Broken Soul Part 4

"Any progress?" Akari asked as she sat down next to Myst on Selena's couch, having noticed that he'd used four spirit stones in the last couple of minutes while they were trying to decompress from dealing with a bunch of asshole disciples.

"I'm still popping spirit stones like candy but at least I've cleared the hallway," Myst replied as he finished draining another spirit stone.

"That's it? I thought your Purified Pool of Sludge technique was supposed to increase your mana pool?" Akari asked.

"It increases the capacity, it doesn't turn mana into rocket fuel or increase my regeneration which means I'm basically stuck burning through spirit stones because trying to cleanse the room eats through my mana faster than I can eat spirit stones," Myst explained as he reached into the cardboard box sitting on the coffee table to grab another handful of spirit stones. He frowned when he realized he'd grabbed one of the upgrade tiles along with the spirit stones he wanted.

"Can you upgrade your talent that converts ki to mana?" Akari asked as she studied the glowing tile.

"No, wrong type of upgrade…" Myst trailed off as he realized that using the tiles might give him a solution to his problem. "You should probably take a couple of steps back, I'm going to try something dangerous."

Akari jumped off the couch and took several steps away from Myst. "What are you going to do?"

"I'm going to try to upgrade the technique scroll with the cursed upgrade tile," Myst replied as he pulled the goblin summoning scroll out of the box. "If I can upgrade the technique, the goblins the technique summons might be worth killing."

"And they might be a problem," Selena pointed out as she walked out of the study that was attached to her living room.

"Do you want a bunch of crappy copper swords or do you want something that's actually worth adding to your weapons?" Myst asked the teenager as she walked over.

"Something worth it," Selena admitted without any hesitation.

"That's what I thought." Myst used the upgrade tile on the scroll before he could change his mind, causing the scroll to glow with an angry red color for a couple of seconds before the scroll opened and information flooded his mind.

"What did you get?" Akari asked, wondering what he'd gotten cursed with.

"I learned a technique to summon a horde of homicidal goblin warlocks that should drop some halfway decent caster gear, no clue on the curse," Myst admitted, wishing he'd had a chance to check the scroll before the curse activated it.

"Give me a second," Selena said as she pulled a magnifying glass out of her pocket and looked at Myst, wanting to make sure he wasn't going to stab everyone in the back or go insane. "Huh, you're hunted by dark forces. Basically any monsters within a mile of your location will 'know' how to find you and that they'll be generously rewarded for your death."

"Lovely," Myst muttered, fairly sure the curse would end up killing his avatar if he didn't break it.

"Can you break it?" Selena asked, hoping they didn't have to try to convince the sect to help since their version of help would be to kill him or use him as bait until he ended up dying.

"Probably, give me a minute." Myst concentrated on the staff and himself and used his purification technique, quickly cleansing the monster attraction curse and unraveling part of the curse on the staff before he had to stop and quickly grab a spirit stone so his avatar could keep the mist at bay.

Selena sighed in relief when she checked the Myst with the magnifying glass and realized the curse was gone. "That's almost worth not having spirit roots."

"Almost," Myst agreed as he finished draining the stone. "Can you check the staff before I curse it?"

"Sure," Selena replied as she checked the staff. "Looks like you weakened the curse, it's going to take a couple of hours before the staff reappears in your hands rather than seconds."

"Yeah, that sounds like a feature rather than a bug, I think I'll leave it that way," Myst replied as he grabbed another cursed upgrade tile and used it on his staff, causing it to warp and shift, going from an exquisitely carved wooden staff with a chicken on the top to a roughly carved obsidian staff with a mutated looking dragon on the top with its lopsided wings spread wide. "Weird."

Selena reread the staff's information her magnifying glass was showing a second time to make sure she hadn't missed anything. "That's a nasty curse, every time you kill a monster with the staff you have a ten percent chance of having your strength permanently cut in half."

"Why the fuck would anyone use it?" Amy asked as she walked over with a hamburger that Ron had conjured, wondering how much damage the curse would do to someone's muscles and if she could fix it.

Selena glanced over at Amy. "The staff uses the lost strength to permanently increase the energy regeneration it gives everyone that is holding it. The staff also increases the drop rate and quality of drops by twenty percent each, causing everything you kill with it to have at least a twenty percent chance to drop loot, even things that shouldn't drop anything."

"Permanently screwing over your body for the chance to get loot isn't a good trade," Gwen complained.

"I'm aware but it might be worth loaning the staff to some of the assholes we run into," Selena suggested, thinking about some of the more annoying disciples that had suggested that the only way to get ahead in the world was on her knees.

"Thus the nasty part, you'd just break the curse if it wasn't useful," Myst mused as he grabbed another spirit stone and drained it. "How much does it increase the regeneration?"

"It gives you four types of regeneration: health, ki, stamina or mana. It randomly increases one of them by ten percent each time it cuts your strength in half," Selena explained.

"I know a couple of people I wouldn't mind loaning the staff to," Taylor said, thinking about their alchemy instructor who was worse than useless as he liked shouting at people and didn't explain anything.

Amy sighed when she realized the rest of the group had thoughtful expressions. "We're supposed to be better than the locals."

"How many of them wanted in your pants?" Gwen asked, less than amused by the arrogant locals she'd had to deal with since most of the ones she'd had to deal with had a severe lack of tact, decency, or personal space.

"Only one and he suggested I wear a bag over my head," Amy admitted after finishing a bit of her hamburger, almost wishing her sister had been there to beat the asshole into pulp.

"Seriously?" Gwen blurted out.

Amy shrugged. "They don't like freckles."

"Welcome to hell, where they don't have any taste and where family connections matter more than talent or personality," Akari complained.

"Don't worry about it, we can probably find better techniques," Myst assured her then looked at Taylor. "Do you have any spirit beasts that can use weapons?"

"Spirit monkeys can use weapons…" Taylor trailed off as she connected the dots. "I'd need a ton of spirit stones and using a bunch of spirit monkeys to farm upgrades seems a bit disrespectful when we have a sect filled with assholes that need a reality check."

"Admitting that I have a magical weapon that could give people an unlimited source of health, stamina and ki with enough work sounds like a good way to commit suicide by cultivator, I'd rather not," Myst replied as he grabbed the scroll out of the box. "Does anyone want the ability to summon a paddle that can't actually do physical damage, just cause pain?"

"Yes!" Selena replied without hesitation. "It should let me make saps that don't actually cause brain damage."

"That would be nice but I don't think it works that way, it's probably just a sex toy," Amy argued, knowing people generally underestimated the damage knocking people out caused.

“Still worth having,” Selena said with a smirk.

Myst glanced at the rest of the people in the room to make sure no one had any objections or better suggestions then handed Selena the scroll. "Have fun."

"Thanks," Selena replied and used the scroll, learning the technique.

"What are you going to do with the other upgrade tokens?" Ron asked as he walked over with a large plate filled with nachos.

"I was thinking about upgrading the robes that let me conjure ingredients, every new ingredient opens up new possibilities," Myst replied as he drained another spirit stone, hoping they could figure out a way to boost his magic enough that he could cleanse the alchemy lab before he ran out of spirit stones.

Taylor pulled one of her spirit stones out of her pocket and created a spirit monkey with blue fur and glowing red eyes. "I'm not sure he'll be able to kill anything with the staff but it's worth a shot."

"When did you learn to summon a monkey?" Ron asked, taking a step back as he studied the angry looking monkey that came up to his knees.

"One of the disciples had a monkey in the hallway, it unlocked after I got within about thirty feet," Taylor explained as she used her spirit familiar technique so that she could look through the monkey's eyes.

"Cool," Ron offered insincerely, then worked on eating his nachos with one eye on the abomination.

Myst grabbed the robes out of the box and used one of the upgrade tiles, causing the grungy robes to acquire a couple more stains. "Did I get cursed?"

Selena checked Myst with her magnifying glass then checked the robes. "You're good, the robes on the other hand are cursed to give the wearer an uncontrollable form of Telepathy or Telekinesis if they don't already have it or corrupt and increase their power a small amount every time they conjure an ingredient if they already have the ability. It's basically a coin toss for Telepathy or Telekinesis."

"How uncontrollable?" Ron asked thoughtfully.

Selena shook her head. "You might be able to get away with awakening the powers and training them extensively but the more power you have, the less control you have."

Myst glanced at the spirit monkey that was glaring at everyone. "Monkeys can wear clothes, right?"

"Let's test it," Taylor said, curious if she'd be able to unlock a controllable version of telepathy or telekinesis if her minion managed to unlock an uncontrollable version.

Myst tossed Taylor the robes then drained another spirit stone, annoyed that dealing with the mist was eating through his spirit stones but glad that it was increasing his maximum mana reserves. "How's your cat doing?"

"She's killing a lot of chickens, I'm going to need you to collect the loot at some point," Taylor replied as she worked on putting the robe on her spirit monkey, a touch surprised that it shrank down to fit the much smaller creature as soon as she got it over the monkey's head. "Activate the robes…" she trailed off as the monkey activated the robes and promptly pulled something out of one of the pockets that looked like horse shit then tossed it at Myst, causing him to dodge out of the way.

"Little shit," Myst complained and dodged out of the way again as the monkey conjured a small glass jar filled with a glowing green sludge and flung it at him. He caught the jar before it fell off the couch and hit the stone floor. "Can you tell him to follow directions?"

Selena glared at the monkey as it reached into a pocket to grab another ingredient. "Stop throwing shit or die!"

The monkey smirked as he conjured a rotten apple and tossed it at Selena, causing her to conjure a spectral frying pan and block the apple.

"Follow Myst's directions!" Taylor ordered the spirit monkey, not sure how well it would work but figuring it was worth a shot even if she could feel the monkey's annoyance at having to take orders.

Selena glared at the monkey that was now hiding behind Taylor.

Myst touched the monkey's tail with his foot while it was distracted and handed the monkey to his avatar, causing the robes to drop to the ground and return to their normal size. "That's useful," he said, glad that he could move the spirit beasts without their equipment.

"And annoying," Selena grumbled as she headed toward the kitchen to toss the rotten apple so she could let her frying pan vanish.

Myst handed the staff to his avatar then the monkey so he could start killing monsters or die trying. "Did you manage to unlock Telepathy or Telekinesis for your spirit beasts?"

Taylor checked the list of abilities she'd unlocked for her spirit beasts. "Yes to both, they're just stupidly expensive."

"The cost might decrease the more you grant it. Burn a couple of spirit stones and run some tests, I doubt the monkey is going to last all that long," Myst told her as he grabbed another spirit stone.

"Are you sure you have enough stones?" Taylor asked Myst, worried about him running out since he was burning through them pretty quickly.

"Don't worry about it," Myst told her as he used another spirit stone, trying to build up a cushion since he wanted to try a couple of things. "The stones just need to last long enough to get the staff boosted a couple of times."

Taylor pulled a spirit stone out of her pocket and created another monkey. "Toss me the robes, I want to see how much we can increase their powers before the lack of control gets problematic."

"Have fun," Myst replied as he tossed her the robes, trying to ignore the fact that he was burning through spirit stones at a ruinous rate or the fact that he had serious doubts about the monkey's ability to boost the staff in time.

0o0o0

'Okay, you're down to nine spirit stones and you can't leave to get more without the shit spreading, do something or run,' Myst told himself, hoping his 'slightly' questionable plan didn't result in the corrupted mist killing him or driving him insane if he screwed up. 'You have nine seconds before the mist hits the end of the hallway and I have to bolt.'

Myst took a breath to steady his nerves. He dropped his purification technique that was holding the mist at the doorway and cast his exploding chicken spell as the corrupted mist poured out of the alchemy lab and down the hallway towards him. He quickly cast his goblin horde spell, conjuring half a dozen black robed goblin warlocks in the mist.

"Kill!" he ordered his chicken of doom then quickly turned and darted around the bend in the hallway, ignoring the goblins’ anguished screams as the mist ate their legs. He grinned when he heard the whoomp sound of his chicken exploding and received a touch more than double the mana that he'd spent to summon the chicken and the horde of goblins. He took two seconds to listen for any sign that the goblins had survived then stepped back around the corner and used his purification technique on the mist that was flowing toward him.

Myst's avatar forced himself to focus on purifying the mist and not stare at the loot scattered in the hallway where the goblins had perished, mostly because he was fairly sure the mist would eat the loot if he didn't purify it.

"I wasn't expecting that to actually work," Myst muttered.

"What?" Taylor asked, pulling her attention away from where her cat was leading a rather annoyed and clawed up chicken over to her monkeys so the monkey with the staff could kill it.

"I managed to summon a small goblin horde without getting killed or eaten by the mist," Myst explained with amusement as he drained another spirit stone, wanting to make sure he had enough mana to purify the hallway. "Can you send your cat to drag the loot closer?"

"Sure, give me twenty seconds to finish luring a chicken over to the monkey with a staff then I'll send Fluffy your way," Taylor told Myst.

"Does that mean you can farm them using the mist?" Akari asked hopefully.

"I don't know," Myst admitted as his avatar glanced at the scattered collection of loot now that he'd forced the mist back to the door to the lab. "I tagged them with my doom chicken spell to make sure they died but I might not have to considering how much they were screaming before the chicken finished them off."

"Did they drop anything interesting?" Selena asked hopefully.

"A couple of staffs, rods and wands, a wizard hat, at least one upgrade tile and a handful of spirit stones which means we might be able to keep things going until the monkeys can get the staff working," Myst mused.

"The cat should be there in two minutes," Taylor said as she mentally gave her cat marching orders. "Do you think you could fix the spirit monkeys?" she asked Amy.

"I don't know, I'll have to run some tests," Amy admitted, not sure if the curse would prevent her fixing things or if it was basically just a once and done effect that she could reverse with a bit of work and extra food.

"Or we could let the monkeys kill each other with the staff," Ron suggested.

Taylor glanced at Ron then shook her head. "I'm not going to order my minions to bash each other to death, it feels wrong."

Ron sighed. "It was just a suggestion."

"I've got a decent system where the extra monkeys grab chickens and the monkey with the staff bashes them to death," Taylor explained.

"Sounds fair," Myst offered.

"How is that fair?" Akari asked.

Myst turned to look at the dark haired girl. "They're chickens, the only good chicken is a roasted chicken and the only reason to not kill them all immediately is making sure future generations get eggs and meat," he said, thinking about the vicious chickens his parents had when he was growing up.

"Roast chicken is pretty good," Akari agreed as she turned to look at Ron. "How about it? Roast chicken?"

"I could eat," Ron agreed as he gestured to the coffee table and used his talent, causing a platter of cut up roast chicken to appear.

Myst drained another stone then grabbed a slice of chicken and ate it while waiting for Taylor's cat to get there and grab the loot.

0o0o0

"This is going to be awesome!" Selena squealed as she gleefully looked through the pile of goodies that Myst had collected from his treasure run.

"Hell yeah," Ron agreed. "Can I have the wand that makes people dance?"

"Does it work on monsters?" Myst asked as he watched the fourteen year old gleefully start organizing the magical items in piles on the table, rather than just randomly calling out what some of them did.

Selena double checked the rod that Ron was talking about since she'd just been glancing over the loot for curses the last time she'd checked it. "No, just humans and it gets easier to ignore with repeated exposure."

"I should probably give you a lecture about morality and mind control but yeah, have fun and don't get yourself killed. I might want it back," Myst told Ron, not particularly concerned if Ron played with the wand since it might increase their general mental defense or at least give everyone some experience with mind control in a 'controlled' setting. "Don't use it on anyone while they're working."

"Fair enough," Ron said as he grabbed the wand and pointed it at Akari. "Do you want to dance?"

"Sure," Akari replied as she walked over to a clear spot in the room. "Hit me."

Ron waved the wand at Akari and frowned when Akari started dancing like a chicken with their head cut off. "I think the wand is broken."

"Are you insulting my country's traditional dance of friendship?" Akari asked with amusement as she let the magic wash over her and let her feet and arms move as they wanted.

"Yes," Amy said bluntly, having noticed her smirk.

"Fine, I'll try something else," Akari said as she swapped to a sexy and sensual dance, giving Amy a look that said, 'I could do great and terrible things to you and you'd enjoy them.'

Myst watched as the attractive dark haired girl danced around Amy in a way that was making the healer blush. 'Here's hoping she can learn to relax,' he thought as he grabbed both of the upgrade tiles that he'd received from the dead goblins and held them out so that Selena could check them. "Can you check these?"

Selena pulled her attention away from Akari long enough to check the tile then went back to watching her new friend dance. "They're basic upgrade tiles. What are you going to use them on?"

"Can you upgrade your weapon ability?" Myst asked, fairly sure the tiles weren't powerful enough to give her talent a boost since they didn't work on his treasure ability but figured they might as well check.

Selena picked up one of the tiles and focused on it. "Nope."

"Nothing?" Taylor asked.

"I can upgrade my speech ability but I don't care, I have a spell for talking to people if I have to talk to the locals," Selena replied as she set the tile in Myst's hand next to the other one then went back to watching Akari. "You should probably give one of the tiles to Akari so she can upgrade her Chains of Sin ability."

"I don't have any objections, assuming she's planning on using it," Myst replied, not seeing a point in being greedy with the upgrade tiles since Akari's ability was impressive and he could find more.

"That depends," Akari said as she stopped dancing with her left hand on Amy's arm and her right touching her opposite leg. "Do I have any volunteers for sex?"

"Yes," everyone other than Peter and Taylor replied without hesitation.

"I mean…" Amy trailed off as she realized that she was actually interested in having a good time with her new friend. "Seems like a shame to waste the vitality increases," she said defensively, feeling like she had to justify herself, but wanting something to hold onto, even if it was just for a while.

Peter turned and looked at Gwen. "Seriously?"

"She's hot and if she can get free stats and ki, who am I to say no?" Gwen asked. "Besides, Amy has already given everyone a clean bill of health."

"Go ahead and try it, if it works, feel free to use the other tile," Myst suggested, curious if she could upgrade her ability or if they'd have to stick to upgrading the rest of their minor talents.

Akari picked up the upgrade tile and focused on her talents, trying to figure out if she could upgrade them. "Huh, that's a yes." She used the tile and read the description that appeared in a window in front of her. "That pushed my Chains of Sin talent up to half of my partner's energy gains and a fourth of their stat gains rather than a fifth which is a decent upgrade."

"You should use the second one," Myst suggested, not seeing a reason to stop until they couldn't upgrade her ability or they reached diminishing returns.

Akari used the second tile, upgrading her talent to two thirds of the mana and a third of the stats her partners gained for a week after having sex with them. "And we're up to two thirds of the energy and a third of the stats. Amy? Do you want to come with me to my bedroom and make me a very happy girl?"

"Yes," Amy replied before she could change her mind.

"Have fun!" Selena said cheerfully as Akari and Amy left the room.

"I'm dreaming, aren't I?" Ron asked.

Gwen reached out and flicked Ron's ear. "Don't overreact and don't make it awkward."

"I'm chill," Ron lied.

"So, how many magic items can I sacrifice?" Selena asked, changing the subject.

Myst gestured at the collection of magical items, knowing the cat was already picking up another batch. "Whatever you need."

"Sweet," Selena replied gleefully. "Do you want a wand or a rod?"

"What's the difference?" Myst asked, wishing he'd had the time and attention to check the items in the treasure world.

"The rods generally have a better boost to magic but the wands have the ability to blast things with a stream of magic that doesn't eat your mana. Unless you're planning on fighting things up close and personal, you're probably better off with a wand, especially since I can just keep feeding it magical items until it has a decent bonus to magic."

Myst considered the benefits of having a melee weapon before remembering that he was in a world with people that could destroy trees and boulders with a punch and his martial arts skills were a bit rusty at best. "Let's start with a wand."

Selena focused on her talent and conjured a smooth eight inch crystal wand that tapered down to about the size of the tip of her pinkie at the end. She checked the wand with her magnifying glass. "That's better than I was expecting."

"Oh?" Myst asked.

"It does about as much damage as a torch, except that you have a twenty five foot range," Selena replied as she grabbed the wand that could send out a stream of 'holy' energy and sacrificed it to the new wand, boosting the conjured wand's abilities. "Okay, now we're talking, one hit with this and vampires are going to catch flame and dust before they take two steps."

"Vampires are real?" Gwen asked, thinking about the various legends she'd heard of.

"Unfortunately," Selena grumbled as she grabbed another wand and sacrificed it, boosting the bonus to magic, damage and the range. She grabbed one of the staffs and sacrificed it, causing the wand's magic bonus to jump. "They're basically demonically reanimated corpses."

"Is the rest of the gear usable?" Ron asked.

"Some of the bracelets offer a small amount of protection and both of the witch hats boost magic and protect the wearer from rain," Selena explained as she added a rod to the wand, increasing the magic boosting quality and increasing the amount of damage the wand would do if you hit someone with it.

"That should get you started, I can always boost it later," Selena said as she handed the wand to Myst.

"Thanks," Myst replied with a smile when he realized that his purification technique had started eating some of the corrupted mist in the lab as soon as he'd touched the wand. "That's going to make everything easier."

"Do you want a rod or a wand?" Selena asked Taylor.

"Can you make a rod that works like a wand?" Taylor asked as her cat dropped another bag of goodies near Myst's avatar. "I wouldn't mind having the option of hitting something if it gets close."

"Let me try something first." Selena focused and conjured a twenty inch lightweight crystal rod then used her other technique to summon a long wooden paddle that couldn't cause injuries and sacrificed it to the rod. She checked the results with her magnifying glass then conjured another paddle and sacrificed it, boosting the pain quality until it was twice as painful as a hit should be.

"Is there a reason you're making it unable to hurt things?" Taylor asked, wondering if she had a plan.

"I'm curious if the restriction on damage applies to every type of damage the weapon causes or just melee," Selena replied as she sacrificed one of the weaker wands to the rod, giving it the ability to shoot a blast of cold at anything within fifteen feet.

"Any luck?" Myst asked as his avatar touched the expanded bag filled with loot with his foot and 'handed' it to him.

"The wand damage isn't covered by the damage reduction quality and getting hit should hurt like hell but not cause any actual injuries, I figured we could use it for training," Selena explained, knowing that pain was a good teacher.

"That's probably safer," Taylor agreed as Myst started pulling more rods, wands and spirit stones out of the bag. "How long do you think you can keep farming…" she trailed off as Myst's avatar waved his wand and summoned two dozen goblin warlocks rather than the usual six.

"Shit!" Myst complained as his other half bolted around the corner, fairly sure the chicken of doom wouldn't kill all of them since they were spread out.

"What's wrong?" Ron asked, figuring something had gone wrong with the pocket dimension.

"The wand boosted my goblin summoning spell," Myst replied as his avatar summoned another chicken of doom and told it to run around the corner, doing his best to ignore the kitten that darted past him and the horrible screams of agony coming from the goblins as the mist ate them. He handed his avatar the wand then grabbed a spirit stone and drained it, wanting to make sure he had enough mana to deal with the goblins and the mist.

"Are you going to be okay?" Gwen asked in concern.

"Yeah…" Myst trailed off as the mist reached the corner, swirled up like it was hitting a glass wall then vanished. "What the hell?" he asked as he carefully walked over to check on the mist and found the hallway and the lab completely clear of mist. "Huh, I think the mist trap broke when it reached the end of the hallway, that's going to make grinding my mana a bit harder but at least I won't have to burn through all of my spirit stones keeping the mist contained."

"Are you going to loot the desk?" Selena asked, thinking about the dagger that Myst had mentioned getting a brief look at.

"Yeah," Myst replied as his avatar headed for the lab.

"I'll have Fluffy grab the loot," Taylor offered as she told her kitten that it was safe to collect the loot.

"Thanks," Myst replied as his avatar headed into the alchemy lab. He carefully checked the desk, ready to turn and run if the trap reactivated.  He got close enough to read the floating display on the jagged knife sitting in the drawer. "Cursed Knife of Soul Theft, it has a twenty percent chance of hitting the user with a death spell every time you strike a monster and has a seventy five percent chance to mutate the user whenever they kill a monster. There's no way that's worth the five percent chance to steal a stat point or a point of ki."

"You could always try breaking the curse," Selena suggested. "Or I could try sacrificing it."

Myst shook his head. "That would probably break the enchantment."

"So? It's practically useless," Ron pointed out.

"To you," Taylor said with a smile as she thought about her remaining spirit monkeys. "Hand it to a monkey, if they don't die, they'll end up mutating, they might turn into something interesting."

"Or they'll end up turning into a tentacle monster," Gwen pointed out.

"It's worth a shot, Myst can always break it later," Taylor argued, curious what type of options she could unlock for her future spirit beasts.

"Might as well," Myst agreed as his avatar headed out of the alchemy lab to help sort the loot, slightly annoyed that he'd ruined his farming place but relieved that he wasn't stuck there as it was rather boring.