Copy Protection Void Part 18

"This feels like cheating," Mist admitted as he watched the swarm of draghkar die by the dozens as Egwene's clone swept the purple and blue beam of crackling lightning that was coming out of the end of his upgraded wand over the creatures.

"We'd probably die of old age if we had to wait for you to kill an army of shadowspawn with a bow every time you wanted to kill something with the wand," Egwene's clone replied as she embraced the source through her angreal and sent a large fireball into the swarm, killing hundreds of the flying shadowspawn and partially repairing her mana pool from the damage upgrading the wand's damage had caused.

"That's fair, except the part where I only have a day to take advantage of the boost that lets it improve," Mist replied, wondering if he'd feel differently about the monsters if he didn't have his mental defenses.

The clone waved the wand and blasted another swath of draghkar before they wised up and started fleeing. She drew deep with the angreal and tossed another five giant fireballs at the fleeing swarm. She relaxed a touch as the dead shadowspawn pushed her mana pool back up to half of what it was before she'd started boosting the wand's damage and damaging her mana pool. She pulled her hand back out of the hole in the wall of air that she'd set up in case they actually had some type of distance weapon and let the gateway she'd created with mana close. "I'm done, between the fireballs and the gateways, I'm tapped out for channeling."

"I appreciate the help, it saves me a lot of trouble," Mist assured her as he used his sunglasses to check the stats on the wand that Egwene was holding. 'Legendary damage?' He sighed when he noticed the temporary Unstable trait. 'Fifty nine minutes and forty three seconds. No point pushing things.'

"You could always pay Bodewhin to help," Egwene suggested.

Mist glanced over at where Bodewhin and Eldrin were discussing something with Egwene and Vanessa over by the giant crystal. "I would but the wand picked up an unstable trait, it's going to need at least an hour before the trait vanishes and I want to try some of the new spells."

"Which ones?" Egwene's clone asked as they headed over to the stack of books.

"I was thinking about the water walking spell and the spell to summon mirrors but being able to summon an insane dwarf fisherman might be useful," Mist mused.

"Why do you want to deal with an insane fisherman?" the clone asked, not sure if he was joking or serious.

"Because there's a chance that he has useful gear or skills if we can restrain him and use the cursed collar," Mist pointed out as he picked up the spellbook on the top of the pile and double checked the description his glasses gave him. 'Teaches novice level water walking. Okay, does that mean it's useful or useless?' He opened the spellbook, causing the spell to get burned into his soul and the book to vanish.

"What did you learn?" the clone asked.

"Water walking, it's useful but you'll float downstream on a river if you don't keep moving," Mist replied with amusement, looking forward to testing the spell out. He checked the next three books then put them in his bag. "I think I'm going to skip the Insane Avatar's Summoning of the Dungeon of Omens and the Terrible Summoning of the Forgotten Monster of Knives for the moment and the Profane Conjuration of the Mad Prince seems suspect."

Egwene's clone shook her head. "Most of the spells seem suspect, those seem actively malicious."

"Yep," Mist agreed as he picked up and used the next spellbook, picking up the ability to summon an insane dwarven fisherman for an hour. "Huh, there's a halfway decent chance that he'll be sane enough to trade for fish and a small chance that he'll just try to beat you to death with his fishing pole."

"Lovely," the clone replied with a touch of sarcasm.

"Sometimes you have to roll the dice," Mist replied as he checked the next book. "Failed Ritual of Mystic Transfiguration of the Drunken Knight? This empowerment ritual permanently increases a person's strength and durability at the cost of crippling their balance and destroying their liver."

"Do you think the ring that lets you train your balance would help?" Egwene asked thoughtfully.

"Probably," Mist replied and opened the cover, picking up the new spell. He checked the next couple of books then put them in his bag as he didn't want to deal with tortured specters or tombs of visions or dreadful wraiths. He stared at the description of the next book. "Blood Queen's Transfiguration of the Cavern of Damnation, that has potential."

"How?" the clone asked, wondering what she was missing as none of it seemed useful.

"It creates monsters to fight." Mist opened the book, picking up the spell and a better idea how it worked. "Yeah, that has potential. It creates an underground cavern with glowing crystals and monsters to fight that might have ter'angreal or chests filled with gold."

"What happens if your spell creates something that we can't deal with?" the clone asked.

"Then we'll bury the entrance," Mist replied, hoping it wouldn't come to that since he had the overpowered wand and a group of powerful channelers.

"No, if we can't deal with it, we'll get Rand to grab an sa'angreal and destroy it," the clone stated, not wanting to leave a mess for someone else to deal with that might grow worse over the years.

"That's probably a better idea than leaving it to fester," Mist admitted as he checked the next book on the pile. "Ooh, the Rite of Consuming One Thousand Cursed Demons."

"What is that supposed to do?" the clone asked.

"It summons one thousand demons to the realm that you can eat for power. Unfortunately it doesn't actually come with a method for containing the demons and you'll die if you haven't consumed all of the demons within a year and a day."

"What happens if you manage to eat all of the demons?" the clone asked.

Mist opened the book and learned the spell, figuring he'd eventually find a method for containing the demons. "It turns your bones into indestructible gemstones, gives you the ability to punch through a steel plate and drives you insane because the demons are constantly trying to escape. It also doubles the size of a male's equipment which is generally a bad thing."

"We'd need a way to deal with the demons," the clone mused then shook her head. "As much as I'd like to never have to worry about breaking my bones, I'm not sure it's worth the hassle."

"Probably not," Mist agreed as he checked the next book. "Transfiguration of Horror, Black Beasts, yeah, no," he muttered as he put the spellbook containing the spell to turn people into insane and dangerous monsters in his bag. He laughed when he checked the next book and realized that his cursed collar would make it useful rather than annoying and mildly useful. "Can I talk you into wrapping someone in threads of air so I can stick the cursed collar on a summon if they attack me?"

"Why are we sticking the collar on people?" the clone asked.

Mist opened the book and picked up the new spell. "The Edgelord's spell of Faceless Minion Creation actually just summons a random dark elf, twists their body and gives them the powers of a starting warlock and knowledge of the caster's native language at the cost of removing their face and driving them temporarily insane."

The clone stared at Mist. "Edgelord? Warlock?"

"Basically, someone that is trying too hard to be creepy or scary and warlocks generally have a couple of magical abilities, including the ability to toss bolts of magic," Mist explained.

"Does the spell do anything to keep them loyal?" the clone asked.

"Sort of, the caster can assign three tasks that they're compelled to complete before they're sent home with their powers. It's a trade that they have to agree to before they're summoned and even if they die while summoned, they'll wake up safe and sound, other than a bit of mental trauma from the experience."

"Do it before I change my mind," the clone told him.

Mist cast his new spell, summoning a flat chested and bald blue skinned woman with pointed ears that was missing her nose, eyebrows and lips, making her look more like a creepy doll wearing black robes than a person.

"Ma-aster, I have come to eat the toes and bones of your enemies!" the faceless elf declared as she raised her hands that looked like they'd been broken and put back together by a five year old. "Who do you want me to skull fuck?"

"Just stand there for a minute and let me stamp your face," Mist ordered as he pulled his collection of stamps out of his belt pouch. 'Let's hope she doesn't like bacon,' he thought as he stamped her cheek with the stamp that would let her magically shape wood at the cost of becoming allergic to bacon. "I have a stamp that will rip your flesh off and give you the ability to walk through a shadow realm, do you want the power?"

"Give me the power so I can eviscerate your enemies!" the woman shouted, causing the girls to walk over, looking concerned.

"Cool," Mist muttered as he cast his regeneration spell on the elf. He stamped the elf's face, causing her flesh to be ripped off, leaving the woman a bloody mess for the couple of seconds it took for her flesh to regenerate.

"More pain! Give me more Master!" the elf screamed then broken down into giggles and chackling which sent shivers down Mist's spine.

"What's going on?" Egwene asked as they walked over.

"I'm boosting my new minion," Mist explained and cast his enhancement spell that gave the target the ability to see through clothes at the cost of summoning a powerful demon that would hunt them down and rip their flesh off after twenty four hours. 'Sorry, not sorry, you're insane enough that I doubt it was just the summoning spell.' He stamped the elf's forehead with the windigo stamp then put the stamps back in his belt pouch and pulled the magical chalice out of his bag of holding. "Do you want to increase your strength?"

"I'll rip your foes limb from limb, build a throne of skulls and sacrifice their souls to my god!" the elf declared, looking entirely too cheerful about the entire idea of ripping people apart for everyone's peace of mind.

"Perfect," Mist lied as he pulled a jug of water out of his bag and filled the chalice. 'It's like a train wreck, you know you shouldn't look but you have to.'

"Do you have an actual plan?" Egwene's clone asked Mist.

"That depends, do you want to fight other minions for the chance to acquire power?" Mist asked the elf.

"Can I eat them?" the elf asked hopefully, practically bouncing up and down with excitement.

"Only in the arena," Mist replied, wanting to make sure she didn't try to eat his friends.

"I'll break them in half and make jelly out of their eyes," the elf declared, willing to do just about anything for power.

"Great, they're insane," Bodewhin muttered.

The elf cackled. "I'm not mad, I'm just happy I get to rip people apart," she giggled, "and play with their entrails."

Bodewhin made a mental note to keep an eye on the monster and not turn her back to her.

"Don't worry, we can fix the side effects," Mist assured the elf as he handed her the chalice. "This should give you supernatural strength."

"Power!" the elf screamed then chugged the contents of the chalice, quickly transforming into a short blue skinned dwarf that looked like she was playing dress up in her parents clothes since the robe didn't change size. "Skull fucking!" she shouted as she made several pelvic thrusts.

"Do I want to know?" Eldrin asked warily.

"Not really," Mist replied as he reached out and poked the elf on her forehead, picking up her pattern so that he could create a clone. He spent the mana to summon another minion, getting a purple skinned and faceless male elf in a black robe. "Do you want power?"

"Who do I have to kill?" the new minion asked excitedly, his glowing red eyes burning with hatred and insanity.

"You have to fight in an arena but we should probably give you a couple of magical abilities first unless you want to lose," Mist told him.

He laughed. "Power is everything, turn me into a monster! Use me! Abuse me! I am yours to do with as you command!"

"Over the top, much?" the first dark elf asked sarcastically.

"I'm going to enjoy ripping your throat out with my teeth," the male elf declared as he glared at the short elf.

"I hope you know what you're doing," Egwene told Mist.

"Hopefully," Mist replied, glad that he could dismiss the elves if he needed to because they were seriously unhinged. 'At least the cursed collar should make it easier to get sane clones.'

0o0o0

"What happens if they keep the extra powers and insanity when they're sent back?" Eldrin asked warily as she watched the area where the insane minions had been standing before Mist used the poison pit spell and banished them to fight in an arena.

"There should be people around that can deal with their level of strength and they'll get cured of insanity so they'll probably end up saner than they started," Mist told her, fairly sure the rest of the dark elves would be able to stop them on the off chance that they actually picked up more than the basics of being a warlock. 'With any luck the demons will show up in a day and kill them which should keep them from going on a rampage with their new powers.'

"If you figure out how to deal with the liver damage, can I use the knight transformation ritual?" Bodewhin asked hopefully.

Mist weighed the benefits against the dangers and sighed when he realized that it was probably a reasonable request considering the type of monsters they were going to be fighting. "Let me run a couple dozen tests first to make sure that there aren't any long term side effects and to make sure we can use the ring to boost your balance back up to a reasonable level."

"I'm not in a rush," Eldrin assured him.

Mist shivered as a naked and malformed purple skinned girl with pointed ears and jagged gems for teeth reappeared covered in blood and holding a blood covered spine in her only remaining hand. He glanced at her missing arm which looked like it had been ripped off then looked at her left eye which had been turned to mush. 'I should have waited until the girls were gone,' he thought as he cast his regeneration spell on the twisted dwarf, causing her missing arm and eye to quickly regenerate. 'At least the entire fight only took about thirty seconds.'

"I have devoured the flesh of my enemies and returned victorious, give me more!" the elf demanded, looking at the girls like she wanted to rip them apart but unable to because of the summoning contract. "More power, more blood!"

"I have one more empowerment spell, a healing spell and a magic item to test and then you can go home and rest," Mist told her.

"Give me Power!" the girl shouted then cackled with laughter that quickly turned into coughing.

'He wasn't joking about them being insane,' Egwene thought as she watched Mist cast a spell on the girl, causing her muscles to bulge. He cast his regeneration spell on her to deal with the liver damage. "That should take care of the damage."

"What about my height?" the elf complained.

"The collar should fix that," Mist lied as he pulled the cursed collar out of his bag of holding and handed it to the girl.

The dark elf put the collar on the blinked. "Hello, I'm Apple, do you want to fuck?" she asked cheerfully.

"Maybe later," Mist replied, not interested in screwing the insane dwarf but trying to avoid making Apple unhappy.

Apple turned to look at Egwene and her clone. "Do you want to fuck? I'll cut the usual price in half."

"No thanks," Egwene told her, more than a bit disturbed by the fact that she didn't have a nose or lips.

Mist reached out and poked Apple's arm, picking up the ability to clone her. "You can take the collar off."

Apple reached up and took the collar off.

The dark elf glared at Mist once she was back in her body. "What the fuck was that?!" she demanded, not sure why she'd blanked out.

"Magic," Mist replied. "Give me the collar and you can leave."

The elf tossed Mist the collar then vanished as she'd completed her end of the contract.

"What do you know about dark elves?" Bodewhin asked Mist, wanting more details.

"They're basically evil magic users that are resistant to hostile magic," Mist offered as he put the cursed collar back in his bag and checked the next couple of books in the pile. "It's mostly down to culture but a decent percentage of them are probably borderline sadistic by nature which doesn't help."

"How resistant to magic are we talking?" Egwene asked, thinking about Mat's medallion.

"It generally depends on the dark elf's power," Mist replied, not actually sure since he wasn't sure which world the spell had grabbed them from. "I don't need to summon insane magic wolves or a spell to summon left socks and the ritual of seven hands looks nasty."

"Seven hands?" Egwene's clone asked, choosing to ignore the spell that summoned socks.

"It basically causes you to grow seven additional hands," Mist replied as he checked the next couple of books. "Ooh, a spell that summons the left hand of a set of magical climbing gloves while someone is using it."

"Why would someone design that?" Egwene asked, knowing that spells were mostly designed rather than discovered unlike weaves.

"It was either a failed project that was supposed to conjure climbing gloves or they were assholes that wanted to randomly kill people," Mist replied as he put the books he wasn't planning on using into his bag of holding. "Just because you have magic doesn't mean you're a nice person."

"I'm aware," Egwene complained, thinking of some of the bitches her alternate had dealt with in the Tower.

Mist checked the next book and sighed when he realized that he was going to have to use it. "I found a spell that rips the flesh off a magic user's hand and creates a magical glove that boosts their magic and talents while they're wearing it. Of course, they can't wear it while their hand is a bloody wreck which makes it useless without regeneration."

Bodewhin shook her head. "I'm not testing that without a lot of alcohol or something to kill the pain."

"I wouldn't either," Mist replied with amusement. He cast the spell to conjure traveling mirrors, conjuring two identical and ornate three foot tall by two foot wide silver mirrors in front of him. "Does anyone want to test the mirrors?"

"I'll check," Egwene's clone offered as she studied the mirrors that weren't falling over despite not having a base that should prevent them from falling over.

"Or he could conjure a clone of Apple and have her check, she's short," Egwene suggested when she realized that her clone would have to crawl through the mirror.

"Probably a better idea," Mist admitted as he picked one of the mirrors up and moved it several feet away from its twin. He focused on his cloning ability and conjured a copy of Apple, creating a naked dwarf with pointed ears and no nose or lips.

"Hello? So, do you want to fuck?" Apple asked Bodewhin and Eldrin.

"Maybe later," Bodewhin told the short woman with pointed ears, no breasts or nose to speak of and lumpy skin that wasn't really appealing.

"Can't blame a girl for trying," Apple replied. "Is there anything I can help you with?"

"We're testing a set of magical mirrors that should let us travel between them but they're a bit on the small size," Mist explained.

"How do they work and how much are you paying me?" Apple asked, willing to help if they were going to pay her.

"You should be able to step through one of the mirrors and walk down a passage and out the other mirror and I'll pay you a gold piece because there might be some risk," Mist offered.

"Better than nothing," Apple muttered as she walked over and touched the mirror, finding that it felt a bit like water as she could push her hand through the glass. She took a breath then ducked through the mirror and into a shadowy and rather short tunnel. She glanced at the smooth onyx like stone walls then shuffled over to the glass window that looked out on the clearing where she could see one of the girls talking. She stuck her tongue out, trying to see if there was anything in the air she could taste before she took a breath.

'Tastes find,' she thought as she exhaled and cautiously inhaled enough air to get a better taste, ready to dive through the 'mirror' if the air was strange. 'Seems fine,' she mused then stepped out of the strange tunnel, happy that she didn't have to hunch over any more. "The tunnel was the same dimensions as the mirror. The air didn't taste bad and I'm not light headed so it's probably fine."

"How long was the tunnel?" Mist asked as he pulled a small bag of silver coins out of his coin purse so he could pay her something that wouldn't cause the villagers issues.

"About twice as long as the mirrors were apart," Apple replied. "Where's the closest town or place I can pick up some clothes?"

"Right, sorry," Mist replied as he conjured a blue loincloth for her. "This should keep you warm and it comes with magic to make sure it's viewed as acceptable clothes for any occasion. Emond's Field is about twenty miles away, we'll give you a lift."

"Nice. Do you know where I can find some work?" Apple asked as she put the loincloth on.

"I'm sure we can figure out something," Mist assured her as he pulled the bunny ears out of his bag. "Do you want to be a normal sized elf?"

"What's the catch?" Apple asked.

"Larger breasts and rainbow colored hair and eyes," Mist told her.

"That's not a bug, that's a feature," the elf replied as she took the bunny ears and put them on her head.

"Have you figured out what you're going to do with the nearly indestructible crystal?" Eldrin asked Mist.

"I have three ideas, the worst one involves using the ritual of sacrificial damned construction to construct the building. I'd need to sacrifice something like gold or a magical item but the demon construction crew could probably manipulate the crystal."

"Dealing with demons never ends well," Apple warned them.

"I'm aware," Mist admitted. "The best option involves talking Egwene into hauling the crystal into the world of dreams and reshaping it then moving it back through a giant gate and the third option involves using gateways to try to cut the crystal into blocks."

"Or you could have me use magic to reshape it," Eldrin offered with a smirk.

"We'll figure something out," Egwene assured him, fairly sure they could make it work.

"In that case, I'll leave you to it, I want to test the sliding device." Mist pulled his dimension sliding device out of his gift menu at stared at the odd contraption, rather amused that it looked like someone had taken the basic shape of an old palm sized black VCR remote, replaced all of the buttons with a single red button and put a flip up plastic shield over the quarter sized button to prevent anyone from accidently pushing it. He checked the description his glasses gave him. 'Pushing the button will open a portal to a random mirror world in a reasonably safe location, the portal will stay open for one minute.'

"What happens if you can't get back?" Bodewhin asked.

"On the off chance that I can't crawl through the mirror, I have the recall spell," Mist assured her.

"Or you could let me test it," Apple offered. "I don't have any particular attachment to this world so if I end up stuck in an alternate world, it doesn't really matter."

Mist added a couple of gold coins to the bag of silver that he'd counted out earlier and handed it to Apple. "Grab one of the mirrors and jump through the portal, it should let you get back. You'll want to put it at least twenty feet from where the other mirror is."

Apple tied the coin purse to her loincloth then walked over and picked up one of the mirrors. "You're going to owe me at least five gold when I get back."

"Worth the money and not a problem," Mist replied as he pointed the remote at an open spot, flipped open the cover and pushed the button, creating a shimmering black and blue circular portal in the air a foot off the ground about ten feet in front of him.

"Just in case the mirror doesn't work, the nearest town should be that way," Egwene told Apple, pointing toward Emond's Field.

"Thanks," Apple replied as she carefully walked over to the portal, wishing her balance was better.

Egwene watched Apple jump through the portal with the mirror then turned to look at Mist. "We should probably ask Verin if she knows the symbol for this world in case we need it, I don't trust the symbol I remember, it might be for the other world."

"Good point," Mist admitted, hoping they didn't need it.

0o0o0