Gotham Academy July 26th 2010 1:00 PM EDT
Chemistry class was...interesting. Reggie and I were sitting at our usual table talking about our raid on the Cathedral. Reggie was grinning like a loon "It feels so damn good to have money man. The gold from the Cathedral is real, plus it hasn't devalued normal gold yet. It might not happen at all considering the incredibly small number of people heading down into the Labyrinth. I dumped all my stuff at a cash for gold place this morning before school and made a few grand even at those rates."
I chuckled at that, but before I could respond a voice cut in from the side. "You guys actually went into that place? It's crazy dangerous down there I can't believe you went in." I turned to see a pretty redhead with bright blue eyes that looked vaguely familiar for some reason. She flushed a bit when we turned to stare at her "Um, sorry. Didn't mean to butt in, but seriously you guys could get hurt in that place." She seemed a bit chagrined to have said anything but was clearly pushing past the discomfort our of concern.
I didn't hold it against her. She was clearly just concerned for a classmate and if I hadn't had powers it actually would have been stupid to go down there. It didn't hurt that she was cute. Not like, my girlfriend levels of cute but she had a smattering of freckles and a pretty adorable button nose. I was surprised I'd never noticed her in class before. I finally recognized her as Barbara Gordon, she was a friend of Artemis but I'd only seen her in passing and even my perfect memory had taken a second to place her.
I cursed internally, but it was too late now,so I tried to deflect a bit. The last thing I needed was the police commissioners daughter (according to Artemis) shoving her cute little nose in my business. I tried to wave off the concern "Don't worry we were careful. We stuck to the first few rooms down there and the early stuff isn't too dangerous. Are you honestly telling me you haven't been down to check it out yourself?" I knew from Artemis that Barbara had a shared interest in martial arts, she didn't seem like the type to skip out on some fun.
She coughed awkwardly "I mean, I guess sticking to the first few rooms isn't so bad. That's what I did too." She glanced around sneakily "Did you guys find any potions? Because seriously those things are amazing. I heard there's already a market for them, people have been auctioning them off for sky high prices, especially the health ones. I hear they can cure chronic conditions." That I hadn't known, though I was curious how much more impressive a potion of rejuvenation would be in real life.
I nodded with a grin. "We did yeah, they're pretty amazing. Also put the word out to anyone you know who is headed down there that I'm buying scrolls of identify for a thousand bucks if anyone finds any." I was hoping to buy up the supply early before people got deep enough in to start getting magic items. It probably wouldn't work but if I could monopolize identify scrolls early before people knew their value I would be able to make a killing, not to mention I could buy unidentified gear on the cheap and identify it myself.
Barbara looked sour. "I don't plan on mentioning it to too many people. You and I might be smart enough to know our limits but lots of the students here aren't nearly so prudent. But hey, if you went I assume you brought Artemis with you? I'll have to ask her about your experience down there. From the little I've heard every time is different. Hey, maybe I can go with you next time?" I shot Reggie an unhappy look, we absolutely could not bring a random school girl with us into the Labyrinth.
My friend cleared his throat, cutting in "Actually we've sort of got a regular group we go with, and Morgan's girlfriend is part of it." He shot her a wink "Not that I suspect you have less than pure intentions for my buddy but you know how new relationships can be. Inviting a beautiful woman along to go adventuring with us might get him in trouble with the little lady." I made a mental note to tell Zee he had called her that at the first possible opportunity but it seemed to work because the redhead blushed.
Her blue eyes widened in panic "Oh I wasn't...I mean not that you aren't...You're very well built but I don't really...I was just hoping to have someone to watch my back. Sorry if I came across like I was flirting." She coughed, clearly trying to distract herself a bit "But no, I went with my friend Dick last time. He actually goes here I'm not sure if you know him. We're both pretty good at martial arts so I thought we could look out for you guys. Or we could look out for each other I mean."
I could tell from her aura she meant all of that, but considering I knew Dick Grayson (because literally no one else would call themselves that on purpose) was Robin, I would have rather gone into the Labyrinth with a hungry puma. I gave her a pleasant smile "We really appreciate the thought but we kind of have a system worked out. Maybe next time though. But hey stay safe down there. You guys find any scrolls of town portal yet? I recommend keeping some, we picked them up and they're so useful."
She seemed relieved for an excuse to change the subject and genuinely fascinated by the subject. "Town portal? No I haven't seen anything like that at all." I was wondering how long until someone noticed the fact that this dungeon was from Diablo, it was an old game and the bad resolution made it unlikely people would be able to tell from seeing it in real life. Things like town portal would give it away eventually though, that said Town Portal scrolls were common enough to be found on level one so I didn't have to play dumb. Besides she was nice, it wouldn't hurt to give her a tip.
We didn't have time to talk any more because class actually started as the teacher arrived. Mr. Chambers somehow always found something to do last minute between classes and always got back to the classroom right as the bell rang. He was never late, but we always had a few minutes to just chill before he showed up. He stood up at the front of the room and started listing of the instructions for today's lesson, but before he could verbalize the list he was writing someone raised their hand.
He raised an eyebrow but gave a slight nod and the boy who raised his hand said excitedly. "Um, Mr. Chambers? Can we check out the composition of a healing potion." Reggie and I both froze and I saw Barb's eyes go wide. I turned to see who had spoken and groaned. The boy in the beanie with the vacant smile was one I recognized. Arthur Spudinski, aka Spud. Sweet guy, not the brightest bulb in the drawer, but I hadn't expected him to be dense enough to mention the Labyrinth to a fucking teacher.
As expected Mr. Chambers looked perplexed, but that didn't last long because Spud pulled a fucking vial of healing potion out of his backpack and waved it around. I was horrified. It was like watching a train wreck in slow motion. This was going to massively expand the amount of people aware of the Labyrinth. I'd asked Barbara to spread my offer around but I'd only meant to spread it to people in the know. I would never do anything so stupid as announce the dungeons existence to the whole school.
Annabel had really done a great job with this setup. Sacrifices would be streaming into the damn dungeon to bleed and die for treasure and glory. It was brilliant. It was also nuts of course, but that was kind of her wheelhouse. The teacher stepped forward to pluck the vial from Spud's hands with a dubious look. He didn't smell or taste it because it was an unknown chemical and that was basic safety, but he did uncork the vial and use an eyedropper to put a bit on an electron microscope.
I was honestly curious what the hell was in that stuff myself, but it was magic, I couldn't imagine the chemical makeup would reveal too much. I internally cursed the brain dead boy, hoping the potion just looked like colored water or something under the microscope. Sadly I had no such luck, the teacher's face looked intrigued and pensive. I think he'd only bothered to look at it because Spud wasn't the type to make something up. He was a bit flighty but if he mentioned it he thought it was something.
Mr. Chambers looked up at Spud. "Where did you get this? The composition is...odd. You called a healing potion? Like from a video game? Is it some new street drug? Maybe some kind of slang for a chemical product?" He seemed confused, mostly because even Spud wasn't dumb enough to hand over drugs to a teacher and he probably couldn't figure out what else it might be. I was dying to know what the stuff looked like under that microscope.
Spud just laughed a bit sheepishly. "Oh sorry Mr. C. I got it from the dungeon. Me and my pals Jake and Trixie were down there yesterday beating up some skele-dudes. Mega scary but it's pretty good money. I tried one of the healing potions myself. They taste pretty gross but they make you feel all better if you get beat up." He noted the horrified looks on multiple faces in the room "What, did you guys not know about the dungeon? That voice called it the Labyrinth."
Unfortunately there was no way to put the genie back in the bottle. The teacher spent some time asking Spud about the Labyrinth, where he found the entrance and what was down there. He probably thought it was a joke until the moron dumped a bag full of gold coins on the table to show off his spoils. Nothing convinces people you're legit than the equivalent of buried treasure on a school kid, especially after the teacher checked to make sure they were real gold. I personally felt like that was besides the point but I understood the impulse at least.
He asked around the class, and actually managed to get one other kid to admit to delving into the dungeon, but everyone else was smart enough to know admitting to that kind of thing was a bad idea. I knew for a fact that even if he had the cops block off the entrances they would just move. I was more worried about news spreading. I was sure other people had spilled the beans by now, but this was the kind of place where there were a lot of people likely to get killed because they were too stupid to be careful. When we got out of class I saw Barbara streak off in a random direction, probably to talk to Dick, and Reggie and I bolted too.
I texted Artemis to meet us up on the roof, hoping she was checking her phone before her last class. Knowing what was going on was important and we needed to make a plan. We'd just lost some time, our classmates were going to be in that Labyrinth as soon as they found and entrance and a bunch of them were going to die. Even on level one there was plenty of things that could kill them. What's more we had to find out how the league was responding. Robin was involved and we needed to know more. I pulled out my phone to call Zee while we waited. We needed to meet up.
Shadowcrest July 26th 2010 6:00 PM
After consulting with Artemis and Reggie and basically deciding to kick our response up the chain of command and let Jim worry about it, we finished out the day and I headed over to Zee's place. She'd given me a little plastic kitten she enchanted to let me through the wards and I slipped in through the path she made me that was only there when the talisman was. Zee was waiting for me at the door and let me inside, leaning up to peck me on the cheek. "Hey, come on in, daddy will be out for a few hours. He's been crazy busy helping the League with the dungeon."
She led me back to her room, which had very obviously been cleaned up this time and pulled me over to her bed patting the mattress to get me to sit down. "Glad I get some time with my lady, but I have to admit my intentions here are less than pure." She raised an eyebrow, giving me a wicked smirk and I blushed a bit and chuckled "Not that. Or, well always that, but not that right now, I'm actually here about the dungeon. Specifically to find out what the League is doing about it. If you're ok to share, if not I get it no pressure."
She giggled at how flustered I seemed. "Well I'm a bit insulted that I have my boyfriend in my room sitting on my bed and he wants to talk about League business, but I get why you're asking. The whole Labyrinth thing involved you pretty heavily so I'm not against sharing." She raised an eyebrow imperiously "Though if you have to go right after we talk I'm going to be pretty upset. Especially since you haven't even mentioned my new top." Her grin was challenging and a bit seductive, but she was clearly staying focused despite a bit of teasing.
I rolled my eyes and leaned forward to give her a kiss. "I can stay as long as you want, thank you very much. I just need some background info on the League and their response so we don't accidentally run afoul of them. It would be a shame if your handsome and adventurous man about town got arrested by your dads freedom pals." I looked down at her dark blue shirt which was very low cut and showed a lot of skin "And I can't believe I missed that, also those look a lot bigger when they're on display like that. Dear god."
She must have been wearing a push up bra or something because her tits looked huge. I physically shook my head like a dog to get rid of the image. She laughed and patted my face " You've already played with them baby, you're allowed to stare. But we can save that for later. In regards to the League they've been trying to head down there, but apparently there's been a slight hitch in their plan. No one who isn't human can get in. Martian Man Hunter, Superman, Wonder Woman, they all get shunted into some kind of waiting room when they try."
My eyes widened "That's...Jesus that's actually brilliant. What about metas like the Flash? I know you can go in so magic users are allowed. Though maybe not someone like Jim or Madame Xanadu. That makes this much more difficult. If Superman can't just steamroll his way down to hell this is going to be a slow grind." I stood up from the bed, pacing back on forth as I thought out loud. "If aliens are out that means that Annabel took precautions to make sure the thing stayed open. Shit."
She caught my arm as I walked by, halting me. "Calm down. The Flash can go in but for some reason the source of his powers is cut off. Same with Green Lanterns ring. It won't work in there. The theory is it rejects any type of power that has to connect to the outside. People have theorized about the Flash's ability for years because of Kid Flash. Being able to give themselves the same ability implies some external source." She pulled me back to the bed. "Black Canary and Batman have been down there though, they're halfway through level two."
I shook my head "They'll hit a wall at the end of that one. The first real boss is down there and he's a fucking monster. But at least some of them are good to go. Annabel really fucked us, I can't believe she thought this far ahead. Or maybe The Designer hooked her up with some ideas. Either way looks like this thing will be open for a while. We're just lucky all the gear and magic drains off some of the power from the place so she isn't likely to ascend anytime soon." I raised an eyebrow "So Kid Flash can't get in either? Who else is blocked?"
She frowned at that "He isn't blocked. His powers just don't work in there. Half humans seem to be allowed. Superboy was fine when he went in, though he has to be careful, magic weapons punch right through his defenses." I gave her a confused look and she smacked her palm into her forehead "Oh, sorry. Superboy is a new hero in the League's junior team. He's a clone of Superman and...I probably shouldn't be telling you this, shit." She glared and pointed at my face "You can't use any of this to do crime."
I burst out laughing. "Do crime? That might be the most adorable thing I've ever heard." I pulled her against me. Tell you what, I won't "Do Crime" with the info you give me if you promise not to get swept off your feet by some half kryptonian hunk who works with your dad." She giggled a bit as her body pressed against mine and leaned up to kiss me, nipping lightly at my bottom lip as she pulled away. I pressed a quick kiss to her nose, getting a squeak, then her cheek, then her neck, where I kept kissing her.
She moaned a bit "I-ah- promise not to get-oh god do that again-distracted by another boy, unless you leave me alone for too long and I get knows what madness I might get up to in my isolation."Her breaths were quick and distracted as she talked and her tone was light and obviously joking. I nipped at her neck and she gasped "Oh,well maybe I won't have time to hang out with the sidekicks,I've been so busy lately."I ran my tongue over the gentle bite on her neck and she groaned "Morgan,if you leave a hickey on me I'll have cover it up with makeup so my dad doesn't detect the spell."
I pulled back with a mock scowl "You know, I'm doing some of my best work here and you're just talking right through it." She chuckled and leaned down to capture my lips, and I almost groaned aloud at the taste of her lip gloss. Blueberry cheesecake, she knew it was my favorite. I didn't know when she'd gotten it but I'd only mentioned that tidbit to her when I'd been dating Annabel and only out of hand I flipped her over and she landed on her back on the bed with a squeak and I climbed on top of her.
Her eyes got very wide and bright and her pupils got very large. Her very exposed breasts were heaving as she looked up at me hazily. "Morgan, I meant what I said before. A bit of playing around is ok but I don't want to go too far too fast." I pulled back, my hips still pressed against hers and she bit her lip at the heat in my eyes. "But I guess if we're talking about stuff you've already done that's ok." She glanced meaningfully down at her low cut top and I sat back on my heels, letting her get up on her elbows and slide her top fully off.
Now I know people make comments about internet porn and magazines desensitizing the average teen to nudity, but I'm here to tell you they very much do not. Regardless of how much porn you've seen, your first real pair of tits will knock your fucking socks off. Zee's tits were...bigger than they felt. Much bigger. I'd groped her a bit but this was so different and they looked huge. I just kind of sat there, staring at her blankly. "Um, wow, how big are those?" She glared at me "I mean they're amazing obviously, you're a fucking goddess, but they just...never seemed that big."
She shrugged, causing the aforementioned very big tits to jiggle in an absolutely fascinating way. "They're D's. I usually use magic to keep them in place and make them lighter. Keeps them from hurting my back but they look a bit smaller under my clothes. So you think they're...pretty?." She blushed cutely, and the dissonance between my blushing girlfriend and her very large very pale breasts hanging out in what her strawberry milkshake pink nipples were making very clear was a pretty cold room.
I reached down to run a thumb over her nipple and she gasped, he hips pushing up from below me though not coming up too far. I locked eyes with her as I rolled one of her nipples between my thumb and forefinger and she panted at me, her expression blank and lips parted. "They are amazing. You're amazing." I leaned down to kiss her again and she claimed my lips hungrily. I pulled away and she gave a soft moan of disappointment before I started my kissing trail back down her cheek and neck.
I didn't stop at the bite mark this time, continuing down to run my tongue over the nipple I wasn't playing with and she whined. "Morgan!" Her hips bucked, still kept in place by mine. "That's-" she gasped as I sucked her nipple gently between my teeth. "Oh god, ok, that's a bit fast." I tried to pull back and she knotted her hands in my hair "Don't you fucking dare!" Her voice was hoarse with lust "Kissing is fine, boobs are fine, so kissing my boobs is fine. Just wish you'd maybe worked up to it a bit. Don't you dare stop now."
I sucked and rolled her nipple, playing with the others and she moaned and bucked under me. I felt her becoming more and more frantic, her moans louder and I kept at her using every bit of anatomy knowledge afforded to me by my ninja and martial arts skills as I ran my hands over her bare upper body, sliding my fingers over bare skin and massaging pressure points lightly. I was very careful to keep my hands above the waist and her moans got louder and more enthusiastic until finally she arched her back and squealed in delight.
I stopped and pulled back after a minute or so of that and looked down at her. Her face was flushed and her very exposed chest was heaving. She had a dopey smile on her face. "Wow. I didn't know you could do that just by touching my boobs. I...uh wow." Her blush flared up even darker. "That was the first time I've ever...y'know." She sat up and I slid over onto the bedside. She hurried to put her shirt back on. "That was...wow. I mean. It felt...very nice." She was stammering and blushing cutely "Thank you. I mean not thank you, but I am grateful but...oh god." She hid her face in her hands.
I laughed and put a finger under her chin, tipping her head back. "Hey, no pressure or anything. You had fun, but just because you enjoyed it doesn't mean we have to do it again anytime soon. This is still your show. If you're not comfortable doing more than kissing next time, or even if you don't want to go back to kissing in case it escalates that's fine. Sorry if I got carried away this time." I went to go stand up but she caught my shirt, moving her other hand and staring up at me shyly. She pulled me back down and laid against me gently, resting her head on my chest. I smiled to myself. I could work with this.
The Clock Tower July 27th 2010 11:00 AM EDT
I skipped school the next day. I didn't really feel like going through the spanish inquisition that I suspected every student would be now that the teachers knew about the Labyrinth. Plus my brain was still buzzing from the night before. Making my smokeshow girlfriend have her first orgasm without even getting her pants off was definitely nice, but the cuddling after had been just as amazing.
I'd been scared we'd gone too fast and she might have pulled away but she was so content and cuddly after she came that I couldn't help but leave with a main reason though was that I felt a pressing need to prepare my friends as best as possible for what was coming, and in the spirit of that preparation it was time to do something I'd been dragging my feet on for far too long. It was time to give Artemis a superpower.
I had her stay back too, though we made Reggie go because he already had a power and we needed someone to let us know what crazy nonsense the school would get up to. Despite my intentions to do so however, when Artemis sniffed out where I'd been last night she derailed the conversation and I ended up telling her about my evening with Zee. She whistled when she heard what happened "Damn Morgan, sounds like you had a good night. Seriously that girl is WAY too hot for you, you lucked out. Is she stacked? I always kind of got the weird impression she was sporting a pair of huge knockers under those button up shirts."
I rolled my eyes, but the tell tale smirk of pride on my face shone through. "I know she's too hot for me. And yes, they're D's though if you tell her I told you that I'll deny it tooth and nail. Can we please get back on track though? I just told you I'll be giving you superpowers. No questions? Comments? This is a one time deal." I was at sixty points with five incoming, so she could always wait for something better. I wasn't going to push her into taking some shitty power when I couldn't give her more.
She shook her head "No. You're right things are getting nuts around town. It doesn't make sense for me to wait until your powers can give me some uber strong ability if I'm already dead before you get the points. I know that you can't afford to give me anything too crazy, but what are my options?" She was practically vibrating with excitement but I could see her taking control over herself and forcing her breathing to even out. She didn't want to rush me, no matter how excited she happened to be at the idea of being a meta.
I pulled up a list of emails I'd bookmarked for her. "There's a few things. My power's usually fall into the categories of skills, abilities, or items. Items are pretty useless here since they can be lost, and you have skills. Abilities are usually pricey, but I've found that looking for ones with an obvious downside usually cuts the price substantially. For instance, I have one for a vial of real vampire blood that will let you become a creature of the night. Sunlight and cross weaknesses apply though."
Her eyebrow went up and I shrugged. "Like I said, downsides bring the price down. I'd avoid it though, those abilities have the potential to effect wide scale change which usually makes them pricey, if that one is only sixty despite letting you turn people into vampires on a whim the downsides must be awful. Same with the werewolf spit vial I found. There are a few gene treatments that can give you alien abilities, but the powerful ones are too expensive to afford and the leftovers seem to be useless fictional aliens. You can be a Vulcan for pretty cheap, but honestly we can do better."
Her eyes were wide now. "Ok, well honestly I'd prefer to avoid becoming a monster if possible. As for an alien, I think probably staying earth based would be better for me. Do you have anything less...goth? Or I guess transforming would be fine if it's into something cool. Do you have any, like elf transformations? That would really go with my archery thing, plus it might make me even hotter, and I'm curious to see what that would be like." I rolled my eyes and opened up my phone flipping through all my emails.
The monster transformation stuff was mainly from goth forums and weird underground vampire cult websites. Really weird fringe groups. I hadn't found any faerie dust or anything but I though I had seen. Aha. An email from a new age magic library offering me a transformation ritual. "You could become a 'Child of the forest' which seems to be an elf, for fifty points. The actual ritual is supplied but apparently we have to power it ourselves and we need to supply 'mystical artifacts of great potency'. " I scrolled through the email, checking on the details. There was a surprising amount of context for how it worked.
I was assuming the reason it was so damn cheap was because you needed to supply your own mats. Apparently thetype of elf you became had to do with the mystical significance of the artifacts used. Normally that might be tough since I could tell I couldn't use items from my power to create the change. This was oddly intricate for a scam. I went to the website and made a sound of understanding. Apparently the place actually sold all "Mystical artifacts" needed. They charged obscene amounts for them and the whole thing seemed like a way to strip idiots of all their money.
Regardless it seemed perfect for us at the moment due to the Labyrinth dropping tons of gear. I passed the phone to Artemis, who looked intrigued. "This seems pretty cool. Can we power the ritual?" I nodded confidently, that would be far from a problem. She frowned a bit but nodded after a second of thought. "Ok. Let's go with that one. Granted we might need to source a whole bunch of gear from the dungeon before we can do it but it'll just make me stronger in the long run." She seemed excited by the very idea so I smiled and pressed the order now button. The ritual cost five hundred dollars and I felt it deduct from my bank account.
A knock rang out on the door. Artemis and I just looked at each other. She'd never seen my power at work before. I just smiled and gestured for her to go ahead and she bolted from the chair towards the door. I laughed at the enthusiasm as she flung the door to the hallway of the tower open to show...a box. Not the usual cardboard box, but an ancient looking white oak casket with intricate gold inlay. The symbols etched into it and filled with gold leaf were complex and whirling, reminding me a bit of elvish from lord of the rings.
Artemis picked up the casket and kicked the door shut, bolting back over to take the lid off so we could see what was inside. She unlatched the lid and brought out several items. A small case of chalk and various inks, a small book that appeared to be directions. A scroll of soft but ancient vellum, exactly thirteen candles, five silver bowls a gleaming silver dagger, a dozen stones of various sizes and colors, and five spikes of what looked like ancient bone with symbols carved all over bone was yellowed with time but still looked strong, which was a bit impressive.
I glanced at Artemis with a raised eyebrow and she passed me the book to flip through while she took out everything else. The ritual kit, according to the email only worked a single time, but the book explained why. Apparently most of the focii would be destroyed during the channeling of the power. I was fascinated by the instructions, written in flowing spiderlike cursive. I flipped through the book, speed reading and perfect recall making finishing the whole thing easy, and once it was done I put it back.
The complexity of my power shocked me sometimes. This entire ritual had been constructed and brought into being for this exact purpose. I knew for a fact the actual ritual would be nothing like this if it wasn't a complete load of bullshit in the first place. The booklet outlined all the necessary preparations, the circumstances, the time and place that the ritual needed to be performed. The only thing missing was the details of the magic artifacts because they were specific to the individual ritual itself.
The vagueness of the email had actually played out in our favor this time. Because they didn't want to shoot themselves in the foot with their bullshit artifact sales they made it customizable, which meant the artifacts we provided would literally create a new breed of elf. The name of the elven race would be burned onto the vellum contract along with details of the race in question. I was blown away. The components needed must have massively lowered the cost because something like this should have cost thousands of points.
I mentally scanned through the book before I realized why and grimaced. I passed Artemis the book, open to the page I'd found the catch. Artemis would live for centuries if not millennia, and conceiving a kid would be almost impossible. Elves apparently had stupidly low fertility rates, and the chances of her ever having a child were insanely low. She bit her lip and stared down at the text, seeming...almost confused. I suspected this wasn't something Artemis had ever considered having to think about at fifteen.
Finally she shrugged "Oh well. I admit it's not ideal but I wasn't planning to have kids anytime soon anyway. Who knows maybe we can find some other magic to make it possible later. This thing seems pretty amazing either way. You have any clue what it'll actually do for me? Seems a bit vague." She had obviously decided not to talk about the negatives and I respected that, I just shrugged and pulled up the website, trying to get some clues to what would actually happen based on their ridiculous face ritual artifacts.
Sadly all of it was useless. The ritual I had was pretty much incomparable to the original I would bet, and the details seemed to have been fabricated from thin air. I looked up at my best friend with a sigh "Nope. I can hazard a vague guess based on the magical properties but who knows whether the whole object effects the build or whether its just the magic. The book is surprisingly mum on all the ins and outs of the magic itself, just ridiculously detailed instructions on how to execute the actual ceremony." I leaned forward and snagged the vellum, sliding off the ribbon and unrolling it slowly. "What about this, any details here?"
I looked down at it and my jaw dropped. Artemis waited expectantly but eventually realized I wasn't talking and pulled it toward her to look. Finally she glanced down at it and burst out laughing. I rolled my eyes and pulled the vellum back over to me to scan it again. A name, a race, individual indicators for different statistics, unique characteristic traits at the bottom and a list of skills and abilities. I closed my eyes and sighed at my power. I'd just been thinking of how amazing it was that my ability had created all this from scratch, but as I stared down at the obvious and still blank character sheet for a fucking game character I had to roll my eyes. My power definitely had a sense of humor.
The Cathedral July 28th 2010 7:00 PM EDT
Artemis couldn't wait to get back into the dungeon, so we naturally headed down there the next day to hopefully start gathering some gear for her ritual. We told Zee about it, saying it came from Madame Xanadu, which considering the woman was an immortal sorcery prodigy she seemed to buy with little trouble. She was fascinated by the idea and insisted that we let her sit in. I felt a bit bad about lying to my girlfriend but I wasn't ready to share my powers quite yet, not after things with Annabel went so badly.
Getting through level one wasn't so bad. It was more of the same, and once we mapped the first level retracing our steps got much easier. The instance we were in seemed to be anchored to us, it may have been random the first time but we got a consistent second run and were able to break into floor two in just a few hours. The monsters on the first floor had respawned, but we were more than strong enough to take them down since we had a bit of practice and an idea of where to go.
Level two however ended up being a bit more of a problem. The number of potential enemies was much higher and the array of abilities they had was expansive. I stopped us all in the first room "Ok hold up guys. The second floor is where things start getting really dangerous so we should talk over our plan going forward. First up stick together like we have been and make sure you never enter a new room alone. Second at the end of this level is the first boss and we might see some unique monsters so we need to be ready."
Zee cut in eagerly "I'm sure we can find some interesting gear that will help down here. Tell us about the boss a bit, he doesn't seem as random as you said monsters usually are, he sounds scary, what can you tell us?" She sounded excited about the idea of fighting a legendary monster, which I could definitely understand. "Also getting down here was tougher this time and from what you said level one is the smallest level by far, will we be able to get back down to where we are next time? I don't want to waste half our raiding time on travel."
I laughed at that one "That particular issue is one we can solve with your staff. We'll be using town portal to get out at the end of our day. We can leave the portal open and just come back down through that." I took a deep breath. "In the spirit of keeping the portal and us safe I want to open it into our base, we have really impressive protections in place and we don't have your dad hovering over us. Would that be...ok for you?" This was a huge step for me. Trusting Zee with the location of our lair, not as big a commitment as telling her about my power but still important.
She had been there for me through so much of this, and unless she was secretly insane (and what were the chances of me getting struck by THAT lightning twice) my aura sight told me she really cared for me and wouldn't betray me. Given everyone at the clock tower knew about this development and had agreed to it, albeit grudgingly in Jim's case, because they could protect themselves so I'd decided to go for it. Besides, the wards would make it impossible for her to find again after she left and Jim wasn't worried about her bypassing them at her level.
Zee's eyes looked huge and shimmered like the moon on the surface of the worlds bluest lake as she stared at me. She knew about my trust issues, and knew this was a big step for me. Artemis cleared her throat "Hey, Romeo and Juliet, as touching and beautiful as this moment is we were in the middle of talking about the potential ways a super monster can kill us. We can get back to your epic love story after you explain how a monster Zee told me you implied could curb stomp fucking batman isn't going to just murder us."
I coughed a bit and flushed turning to talk to Artemis while Zee reached out and grabbed my hand. Reggie just sat back and watched on amused and Kit looked like she wished she had some popcorn. "Right, sorry." I gave Zee's hand a squeeze and shot her a dopey smile she returned before refocusing. "Anyway The Butcher. Yes, he is insanely dangerous. Luckily he stays in his weird little room until you open the door, chopping up bodies or whatever he does, so we can prepare for him. We need some gear to boost our stats, not to mention some magic for Zee before we can take him on."
I walked over and hopped up on a nearby crypt, careful not to open it and possibly trigger traps or skeletons. "Batman would have some trouble with him yes, because he's basically a walking tank. But we know how this place works, we can do this. The Butcher is strong as hell, but he isn't that fast for his level. We need to boost my dexterity and my reaction speed can take care of him. My reflexes are top notch and will make any dexterity boost exponentially effective on me. Once I have some dex I can dodge tank him while you guys whittle him down from a distance."
I pointed to Zee. "You are our secret weapon babe. The Butcher has no magic resistance, any spells that bind or slow him will be invaluable, and we can trick you out with some intelligence gear so your spells hit harder and you can cast more of them. The only thing we need to do is make sure no one opens that door before we're ready. The Butcher lives in a square enclosed room with a big sturdy door. If you see any enclosed room that is a perfect square, stay away from it. Hell any doors at all would be best avoided to start."
Reggie cut in. "I might be able to help too actually. Big sturdy fuckers like that are the easiest targets for my translocation. We can have Arty armor up and stand at the back to snipe him away from everyone else, then if he becomes too much to handle I can swap them so he's far away from us. Hell we can use it to trap him back in the room if we need to bail, since you said that door is supposed to be durable as fuck." He coughed a bit and looked away "Plus maybe if we don't need as much gear I could take some for Bette. She was really excited about the idea of having abilities like that. It would mean a lot to her."
I couldn't exactly turn him down on that after inviting my own girlfriend back to out secret base, even if she wouldn't actually know where it was. I just laughed and put my hands up to show I was staying out of it "Gear belongs to whoever gets it. We alternate on chests. Civilized looting is the bedrock of any good adventurer team. If you want to give away some of your loot to your lady love that's on you. I know any first drop tomes I get are going to mine. " I shot Zee a wink and she giggled and kissed me on the cheek.
With all of that handled we headed out to begin exploring the second floor. The first room was a marked difference from the even the hardest part of the first floor. The mixture of the different enemies combining into a more dangerous whole than the sum of its parts. The first few monsters were Ghouls, whose magic immunity made them a mess to kill. With a series of Skeleton Archers in the back taking pot shots and the fallen imps rushing between them we had an actual problem with this room.
I intercepted the Fallen Ones with my tanto, having gotten much more used to dealing with them after last level. Kit circled around to deal with the archers while Reggie kept the Ghouls off balance with teleportation so Artemis could put arrows in them. Unlike the skeletons arrows actually worked on the Ghouls, albeit not as well as I would like. Zee in the meantime was sending out pulses through the ground that made the stone a bit gummy and let the enemies sink into the stone.
The Fallen Ones were giving me real trouble this time. The little bastards mostly had their big ass knife but a few of them were wielding spears and I had no training in dealing with longer weapons. I actually got stabbed a few times, albeit I was fast enough to make sure those blows landed in places that wouldn't be life threatening. My next buy with my power was that Yoga dvd, my bulky body builder muscles made capitalizing on my ability to dodge impossible and got me injured more than once.
Finally I managed to put them all down, and after downing a healing potion to close the wounds up I headed over to take out the Ghouls. With that taken care of Artemis and Reggie were able to focus on the archers and the whole battle was over withing a few minutes. I slumped against the wall, panting. I'd moved around way too much. I needed more training so I could learn to dodge minimally. My ninja dodging skills were made for small lithe muscular people not big ass hulks like me and they drained stamina like crazy.
Zee came over and muttered something and my body flooded with energy, I smiled and pecked my amazing girlfriend on the lips before putting an arm around her and turning to my equally exhausted friends. "Ok well as we can all see this particular floor is going to take us quite a bit longer than the last. Aside from being bigger its harder and we'll need to pace ourselves. Still that was a pretty awesome start I think, anyone get any magic gear? The letters will be blue on them, we also need some identify scrolls, though Zee might be able to brute force it with her magic."
Kit laughed breathlessly "Ok, am I crazy or was that really fun? I know I haven't been as gung ho about this place as Arty and Reg but that was a blast. The healing potions really make it less worrying to get hurt, though I suppose that's sort of the point because your ex wants as many victims as possible to build up her ascension. Anyway I got a blue ring, and I saw a room over there that definitely isn't square and looks too thin to be that boss guy's place." She pointed as the others gathered their loot, mostly gold and some normal gear.
The room was full of skeletons, but after we dropped the archers and a captain we found a veritable treasure trove. First a series of plinths with scrolls on them, all identify, three in total. Then a book case with a book of healing on it that we gave to Zee to learn. Finally we found something very interesting, a murky pool, which I knew would give us infravision, we tool a drink and then had Zee conjure a bunch of bottles with stasis spells on them so we could save the stuff. We ended up with a huge bag full of makeshift potions of infravision.
We were at this point all carrying bags to lug around gold and stuff we found and we stopped to identify the ring that Kit had found. [Ring of Might. Plus five to strength.] Kit kept that one since she had found it and none of us really specced strength. When she put it on she gasped, and we tried a few tests with and without it to map the effects. Her strength was natively about six from what we could tell, which put baseline human max around ten. At eleven she was now stronger than a full grown man who worked out. Hell she was now stronger than me.
We used the town portal to head back and once we were home we talked over today's gains and went over some of the enemies we faced and how to take them out better next time. Then I walked Zee out and kissed her before she teleported home, giving us an extra layer of security since now she didn't even know what neighborhood the tower was in. She seemed giddier than usual and promised to study one of the identify scrolls to see if she could duplicate the spell. I smiled and headed back inside. It had been a good night.
The Cathedral July 29th 2010 8:00 PM EDT
We managed to make it back to the dungeon the next night. The next stretch of the second floor was a bit different. As opposed to the rooms we'd been seeing this part was more open concept. Lots of wide spaces full of coffins and the odd chest here or there. Skeletons and the odd Ghoul covered the place, listing slowly toward us and easy pickings for our archers. As we kept an eye out I sidled up next to Zee putting my arm around my girlfriend. "Hey sweets, how goes the magic study? Having fun?"
She shot be a beaming smile "Hell yes! I used that book when I got home and learned a healing spell. It's a totally different magic style to my own. I was able to use it in combination with that identify scroll to forcefully learn the spell. It's crazy magically inefficient right now but I can do it!" She grabbed me by the shirt and planted a passionate kiss on my lips, leaving me dazed and tasting blueberry cheesecake. "God baby I love this! Learning new spells is such a fucking rush! I can't wait to find more!"
I smirked at my magic crazy girlfriend, using the very close contact as an excuse to get a handful of her very generous rear, but my hand got a quick smack. Zee gave me a smirk of her own "Woah there cowboy, hands above the waist. Don't get greedy." She was laughing but I felt my face fall and she must have seen the guilt because she gave me a soft kiss. "No harm babe, I just feel like we're moving a little fast. You can still put your hands on all the places you've already touched." She gave me a devilish grin and glanced down to her straining button up.
I laughed and kissed her again, slower and more carefully. Her eyes were fluttering as I pulled away and I pushed a strand of hair behind her ear like I always loved seeing her do. "I'm sorry Zee. You know I'd never want to make you uncomfortable, I guess I just caught up in the moment. Seeing you so excited about magic got me worked up. But I don't need to cop a feel to enjoy spending time with you. You know I like you for more than your body right?" My damn teenage hormones were messing with me, and the last thing I wanted was for them to make Zee doubt me.
She pulled me into a hug "Baby of course I do. If I thought you only wanted some ass I'd never have agreed to date you." She pulled back and raised an eyebrow in a snarky manner "Though I won't say I haven't noticed all the attention you pay that particular part of my anatomy. You're a boy, god knows daddy has warned me enough that boys only want one thing, and while I don't think you're like that it makes sense you would be thinking about it sometimes. Hell, I think about it sometimes. You're a hunk, and from what I've felt pressed up against me when we're having alone time, you're hung like a horse."
I flushed at that but she just laughed and kept going. "But we aren't exactly objective about this. I don't want my first time to be something I do in the heat of the moment. I want it to be special. I have so much fun with you, I don't want to rush into anything and then ruin things. I love what we've already done, I just don't want to keep pushing." I opened my mouth and she cut me off "And I don't mean you. I mean me. I want you too Morgan, and if I let you go any further I'll have trouble holding myself back. So above the waist only. Just for now. Just until we're ready."
I tipped her chin up and stared into those bottomless blue eyes that put me in a trance every time I looked at them. "Of course baby. Anything you need. And if the stuff we do now is ever too much you tell me. I want this to work, and if that means we go hands off for a while I don't mind. You're worth it Zatanna." Her eyes shone as she stared up at me in what my aura sense told me was adoration. I couldn't believe I was with someone like her, she was just so damn amazing. Our moment was cut off as someone cleared their throat.
We turned to see Artemis glaring at us "Can you two be sickening somewhere we aren't about to get eaten by fucking zombies please? Your relationship makes my teeth ache and it's throwing off my aim." Her aura didn't have any actual malice in it though, just a bit of exasperation and a hint of frustration. I smiled apologetically and stepped back, putting my hands up in surrender. She stared a bit harder then sighed "Sorry. My boyfriend is out of the country on some stupid club trip in South America. He hasn't been able to visit and it's pissing me off."
I winced, I knew Wally and Artemis had been getting closer lately. They had a weird amount in common actually, and their relationship was incredibly close. I'd gotten to know Wally a bit over his visits and he was a nice guy, if a bit over the top. He seemed to have a lot of problems interacting with other people, but Artemis said he was really smart so that wasn't a surprise. Apparently he could be a bit forward when he flirted, which was fine with Artemis because she was confident as hell and knew what she wanted but it scared a lot of girls off.
Artemis herself had trouble letting people in because of her dad. Wally respected her privacy and didn't pry and it meant a lot to her. Plus as she was fond of saying even when no one asked he had an "ass that could crack cement". I was happy for my friend, though I felt bad that she was so down being away from her boy. I decided to distract us all. "Ok so how's the haul. We find anything decent so far today? We haven't run into any real threats, just the off wandering skeleton or Ghoul. I wish this place wasn't so fucking huge."
That got a laugh from Kit, who was standing nearby. "Guess your lady had you a bit distracted huh cousin? But yeah we got a few trinkets. A ring, a dagger, and a buckler, all blue. We're stopped at a chest right now, it's one of the gold bordered black box things you always tell us to leave to you." I nodded, those chests were usually trapped, and my super reflexes were the perfect response to something like that. I walked over to the aforementioned chest and glanced down, looking for any wires or anything but finding nothing.
I leaned down and flipped up the lid. There was a weird sort of reverse xylophone sound and a skeleton constructed itself from disparate bones behind the chest. I lashed out without thinking, smashing the thing apart with a single blow and moving on to look through the chest. Pile of gold, healing potion, scroll of town portal, nothing huge. I addressed Artemis as I rooted through the box. "So what is Wally doing in South America anyway?" He didn't strike me as the cultural appreciation type, more of a hard science guy. I was surprised he was in a club like that.
She snorted "Fuck if I know. He babbles when we talk on the phone. Something about snakes I think. He was supposed to be back days ago, but he said his club found some weird ruins or something and they were going to explore them. He said he'll be in Gotham soon though. Apparently he's going to be spending a lot more time here, his relatives in the city need his help with some stuff." I could hear the fondness in her voice "He's pretty reliable about stuff like that. Always willing to help out if you need it."
I laughed at the obvious fondness in her tone before freezing in place. My eyes strayed down to the side, near the corner of my field of vision. "Umm. Not to be that guy, but does anyone else see a red plus sign in the bottom corner of their...sight? Because there seems to be an icon floating there that says level up above it." I was in shock. I hadn't herd anything about anyone being able to level up like in the game. Which meant either I was the first person to ever get enough experience or I was the only one for some reason.
I had a sneaking suspicion my powers had something to do with it. My points seemed to be able to act as a universal power source, maybe they worked for this too. Everyone just stared at me blankly and I shrugged and hit the button mentally. A big ass screen appeared, full of information. A gray character screen just like in the game. It listed my name, level, the amount of money I had, some attributes, resistances, and a few other things like health. But there were some differences too.
Firstly I had no mana indicator, and instead of magic I had a points stat, which was at ten. My strength was also at ten,as was my vitality, with my dexterity lagging behind at seven. I assumed it was based on my actual physical movement ability which was somewhat limited by my bulk, and I was tempted to dump some of my available five stats into dex to round it out, but I couldn't bring myself to use any of them for that right now. I put all five of the stat points into the points category, and I felt something inside me...shift.
This wasn't a one time thing. I knew for a fact my daily points allotment was at fifteen now. I'd finally found a way to increase my points income. Based on how long it took to get one level it wouldn't be fast. But it still worked. I'd begun to assume that I would be stuck at ten points a day forever. Now I finally had a way to get stronger. To potentially buy some of those insane high priced abilities and powers I'd seen. I grinned to myself, excited beyond belief. I was interrupted in my reverie by a hand in front of my face.
I snapped out of the haze to stare at Reggie who was looking at me with concern. "Dude, can you not say vague shit about seeing things that aren't there and then drift off into weird trances? It's creepy and a bit worrying. Are you ok?" He looked concerned, and I winced as I realized no one but Artemis knew about my powers. This could be written off as its own thing though, and had nothing to do with my abilities from an external point of view.I decided to play it off as a weird Gotham thing.
I shrugged "Guess I can level up now. Maybe it's a meta ability or something. Still very cool." I could use the leveling down here to explain away any increase in my abilities from my real power, which was pretty amazing in itself. I felt bad not telling Zee and Reggie about my powers but it just didn't seem like time. I smiled at everyone, anxious to do more before we left, to try to get another level, to get up to twenty points. "Anyway I'm fine, we'll have to see how this all works as we go on. Now are we going to sit around jabbering or are we going to go kick some ass. I want to slay some monsters." Unsurprisingly, that comment got no arguments. I do love my friends.
Ask and ye shall receive. Once again this is not going to turn into a litpg, but him having the ability to upgrade his points income was something lots of people wanted so here it is! Meanwhile in the advance chapters Morgan shares a moment with his girlfriend. pat-reon has the advance chapters on that site /malcolmtent. Hope you enjoy and let me know what you think.