Tayler and the Twisted Game part 13 (Patreon)

Taylor frowned as she studied the image of Amelia's arm and the 'empty' room she could see in the mirror. "There's something disturbing about not having a reflection."

"You'd think not having a heartbeat would be more disturbing," Amy mused, slightly annoyed but not particularly surprised that she wasn't able to sense Taylor's genetics since vampyrs were undead.

Taylor checked her wrist for a pulse. "I hadn't noticed. Can you fix the sunlight vulnerability?"

[Not a chance, you don't exactly have genetics I can tweak right now], Shaper complained.

"I can't even sense your genetics," Amy admitted as she used her transformation ability to change Taylor into a mix of a troll and a vrykul, causing her to change from a pale skinned human vampire into a nearly nine foot tall athletic looking girl with small tusks, light blue skin and breasts larger than her head that were barely contained by her shirt. "What do you think?"

[Data!] Shaper squealed as she started decoding the new form's durability and regeneration or at least trying to figure out how Skitter's body regenerated without consuming its stored energy.

Taylor reached up and poked at her tusks with her fingers, having a strange feeling that Amy's power was rather happy. "I'm not really a fan of the tusks or the insane height, my fingers are like sausages."

"You'd certainly stand out in a crowd," Amy mused as she worked on separating the bits that were physical traits like height, skin color, a decent amount of her durability and her tusks and the bits that were basically magical bioengineering source code, like Skitter's regeneration.

Taylor snorted. "I'd have trouble getting through doors and you can forget riding in a car."

Amy grinned. "Thankfully, we don't need the height or the tusks for the regeneration and I don't think it conflicts with anything the void elf has which means I can probably incorporate it into your final form. That's assuming you're still set on the void elf being half of your final form."

"It gives me immunity to having my spells interrupted by damage, gives me the ability to teleport through rifts and open a portal to my bank, what's not to like?" Taylor asked.

Amy shivered, thinking about Sophia's reaction to the whispers of the void. "Beyond the whispers of eldritch monsters?"

Taylor shrugged. "I didn't hear any."

[Any idea why she didn't hear anything when Skitter transformed into a void elf?] Shaper asked Admin, fairly sure she was going to need more examples of void elves before she could fix the problem.

[Not sure, I might need to get Amelia to temporarily swap my species so I can figure out what Phase's host was screaming about], Admin replied as she used her new wand to zap the gnoll that was charging her, causing it to twitch before collapsing and dying.

[It would provide useful data], Shaper said happily.

"Something else to look into," Amy mused as she transformed Taylor into a strange human sized mix of a barely there ethereal and a void elf that was 'missing' various body parts. "That's creepy."

Taylor stared at her reflection as she wiggled her fingers and watched the floating digits move like they were supposed to, despite the fact that she could only see a slight outline where the rest of her hand should be and she was missing bits of pieces in her arm, legs and face. "You're not the one missing body parts."

{Rip, rend, and tear} a cold and strangely inhuman voice whispered.

"Huh, Stalker might have a point," Taylor admitted, finding the voice louder and easier to understand than the other voices yet more disturbing somehow.

{Join us, we can give you power], the voice offered.

Amy noticed the look on her friend's face. "You heard something?"

"It's offering power," Taylor replied absently as she focused on the voice. {What type of power?}

{Secrets} the voice offered.

Taylor frowned when she realized the voice had heard her thoughts. 'What type of secrets?' she thought then frowned when the voice didn't answer, wondering if it was just a coincidence and she'd been mistaken.

"You should probably ignore it," Amy suggested as she tried to compare the magic genetics between both of Taylor's void forms, wondering why she hadn't heard anything the first time.

{Do you want magic secrets?} the voice asked, sounding a bit too much like Mr. Gladly trying to talk to one of the cool kids for Taylor's taste.

{I'd rather have crafting schematics}, Taylor replied absently then realized there was a difference between 'sending' a thought and just thinking it.

{The first one is free} the voice said as it sent the elf a schematic and the location of a cube. {Use the schematic to build a device to reach the cube, opening the cube will give you enough power to summon me and I'll give you more schematics.}

Amy finished looking over Taylor's new genetics then swapped Taylor into a mix of a gnome and a goblin, causing her to shrink and turn green. "Are the voices still there?"

{Anything?} Taylor tried asking the voice then shrugged when she couldn't feel a connection. "I think that snapped the connection."

"You should use the gnome's racial ability," Amy suggested, hoping she didn't have to knock her friend out.

Taylor used her new racial ability to break various forms of control then shrugged. "I don't feel any different and I don't see any strange icons on my heads up display so I'm probably fine."

"What was the voice like?" Amy asked warily.

"Cold and inhuman and strangely like some a used car salesman from a bad television show," Taylor replied as she opened her engineering tab and looked at her new magitech schematic, more than slightly suspicious of the void heart ingredient the schematic called for. "It gave me a schematic for a device to rip open a portal and the location of a cube filled with power."

"Trap?" Amy asked.

Taylor snorted. "I'd be surprised if it wasn't."

Amy sighed in relief as her friend seemed sane enough. "What are you going to do with it?"

"I'm going to try to figure out how to share the schematic with Dragon and see if she can idiot proof it." Taylor closed her engineering tab and looked at her reflection. "It feels strange to be child sized again."

"I bet," Amy admitted. "Do you think your new schematic works?"

Taylor considered the feeling she'd gotten from the voice. "I have a feeling it works, I just don't trust the side effects and I'm not touching the cube with a twenty foot pole, the voice wanted me to open it."

"Are you still interested in using the void elf form?" Amy asked, curious if she'd changed her mind.

"Let's try skipping the ethereal bit," Taylor suggested, more than a little unnerved by the missing bits of flesh in that form. "What about a half dragon void elf? I'm sort of curious what type of dragon I'd turn into."

Amy shook her head. "Not until Noelle gets back from running Chevalier through the dungeon, she's the only person we have that could stop you if you went into a rampage considering your boosted lone wolf perk."

"Good point," Taylor admitted. "What about a void elf worgen or a troll and dragon?"

"We might as well test the void worgen," Amy replied as she changed Taylor into a mix of worgen and void elf then checked her genetics. "Any trouble?"

"Not yet." Taylor reached up and felt her wolf-like ears then flipped the new mental switch in her head and transformed into a full werewolf-like creature. "I could get used to this, do you think you could add the abilities using the curse?"

"Not sure." Amy considered the question for twenty seconds as she finished sorting through the magical changes and Taylor checked herself out in the mirror. "We're going to want to run some tests first but we might be able to create something useful and stable by extracting your blood while you're a worgen."

"Assuming it doesn't just revert when I do," Taylor pointed out.

"I could always modify some blood to match after you change but I'm fairly sure the PRT would complain if we came back infected," Amy warned her.

"It's fun but I'm not sure it's worth the hassle for a boost to movement speed and claws," Taylor admitted as she wiggled her tail. "Can you pull off part void elf, part high elf or blood elf with glowing blue eyes?"

"Let's find out," Amy replied as she changed Taylor into a void elf and blood elf mix, creating a purple skinned elf that had glowing green eyes and dark purple hair and generous but not excessive assets and a nice butt that she could certainly appreciate. "What do you think?"

Taylor grinned as she checked herself out in the mirror, unable and unwilling to deny that she looked spectacular even if her clothes needed a bit of an upgrade. "I think it's a good start, especially if you can give me regeneration and flight."

"I'm a bit jealous that I can't modify myself," Amy admitted, wishing she could give herself the various tricks she'd already figured out.

"We'll figure out something," Taylor assured her as she looked at her new mana draining ability that also worked as a silence and a dispel. "We need to figure out how to permanently steal spells or figure out how to teach people spells so we can teach everything we know for cheap because Arcane Torrent is awesome, it lets me silence everyone within eight yards, dispel one of their buffs and drain three percent of their mana, refilling my reserves."

"Yeah, that's hideously broken," Amy admitted. "We should probably talk to Noelle about copying a trainer, they'd probably be willing to break the guild's rules."

"It's worth a shot," Taylor agreed. "I'd love to be able to teach myself some of my second head's priest spells."

Amy shook her head. "Now you're just trying to break the system."

"I didn't ask to be stuck in a simulation but I'm sure as hell going to take advantage of it." Taylor grinned as something occurred to her. "Speaking of taking advantage of things, we should probably head to the Scarlet Monastery when we test the half dragon form."

"Oh?" Amy asked.

"Using its special ability gives a rather large boost to my combat capabilities and what better way to test it than to rip through a dungeon?" Taylor asked with a fiendish grin.

"What was the cooldown on that?" Amy asked, not remembering.

"Two weeks, which is why I didn't grab it, a 50% boost to your stats wasn't worth the wait when it only lasts 10 minutes," Taylor complained.

"I can see that, it would be nice if swapping your race lets us reset the cooldown," Amy mused.

"If that works we could set a timer and have people summon me out of the dungeon every ten minutes," Taylor mused.

Amy shook her head. "That sounds like way too much work, if you can't break the dungeon with your boosted lone wolf perk, your gear and your minions, you probably shouldn't be in the dungeon. Save the bullshit for the bosses or if we run into trouble."

Taylor gave her a look. "You're totally going to turn yourself into a half dragon and rip through things if it works, aren't you?"

"Yep," Amy replied smugly as someone knocked on the door. "It's open."

Sophia walked in with Missy and stopped when she spotted Taylor standing in front of the standing mirror near the tailoring workbench. "Are you trying to drive her insane with voices?"

"Nah, we're trying to figure out a combination that doesn't get the voices and gets the immunity to interruptions to spell casting because of damage," Amy explained. "We're basically trying to test various combinations to see if we can make something better than a standard race."

Sophia pulled her attention off Skitter's ass. "In other words, you've turned into a mad scientist, any progress?"

"More than I was expecting," Amy replied as she held out her hand towards Missy. "Can I check your genetics for a second? I'm curious how they'd compare to Skitter with a blood elf and high elf mix to see if I can get a 25% bonus to mana in addition to the void elf abilities."

"As long as I can get an upgrade," Missy replied as she stepped forward to let Amy touch her hand.

"How come you're not worried about the crazy voices?" Sophia asked warily as Amy poked Missy's hand so she could compare the combination to Taylor's current genetics.

Taylor turned to look at Stalker. "Because they're just voices and I only heard the voice when Amy mixed the ethereal and void elf races together."

"So you didn't hear them screaming about wanting to kill you and consume the world?" Sophia asked warily.

Taylor stared at Sophia. "No, it just wanted me to open a box. The screaming insanity might be a parahuman thing or maybe they just like mages. Either way, helping it sounds insane."

"No shit," Sophia grumbled, trying not to think about the screaming voices that had sounded like nails on a chalkboard and a thousand people talking at the same time when she could hear them at all. "Changing the subject, shouldn't you be working on hitting level forty so you can open portals?"

"I was going to but Amelia wanted to run some tests after she upgraded my resistances and Admin wanted to make sure the group doesn't run into trouble," Taylor explained. "Besides, I need to finish crafting a puppet."

"Puppet?" Sophia asked.

"It's basically a combat puppet that people can use to help them fight," Taylor explained as she pulled up her puppet schematic, looking at the ingredients she needed. 'Gems, cloth and thread, could be worse.'

"Is it any good?" Missy asked.

Taylor closed the window. "No idea. The description says that the damage improves based on what it's made out of and the wand it has equipped."

"Meaning we're going to need to farm some decent wands and fabric," Sophia mused.

"Probably," Taylor agreed then turned and looked at Amy when she poked her shoulder with her finger. "Done?"

"One more time," Amy replied as she changed Taylor into a combination of a void elf and a high elf now that she had a decent idea how Missy's abilities combined. "If I combine this bit of code with that one…" she trailed off in thought as she tried to figure out the best way to combine everything and realized she might need to run a couple more tests on some NPCs before she risked someone's life. "I might need to run some more tests."

"Does that mean you're done for a bit?" Taylor asked.

"Yeah. Do you want me to swap things back to the void and blood elf cross?" Amy asked.

"Yeah." Taylor waited for Amy to swap her races back then walked over to the workbench and started making a puppet out of silk. "Let's see how well this works."

Sophia watched Skitter's hands almost seem to blur as they quickly assembled a silk rag doll over the next minute with two moss agate eyes, a stitched mouth and glowing bits of dust covering it's yarn like hair. "That's it?"

"Apparently," Taylor replied as she tossed the doll to Amy. "Do you want to try it?"

"Sure." Amy activated the rather plain doll, causing it to jump to the ground and change into a half naked foot tall young woman that was wearing an unbuttoned white lab coat and a crimson scrunchy that was holding back her wild green hair. "Huh."

[Oh!] Shaper squealed as her perspective shifted and she found part of herself staring up at the group from the floor. She looked down at her hands then wiggled her fingers. [I have hands!]

[Hands?], Admin asked Shaper as she continued picking the stranglekelp, wondering what Shaper was talking about.

[Your host made a puppet I can control, is that legal?] Shaper asked Admin.

"I wasn't expecting the puppet to look that human," Taylor admitted.

"She's certainly interesting," Amy said as she opened her character sheet and looked at her combat pet's equipment slots.

[I'll file a report, assume it's fine], Admin replied, knowing the report wouldn't reach the network and thus wouldn't generate any trouble.

"Looks like she can wear wizard gear and use wands," Amy said.

[I need a magic wand!] Shaper said, looking forward to zapping things as she almost never got to zap things.

'Wands? I can do that.' Taylor pulled a wand out of her inventory that she'd made and handed it to Amy. "Here."

Amy dropped the wand into her doll's equipment slot and grinned when a tiny wand appeared in Shaper's hand. "That's a halfway respectable amount of damage," she mused as she looked at the damage rating for her new pet.

[Can I have one?] Expanse asked excitedly at the same time Missy asked, "I can have one?"

[Tell your host to make us a puppet], Phase demanded.

[I'm sure she'll get around to it], Admin replied, not particularly bothered if Phase didn't have a puppet because she was a bit of a bitch.

Shaper pointed her wand and the wall and zapped it, briefly leaving a black scorch mark before it vanished.

"That might be useful," Sophia mused, figuring she could stick it on her pet.

Shaper briefly considered zapping Phase's host before deciding it wasn't worth the hassle and putting her wand in a pocket.

"Give me a second I'll make more," Taylor said as she got to work making another doll, looking forward to seeing what she could do with better ingredients.

Shaper walked over to Amy and held her hands up.

Amy reached down and picked her new assistant up and set her on her shoulder. "How's that?"

Shaper gave Amy a thumbs up, figuring catching a ride was better than running everywhere.

Taylor finished the next doll and tossed it to Sophia. "Here."

Sophia activated the doll and dropped it when it changed into a wild haired girl with a hockey mask and an untied straightjacket. "Weird..." she trailed off as the miniature girl glared at her. "I think my puppet is insane."

"Are you surprised?" Missy asked as Taylor started crafting another puppet.

Sophia absently flipped Missy off. "I was sort of sort of expecting them to be the same, what's Skitter's puppet like?"

"Not sure," Taylor replied as she continued working on her next puppet. "I'll try the next one."

"Sure, I can wait," Missy said.

[Give me a weapon!] Phase demanded.

'That's not happening,' Taylor mused as she worked on finishing her puppet, wondering if the voices were connected to their powers. She finished the puppet then activated it, causing the puppet to change into a copy of Skitter's current appearance and getting another pet window, exactly like she'd cast Eyes of the Beast. "Hmm, that's not the same."

"What do you mean?" Sophia asked.

"I mean, I'm moving it around like a puppet," the small version of Taylor said, causing everyone to stare at the puppet.

"Are you sure you're not a parahuman?" Missy asked.

Taylor shrugged. "Reasonably sure, we could always give one of them to the director and see what happens."

"Might as well," Amy agreed.

Taylor picked her minion up and set her on the table then got to work making another minion as she started making her minion a dress using her minion, pleasantly surprised that she could use her puppet for crafting.

Sophia stared at the minion that was making a little dress. "That's bullshit. I get a deranged minion and she gets pets she can control?"

"Life isn't fair," Taylor replied as she continued working.

"It probably has something to do with the fact that it's her skill," Amy offered, figuring her unique skill also covered the rest of her pets because she certainly wasn't a parahuman and the rest of the hunters couldn't control their pets and walk at the same time.

Phase kicked Sophia's boots. [Give me a weapon.]

"Makes as much sense as anything else," Sophia agreed as she hit the icon on her heads up display and returned her pet to her inventory.

[Hey, I was using that!] Phase complained, annoyed that her host didn't even react.

'This would be easier if I could tell the voices that they're crazy.' Taylor frowned as she realized she was sounding a bit nuts. 'Except I know they're real or at least real enough,' she told herself, doing her best not to jump down the rabbit hole as she finished the puppet she was going to give Warp. She tossed the puppet to Missy. "Here."

Missy activated the puppet and grinned when it hit the ground and turned into a tiny cowgirl, complete with a hat, a sheriff's star and miniature gun. "Nice."

[How did you get a weapon?] Phase complained.

[I'm awesome], Expanse replied smugly.

"Does that actually do any damage?" Sophia asked.

Missy checked her pet's page on her character sheet. "Not without equipping a wand."

"That's a useful…" Taylor trailed off as the cowgirl stepped up to the top of Warp's shoulder in one step. "Okay, that's cheating."

Expanse snickered as she sat down, rather happy with her ability to look around and interact with things.

Amy looked at her puppet. "If our puppets can use our abilities can you alter me?"

Shaper smirked.