Copy Protection Void Part 17

Egwene pulled her attention away from the open waygate that led back to the mountains and focused on the spheres of light that were floating in the dark that Mist had created to serve as an early detection method for the Black Wind. "How long do you think it will take for Candy to pick up all of Amico's talents?"

"At least a couple of hours," Mist replied as another leather bound book appeared out of thin air thanks to his taint eating lab coat, making a dull thump as it hit the stone that made up the platform, "they're taking a break."

Egwene turned to look at Mist. "Are you saying that you can still see the bed in your mind?"

"Yeah, which is how I know that your clone handed Bodewhin the dragon crown so she'd have an excuse to have sex with Eldrin," Mist replied as he looked at the spellbook's description with his glasses. 'Teaches Ethereal Gemstone creation, snowflake pattern? The more mana you spend while casting the spell, the larger the nearly indestructible crystal grows and the more mana it generates over time. The crystal glows with an ethereal light that promotes plant growth and inhibits the growth of fungus and bacteria.'

"Do you want to head back?" Egwene asked, not sure how to feel about her desire to see her friends naked and having sex.

"Not a chance, Candy is offering pointers and the entire thing is embarrassing enough with Vanessa and your clone there, I don't need to add to it the first time around," Mist explained as he reached down and picked up the book.

"Especially since you can watch without them knowing about it?" Egwene asked, wishing she could do the same.

"Pretty much, it boosts the chances of picking up abilities to twenty percent rather than ten which makes picking up abilities a lot easier." Mist opened the book and twitched as the spell was burned into his soul.

"Why couldn't Alene or Loise get the ability to create ter'angreal? I could probably talk them into having sex. Bodewhin has it easy, Eldrin is adorable."

"You could always use an illusion or make a mask," Mist suggested as he turned his attention back to the void, listening and watching for the Black Wind, wanting to make sure they had enough time to run and trying not to get distracted by Eldrin kneeling over sister and using her tongue to play with her nipples.

"That feels a bit dishonest," Egwene replied, not sure how to take advantage of the dragon crown in a reasonable way.

"The crown is always going to feel a bit twisted and weird," Mist pointed out. "It gives you a chance to increase your talents at the cost of your morals or at least a piece of them."

"How would you use it without feeling like a rat?" Egwene asked, hoping he had a suggestion that didn't leave her feeling dirty.

"I'd probably convince myself that the village doesn't need to know who they're having sex with if they're willing to accept the risk of having children and honestly, we're going to need the help unless you want me to make an army of clones. If we have Nynaeve making sure everyone is healthy and we're using masks and illusions to conceal people's identities and voices, we can probably keep the true nature of the crown a secret until it doesn't matter any more."

"Masks might work," Egwene mused as she reflexively caught the book that appeared out of thin air in front of her. "Anything good?"

Mist caught the book that dropped out of the air in front of him and checked Egwene's book with his glasses. "It teaches a spell that conjures a pair of silver framed mirrors that allow you to step into the mirrors and walk between them in a shadow realm."

"What's the catch?" Egwene asked as she caught another book that dropped.

"Run!" Mist shouted and bolted for the exit when he noticed the furthest light was darker than it should be.

"Murder, skin so tender, hidden voices," a voice screamed into Egwene's mind, causing her to run for the exit as well, ignoring the books that were appearing out of thin air every other second.

Egwene followed Mist through the exit then spun around and got ready to try to blast the Black Wind if it tried escaping through the waygate.

Mist ignored the book that dropped out of thin air as the Black Wind pressed up against the exit to the waygate, trying to leave the Ways. "How long do you think we can keep it focused on trying to escape the Ways?" he asked as he dropped the book he was holding on the ground, wanting his hands free.

"At least a couple of minutes, why?" Egwene asked, doing her best to ignore the shrieking voices.

"Because I have an idea," Mist replied as he quickly pulled a jug of water and the magical chalice out of his satchel of holding.

"I don't think that's going to work," Egwene warned him, ignoring the book that dropped next to her foot and trying to ignore the Black Wind's insane ranting.

"It's worth a try," Mist replied as he filled the chalice. He walked up to the waygate and splashed the water from the chalice through the gate, hoping he wasn't making a mistake then turned and dashed away from the waygate.

"Flesh, broken, escape!" the voices shouted as a twisted dwarf with pitch black skin jumped out of the Ways with a feral look on its face.

Egwene hit the creature with a cable of hardened air as thick as her leg, sending it crashing into a twisted tree with enough force to snap the tree in half. She wrapped the cable around the dwarf as it lurched to its feet and slammed the dwarf into the broken tree trying and failing to impale it. "Should I try fire or should I toss it through a skimming gate?" she asked, glad that it wasn't immune to her grabbing it with mana.

"Burn your eyes, nibble toes, peel your flesh!" the voices shouted as the dwarf struggled against the mana holding it in place.

"Just hold it for a minute!" Mist replied as he put the chalice back in his satchel of holding, pulled out his sword shaped wand and pointed it at the dwarf. He ignored the book that appeared out of thin air and dropped on his left foot as he mentally activated the wand, sending a stream of purple energy into the ground seven feet away from the dwarf as the blade of the sword flopped over. 'Screw it,' he thought as he pulled the Min-Maxer's Crystal Weapon of Slaughter token out of his belt pouch.

Egwene slammed the dwarf's head into a rock a couple of times trying to stop the mad voices that were ranting at her.

Mist pointed the tip of the sword blade at the ground, using gravity to straighten it. 'Good enough, Vanessa should be able to fix it.' He used the token on the wand, transforming the blade into purple crystal. He took a second to look at the wand's new stats then pulled the Excalipoor token out of his belt pouch and used it on the crystal weapon. 'Accuracy Supernatural, Ranged Control: Excellent, Melee Damage: Nonlethal Terrible, Ranged Damage:Terrible Life/Mana drain, Durability: Moderate and Speed: Acceptable.'

Mist pointed the sword at the dwarf and unleashed a beam of purple energy from the tip, easily hitting the creature. He nearly dropped his wand when he felt something slimy try to crawl over him as the creature's twisted mana flowed into him. He ignored the books that were appearing two or three at a time as he focused on draining the creature's mana. "This could take a while."

"I'm tossing it through a skimming gate if it looks like it's going to escape," Egwene warned him.

"Good, we don't need it running around eating souls," Mist replied as he gestured off to the side and poured all of his mana into his Ethereal Gemstone creation spell, not seeing a point in wasting the mana he was draining from the dwarf.

Egwene stared at the fist sized snowflake made out of a yellow crystal that quickly grew into a house sized green and blue crystal snowflake before it stopped growing and fell over, hitting the ground with a crash that managed to overpower the screaming for a second by sheer volume.

Mist stared at the giant glowing snowflake for a couple of seconds then forced himself to focus on draining mana from the dwarf, doing his best to ignore the books that hadn't stopped dropping and the disgusting feeling like he'd just stepped in dog shit with his bare feet from the filthy mana he was draining from the creature.

"Light burns, pull your entrails out!" the voices shouted as the dwarf thrashed against the ropes of mana holding it in place, causing Egwene to scowl and add more ropes of mana to keep it from escaping.

"This is going to take forever," Mist admitted as he pulled his corrupted weapon token out of his belt pouch and used it on his sword, hoping he wasn't making a mistake.

"Which token was that?" Egwene asked, trying to ignore the nonsense phrases the dwarf was screaming in her head.

"The cursed one," Mist replied as he checked the description of the sword. "Your sword has been 'blessed' by a god of mischief. Any damage dealt to the blade will be done to your mana pool until such a time as you're able to defeat the god's nearly indestructible champion. Failure to summon the champion by raising the sword above your head and saying, 'I have the power!' within a week will result in being continually hit by lightning until the god's morale improves, you die or you summon the champion."

"Did it actually do anything useful?" Egwene asked, worried about her friend's health and his sanity.

"It gave me exactly what I needed even if it wasn't what I wanted," Mist replied as he took a couple of steps away from his growing pile of questionable books, "a way to avoid breaking my wand while I'm killing trollocs."

"At the cost of your life if you can't defeat the champion," Egwene pointed out as she started bashing the dwarf's head against a large rock on the ground, trying to get the mental screaming to stop.

"I'll figure something out. Can you stop that? I want to kill it," Mist reminded her.

"Fine!" Egwene snapped, tired of listening to the ranting. "Just kill it already."

Mist focused on the creature's mouth and dumped all of his mana into creating a mana snowflake, causing the dwarf to explode and unleash a wave of dark magic as the purple and red crystal grew to the size of a wagon.

Egwene spent a couple of seconds making sure that she wasn't going to lose her lunch because of the disgusting 'stench' that covered the area then turned to look at Mist. "That's disgusting."

"Yeah…" Mist trailed off as he checked his clothes menu and saw the upgrade token that was waiting for him. "I'm going to have to upgrade everyone's boots, I got an upgrade token."

"What does it do?" Egwene asked as she caught the book that appeared in front of her.

"It increased the speed boost from twenty percent extra or forty percent," Mist replied as he used the token to boost the boots he could conjure. He checked the description on the silk skirts he could conjure and smiled. "I also picked up the ability to conjure silk skirts that let people walk on all surfaces as if they were flat and create a circle of warmth within 10ft."

Egwene laughed. "My mother is going to complain if you start walking on the walls."

"I figured," Mist replied with a grin as he conjured a translucent blue silk miniskirt and tossed it to Egwene. "They also come with the same enchantment as the loincloths so they always count as acceptable clothing and they make sure people can't get sunburned."

"Probably just as well," Egwene replied as she stepped into it like it was a normal skirt rather than something that was barely taller than her hand. "Are Bodewhin and Eldrin still in the middle of things or can we open a portal and grab everyone to help with cleaning up the dark magic?" she asked as she pulled the skirt into place over her loincloth.

Mist focused on the bed that he'd conjured in the stedding and sighed when he realized that he'd missed the rest of the show. "Yeah, they gave the crown back to Candy."

"Is there a safe place to open a gate?" Egwene asked.

"Everyone is standing around the bed so you should be fine sticking it by the large tree on the edge of the clearing," Mist replied as he opened his gift menu and looked at his new gifts.

"I'll be back in a minute," Egwene told him as she opened a gateway to the large tree in the stedding.

"Thanks," Mist replied absently as she stepped through the gateway and he read the description on the Ring of Fertility, 'This ring doubles the chances of a girl getting pregnant if worn during any activity that could result in offspring and any child conceived while wearing it will have a general boost to their physical and mental abilities. It also increases the chances of beneficial magical traits passing down to the next generation. Even if you're not planning on having children, it's probably worth wearing just in case for the boosted abilities, it would only push things to ten percent with the crown.'

Mist made a mental note to give the ring to Egwene then looked at the next gift. 'Crystal of Dark Sight, see as well in the dark as you could in twilight. I know where that's going,' he mused as he checked the next gift. 'Slider Device: Using this device will open a portal to a reasonably safe alternate world that you could have found using the portal stone network, getting back is your own problem. At least I have the recall spell.'

Mist turned his attention to the spellbooks. 'Conjures Animated Orbs that can float and move around in a set path.' He glanced at the next one, 'Flesh Barrier? Conjures a wall of recently dead flesh. I don't even want to know but I guess you could use the barrier to feed monsters. The Gauntlet of Magma? Conjures magma around your hand, the spell doesn't provide immunity or even resistance to fire, because of course it doesn't, that would actually make the spell useful.'

'Vortex of Noodles, conjures a vortex of noodles to hit people with, you might be able to poke out an eye if they don't close or cover them. That might be useful for soup,' Mist mused as he glanced at the next spellbook. 'Summon a milk angel, that has chocolate breast milk and doesn't mind giving people a drink as long as they're wearing their birthday suit. Some of these are certainly questionable.'

'Summon Babysitters, this spell summons various babysitters of a questionable nature, while they'll never harm their charges directly, they're not the most attentive of souls and we don't guarantee your charge's mental health? Yeah, that sounds like a recipe for pain and suffering or a lot of amusement depending,' Mist mused as he checked the next book. 'Conjure chocolate ball, unfortunately, the spell conjures really cheap chocolate.'

"Yeah, no thanks," Mist muttered as Bodewhin stepped through the gateway.

"No thanks, what?" Bodewhin asked.

Mist smiled when he looked up from the books and realized that Bodewhin was just wearing her loincloth, leaving her breasts on display. "I found a spell that conjures watered down candy. I'll stick with my bag of chocolate coins."

"I don't blame you, they're delicious," Bodewhin replied as she walked over.

Mist conjured a lab coat and tossed it to Bodewhin. "You should probably put that on."

Bodewhin put the lab coat on, leaving it open. "What else did you get?"

"There's a spell that conjures a maelstrom of cabbage which might be useful if we're making certain types of food…" Mist trailed off as he saw a spellbook that taught a spell to create a wall of generic root beer. 'The magic doesn't actually hold the root beer in the right shape? Eh? So, that just means you need a couple of barrels and some walls of air or a trough.'

"Ooh!" Eldrin squealed when she walked through the gateway and saw the giant crystals.

Mist glanced between Eldrin and the giant crystal that she was staring at. "I also picked up a spell that creates giant crystal snowflakes that generate mana and produce light that helps plants grow. Egwene found a spell that creates a set of mirrors that connect to each other through a shadow realm."

"Do you remember the downsides of the spell?" Egwene asked as she walked over with her clone.

"Yeah, the distance between the mirrors in the shadow realm is stretched which means you'd have to walk twice as far," Mist explained as he conjured three lab coats and handed them to Egwene and her clone.

"Thanks," Egwene's clone replied as she put her lab coat on.

"Do you have to worry about elevation and obstacles?" Egwene asked thoughtfully as she put the lab coat on and let the gateway close, not seeing a point to explain things to Amico.

"I don't know," Mist admitted. "I just saw the description for a couple of seconds before we had to run from the Black Wind. If we don't have to worry about elevation or obstacles the mirrors become a lot more useful."

"Especially if you could install a cart," Bodewhin mused as Eldrin walked over and grabbed a coat from Egwene's clone.

Egwene handed Mist the spellbook. "You should try it."

"Are you sure?" Mist asked, surprised that she didn't want to use the book.

"I can channel and I'd rather not have everyone bothering me when they need a set of mirrors," Egwene admitted.

"That's fair." Mist opened the book, burning the spell into his soul.

"Besides, I'm sure there are plenty of spellbooks that you aren't going to be interested in," Egwene pointed out.

"Probably," Mist agreed, not particularly interested in some of the spells he'd seen.

"Did you learn anything about the spell?" Eldrin asked hopefully.

"Yeah, the spell is more useful than I thought. The distance between the mirrors is actually shorter if one of the mirrors is in a mirror world and it's a straight and stone tunnel between the mirrors which means you can use them to cross rivers and chasms," Mist explained, looking forward to seeing if they could install tracks in the shadow world so it would be easier to move around.

"If you find another copy of the spell, I want it," Egwene told him.

"That's fair," Mist replied with a smile, looking forward to testing the sliders device once they had things set up. "The Black Wind released a lot of dark magic when it died, so feel free to walk around and absorb some while I sort through the books we already have."

"Did you find anything to make the school better?" Eldrin asked as she headed toward the giant crystal so she could run some tests.

"Not yet but there's always hope," Mist replied with a smile as he went back to sorting through the pile of books.

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