Mist and the Chaos Gacha Part 35 (Patreon)

"Do you have to keep track of what your minions eat?" Mist asked as he watched one of Taylor's new researchers touch the monster book, going from a mutated hunchback with glowing red eyes and a skeletal leg to an attractive woman in her twenties with her only inhuman trait being her faintly glowing red eyes.

"No, they don't have to eat," Taylor replied as she watched the next minion step up to use the book, looking like someone had stitched a bunch of corpses together to make her.

"Probably for the best," Mist mused as the next researcher changed into someone that could model professionally. "Would dying reset all of the changes?"

"Unfortunately," Taylor admitted. "Bosses are continuous, minions aren't."

"Are they going to reset randomly if they're not killed?" Mist asked, wondering if it was worth boosting her minions.

"They shouldn't. What are you thinking?" Taylor asked, wondering what else he had up his sleeve.

"I was thinking about ways to jumpstart your researchers and make them a bit more durable and wanted to make sure it was worth it," Mist explained as he watched the last two mutated researchers change into attractive women.

"Makes sense," Taylor agreed. "No point in wasting resources if they're just going to lose them in a couple of days."

"I'll probably still give you a couple of boxes of elixirs to get everything started but it would certainly limit the number of powers I can hand out." Mist pulled a box of twenty five Wall elixirs out of his inventory and set it on the wooden table he'd made with his Arbor ring. "These should boost your researchers' durability and magic resistance to the point where they're bullet resistant, with a couple left over for future minions."

"Just watch out for darkhounds and draghkar," Selena warned her. "The hounds have a really nasty saliva that is particularly toxic and the draghkar can lure people close and drain their souls."

"The elixir's magic resistance should help against their song but we haven't exactly tested it," Hermione warned Taylor.

"What do draghkar look like?" Taylor asked warily, wanting to make sure she knew to run if they came into the dungeon.

"Humanoids with wings and black eyes," Mist offered as he pulled out a box of elixirs. "This is for you."

"What do they do?" Taylor asked.

"A bunch of stuff," Mist replied with a grin. "They're labeled. The black one increases your resistance to dark energy, things like shadow blades or blasts or unnatural darkness."

"That would have made dealing with Grue's darkness easier," Taylor mused as she leaned over to check the labels.

"Grue?" Mist asked.

"He was part of my first team, he could create clouds of darkness," she replied as she quickly read the labels on the strange collection of permanent elixirs, trying not to focus on the people she'd lost in the battle.

"With Tattletale and Regent?" Mist asked, causing Taylor to stare at him.

"Are you from Earth Bet?" Taylor asked warily, wondering if he blamed her for Scion's rampage or how she'd fought.

Mist shook his head. "No, but I've heard stories or read them anyway. You usually end up with the ability to control bugs but that's not always the case."

"Why would I end up with different powers?" Taylor asked.

"Alternate universes with different triggers or sources or power. I don't think anyone actually expected your world to exist, so they just wrote about it for fun."

"Why?" Taylor asked.

"The original was pretty dark and a lot of people didn't like the ending, so they wanted to 'fix' it or the fact that all of the authority figures in the setting seemed to like fucking the idiot ball," Mist explained.

Taylor scowled as she thought about Tag. "Some of them were worse than others. How did I die in the original story?"

"Contessa shot you in the head after your fight with Scion. The epilogue was a bit questionable, it implied that you'd moved to another world with your father and that you'd lost your powers but you never contacted your friends and brain surgery with a gun is a bit suspect even for Contessa."

"Even with a perfect shot, I should have bled out or been left brain dead," Taylor agreed. "I can't imagine never trying to find my friends or at least sending them a message."

"I can't make any promises but my ability to jump dimensions should get less restricted once the local dark god is dead and I've finished my mission, I'd be willing to help if you want to send a message or open a portal home."

"That's assuming the world survived," Taylor grumbled then sighed. "Sorry, it's just been a really long day."

"That's fair," Mist assured her. "You're allowed to take a breath now and then."

"Earth Resistance?" Taylor asked when she went back to reading the tags on the elixirs, trying to focus on something other than her friends.

"It basically reduces the damage you take from getting hit by stone or dirt and reduces the cost of that sort of magic or powers," Mist explained. "It's a bit more useful when you're in a world with magic but it's worth using just for the energy cost reduction in Earth related abilities."

"Can you do the same for the researchers?" Taylor asked hopefully.

"Not really," Mist admitted. "I have a limited supply of the boxes and the upgraded resistance elixirs require rare components and an insane amount of luck to create."

"And you're giving me a box?" Taylor asked.

"We can't help them if we're dead," Admin pointed out.

"No offense to the research girls but if you die, the dungeon dies," Mist pointed out.

"We're not complaining," one of the research girls assured them.

"Don't worry, we can make a bunch of elixirs that boost their resistance, we just can't duplicate the really nice elixirs that cut the mana cost because we used up all of the rare ingredients we had," Selena explained.

"Can you get more?" one of the research girls asked.

Selena shook her head. "Not really."

"It also required a lot of luck," Harry told them.

"Gotcha," the girl replied with a pout.

"Don't worry, we'll figure something out," Selena assured Taylor.

"Thank you," Taylor told Mist and drank the Wall elixir that would make her more durable. "How long do I need to wait between elixirs?"

"You're probably going to want to wait at least thirty seconds between the doses if you want to avoid them mixing and doing strange things," Selena suggested.

"Okay," Taylor agreed, deciding to trust the expert.

"We should probably get Mimic to make some gear for eating brains," Selena suggested.

"Eating brains?" Taylor asked warily.

Mist gave his familiar an exasperated look then focused on Taylor. "One of my familiars is a mimic, one of its powers causes it to grow larger and stronger when it eats flesh and there's a chance that eating brains permanently increases its intelligence."

"What type of flesh?" Taylor asked.

"Any, but the stronger the creature, the more of a boost it gets, same with the brains for intelligence," Mist admitted, not seeing a point in mentioning that eating humans was the most effective.

"I don't have a problem eating monsters," one of the girls offered.

"Brains," two of the other research girls said at the same time then started giggling.

"Having better researchers would help," Admin pointed out.

'I'm going to hell or maybe I'm already in hell,' Taylor thought when she realized that she didn't really have any moral objections to her minions eating monsters in order to get stronger. 'Is that because I'm fucked up or because I'm a dungeon?'

"I doubt the trollocs are smart enough to matter unless you're eating them by the truckload," Hermione pointed out.

"That would probably kill someone," Egwene offered, thinking about the damage they'd caused to Mist's shadow eyes when they'd just had a few.

Selena glanced at Mist. "We'd need to have Mist deal with the corruption."

"I'm willing to stick around and the purification ability I picked up in the tower should fix the corruption," Mist offered, curious if Selena's crazy idea paid off.

"Can you make it so the power doesn't increase their size?" Taylor asked.

"Probably," Mist replied as he summoned his mimic, causing it to appear in the chamber.

"Cute!" one of the research girls blurted.

"What do you need boss?" Mimic asked as it glanced around the room.

"We're trying to boost the dungeon's minions, can you make some magic items that let people grow stronger and more intelligent without causing them to grow in size?" Mist asked.

"If I can't, you could probably make something useful when you combine them," the mimic replied with a grin that showed off the giant treasure chest's teeth.

"Worth a try," Mist agreed as he started pulling bracelets out of his inventory and handing them to the mimic so it could get started.

Hermione shook her head when the Mimic started giggling like a mad scientist. "I reserve the right to say I told you so when this blows up in our faces."

Selena rolled her eyes. "Can you come up with a better idea?"

"Just about anything would be better…" Hermione trailed off as she came up with a horrifying idea that would probably be more effective than having the girls eat shadowspawn for intelligence.

"What did you come up with?" Harry asked, recognizing the look on his friend's face.

"Something horrible," Hermione admitted, wishing she could ignore the idea and that her mind wasn't filling in the details now that she'd thought about it.

"It can't be that bad," Selena teased.

Harry laughed, thinking about some of Hermione's more interesting and horrifying ideas she'd come up with to deal with the ministry after Fudge had cursed her. "Want to bet?"

Selena snickered. "Sure, let's hear it."

"Let me check something first," Hermione told her, not seeing a point in explaining if it wasn't possible. "Can you create quests?" she asked Taylor.

"I can set things up so that my minions offer quests, why?" Taylor asked.

"Would it be possible to set up a quest to cut the heads off five mad scientists and place them behind a group of goblins or monsters with a treasure chest in the room? It would give people experience fighting goblins and some type of reward and your minions would get the brains of five intelligent minions each time."

"That could work," Taylor mused as she pulled up her quest page and started looking at the details to see if she could make it work.

"Even if they're basically flesh droids, that's pretty dark," Selena teased.

"Sorry," Hermione offered, not realizing that Selena was just teasing. "Sometimes my mind jumps down a rabbit hole."

"All the way to a dark and twisted Wonderland," Harry teased.

"The original Wonderland wasn't a nice place," Hermione pointed out.

"Flesh droids?" Egwene asked Selena, making a mental note to ask Hermione about Wonderland when she had time.

"They're basically constructs or fragments of dreams given form, they're real but they're not actually people, unlike the researchers who can grow and learn," Mist explained.

"We're awesome," the red eyed researcher said cheerfully.

"That isn't going to stop Nynaeve from complaining that you're encouraging people to cut the heads off monsters," Egwene pointed out.

Mist shrugged. "I wasn't planning on telling her."

"She's going to find out eventually," Egwene warned him.

"That's a problem for the future," Mist replied with a grin.

"Is it wrong that I sort of want to trick Ron into using the bracelet?" Harry asked.

"Bad Harry, no biscuit," Hermione told him. "He'd probably snap if he figured out that you'd fed him brains."

"Worse than feeding him Acromantula brains?" Harry asked thoughtfully.

Hermione smiled slightly as she imagined the look of horror on Ron's face if they ever told him that he'd eaten spider brains. "He'd either explode or he'd ask for more."

"That tracks," Harry agreed, still not sure why everyone thought Hermione was the nice one in the group.

Taylor glanced between Harry and Hermione. "Acromantula?"

"They're giant intelligent and murderous spiders," Harry told her.

"Those would be useful," Admin pointed out.

'Yeah,' Taylor agreed as her lips twisted into a slight grin as she thought about all of the ways she could have terrorized the various villains if she'd had a bunch of giant spiders. "Can we get some?"

"You'd have to…" Mist trailed off when he realized that she was grinning. "You can still control spiders, can't you?"

"Yes," Taylor replied.

Mist frowned as his mind conjured images of an endless wave of spiders pouring out of the Blight to eat the world. 'It would take centuries and if a group of death eaters can drive them out of their territory, a group of channelers could just burn them to ash.' He weighed the benefits against the possible negatives then sighed. "I don't want them spreading and jumping worlds but I don't have a problem opening a portal so you could try to collect a couple, they're way too close to the school in Harry's world so we should probably move them if we can."

"How close are they to the school?" Taylor asked.

Harry considered the question for a couple of seconds then shrugged. "I doubt we walked more than five miles when we went to visit them."

"Ron might have had a point about destroying them," Hermione admitted.

"Yeah," Mist agreed, thinking about their behavior once Aragog died. "Let's kill some shadowspawn and get a radiation room set up so Taylor and the girls can start boosting their maximum mana then we'll check on the spiders once Taylor has used all of her elixirs."

"Radiation room?" Taylor asked.

"One of the abilities I can hand out gives the user the ability to absorb radiation to increase their maximum mana and to refill their mana pools. I'm not sure if you'd just end up with a bunch of crystals or if you'd actually get mana but you should be able to take advantage of the boost to the size of your mana pool."

"It's worth a try," Taylor agreed and drank another elixir, looking forward to having a steady supply of mana.

0o0o0

Mist pulled his attention away from the pile of cursed loot on the table when his alarm beeped letting him know that his cooldown was up. He reset the timer and inverted his Draining Shadow Hands ability. He conjured a glowing white hand, grabbed his left wrist with the hand and boosted his Diamond Draw ability. "Let's see if I get anything interesting," he muttered, not particularly impressed with the last couple of draws.

He used his boosted draw ability, causing a ticket to appear in his hands. "Trait Ticket? Better than I was expecting," he mused as he used his ticket, causing a window to appear with six trait cards that he could pick from. 'Vault, Gambler, True Hero, Tech Priest Diploma, Crushing Daunt, Pyromaniac? Vault would help against information-gathering abilities, not a bad choice but Gambler can directly increase my tickets or decrease them but I can probably make a magical item to boost them. Hero increases my light based abilities and relationship with angels and shit, not worth the headache. Tech priest? 40k shit, no thanks. Crushing Daunt requires people to fear me but if they're afraid their abilities are probably worthless anyway. I don't need a mental illness, even if it boosts my fire based abilities.'

"Gambler," Mist muttered as he selected the trait and dropped his boosting hand, willing to risk grabbing a useless trait on the off chance that he could turn it into something impressive. He glanced over at where Selena was talking to a group of researchers about the skills they could pick up from the goblins that had gotten caught in the skill granting traps that Taylor had set up. 'At least we don't need to worry about the goblins going insane, they're already homicidal.'

He pulled a silver bracelet out of his inventory and enchanted it with his Gambler trait. He Inverted his Synthesis ability then used it to split the bracelet into two bracelets, focusing hard on the way he wanted the item to split. 'Let's see if that worked.'

He cast his Identification spell on the two bracelets and smirked when he found that one of the bracelets would rank his cards down or destroy the cards while the other bracelet had a chance to rank it up or give him the option to pick between two cards. 'That doesn't include the bit where it randomly changes the card type but meh, that's probably for the best.'

'No point in gambling if you can cheat,' he mused as he pulled another bracelet out of his inventory and repeated the process, enchanting it with his Gambler Trait and splitting it to get rid of the negative effects. He checked the results then stopped inverting his Synthesis power and fused the positive bracelets together. He checked the bracelet. 'Ten percent chance every time you roll a ticket to upgrade it, thirty percent chance to get the choice between two tickets.'

"Not bad but I can probably push it," Mist mused as he set the bracelet on the table.

Feat Achieved! Taunting Murphy.

+1x Cursed Ticket awarded

Mist looked at the cursed ticket in his hand, not surprised that the thought of using it sent ice through his veins. "Yeah, I'm not that stupid," he muttered, fairly sure someone had put their finger on the cosmic scales to get that sort of reaction from his Danger Sense.

"Did you get anything good?" Selena asked as she walked over.

"Sort of," Mist replied as he turned and focused on his familiar. "My draw gave me a trait card, I grabbed the Gambler trait which has a chance to boost the cards or cripple them so I enchanted a bracelet and dropped the negatives and was joking about pushing things and got an achievement for taunting Murphy and a curse card."

"That tracks," Selena replied with a grin. "What are you going to do with it?"

"I'm split between giving the card to a researcher in case it gives her something Taylor can use and handing it to someone I don't like…" he trailed off as he got chills down his back when he considered giving it to a random darkfriend. "Screw it, I'll be right back."

"What are you planning?" Selena asked.

"Someone is obviously screwing with my rolls," Mist told her as he pulled his mirror out of his inventory and leaned it against the table. "I'm going to level the scales," he explained as he pulled the cursed card out of his inventory and set it on the table, curious if he could duplicate it since it was a curse.

"What does that…" Selena trailed off as Mist stepped through the mirror.

Mist glanced at the empty spot on the table where he'd put the cursed ticket, not surprised that he couldn't copy it since using it also gave cards. 'Probably for the best,' he mused as he cast his Identification spell on the Gambler bracelet on the off chance that he'd gotten a bad copy. He put the bracelet on then pulled a burlap sack out of his inventory and conjured a pair of shadow hands to start moving the cursed gear that Harry and Hermione had been dropping off into the bag so he didn't have to touch it.

'At the goblins drop plenty of cursed loot,' he mused as he tossed the almost overflowing bag into his inventory and walked over to the other table where he'd left his monster book. He pulled one of his other copies out of his inventory and set it next to the copy. He focused on the qualities that he wanted to keep and used his Synthesis ability to merge the copies, creating a book that looked slightly less monstrous.

He quickly checked the book with his Identification spell then stuffed it in his inventory and headed toward the door to the goblin side of Taylor's dungeon, happy to have a book that could turn monsters into girls without causing a shift in their personalities so he could just flip them back to male with his gender swapping power without causing mental issues.

'At least I don't have to worry about the goblins,' he mused as he used his limited sling ring to open a portal to the boss room so he didn't have to make his way through the short and narrow tunnels that Taylor had set up to give the goblins a fighting chance. He stepped through the portal and opened the treasure chest, revealing a black leather belt and a red potion. He checked the loot then tossed the healing potion and the belt that gave the user a minor force field into his inventory. 'Not the best loot but at least I didn't have to deal with the boss.'

He glanced at the metal arm that was sticking out of the wall and palming a helmet then focused on the wooden plaque over the large red metal button sticking out of the wall. 'Push for knowledge, you'd have to be insane.'

Mist used his Identification spell on the helmet. 'Skill Trap: putting someone's head in the helmet and pushing the button gives them a moderate amount of brain damage, increases their exhibitionist tendencies(minor insanity) and gives them a random low level skill from a list in addition to an apprentice dance skill. This would be a lot more useful if it didn't cause brain damage but at least the type of insanity is selected when Taylor places it.'

"At least the part about being linked to the dungeon is gone, probably because Taylor counts as a living creature for my mirror ability," he mused as he used his Gate Creation ability to open a portal back to Taylor's dungeon, placing the portal against the wall.

"Hey," Harry offered when he saw Mist through the portal. "Did you find anything useful?"

"Just a belt and a potion, you?" Mist asked.

"Same," Harry replied. "The boss had a pair of magic underwear that Hermione claimed."

Hermione pulled her attention from the red button and focused on Mist. "They're enchanted to always be clean, sparkle like a field of stars and they increase mana regeneration by two percent."

"Sounds like something to duplicate and boost if you're willing to let me copy them?" Mist asked as he stepped halfway through the portal so that he could focus on both of the skill traps.

"Absolutely," Hermione agreed, hoping they could boost the regeneration up to something unreasonable.

"You might want to step away from the skill trap in case this explodes," Mist suggested, figuring there was a small chance of something breaking since he was going to mess with the dungeon architecture.

"No problem," Harry replied as he headed for the door to the boss room.

Mist waited for the teens to get out of the room then used his Synthesis ability to merge the two skill traps, focusing on creating something that gave better skills and less brain damage, hoping that upgrading it would unlock the device for Taylor. He tossed himself into the actual boss room as he got a shiver of danger a split second before the skill trap exploded.

"Damn," Harry muttered as he wiggled his fingers in his ears.

"Were you expecting it to explode?" Hermione asked as Mist picked himself up off the floor.

"I wasn't expecting it to be quite that literal," Mist admitted as he walked over and checked the trap in the mirror world, a touch surprised by the sheer amount of damage the explosion had caused to the wall. "We should remind the teams to avoid messing with the skill traps."

"I'll add another warning to the list," Hermione assured him.

Mist stepped back through the gate and checked the trap with his Identification spell. "I managed to get rid of the brain damage but it's going to cause a hell of a headache, increase your exhibitionist tendencies and give you several years of experience dancing in addition to the skill you can pick off a list."

"No brain damage and you can probably cure the insanity and the headache," Hermione mused as she considered the benefits of pushing the giant red button.

"Probably, yeah," Mist agreed.

Harry glanced between Hermione and the trap. "No, you're not going first," he told her as he walked over to the trap.

"Are you sure it's safe?" Hermione asked warily.

"We've got Regeneration items and the warning about brain damage is gone," Mist offered, willing to take the risk since he had Regeneration and his Purification Eyes ability.

"Fuck it," Harry muttered as he put his head in the helmet and pushed the button, causing a window to appear filled with skills. 'Blacksmithing, blades, tap dancing, stealth, zap stick creation, moonwalking or origami?' He picked the Zap Stick Creation skill as he'd never heard of it and it sounded interesting.

Hermione watched as Harry stumbled away from the helmet after a couple of seconds, looking pale and in pain. "Are you alright?"

"No," Harry grumbled as he tried to keep from throwing up as it felt like his brain had been tossed in a blender.

Mist used his Purifying Eyes ability on Harry, fixing his headache and his insanity. "Is that better?"

"One thousand percent," Harry replied cheerfully, relieved that the headache from hell was gone.

"What's your opinion about clothes?" Hermione asked Harry.

"Same as…" Harry trailed off as he realized that they were a bit less important than they used to be. "I don't have a desire to strip and run through the dungeon or anything but they're less important than they used to be but some of that is probably because of the strength increasing gear and the fact that I actually look good."

"Nothing wrong with being in shape," Hermione assured him, rather happy with the fact that he was athletic and in good shape. "What skill did you pick up?"

"Zap Stick Creation," Harry replied, rather happy with his choice. "It was the only skill that didn't sound mundane, unless you include moonwalking but I wasn't sure if that was a dancing thing or skill for walking on the moon."

"Zap sticks?" Hermione asked.

"They're basically wands, rods or staffs that can toss electricity at people or shock people if you hit them with them, sort of like a magical taser," Harry explained.

"Not a bad choice," Mist offered, figuring they'd make decent weapons for an eventual security force.

Hermione walked over, stuck her head in the helmet and pushed the button before she could change her mind. 'Belly dancing, blunt weapons, burgers(cooking), musical instrument creation, naughty girl transformation(alchemy), sailing or weaving? Naughty girl transformation? Is that even worth taking? Probably, it's the only skill that doesn't look mundane.'

Mist hit Hermione with his Purifying Eyes when she staggered away from the helmet and the wall, curing her headache and removing the minor insanity. "How are you feeling?"

Hermione sighed in relief when the pain stopped. "That sucked."

"What did you grab?" Harry asked, trying to give her something else to focus on than the pain.

"Some type of alchemy skill that involves transformations," Hermione replied as she focused and pulled up her new alchemy crafting window. "It comes with a crafting window like a video game and I can make fruit smoothies that permanently give people the ability to transform into alternate female forms and back."

"Do they get magic?" Mist asked, curious if they could use the transformations to make it easier to give people magic.

"Only if they didn't have it to start with and only enough to transform," Hermione offered as she opened the Naughty Girl Design page, causing a naked 3D model of herself with goth makeup to appear on the screen. "I've got a few sliders and a list of fruit based ingredients that I can add to modify the alternate form."

"That would make having a secret identity a lot easier," Harry mused, thinking about some of the heroes they'd met in DC that could use an alternate form. "Would gender swapping the alternate form or piercing your ears stick around?"

"That depends on the elixir," Hermione said as she started playing with the slider for her alternate form's eyes, seeing if she could match Harry's eyes. "Do you want an elixir to be my green eyed evil twin?"

"Sounds fun," Harry admitted, figuring it could be fun to pretend to be a twin. "How many can we drink?"

"There isn't a limit but drinking more than five causes your new forms to have a chance of mutating when you get them," Hermione warned him. "It's not dangerous, it just makes it harder to get exactly what you want and you can end up with some weird forms."

"If you make sure the forms can keep any changes, the book would probably fix anything too strange," Mist offered.

Harry shook his head. "Yeah no, I'd rather not end up thinking of myself as a girl permanently."

"I made a version that doesn't have that particular issue," Mist replied with a grin as he walked over to the helmet, fairly sure he was going to regret using the skill trap.

"That would make things easier," Harry said as Mist put his head in the helmet. "Best of luck."

"Thanks," Mist replied as he pushed the button, causing a window to appear with a list of skills. 'Acting, brewing, conjuration(naughty toys), guns, leatherworking, rowing or sewing.' He picked the conjuration skill, figuring the rest would be easy enough to grab elsewhere. He winced as he went from feeling perfectly fine to feeling like hammered shit. "Do you have a mirror?"

Hermione pulled her compact out of her ring's inventory and handed it to him. "Here."

Mist used the mirror to hit himself with his Purifying Eyes, removing his headache and the desire to run through Emond's Field naked to mess with the villagers. "It's probably just as well that we can only use the trap once."

"Yes," Hermione replied, not interested in dealing with another headache at the moment, especially since this would probably encourage Mist to figure out a way to share skills without having to steal them. "What skill did you grab?"

"I grabbed a skill for conjurating sex toys because it was the only magical skill and I'm hoping it helps with conjuring normal items," Mist explained, hoping it wouldn't be too difficult to expand his skills.

"Could be worse," Hermione mused. "We should probably see if Taylor got the schematic and drop off our quest items then head back to the school, you've got classes to teach and I want to grab some ingredients for my new skill."

Mist glanced at his watch then headed for the door. "Thanks for reminding me."

"You're welcome," Hermione replied as they followed Mist out of the boss chamber, past the headless scientists.