Taylor and the Twisted Game Part 12

Dennis looked up from the notes he was working on as Admin walked into the lounge with four people he didn't recognize, three elves and a human male. "Welcome to the party."

"More like briefing," Emily cut in as she glanced over the group with Admin. "Names?" she asked, not sure what they'd told Admin or Skitter.

Sophia pointed above her head where her name plate should be floating over her head. "Stalker, Warp, Noelle and Chevalier."

"I didn't want to cause a mess for the PR department so I've just been going with my character name, but I haven't hid my powers from the group," Missy admitted.

Emily nodded, glad that someone had their head on straight even if her choice of video games was questionable considering her age. "If anyone asks, you were pulled in with the rest of the wards, assuming you need to tell them anything."

"Understood," Missy replied as she found a seat next to Dennis, slightly annoyed that Dean was sitting on the end of the bench so she couldn't sit next to him.

"Did Costa-Brown or Legend have any orders?" Chevalier asked, wanting to know what the situation was.

Emily glanced between Noelle and Admin then focused on Chevalier. "Officially, we're supposed to use our best judgement. Unofficially, we're supposed to try to maintain some type of order until we can escape or at least prove that the group responsible for trapping us here is lying about there being a way out."

"Lovely," Sophia muttered.

Chevalier nodded, not particularly surprised by the orders. "Were they able to stop people from logging in?"

Dragon shook her head. "No, the server room in Hades Industries and most of their coding staff vanished about ten minutes before everything went live. Normally, that would make things problematic to maintain service but the headsets were designed to send to a receiver, it doesn't matter where the server is as long as it has power."

"Were you able to find anything useful in the dungeon?" Emily asked, wanting to save the rest of the details for just the PRT and Protectorate members in the group.

Chevalier nodded. "More than I was expecting, I'll let Noelle explain the details."

"Shadowfang Keep is a decent source of leather and iron, it's also a good place to get giant wolves that are immune to shadow damage if you have a biokinetic in the party. With any luck Amelia might be able to give people immunity to cold and shadow damage which would make some of the dungeons a cake walk," Noelle explained.

Emily frowned as she mentally weighed the legal issues of a director accepting help from biokinetics or biotinkers against the possibility of acquiring immunity to multiple types of damage. 'Screw it, I can always use something to clear any mental influence later and it's not like I'm currently on duty.'

"That would make things a lot easier," Dennis admitted, then frowned when he remembered that Fenrus shouldn't be tameable. "How did you tame Fenrus?"

Noelle shook her head. "Technically we didn't, I copied him with an ability and we tamed the copies after Amelia modified them."

"They're also immune to polymorph, stun and sap effects," Sophia added smugly.

"Can I get a copy?" Chris asked hopefully.

Noelle turned to look at Chris. "We'd have to go back into the dungeon and you'd have to be at least level twenty five but sure, I don't mind making another trip as long as Skitter or Admin is around to summon us."

"I don't mind," Taylor replied with a grin. "Admin is going to be working on claiming Fenris Keep and the surrounding islands for a bit."

"Claiming?" Emily asked.

"The construction profession lets you build new structures, including towns and even cities if you get it high enough. It wouldn't be particularly useful if you couldn't claim areas and clear them of monsters or reshape the terrain," Taylor explained.

Dragon 'stole' her phone back from Dennis and brought up a map of the area or at least what it looked like in the game. "What are you planning on building?"

Admin smiled as she thought about the data she was collecting with each new spell she picked up. [I want to build a place for crafting and learning magic. We should get some interesting patterns with the master artisan perk and Noelle can copy trainers and magic users from various locations.]

Taylor turned her head to look at Dragon. "Admin wants to make a center for crafting and magic, I'd settle for something that lets us avoid having to teleport to a capital city for training."

"That would be an improvement," Missy agreed.

"How long do you think it will take to claim the keep?" Emily asked.

Taylor turned her head to look at Emily. "We need to kill two hundred gnolls in the area so it's just a matter of waiting for them to respawn while we're killing the murlocs on the other islands. There are about twenty gnolls in the area and they respawn every fifteen minutes which means we'll be done claiming it in a couple of hours. Once we've claimed it, we'll be able to fix up the keep and start improving the area."

"Do you need help shooting the murlocs?" Dennis asked, looking forward to leveling up enough that he could actually explore without dying.

Taylor glanced at Dennis. "I thought you were a mage and a warlock, can you get experience while you're using a gun?"

"It's worth a shot," Dennis replied with a grin.

Emily gave Dennis a look for the bad pun then focused on Chevalier. "How long will it take to process the iron you recovered and make some decent armor for the hunters and heavy armor users in the group?"

"No idea," Chevalier admitted. "I haven't had a chance to do any crafting, it took twenty seconds to turn the chunk of iron Admin tossed into the smelter into ingots which means it's probably going to take most of an hour if I'm using all of the smelters."

"You're probably looking at a couple of minutes per item considering that's what most of the engineering projects take," Colin said.

Chevalier nodded. "It's going to take a couple of hours to increase my skill to a level where I can make some halfway decent armor and that's assuming I can find enough copper."

Noelle grinned at Chevalier. "I managed to acquire a decent amount of copper and tin from the mines in Westfall, you're welcome to use them to increase your skill as long as I can disenchant or sell anything you can't scavenge."

Chevalier smiled at Noelle. "Are you sure?"

"I'm already past the point where I'd need copper or bronze for jewelcrafting which means I might as well share," Noelle explained. "Besides, I'm planning on sending minions to scour the area for nodes and mine the local mine, we should have plenty of ore."

'Not to mention a continuous supply of leather,' Sophia mused. "When are we going to hit the next dungeon?"

"At least an hour, I want to get something to eat and work on crafting." Noelle noticed Taylor's frown. "Is something the matter?"

Taylor turned her head to look at Noelle. "Amelia is talking with her aunt on my cell, something about her sister being in the game."

"Vicky," Dean muttered, annoyed that she couldn't stay safe, glad that he hadn't taken the bet with Dennis and happy that he was going to get to spend a lot of time with his girlfriend.

Emily sighed, wishing she was surprised that Vicky had logged in to 'help'. "Do we need to pick her up?"

"Where is she?" Taylor asked Amelia, glad that she could be in two places at once or at least have a second head since it meant she wasn't wasting time with a meeting.

"Just a second," Amelia told her aunt. "No idea, they just found the headset and a note."

"They don't know, they just found the headset on her bed and a note," Taylor told the group. "I'll swing by Stormwind and see if I can find her when Amelia finishes her call, I need to stop by the trainers anyways."

"Thank you," Dragon offered. "Is there anything else we need to cover?"

"Can you give us a run down on the murlocs we'll be hunting?" Emily asked, knowing she needed to increase her level if she wanted to escape the simulation or at least keep herself safe until they managed to escape.

"Most of the murlocs we'll be fighting use spears or their claws with various levels of proficiency though some of them can use magic to toss electricity or blast you with holy magic. You should have more range as most of the spells are measured in yards," Dragon explained.

"Short range blasters and brutes?" Emily asked, trying to put it into a familiar context.

"It's hard to say with the leveling mechanic," Dragon said thoughtfully as she looked up the exact range or at least the range for their abilities in warcraft. "Most if not all of the mobs would count as low end brutes because pain isn't going to stop them but that doesn't always translate well. You're looking at a range of thirty yards for the murlocs with balls of lightning flying around them and forty for their lightning bolts."

"Are they actual lightning or something that looks like lightning but isn't?" Emily asked, thinking of various blaster effects that didn't behave in any reasonable fashion.

Dragon glanced at the picture on her phone of a murloc with a lightning shield. "Let's assume the second one considering you shouldn't be able to create free floating balls of lightning."

Emily frowned slightly as she considered the best way to deal with the murlocs beyond just shooting them at range. "Are there any humans or at least humanoids that have immunity to lightning that Panacea could copy?"

[What would you need to make a human immune to lightning?] Admin asked Shaper.

[Do they have to look human after I'm done?] Shaper asked as she continued sorting through the strange worgen's genetics that her host had touched.

[Probably], Admin admitted, fairly sure Taylor wouldn't want to look like a monster.

[In that case, you're going to want to find a creature that is immune to lightning like the worgens were to shadow and cold], Shaper told her, looking forward to finding more data.

[She can probably make it work if you can find someone with immunity or at least a lot of resistance to lightning], Admin told Taylor.

"You'd need nature resistance," Dennis offered. "There are a couple of dragons in the Sunken Temple that have decent levels of nature resistance, we should be able to talk them into changing into a human form so Amy can copy their immunity, same with fire in a different dungeon, if only because Amy has dragons on her list of friendly NPC races."

"What about holy damage?" Dean asked.

Dennis turned to look at Dean. "There's a guy in the Scarlet Monastery that has immunity but I'm not sure if it's genetic or from gear."

Noelle turned to look at Dennis. "We'll check when we get there."

"Can I talk you into picking up some spices I need for my cooking profession when you head to Stormwind to check for Glory Girl?" Emily asked Taylor.

"Sure, make a list and hand it to Admin," Taylor replied, not seeing a problem with helping supply the group as she had a decent amount of leather gear to sell thanks to skinning the gnolls and murlocs. "Clock, you've played the game before, do you know any decent talents I should grab?"

Dennis shrugged. "That depends on what you're looking for."

"I'm sort of torn between arcane and frost specializations because the ability to freeze my enemies in place and avoid getting hit while my various minions destroy them sounds useful but arcane has a decent amount of single target spells that would let me avoid killing my party," Taylor explained, leaning towards frost but curious what an expert would say.

"I'd go with cold, especially if Amy can give everyone cold immunity. The ability to lock everything down is fantastic," Dennis suggested.

"Don't forget your beastmaster talents," Sophia suggested.

Taylor turned to look at Stalker. "I'm going to pick up a couple that increase the armor and health of my wolf but for the most part, he's just there to keep people from hitting me."

"You're not going for the one that speeds up your ability to heal it?" Sophia asked.

Taylor shook her head. "If I need to heal my pet that badly, I'm better off blinking and running after drinking a potion of invisibility."

Dennis laughed. "That's cold, no wonder you're a frost mage."

"I can bring them back to life, if I drop, I'm in for a horrible week," Taylor argued. "Besides, my second head is a priest, if I have to heal it I have other options."

"She has a point," Emily agreed. "I'd rather have to revive the pet than deal with being defeated."

"Either way, you should be able to change your talent selection in town or with a book I can make once I get my skill up so you should probably play around with grabbing talents. Speaking of talents, do you get talent points for your Rider class?"

"Admin does, I get points for the priest class based on her level. I went shadow priest because of the damage over time spells," Taylor explained as Amy handed her back her cell.

Missy sighed as she realized she was going to have to use a symbiote turned sex toy. "You get full points, don't you?"

"Yep," Taylor's head replied to Missy as she looked at Amy. "Thanks. Any idea how I'm supposed to find your sister?"

"That's broken," Missy grumbled.

"I'm not complaining," Taylor replied with amusement.

Amy pointed at the sky. "Look for the flying girl, she'll probably look like herself considering she didn't have a character."

"Good point," Taylor admitted. "Do you want Admin to summon you or do you want to stay here?"

"I might as well head back considering I'm reasonably sure I know how to add frost and shadow immunity to humanoids or at least worgen," Amy replied.

"Reasonably sure?" Taylor asked warily.

Amy gestured at the copy of the Shadowfang whitescalp. "I haven't tested it on a player but I managed to double up the worgen's immunities."

Taylor considered the merits of letting Amy experiment on her for a couple of seconds then decided to hell with it, figuring the game wouldn't let her get completely screwed over. "Do you want to test it before I check Stormwind for your sister or after?"

"After, I want to tweak some people's hair color and run some tests to see if the simulation resets the changes before we start going crazy," Amy admitted.

"Probably for the best," Taylor admitted. "In that case, let's get you summoned." Her second head looked at Sophia. "Can you grab the summoning portal so we can summon Amelia?"

Admin focused on Amy and cast her summoning ritual.

"Does that mean she's done with testing?" Sophia asked as she focused on the portal and channeled magic into it.

"On the worgen," Taylor replied as she teleported to Stormwind.

Noelle focused on the summoning portal for a couple of seconds, causing it to vanish and Amy appear after a couple of seconds. "What's the next step?"

"I give someone spots or change their hair color and see what their status says about it. If I can change someone's hair permanently, I should be able to upgrade them or at least it's a good first step."

"If you can change people, can you swap people's races?" Chris asked, less than amused about being dwarf sized now that he was actually stuck with it.

"Maybe? I have an ability that lets me temporarily swap people's species so I can probably change you into something else," Amy offered. "Huh, temporarily changing people into worgen might make things easier."

Emily took a breath then let it out, reminding herself that Panacea was a trusted cape and hero, not an anti-social lunatic running his own little fiefdom. "How do we test this in a reasonable fashion?"

"We start with hair and go from there," Amy replied.

Sophia held her hand out. "Sure, I want shadow and cold immunity and worgen are awesome."

Emily looked at Chevalier. "Any objections?"

Chevalier shook his head. "No, she's doing things carefully and we need the help."

Amy reached out and touched Sophia's hand then activated her race shifting power, causing her to change into a beastial looking worgen. "Step one was easy enough. What's your character sheet look like?"

"There's an icon on my heads up display that I can get rid of," Sophia said.

"That's a good start," Amy replied as she worked on changing Sophia's hair color to see if it would carry over when she changed back.

0o0o0

"Weird," Vicky muttered when a parrot flew over with a white flag that said, 'Hello Vicky?'

"I'm not weird," the parrot replied as she flew around Vicky as she couldn't hover in place.

"Right," Vicky replied sarcastically as she spun around, keeping the strange bird in her sight. "Let me guess, you want a cracker?"

"Only if it's delicious," the parrot replied.

"Great, now I'm being trolled by a parrot," Vicky grumbled as she spun in place.

"If you hadn't jumped into the game, Amy wouldn't have told me to mess with you," Taylor replied.

"Where's my sister you daffy bird?" Vicky asked.

"Daffy was a duck, I am a parrot," the parrot replied, sounding amused.

"They both cook, where is my sister?" Vicky demanded.

"You're not supposed to threaten the messenger," the parrot complained.

"I will eat you," Vicky threatened.

"She's in a mansion just outside of Darkshire," the parrot replied.

Vicky sighed. "How do I get there?"

"I'd suggest flying but Clock doesn't think your sense of direction will cover it," the parrot lied, fairly sure she shouldn't be following Amelia's script, seeing as her friend seemed a bit annoyed at her sister for logging in. "Medic!" the parrot shouted as she darted out of the way of Vicky's grab.

"Just wait," Vicky complained, flying after the parrot and intentionally not catching up. "I'm going to make KFP out of you."

"Medic! Crazy lady!" the parrot shouted before she flew around the corner of a chimney and teleported back to the stables.

Vicky flew around the chimney and spotted a blue skinned demon girl sitting on the edge of the roof. "Did you see a bird?"

"Yeah, it went that way screaming about a crazy lady and wanting a medic," Taylor said as she gestured in the direction her parrot had been flying.

"Thank you…" she trailed off as she noticed the girl's slight smile. "Why are you sitting on a roof and what do you have to do with the parrot?"

"Don't shoot the messenger, blame your sister, I was just reading her script," Taylor replied with a grin, ready to cast ice block if the crazy girl attacked her.

"Amy put you up to this?" Vicky asked in surprise.

Taylor shrugged. "She told you to wait and that she was fine, what did you expect from the queen of snark?"

"I will admit that you might actually know my sister," Vicky admitted.

"Would it help if I gave you a phone to call Dragon?" Taylor offered.

"You're Skitter, aren't you?" Vicky asked after putting the pieces together.

"Guilty," Taylor replied with a grin. "So, what do you normally do when you're not threatening poor innocent parrots?"

"Innocent my ass," Vicky grumbled. "How did you get the power to talk through birds?"

"One of my spells, it lets me control my pets. I can't talk with the puppy but the parrot has the required vocal apparatus," Taylor explained as she pulled her cell phone out of her inventory and held it out to Amelia's sister. "Go ahead and call Dragon."

"Thanks," Vicky replied as she accepted the phone. She looked at the contact list and noticed that it matched the number she'd memorized. "How are we getting there?" she asked, deciding to skip the conversation with Dragon.

"Give me a second, don't freak out about the second head and we can summon you," Taylor explained then equipped her buttplug, causing her head to shift over in a way that sent a shiver skittering down Vicky's spine as Admin's head appeared.

"That's so freaky," Vicky complained, realizing where she'd probably gotten the name from.

Admin smiled at Vicky then used her summoning spell on her.

"Let me guess, I'm supposed to hit accept?" Vicky asked as she looked at the small popup window that appeared in front of her.

"If you don't, you're not going anywhere," Taylor replied, grinning when Vicky vanished. 'I think I'll leave the trolling to the professionals, like Amelia and Clock.' She turned and headed for the construction trainer, making a mental note to grab the spices for Amelia and the director.

Vicky glanced around the lounge filled with strangers and short people that looked familiar. "Where's Amy?"

"We ate her, there was a lack of rations," Clock joked.

"She was delicious," Amy added before shaking her head when she felt Vicky's aura flare. "Relax Vicky, I'm right here, I just look like my character."

[Please install an off switch for that], Admin told Fragile, sending her a packet of information on setting up the off switch.

[Oh! Thank you!], Fragile replied happily and started reading through the information.

Vicky stared at the attractive busty demon girl, having a single moment where she almost wished that she swung that way before her mind caught up with what the girl had said. "Amy?"

"More or less," Amy replied with a grin, taking more amusement out of her sister's reaction than she should.

"Mostly more, have you looked at her chest," Clock teased.

"How come I look like I'm supposed to and you don't?" Vicky asked, ignoring Dennis.

Sophia smirked. "Because you didn't have a character before everything went tits up."

"You get used to it," Dean offered.

"Is there a reason you didn't wait?" Emily asked, wondering if she actually had a reason for rushing things.

"Eric didn't want to get trapped and my father wasn't sure how well he'd do without his medication," Vicky admitted after recognizing the director's face. "I wasn't going to leave my sister here alone. What's going on?"

"We're basically looking at ways to get stronger so we can escape, what did you end up grabbing for classes and professions?" Amy asked, hoping her sister had grabbed something useful.

"I grabbed the druid and priest classes and tailoring and jewelcrafting professions because I wanted to be able to make my own clothes while I'm here," Vicky admitted.

"Great, just what the city needs, a flying bear," Emily muttered. "Someone get her caught up, I'm grabbing a drink and something to eat."

"Sure," Dean replied as the director left.