Myst in Worm (CYOA) part 7 (Patreon)

"Would it have killed them to include a card catalog?" Myst grumbled as he looked through the collection of books in his sanctum, trying to find something that would let him start enchanting magical items or at least the spiritual versions that came with his cultivation based enchanting ability. "Shredded sage grass, pixie dust, stardust… where the fuck am I supposed to find wyvern blood?!" he snapped as he opened another book, being careful despite his frustration not to damage the irreplaceable book. 

"Maybe if I make another copy of Lung and give him cultivation and magic," he mused as he looked through the book on light spells. "No, he's not actually a dragon," he grumbled as he continued reading, annoyed that some of the words made his eyes hurt as the letters seemed to shift in color or shape whenever he wasn't looking directly at them. "Then again, it might be close enough."

"Why do they need a dozen light spells?" he asked absently, trying to distract himself from his frustration. "Yeah, that's useless…" he trailed off as he noticed the mention of creating permanent stones that glowed with light.

"Or not," he muttered as he set the book on his pile of books to read then went back to looking for some type of guide that would let him figure out how to cobble together some of the tools he needed in order to create supplements that would help his cultivation which would help increase his reservoir of spiritual energy so he could make something more impressive than a knife that could hold a razor sharp edge for years instead of weeks of use or a floating rock that you could move with your finger.

"There should have been a room for cultivators or maybe an option to pick up magical enchanting," he grumbled as he grabbed the next book. "Where the hell is Kero when you need him? Hell I'd even take Salem…" he trailed off as he realized he already had a familiar or at least he could feel a link to something now that he was thinking about it. 

"It better not be a toad or something equally as pathetic," he muttered as he turned to look at the open space in the middle of the room. He focused on his link to his familiar and fed it mana, something that was both familiar and not at the same time. He stared at his familiar for several seconds, relieved that he hadn't gotten a toad but a touch disappointed that he hadn't gotten a dragon or something more exotic than a large adorable white and blue kitten.

The kitten looked up at Myst, looking like he'd just woken up from a nap.

"At least you're cute," Myst said as he studied the kitten as it walked over and rubbed its head against his leg. "Great, next you're going to want me to pet you. I don't suppose you know how to enchant things?"

The kitten ignored him as it spotted an empty box he'd left on the ground and pounced on it.

"At least you're easily amused," Myst said as he created a ball of yawn in his pocket dimension then transferred it to his hand and tossed it to his familiar. "Shit," he muttered as he realized that he was overthinking things. "I don't need an expert, just a place to start."

He focused on his projection ability and summoned his projection in the form of a witch, complete with a sexy blue robe and a large blue witch's hat. "I need some help creating some ingredients or at least figuring out replacements."

"Which ingredients?" Tangles asked as she glanced around the room filled with books and strange magical items.

"Sage grass, pixie dust, stardust and moonsilver," Myst replied, hoping his projection could help.

"Sage grass is a type of magical grass, it grows in certain magical forests, pixie dust is basically condensed magic, stardust could be a lot of things and moonsilver could be silver bathed in moonlight or mercury or any number of things depending on context," Tangles explained.

"Is there any way to make magical plants?" Myst asked, fairly sure he wasn't going to find a magical forest anywhere on Earth Bet.

"You could try flooding an area with magic but I doubt you have enough magic to cause any useful changes," Tangles suggested.

"In other words, we're shit out of luck?" Myst asked as he watched his familiar play with her ball of yarn.

"Unless we find a spell to warp plants and you get lucky," Tangles replied as she walked over to the shelves. "Do you want help sorting through everything?"

"Yes." Myst gave her a smile then went back to sorting through books, fairly sure he was going to have to get some help if he wanted to make a reasonable amount of progress.

0o0o0

Vicky wished slightly as a truck smashed Hookwolf into the side of a brick building. 'Yeah, the PRT really needs to adjust her ratings.'

"Where is he?!" Vista demanded as she spotted Kaiser, Alabaster, Cricket and Stormtiger walking down the street towards her and Vicky with twenty of their unpowered goons.

"Shit," Vicky muttered as she realized all of the Empire thugs were pulling out semi automatic weapons or in some cases military grade assault rifles and pointing them at her and Vista.

"You dare attack the Empire?!" Kaiser demanded, planning on doing a bit of grandstanding before he explained the rules to the telekinetic.

"Where is John?!" Vista demanded as she twisted space in front of the Empire goons’ gun barrels, making sure they couldn't shoot her. "Return my friend!"

"You should probably explain what he looks like," Vicky stage whispered, fairly sure Vista wasn’t going to calm down until they’d found her twin. "Just tell my unstable friend what she wants to know and we'll be out of your hair, if not, things will get messy…" she trailed off as one of the new thugs fired a warning shot and managed to shoot himself in the foot which caused the rest of the goons to flip out and assume they were being shot at and that they should open fire, which of course meant that everyone other than the parahumans were on the ground bleeding from their feet.

Kaiser sighed, making a mental note to have Victor run the idiots through another gun safety course because they obviously didn't get it the first time. "John is a fairly common name, you'll have to be a bit more descriptive,” the gang leader pointed out, “and I would also appreciate an answer for why we would have taken him in the first place.”

“He’s blond, my height, white and going to be turning 14 soon,” Vista said, “I already questioned some of the ABB, they pointed me in your direction.”

“Of course they did,” Kaiser said with a sigh, “because they don’t grab males off the street. Of course since he is white neither would we. There is only one gang that randomly grabs young teens off the streets, male ones anyway.”

“The Merchants?” Stormtiger asked.

He nodded. “If we had grabbed a blond teen it would have been because he needed assistance, we look out for our own after all.”

The truck made a groaning noise as Hookwolf forced it off himself and crawled out of the wall.

“We really should have thought of them first,” Vicky agreed with a frown.

“I’m going to-” Hookwolf began before an absent wave sent him flying down the street striking sparks as he skipped off the asphalt.

“You’re right,” Vista agreed, “I should kill the Merchants, there’s only a handful, I’m sure no one will mind.” 

Vicky opened her mouth to argue then sighed as Vista vanished. "Great."

Kaiser watched Glory Girl fly off then turned to look at Alabaster and Stormtiger who were working on tying makeshift tourniquets around people's legs so they wouldn't bleed out before Othala fixed them. "Call Othala and drivers."

"What about Hookwolf?" Cricket asked.

"He can help Victor run everyone through another gun safety course," Kaiser said, making a mental note to see if he could recruit the new telekinetic once she’d calmed down.

0o0o0

Myst grinned as his phone dinged, letting him know he had a message from one of the Coil clones. He pulled the phone out of his pocket and stared at the message, not expecting to see a video clip. "Trigger event…" he trailed off as he hit play and saw an unfamiliar looking teenager chained up in a wearhouse explode with light and turn into an angel or at least grow wings and escape through a window.

"That was what John chose for his form," Myst muttered as he continued walking down the street towards Jessica and Nessa's apartment, fairly sure that John shouldn't have triggered for another three days. 'Either way, he's probably going to be dealing with the PRT for a while. Okay, I can't move on Nilbog until I get enough exotic explosives and I can't do that until I get Bakuda,' he grinned as he realized he had someone else he could ask, 'or talk Leet into making some.'

His grin turned into a smile when he saw a twin pair of Playboy centerfold quality young women walk out of the apartment in front of him, dressed in casual if upscale clothes. Unless he was very much mistaken, those were two of his targets Fenja and Menja. 

He focused on the girls as they walked towards him and used his Path to Fantasy Fulfillment ability, to check and see if they were who he was looking for and what he’d have to do to get them into bed something he was finding himself interested in even if they weren’t his targets. 'Yeah, I'm not shape changing into Max or Theo.' He adjusted his power's parameters and tried again then a third time as he really didn't like the idea of getting them sloshed at a bar. 

'Huh, this I can use,' he mused as the version in the pocket dimension conjured a fancy looking letter as he walked towards the twins. He stopped several feet in front of the twins while the version in his pocket dimension cast a cantrip to cause the letter to sparkle then flourished his hand and transferred the letter to his fingers. "The Loki School of Dark Magic cordially invites you to learn magic."

Nessa stared at Myst and the glowing letter then grinned, wondering which one of her friends had put him up to it and where they'd found a tinker that could make glowing paper. "The Loki School of Dark Magic?" she asked amused.

"Let me guess, it's like Hogwarts?" Jessica asked dryly as she glanced around, looking for someone with a camera without moving her head. She knew Nessa was into fantasy and myths, but for herself she much preferred sci-fi. 

"Less ghosts, assholes, and wand waving but it is a place of magic," Myst replied with a grin as he held out the letter to the sister that looked to be playing along.

"There's no such thing as magic," Jessica grumbled as her sister took the letter, expecting a trick or someone to jump out with a camera.

"Have some fun Jessica," Nessa said as she read the faintly glowing letter. "The Loki School of Dark Magic invites you to learn magic, classes in Alchemy, Enchanting, Pyromancy, Auramancy, Necromancy and more as provided at our illustrious college by questionable teachers."

"Right, how much does it cost?" Jessica asked suspiciously.

"Nothing," Myst replied as he conjured a robin’s egg sized marquise cut ruby in his pocket dimension and transferred it to his hand. "We're magic users, what do we care about money?"

"You're a parahuman," Jessica said warily, having assumed the letter was slight of hand at first but now suspecting they were being targeted by a rival gang.

"Which in no way, shape or form stops me from being a magic user," Myst replied with amusement.

"Can you make gems or did you steal it?" Nessa asked as she studied the large stone.

"Magic can do wondrous things," Myst assured her, making a mental note to see if Assault wanted to learn magic, if only to annoy his wife and Pigot…. alright everyone and their mother, possibly all the way up to Alexandria and Contessa. 

"Great, he's like Myrddin, he actually believes his powers are magic," Jessica grumbled as she focused on the cape in front of her, wondering what his actual power was or if he was a grab bag cape.

"What would you consider proof that magic exists?" Myst asked, fairly sure he'd already be inside their apartment if he'd just shown up looking like Max, but while he did want to seduce them, he’d much rather do it as himself.

"Can you conjure a demon?" Jessica asked with a smirk, expecting him to say no.

"Of course, demon summoning is dark magic and my school teaches a number of types of magic," Myst replied as the version of him in the pocket dimension shape changed into a winged succubus in a red and gold cheer-leading outfit. "I'll need some chalk," he mused as he looked at the sidewalk, trying to figure out how he was going to 'conjure' his other self without the twins noticing that he had to be touching her.

"What type of demon?" Nessa asked, playing along.

Myst made a mental note to learn Latin as he conjured a stick of chalk in his pocket dimension then transferred it over and started drawing a pentagram on the sidewalk. "I was thinking of a succubus, but I'm open to requests."

"This is a waste of time," Jessica grumbled, not wanting to play whatever game this cape was playing.

"If I can't prove myself at the end of an hour, you're free to keep the ruby." Myst tossed her the ruby that looked like a national treasure then went back to drawing the symbol.

"Fine," Jessica muttered as she looked over the stone that certainly didn't feel like costume jewelry, though with all the tinkers running around making things these days, who could tell?

Myst finished the slightly lopsided pentagram. He really needed to work on that, as according to some of the books he’d read demons could be even more OCD about such things than Accord. "Forces of darkness and hellfire, hear my call! I summon thee from the great beyond!" 

He waved a hand through the air above the circle, jerking it back as his female clone appeared.

Nessa blinked and stared at the demonic cheerleader in the circle. "How many powers do you have?!" she asked in disbelief. 

"More than a few, less than Eidolon. Now do you believe me?" he asked smugly.

Jessica rolled her eyes. "Nice trick, but you're not the first illusionist we've ran into."

The demonic looking Myst looked down at the lopsided summoning circle then smiled at Jessica. "Do you want to see a trick?" she purred out.

"What?" Jessica asked warily.

The 'succubus' lunged forward, grabbed both girl's by their wrists and transferred them to his pocket dimension in a clearing.

Jessica twitched as she glanced around a small grassy clearing surrounded by massive walls of fog. "This is your fault," she decided, turning to her sister.

"How is this my fault?" Nessa complained.

"No idea, but it is," Jessica said as she looked for a way out. 

"That could have gone worse," the demonic version mused as they both ducked into the alley and stepped into their pocket dimension. “You know we could stay in here and never leave, the cost for failed missions isn’t that much.”

“Nah, we'd still have to deal with our kill list. Besides, we'd get bored and we still need to get copies of some things from John,” Myst reminded his other self, which was rather pointless as they were both sharing the same brain.

“And we’d end up going mad talking to ourselves,” the demonic shifted clone agreed with a grin that showed off a mouth full of sharp teeth.

“Yep, best to avoid that,” Myst agreed. “Well, I’m going to go cuddle with an Othala so you have invulnerability while you tease the twins.”

“Have fun!”

“I intend to,” he agreed.

“Listen,” the demonic clone said with a frown, “if you get too distracted having sex to keep the invulnerability up we are going to be short one body.”

“And?”

“And then John would be one step closer to having Clone supremacy!” she said dramatically.

“Oh point, we can’t have that,” Myst agreed. “I’ll just have to mess around with two Othalas then so one can concentrate on making us invulnerable.”

0o0o0o0o0o0

"There's no way out, we've tried the fog, we just come out the other side," Jessica complained.

"Which is fun," Nessa replied as she walked back over to where her sister was standing.

"You could always just ask," the demonic looking Myst replied as she changed back to his normal appearance. "I brought you here so you could learn magic after all."

"You're a trump?!" Nessa asked excitedly.

"More or less," Myst replied as he gestured and created a large table filled with food and various deserts. "If you'll let me, I can show you things you’d never believe were possible."

"For instance?" Jessica asked suspiciously.

"Treasure like you wouldn't believe," Myst gestured and created a mound of gold coins at his feet as well as a few golden chalices. "Eternal youth if you're dedicated."

Jessica glanced between the gold and the table. "What's the catch?" 

"You would serve me, rather than the weakling you currently follow,” Myst replied, crossing his arms and leaning forward on a silver topped cane that suddenly existed.

"Can we get a trial membership?" Nessa asked hopefully, not wanting to get her hopes up, even though they already were and she knew it. This cape had promised magic… and while powers could do many things, this seemed a bit beyond them.

"What?" Jessica asked as she looked at her sister, surprised to see her going along with him so easily.

"You know as well as I do that the Empire was just about the money and enough power to stay safe," Nessa replied, “this is a chance for something more, something we could never get with the Empire.”

"Fine, what do we have to do?" Jessica asked with a sigh.

"Take my hands," Myst replied as he held his hands out, glad that he had five Othalas because at least two of them were much too distracted to give anyone powers at the moment. ‘I really should know better than to trust myself.’ He focused and created for nudist and bisexual Nessa clones when she grabbed his hand. "Welcome to the team, I think you'll like it here."

Jessica blinked as she looked at the naked versions of her sister. "On second thought, I could get used to it." She extended her hand with a smile. She knew she had a twin fantasy, which was rather redundant, her already being a twin, but one of the reasons she was into sci-fi was for the idea of clones and alternate selves. ‘Who could love you better than yourself? Multiples of yourself of course!’  

“Food fight!” one of the Nessas yelled and threw a handful of cake at another.