Dragon King Part 30 (Patreon)

Egwene glared at the whitecloak captain that was tied to the ground with threads of air. "Any last words?" she asked, curious if he'd implicate his superiors or if this was a personal project.

The captain laughed. "I know your kind, you might be able to bind us but you can't kill with the power now that your life isn't in danger, the bindings will break and I'll run."

"Is that what they told you?" Egwene asked with a touch of amusement, fairly sure that wouldn't work with an actual Aes Sedai as she'd already tied the weaves off and was going to use a sword to kill them. "Do I look like an Aes Sedai?"

"Not yet which is probably why the Tower has you escorting their devilspawn," the captain argued as he turned his head to look at Myst. "You can't let her kill us."

"Why not?" Myst asked, still a bit amazed that the man thought he could threaten or bribe his way out of his current situation.

"Because we're doing the light's work and we haven't received a trial by the proper authorities," the captain argued.

Myst shook his head. "I'm going to ignore your idiotic claims about the light, if the creator didn't want people using magic, they wouldn't be able to touch it. The fact that you're too stupid to put the pieces together and put the blame for The Breaking squarely on the Dark One and every piece of shit stupid enough to believe his lies about immortality is not my fault and yes," he turned to look at one of whitecloaks glaring at him, "I'm talking to you Borin, you're not important enough for the Dark One to care about or even remember your name."

"Are you seriously accusing one of my men of being a darkfriend?" the captain demanded, wondering how the child knew the name of one of his people.

"I'm curious, out of the thirty odd people under your command, did you know that half of them were darkfriends?" Myst asked with amusement, adding slightly to the numbers since it was only about a third of the group.

"You're lying," the captain sputtered.

"I have no reason to lie, you're going to be dead shortly. As for a trial, I'm not willing to hand you over to a local magistrate and let them send you on your way with a slap on the wrist because a girl stopped you from killing and or rapping her and thus lacks any sort of 'proof' of your guilt." Myst turned to look at one of the whitecloaks. "Really Jor, killing then raping her, do you have any shame?" he asked, knowing the man hadn't actually been thinking of raping anyone but he was feeling petty.

"What?!" Jor sputtered.

"I'm fairly sure he also fucked his mother up her ass while she was drunk, and the things he did to his younger sister and the family pet, shocking," Myst replied with a shrug.

"You're lying," Jor screamed.

"No more than some of the people that tried to get you to kill their neighbors because they didn't like them," Myst replied coldly. "Either way, your personal crimes aside, you're guilty of joining a cult that has tenants encouraging their members to kill people that have been trained by the Tower, thus you're guilty by the very act of joining said group."

"By what law?" the captain demanded, knowing damned well that being a member of the Children of the Light wasn't illegal in Andor.

"Mine," Egwene said as she stepped forward and hacked the captain's head off, not seeing a point in arguing with the soon to be dead men or dragging things out.

'Yeah, a certain ruthless disregard for the lives of shitheads would technically count as more evil than the more naive version,' Myst mused as Egwene started executing the rest of the suddenly screaming whitecloaks, most of whom were frantically trying to escape the bonds they couldn't see while begging for the mercy that they hadn't and wouldn't give their victims.

Egwene ignored the screams and begging as she walked through the group hacking off heads, wanting to make sure none of the monsters could hurt anyone ever again.

'At least she has decent intentions.' Myst opened his gacha menu and looked over his options while he waited for Egwene to finish executing the prisoners. 'Musical device, bag, box, office supplies, stockings, spice container and a weapon wheel,' he mused as he bought all of them, sort of curious what he'd end up with.

Thankfully, he didn't have to wait all that long before the wheels started slowing down. He glanced over at the whitecloaks when one of them started screeching like a banshee as Egwene stalked towards him. He turned his attention back to the music wheel as it stopped and reflexively caught the plastic credit card shaped gift card when it dropped, forgetting for a moment why touching the prizes before checking them was a bad idea.

Myst scowled when the card vanished and a window popped up on his HUD. 'Would you like to install new software? No, where the fuck is the no button?' he asked as he glared at the popup window, wondering if he'd just screwed himself.

"Great," Myst muttered when the notice was replaced by a download progress bar, reminding him of some of the annoying programs he'd dealt with over the years and making him feel stupid for being careless.

He caught the old fashioned looking bag of popcorn that dropped from the bag wheel with his telekinesis and looked at it with his upgrade ability, not trusting anything that claimed to come from the Circus of the Damned. 'Demoic popcorn? Eating it turns you into a cannibalistic demonic clown with magical powers and an obsession with putting on a show. Yeah, no thanks on getting turned into an insane clown or a demon.'

He put the delicious smelling popcorn in his inventory for eventual copying and distribution to assholes and used telekinesis to catch the wireless printer that dropped from the office supply wheel. He grinned when he checked the printer with his upgrade ability and realized it was enchanted to conjure an endless amount of paper, never jam, be compatible with nearly any electronic system that used printers and to never run out of ink. 'Yeah, that's the holy grail of office supplies,' he mused as he spent mana to increase the printer's durability so it wouldn't break.

He put the printer in his inventory then reached out with telekinesis and caught the pair of black silk stockings that dropped from the stockings wheel. 'Sexy Stockings of Loot? Magically creates gold foil wrapped chocolate coins based on the power of the creatures killed. Doesn't work if they're worn with underwear or if you wear something else over them other than shoes or boots? Actual gold and high quality chocolate, that's probably worth testing with some conjured slimes. Makes me wish I had a spell like legend lore so I could figure out where some of this stuff came from.'

Myst spent a decent amount of mana increasing the stockings' durability so he didn't accidently damage them then stuck them in his inventory. He glanced at the progress bar for the annoying malware on his HUD then caught a wooden shipping crate with his telekinesis. "Warning: Mad Science?" he muttered as he read the words someone had painted on the crate with a shaky hand. "Mail to Miskatonic University: Arkham, Essex County, Massachusetts? Yeah, because that's not disturbing," he muttered as he carefully set the crate down.

"Where did the wooden box come from?" Egwene walked over after dealing with the last of the captured whitecloaks.

Myst glanced at Egwene, a touch surprised that she'd mostly avoided getting covered in blood, with the exception of her boots. "One of my abilities basically picks up or copies random objects from other worlds."

"You have a lot of strange abilities. Are you going to open it?" Egwene asked, curious about his ability.

"I'm considering it," Myst replied, weighing the risks of opening the box versus the risk of tossing it into the Ways or stashing it in his inventory until he could properly dispose of it. "The other option is tossing it off the path in the Ways."

Egwene frowned as she read the writing on the crate, not sure what most of the words meant even if she could read them. "What are the chances of someone nasty finding it?"

"More than I'd like," Myst admitted as he used telekinesis to open the crate, ready to drop it through a portal into the Ways if something jumped at him. He nearly had a heart attack when hundreds of cotton balls spilled out of the crate and he saw a medusa carefully suspended in the middle of the crate by bungee cords so it couldn't crash into the sides of the crate, at least until he realized the naked monster girl was actually carved from a greenish stone and wasn't actually alive.

"Are you always this jumpy?" Egwene asked as she examined the likelike statue of a busty woman with snakes for hair that had the hint of a smirk, wondering if it was some type of shadowspawn from his world given the way he'd reacted.

Myst closed his eyes and took a deep breath then opened them and let the breath out slowly in an attempt to get his heart to stop racing. "Sorry, for a second I thought it was real."

"Which would be bad?" Egwene asked.

"Medusas can turn people into stone," Myst explained as he checked the statue with his upgrade ability, relieved to find out that the statue was just a statue. 'It's a university, it probably has a perfectly normal art department,' he told himself as he used his telekinesis to catch the wooden spice rack that dropped when his spice wheel stopped.

"That's terrifying," Egwene admitted as she pulled her gaze away from the statue and looked at the floating herb rack, only recognizing a couple of the herbs. "Spices?"

Myst checked the wheel with his upgrade ability. "Endless spices, mostly."

"Mostly?" Egwene asked, thinking about some of the strange and expensive spices she'd had the last and only time she'd been in Tar Valon.

"They refill over a week, so effectively endless," Myst replied as he stuck the spice rack in his inventory, looking forward to having Dawn reverse engineer the enchantment so they could make containers that duplicated new spices. He used his telekinesis and caught the double edged blood red crystal sword that dropped from the weapon wheel.

"I wonder if that was carved or if they used the power to create it," Egwene mused as she studied the sword.

"Not sure," Myst admitted as he checked the sword. "Huh, that's useful and nearly useless against people outside of training."

"Nearly useless," Egwene asked as she pulled a rag out of her belt pouch and started cleaning her sword.

"It won't actually cut people, it just causes a decent though not excessive amount of pain and killing monsters with it will permanently increase your sword skill," Myst explained as he stuck the blade in his inventory.

"How much does it increase?" Egwene asked thoughtfully.

"Depends on your current skill, your talent for fighting and the power of the monsters but you'll always get a small increase," Myst explained as he used his telekinesis to pull the cotton balls out of the crate so he could see the bottom and make sure there was nothing else in the box.

"I don't suppose I can borrow the sword for a bit?" Egwene asked, knowing some of her friends could use the help and she was curious if she could duplicate it.

Myst smiled when his mind conjured up an image of Egwene running around killing slimes with the sword while wearing a copy of the stockings. "I don't have a problem with letting you borrow it once the girls have had a chance to study it." He glanced at the dead whitecloaks. "Can you open a skimming portal or should I open a portal to the ocean and toss them through after looting them?"

"We might as well feed the fish," Egwene replied after considering the question for a couple of seconds.

Myst checked the cotton balls and the box with his upgrade ability to make sure they weren't cursed or weird then stuffed the cotton balls back in the crate and put the panel back on. 'Did they seal something in the statue?' He quickly checked his collection of abilities, wanting to make sure he hadn't picked up a curse or insanity. 'How much paranoia is too much? You're dealing with shit from Lovecraft's world, or someone messing with people,' he mused.

'Screw it, you checked, sometimes a statue is just a statue,' he reminded himself as he walked over and stuffed the crate into his inventory, figuring he'd deal with it later. He turned his attention to the dead whitecloaks and started looting. "Can I talk you into teaching classes on crafting ter'angreal for a couple of weeks?"

"Sounds fun," Egwene replied with a smile, not seeing a problem with taking a couple of weeks to teach and learn some new tricks, especially since he'd already given her a king's ransom in new abilities.

"Thanks, some of the girls have the talent but we're sort of stumbling around in the dark when it comes to figuring out how to start." Myst opened a portal back to the Red Keep. 'How do you feel about looting another version of the whitecloaks?' he asked Zara via telepathy.

'Always fun, do they have a version of Seanchan that needs looting?' Zara asked, looking forward to grabbing more channelers.

'Probably,' Myst replied with a grin as he thought about spiking the empire's plans and stealing a mountain of treasure, mostly because it would reduce the trouble the Seanchan could cause if they didn't have a bunch of magic users they could use to rip armies apart. 'Speaking of collecting channelers, we should probably look into raiding the Land of Madmen.'

'Remove curse isn't going to fix the fact that the females are just as nuts as the males,' Zara pointed out, thinking about the way Dawn had described the twisted island.

'No, but we have potions that can erase memories,' Myst replied as he worked on looting the whitecloaks. 'I'd rather not resort to drastic measures but most of the natives are insane or at least insanely hostile to anyone they're not related to.'

'I'll grab some girls and we can start raiding, where's the portal?' Zara asked as she grabbed her pack and headed for the door to her room.

'In the workshop,' Myst replied.

'See you in a couple of minutes,' Zara told him, looking forward to raiding the whitecloaks and the Seanchan nobles.

'Sure,' Myst replied and turned his attention to his HUD when his 'Progress Bar' finished filling up. He was expecting something annoying, not a rainbow colored musical note icon that quickly faded from view like the rest of the icons when he wasn't paying attention. He mentally tapped the new icon and stared at the elegant looking background music menu that appeared. 'Mute, off, option to project the music around me. Huh, doesn't look like ransomware and doesn't even eat gold for songs, then again, I wouldn't mind a feature for buying songs for gold considering the song list is empty.'

He closed the music menu and opened a new portal to the middle of the ocean and started tossing the dead whitecloaks through, figuring he'd play with the menu later.

0o0o0

Myst glanced over at where Egwene was staring off into space while her soup got cold. "Do you want to talk about it?"

Egwene took another sip of her soup before it got annoyingly cold, wishing it was even half as good as her mother's cooking. "I'm just trying to figure out what I'm supposed to be doing with my life."

"Whatever you want," Myst replied with a grin as he turned his attention back to the teenage girl on stage that was juggling a set of leather balls for the 'amusement' of the crowd, knowing most of the crowd's interest had more to do with the way she was dressed than her albeit impressive talent at juggling or the gleeman in his late teens or early twenties sitting on the edge of the stage playing a fun, if mindless tune to go with the juggling.

"That doesn't help as much as you think it does," Egwene argued as she pushed her soup away from the edge of the table, not interested in finishing it when they could get something better once they left.

"I'm aware," Myst admitted. "There's nothing wrong with spending a couple of years as a student or a tourist."

"You could always be my girl," a thin man with a pockmarked face offered as he leaned over the table, 'obviously' drunk by the stench of his breath and his lurching movement.

Myst scanned the man's mind then promptly knocked him unconscious with telepathy when he realized he wasn't drunk and was planning on causing trouble so they'd stalk out of the tavern, right into an ambush, mostly because he'd confused Egwene for her counterpart and he'd seen her talking to the Aes Sedai before and figured she had gold. "Lovely place, maybe we should call it a day?"

"You're the one that picked the place." Egwene pushed the man off the table, sort of glad that he'd knocked the soup over so she wouldn't feel guilty about not finishing it.

'We should try recruiting the girl on the stage, she's an excellent juggler and she can channel,' he suggested as he dug through the thug's memories, trying to figure out where the rest of his gang crashed so he could pay them a visit and make sure they didn't continue preying on young ladies. He sighed when he realized that several of the rough looking dockworkers in the crowd were actually part of the same gang as the man he'd dropped and that one of them was stalking towards them.

"What the bloody ashes did you do to Brend?" a large solid man demanded as he walked over, glaring at Egwene.

"Nothing," Myst replied as he stood up, wishing he was back to his original height as he would have been taller than the thug, if a decent bit narrower around the middle. He skimmed the man's surface thoughts, not particularly surprised that he was part of the gang that was looking to rob Egwene's counterpart. "The piece of shit was so drunk he passed out, now piss off unless you want to take this outside."

The man laughed at the teenage boy that he could have tossed through a wall with one hand. "It's time someone taught you some manners."

"You're welcome to try," Myst replied with a grin, curious if the man would take a swing or wait until he was outside. 'Toss a coin to the juggler and see if anyone wants to bet on the fight, we're going to want a couple of witnesses that aren't part of the gang in case the guards show up unless we want to get Egwene in trouble.'

Egwene pulled a coin out of her jacket pocket on the way to the door and tossed it to the girl on stage, not the least bit surprised when she caught it and made it vanish in her pocket. 'Do you have a plan?'

'Yeah, we take some bets, kick the shit out of some of the idiots and everyone walks away,' Myst replied as he headed towards the door with a spring in his step, hoping things didn't result in a bloodbath as he didn't want to screw things up for the local Egwene.

Egwene turned and looked at the crowd. "Five silver on my friend, do I have any takers?"

"Yes!" several people in the crowd spoke up.

"Excellent," Egwene replied more calmly than she felt as she took her extra coin purse out of her belt pouch and followed Myst, glad that she had a copy of the defensive gear from the stash in Ebou Dar because she couldn't see the crowd taking their loss well.

Myst grinned when he saw a pair of thugs walking towards the door pause when a dozen people followed them out into the street. "Let's get ready to rumble!"

"You'd better not lose Marc," Egwene told Myst as the crowd placed their bets.

"Don't worry, I have this in the bag, no weapons, just good clean fun, right?" Myst asked, making sure to project his voice so everyone in the crowd would hear him.

The thug cracked his knuckles. "I don't need weapons, let's do this."

Myst held his hand up with a smirk. "Hold your horses, let my friend finish collecting the bets, I want people to hate your guts for losing to a child and costing them silver."

"I want in on this," one of the guys said, not wanting to miss the chance for free silver.

Myst smiled as he saw the juggler girl walk out and place some bets of her own, a touch surprised that she was betting on him until he scanned her surface thoughts and realized she knew Egwene could channel and suspected a trick. "Ready?" asked the thug with a smirk.

"Ready," the thug replied then lunged forward to grab the little shit.

Myst dodged to the side and kicked the man in the nuts, dropping him to the ground with an agonized scream and putting him out of the fight. 'Better than the knee, those never heal right,' he thought as he took a couple of steps back in case the man was faking how much pain he was in. "Pretty sure that's my win."

More than a couple of the men in the crowd scowled when they realized they'd just lost their bets and drinking money for the next couple of weeks on what was supposed to be a sure thing.

"That's bloody foul," one of the men complained as he stepped up. "No kicking below the belt you little shit."

"No worries," Myst assured him. "You want a chance? Place your bets, I have the blood of kings, no man can be my equal!"

'You've lost your mind, they're going to be pissed when you beat everyone,' Egwene warned Myst as most of the people in the crowd ponied up more silver for another bet, figuring the trick wouldn't work a second time.

'Live a little,' Myst replied, happy that no one knew where Egwene came from or what her actual name was.

"Everyone done?" the thug asked as a couple of friends dragged the first guy off to the side so they could continue the match.

The juggler shook her head as one of the men tried to tell her he was good for the bet he wanted to make. "No coins up front, no bets."

"Fine," the man grumbled as he faded back into the crowd.

"Start!" the thug announced as he lunged for Myst, ready to block a shot to his nuts.

Myst grabbed the man's arm when he went to grab him then twisted, using his momentum to toss the man into a barrel. He sprinted over and punched the man in the temple when he started to get up, dropping him unconscious. "And match!" he said cheerfully, not feeling particularly guilty about dropping him with a temple shot as the thug had been planning on breaking a couple of ribs for the lost bet.

"He bloody cheated!" one of the thugs in the gang shouted as he pulled out a knife, causing the rest of the gang to pull out knives.

'So much for keeping things from escalating,' Myst mused as he reached under his cloak and pulled his sword out of his inventory as he pulled his hand back, making it look like he'd been hiding a sword on his back. "There can be only one!"

"Ashes!" one of the guys with a knife cursed then turned and ran down the street, wanting nothing to do with a kid with a strange silvery sword that had no fear, maybe they could take him but he'd already dropped two of their enforcers without a weapon.

Myst smiled at the nearest thug, not sure how to feel when the man also turned and ran rather than fight a teenager with a sword. 'Seriously, what the hell?'

The juggler smiled as she walked over to where Egwene was as the crowd dispersed before the guard could show up. "I was half expecting you to have to cheat," she told Egwene in a whisper.

"They wanted a fight, they got a fight," Egwene replied as she watched the two thugs that had been watching the door draw their short swords. "Put the swords away, this doesn't have to end in violence."

"You're right, it doesn't, give us your purse," the shorter of the two thugs ordered.

Myst reached out with telepathy and scanned the thugs' memory, trying to get an idea if they'd stab them over a couple of gold. 'Lovely, you're a fucking cultist.' He looked at the other man that was only slightly less corrupt. "Ten gold if you stab your friend," he told the thugs cheerfully then used telepathy to take control of the less corrupt guy and stab the darkfriend in the side.

"Light," Egwene sputtered as the thugs quickly turned on each other and stabbed each other to death.

"So much for finishing the rest of the set," the juggler muttered.

Myst turned to look at the red haired girl that looked in her early to mid teens. "How much were they paying you?"

"Food and lodgings, I got to keep half the tips," she admitted, knowing it wasn't the best deal but it wasn't like she had a lot of choices since she didn't have any family worth a damn anymore. "Gavin is going to want half the bets and the gold coin you tossed me."

"Barkeep?" Egwene asked.

"Gleeman, so he says," she grumbled, not particularly impressed now that she'd had a chance to listen to some of the other gleemen in the city and realized he was only decent with his lute.

"If you're interested in singing, I know a retired bard that might be willing to teach you a couple of songs," Myst offered as he saw the other Egwene walking down the street towards them.

"Retired bard?" the girl asked excitedly, looking forward to getting some real instruction.

Egwene nodded. "He used to be the court bard for the queen before he retired."

"That sounds better than sticking around. I'm Azril, future bard in training," the girl told them as she held her hand out towards Egwene.

"Nice to meet you," Egwene replied as she shook the girl's hand.

Myst skimmed her memories, realizing that there wasn't any love lost between the girl and her family as her father was a miner in Baerlon that saw her as uncontrollable and outspoken and was happy that she was gone and wasn't causing trouble with his second wife. "Welcome to the party."

"Thank you," Azril replied with a smile, not seeing a problem with jumping ship since Gavin had started getting a bit pushy about them sharing a room.

"Is there anything you need to grab from your room?" Egwene asked.

"Nothing I can't do without, just a bedroll and some extra clothes, I have my pack," she said as she gestured towards her leather satchel she'd gotten from her mother before she died which was the only thing she owned that she couldn't replace.

"I'll replace the bedroll and the clothes," Myst assured her as he started walking towards the local Egwene, wanting to be gone before the guard showed up.