Sell you a Bridge chapter 83

Salem August 19th 2010 6:00 PM EDT

The  next week or so had been busy as hell. We spent six days constantly  running the dungeon, stopping home for family time and going to school  before hand but still spending hours every night down there. My new  power finally merged together all my disparate abilities and gave me a  solid base for combat, and despite having burned more than my fair share  of points in battle I was sitting pretty at three hundred and fifty  points after a few days, now at level ten and earning sixty five per day.

The girls were both rocking  level seven, had been pouring points into their best stats, and had  each gotten a new weapon. I had relegated my tanto to a back-up weapon  and was wielding my new favorite weapon of all time, the King's Sword of  Haste. Combined with my abilities and my reflexes the thing was  monstrous, and the magical nature of the damage meant it could injure  pretty much anything I would be fighting. We'd made it to level nine  before leaving town, and Zee had gotten the Guardian spell from the  Chamber of Bone on level six when I got my sword.

Artemis  was using a unique bow called Blitzen, which fired lightning bolts  instead of arrows, and was still working on channeling her holy  lightning through it. Reggie was carrying a unique sabre called The  Lightsabre, which did lightning damage on hit and gave lightning resist.  Finally Kit was wearing a unique armor set called the Leather of Aut,  which gave five each to strength and dex and had fifteen armor class.  The Chamber of Bone had been a treasure trove of unique gear for us and  we'd come out much stronger for it, but it remained to be seen how much  good it would do in The Caves.

Not  that it mattered at the moment, because we were currently headed for  Zee's Uncle's tower. A tower which he lived in because he was a fucking  superhero. I shot my girlfriend a glare as we trekked through the woods  out to the field the tower was built in. "I can't believe you didn't  think to mention your Uncle Kent was Doctor Fate. That's not a small  detail Zee. Not to mention he doesn't even know we're coming? I know you  were worried he might tell your dad about us if you didn't get a chance  to explain but what if his security kills us all?"

I  was not excited about trying to bypass the defenses of the sorcerer  supreme, but Zee just shrugged it off. "Don't worry so much. I have a  key so we'll be fine. Besides I know my way around the Tower and the  guardian spirit there knows me. I used to play there when I was a little  girl." I glanced at Artemis and we rolled our eyes. Zee was every bit  the magical princess sometimes, completely unaware of how weird and over  the top her childhood was. I was crazy about the girl, but she  sometimes lived in a very idealized version of reality.

But  bringing this up wasn't going to do anything but make her angry so I  just let it go and focused on the open field in front of us. "So you're  sure your dad is going to be at his briefing thing all night? Because  even you or I would have trouble teleporting that far in one shot. If he  gets home early you're pretty fucked. Not to mention I don't feel  comfortable telling a superhero the details of my powers. Like you said  your Uncle Kent might have answers but I didn't know he was a Leaguer."

Zee  look embarrassed and stopped, turning to pull me into her arms. "I'm  sorry baby, I wanted it to be a surprise. My Uncle Kent isn't the kind  of guy who cares about someone being a thief, he deals with magical  problems that affect the whole world. But if you don't want to tell him  that's ok. We can just use his library to try to find something that  could help! With your speed reading and perfect memory I bet you could  track down a few leads, and we won't have to tell him anything you don't  want to. I'll just say I came to visit."

I  grumbled a bit at that, but I also slid my hand down and successfully  palmed one of her soft bouncy ass cheeks so I called it a win. After  finally letting me grope her butt for a minute my girlfriend rolled her  eyes and pulled back. "That's enough of that. Be good and I'll let you  play with it some more later." She gave me a heated once over that made  my heart race and then turned and headed into the field, swaying her  hips for me as she walked. Artemis made a gagging noise as she walked by  as usual and Kit and Reggie chuckled, but we followed behind her all  the same.

As I  approached the empty space, I got the oddest feeling I'm being watched  and I spun on the spot, activating my aura sense. I winced at the  veritable cloud of red energy floating around. I debated saying  something, but I'm pretty sure whatever is out here is way stronger than  us, and if we draw it's attention we were fucked, so I pretended not to  have noticed anything and step closer to my team to protect them. I  rested my hand casually on my King's Sword of Haste, ready to draw at a  moments notice.

Zee  pulled a key from her coat pocket, since she wasn't wearing pants, ans I  marveled at her soft voluptuous ass again, licking my lips a bit before  Artemis smacked me upside the head for staring. Getting to cop a feel  had definitely put me in a bit of a mood, but I had to admit my violent  best friend had a point. We were all in costume, so I fixed my slightly  askew hat as Zee stuck the key in an invisible lock and turned. The  Tower beneath began to slowly reveal itself, almost looking like it was  being built in real time by magic.

After  the door opened I stepped in first, aura sight trained on the space  behind us as the rest of them traipsed in. The red force seemed to be  concentrating into a figure that was trying to follow us in. With a  grunt of effort I flexed my will and burned twenty points erecting a  wall of densely packed shadows behind us as Zatanna slammed closed the  door. There was a crash outside, and I winced as my shadow construct  shattered, but the howl of rage from the other side of the door actually  made me feel better.

Everyone  whirled to look at the door in shock then spun to look at me as I  smirked at the entrance. Artemis was the first to question me. "What the  actual fuck was that? It sounds powerful and super pissed off. What did  you just do?" She looked around nervously. "You didn't make the tower  angry or something did you?" I was pretty sure I hadn't. Dr. Fate was a  lord of order, and whatever that...thing on the other side of the door  had been had not been orderly at all. I pushed down an urge to puke when  I remembered the brief glimpse of the condensed form of that aura  before I shut off my sight.

I  shrugged. "I doubt it. Something was out there, I think ti wanted to  follow us in. I shoved a shit load of shadows in front of it as it tried  and we slammed the door in its face. It wouldn't have worked at all if  the thing wasn't playing at being sneaky.I didn't say anything because I  was worried it might attack. It was obviously pretty damn strong. It  smashed my wall like it wasn't even there and barely slowed down."  Twenty points into one wall of shadows was a massive expenditure. I  could teleport a bunch of creatures across a room for half that. It was  worrying that whatever the fuck it was had destroyed that construct so  easily.

Everyone  here knew about my shadow powers luckily, I'd started using them more.  Nightshade had even offered to do some lessons with me, but Zee had been  there at the time and had looked kind of murderous as she glared at the  pretty twenty somethings very large breasts so I had politely declined.  Zee apologized later but honestly it made me feel good that she would  get jealous over me, and it wasn't like she actually did anything but  glare. Still we had passed off my abilities as an evolution of my shadow  form so it was no big deal talking about it.

Despite  that they didn't know enough to understand that the amount of points  I'd put into that wall was enough to do some serious damage if I'd been  attacking, and I had condensed it down hard. My shadows constructs  remained under my control after I made them until they broke or  dissolved and I had basically jammed a whole shit load of power into a  very small space to make a defense that would have stopped ten times the  strongest blow Leoric could have managed. I was glad the wards here  were up to the challenge of holding it off.

Zee  looked troubled but finally shook her head. "We should take the back  way when we go, but whatever it is it shouldn't be able to get in. If it  was trying to follow us in the defenses should keep it out, and only  Uncle Kent and I have keys to this place. He's more than smart enough  not to let some hostile entity in with him when he opens the door so we  shouldn't need to worry abut it." She turned to smile at me warmly.  "Great work baby, I don't know what I'd do if some monster got in here  and hurt Uncle Kent." She stepped up and kissed me on the cheek, resting  her head on my chest as I held her.

Clearly  sensing a genuine emotional moment Artemis didn't even gag this time. I  kissed the top of Zee's head and stepped back. "Speaking of your Uncle,  are you going to tell him about your...change in origin?" I didn't want  Dr. Fate of all people knowing about my powers, but since we were  telling anyone who needed to know Zee and Artemis's race change came  from the dungeon (which due to randomness and instancing they couldn't  disprove) they could safely share without giving it away.

Artemis  sighed dramatically. "Ugh, don't get me started. Yes. Your girlfriend  is a world champion level weasel when it comes to getting her way. Those  big blue eyes and that pout." I was familiar with the allure of Zee's  pout. I'd done more than one thing against my better judgement because  of that pout. Besides which her full one hundred and thirty charisma  made her near impossible to resist even through her glamour. Just her  attitude and demeanor were exponentially more compelling than they had  been, and Madame Xanadu was working with her on further refinement of  her illusions.

Still, it was their  business to share or not, since they were keeping my name out of it. I  just shrugged and left them to their decision as I looked around. After  ingesting the dark blood shadows were within my control, so dark didn't  really hinder my ability to see at all. A small but pretty helpful side  effect that I definitely enjoyed. But just as I was looking around I  heard a noise behind us and spun in horror. The door was opening.

As  the the barrier to the outside swung inward I watched in terror as  several forms stepped into the Tower. My aura sight up I watched the red  light streak past us and into the depths of the tower, as the blinding  flash cleared all I could see were the group of teenagers behind it. I  recognized two of them by their auras. Robin was the obvious, but I did  not look forward to telling Artemis her boyfriend was Kid Flash.