Dragon King Part 18 (Patreon)

"I'm starting to wonder if the quality…" Myst trailed off as he glanced away from the rather unimpressive left shoe that silenced your left foot and looked at the coffin-like box in his inventory and realized that he'd found something that was a game changer.

Hermione stuffed the cultist she'd been mentally interrogating back into her spatial ring and looked over at where Myst was leaning up against the bathtub with a smile on his face. "What did you find?"

Myst pulled the coffin out of his inventory and set it down on the bathroom floor. "I found the holy grail of item creation, a coffin that splits an item into two weaker knockoffs."

"Are you going to upgrade it so it makes perfect copies?" Hermione asked thoughtfully, thinking about the magical items they could duplicate.

"Nope," Myst replied with amusement as he looked at the coffin with his upgrade ability, wanting to make sure his inventory description hadn't missed anything. "I'm going to upgrade it so the copies are half as strong as the original," he said as he adjusted the sliders on his upgrade ability and pushed a river of mana into the coffin to upgrade the artifact.

Hermione shivered as she felt the sheer amount of magic flowing into the coffin. "Half? Why? Would that apply to curses?"

"Give the girl a star," Myst teased as he finished upgrading the coffin. "With any luck we can weaken curses and negative traits that I can't just upgrade away."

"Does that work on skill books?" Hermione asked thoughtfully.

"No clue," Myst admitted as he opened the coffin and checked the interior, finding that the inside looked like a coffin rather than a box. He pulled the enchanted left shoe out of his inventory and dropped it in the coffin, wanting to test something he didn't really care about the first time. "We should probably test that," he said as he closed the lid. "At least it doesn't have a coin slot or a display for printer ink."

"Ink?" Hermione shook her head when she realized what he was talking about. "Probably for the best."

Myst lifted the lid, revealing two worn left tennis shoes. He checked the shoes with his upgrade ability, curious how the coffin had affected the enchantment. "It only silences your foot half the time, I guess that's better than only muffling the sound." He pushed mana into upgrading one of the shoes, changing it from a worn shoe to something that looked new and boosting the percent back up to 100%. "Should I boost the other shoe or leave it for the enchanters to study?"

"You might as well leave it," Hermione replied as she walked over to look in the coffin, "you can always boost it later and it might give us a better idea how they work. You should try something cursed."

Myst put the shoes in his inventory. "You might want to plug your nose, the goblin cloak stinks."

Hermione quickly plugged her nose and watched as Myst plugged his nose, pulled a shabby and heavily stained brown cloak out of his inventory.

Myst cast a quick and mostly ineffective cleaning spell on the cloak. He dropped it in the coffin and closed the lid. "Let's hope it cuts the stench in half," he muttered as he opened the lid, sounding a bit silly as he had his nose plugged. He checked the numbers on the two faded brown cloaks that were even more tattered than the original. "Less magic, less stench."

"Good," Hermione said, still holding her nose.

Myst pushed mana into the cloaks, shoring up their ability to hide the user in shadows and leaving their weakened stench quality alone. He closed the lid then opened it and grinned when he saw four cloaks in the bottom of the coffin. "That's useful and different enough that the Tower shouldn't complain about warder cloaks."

"They're going to complain anyway, they're magic," Hermione pointed out.

"I'm aware," Myst admitted as he went back to looking through his inventory for the source of his reckless curse. "Oh, socks to keep your feet warm and dry, goggles that show a glow around stolen objects…" he trailed off as he read the description of a three inch rubber ball. "Huh, I found the problem, I ended up with an idiot ball."

Hermione stared at Myst. "I can't tell if you're joking."

"Only sort of, the semi sentient bouncing ball causes reckless behavior for anyone that sees it, the curse gets worse the longer you're around it and the ball can turn invisible. It's also attracted to groups," Myst explained as he checked his status effects page, wanting to make sure that it couldn't curse him while in his inventory.

Hermione dropped her hand from her nose as the stench wasn't quite as bad as it was and she'd smelt worse in potions. "Are you going to destroy it?"

"I'll probably keep it for a rainy day," Myst replied with a grin.

"Myst," Hermione complained.

"The effect only lasts a week," Myst assured her. "I wouldn't mind studying it if we can figure out a way to block the effects and it seems safe in my inventory."

"You should probably stick it in a bag just to be safe," Hermione suggested, wanting to make sure that Myst didn't lose his marbles.

"Or a warded box," Myst agreed as he went back to looking through the rest of the stuff he'd picked up from his gacha wheels. "Oh, nice, a storage ring for clothes that lets you instantly swap outfits and keeps them clean and mended."

"We're going to have to duplicate that," Hermione agreed as Vanessa opened the door and walked into the portable bathroom. "Any luck?"

"More than I was expecting," Vanessa replied with a smile. "Sheriam traded the sphere to an innkeeper to cover the cost of the mirror that broke when she arrived. Luckly, he stashed the sphere on a pillow in his study rather than locking it in a box."

"Any idea which country or world you landed in?" Myst asked.

"Andor, more specifically Caemlyn," Vanessa replied with a grin. "As far as I can tell, the world was the same until ten years ago when a group of female channelers started burning their way through Amadicia. The king and the whitecloaks claimed the Tower was responsible, the Tower claimed they weren't and told them that they couldn't legally help them as they couldn't legally enter their country."

Myst shook his head. "I can't say I blame their choice of targets but that seems a bit excessive."

"More like insane," Hermione argued, thinking of the children that would get caught in the middle.

Vanessa shrugged. "I can't really blame the magic users, if you have an entire country of people that hate magic, they've probably stood by and let witches get stoned or helped. The witches created barriers over the entrances to the capital, torched the city's granaries and watched the city tear itself apart."

"Brutal and effective," Myst admitted. "What about the Children of the Light?"

"They lost two thousand people when a wave of fire washed over the soldiers they'd sent to put the city to rights. I'm guessing the channelers linked or had access to an angreal, it wouldn't have been that hard to kill the soldiers if they're not used to dealing with magic users willing to fight back. After the channelers wiped out the first group of soldiers, they tossed up a barrier around the Fortress, lit fires inside of the barrier and let the people die from the smoke."

"Any idea what started the mess?" Myst asked, trying to make sense of the drastic change in the way the Tower worked.

"Not really," Vanessa admitted. "There were rumors that an Aes Sedai was murdered by the whitecloaks in Altara but it could have been anything. Officially the Tower blamed the entire situation on a group of wilders but there are a number of interesting rumors that make me wonder if it was sanctioned by the Tower."

"Do you think she ended up in the evil Sheriam's world?" Hermione asked thoughtfully.

"Shouldn't be that hard to check." Myst pulled the evil and twisted Aes Sedai out of his spatial ring and dropped her on the air mattress. He checked her memories, trying to figure out when she'd lost her mind. "Huh, she made a deal with some demons for power. Were there any rumors of a black tower appearing randomly?"

"More like ghost stories," Vanessa replied with a grin. "They started twenty years ago. They basically boil down to on dark moonless nights, a black tower can appear along the road from Baerlon to Caemlyn, if you walk inside the tower you'll find young women of exceptional beauty that are willing to grant wishes in exchange for gold or services."

"That fits," Myst agreed. "Sheriam made a deal with one of the women for a ritual to increase her power that involved sacrificing a bunch of people for power."

"Most dark rituals have a price, either in lives lost or sanity, it's almost never worth it. Did they warn her?" Vanessa asked.

Myst checked her memories. "No, she traded them a bag of gold and they gave her a ritual that was supposed to boost her powers by converting stolen life force into magic. The ritual worked the first time she used it on a drunk, giving her a boost to her magic and changing her eyes to resemble cat's eyes."

"That sounds like a modified dark blessing, not a bad choice," Vanessa mused.

"The more she used the ritual the more demonic traits she acquired and the less effective it became at boosting her power," Myst added as he tossed Vanessa Sheriam's memory of the changes and the ritual.

"Never mind, that sounds more like a modified dark pack ritual where they removed the limit on the number of connections you can have at the same time," Vanessa said. "We might have to kill them."

"Let me guess, they're going to summon a greater demon?" Hermione asked warily, not sure why else their demonic trainer would want them dead.

"No, I just want their notes," Vanessa admitted. "I'm guessing they forged a connection so they're getting power from all of the death and perversion Sheriam causes and they're 'paying' for the boost by giving other demons access to her senses. She's remarkably stable considering what normally happens when you have multiple demons empowering the same person like that."

"She's stable?" Hermione asked in disbelief.

"She's not melting or catatonic, so yeah, remarkably stable," Vanessa replied as she looked through Sheriam's memories until she found the second ritual. "Nothing wrong with the second ritual or at least it's not corruptive, just dark."

"She skinned a person alive to get her appearance back," Hermione complained.

"Just because something isn't magically corruptive doesn't mean it's nice," Vanessa replied with a shrug, rather impressed by the dark ritual that moved the demonic traits to the victim before you skinned them and turned them into an outfit that would let you take on the appearance of a demon and left Sheriam looking better than she'd started.

Myst frowned when he checked and realized that Sheriam knew of dozens of Aes Sedai that had visited the demon tower and that they were planning to sacrifice everyone else in the Tower during the next full moon in an attempt to gather more power. "We're going demon hunting."

"Can it wait until we've warded the waygates?" Hermione asked, knowing they needed to make sure the shadowspawn couldn't use the Ways.

Myst checked Sheriam's memories. "Probably, we should have three days before the cultists sacrifice a couple of thousand people for power, assuming time is flowing at the same rate."

"I'll try to hurry," Hermione assured him as she opened a portal to the waygate in Manetheren's ruins and stepped through.

"Stay safe," Myst ordered as the portal closed. "At least we have a couple of days."

"Assuming they're the only group of cultists," Vanessa pointed out.

Myst reached down and stuffed Sheriam's evil alternate in his spatial ring. "We should probably check on that."

"It wouldn't hurt," Vanessa agreed, looking forward to getting their notes.

"At this rate, I'm going to need a vacation from my vacation," Myst muttered as he started working on upgrading the cloaks in the coffin so he could duplicate them again.

'We're back, where are you?' Dawn asked via telepathy.

'On my way back, Hermione and I were trying to sort through the Black Ajah she'd captured but something came up so she left to work on the wards in the Ways,' Myst replied as he stuck the coffin and the air mattress in his inventory.

'What happened?' Dawn asked, feeling the annoyance bleeding into Myst's message.

'Cultists,' Myst complained as he started walking towards the door. "Dawn's back."

"Good," Vanessa agreed. "Do I have permission to track the demons down and have a chat with them?"

"Have fun," Myst replied. 'We basically found an alternate dimension where a group of demons are handing out demonic rituals to unsuspecting idiots.'

"That's the plan," Vanessa replied as she left with a spring in her step, happy that Myst wasn't a control freak.

'When are we leaving?' Dawn asked.

'That depends, did you manage to kidnap the princess?' Myst asked as he focused and turned the portable bathroom back into a small sculpture of an outhouse and stuck it in his inventory.

'Technically we have permission but yeah, she's in the tower, why?' Dawn asked.

'I want to copy her talent for making ter'angreal and her affinities and create a couple more teachers before we leave to make sure all of the girls are getting a decent education,' Myst replied as he opened a portal to the tower.

'We're in the lobby,' Dawn replied.

'I'll be there in a minute,' Myst told her as he stepped through the portal.

0o0o0

Myst paused as he walked into the tower and saw the attractive red haired teenage girl standing next to Dawn and Moiraine. 'Decent curves, bright red hair with a touch of gold and a blue silk dress, yeah, probably for the best that you're taken and I'm not insane,' he mused as he used his upgrade ability to make sure the girl was actually the princess. "Welcome to the Tower of Magic."

Elayne turned to look at the child dressed in black. "Thank you."

Dawn gestured towards Myst. "This is Myst, he owns the Tower."

"Oh, I was expecting…" Elayne trailed off, not sure what to say.

"Someone older or female?" Myst asked with amusement.

"Yes," Elayne admitted.

"I'm older than I look," Myst replied as he made a popsicle stick skill book of Elayne's ability to create ter'angreal.

Elayne turned and stared when she saw a naked teenager with blue skin walk out of the hallway out of the corner of her eye. "Why is she naked and blue?"

"The tower is clothing optional because of one of the teaching ter'angreal and the blue skin is because of a special ability," Myst explained as he started making skill books of her elemental affinities.

Elayne glanced at Moiraine, wondering if she'd known about that particular fact. "What does the ter'angreal do?"

"The ter'angreal drastically reduces the time it takes to learn to channel and boosts your ability to retain what you learn," Moiraine explained, knowing that Elayne would be more likely to believe her than someone that wasn't an Aes Sedai.

"Does the tower have ter'angreal like that?" Elayne asked, fairly sure someone would have mentioned such ter'angreal before.

"Not as far as I'm aware," Moiraine admitted. "This is a unique chance to learn before you study in the White Tower."

"Where am I staying?" Elayne asked.

Myst smiled as Egwene walked in with Krisa, looking decently happy and carrying a lump of silver as large as two of her fingers curled up. "You'll be staying with Egwene, at least for a couple of days, try not to kill each other."

"Is there a reason she's wearing a leash?" Elayne asked, feeling a bit lost and nervous about the entire experience.

"It's a ter'angreal, it basically forms a link which keeps you from channeling too much and it helps increase the rate you learn," Myst explained. "It also makes learning certain talents easier."

Krisa reached up and unhooked the a'dam from Egwene's neck. "We can show you the room on the way to classes."

"You'll be fine," Moiraine assured her niece.

"Thank you," Elayne told Krisa, not sure how to feel about the new school as she followed the other two young women out of the lobby but fairly sure it was going to be better than the tower, if only because they were jumping straight to learning to channel and not worrying about things she already knew.

"What's going on with the cultists?" Dawn asked once the girls were out of earshot.

"Cultists?" Moiraine asked.

"They're planning on sacrificing a bunch of novices and accepted in a mirror world. One of the magic items I have access to is a standing mirror that allows access to a mirror world or multiple mirror worlds, I've only tested it once so I'm not actually sure. Someone walks in, a better looking, more powerful and evil version of the person walks out."

Moiraine stared at Myst. "Why would you want evil versions of people?"

"Long story, I was basically drunk because of one of the other magic items I picked up trying to clean up the taint in the Ways. I was hoping they'd have better talents or at least different talents so I could copy them. I was expecting a small shift in personality, I wasn't expecting the test subject to go from political evil to gleefully planning to murder a village," Myst admitted.

"Who did you send through?" Moiraine asked.

"Sheriam Sedai," Myst admitted. "She was part of the Black Ajah."

Moiraine scowled as she mentally reviewed some of her interactions with her fellow Aes Sedai, trying to figure out if she'd missed something. "Do you know why she joined?"

"She joined the Black Ajah to help her political career before everyone realized that the last battle was coming and the Dark One was going to be able to touch the world, so I figured she was evil enough to deserve banishment and not evil enough to be concerned with a more powerful and nastier version. We made sure she can't hurt anyone with the Oath Rod and set everything up in an abandoned stedding to make sure she couldn't do something nasty."

"Did you get anything useful?" Dawn asked.

"Not really, her evil copy is about as strong as Moiraine and her talents are different but nothing particularly exceptional. Compared to the girls from the Two Rivers, she's basically worthless."

"Assuming their world has the same weaves," Moiraine said thoughtfully.

"No clue," Myst admitted. "I'm not an expert when it comes to channeling, I just recall a couple of descriptions of certain lost weaves. Long story short, she made a deal with a creature from another world for power, same with a number of Aes Sedai and they're going to murder everyone in that version of the White Tower if we don't stop them."

"Do you need help?" Moiraine asked.

"I wouldn't mind someone that looks the part of an Aes Sedai and knows the area," Myst admitted, figuring it would be easier to have the help than to try to brute force things.

"I'm going to need more details," Moiraine said as they headed towards the stairs. "Like how much time we have."

"Less than three days," Myst admitted, not surprised when Moiraine started walking faster.

0o0o0

Viaria froze when a purple skinned demon with elf-like ears and a staggering amount of magic walked into the tower, wearing a kilt and a t-shirt. "Welcome to the Black Tower of Delight, how can I help you?" she asked respectfully, hoping they weren't going to have a problem.

"I was curious about the rituals you're selling," Vanessa replied as she studied the busty pale skinned demon behind the counter that was wearing a dress that was practically painted on.

"You'll have to be more specific, we've sold a few," Viaria replied as she discreetly grabbed her wand from under the counter.

Vanessa shifted her stance in case she had to dodge. "I heard a rumor that some of your cultists are going to sacrifice a bunch of magic users in Tar Valon."

"All sales are confidential," Viaria told the other demon. "We take…" she gulped when Vanessa summoned a blade that dripped a nasty and unsettling black ichor. "What did you want to know?"

"My current summoner has a thing about innocents being injured, who do I need to kill to stop the ritual?" Vanessa asked.

"Do you have any idea how much trouble I'd be in if I handed you my contract list?" Viaria raised an eyebrow when Vanessa pulled two gold coins out of thin air with her free hand. "I have professional standards…" she trailed off as Vanessa made the coins vanish and pulled a thumb sized ruby out of her pocket dimension. "By which I mean, I'm of course willing to provide information. Tell you what, if you give me the ruby, I'll explain why you're not going to need to hunt my clients down."

Vanessa walked over and set the ruby down on the counter. "Please explain."

"As you're probably aware, sacrificing people only gives you a small fraction of their actual value in energy and magic, it's mostly a numbers game unless you can collect their souls and pawn them off to a greater demon or a warlock with the right type of spells."

"It's also a good way to get heroes to show up to wreck your day," Vanessa said.

"Exactly," Viaria agreed. "Which is why I gave them a ritual designed to rip their souls out and give me all of their power, they're willingly sacrificing themselves which drastically increases the amount of power their deaths will give me. So, you don't actually have to do anything, they'll kill themselves if they use the ritual."

"Can I see the equations on that?" Vanessa asked, curious how she'd set the ritual up.

"Are you going to stop the ritual?" Viaria asked.

"Are you going to use the energy to end the world, summon a greater demon or otherwise screw the world up?" Vanessa asked.

"I'm a lust demon, dead worlds don't have any food or people to make contracts. I'm not summoning something that is just going fuck," Viaria paused as she realized what she'd just said, "okay, I'm not summoning something that is going to screw me over and make my life more complicated and the world needs a bit of chaos, not complete destruction," Viaria explained.

"In that case, I'll leave your group of idiots alone if I can see the ritual," Vanessa offered.

"Cool," Viaria said as she reached under the counter and grabbed a copy of the ritual and handed it to Vanessa.

"What can you tell me about the ritual that Sheriam bought?" Vanessa asked.

"I cobbled it together from a couple empowerment rituals and removed the limiters, I was curious if she'd explode," Viaria explained.

"What about the dead people?" Vanessa asked.

"I told her that the more evil her victims were, the better the ritual would work," Viaria replied with a smirk. "I was sort of expecting her to explode but figured she'd probably take out some cultists in the process."

Vanessa laughed. "Can I see the ritual? It's a hobby."

Viaria smiled as she pulled out her book. "Of course, would you like to stay for lunch?"

"I could eat," Vanessa replied as she gestured and conjured two plates filled with steaks, knowing they didn't actually have to eat but the thought counted and they could certainly appreciate the taste.