Myst in Worm (Gamer) Part 7

‘How is the drawing going?’ Myst asked over party chat, as he absently crafted another cloak out of the temporary fabric he’d salvaged from the various costumes.

‘I’m getting better,’ Taylor replied, happy to hear from Myst. ‘How did your talk with the PRT go?’

‘With any luck, Sophia will end up in jail or patrolling a containment zone.’ Myst grinned when he got the last sliver of experience he needed to pick up his 10th point of crafting then frowned slightly as all of the temporary crafting materials in his inventory went grey, indicating that they wouldn’t give him any more experience.

‘Containment zone? Patrolling? Are you telling me she’s a fucking hero?!’

‘No, she’s a villain that was pretending to be a hero, namely Shadow Stalker,’ Myst replied knowing it was better that Taylor find out from him rather than the news or other sources.

‘Is that why the school wouldn’t do shit?’ Taylor asked, trying not to scream as the pieces fell into place.

‘Most likely. I’m guessing Blackwell liked the extra money she got for having a ward in the school and didn’t want anything to jeopardize it,’ Myst replied as he turned and stepped up onto the chair so that he could reach the case with the katana. 

‘I can’t believe they’d let Sophia Hess be a hero!’ Taylor complained.

‘Considering how much the heroes are outnumbered, sometimes you have to take a chance. If the PRT handler hadn’t gotten greedy, she’d already have been kicked out of the Wards or moved somewhere she didn’t have to deal with people,’ he explained as he started working on increasing his lockpicking skill.

‘And that makes it better?’

‘We’re in a city with neo-nazis, drug dealing lunatics, and Lung’s gang, it’s better to give her some direction and keep her fighting the gangs than let her join the gangs. I’m not saying it’s a good thing, but it’s understandable.’

‘Doesn’t mean I’m going to trust the PRT or Protectorate,’ Taylor complained.

‘You don’t have to trust them, but you’ll have to work with them if you want to be a hero. Even New Wave calls them to pick up villains.’

’Fine, I’ll try to be nice,’ Taylor complained as she absently sketched another costume idea.

‘You don’t have to be nice, but being civil would help,’ Myst explained as he worked on the display case’s lock, fairly sure that it was going to take a while to grind his skill up to something approaching useful.

‘When you are going patrolling?’ Taylor asked, trying to distract herself from thinking about Sophia.

‘As soon as I finish making some basic armor and pick up a taser.’

Taylor glanced at the door to her hospital room as several of her bugs saw a nurse approaching her door. ‘I wish I could join you,’ she replied as she slipped her sketchbook into her inventory.

‘I’m looking forward to it,’ Myst replied, looking forward to having Skitter on his team, if only to keep her from ending up a villain.

‘I’ll hold you to that,’ Taylor replied as the door opened and a nurse walked in to check her vitals. ‘I’ll talk to you later, a nurse just showed up.’

‘I’ll be around.’ Myst closed the chat window then focused on picking the annoyingly complicated lock.

Critical Success: Luck increased by 1!

Myst laughed as the case opened, revealing a katana in a beautiful dark wooden sheath with cherry blossoms on it. “Pure blind luck, I’ll take it.” He reached out and carefully took the sword out of the case. “Nice workmanship, even if you’re not real you’ll be useful against the rats.” He stuck the blade into his inventory and looked at the tooltip. “Illusionary katana, magic sheath…” he trailed off as he realized that the sheath wasn’t illusionary and that it was enchanted to keep any blade stored in it sharp without damaging the blade.

“I’m going to have to try to figure out how enchanting works,” he mused as he opened his craft menu and selected his boots tab. He selected the high end ‘soft’ leather boots then tossed two pieces of black rat leather into the ingredients box and hit accept. He waited ten seconds for the counter to run out then looked at his new boots. “At least these have a better armor rating than my actual boots.”

He swapped the boots using his character sheet then grinned as he realized they were also pretty damned comfortable. “I could get used to this.” He swapped over to the pants tab and selected the motorcycle pants then tossed in the required three pieces of leather and hit accept.

Myst waited for the counter to finish counting down then looked at the pants, noticing that the amount of armor was the same which sort of made sense as both pieces of armor were made out of the same type of leather and they were both designed to have decent protection. He swapped his pants out for the leather biker pants then looked in the mirror. 

“Better than spandex...” he trailed off as he swapped to his armor tab and saw the Glory Girl catsuit. “Hmm, I have plenty of leather, can’t hurt to see what happens.” He dropped the required eight pieces of leather into the box then hit accept.

Myst grinned as the counter finished and he looked at the comfortable leather catsuit that gave slightly less armor than his pants but worked as under armor. “Let’s see.” He selected the kilt then tossed in three pieces of leather and hit accept. He stared at the armor rating on the kilt for a couple seconds then shook his head. “Yeah, girls cheat.”

He selected the leather breastplate he’d pulled off one of the costumes then tossed in the five pieces of leather and hit accept. He waited for the counter then stared at the suit of amor. “That’s better than our crappy protective gear. She’ll still need a helmet but that’s a decently solid set of armor short of tinkertech armor or an entire suit of kevlar.”

Myst snickered as he quickly made a second set for Amy then stuck both sets in the party inventory for the girls. He quickly made two sets of the comfortable leather boots for the girls then stuck them in the party inventory as well. He selected the leather chestplate and made a set of leather armor for himself with the last of the black leather.

‘Catsuits, really?’ Amy asked sarcastically. 

‘It’s just the under layer, you wear the skirt and the chest piece over the catsuit.’

‘Ooh, they’re like silk pajamas,’ Victoria said gleefully.

‘Really?’ Amy asked as she grabbed her catsuit and tried it on. ‘Okay, that’s unnaturally comfortable, that’s got to be a power.’

‘That’s worth at least Tinker 1, right?’ Victoria asked, only half joking as she put on the boots.

‘Probably,’ Amy replied as she quickly tossed the kilt on, finding it decently comfortable which was a bit of a surprise considering it was decent armor. ‘You should try the kilt.’

‘And the boots!’ Victoria squealed.

Myst smiled as he headed for the door, happy that he could help. ‘You’ll still need an actual helmet, but we’ll work on that. How is the whiskey coming along?’

‘Whiskey?’ Victoria asked in surprise.

‘It’s coming along. I haven’t tested it, but the tooltip said there was only a 10% chance of blindness this time,’ Amy joked.

‘Ten percent, eh? I know some people that would take those odds,’ Victoria mused.

‘Most of the senior class, but yeah, I was joking about the blindness part.’

‘I knew you wouldn’t be making alcohol,’ Victoria replied smuggly.

‘Actually, I could probably do that with a little bit of essence of root beer and sugar,’ Amy admitted.

‘Wait, really?’ Victoria asked hopefully.

‘Save it for poker night,’ Myst said jokingly as he walked out of the costume shop and glanced at the giant rats running around.

‘When are we doing poker night?’ Victoria asked eagerly.

‘Whenever you’re free,’ Myst replied as he pulled a journal and a pen out of his inventory.

‘How about tomorrow?’ Amy asked hopefully.

‘That should give me enough time to work on a couple new tricks to bet,’ Myst mused.

‘New tricks?’ Victoria asked eagerly.

‘Of course, the bets need to be worth something if we want our luck to increase at a reasonable rate,’ Myst explained as he started scribing a copy of the gremlin journal.

‘What are you expecting us to bet?’ Amy asked, curious what he was thinking.

‘Naughty dancing,’ Victoria suggested teasingly.

‘While that is certainly an option, I was thinking silly or amusing stuff or things like IOUs for healing, upgrades, or interesting plants.’ Myst grinned as he opened the journal he’d just finished copying and hit accept when it asked him if he wanted to learn the Gremlin spell.

‘What type of weird plants were you thinking?’ Victoria asked.

‘Maybe a cactus that creates alcohol or a plant that filters water,’ Myst suggested as he looked at his new gremlin spell.

‘You can make something that creates alcohol?’ Vicky asked Amy, shocked at the idea of her using her power to make something that would create something else.

‘I’d have to do some tests and I’d need a place to store the plants, but I should be able to come up with something,’ Amy admitted.

Myst pulled the katana out of his inventory then focused on the nearest giant rat and cast his gremlin spell, the result was less than he’d hoped for and more than a little disturbing as the rat mutated into something that looked like a cross between a long eared hairless cat and a leper child that someone had let run around a nuclear waste site for a few years. 

He barely had time to brace himself before the abomination turned and charged him, darting  forward faster than it had any right to. He brought the sword down on the creature then staggered backwards as it viciously clawed at him. He hit the berserk gremlin a couple more times until it died and vanished. “That was a lot nastier than the rat.”

‘So, what are you working on?’ Victoria asked as she absently worked on her next month’s math homework.

‘I’m working on magic and killing rats, I want to get a bit of practice with the katana before I scrap it for the pattern,’ Myst replied as he cast his gremlin spell on the largest rat in the pack of giant rats across the street. He watched as the rats and gremlin quickly turned on each other.

‘How did you get the case unlocked?’ Victoria asked.

‘I got lucky,’ Myst admitted as the gremlin finished tearing the last rat apart. He raised his hand and used his frost beam spell as the gremlin turned and charged him. He did his best to keep the beam on the annoyingly nimble creature as it closed the distance then tried to slice the gremlin apart before the berserk little bastard could cut through his armor and health like a blender made of claws and fangs.

‘Are you okay? Do I need to smash something?’ Victoria asked when she noticed his health dropping fairly quickly.

‘Why are you half dead?’ Taylor asked as he finished killing the annoyingly durable gremlin.

‘Because I don’t have a force field,’ Myst replied a touch sarcastically to Victoria’s group as he cast a healing spell on himself. ‘Some of the rats in this dungeon are nasty,’ he explained to Taylor as he checked his armor, a touch surprised that it didn’t actually have large tears in it.

‘You should work on that, they’re useful,’ Victoria replied, relieved that he was back to full health.

‘I’ll get right on it,’ Myst replied a touch sarcastically as he looked at his skills page. He blinked as he looked at his gremlin spell and noticed the armor value for the gremlins had increased by a point when he’d leveled up the skill. “That would actually be useful if they weren’t uncontrolled monsters,” he muttered under his breath as he looked at his sword skill. “At least my sword skill jumped a decent amount, probably because they’re more dangerous or maybe just tougher.”

‘Don’t you have a stranger ability?’ Amy asked sarcastically, not sure why he wasn’t using it.

‘I wanted to get a decent baseline to see how much experience I should be getting for my various skills in case it’s drastically less while I’m invisible,’ Myst lied as he adjusted his stealth ability so that the rats and gremlins couldn’t see him. He gestured at the next closest rat and cast his gremlin spell then looked at his experience bar for his gremlin spell. ‘Close enough to what I got before.’

‘Let’s see if they work together.’ Myst gestured toward a large grey rat walking down the street and cast his gremlin spell. He watched as the rat changed into a slightly less horribly mutated gremlin or perhaps that was merely wishful thinking. He frowned slightly as the gremlins quickly joined forces against the nearest rat, viciously ripping it apart with their claws. ‘Yeah, I doubt the PRT would have trouble killing one or two, but an entire pack might be a problem.’

‘Any luck?’ Amy asked as she worked on extracting the cleaning power from a sample of bleach.

‘Give me a second,’ Myst replied as he used his goblin skill to turn the nearest rat into a gremlin. He brought his sword up and hacked through the gremlin’s neck as hard as he could. He grinned as the gremlin’s head fell off before the entire monster turned into motes of shadow and vanished.

“Ugh,” the gremlin across the street complained then bolted for the electronics shop with the other gremlin on its heels.

“Yeah, that can’t end well,” Myst muttered as he checked his sword skill. ‘Apparently, hiding like a ninja doesn’t actually decrease my experience enough to matter, point for Amy,’ he sent to Amy’s group.

‘Good,’ Amy replied.

‘I don’t suppose you have any other suggestions?’ Taylor asked, feeling more than a little bored and a bit trapped in her room.

‘Sneaking around like a ninja is a perfectly valid approach,’ Victoria agreed.

‘Have you tried vibrating a group of bugs to talk or sing? If you get good enough, you might even be able to do theme music,’ Myst suggested as he gestured toward the nearest rat and turned it into a gremlin. ‘That’s the plan,’ he sent to Victoria and Amy’s chat.

‘Theme music?’ Taylor asked, not sure why she’d want to bother with theme music.

‘Picture if you will an army of swarm clones walking down the street humming Ride of the Valkyries or the Imperial March from Star Wars to screw with the Empire,’ Myst suggested as he worked on turning more rats into gremlins.

‘Ride of the Valkyries is a bit complicated,’ Taylor replied as she started working on gathering bugs where she could and seeing if she could vibrate them to make noise and how many it took.

‘That’s what a music skill is for,’ Myst replied with amusement as he started walking toward the musical instrument store he’d passed earlier. ‘That reminds me, I need bagpipes, for proper war music.’

‘Oh god, what are you doing?’ Taylor asked, rather curious what he was planning despite herself.

‘It occurs to me that I can tweak my stranger rating so that only Merchants can hear me, that means I can practice my bagpipes skill without bothering anyone else,’ Myst said gleefully.

‘Can you play the bagpipes?’ Taylor asked, almost feeling sorry for the Merchants.

‘Nope!’ Myst replied smugly.

‘They’re going to try to kill you,’ Taylor warned him, trying to hide her amusement at the idea.

‘Considering they already want me dead, I’m not overly bothered,’ Myst replied as he watched two gremlins head into a hardware store. “If I was sticking around, that would be worrying,” he mused as he continued walking and turning rats into gremlins, keeping an eye on his mana bar which was steadily decreasing.

‘Now I’m picturing you keeping Emma up all night with drumming or something that no one else could hear,’ Taylor admitted.

‘If you want, I’d be happy to give her a nervous breakdown so she gets some much needed mental help,’ Myst offered as he cast his gremlin spell one last time on a rat peeking out of a dark alleyway, using up the last of his mana.

‘Aren’t you supposed to be a hero?’ Taylor asked.

‘Eh, I’m a hero, not a saint,’ Myst replied. ‘Besides, one could argue that making sure she gets help IS the heroic thing to do.’

Taylor let herself imagine Emma slowly going crazy for almost half a minute. ‘Let’s call that plan B.’

‘What’s plan A?’ Myst asked as he broke into a sprint, wanting to push his endurance while his mana was regenerating.

‘Plan A is letting the police and the PRT figure out if there is anything they can charge her with.’

‘Probably for the best if I’m going to be tormenting the Merchants,’ Myst admitted. ‘Besides, with any luck, you’ll be able to leverage things so that you can get into Arcadia and never have to deal with Emma again.’

‘That would be nice,’ Taylor agreed.

Myst walked into the music shop. ‘Any luck with getting the bugs to talk?’

‘It’s a work in progress,’ Taylor replied, fairly sure that she needed more bugs or maybe different bugs before she’d be able to pull off anything close to a recognizable voice.

‘Keep working at it, with any luck they’ll let you out in the morning,’ Myst replied as he glanced around the music shop, looking at the various musical instruments that were on display. “A little bit of everything and a lot of drums and flutes. Let’s see how much I remember,” he muttered to himself as he walked over to a wooden goblet shaped drum, picked it up and started trying to tap out a simple rhythm. 

Myst frowned slightly when he noticed the experience bar had barely moved after a minute of playing. “I’m either doing something wrong or I need an audience. Eh, I’ll work on it later,” he muttered the last part as he opened his crafting menu and tossed the drum into his salvage bin and hit accept then moved to the next drum and did the same.