Copy Protection Void Part 19

Apple barely managed to stick the landing after falling out of the portal thanks to the mirror she was holding and her two left feet. She glanced around the windswept area that looked much the same as the clearing she'd just left if you ignored the absence of the giant crystal snowflakes. "Everything seems normal…" she trailed off when she heard the sound of metal hitting metal from somewhere behind her. She spun around and stared when she saw a handsome red haired shirtless human with muscles in all the right places standing in front of a large dark metal anvil and hammering a silvery blade with a rune etched hammer that was surrounded by purple flames.

"There was a girl in the tavern, her hair was black as soot, her eyes shone like emeralds," the blacksmith sang as he worked on finishing the sword he was working on, each strike of his hammer causing the air to rumble like thunder.

Apple glanced around to make sure she hadn't missed anything else then turned her attention back to the man, wondering why the man had set a forge up in the middle of a clearing in the mountains. 'Maybe they didn't like the noise in town.'

"Her smile lit up the room and her silver tongue could," the man sighed. "I'll have to work on that part," he mused as he set his hammer on the anvil and plunged the blade into a barrel, causing a blast of steam as the water cooled the blade down to a reasonable temperature. He left the blade in the barrel and turned to look directly at Apple. "You might as well come over here and introduce yourself."

Apple let go of the mirror, causing it to hover in place. "Sorry, I didn't want to interrupt," she offered as she walked over to get a better look at the man's setup.

"Don't worry about it," the man replied with amusement, "I've forged weapons in the heart of a blizzard before, a bit of conversation isn't going to distract me, though I appreciate the thought," he assured her. "My name is Gobain, what should I call you?"

"My name is Apple," Apple replied with a smile as she walked over.

"What brings an elf to the Mountains of Mist, a land that hasn't seen elves since the kingdom fell?" Gobain asked as he studied the disfigured elf.

"Mist offered to pay me if I jumped through the portal with a magic mirror and one human town was as good as another on the off chance that I got stuck," Apple replied with a shrug.

Gobain glanced at the mirror that was floating in the air then focused on Apple. "Do me a favor, when you get back, tell Mist that the Dark One's right hand is bringing an army to destroy Taren Ferry in this world, he'll know what I mean."

Apple shivered as she felt something dark and cold focus on the clearing.

Gobain absently raised his hand and flipped off the presence, causing the feeling of danger to increase. "Don't start something you can't finish, demon," he told the presence as he reached over and grabbed his hammer off the anvil, causing the presence to flee.

"What was that?" Apple asked warily, feeling like she'd just walked over her own grave.

"Evil spirit," Gobain replied. "You should get going, you don't have a lot of time if you want to save people."

"Do you want to fuck when I get back?" Apple asked hopefully.

Gobain laughed good naturedly. "We'll see, I need to finish putting an edge and a handle on the blade, you'll need it," he told her as he grabbed the blade out of the barrel.

"Nice!" Apple replied then headed for the mirror, wanting to get back so she could get paid and so Mist could save people. She climbed into the mirror then shuffled over to the opposite side, annoyed at how much she had to duck. She stepped out of the mirror and gave the group a smile. "It's safe, I found a smith in the forest. He said that the Dark One's right hand man was bringing an army to destroy Taren Ferry in the other world."

"The timing is suspicious," Egwene pointed out, wondering if it was a trap.

"We have to check," Egwene's clone stated and climbed into the mirror, finding the tunnel rather tight and annoying but manageable since it was only about five feet long.

Mist shrugged then followed her into the mirror, curious about the other world and how their world was different.

Egwene's clone sort of flopped out of the mirror then crawled away from it and stood up. She glanced around the empty clearing, glad that no one was around to see her less than dignified entrance to the world. She glanced at the sword that was resting on a strange black anvil next to a piece of parchment then turned to watch Mist try to crawl out of the mirror.

"I need to work on making larger mirrors," Mist grumbled as he finished climbing out of the mirror without just sort of flopping on the ground, a process that was made harder by the fact that the mirror was narrow enough that he couldn't twist around into a crouch. He stood up then helped Bodewhin out of the mirror, wanting to save her the trouble.

"That would make it easier," Egwene's clone agreed as she created a wall of hardened air with a couple fist sized holes so they could toss fireballs through then used mana to open a gateway over Taren Ferry on the other side of her wall. She stared at the army of shadowspawn that covered the other side of the river as far as she could see. "I'm going to need some help."

"Give me a minute," Mist replied as he helped Egwene out of the mirror.

"Can I borrow your angreal?" Bodewhin asked as she stared down at the army of shadowspawn, wanting to make sure she was able to make the proper statement.

"Sure," Egwene's clone replied as she took her ring off and handed it to Bodewhin, knowing that she couldn't or at least shouldn't channel enough to make it worth it at the moment.

Bodewhin slipped the ring on her finger then embraced the source using the angreal then started raining fireballs down on the army of shadowspawn as fast as she could make them, feeling her mana pool swell with every death she caused.

Egwene walked over to the wall and stared in shock when she saw several beams of lightning erupt from the Taren Ferry side of the river, cutting through hundreds of trollocs. "Light!" she sputtered, fairly sure the 'lightning' had come from some type of ter'angreal.

Mist finished helping Vanessa and Eldrin out of the mirror then walked over to the gateway and focused on the area above a large group of shadowspawn. He pushed his mana into his crystal snowflake creation spell, creating a massive crystal snowflake that promptly fell out of the air and smashed a few hundred trollocs before they could scramble out of the way, increasing his mana pool by a large chunk.

Apple hopped out of the mirror and headed over to the forge area to investigate the sword that was sitting on the anvil, a bit surprised that the smith wasn't around as she'd just left.

Mist yanked Bodewhin out of the way a second before a line of black fire burned through the area she was standing in.

"Shit!" Bodewhin cursed.

Egwene used mana to open a small gateway inside the warded area she could see thanks to her sunglasses then used a thread of mana to club the black clad figure unconscious that had just tried to kill them, partially caving in his skull in her haste. She used blades of air to cut his arms off when she noticed the rings he was wearing then carved through the fades that were turning to look at her gateway, causing hundreds of trollocs to fall over dead as the fades died and their connections snapped.

Bodewhin moved back into position and increased the speed that she was tossing fireballs, trying not to think about what would have happened if Mist hadn't pulled her out of the way of the black fire that had burned through the wall of air.

Egwene embraced the source and hit Ishamel with a thin stream of balefire, causing him to invert colors and vanish. She sighed in relief when his arms didn't vanish with him, meaning she'd gotten the timing right. She dropped the source and used threads of air to haul the man's severed arms through her gateway before she let it snap shut.

Eldrin hurried over to the partially damaged wall of air and took advantage of the damage to create lines of razor sharp hardened air at various points on the battlefield then sent them carving through the trolloc lines, each of them moving faster than her brother could swing a staff and killing dozens of trollocs a second.

"I need better combat spells," Mist complained as two beams of lightning lanced out from the Taren Ferry side of the river and started cutting a swath of destruction through the shadowspawn.

"It would certainly help," Egwene's clone teased as she poured most of her mana into creating a fence of hardened air around the trolloc army so they wouldn't be able to escape.

"Where did they find multiple ter'angreal that toss lightning?" Egwene asked as she worked on tossing fireballs down at the army, glad that her hat would keep her from drawing too much.

"No clue." Mist sighed when he realized he was missing an opportunity. "Do you think you could imprison a couple of hundred trollocs?"

"Why?" Egwene asked, wondering why he wanted prisoners.

"Because my poison pit spell works on prisoners and I doubt we'd have a problem killing trollocs if they don't have their legs and we can blast them from range," Mist replied as he created another giant snowflake over the battlefield, crushing a couple of hundred trollocs and several fades which caused thousands of trollocs to die as the links snapped, helping to expand his mana pool even further.

"I'm going to want a turn," Egwene's clone stated as she worked on creating a wall around a group of trollocs so they could use them to get stronger.

"Not a problem," Mist assured her as he stepped away from the gateway and opened his clothing page, curious if he'd picked anything up from the trollocs he'd killed. 'Boot upgrade token, water walking. Cloak upgrade token, gives a cloak a second form the wearer can swap between. Cursed belt?'

Apple walked back over with the finished sword and the note. "The sword gets stronger the more corrupted souls it eats so we're probably going to want to kill some of them with the sword before we have to give it to the local hero."

Mist pulled his attention off the description of the new cursed belt that he could conjure and focused on Apple. "What does the note say?"

"It says the smith girl is welcome to study the forge for a couple of days and that you'd know who the local hero is," Apple replied, annoyed that the attractive smith wasn't around to fuck her.

"Probably," Mist agreed, figuring there was a good chance that the smith was talking about Rand.

"Did you get anything interesting?" Egwene asked Mist.

"A cursed belt and three upgrade tokens," Mist replied as he used the three upgrade tokens, upgrading the gear he could conjure. "The boots token gave the boots I can conjure the ability to let people walk on water, the cloak token gave me the ability to give the cloaks a second form and the glasses token lets me create versions of the magic sight glasses that can outline magic users."

"The glasses should make recruiting easier, especially for places like Amadicia and Tear which channeling is outlawed," Egwene's clone mused as she finished creating the fence of hardened air around the trollocs.

"I should be able to change the appearance of both cloaks," Vanessa offered, trying to be helpful.

"What does the cursed belt do?" Bodewhin asked, wondering if it was something they could use.

"It doubles your movement speed while you're wearing it but the light of the full moon turns you into an insane rage filled monster until the next morning. Each person you kill while transformed permanently increases your speed and durability to a total of double what you should have if you kill fifty people," Mist explained.

Bodewhin shook her head. "That's a lot of blood on your hands for a minor boost."

"Yeah," Mist agreed, fairly sure he could find fifty souls that didn't need to survive since the belt would push the damage resistance he had from Calle's gloves to the point where even Perrin would have issues hurting him. "We should probably talk to the locals."

Egwene looked down at the town then used mana and opened a gateway near one of the buildings. "After you."

0o0o0

Allora al'Vere barely kept herself from sighing in relief when seven people that she didn't recognize walked into the inn, four of which had more potential than Nynaeve, something that she'd never seen. "If you'll excuse me, I need to deal with something," she told the mayor of Taren Ferry, happy for the excuse to stop talking to the man as he'd already wasted five minutes of her time ranting about the destruction of the ferry and how he expected her to pay for it.

"You destroyed the ferry! You're going to pay for it," the mayor snapped when she turned and walked away.

Allora ignored the man as she walked over to where the group of strangers were glancing around the room. "Welcome to Taren Ferry."

"Thank you," Egwene replied as she studied the woman that looked like she could have been one of her older sisters or a cousin. "I'm surprised to find someone that can…" she trailed off as she realized that the people might not know she could channel.

"Channel?" Allora asked with a touch of amusement. "I could say the same, we don't get all that many channelers in Taren Ferry."

"Good," one of the villagers complained.

"The next time you have an army of monsters out of legend, I'll stay home and you can hack them apart with your butcher knife," Allora told Carl.

"You're the exception," Carl quickly assured her.

"What about Nynaeve? Do you want her to stop healing people?" Allora asked, glad that she only had to deal with the folk from Taren Ferry a couple of times a year unless something came up like an army of shadowspawn or one of the girls discovering she could channel, something that hadn't happened for fifteen years.

"No," Carl replied and took a drink, deciding that keeping his mouth shut about Nynaeve's personality was for the best.

"Nynaeve likes hitting people with her stick," one of the other people complained.

"Van, if you stopped running your mouth when she was around you'd have less problems," one of the young men sitting at a table offered with a grin.

"Have some respect," Van complained as he stood up unsteadily.

"Sit down before I toss you in the river to sober you up," Nara al'Thor snapped, tired of dealing with the ungrateful idiots.

"Why are all of the girls from the lower villages violent?" Van complained.

"Because we have to deal with woolheads," Nara muttered under her breath as she walked over to check out the strangers that looked strangely familiar.

"We should probably take the conversation outside where we can get a bit of privacy, unless you like overpriced and poor quality ale," Allora told Egwene.

"Not particularly," Egwene replied and headed back outside, wondering about the girl with dark red hair that had as much potential as Bodewhin had naturally and the woman that had a bit more than the girl.

Mist made sure to lightly tap the strangers as they left the inn, picking up the ability to copy them since at least one of them was a channeler and he'd noticed the way Egwene was looking at the girl with red hair.

"Where are you from and why do you look like my girlfriend?" Nara asked once they'd walked back outside.

"Girlfriend?" Egwene asked, not sure what the girl was talking about.

"Loise al'Vere," Nara replied.

"Huh," Egwene muttered, less surprised than she probably should be given Loise's personality. "I might be related, I'm Egwene al'Vere."

"Or not considering we're from a mirror world," Egwene's clone offered. "I'm also Egwene al'Vere, we're from a mirror world."

"Mirror world?" Nara asked, glancing at her mentor.

"Portal stone?" Allora asked thoughtfully, trying to remember all of the details her friend and mentor had mentioned almost twenty years ago.

"We actually used something else but same idea," Mist offered. "The portal stones can take you to worlds where events played out differently."

"What changed?" Allora asked.

"I don't know either of you so I don't know," Egwene admitted.

Mist gestured toward the rest of the girls. "Bodewhin and Eldrin Cauthon, Vanessa and Apple and I'm Mist al'Lora," he told them, glad that he'd managed to remember his local last name.

"Cauthon? As in Natti and Abel Cauthon?" Allora asked.

"We also have an older brother Matrim," Bodewhin offered.

"Which means events changed after his birth because I'm familiar with Mat," Allora mused. "Did Tam al'Thor come back?" she asked, not sure what else would have changed things enough that they wouldn't recognize her unless everything was different.

Egwene nodded. "With his son Rand and his wife Kari."

"That's it? What happened to me or the other me?" Nara asked, disappointed that she wouldn't be able to meet another version of herself.

"I don't know, my version of Rand didn't have a sister and his mother died when he was five," Egwene told her.

"That doesn't make sense," Nara complained, wondering why her mother was dead in the other world.

"Samara?" Allora asked, thinking about her friend that had shown up with Tam and Kari and changed her life.

"I've never heard of her," Egwene admitted.

"If you've never heard of her, how did you learn to channel?" Allora asked.

"Short answer? I used a ter'angreal that gave me memories of a version of myself that went to the Tower before going on several adventures," Egwene offered.

"Are we just going to ignore the fact that Dad didn't bring me back in their world and the other version of Mom is dead?" Nara asked, feeling a bit cheated.

"How old are you?" Egwene asked the girl that looked about her age, trying to figure out if she was younger or older than Rand or his twin.

"Twenty three, I was born in seventy five. Rand is my not so little younger brother," Nara told her, still a bit annoyed that her brother was a good eight inches taller than her.

"We're going to be stuck looking like teenagers for years, aren't we?" Bodewhin asked warily.

Allora laughed. "It gets better, I'm thirty five and I'll probably still look like I'm in my twenties for another hundred years," Allora offered with a grin.

"How do you fit into this?" Egwene asked Allora.

"Brandelwyn al'Vere is my older brother, does that help?" Allora asked.

"I don't remember having an aunt," Egwene admitted.

"Which makes a certain amount of sense. I was apprenticed to the old wisdom when Samara showed up with Tam and Kari and helped me figure out how to control my channeling, without the help, I would have probably died."

"Makes sense, there has to be channeling on your father's side of the family since every single one of his children has the potential," Mist pointed out.

"I'd have to ask my father," Egwene admitted, wondering why he'd never mentioned her if she existed. "How did you end up in Taren Ferry?"

"Samara has an annoying and weak form of foretelling, she basically told me that if we weren't in Taren Ferry to use the lightning turrets, the Two Rivers would get overrun by shadowspawn and wiped out before help showed up. I was expecting help from the White Tower, not a group of four channelers that managed to wipe out an army by themselves," Allora admitted.

Eldrin snickered. "That's because we're amazing."

"And humble," Mist teased as he patted Eldrin on her head, causing her to snicker.

"Speaking of being amazing, where did you get the lightning turrets?" Egwene's clone asked, wondering if Eldrin could figure out how to copy them.

"I made them," Allora replied with a grin.

"Did Samara teach you?" Eldrin asked, hoping she could learn more.

"No, a peddler had an old book that had some interesting ideas. I thought about going to the White Tower to see if I could learn more but Samara said that I'd die before my time if I signed the Book of Novices."

"Makes sense," Mist mused, finishing the thought in his head, 'if you ignore the fact that no one should have books on making ter'angreal.' He glanced at Egwene then focused on Allora. "There are various factions that don't want people learning to make ter'angreal and some of the ter'angreal are dangerous."

"Do you still have the book?" Egwene asked.

"Yes," Allora replied, happy to share with family, even if they were from another world.

"Speaking of dangerous problems, can we get back to the part where we finish off the monsters so we can improve the sword and get stronger?" Apple asked hopefully.

"Probably a good idea," Mist admitted as he turned to look at Egwene's clone. "Can we get a lift to the other side of the river?"

"Yes," Egwene's clone agreed. "The sooner we deal with the trollocs we put in a cage, the better."

"Is that safe?" Nara asked, not sure how to feel about her girlfriend's sort of sister risking her life.

"Safe enough, we have some defensive ter'angreal that should keep us from getting killed," Egwene assured them. "Does Loise have a younger sister?"

Allora nodded. "Eldrene al'Vere, she's about your age."

"Eldrene?" Egwene mused, wondering how her sister or alternate had ended up named the same thing as the last queen of Manetheren.

"Samara suggested the name and it stuck," Allora replied with a shrug.

"What's Eldrene like?" Egwene asked.

"I'll tell you about her on the way," Allora replied as she started heading for the river, looking forward to seeing how many tricks Egwene had picked up since Samara had left the Tower as an accepted.

0o0o0