Taylor Hebert Dungeon Girl Part 5

Danny sighed as he looked at his old address book. “I’m not sure the number is even valid anymore.” He dialed the number then waited, hoping that the number was still valid and that Annette’s friend could help Taylor.

Franklin Giovanni glanced at his caller ID then blinked at the name that came up. He picked up the phone. “Danny?”

“Franklin.”

“What’s wrong, I haven’t talked to you since…” He trailed off as he realized the last time they’d talked had been shortly after Annette’s funeral.

“Annette’s funeral, yeah.”

“Not that I’m not glad you called but I’m guessing this isn’t a social call?”

“Not really, I need some help, Taylor is being bullied at school and the administration is trying to sweep it under the rug.”

“How long and what are they doing?”

“Over a year, they’ve broken art projects, stolen homework assignments, physically hit her, broke into her locker, stole my wife’s flute when Taylor brought it to school for emotional support...”

“They stole Annette’s flute?” Franklin asked in a cold rage, he remembered her playing that flute rather fondly through their college years.

“She brought it for emotional support because things were that bad. She has a journal of crap they’ve done.”

“Did she report everything?”

“She reported it until it was obvious the teachers weren’t going to do anything. She has dates and copies of their responses, copies of emails, old logins for emails she had to change because of them being flooded with sick and twisted emails.”

Franklin felt the phone crack slightly as he squeezed too hard. “I’m going to take twenty minutes and hit some shit until I’m calm enough to drive then I’m coming over there and we’re going to look over everything she has then figure out what we can do about it.”

“You think you can help?” Danny asked hopefully.

“Yes. I’ll see you in an hour or so.” Franklin ended the call then headed toward his weight room to work off some aggression so he could see straight for the drive.

0o0o0

Taylor twitched as Glory Girl dropped in and landed a couple of feet from their table without any real warning. “Gah!”

Panacea turned to look at her sister. “Meet Alchemist. She’s the girl that made the potions, no clue what her rating is.”

Glory Girl smiled at the new cape. “Hi, congratulations for getting my sister out of the hospital. How did you do it?”

Panacea smirked at her sister. “Shop talk.”

“Oh, right, so not a social thing?” Glory Girl asked with a pout.

“Nope, work. We’re trying to figure out how her potions work.” Panacea had to resist the urge to smirk as her sister lost some of her enthusiasm about meeting the new cape.

Taylor tried to lower her voice as much as possible and talk softy hoping that Glory Girl wouldn’t realize they’d met before, “It’s nice to get out of the lab.”

“I’m sort of glad I’m not a tinker, spending hours in the lab isn’t for me. I like flying too much.”

“Flying sounds fun,” Taylor admitted.

Panacea asked, “Do you have time for coffee? Alchemist was explaining how her stuff works.”

Glory Girl shook her head. “No, I just wanted to check in before I meet Dean.”

“In that case, have fun.”

“Always,” Glory Girl smiled at the people looking at her then flew up into the air and away.

Panacea grinned slightly. “That was easier than I was expecting.”

Taylor grinned. “So where to?”

“Let me hit the bathroom,” Panacea lowered her voice to a whisper, “and get out of my costume, there is a door to the alley around back that I’ve used before, say three minutes?”

“That works,” Taylor figured she could swap her lab coat for something a little less noticeable once she reached the alley then exit onto the other street without too many issues. She counted to sixty then stood up and walked past the alley and looked in the window of the toy store then counted to thirty and walked into the alley. She pulled her other coat out of her pockets and swapped it for her lab coat. She was still a bit noticeable with her white pants but at least she had a hood so the mask was slightly less noticeable. ‘I really need to upgrade some belt pouches or something larger than pockets.’

Thankfully she didn’t have too long to wait for Amy to come out of the side door into the alley carrying a bag which presumably had her costume in it. It was a little disconcerting, without her costume Amy looked a little mousy and normal.

Amy asked, “Where are we going?”

“Let me make a call.” Taylor pulled her burner phone out of her pocket and selected the number Uber gave her.

“Randal’s phone, what can I do for you?” Randal asked curious why the random number was coming up on his phone.

“I found a healer, do you want to run another dungeon?”

“Lootz?”

“Loots?” Taylor asked.

“It’s not like you gave us a name. Speaking of friends, I have a friend that will kill me if he doesn’t get to go, can I bring him with me?”

“Can we use your shop?”

“I can be there in ten.”

Taylor grinned. “In that case, sure, we’ll meet you there.”

“Awesome.” Randal ended the call then shouted, “Leet, get your ass out here, we’re going dungeon delving!”

Taylor looked over at Amy, “Okay, we’ve got a place to set up the dungeon.”

Amy said, “He sounded enthusiastic.”

“Pretty sure he’s a video game fanatic so dungeons, sort of right up his alley.”

“That would do it,” Amy admitted as they started walking down the alley toward the other end of it. She had a feeling that Carol would freak if she found out about her willingly going into a dungeon on the off chance that she could get loot but what she didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her.

Taylor was just glad that no one gave them more than a passing glance as they walked down the street, either because her mask wasn’t that noticeable at night or because people figured it was better to leave the unknown cape alone, either way she was glad that no one followed her to Randal’s shop. She didn’t want to cause trouble but she hadn’t had a better idea where to take Panacea without potentially outing herself as a cape. She gave the thin man waiting as Randal unlocked the door to his shop a look. ‘Maybe I should start making people sign a disclaimer, then again that’s paperwork.’

Amy was just glad that she’d told her sister who she was going to be hanging out with because the thin guy looked a little shady. Thankfully the other guy looked nice enough.

Randal opened the door. “Good to see you lootz.”

“Alchemist.”

“Lootz?” Amy asked with amusement.

“She makes the dungeon and the monsters drop loot, thus Lootz, plus she hadn’t picked a cape name.” Randal walked into his shop and flipped the lights on as he walked in far enough that everyone could come inside.

“Lootz is shorter.” Amy snickered as she followed Randal inside. She was a bit relieved that they were honestly joking with each other as it made it less likely to be a trap of some sort, not that anyone in their right mind would try to kidnap her but there were lots of crazy people in the world.

Leet was trying really hard not to say anything he shouldn’t as he followed the new cape into the shop, not only was the new girl able to open dungeons which was totally unfair but he recognized Panacea. Sure, she was out of costume but she was also famous and didn’t have a secret identity. Either way, she was one of the few people in the city he wasn’t willing to upset if he could help it. He shut the door. “So how does this work?”

Taylor said, “I grab a door, think of a dungeon theme and open it. Then we walk in, kill monsters and loot the dungeon. Pretty simple in theory if slightly complicated in practice.”

Leet asked, “Any dungeon? Can you do them over again?”

“I’ve ran one of them a couple of times without any problems. As for any dungeon, I’m not sure, I’m still experimenting with my ability. I was thinking about going back to the goblin infested nightmare where I picked up the alchemy recipes.”

Randal grinned. “I’m game, I picked up some decent weapons.”

Leet shrugged. “I’m good for whatever.”

“Goblin nightmares?” Amy asked warily.

Randal shook his head. “The goblin alchemists aren’t that bad, you just shoot them from range. Just use the door to the back room.”

Taylor walked over and used the door to the back room and opened the goblin dungeon. She frowned slightly as the entrance ‘film’ had changed to a greenish yellow. “Huh.”

“Wasn’t that yellow before?” Randal asked as he walked over and locked the front door then flipped the main lights off.

“Yeah, I’m not sure if the change in color is a good thing or not.”

“What’s the color of your safest dungeon?” Leet asked curious if it was related to danger.

“Blue? Most of them are blue.”

Randal pointed at Amy. “We have a healer this time. Speaking of, you should probably get into your costume so you have some armor.”

Amy shook her head. “It doesn’t have armor.”

Everyone turned and looked at Amy. Randal asked in confused shock, “What?”

“My robe isn’t armored, I don’t get in fights.”

Randal reached covered Leet’s open mouth to keep him from exploding. “First thing we’re going to do is fix that.” He turned to look at Taylor. “You should probably give her your lab coat, she can put you back together.”

Taylor pulled her lab coat out of her pocket and handed it to Amy. “It has armor.” Taylor pulled her cloak out of her other pocket and handed it to her as well. “Here.”

Amy looked suspiciously at Taylor’s pocket. “How?”

“Magic pockets.” Taylor pulled her backpack out of her pocket then started to pull out her glass armor.

Leet stared at Taylor’s glass armor. “Does anyone else feel like their equipment needs upgrading?”

Amy raised her hand. “Just a bit because that stuff looks really cool.”

“The material is damn near bulletproof, I need to fix the design a bit but I’m working my way through steel armor first.”

“You’re a tinker?” Leet asked.

Taylor held her fingers an inch apart. “Maybe?”

“Maybe?” He asked in confusion.

“Some of the stuff I can make is sort of like tinkertech.”

Randal cut in before Leet got into a tangent, “Kevin, let’s ask questions after the dungeon.”

“She still has to put her armor on…” Leet trailed off as he realized that Taylor had already put her armor on. “How?”

“She’s Lootz, she cheats.” Randal looked over his lightning blaster. “I still need to figure out how to charge this.”

“Try meditating on it?” Taylor asked not sure how to explain putting mana into it other than just doing it.

“I still have a number of shots and I have my backups.” He gestured at his backpack.

She held out her hand for his blaster. “Here, I’ll charge it, we can try to figure out a way to let you charge it after the run.”

He handed her his pistol. “Thanks.”

Taylor charged his elemental pistol with a simple application of will and some mana, then handed it back. “No problem, let’s do this.” She stepped into the dungeon with a smile on her face.

Amy stepped through the doorway and looked around the dimly lit cave, she was fairly sure she’d just fallen down the rabbit hole but she was looking forward to seeing where it went. 

Leet stepped through the portal, he had a feeling this was either going to be really bad or really fucking awesome and he wasn’t sure which. He was just hoping his various weapons didn’t blow up before he found a replacement.

Randal grinned as he walked into the dungeon and looked around, it looked the same. “Okay, I’m going to assume that the traps get randomized as well as the patrols, if not cool but we might as well assume they’re different.”

“That’s probably safer,” Taylor agreed.

Randal said, “Any objection to letting me be the leader in here?”

“Sounds like a plan, you’re the one checking for traps and ambushes,” Taylor replied as she pulled her staff out of her expanded backpack.

Leet looked at Taylor’s staff. “What is that?”

Randal piped up, “It’s her boomstick, it shoots lightning.“

“Seriously?” Leet asked in disbelief.

Taylor pointed her staff down the tunnel and sent a stream of electricity down the tunnel. “Like that.”

“Where do you keep the batteries?”

“No batteries, it just shoots lightning.” She pulled a lightning gun out of her backpack and handed it to Amy. “Here, point it at the goblins and shoot. It has 30 charges, when you run out, I’ll swap it for the fire pistol I have. We should be able to loot more guns on the way.”

Amy took the pistol carefully. “Is it going to explode?”

“It shouldn’t, it’s not one of Leet’s inventions.”

Leet winced behind the group but couldn’t really object because a lot of his stuff did go boom.

Randal grinned as he started down the tunnel. He was looking forward to seeing what they got this time.

As time went on and they worked their way through the dungeon shooting everything that moved, Amy was more than a little disturbed by Randal’s accuracy and Kevin’s collection of bargain bin tinkertech. Still, if they weren’t going to admit to being particular capes, she wasn’t going to say anything. It wasn’t like she advertised that she could detect parahumans by touch. Still, they were rather useful and she was having fun blasting goblins. She was also rather happy they were finding gear that she could use, like lab gloves that increased her resistance to electricity and boosted her armor and her new ‘glass’ helmet which was really neat and had saved her from a nasty arrow a few minutes after she put it on. The weirdest thing was that her power worked through the gloves even though it shouldn’t. ‘I’m going to need a better costume, one stray bullet in a fight and I’m dead.’ It really wasn’t a comforting thought.

Leet was having a blast, he’d quickly swapped to one of the elemental pistols when his gun started overheating but he didn’t mind as the elemental pistol was lighter than his tinkertech blaster. “It’s a pity these don’t come with a full auto feature.”

“You’d burn through the energy way too quickly.” Taylor replied as she blasted a goblin with her lightning. She smiled as she looked at the pair of boots it dropped. “Dibs on the boots.”

Randal laughed as he carefully checked the path as he got closer to the boots. He reached down and grabbed the boots then walked back and handed them to Taylor. “What do they do?”

Taylor read the tooltip. “Electricity resistance. We should probably give them to Amy, then I won’t feel bad about shooting through her.”

Amy shook her head. “I might not be the best at video games but I know enough to know the healer is supposed to be behind the tank but I’ll take the boots.”

“Have them, lots of the goblins shoot lightning and you can’t heal yourself. I’m just glad I kept a few healing potions.” Taylor handed the boots to Amy.

Leet watched the tunnel as Amy sat down to put her new boots on. He’d gotten zapped during this run more than he’d been zapped in the last couple of months combined but he was having a blast and Panacea had fixed the group each time so it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. He had a feeling that this place would be a breeze with enough resistance gear. Sadly they weren’t there yet. He was just hoping they could do well enough to do more dungeons because actually running around in dungeons was better than all of his various jobs put together.

Taylor smiled as Amy finished putting on her new boots. “Ready?”

Amy stood up then held out her boots. “Do you have space in your backpack?”

“Sure.” Taylor took the boots and transferred them to her backpack using her character sheet.

Leet made a mental note to ask how Lootz was making things vanish at some point. He had a feeling there was more to her power than just dungeons.

Randal grinned as he walked over to a tripwire. “I should bring some spray paint or something next time, it would make marking the stuff easier.”

“We can always shoot it from back here.”

“Yeah, that would just set it off.” He bent down and cut the wire past the trigger part. “It should be fine, just try not to trip over it.”

Taylor was just glad that she had Randal with them to deal with the traps as it made it a lot more manageable.

0o0o0 

Amy glared suspiciously at the treasure chest that had appeared after they’d killed the four mini bosses then dragged the real boss to the surface via some twisted umbilical cord and shot him to death. Thankfully the ‘real’ boss hadn’t been any more durable than the average elderly scientist. “Please tell me we’re don’t have to fight that nightmare again.”

Randal laughed as he walked over to the treasure chest and examined it for traps. “That depends on if we want more loot.”

“I like loot,” Kevin agreed gleefully. He’d made more money in the last two hours just off the coins they’d picked up than he normally did in a month.

Taylor said, “Let’s figure out what dropped off the boss then we can decide if it’s worth making another attempt or if we should try something else.”

Amy walked over and opened the treasure chest with the key that had dropped off the boss. “Let’s see, a book on alchemy, a Jester’s cap, a leather satchel, alchemy tools and a book on making elemental pistols. Not a bad haul.”

Randal glanced at Taylor. “At least we know you can get duplicates.”

“Yep.” Taylor reached into the treasure chest and grabbed the alchemy book. She glanced at the popup to make sure there wasn’t anything new then handed the book to Amy. “Here. Open it.”

Amy opened the book then blinked when it vanished and a popup window appeared. She looked over some of her basic recipes. “Healing, cure disease and modification potions… that’s interesting. At least we know it works.”

Kevin said, “We’re going to have to run this at least twice more.”

“Modification potions?” Taylor asked curious about the potions she didn’t have.

Amy checked the next page of her recipe list, sadly it was empty. “Breast enlargement and reduction, hair dye and clear skin.”

Kevin smirked as he thought about how much money he could make with just those four things. “That’s going to make you a decent chunk of change.”

“Probably, I don’t charge for healing for various reasons but I don’t have a problem charging for cosmetic potions.” 

“I don’t have an issue charging a reasonable price for my healing potions, if I didn’t no one would value them.” Taylor glanced down at her watch. “It’s getting a bit late to run this dungeon again.”

“It’s also rather nasty,” Randal agreed.

“You have something shorter, right?” Kevin asked hopefully.

“The dungeon with the stuffed animals is shorter.” Taylor reached down and picked up the book on creating elemental pistols. “I wonder if this is enough to get a tinker rating.”

Kevin frowned slightly as he thought about the PRT’s labeling system. He was still a bit annoyed that his rating was as low as it was. “Most likely, it’s narrow but it lets you make weapons so yeah, they’d give you a tinker rating.”

Taylor opened the book then smiled as her crafting menu opened to a new crafting tab. “Oh, I can make focusing crystals and the pieces I need for an elemental pistol, sweet.”

“I think I’m jealous,” Kevin muttered.

“Don’t worry, we’ll get there,” Randal assured his friend.

Taylor picked up the jester’s cap. “S.E.P. Field, mentally activating the field causes people to ignore you as just another face in the crowd provided no one has a reason to look too close.”

Kevin turned to look at Amy. “Do you want the hat?”

“If no one minds, it would be nice to be able to go places without being recognized.” Amy didn’t want to be greedy but it would be nice to be able to blend in if she needed to.

Kevin shrugged. “I’m fine with that, I picked up plenty of coins and elemental pistols, besides, it’s a jester’s cap.”

“I sort of like it,” Amy grinned as Taylor handed the black and red hat to her.

Taylor picked up the leather satchel. “Ingredient bag, this leather shoulder bag can hold a vast amount of ingredients without weighing you down.”

Kevin said, “Bag of holding for ingredients, that’s useful.”

“Yeah, I have a feeling we’re going to be doing this particular dungeon a lot once we get enough gear that it’s a breeze.” Randal was looking forward to picking up a copy of the alchemy and elemental pistol books.

Amy nodded. “I’d be up for another run at some point but I think Taylor’s right, let’s try something shorter.”

Taylor glanced at the treasure chest. “Who wants to help me haul the chest out of here?”

“Do I get to keep it?” Amy asked hopefully.

“Sure,” Taylor replied in amusement. It wasn’t like she couldn’t farm a decent number of them in other dungeons.

“In that case, sure.” Amy smiled as she grabbed one of the handles on the side. 

Randal said, “You could probably sell the chests for a decent amount if you ever get too many of them.”

Taylor grabbed the other side of the chest. “I have a feeling that’s going to take awhile, I’m going to need a decent number of them to store my loot and I’m sure you guys want a couple.”

“Oh yeah,” Kevin agreed as they started walking back toward the entrance.

Randal asked, “What can you tell us about the stuffed animal dungeon?”

Taylor watched the ground as they made their way out of the boss chamber. Thankfully the chest wasn’t too heavy with Amy helping her carry it. “All of the monsters were some sort of cute stuffed animal or at least they would have been cute without their claws and homicidal personality. It should be easier to clear with the fire pistols which is a good thing because it’s where I get the mage cloth I need to make expanded pockets and decent cloth armor.”

“In other words, we’re going to need to run it a couple of times so we can get Panacea a decent set of robes.” He might technically be a villain but letting the world’s best healer run around without armor was just asking for trouble. He was having trouble understanding what the hell the rest of New Wave was thinking or if they were thinking. Either way, she was their healer and he’d be damned if they let her get hurt when a couple of hours of work would help to make sure it didn’t happen while she was on the job.

“I’m sure we’ll find stuff for everyone.” Amy felt a bit uncomfortable about the amount of loot she’d picked up so far but she figured things would even out if they ran the dungeon enough.