Taylor Shard Keeper Part 5 (Patreon)

Taylor pulled her attention away from where Beth was kneeling on the mossy ground picking an herb and spun around when she heard a twig snap behind her. She glanced between the five scruffy looking men on the trail holding weapons and the man in expensive looking robes holding a glowing staff.

"Your gold or your lives," the mage said cheerfully.

"Sure, whatever," Taylor replied as she grabbed her coin purse and tossed it to the man with the staff, glad that she'd given all of her gold to her parents. "Enjoy your five silver."

"Five silver?" one of the bandits sputtered.

"What did you expect?" Beth asked as she put the herb in her belt pouch and stood up. "We're starting heroes, between paying for gear and paying the trainers, we're pretty much broke."

One of the bandits smirked at Beth. "I guess we'll just have to get creative in how we get paid."

"That sounds like a remarkably bad idea, you might upset her goddess," Taylor warned them as she focused on her lightning spell.

"I won't tell if you don't," the bandit replied with a leer as he took a step towards Beth.

Taylor mentally cast her lightning bolt spell, calling down holy lightning on the man with a deafening crack of thunder and causing him to explode. 'Holy shit!'

Beth barely managed to keep from throwing up as she started at the blood and viscera splattered on the other bandits. 'What the hell!'

"Do you have any worthwhile gathering skills?" Taylor asked, trying to sound more calm than she felt. 'What the hell! That barely dropped the other bandit.'

"What?" the mage shouted, not able to hear much of anything.

Taylor moved her fingers and cast her cure spell on the mage hoping that it fixed his hearing damage. "I asked if you had any worthwhile gathering skills."

"Herbalism and alchemy," the mage replied before realizing the girl wasn't in charge. "Why?"

Taylor gestured towards the rest of the bandits. "I can sort of understand becoming bandits if you don't have any decent options but you've got magic, why are you a bandit?"

"I like hurting people and none of the herbs around here are worth much," the mage replied with a shrug, not seeing a point in lying.

"How would you like access to a realm of magic and rare plants?" Taylor asked, forcing herself to grin and ignore the way the bandits were glaring or leering at her and Beth.

"Let me guess, you have a map?" the mage asked with a raised eyebrow, having heard quite a number of people begging for their lives over the years or spinning stories they thought might save them.

"No, but I've got a cheat skill that lets me go to a realm with an abundance of rare ingredients for an hour at a time every week. I'm willing to split the profits if you'll teach me what you know about alchemy," Taylor offered.

"What makes you think I can be trusted?" the mage asked.

Taylor shook her head. "I'd be insane to trust you but I can't pick all of the plants by myself and there are countless resources of various types scattered around the pocket dimension that we could harvest if we had a decent team. If you agree to give me a fifth of everything you harvest, everyone can walk away with an obscene amount of wealth."

"You want a fifth of our take?" one of the other bandits asked in disbelief.

"Seems fair, you can't get there without me and I can't harvest everything without help," Taylor replied with a shrug, hoping they didn't realize they could hold Beth as a hostage.

"Seems fair," the mage lied. "How does your skill work?"

"You basically grab my arm and I activate my cheat skill then we start harvesting," Taylor explained as she held her arms out.

"If this is a trick, you're going to die screaming," the mage warned her.

"Relax, it's not a trick," Taylor lied as she grabbed Beth's wrist. "If everything works out, you can help me next week."

"Fine," the mage grumbled as he grabbed Taylor's arm. "Everyone grab her arms."

Taylor had to resist the urge to blast the asshole that grabbed her butt as the rest of the bandits grabbed her arms but managed to keep her composure. "Okay, it should take twenty seconds to jump then we'll have an hour to harvest everything," she said as she focused on her Exploration shard, hoping her tossed together plan worked. She waited until just before she felt herself slipping between worlds and let go of Beth's wrist.

Beth blinked as Taylor and the bandits vanished, causing a bunch of packs, belt pouches, quivers and weapons to fall to the ground. "I hope you know what you're doing," she muttered as she started collecting all of the gear so she could identify it.

The mage glanced around the strange forest then scowled when he realized that he didn't have his staff. "Nice trick."

Taylor turned to look at the mage. "My skill has some weird rules like not bringing weapons into it but you can take a bunch of rare ingredients out."

"Is that a black lotus flower?" one of the bandits blurted as he spotted a black flower.

"You're wasting time," Taylor pointed out as she stepped away from the person grabbing her ass.

"I don't have my knife, how am I supposed to harvest shit?" one of the bandits demanded.

The mage rolled his eyes then conjured several spectral knives and two mining picks. "With magic."

"Thanks boss," one of the thugs said as he grabbed a pick and headed into the forest.

Taylor watched the bandits walk into the monster infested woods. "Not going to join them?" she asked the mage once the rest of the bandits had left.

The mage snorted. "I don't trust you. If this place was really as profitable as you claim, you'd have more gold or if your family knew of your skill, they wouldn't let you go anywhere without a small army of armed guards."

"Fair enough," Taylor admitted as she walked over and grabbed the extra pickaxe.

"Let me guess, you're going to hit me with it?" the mage asked as he took a step back, ready to dispel the conjured tool in case she tried attacking him.

Taylor smashed the pickaxe into her foot and grinned when it vanished and she realized that she'd just learned another spell. "Why bother?"

"What do you mean?" the mage asked warily, staring at the area where his conjured pickaxe had vanished.

"Do you honestly think my family would let me run around if I couldn't defend myself?" Taylor asked with a grin that turned into a smirk when the mage raised his hands, jumped back and cast a spell at her. "Was that supposed to do something?" she asked when the spell washed over her without any effect.

The mage glared at Taylor as he conjured a ball of fire over his hand. "If you don't stop being creepy, I'm going to burn you."

"Go ahead," Taylor replied with a shrug, not seeing a point in pretending to be scared anymore.

"Are you insane?" the mage asked warily, unwilling to actually attack her in case it caused the pocket dimension to collapse.

"Probably," Taylor admitted, thinking about the last year. "I let my ex-best friend emotionally torture me for a year, hoping that she'd give up and that I wouldn't have to tell my father that the girl I used to think of as a sister turned into a monster, I don't know what the hell I was thinking."

The mage shivered as he heard a blood curdling scream from the forest. "What the hell was that!"

"I might have neglected to mention the monsters," Taylor admitted as another scream came from a different direction. "Just so you know, you might be able to save them if you kill me, my aunt's pocket realm broke when she died and dropped everyone back into the real world…" she trailed off as the mage tossed his fireball at her. "You'll have to try a bit harder than that," she said as she started walking towards the mage, curious how many spells she could get him to cast at her before he realized it was pointless.

0o0o0

Annette frowned when she noticed the way Danny was looking at her. "I'm not going to vanish."

"We don't know if you're…" Danny trailed off, not wanting to say the words bouncing around in his head.

"Real?" Annette asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Stable?" Danny offered as he turned to look at the group of young adventurers that were walking through the town looking at the various booths. "By that I mean physically, you might be a projection."

"I don't feel like a projection and I remember things about my life that Taylor doesn't know and never will," Annette replied, thinking of some of the things she'd done in college. "If I was a clone, I doubt my prints would match. Same thing with a projection."

"I'm just glad you're back," Danny replied as he hugged her, ignoring the townsfolk that were probably watching them.

"Same, what happened with Emma?" Annette asked.

"I don't know, she stopped coming over after camp and I stopped hearing about her, it should have been a red flag," Danny admitted, wishing not for the first time that he hadn't been so wrapped up in his own problems. "Eventually I just figured they grew apart, I didn't hear anything from Alan but he was more your friend than mine and I was a wreck the first couple of months and barely functional for quite a while outside of work."

"Hopefully Alan can give me a straight answer and Emma can get some therapy," Annette said as she started walking towards the grill where a large man was cooking up a storm. "Either way, we might as well pick up the cooking skill while we're here."

"Sounds good," Danny agreed as he followed his wife. "It feels weird spending gold on cooking recipes."

"It's not like we can take it with us and the cooking skill can give boosts to all sorts of things or at least that's how Taylor explained things," Annette said as they walked over to the cook. "We'd like to learn."

He absently gestured towards the other table where there was a keg with a spigot and a bowl filled with chips of soap. "Wash up with soap and run some alcohol over your hands when you're done, it kills all the little demons running around on your skin."

"Demons?" Danny asked with a raised eyebrow.

The cook's explanation about tiny demons died as he looked up and noticed the plastic rims on their glasses. "Are you from Earth?"

"Yeah," Annette replied as she walked over to wash up.

"Yeah, sorry about that, blaming things on invisible demons is a lot easier than explaining germs to the locals," the cook explained as he turned the roast another quarter turn.

"Makes sense," Annette agreed as she worked on scrubbing her hands clean. "How long have you been here?"

"About ten years," the cook replied with a grin. "I spent a couple of years wandering around with a merchant caravan before settling here to help train the next generation."

"What can you show us?" Danny asked as he grabbed a couple of soap chips and turned the valve on the spigot to get some water.

"I'm making some garlic roasted chicken and that should go nicely with some roasted potatoes, it's not much but it gives you a pretty decent stamina boost and the ingredients are easy to get without having to deal with monsters or deal with the group of bandits that moved into the forest a couple of months back," the cook explained.

"Bandits?" Danny asked warily, thinking about Taylor's plans for going into the forest. "Shouldn't the guards have dealt with them?"

"I'm fairly sure someone on the council is being bribed because they refuse to do more than put a small bounty on the group which means no one of the proper calibur will take the job which means a lot of dead adventurers. Some of the retired adventurers turned skill trainers went into the forest a couple of weeks ago to put a stop to it but all they found was an abandoned cooking fire and no trace of where the bandits went, someone must have tipped them off."

"Hopefully Taylor doesn't run into trouble," Danny muttered as he washed his hands off then poured a bit of what smelled like disinfectant on his hands.

"She'll be fine," Annette assured him, knowing her durability should keep her safe.

"Now what?" Danny asked, wishing he could charge into the forest and rescue her but knowing he'd just get himself killed or captured.

"Cut the onions," the cook replied with amusement. "I'll even show you the proper way to sharpen a knife since you're from Earth."

"We'd appreciate it," Annette replied as she shook her hands dry, making sure the disinfectant/alcohol was going away from the food.

0o0o0

Beth sighed in relief and lowered her bow when Taylor reappeared without the thugs. "What happened?"

Taylor turned to look at Beth. "I might have neglected to mention that my pocket dimension is filled with monsters or that I could jump back and forth."

"In other words, you left them to die?" Beth asked as she walked over.

"Yeah," Taylor admitted, a bit concerned that she didn't feel guilty over killing the mage after he ran out of spells to 'teach' her or leaving the rest of the murderers and rapists to die.

"Good," Beth replied as she started walking down the trail the bandits had used.

"Did they have anything useful?" Taylor asked as she followed Beth, trying not to think about her questionable mental health and lack of guilt over killing the bandits.

Beth grinned as she thought about the loot she'd grabbed. "Ignoring the random junk, gold, gems and various pieces of jewelry, the mage had some cursed bracers of armor, quick movement boots and robes that teach fireball."

"Cursed bracers?" Taylor asked, wondering if they could break the curse.

"They turn you female while you're wearing them," Beth replied with a grin, thinking of the practical jokes she could play with the bracers.

"Sounds like a good way to disguise your appearance," Taylor mused as they continued down the narrow game trail.

Beth shook her head. "Only if you're a guy, they don't do anything if you're already female or at least I'm reasonably sure they don't. I want a second opinion before I try them on."

Taylor held her hand out. "Can I see them?"

"Have fun," Beth replied as she pulled the steel bracers out of her belt pouch and tossed them to Taylor.

Taylor opened her enchanting window and dropped the bracers into the identify box and hit the button. "Did you learn everything you could?" she asked as she put the bracers on, causing the curse to activate and fizzle thanks to her magic immunity. She frowned and stopped walking when she realized that she hadn't learned a new spell. 'Is that because I can't learn things from items or because I'm not in my other shard?'

"Yeah, why?" Beth turned to look at Taylor and stared when she noticed Taylor had put the bracers on and stopped walking. "Why did you put them on?"

"Someone needed to test it and I'm sort of immune to magic," Taylor replied with a grin, glad that she had a friend that actually cared.

"Anything useful?" Beth asked, wondering where she picked up that particular trick.

"A really nice defensive boost enchant that should work really nicely with a set of mithral bracers or bracelets and an enchant for turning someone into a human girl. Did you find anything else on the bandits?" Taylor asked as she started walking.

"Yeah," Beth agreed as she started walking with a spring in her steps. "One of the bandits had a copper training sword that teaches dancing, sword skill and a blade dance skill that might come in useful."

"Blade dancing?" Taylor asked, trying to focus on what Beth was saying rather than her behind. 'I know people say capes have some screws loose but this is ridiculous.'

"It probably has something to do with dancing and swords," Beth replied with amusement. "One of them had a couple of padlocks and a pair of thieves' gloves that teaches pickpocketing and lockpicking and the guy that died to a lightning strike had a pair of copper gauntlets that teaches brawling. Did they have anything useful on their clothes?"

"I didn't check the rest of the bandits but the mage's robes boost magic and mana regeneration and grant a decent amount of physical defense." Taylor pulled her attention off Beth's behind and scanned the woods. "His boots let him walk on water and were teaching him a running skill..." she trailed off as she found her attention wandering back to Beth's behind. "Do you have a seduction skill active?"

"No, just a 'cursed' ring," Beth admitted as she pulled a simple gold ring off her ring finger. "I grabbed it from one of the bandits, it boosts your defenses but it makes anyone that's attracted to you pay more attention."

"Yeah, it's a bit distracting," Taylor admitted, making a note to talk to the shopkeeper about ways to increase her mental defenses. "Where are we going?"

Beth gestured at the path where she could just barely make out a couple of faint footprints in the dirt. "I want a look at the bandit camp."

Taylor stopped walking and stared at her new friend. "Are you insane? They could have trapped the entire area."

"No, I didn't find any sleeping gear or cooking supplies in their stuff, that means they probably have a camp close by," Beth replied.

"What happens if they have a dozen bandits and you get hurt?" Taylor asked warily as she caught up with Beth.

"With the ring, I doubt they'll have anything that can cut through my defenses as long as I don't get hit by any large scale spells or powerful techniques," Beth assured her, fairly sure Taylor had already dealt with their only magic user or at least their only dangerous magic user. "Besides, they might have captives."

"Point," Taylor admitted, less than happy about running into something that could hurt her new friend but unwilling to leave someone at the 'mercy' of the bandits if she could help it. "Fine, put the ring back on, I'll do my best to ignore your butt," she muttered the last part.

Beth snickered as she put her new ring back on. "I don't mind if you look."

"I'll keep that in mind," Taylor replied as she did her best to keep her attention on the surrounding woods as they continued along the trail. She was almost disappointed when they found the bandit camp tucked into a small clearing three minutes later. Mostly because the camp didn't have any bandits, monstrous pets or anything of note other than some poor quality tents, a campfire and a circular tent that looked silk. "I was half expecting more bandits."

"Don't jinx it," Beth warned her as she glanced between the tents. "Do you want to check the mage's tent first or last?"

"Might as well check it first," Taylor replied as she walked over to the silk tent. "Give me a minute."

"I'm not in a hurry you're the one-" Beth froze when Taylor touched the silk and a black bolt of magical energy struck her in the chest, "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, it just surprised me." Taylor reached out and touched the door again then pushed the curtains to the sides and peeked inside when nothing horrible happened. "And we have loot!"

"What type?" Beth asked excitedly as she took a step closer before realizing that she probably shouldn't get any closer in case Taylor triggered a trap.

Taylor glanced around the room. "Books, bolts of cloth, glowing boxes, swords on the walls, kegs of cider, a crystal mug and a chess set along with a decent alchemy set up and enough supplies to push our alchemy up a couple of levels. Let's get everything looted then we can split things up and do some crafting back at town, I want to get you a decent pair of mithral bracers before I call it a night and head home."

"Sounds good," Beth agreed as she ducked into the tent, being careful not to touch the edges.

0o0o0

"Do I have permission to heal you?" Amy absently as yet another student stepped forward for her to check.

"No!" the student shouted as he pulled a ceramic knife and stabbed Panacea in the stomach, unwilling to let her check him and find out about all of the drugs in his system and unwilling to spend a week in quarantine detoxing from the rather impressive and disturbing collection of drugs in his system.

Amy barely registered the fact that she'd just been stabbed before Vicky grabbed the drugged out student by the arm and yanked him away from her. "Don't kill him!" she snapped reflexively as she moved her hand to the gash in her robes, trying to see how bad the injury was and put pressure on it.

The man screamed incoherently in terror as he tried to rip his own arm off to get away from the demon holding him.

Vicky wrinkled her nose as the scent of urine hit it. "Yuck," she muttered as two of the soldiers watching the last group of the students rushed over and grabbed him.

"How bad?" Vicky demanded as she knelt down to check on her sister's wound, ignoring the terrified looks she was getting from the closest students who had caught the edge of her aura.

Amy frowned when she realized she didn't feel any pain or an actual wound, just some quickly fading discomfort from where she'd been stabbed. She felt around a bit then pulled her fingers away from the gash in her robes and looked at them. "No blood?"

One of the medics walked over with her hands up, staying in Glory Girl's view and showing that she wasn't a threat. "Can I check?"

"Please and thanks," Amy replied, rather confused why she wasn't in a lot of pain as she'd felt the knife hit her.

The medic quickly and carefully checked around the gash in Panacea's robes. "You got lucky, it seems they just caught your robes."

"Good!" Vicky grumbled. "We really should talk to Sarah about getting your robes armored."

"I'm not in combat enough," Amy muttered, knowing that Carol wouldn't spring for it.

"This isn't the first time someone has come close to stabbing you," Vicky complained.

"I'm fine, he obviously just hit my robes," Amy lied, wishing she knew what was going on.

"Let's take a ten minute break and get the floor cleaned up, I'll grab you a donut and some juice," the medic offered.

"Coffee," Amy replied, knowing she'd need it if she didn't want to snap and do something she'd regret when one of the idiots in a gang said something they shouldn't.

"That's a nasty habit," the medic teased as she left to grab the supplies and to tell someone to clean up the urine on the ground.

"Better than smoking," Amy muttered, thinking about the nurses and doctors she knew that smoked despite knowing better. 'It hit me, why didn't it do anything? Getting the knot out of my hair this morning hurt more than getting stabbed which means the change was recent. Second trigger? Unlikely, I would have noticed and there would probably be blood even if I healed it instantly.'

"I'll be right back," Vicky offered as she put a smile on her face and went to talk to the students she'd accidentally hit with her aura, trying to do some damage control before it hit the boards that she was terrifying people.

"Sure," Amy replied absently and took a few seconds to mentally poke her power, trying to figure out if it felt any different. 'Yeah, I don't think it's me. Vicky? Unlikely, everything happened too fast and I didn't black out. Trump effect?' she mused, thinking about the shock the girl that had gotten stuffed into the locker had given her. 'Triggering as a trump might explain why she didn't feel like a parahuman. Some type of temporary durability?' she mused as she made a fist and tightened her fingers as much as possible, trying to see if it hurt. 'Nothing?'

Amy briefly considered grabbing a finger prick kit and testing things but didn't really want to have to explain things to the nurse and testing things in the middle of a biohazard situation seemed like a idiotic idea even with her powers. 'I'll check when I get home and cleaned up.'