Myst in DC (Side Story)

An: Side story is set... sideways, forwards... it's a story... in the same greater universe as Myst in DC. Things will eventually make sense.

Dawn Troy glanced at her daughter’s hands as the six year old walked into the kitchen wearing her favorite pair of worn in work jeans and a blue t-shirt with some grease smudges scattered about from whatever ‘secret’ project she was working on. Thankfully her daughter’s long red hair was still tied up in two adorable pigtails so it had managed to avoid getting dirty unlike the rest of her. She was rather amused that her daughter looked like a miniature clone with a couple of minor changes, mostly the fact that she had blue eyes rather than green though the ‘innocent’ smile on her face was probably a clue that she was up to something as it was a familiar smile she’d seen in the mirror on many an occasion. “Do you need to wash your hands?”

Rain shook her head. “Nope, Auntie Hermione would give us the Mom look if we left the lab without washing our hands.”

Dawn snickered as she pictured Hermione’s look of disapproval, the same look that she usually got when talking about Ron doing something stupid. “Yeah, she’s had way too much practice keeping Ron in line. Are you going to tell me what you’re making?”

“It’s a surprise,” Lexie said as she walked into the kitchen.

“Nothing dangerous, right?” Dawn asked as she glanced between the two girls, there were a few hints that they were related, mostly their sparkling blue eyes and near identical noses but most people wouldn’t have noticed unless they were looking. ‘She takes after Myst more than Rain does, at least they’re both adorable troublemakers.’ She was just glad that they were extremely durable thanks to a combination of genetics and potions, otherwise she’d probably lock them in a tower or something to keep them safe. 

“Nope,” Lexie assured her ‘aunt’, confident in her ability to duplicate her father’s portal device and knowing that they’d need the portal device. Sadly, her precog wasn’t all that clear on why they needed the portal device, just that bad things would happen if she didn’t build it and worse things if she told her parents, which sucked because it felt like she was lying even if she wasn’t.

“We should get an A+ on our project once we finish,” Rain assured her mother, not sure what else to say as lying to her mother was really hard and building a portal device from scraps was probably not the best idea her half sister had ever came up with. 

“Have any of the adults signed off on it?” Dawn asked, wanting to make sure her little mad scientists weren’t getting into mischief even if she mostly trusted them to be reasonable as Sabrina and her had used the magic belt when they’d had the girls which meant that they were more responsible than most teenagers let alone six year olds.

“Hermione approved the project,” Lexie assured her as she took the sandwich her sister handed her.

Dawn relaxed, knowing that Hermione was responsible and wouldn’t let them make anything too dangerous. “Okay. Is it a weapon?”

“It’s not a weapon, it’s not a fish and it’s not a car, beyond that you’re just going to have to wait like everyone else,” Rain said. 

0o0o0

“That should do it,” Lexie muttered as she carefully tightened the cap on the crystal. “This is going to be awesome.”

“Provided we don’t get grounded for the next couple of months,” Rain complained as she gently pushed the milk crate over to the wall with her foot so she could reach the old fashioned knife switch on the wall.

“We’re not flying in the house or doing any of the things on the list that we’re not supposed to do,” Lexie argued.

“Last I checked, using a portal was on the list,” Rain said as she brushed a long strand of red hair out of her eyes that had escaped one of her pigtails.

“It said nothing about making portal devices, just using them to go places. Besides, Hermione signed off on the project,” Lexie argued.

“She didn’t sign off on testing it.”

“Details, we can’t turn in a project that doesn’t work,” Lexie argued as she ran over and jumped up on the crate so that she could reach the old fashioned mad scientist looking switch.

“We’re dead, so very very dead,” Rain muttered.

“Don’t be a wet blanket, if we don’t test that it works, how are we going to get extra credit?” Lexie asked as she flipped the switch causing the cobbled together metal portal to crackle with purple energy that quickly twisted into a glowing portal. “See nothing to…” she trailed off as one of the vacuum tubes on the top of the machine exploded. “Oops?”

Rain twitched then flew up and grabbed the switch and flipped it off, fairly sure they were screwed when their parents caught them. “Crap!” she cursed when flipping the switch failed to do anything to the portal.

“It’s okay, I’ve got this,” Lexie said as she reflexively raised her hands and cast her best dispel magic at the portal.

“Don’t!” Rain screamed as her sister’s spell caused the containment field to fail and the portal to change into a vortex that started sucking everything in their ‘lab’ into the portal. “Shit!”

“Oops!” Lexie shouted as she was pulled into the vortex.

“Lexie!” Rain screamed as she flew into the portal after her sister, knowing she didn’t want to have to explain the mess to the adults and losing her sister was not an option.

Lexie tumbled out of the portal, hit the old wooden dock and rolled onto the hard packed dirt trail.

Rain flew out of the portal then spun and scowled at the portal as it twisted and flashed out of existence. “Fiddlesticks!” she exclaimed as she landed on the dock, more than a little annoyed that her sister’s portal had exploded and was going to get them grounded.

Lexie got up and dusted her jeans off. “Look on the bright side, Mom doesn’t have to figure out how to bring us back from the dead to yell at us.”

“There is that,” Rain admitted as she turned around and looked at the path that led up the hill to a small stone keep. “How long do you think it will take Dad to rescue us?” she asked, not sure where they were and a bit worried about getting lost.

“Hopefully at least a couple of hours,” Lexie replied as she turned to look at the brown werewolf like creature that was walking down the path toward them holding an axe. “Hello, do you know where we are?” she asked, fairly sure that he wasn’t going to answer her question but figuring she’d give him the benefit of the doubt as she wasn’t sure what type of world they’d dropped into. She was just glad that they’d gotten their father’s ability with languages which meant he should be able to understand them.

“You’re on Bloodmoon Isle,” Selas snarled. “So nice of you to provide lunch.”

Lexie gestured at the werewolf and conjured a roast ham. “Ham?”

“Sorry, I was thinking veal,” the werewolf said with a smirk then charged the little girls.

Rain teleported the werewolf’s axe to her hands then tossed it at the werewolf as hard as she could, causing the axe to blur and the crack of thunder as it broke the sound barrier and obliterated the werewolf’s head.

Lexie blinked as the werewolf’s body collapsed. “How are we supposed to get answers out of dead people?”

“Necromancy?” Rain asked sarcastically.

“Now you’re trying to get me grounded until I’m fifteen,” Lexie grumbled as she walked over and checked the werewolf’s coin purse. “Looks like fifteen silver.”

“We might as well take it, we have inventories,” Rain replied as she reached out with her telepathy and scanned the small island for people, hoping the idiot was just an aberration. “Huh, okay, there’s a ghostly mage and a warrior that needs to die.”

“How are we supposed to kill a ghost?” Lexie complained. “I don’t have any silver from Tamriel.”

“I’m fairly sure Tamriel doesn’t exist,” Rain said, fairly sure the Elder Scrolls was just a game.

“We could always try setting it on fire,” Lexie offered as she started walking up the trail.

“How many actual combat spells do you know?” Rain asked, curious if Sabrina had taught her anything past the basics that she’d gotten.

“I know how to start a fire, that has to count for something,” Lexie said, wishing she’d had the chance to learn some actual combat spells.

“We’re going to be in so much trouble when we get back,” Rain said as she followed her sister up the path and looked through the warrior’s memories about the Grizzly Hills and the state of the world. ‘Great, there’s a powerful Lich King that wants to destroy the world on behalf of greater demons. Yeah, why couldn’t we end up in Equestra or somewhere nice?’

Lexie gave the man on the back of the large wolf like monster her best smile. “Can you tell me how long until a boat comes? We’re a bit lost.”

“Don’t worry, you won’t be lost for very long,” Varlam said as he urged his large wolf to charge the girls.

Rain picked up a fist sized rock and tossed it at the man, caving in his chest and tossing him off the wolf. “Good puppy?”

Lexie gestured and held the wolf off the ground with her telekinesis as it pounced at her. “Behave!”

Rain shook her head as the wolf snapped at her sister, trying to reach her despite being held in the air. “Yeah, I think it’s a bad…” she trailed off when her sister reached up and swatted the wolf on the nose, causing it to stop snapping at her. “That’s one way to deal with it.”

Lexie sighed when it went right back to snapping at her. “Fine.” She floated the warrior’s flaming sword over and cut the wolf’s head off. “Bad dog!”

Rain sighed as the wolf twisted and blood gushed out over her sister’s face despite her attempt to dodge. “You’re supposed to dodge.”

Lexie sputtered as she wiped at her eyes. “Now you tell me.”

“I thought it was obvious,” Rain teased as she walked over and looted the man’s belt pouch, looking at the items with her upgrade ability. “Fifty silver and a magical dagger that boosts magic and health.”

“Seriously?” Lexie squealed as she did a victory dance, happy to get a magic boosting dagger. “Wait a minute, why did the warrior have a magic boosting dagger?”

“Maybe they’re more common than back home?” Rain asked, hoping they could find some really neat magical items to distract her parents with.

“Maybe…” Lexie trailed off as she looked at the sword with her upgrade ability and realized the metal was corrupted. “Huh, his sword is made out of corrupted crap.”

“Is it worth stealing any of the properties off the blade?” Rain asked as she turned her attention toward the floating sword. “Oh, hey, it’s highly resistant to nature magic and it reflects holy magic so probably, if we find decent shields.”

Lexie floated the sword over. “At least we’re immune to corruption.”

“And mind control,” Rain mused as she walked over and stuck the wolf in her inventory. “Someone might want the hide and I don’t know how to skin it.”

“I wouldn’t mind a wolf skin cloak,” Lexie said as she turned and walked toward the keep, curious what type of spell books they’d find.

“We should be able to find someone-” Rain dodged a bolt of shadow that flew down from the top of the tower. “Hey! You shouldn’t do that!” Rain taunted, wanting the ghost to cast the spell again so that she learn it by watching him cast it.

Arugal laughed then cast his shadow bolt again, surprised that they’d managed to dodge his first spell.

Rain dodged to the left then raised her hand and cast the spell, sending a bolt of condensed shadow flying through the air at the mage. “Neat!”

Arugal tossed himself out of the way as the kid sent a bolt the size of his head at him. “You’re not human!”

“No, I’m a goddess!” Rain replied as she cast her light spell, creating a red light, “Darkness beyond twilight, crimson blood that flows…” she trailed off with a snicker as Lexie used her distraction to teleport behind the ghost mage and cut him in half with her new sword before he could cast another shadow bolt.

Lexie walked over to the edge and looked down at her sister. “You know how Dad feels about that chant, no saying it anywhere eldritch beings might be listening, do you want to get grounded?”

“I didn’t say the rest of it, I’m not crazy,” Rain replied as she let her ball of light vanish and teleported to the top of the keep. “Huh, he actually dropped loot?”

“Yep!” Lexie looked at the old looking leather vest. “A vest that boosts agility and stamina and a red potion that heals wounds.”

“We should be able to sell the potion, unless they’re dirt common,” Rain said, not sure how common the potions were. She reached out with her telepathy and checked the rest of the keep. “That should be all of the monsters.”

Lexie giggled as she rubbed her hands together. “In that case, let’s loot everything down to the floorboards.”

“Hmm, if Dad doesn’t rescue us, we’re going to need a base, we could ward the island with Aunt Hermione’s spell,” Rain suggested.

“I don’t know, the last time you cast that spell you sent April’s teddy bear into a nightmare realm.”

“I replaced the bear and I’m fairly sure I got the bugs worked out,” Rain replied with a pout. “Don’t worry, we can loot the library first, just in case.”

“In that case, it’s probably a good test,” Lexie said as she flew over to the edge then jumped down to the balcony.

0o0o0

Dawn glanced around the demolished lab while Zatanna looked over her notes. “I have to give them an A+ for destroying the lab and an F for not filing any project plans.”

Hermione winced at the grade. “They handed in plans last night, I wasn’t expecting it to do anything interesting, let alone work. How did they make a functional portal device in less than twelve hours?”

“Technically, my knock-off ability works with tech, I just rarely use it for technology because magic is easier. Besides, it obviously wasn’t fully functional,” Myst said as he gestured toward the melted remains of the portal machine.

Zatanna glanced up from her notes. “Relax, we know they’re safe thanks to the tracking charms.”

“I’d like to know where they even saw a portal device long enough to recreate it,” Myst grumbled, fairly sure all of the various portal devices were accounted for and he’d certainly never taken his apart so they couldn’t have gotten the schematic from him.

“How true to life do you think the MMO is?” Dawn asked, hoping the girls hadn’t ended up anywhere overly dangerous.

“No clue,” Myst admitted. “Hopefully it doesn’t take us all that long to find them then we can ground them and laugh about it. Unless we have to deal with the Legion,” he grumbled, hoping they’d exaggerated the Burning Legion’s power and numbers in the game.

“I’m not all that happy about the girls going overboard to surprise us but I’m fairly sure the rules only say you can’t go through portals, it doesn’t say anything about building them,” Dawn pointed out.

“Considering they’re in Azeroth, I’m fairly sure they went through the portal,” Myst snapped then took a breath and tried to calm down rather than snap at people that weren’t at fault.

“Tsap eht laever,” Zatanna chanted as she gestured around the room.

Myst watched as an image of his daughters appeared in the middle of the room, showing a working machine. “Why were they using vacuum tubes? Scratch that, where the hell did they even find any vacuum tubes?”

Hermione frowned as she noticed the old fashioned knife switch on the wall. “I’m fairly sure that was Ron’s fault, he was getting rid of some junk from his father’s shed, I recognize the switch. I’m not sure why they didn’t just use a light switch, they’re safer.”

“Nah, the switch I understand, it’s tradition.” Myst winced as the girls in the image turned the portal device on and it started malfunctioning. “This is why I stick to magical items, they’re less temperamental.”

“I seem to recall some issues with a certain magical item last week,” Harry said as he walked into the lab. “Damn, not even Neville managed quite this level of destruction in potions.”

“To be fair Ron’s hair is growing out nicely and you’re implying I screwed up, I mean sure, accidents happen,” Myst agreed much to Harry’s amusement.

“How are we going to get them back?” Hermione asked in concern, feeling guilty for not checking on things, she’d gotten distracted by Harry getting back from helping Constantine.

Zatanna shrugged. “This isn’t the first time I’ve had to find people with only a vague idea where they are. At least this time, I have their hair brushes.”

“If Azeroth is real, the Burning Legion is probably real which means we should probably double check their location,” Myst suggested. “I’d rather not open a portal and have a nearly endless army of undead and demons come pouring out if we hit the wrong area.”

Dawn looked at Myst, with her best, I’m not impressed look. “You’re not planning on leaving the girls there, are you?”

“Of course not but my precog hasn’t started screaming and the tracking spells tell us they’re safe. As much as I’d like to reach through a portal and grab them right now, I’d rather not risk creating an opening the Legion can use to invade Earth if we can help it.”

“If that was going to happen, wouldn’t it have happened with the less than stellar portal that the children made?” Dawn asked.

“I’m not even sure how their portal works, it might have been technological or it might have been technomagical or flat out magical. It might be like a shot being fired, it’s hard to tell which way it came from because you’re not expecting it but the second shot is a lot easier to locate. Besides, we have the magical television we can use to get a decent idea of which Azeroth they landed on which should give us a better idea of what we’re dealing with without making waves which the demons might notice,” Myst explained his reasoning.

“It would help narrow things down,” Zatanna said thoughtfully, fairly sure she could hit the right general area by using their hair but having more information would certainly help decrease the cost of the portal which should make it less noticeable.

“At the first sign of trouble, we’re ripping open a portal and grabbing the girls and killing everything threatening them,” Dawn stated firmly.

“Of course,” Zatanna agreed as they headed back toward the living room to check on the girls.

0o0o0

Rain frowned slightly as she studied the map in the mage’s study. “If I’m reading the map correctly, we’d have to fly through part of the Grizzly Hills, cut across Zul’Drak then though part of Crystalsong forest to the flying mage city.”

“Where we’ll find a bunch of adventurers and hopefully magic shops,” Lexie said excitedly as she gleefully worked on transferring the mage’s collection of arcane tomes to her inventory.

“You’re assuming we have enough gold to buy anything,” Rain said as she turned to look at her sister.

“We killed the werewolf knock-offs just fine and Zul’Drak should have an army of evil trolls we can loot according to Augul’s notes and what the warrior knew of the surrounding area,” Lexie pointed out.

Rain shook her head. “I’m not going anywhere near a magical troll stronghold until we have a better idea of what type of poisons and cheats they can use.”

“You think they have something that would actually hurt us?” Lexie asked doubtfully.

“No clue but Aunty Hermione would be disappointed if we didn’t at least do our research,” Rain pointed out as she turned her attention toward the cursed shackles sitting on the desk. “I don’t think Augul was entirely sane, the bad mental control method would leave anyone wearing the shackles a monster at night.”

“I think that was the point,” Lexie explained as she finished transferring all of the notes and tomes to her inventory. “If he was a better magic user, he would have been tossing something other than shadowbolts at us.”

“Maybe, it’s not like he actually hit us which would have told us how powerful the bolts were. For all you know, he could have obliterated us with one hit…” Rain trailed off as she felt a group of sapient minds approaching the island. “Hey, we have incoming trouble.”

“What type of trouble?” Lexie asked as she quickly took another look around the library to make sure she hadn’t missed anything.

“A very weird mix of a vicious middle school girl and an orc warrior, a female troll mage and a male nerd with issues, a female goblin rogue and a high school teacher, a troll priest and a nurse and a vegetarian undead cannibalistic mage that might be more or less insane from the conflicting personalities…” Rain trailed off, not sure what they were supposed to do about the group of Earth natives that had been dropped into their characters.

“How does that work?” Lexie asked as she headed to the balcony to check on the adventurers.

“A bunch of players ended up sucked into their characters when they logged in, apparently the game designer promised a bunch of new content and even gave people free expansions to lure them back then magic to pull everyone into their characters and no, they weren’t using virtual reality machines.”

“Can I just say I want that spell?” Lexie asked, trying to figure out how you’d even start to design such a spell.

“You and me both,” Rain said as she walked out over to the balcony.

“Wait, does that mean we can’t steal their stuff?” Lexie asked, thinking about the various MMO’s she’d watched Dawn play.

“Nope,” Rain replied as she found the information she was looking for in the orc’s mind. “We can steal their gear or even kill them if they attack us without feeling too guilty as they’ll come back to life in the nearest graveyard or come back as a ghost and grab their bodies after running back to them.”

“Does that work for monsters?” Lexie asked, wondering if there was an endless horde of monsters to fight.

Rain glanced over the group’s memories. “No, just the player characters that were pulled into the world and the monsters that respawn in certain dungeons or various demons that are nearly impossible to permanently kill.”

“I wonder if that’s a feature of the spell or the world,” Lexie mused.

“No idea.” Rain waved at the group of adventurers heading toward the tower. “Parley?”

The troll mage looked up at the children with a frown. “I know things aren’t exactly like the game anymore but how did a couple of human children get all the way out here?”

“No idea, maybe they have loot?” the undead mage asked hopefully.

“Yeah, or maybe they’ll turn into world bosses if we attack them, they’re wearing jeans and t-shirts which means they have equipment they shouldn’t,” the troll priest argued as she looked at the innocent looking children, not trusting the situation at all.

“I really need a shirt that says, I’m a GM’s alt,” Rain said as she jumped from the balcony and landed on the ground in front of the group. “It would make things a lot easier.”

“Bullshit, we haven’t seen any GMs running around,” the undead mage complained.

“Would you even notice?” Lexie asked as she teleported down next to her sister. “I don’t suppose you want to trade magical items? I have a Saronite longsword that I took off the man that attacked us,” she gestured toward the dead human behind the group.

The undead mage snorted. “We have high end gear from before we got stuck here, saronite sucks. Besides, we don’t have to trade, we can just kill you and take it then have a snack.”

The troll priest reached out and smacked the undead mage on the back of her head. “Knock it off, we’re not in a game anymore.”

“You’re being mean and icky,” Rain complained as she studied the strange, almost cartoonish gear the adventurers were wearing while keeping an eye on the creepy mage. “Why the hell do you need tentacles on your shoulder pads?”

“Because it looks cool,” the undead mage replied.

“Don’t worry, you’ll respawn,” the orc said cheerfully.

Lexie glared at the orc, fairly sure the spell wouldn’t cover them as they’d taken a portal to the world. “If you attack us, I’m going to call down the wrath of a goddess!”

“Now you’re just lying,” the undead mage said then cast a frost bolt at Rain, wanting to see what they had on them.

Rain watched the way the spell formed then blinked out of the way of the spell. “Hey!”

“Get them!” Lexie shouted, knowing Rain was a lot stronger than she was.

“For the horde!” the orc shouted then charged Rain and Lexie.

“Shit!” the troll priest cursed when she cast shadow word pain and the spell completely failed to stick on the red haired girl. She quickly tried mind flay then activated her hearthstone when the beam of void energy failed to do anything to the girl. “Run!”

Lexie dodged the orc’s swing and kicked the large woman in the knee, causing the orc to drop to the ground screaming with a shattered knee. She gestured and teleported the orc’s gear to the tower, including her bags and backpack. “Yoink!”

Rain scowled as something hit her over the head from behind. She backhanded the confused goblin rogue then smiled at the troll mage that had just tried to polymorph her. “Neat!” She gestured and polymorphed the troll mage, turning her into a sheep.

Lexie quickly teleported everything the priest was wearing other than her hearthstone a second before she vanished for parts unknown. She blinked ice out of her eyes when the undead mage activated a trinket on her robes then cast a flurry of spells at her almost before she could figure out the formulas, a lance of ice followed by an explosion of fire that she missed the gestures for, followed by a blast of force that pulled at their clothes but otherwise washed over them without any real effect. “Try something more impressive!” she shouted as the mage tried a spell that caused fire to burst out of the ground.

“Die!” The undead mage cast a spell that caused a blast of frost to explode in all directions around her then followed it up with a volley of arcane missiles that leapt from her hands and slammed into Rain only to vanish as they touched her. “Cheating bitch! Why won’t you die?!” she demanded, unwilling to admit that she might actually be a GM’s character.

Lexie gestured and teleported the undead mage’s stuff to the tower then blasted her with a volley of arcane missiles, ravaging the rest of her face and body before Rain teleported behind the mage and shattered her skull with a punch. “Jerk!”

Rain looked through the orc’s mind for the mage city’s location then teleported the crippled orc to the Horde’s section of the city. “They’re going to be pissed.”

“Yep, we should hide the tower before they get back,” Lexie suggested with a grin.

Rain turned to look at the troll as her sheep spell faded. “Parley?”

The troll held up her hands, deciding that she wanted nothing to do with the overpowered children. “I’d rather not have to farm new gear, maybe we can work something out?” she asked hoping she could talk them into accepting an enchant or crafted gear rather than killing her and stealing everything.

Rain quickly looked over the mage’s gear with her upgrade ability, none of it was particularly impressive or better than what she’d seen on the rest of the group other than the mage’s shoulders. ‘That’s a hell of a boost to health and magic on the mage’s shoulders,’ she told her sister via telepathy.

‘I’m not sure we’ll be able to copy them without spending some serious time researching all of the ingredients and even then it looks complicated,’ Lexie replied as she studied the powerful magical shoulder guards. ‘At least we don’t really need to hide in shadows when we’re close to people with our copies of Dad’s phasing ring.’

‘It also gives a percentile health regeneration when you’re not close to anyone which is fantastic and worth looking into even without the damage reduction or the movement boost,’ Rain replied as she studied the magic flowing through the cloth. “Do you have any interesting trinkets?”

“Not with me but I have a set of quest goggles that will let you see ghosts that look neat, I’m willing to trade them if you’ll let me go,” she offered knowing she could use her other goggles if she was playing with steampunk gear.

Rain glanced over at Lexie and smiled when she nodded. “Sure, your friends gave us plenty of gear.”

“Most of their gear is soulbound which means you won’t be able to use it, how much do you want for it?” the mage asked, hoping she could talk them into selling it back rather than breaking everything considering Vicky had a legendary belt and hammer and everyone else had near legendaries from areas that were nearly impossible to get to considering certain important events hadn’t happened yet.

Rain looked through the mage’s mind to make sure she was telling the truth, sadly she actually was telling the truth about the soulbound nature of their equipment. Thankfully her family specialized in making knock-offs that could be used by anyone. “Because it came from the game, right?”

“Which means you’ll just have to get someone to shard it or reforge it. In other words, if you let me get back to a major city, I can pay you more than you’ll make from selling the shards,” the mage offered, trying not to break down and cry at the idea of losing months of work. “I’m also an amazing enchanter and tailor, which has a decent amount of value considering it’s not easy to level enchanting or tailoring anymore, mostly because we’re not exactly game characters anymore.”

Rain nodded. “I’m willing to let you leave if you give me the goggles that let you see spirits and one useful enchant. As for your friend’s gear, what are you offering?”

“How about a disenchanting rod that will let you disenchant gear for the magical dust enchanters need to create enchantments and a decent amount of gold to start with?”

“Oh, that sounds useful,” Rain agreed.

The troll mage shook her head. “Yeah, I’d trade it after at least some of the gear is back in a safe location, I’m not handing you the means to dust everything.”

Lexie grinned, understanding the mage’s point of view. “Fair enough, what else are you offering?”

“I could also make you a decent set of cloth gear if you want, not that you seem to need it,” she offered.

“I wouldn’t mind some decent magical clothes. Do you have anything with elemental resistance?” Rain asked as she looked through the mage’s memories, wanting to figure out what type of interesting magical items the tailor could make.

The mage shook her head. “You’re better off just healing through it or ignoring it considering you didn’t seem all that bothered by Thanos’ various spells. I don’t suppose you’d tell me how you hacked your character?”

“Sorry, that’s a trade secret,” Lexie said smugly.

“Fair enough, I’m not sure I’d tell anyone either,” the mage admitted as Thanos’ corpse vanished.

“I’m not really familiar with the changes, are the dungeons actual dungeons?” Rain asked.

“Most of the dungeons are controlled by dungeon cores which means the monsters and loot respawn as long as no one damages the dungeon cores at the heart of the dungeon. Thankfully or not depending on how you look at it, every dungeon contains a near unstoppable army of epic monsters once you finish the basic dungeons which means actually destroying the dungeon is probably out of reach of most factions right now.”

“Unless someone gathers enough adventurers, right?” Lexie asked.

The troll mage spit on the ground. “Yeah, best of luck, we lose our immortality past the normal end boss area which means no one is all that interested in trying to destroy the cores or even farming anything but the first couple of rooms at most where priests can resurrect people without risking themselves. Besides, according to the plaque on the wall, we’d lose our immortality permanently if we help destroy a core and fuck that.”

“How well are the factions holding together?” Rain asked, not wanting to go looking for the information when asking made it a lot easier to grab.

“Hellscream is dead as is a decent chunk of the Undercity. The various hostile factions of trolls and goblins are getting slaughtered and from what I’ve heard, the bandits around the Deadmines are being cleared now that they’ll actually stay dead. We’re currently in a bit of a holding pattern as people push to find a cure for being undead now that the game isn’t preventing it.”

“I might be able to help with that,” Rain offered, thinking about Augul’s research.

“How?” the goblin rogue asked as she walked over with her hands up. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to attack.”

Lexie glanced at her sister. “What are you thinking?”

“I’m thinking if we polymorph the undead into a sheep, it should bring them back to life enough for Worgen shackles to permanently turn them into worgen rather than undead. If that doesn’t work, we’ll have to get more creative.”

“Do you think it will work?” the goblin girl asked as she glanced at her friend.

“The worgen Augul controlled aren’t exactly sane,” the troll mage pointed out.

“That’s because he sucked at mind control or at least his enchantment sucked,” Rain said, knowing the only really useful part of the shackles was the part that changed people into shapechangers.

“It’s worth testing,” Lexie mused.

The troll mage pulled a set of goggles out of her bag and tossed them to Rain. “Here.”

Rain grinned as she looked the goggles over then stuck them in her inventory. “Thanks.”

“Sorry about before, Thanos gets a little carried away, I’m Gwen,” the goblin said, half expecting that she was going to have to vanish.

“I’m Rain and my sister is Lexie,” Rain said, relieved that the rogue wasn’t trying to kill her as she probably had the best chance with her poisons, even if it wasn’t a great chance.

“Poppy,” the troll mage offered.

Rain gave the two girls a smile. “Nice to meet you, now if you’ll excuse me, I need to hide the small island before we end up with a bunch of people dropping by.”

“You can hide a section of the map?” Gwen asked, curious how the hell she’d acquired that particular trick.

“In theory, I’ve never actually hidden anything this large. I’ll be right back.” Rain flew up into the air fifty feet then gestured down at the small island and cast her version of the fidelius charm, hiding the island out of phase.

“Flight? How the hell?” Gwen asked in disbelief, she could understand how invulnerability was in the codes a GM might have but flight would require extra programming.

“Magic,” Lexie answered smugly. “Don’t worry, we’ll get things sorted then you can go back to killing dangerous monsters rather than attacking children.”

“To be fair, you mentioned RPG concepts so I figured you were players,” Gwen admitted sheepishly.

“That’s still not a reason to try to hit people from behind,” Lexie grumbled.

“Sorry, it’s sort of an occupational hazard,” Gwen admitted.

“Fair enough.” Lexie glanced at Poppy. “So, do you like being a troll?”

“The racial perks are nice, but the tusks take a bit of getting used to, I’m just glad they’re small,” Poppy said, thinking of some of the troll elders that had stupidly large tusks.

Lexie looked at Poppy’s abilities with her upgrade ability. ‘A haste boost for ten seconds by going berserk, decent regeneration, Dead Eye, which slightly increases their skill with ranged weapons, and Da Voodoo Shuffle which reduces the duration of all movement impairing effects by 20%, not bad but nothing fantastic.’

Rain flew back down and landed next to Lexie. “That should make sure no one bothers us. How long will it take to make two sets of clothes?”

“About ten minutes a suit thanks to my crafting enchant,” Poppy said cheerfully.

“Nice,” Rain said, wondering if she could pick up some tricks.

Poppy shrugged. “It would have taken less time in game but ten minutes isn’t anything to sneeze at.”

“In that case, I’ll work on tweaking the shackles while you work on crafting us some magic gear,” Rain said as she flew back toward the tower.

“Any preferences?” Poppy asked Lexie.

“Not robes,” Lexie replied, wanting to keep her freedom of motion.

“Actually, I bet mage weave leggings would fit under your jeans considering they’re basically just magical underwear and leggings,” Gwen suggested.

“That’s not a bad idea, I could make the set out of frost weave and she could get everything transmog’d to look like something reasonable,” Poppy mused as she studied Lexie. “Maybe a silk shirt to replace the grease stained t-shirt.”

“That could work,” Gwen agreed.

“You’re the experts,” Lexie said as she skimmed Poppy’s mind, looking for information on transmogrifying things. ‘Yep, I’m going to have to learn that trick.’