he was reminded of when the various conversations died as he walked over to the counter. 

"W-what can I get you?" the man behind the counter asked warily as he pulled on a fresh pair of gloves.

Mist glanced at the sign over the counter. "A foot long tuna on white, pickles, onions and a touch of lettuce," he said, trying to pretend that ordering food in costume was perfectly normal. 

"Extra mayonnaise?" the clerk asked as he worked on putting tuna on the bread, curious about the new cape.

"Sure." Myst opened his auction house menu and ran a search for golem crafting.

"Are you new in town?" the girl behind the register asked.

"Yeah, I figured it was a decent place to get started," Myst replied as he pulled a ten out of his inventory, making it look like he pulled it out of his cloak and handed it to the girl behind the register, causing everyone in the shop to relax as they realized he wasn't robbing the place.

"Do you want a drink with your sub?" the girl asked.

"No, I'm good." Myst bought a 'cheap' book on creating basic golems and a more expensive book on creating advanced golems, while he waited for his change. He turned to look at the man in his early twenties that was making his sandwich. "That's enough lettuce."

"I can't say I blame you," the man said as he quickly wrapped the sub.

"Here you go," the girl behind the register said as she handed him his change.

"Thanks," Myst said as he stuck the change in his pants pocket then grabbed the sub.

"Woah, nice cloak," Dennis said as he walked in with Amy and Chris.

Myst turned and blinked as he realized that both of the teenagers with Amy were capes. "Thanks. It's bullet resistant and creepy as hell," he said as he walked over to an empty table and sat down. "Let me guess, you're avoiding the cafeteria?"

"I decided to ditch study hall and leave early," Amy admitted. 'Let me guess, you decided to take a break from Uber and Leet before you stabbed them?' 

"Amy the rebel," Dennis said cheerfully as he walked up to the counter. "Six inch, meatballs on white."

"Sure," the clerk said as he started making Dennis' sandwich. He glanced at Amy. "Usual?"

"Thanks," Amy as she walked over to the register and handed the woman a ten.

'Nah, they wanted to grab better equipment and a dune buggy for their show and I wanted to grab something to eat,' Myst replied via a private message.

Amy shrugged. "No, I just have all of my work done so there wasn't a point in sticking around."

"I think someone replaced our dear friend with a clone," Dennis joked.

"What is the cloak made out of?" Chris asked, curious if the cloak was tinkertech or if it was a result of powers.

"No idea," Myst admitted. "I didn't actually check the label before I called on the dark gods of chaos and enchanted it," he explained as seriously as he could.

"What?!" Chris sputtered, wondering if the new cape was insane.

Myst laughed. "Sorry, I have a warped sense of humor."

"In other words, no comment?" Dennis asked as he paid for his sub.

"Nah, I wasn't joking about enchanting it, just the part with the dark gods," Myst assured the people watching them.

Amy collected her sub and sat down next to Myst. "How long have you been a hero?" she asked, figuring she might as well help reassure people that he was a hero.

"A couple of days, I'm still waiting for my heroic decoder ring," Myst replied with a grin then started eating his sandwich as Chris ordered and Dennis sat down across from Amy.

"Are you joining the Protectorate?" Dennis asked, knowing that he would have heard something about a new hero joining if anything had been in the works.

"Nah, I'm planning to wander around a bit and get to know the city before I make any decisions..." he trailed off as a blonde girl walked in with a girl with brown hair and paused as she noticed the weird cloak. 'Touch activated telekinesis, hello Rune.' He smiled at her when he realized she wasn't going to freak out and attack him which meant that he didn't have an enemy flaw with the Empire. "Don't worry, I'm not a villain, just a hero enjoying lunch with the Amazing Amy and minions."

Tammi glanced at Amy then shook her head and continued over to the counter with her friend. "Good to know."

"How much does being a minion pay?" Dennis asked half seriously.

"I'm sure we can figure something out." Myst went back to eating his sub.

'What's up with the girl?' Amy asked in a private message.

'She's a touch telekinetic,' Myst replied after a brief second of hesitation.

Amy frowned slightly. 'You're not supposed to just out people like that.'

'You're a medic, you should be able to keep a secret. Besides, I doubt you even know her name,' Myst replied.

'It's on the tip of my tongue,' Amy lied.

"How long does it take you to boost something?" Chris asked as he sat down next to Dennis.

Myst glanced around at the people that were trying to pretend they weren't paying attention to their conversation. "Sorry, that probably falls under a trade secret. What do you think of the local heroes? I hear that Vista is the best Ward."

'That was cold,' Amy messaged him, trying not to laugh at the look on Dennis' face.

"What makes you think she's the best?" Dennis asked, trying and failing to sound casual. 

"Because she's nearly fearless and has been in the Wards the longest. It's a damned shame the PR department insists on dressing her up like a child playing dress up." Myst shrugged. "Of course, maybe they're just trying to get people to underestimate her. If the Director was serious about cleaning the city up, she'd pair Vista with Cockblocker and she'd warp space so he could reach out and touch people from a block away, tap tap and you're frozen in place with no idea why you're 'waking' up in handcuffs."

"That would just cause the gangs to escalate," one of the other customers pointed out.

"Probably," Myst admitted, “but unless you want to let them do whatever they want, eventually you have to go there.”

"What about the rest of the Wards?" Dennis asked.

"Aegis is a flying chew toy, he could use some decent attack options, which is why I'm surprised he hasn't talked Kid Win or Gallant into giving him some web shooters or something, they'd be awesome. Just hit people from the air and haul them back to the PRT screaming."

Amy nibbled on her lip to keep from laughing. 'Now you're just messing with them.'

'Maybe a little,' Myst admitted. "Tinkers are awesome,” he said as he pulled his Orb of Iron Will out of his inventory and set it on the table, “so Kid Win gets a pass, Gallant seems a bit lazy though as he hasn't upgraded his armor in a while so eh, not my favorite."

"What is that?" Kid Win asked curiously, examining the shiny metal sphere that seemed to draw the eye.

"It's a magical orb of awesome power that boosts the willpower of anyone that touches it, giving them a resistance to master effects, do you want to try it?" Myst asked, fairly sure they wouldn't believe him.

Amy reached out and poked the orb. "Yeah, I don't feel any different."

"Of course not, you are the awesome and amazing Amy," Myst replied with amusement, not particularly surprised when Dennis reached out and touched the orb.

"Is it tinkertech?" Chris asked cautiously, looking Dennis and Amy over for changes.

"I just said it was a magical orb of fearsome power," Myst replied with amusement.

"Right," Chris muttered then took a breath and reached out and poked the orb as Vicky and Dean walked in the door.

Myst glanced over at Vicky and Dean then went back to eating. 'Weren't they on a break?'

'I lose track,' Amy admitted, a little annoyed that they were back together. "Vicky."

"Hey," Vicky said as she headed over to order.

Dean frowned slightly as he realized he couldn't read the new cape's emotions and followed Vicky over to the counter.

"But yeah, Kid Win is probably the best next to Vista, I mean modular design is awesome."

"Modular design?" Chris asked as he thought about some of his projects and the pieces started to fit together in his head. He resisted the urge to pull out a notebook and start making notes of possible designs and was surprised to find it was easier to resist than it normally was.

"Sure, it makes me wonder if Armsmaster and the oversight board are trying to screw with him because it doesn't show up in a lot of his work, but it's obviously his specialty." Myst turned to look at Amy. "Is Armsmaster enough of a prick to sabotage a fellow tinker or is it just the PRT being weird?"

Amy shook her head. "I doubt it's Armsmaster, it's probably someone on the review board."

"So what are we talking about?" Vicky asked as she walked over and sat down.

"Why Vista is the best Ward," Myst said cheerfully.

“Hair,” Vicky said instantly.

“What?” Dennis asked.

“She is the best Ward because she has the best hair,” Vicky replied firmly. “You can’t go wrong with long blonde locks.”

“And how do you know none of the others are hiding long blonde hair under their costumes?” Dennis demanded.

“I’ve seen them all out of costume,” Vicky replied, “so I know. For instance, Clockblocker? Bald as an egg. I mean I know he hides it with that toupee he wears under his costume, but we all know it.”

Dennis sputtered, caught completely flat footed, and unable to think up a reply while Amy and Chris lost it, laughing until tears came to their eyes.

“I’ve been thinking about buying him a new one for Christmass,” Vicky confided to Dean, who was biting his lip to keep from laughing.  

“I’m pretty sure his hair has been seen when his mask has been damaged,” Dennis said.

“Like I said, toupee,” Vicky said knowingly.

Dennis took a deep breath and forced himself not to respond, though his hand twitched like it wanted to move on its own. “I suppose it’s better than needing to dye your hair until you get lucky enough to have a family member trigger with the ability to make you an actual blonde.”

“Hey!” Vicky exclaimed.

“Well, I have seen pictures online where Glory Girl’s outfit got damaged and I gotta say… bald actually is a good look down there,” Dennis said with a grin.

“Those were fakes!” Vicky defended herself. 

“I don’t know,” he said, “she could just have forgotten her merkin that day.”

“Merkin?” half a dozen people asked.

Amy grinned and shook her head. “Point to Dennis, and no I’m not explaining that one, because I want you all to have it in your search histories.”