Chapter 5

A Wizard In Alexandria's Court

Chapter Five

by Skysaber

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Story Day Three, April 8th 2011, Friday - Worm's start, Very Late Evening

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It was a dark and stormy night, one split by forks of lightning, and demented cries of...

"It's Alive! It's ALIVE! Ha ha ha!"

Lisa and Taylor cowered slightly, while Dinah stood boldly curious in front of them, as the platform lowered out of the hole in the roof of the library amid lightning flashes as thunder crashed in the ongoing storm.

Somehow the tree that had been growing in the library was no more, although none of the three girls knew how he'd done it, and in its place stood a marvel of mad science machinery with dials and flashing lights, arcing electricity and sparks, oh so many sparks!

It did not help any, Lisa thought, that he had the theme from Young Frankenstein playing on hidden speakers.

The chains that had raised the platform with its bier, complete with body on it, at last brought it back down to the floor to rest again, and Lisa's hair stood on end as she saw the arm of the creature twitching slightly.

Then, upon realizing that she was not all that surprised, Lisa gave a tiny glare over to where Jared was standing with a demented grin by a static generator, having just filled the air with enough static that ALL of their hair was standing on end!

Jared threw another knife switch, the big old fashioned kind, and there was a horrible, deathly silence during which only the motions of the creature on the bier as it began to rise up to a sitting position occupied all attention.

Then there was stomping, and chains...

Realizing that nothing was stomping and the chains were pre-recorded, along with the drum solo, Lisa shot a less-than-tiny glare over at Jared, where he stood in rubber gloves and boots, wearing a lab coat and funny hair.

And, she winced...

"I was working in the lab late one night, when my eyes beheld an eerie sight."

... he began to sing.

"for my monster from its slab began to rise, and suddenly, to my surprise..."

... and worse. He was singing the Monster Mash.

"He did the mash!" broke in Dinah, with an electrified grin.

"He did the Monster Mash!" Jared agreed, in a textbook perfect Bobby Pickett impersonation even as the monster *did* rise up from off of its slab, grabbed a conveniently located top hat, and began to shuffle a nice soft-shoe routine.

"The Monster Mash!" Taylor suddenly called out, realizing what was going on.

"It was a graveyard smash!" Jared agreed absolutely.

Lisa hung her head, thinking he was positively *ruining* the whole movie monster atmosphere!

She joined them by the third verse.

And they sang the Whole Thing! collapsing into giggles afterwards.

The movie monster horror schtick wouldn't have worked anyway, as Jared's monster looked more like an actor on Duck Dynasty than Frankenstein.

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Story Day Four, April 9th 2011, Saturday, Early Morning

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The next morning, before school hours, Jared took his little group of friends back down to the abandoned hospital, where he led them into a newly-cleaned section of the basement, and brought them to one of the labs. All of the equipment had been stolen or destroyed long ago, but some metal tables had been left behind, which Jared had restored, and loaded with new glassware.

Only instead of looking like a proper scientific laboratory, it looked like something out of a fantasy, with hand-blown glass filled with odd colored, glowing liquids bubbling without fires, apparent rocks unattached to anything that glowed like daylight, and it looked like half a ton of animal parts all neatly segregated into their own labeled containers.

The labels, though? They read things like: bat wings, lizard gizzards, newt eyes, rat spleens, and so on.

So many animal parts naturally led to a... complicated aroma clinging to the room, and more than one of the young ladies (led by Dinah most of all) found herself holding her nose and breathing through her mouth for this brief tour.

The worst thing though, was to all appearances the containers of animal parts were all half empty, and looking to have recently been drained from a much fuller status.

Jared led them all to wooden racks that had not been there before, yet gave the impression of having been stuffed near to overflowing just a little while ago, yet were now all but empty. There, he picked up a red vial, of what the girls were suddenly hoping was not blood. This he presented proudly.

"Ladies..." he paused to look over their shoulders, "and Bitch," he continued smoothly. The other three all turning to confirm the dog-focused cape had indeed joined them, both unexpected and uninvited by the looks of it. But Jared rolled with it. "This is a healing potion. I dare say, there is scarcely a gunshot wound that this will not fix in one dose. This," he picked up another bottle whose liquid was light blue and seemed... fluttery was the only word to describe it. "is a Potion of Flight. Anyone who drinks one of these can fly as easily as, and regrettably only about twice as fast as, they move on the ground. Still, staggeringly useful, even in this day and age."

Placing both bottles down on a steel tabletop, he picked up another whose color was always in motion, as if catching the very essence of darkness giving way to light. "This potion cures all kinds of blindness, or deafness, to whatever degree you are afflicted with the same. Although I had to tweak the recipe a bit to do it, and it only cures one or the other. So you'd need two doses if you suffered from both. Here, try it."

He handed the bottle to Taylor.

Somewhat reluctantly, the young girl accepted the bottle, glanced at both Dinah and Lisa for extra confidence, then looked Jared in the eyes and steeled herself, pulling out the cork (an actual cork! Who uses those anymore?) and drank it swiftly. Moments later the young lady was removing her glasses, looking around her in wondering awe, enjoying her new, perfect vision.

Jared smirked a bit. "Yes. I expect that to be a popular one."

Rachel looked desperately at another bottle of the same and made as if to lunge for it, then aborted that movement, looking up at him in apology. Catching her look he nodded, and slid one across the flat table top to her. However, Rachel did not drink it herself, only uncorked it to feed to her dog Angelica, which was missing one eye.

An eye that regenerated in its socket as they all stood there and watched.

Another desperate, wordless plea from Bitch, and another nod from Jared led to another bottle slid over, uncorked and administered, which led to Angelica's missing ear being restored as well, as the dog panted and looked around happily, now twitching both ears.

Rachel grasped her dog and looked to be crying tears of happiness into its fur.

After this unexpectedly emotional moment, all of the rest looked ready for a subject change. So the wizard presented only one other bottle out of the remaining selection. "This one I expect could change the world. The name of this one is Heart's Ease, and it cures mental or emotional damage even more effectively than the healing potion wipes away physical harm. It removes fear, including phobias, cures confusion and even outright insanity, removes any lingering psychological effects of torture, and so on, leaving the subject feeling refreshed and at peace. It basically corrects any form of mental damage, all in one go. One dose of this will take some truly messed up people and make them whole and well again. Since that also includes removing any lingering trauma from your trigger events, I made enough for all of you, plus some to spare."

He handed out bottles. When it came time for Bitch, he motioned her towards him instead of handing over a bottle he knew would immediately be uncorked and fed to one of her dogs. When she approached, holding her belly low and subservient, he lifted her chin with one hand, and administered the potion to her, exactly as she had done for her dogs.

Much crying, and many hugs of relief were administered all around as every girl there felt chains on her soul loosen they had not even known were tight, feeling relief of a kind that was simply indescribable.

The potions were nothing like drugs, but still, their minds would be so busy cataloging their internal changes that it would be fair to compare their behavior to being stoned over the next hour or two.

Knowing they would need a while collecting themselves, and examining their newly healed mental states, just getting familiar with their new, undamaged, unblighted, un-destroyed mental architecture, Jared simply led them to the former hospital's newly restored pool to let them all relax for a while.

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One Hour Later

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"I've got it figured out," Lisa declared as she wrapped a towel around her body, her soggy swimsuit discarded nearby with two others, last of the three to emerge from the showers by the pool in the hospital's basement. Obviously once used for physical therapy, it remained a very nice pool once Jared had practically scoured it to the bedrock, cleaned and rebuilt it all spick and span.

Wrapping a new towel around her head to help dry her hair, Lisa refused to think of the gruesome things the Teeth had been up to down there to leave this room that filthy. She wouldn't. But it was a very nice pool right now, all clean and well-tiled with sparkling fastenings, and showers with all of the hot water any girl, or group of them, could ever need.

Lisa fastened eyes on Rachel's completely nude form reclined on a deck chair by the pool side. The dog focused cape had hunted them down somehow, just appearing without explanation, walking in on them as casually as anything, her three usual companion dogs following at her heels. Jared had modified his plans on the fly to include her, Lisa was still mildly impressed by how easily he got along with her, and offered them all swimsuits with that clothing-creation power he had. But Rachel had not seen the point and refused, just stripping down to her skin to go swimming like an animal.

Whereupon the boy had made himself as absent as possible. Lisa's power had noticed something there, something pertaining to her personally, but it was only an awareness that she needed to plumb for more data, nothing concrete yet.

"He's a Powers Tinker. There is nothing else he could be," she declared to the room at large.

Dinah and Taylor, wearing their own towels over bodies and hair, turned to look at her from where they had been playing backgammon. Rachel was not wearing a towel as she had also not joined the other three girls in the showers, not seeing the point of bathing after swimming.

Lisa was sure, if asked (and she actually felt like answering) Rachel would grunt something short about how it was all water.

Taylor sat up suddenly. "Why are trucks pulling up here?"

Lisa focused in on her with laser-sharp intensity. "People avoid this place. There shouldn't be anyone around."

Taylor looked at her in confusion, still a bit lost in la-la land from having a mindscape somewhat akin to a bombed-out Post-WWII Berlin suddenly restored to nice parks and intact buildings. "There are two people on the roof, they got here about half an hour after Rachel did."

Lisa was nearing panic, dropping her towels to reach for clothes, ANY clothes at this point! "Why didn't you SAY ANYTHING!? Quick! Everyone get into your costumes!"

"But... they aren't doing anything..." Taylor was confused, slowly drawing herself back out of her own mental wanderings.

"CYRANO! COMPANY!" Lisa shouted at the top of her voice, all the while scrambling to find a mask to put on her face. "Doing nothing but keeping watch over us so we did not escape while they waited for reinforcements to arrive, you mean." She descended into swearing.

"We're being watched?" Jared demanded, entering the room, having caught Lisa's last sentence before she descended into swearing, while creating another Clothier's Closet spell with a negligent wave of one hand.

"Half an hour plus. Our recon expert chose not to mention anything," Lisa swore viciously, causing Taylor to shrink in on herself a little. "Did you even catch them arrive?" she asked, a little caustically, the danger they were in eradicating any sense of good humor as she lunged for the newly available clothes.

Taylor would probably have been paralyzed by the verbal violence even thirty five minutes before. Still she was confused, shaking her head. "They just popped out of nowhere..."

Suddenly Jared was in a towering fury himself. "People popping out of nowhere is A THREAT!" he shouted. "Anybody you have not identified, anybody in a place they are not supposed to be, ANYBODY AT ALL who stands a good chance of destroying your secret identity IS. A. THREAT!"

He picked Taylor up by one shoulder, hauling her to her feet, letting the towels fall where they may, unconcerned for them. "You RESPOND to threats to your secret identity like you respond to threats on your LIFE! Now get dressed!"

"But..." Taylor was unused to such handling. "... how... ?"

The boy grabbed her, holding her so her face was an inch from his, speaking rapidly and with great energy, he said, "You may not feel it, but this is a Costumed Event. You are doing cape things, in company with capes, at a place only capes could be expected to be! Anyone who finds you will assume you to be one. Yet you have NO identity protection AT ALL! We are as vulnerable as Lung was when WE attacked HIM when HE was feeling safe! Your secret identity is about to be DESTROYED FOREVER and you stand there NUDE and STAMMERING! When they walk in that door," he pointed to the large exterior doors nearby. "You are going to be seen Completely Naked by more men than are on a football team! And they will GRAB you! They will HANDLE you! They will push you to the floor and treat you very roughly! Now short of actual penetration it's going to feel EXACTLY LIKE RAPE! WHAT ARE YOU STANDING THERE BLATHERING FOR? GET DRESSED!"

He practically flung her at the rod of clothes.

His near-panic as he shouted scared her more than anything else, breaking Taylor out of the thought paralysis that had seized her from feeling so at peace and mellow after so long under distress, and she instantly started scrambling into some clothes that Lisa practically threw at her.

Jared was preparing to fight for their lives, casting Mage Armor and the rest of his usual defenses before queuing up lethal spells, his adventurer training insisting that outnumbered, off-guard, and most of their party quite literally bare-[Bleep] naked, their only hope lay in dropping their enemies as quickly as they appeared, and ensuring that they stayed down.

Power Word: Pain, a first level spell infamous for being able to drop a minotaur in one hit, and other overpowered '[Bleep!] You aren't fooling around!' spells found their places in his lineup. For groups, he shoved a 'munchkined-to-insanity' Magic Missile to prime position, readying an action to throw it at the first intruders to break into their sanctum.

People do not spy on you for half an hour, then unload truckloads of troops on your doorstep because they are feeling friendly. Hostile intent could just be assumed, in those cases. And the default for assault troopers was to be lethally armed.

Rachel, dear Rachel, stepped up beside him and began enlarging her dogs. She understood.

It was the ancient pact, the oath of: "They may kill me, but they'll *have* to to get at those I protect!"

Usually followed by a similar oath: "And I'm not going down without their blood on my claws and a mouthful of their flesh in my jaws first! They'll have to EARN my death with blood and fire!"

This was, not surprisingly, a rather common mental state for veteran adventurers. The job frankly required it, and learning how to psyche yourself into it was one of the first lessons, before they let you out the doors to face your first orc. D&D adventurers faced every horror just about any fiction writer had ever imagined. Submerging yourself into a mental state of, "Ok, I'm dead, but you're dying first." was completely necessary when literal Lovecraftian horrors were considered a mid-level challenge.

And the fate of the world was often at stake, too.

It was a rather common discussion on D&D forums how humanity, and other player races, managed to survive at all, when by all logic and reason they really shouldn't, considering the number, variety, and power of threats that populated their worlds. Contrasted to how few adventurers they had to deal with them.

Taylor did not know any specifics and would not understand them if she were told, yet his overwhelming concern for her she found to be more shocking than electricity. Taylor had felt anger directed at her countless times by Emma and her gang. This was nothing like that. What she felt from him was anger at the emergency that had been dropped on them all, the desperate anger of someone who did not know how to keep the situation from hurting them in horrible, unspeakable ways.

She had felt this from her mother only once, when she was still very small, Annette carrying her away from some gang violence that had seemingly erupted out of nowhere.

This was that. Someone terrified, not for themselves, but on behalf of those they felt to be in their charge and under their protection. Someone desperately pulling out all of the stops, driving others to move, because being in motion lay the only hope for survival, like they were all about to be flattened by an avalanche or something, where the pressures of the emergency were so great that any concerns over hurt feelings had to be discarded to make way for saving lives.

Rather than afraid, Taylor felt strongly reassured. No one had cared for her like that in so long.

Of course, she still felt ashamed for becoming so lost in her own restored peace of mind, feeling safe for the first time since her mother died, that she had ignored the signs of coming danger. That she had let her own inexperience at recognizing a real threat put them all in this danger was something she felt real shame over.

But, at the same time, happy that they cared.

"Halt! Evildoers!"

Two costumed figures appeared in the doorway of the stairway leading to the roof.

In D&D, a readied action was as automatic as a tripwire. Someone trips that trigger, and it goes off. The decisions have already been made, it just goes.

Jared, primed for combat, already on the adrenaline surge of someone trying hard not to die, made even more difficult by being encumbered with naked newbies who'd never been in a real fight before, had a readied action to cast a massively overpowered Magic Missile on the first intruders to this area. He reflexively thrust out his arm and twenty two darts of blue-white energy shot out in streams like a machinegun firing tracer ammunition, splitting mid-stream to track both targets.

Clockblocker was just fast enough to freeze his costume. He survived.

Vista, though she tried valiantly, twisting space and desperately dodging, the Magic Missiles struck her unerringly as they are designed to do, and the highly enhanced darts hit with sufficient force she was dead before she had even a second to realize the missiles were compensating for all of her countermeasures.

It was as her body fell that Jared recognized the unfamiliar costumes. "[Bleep!] The wards! Why aren't they in school?"

"Because it's Saturday!" Dinah called out, having ignored all of the previous drama and now almost dressed, a mask already in place over her face. Only Lisa had similar face protection, although Taylor was halfway into a dress, her face inside where it could not currently be seen.

Perception check = Success! Jared's hearing picked up a not-too-distance PRT trooper outside suddenly shouting to his squad, "Ward Down! Ward Down! Medic to Vista! STAT!"

Great. Fighting governments. The Worst Monster of All.

The elf reached the double doors to outside just in time to Arcane Lock them, right before the team outside hit them like a battering ram. "[Bleep], and here I was willing to do most anything to avoid conflict with the local government," he complained, rushing over to his friends, grabbing the two most naked ones, he lifted one in each arm, dropped a metamagiced Trace Purge over the area to eliminate forensic evidence, and vanished with them.

He was back a second later, grabbing Dinah and Lisa with both hands he threw them over his shoulders and dropped another Trace Purge. "I always hate revealing abilities I like to hold in reserve."

Then he was gone again.

Then back.

The PRT troopers outside would have to destroy those Arcane Locked doors to get through them. But from the sounds of it, that was something they were perfectly willing to do - willing, and prepared, and in-progress, as unless he mistook that was the crunch of fire axes striking steel. They would be through in moments.

When threatened, Rachel had responded to danger not by getting dressed. Oh no. Modesty was for those who cared about things like that, and what animal cared? That silly stuff was for humans and other civilized races to fret over. Rachel had been enlarging her dogs as quickly as possible.

Bless her heart.

Useful for fighting or escaping by the paradigm she knew. He could not fault her reaction, despite finding it awkward as he now had to make a special trip for her dogs, when she could have been teleported out carrying all three of them if only she'd known.

Sometimes keeping secrets did bite you on the behind, however.

Rachel had still been holding Angelica when Jared had teleported both her and Taylor out. He now stooped to grab Judas and Brutus around their middles and lift them, dropping another Trace Purge as he did so. It was necessary to keep purging the area as the spell only removed the forensic evidence of the person or creature targeted by the Trace Purge spell, which made it somewhat awkward as they had to still be there to be targeted, and ones left behind left more traces.

He vanished again.

Then he was back, resolving in future to include the rest of his team in his morning buff-up routine, as if they had all had copies of his own Hermetic Membrane he would not have been required to waste so much time dropping Trace Purges.

"Of course," he continued to himself, as no other friendly force was present. "At-will Teleport takes five feats and a creature type to get, and carrying passengers adds another. So, it's not like it's a cheap ability. So not one they'd expect. Heck, I don't even think Headmaster Andarlin knows about this one yet."

As Jared reappeared, a time-count was running in his mind. It had now been sixty seconds since the wards first appeared. Clockblocker could be getting free at any moment, and the PRT troopers were pounding on those Arcane Locked doors like men possessed. They, too, would be getting through at any moment.

He cast a Gathering Swirl cantrip with one hand, calling into existence a force of wind that collected all small, unattended items of a certain type he specified, and brought them to him. Discarded outfits, soggy swimwear, and towels flew to him from all over, and he caught them in his arms, quickly transferring them all to a large sack he'd taken from the still-active Clothier's Closet.

Then, with the other hand, and while grabbing another two large sacks, he cast Blockade, with a little boost to its duration. This called into being a cube of solid wood, five feet on a side and weighing 2,000 lbs, placed right inside of those Arcane Locked double doors, directly bracing them, and suddenly the mens' efforts to batter through were going to be futile for a few seconds more, while that block lasted.

It did not matter that it was not going to be long, as he could already hear other squads of troopers moving through the hospital, approaching this room from other directions. They would be here soon.

Jared inwardly debated. He could easily Metamorphose Liquids much of the water in the pool into gasoline, then light it on fire to destroy any remaining evidence. He did not actually trust the Trace Purge spell as he had never had cause to use it before, and so did not know its weaknesses and tricks. Every spell had some. But he decided he did not have time.

He did drop a Ghost Sound cantrip of lots of people slamming doors while running away from this location, however.

Dismissing the closet as a free action, the wizard raced across the room until he was beside Clockblocker, scooping Vista's remains into one of his two remaining large sacks. This he took and, casting a Trace Purge for her, took a step so that he was behind the still-frozen Clockblocker.

Casting a Forget spell purged the young hero of enough recent memory he'd probably never remember even waking up that morning. He would now have no ability to testify about anything he'd seen or heard of the people who'd been there. And with his face in a fixed position staring at a now-empty room, could not even learn about them as the last of them now stood behind him.

Jared cast Invisibility and was up the walls to hide on the ceiling when PRT squads poured into the pool area from two different directions - one of them the access stairwell directly behind Clockblocker.

The duration of his Blockade spell expired at the same time. Those hacked apart doors gave away and a third PRT squad burst in, weapons up and actively scanning for targets.

Jared decided his best course of action was a discrete teleport to his potions lab in the same building. Appearing there, he cast another Gathering Swirl cantrip, filling his last empty bag with all of the potions, ingredients, and glassware that had been in there. Of course, this made noise, which prompted an immediate response from the nearest squad of troopers.

But in the seconds it took for them to arrive he had already vanished again.

OoOoO

When Jared reappeared he did not do it at the Belmont estate, or any other place he considered secure. Instead, he appeared on that deserted stretch of beach nearest a certain crack den.

It had the advantage of being nicely anonymous, and the crack den did not apparently keep early morning hours. Even the not-distant-enough gunshots were silent for this visit.

It also helped that he appeared under the water, simply presuming any piece of Vista's gear might well have a tracking device hidden within, and counting on the water to short some of those out.

Jared had no sooner arrived than he was using a Detect Elements cantrip to feel for any remaining electricity among all of the equipment Vista had been carrying. He found a few still live and crushed them with rocks. Then he cast Spontaneous Search out of that Visionary feat again, learning the details of anything nonliving within 20ft in all directions. From this, he was able to identify everything remaining, and confirm that nothing left ought to still be functional as a tracking method.

Then he took a moment, and began to compose a note.

"Dear Miss Piggy,

"Your Ward lives. Now do as you're told, and she may even stay that way.

"Needless to say, if you fail to follow any of the instructions I give you, to the letter, then I will mail Vista to you in pieces. There are plenty of replacements, and as you have just learned, my mercenaries are better at conducting ambushes than your men are at avoiding them. Now do as I say and perhaps, just perhaps, you can avoid losing any more Wards."

Here Jared stopped writing. He called his team first, to let them know that he was alright, and laying a false trail - also getting an address for the PRT headquarters from Lisa. Then, still invisible, as D&D invisibility was cancelled when you attacked something or the duration ran out, and he had not done anything that could be regarded as an attack since casting the spell, he teleported to where his best guess for the PRT headquarters was, then from there teleported from rooftop to rooftop until he had found the place.

Then, silent, invisible, and flying, he flew up next to the structure and cast Tales of Stone and Wood once per floor, learning the floor plan of every level he touched, their general use and purpose, along with the total number of creatures present.

Now having somewhat expert knowledge of the PRT building, he retreated a short distance to finish his note, then realized what an opportunity he was missing and teleported right back to the Belmont estate.

It had been about a minute since the attack on the hospital.

It took another ten to calm his teammates down, some of whom still had their shirts on inside out, to where enough hugs and reassurances had been delivered that they could discuss things and actually answer all of the questions that were being asked.

"Why did you attack Vista?" were the first words out of Dinah's mouth once the chatter had died down enough for her question to be heard.

Ah, yes. Percentages did not answer 'why' questions very well at all, did they?

The elf answered her frankly. "I was expecting someone like Hookwolf and Rune, with crowds of Empire thugs outside, not the government teams. But then our scout was being singularly uncommunicative, so we had next to no warning at all before we were in combat." He turned to Lisa. "Why were they even at that place, anyway?"

"I'm afraid I might be at fault for that," Lisa admitted. "When draining the ABB accounts I got creative, and sent a little pocket change to the Official Shadow Stalker Fan Club. I thought I might keep up the theme of blaming her for all of Lung's woes. The PRT must have traced the site of the connection I'd used. But I'd thought only Dragon could do that."

He sighed. "Maybe she did. How much were the donations?"

"To the tune of about three million. Like I said, pocket change for Lung's operation." Lisa tried to brush it off.

The elf nodded. "But enough to draw official PRT attention. It's possible they did get Dragon on this to track you. So they sent two wards there this morning to scout, to see if the place had any activity, and it did, and we were all of us relying on Taylor to say something. But in her inexperience and off-kilter by having her mental landscape rearranged she did not recognize the threat, and it turned into this mess."

"And now Vista is dead." Dinah and Taylor chorused, both very unhappy.

Jared nearly fought down a snort of humor, but it prevailed. "Well, she won't long remain like that. I may not be high enough level to bring her back the instant she died, but I am not without resources. I can have Vista restored to life within about a day or so, once I get an opportunity, that is. I find it just too possible that we will be tracked and hunted closely enough to make raising her impossible. It'll be difficult enough as it is, without interruption. And for that I'll need all of your help."

The boy found himself surrounded by faces filled with stunned disbelief.

He rolled his eyes. "Yes. I can raise the dead. And before you ask me, I'd always been planning to do one for each of you. Yes, Taylor, I do plan to bring your mother back. Lisa, you get your brother Reg. Rachel and Dinah, if you can think of someone you need back, fine, and if not, you can sell or trade the service to the others as you please. Just don't anyone go telling anyone outside of the group yet, alright?"

He was still met by stunned silence.

Well, not forever. "You actually believe you can do it," Lisa declared in a stunned whisper.

"Ow!" Dinah clutched her head. Wincing, she cried, "What kind of number is 'not enough data'?"

But his eyes went to Taylor. "Taylor, before things go too far, don't get the idea that we don't believe in forgiveness. You made a mistake. Everybody makes mistakes, and yours is very excusable given your inexperience and the potion, and therefore it is partly my fault as your trainer for not being more clear. But I think it's been made plenty clear now what you should watch for. So all is forgiven, no hard feelings, and I'm sure you won't let us down like that again."

Her face beamed.

Those three dealt with, Jared turned to Rachel. He got her. He really did. He'd just spent years training as a D&D adventurer, after a lifetime of playing that as a game. You could not avoid having a barbarian in the party, in all of that time. It wasn't possible. So you got used to predicting what the illiterate savage with a temper problem was going to act like under any given set of circumstances. Add to that that he spoke her language, literally as the case might be, and it was hard not to fall into an easy sort of companionship with her.

"You did good." he handed her the bag with the remaining potions.

She made a pleased noise and went to treat her dogs' countless problems with the supplies remaining, happy and content that her alpha appreciated her contribution to the pack.

Some barbarians celebrate with beer and easy women. Bitch celebrated by caring for her dogs.

Jared watched her go. Rachel's insanities had been dealt with, as had all lingering harm from her upbringing. But she was still an illiterate savage who had never properly learned to be a human before her powers were suddenly in her head shouting 'DOG!'

But illiteracy and lack of human interaction skills was a problem that could be fixed. Once they had a moment of free time.

Speaking of...

"Okay!" He clapped his hands, drawing attention back to himself. "Now our immediate problem is how to get the PRT off our backs long enough for me to bring Vista back to life, and for that, I already have a plan to blame Coil. I plan to drop off a ransom note, supposedly from him, claiming responsibility - and drop it off along with her gear to add authenticity. I already have a note partially completed. But just as I was going to finish the job I realized I had three girls with Thinker powers back at home who could add all sorts of ingenuity to this rather simple plan. So, here is my partial note. I just went and scouted out the PRT headquarters, so will be drawing up a map, floor by floor. Now I know Lisa has already hacked into their security multiple times, I am sure she'll have a lot of detail to add."

"So," he leaned forward, placing both hands along with the note on the table. "How best do we blame Coil for this?"

OoOoO

"Now Director, be reasonable. Clockblocker followed orders at every stage: on deployment, insertion, tactics, as well as when and how to engage. There is no way that he is at fault," an anonymous paper flunky tried to reassure Director Piggot as the old battleaxe stormed towards her office.

An anonymous paper flunky that Director Piggot had already resolved was going to be both demoted and transferred as quickly as she could arrange it.

"I don't care. I sent out two Wards, one came back. Clockblocker was responsible for the safety of his partner. That's it. I want him given every punishment duty you can think of: restricted to console duty until further notice, fine him until his bank account and trust fund is dry, then fine him some more, extra P.T., everything. Find whatever duty he hates most and give him a double portion of that until he's older than I am. If there is a nasty mess anywhere on base I want him cleaning it. Restricted to bread and water at the cafeteria, the works. He caused a PR disaster, he can start paying us back what that's going to cost us."

"But he only just barely survived!" the soon-to-be-fired flunky pleaded on his behalf. "He does not even remember the incident! Surely, you can..."

"That reminds me," Piggot interrupted the worthless flunky. "He claims he doesn't remember? Fine. Two weeks Master/Stranger containment, minimum, with the possibility for that to be extended after my personal evaluation. And since he'll be living at our expense, garnish all of his wages for the period confined, to go on top of the fines. Let's see that little joker laugh this off. I am going to catch [Bleep] for this, and by [Bleep] I won't suffer alone!"

"But... but that's cruel!" the flunky protested.

"Cruel?" Piggot barked out a laugh. "Listen, I'd pull the plug on the idiot's father's life support if I felt I could get away with it. That boy cost me one of my most popular Wards, and dropped me into what's sure to be a media [Bleep]-storm paying for it. I have not yet begun to make him miserable!"

"Strict, but fair," one of Piggot's toadies said admiringly in the background.

OoOoO

There was a phone app for tracking your mailman to know when he was about to arrive.

From that, it was simple to gather information and discover the framework to a clever plan.

By chance, the Alcott family lived on one of the earliest portions of their mail carrier's route, so on average received their deliveries very early. This day, on his first stop, a wild dog growled at him, and chased him for over half a block away from his mail truck. This distraction allowed a perfect opportunity for a certain elf to break into the mail truck, add a package, then leave tracelessly.

Then the team was off to another part of town to deliver another package similarly.

When 8:15AM rolled around, the somewhat rattled mailman rolled up his truck to the Alcott family home, and as he reached for some letters to deposit in their box discovered they also had a package. Knowing about the family's recent tragedy, he parked his van and took it up to their door, ringing the bell for attention.

Mrs Alcott answered. He handed her the package. Seeing it, she was on the phone at once. The cops had a team of experts over in five minutes, having halfway hoped, partly expected this kind of thing. The brown wrapping paper got removed intact, and what supermarket bag it had been made of noted, before being sent off to more experts for analysis. Sniffers got used but no bomb got detected. Then the police opened, with utmost care, the ordinary shoebox, took photographs of its contents before removing a thing, then lifted out the letter.

It was on PRT office stationary, typed with an old style typewriter, To their confusion, the cops read...

"Dear Miss Piggy,

"Your Ward lives. Now do as you're told, and she may even stay that way.

"Needless to say, if you fail to follow any of the instructions I give you, to the letter, then I will mail Vista to you in pieces..."

The mom was looking into the box filled with Vista's costume and gear, exclaiming, "None of these belong to Dinah!"

OoOoO

At the PRT headquarters, mail security was treated very seriously, in the regulations at least. In practice, it fell down just as over-complicated, stupid rules get ignored everywhere. But on the surface they made a very serious pretense of taking the almost vanishingly-rare threat of mail bombs seriously.

That meant that most letters and packages went through a metal detector. Most.

The local PRT Director, like most people with important titles, was too important to read her own mail. Most of it was hate-mail anyway. The poor, underpaid functionary whose job it was to actually open and mark down notes of "Public disapproves of property damage," one hashmark at a time, tracking public opinion, sat down to her job in the early AM, carrying a huge thermos of coffee and a dozen donuts in at the start of her shift, got to work at about 8:30, and naturally opened up the brightly packaged gift box first (you almost never saw those).

Inside was a letter, and a set of children's clothes, including shoes. The letter read...

"Mrs. Alcott,

"If you wish to see your daughter again, you will follow these instructions very carefully..."

In the end, the secretary puzzled over it for several minutes, before deciding, since it was signed Coil, who was a supervillain, to take it to her supervisor.

Two minutes later the box and the letter was sitting on Piggot's desk, arriving during a meeting where the local police chief was demanding to know why the ransom note for Vista had arrived at the Alcott home, where they'd been expecting an entirely different ransom demand.

OoOoO

"So explain to me again, why did we send both boxes to the wrong addresses?" Taylor puzzled.

Jared snorted in laughter, forcing Lisa to respond. "That's because it forces the police to be aware of both kidnapping cases. They got the letter addressed for Piggot, explaining about Vista. While the PRT office got the letter demanding a ransom for Dinah, the mayor's niece. That forces both sides to be aware that there is more than one kidnapping going on, focusing all the more attention on this. While if we'd sent both boxes to the right addresses, then Piggot would have done her best to hide that one of her wards had ever been kidnapped, and denied everything if asked."

"Since both ransom letters were signed by Coil, that focuses all of that attention on him. Not to mention a kidnapping spree is much more serious than one kidnapping attempt," Jared intruded. "So they have to inform the FBI, rather than sweep it all under the rug as both sides seem to have preferred."

"And that multiplies the attention being focused in on this," Lisa said, relieved to be getting a little back at her former boss. "Not to mention the media angle. Since both police and PRT are involved, both agencies feel much safer leaking information about the cases to the media, knowing they can blame the other side for the leaks."

"And even if they do put an all-too-common gag order on the media, forcing them not to report anything, that still multiplies the pressure put on both agencies to fix this," Jared added.

"Multiplying the attention being focused on Coil all over again," Lisa completed with a pleased sort of foxy grin.

"According to our expert on Coil," Jared nodded to Lisa, "backed up by one of the world's greatest precogs," he nodded to Dinah, then placed a hand on his own chest, "along with my small contributions, all agree that Coil's response to this would be to turtle up, go defensive, try to 'run silent, run deep' for a while until the pressure eases up a little, thinking that even if he loses a few moles, that he can replace them after the attention passes - and normally, he would be right."

Lisa smirked. "But while that investigation is going on, we can keep adding logs to the fire, while snipping off bits of Coil's organization. For example, one of the things that puts Coil low on the PRT's radar is they have doubts that Coil personally is a cape, and believe, falsely, that his organization controls no capes."

"Falsely?" Dinah asked. She hadn't looked into that. Could that possibly be why her many attempts to avoid his organization were doomed to fail?

"Falsely," Lisa confirmed, flatly. "In reality, Coil used to control the Undersiders, that's four capes with Bitch, Regent, Grue and myself. Then he also has three others on other assignments: Trainwreck, a tinker operating as his mole in the Merchants, Circus, a grab-bag posing as an independent, and Jared just pointed out to me he has another tinker, Chariot, held in reserve. That's seven capes, plus himself makes eight, already putting Coil recently in charge of a group as large as New Wave - and he is constantly recruiting more capes, by fair means or by foul. He held a gun to my head to gain my employment."

Taylor was shaking her head. "I'd never heard of any of those people."

The wizard nodded. "That's just the way Coil likes to operate. The Undersiders did not even know they worked for him, and that's how he likes to do it. Coil likes to be underestimated by his enemies, so he tends to keep things very low key. Right now, thanks to an act of genius on Lisa's part, we've cost him the Undersiders, who now report to me. But that still leaves him four capes, making him leader of a larger group than the Merchants or the ABB have. So he is still quite powerful."

Lisa tapped on the table. "I believe, and Dinah's predictions agree, that Coil is going to try and build a replacement for the Undersiders team around Chariot, who Jared informs me is named Trevor Medina, son of Ashley Medina (Him and his cape detection power at work again, I suppose, she groused under her breath). From what Jared tells me, he is a mobility Tinker. All he needs is some supplies and he can build jet packs, power armor, rocket powered roller skates, a city-wide teleporter, all sorts of things that would be of use to a small group of independents, or Coil's group directly. But with Coil feeling the pressure of this kidnapping investigation and him likely going to ground for a while, we believe it far more likely that he'll take Chariot out of reserve and put him in place as the leader of a new supposedly independent group to serve Coil as his new Cat's-paw."

At Dinah's look of confusion, Lisa explained, "A group you control, but claim not to. So you can give them orders but pretend not to be involved. Like with the Undersiders. Coil ordered us to raid Lung's casino. Lung attacked us. But if Lung had known that we had only been following Coil's orders when we made that raid, Lung would not have been satisfied just by killing us. He also would have gone after Coil, and all of Coil's men. So by claiming not to be associated with us, Coil escaped the fallout we had from following his order. Thus, a cat's paw, a person or group used to carry out unpleasant or dangerous tasks, but that can ultimately be discarded because you don't truly care what happens to them."

Jared was nodding. "The only creature who cares about a cat's paw is the cat. Back when the phrase was created cats were chiefly farm animals, used to keep rodents down, and were thus easily replaced. Disposable, even. Not the cherished pets many are seen as today."

He leaned forward and patted Lisa on the shoulder. "You know, if you could divert Chariot off to some other business, maybe get him a new boss, that would be ideal. He's too loyal to Coil for the Wards to work out for him, as he'd just be Coil's mole. Anyway, I've got to go. I have an appointment with Grue and Regent detailing their new responsibilities."

"Off with you then," Lisa idly flicked a hand over her shoulder, as if shooing away a fly. "We girls will find some way to keep ourselves occupied."

Somehow that did not reassure him.

He left anyway.

OoOoO

"Your first instruction is to place one million dollars in unmarked, nonsequential bills into the Coke vending machine in the third floor breakroom directly underneath your office. This one million in US currency, buys you the right to receive one phone call from your Ward, proving she lives and is, as yet, unharmed. You will then be given further instructions."

"Do as I say, and you may yet avoid the media circus of having lost one of your best Wards."

"Signed, Coil."

Piggot's face was a picture of murderous rage, as the police chief finished reading aloud the letter that had been meant for her, but sent to the Alcott's residence.

"So!" the police chief asked with false good humor, ignoring her impotent rage as he placed the letter gently aside. "I have a lot of questions, as you might have guessed, but let's start with this one: WHAT KIND OF A CIRCUS DO YOU RUN HERE THAT YOUR OWN EMPLOYEE BREAK ROOM IS THE PLACE THE KIDNAPPER WANTS YOU TO SEND HIS MONEY!?"

Turned out the Chief of the Brockton Bay Police could do a murderous fury that put Piggot's to shame.

OoOoO

Jared paced back and forth, using his magic wand as a swagger stick, unconsciously mimicking the stride and movements of the World War II British General Montgomery addressing his troops.

"So, Brian, I've got a number of options for ways I can use you," Jared lied. He had a few, but not many. "So don't be afraid to turn the first couple of jobs down." He really, really hoped the darkness-generator didn't, but he wasn't going to force him into anything.

Jared stopped pacing and stood up straight and tall, face to face with Brian, who was doing the same. "That said, the first option is also the best, where I think you can do the most good. But it is more than a little unusual. Do you want to hear what it is, son?"

"I do, sir," Brian nodded, eyes held straight ahead.

"Good." Jared gave another swish of his wand/swagger stick. "That's what I like to hear. Now do keep an open mind, because what I'd like for you to do is to join the Empire Eighty Eight."

Being punched in the balls by Leviathan would probably not have broken Grue's composure more completely. He gaped openly in disbelief. "But..."

"You're not the color they prefer, I know," Jared admitted easily, before reassuring, "Don't pay any attention to that at all. That's a very minor thing. We can have you fixed up to be any race at all in no time flat. Then, when you return from this mission, we can turn you back again, no problem, if that's what you want."

"If that's what I want?" Brian parroted. "Why wouldn't I want..?"

He ran out of words.

"Beats me. But all of the time I hear people claiming life is easier when you're white, and you can actually see if that's true or not. I hear the food tastes better, the skies are brighter, and everyone is your friend - certainly that last is nothing like what I've experienced, more like the opposite, but they say it all the same. But that's not important. The point is you'll have the option, whether you want to exercise it or not." Jared reassured, before abruptly, he came to parade rest before Brian, who scrambled to pull himself together in response.

"Now you may be thinking: Why me? It's simple. If I sent a white to infiltrate a white supremacist organization, how could I be sure they wouldn't go native? But you? Well, I can be assured you'll never fall for their propaganda about blacks, now can't I?"

Brian inwardly had to admit to a certain justice in those words.

"And they do need to be infiltrated." Jared resumed his pacing, lightly swishing the swagger stick. "With the ABB on the decline that leaves the Empire as the preeminent power in the local criminal underworld. Oh, we could use other sources to keep track on them, and we will, but none of those equal the value of having a man on the inside!"

...

"... And, my other options, sir?"

OoOoO

The break room in question was a desiccated wasteland that saw about as much traffic as the average tomb, construction over the years having pinched the main access way to where it was uncomfortably narrow to pass through; and with the cafeteria having been moved to that floor and nearby, it had largely gone forgotten over the years.

The Twinkies were still good, though.

Assault read off the labels on the only soda vending machine present. "... Tab, Mellow Yellow, Fanta, and RC Cola? Who has the contract for filling this thing? Kaiser?"

Armsmaster soullessly opened the vending machine without concern for the colored sugar water contained inside.

"It was a good selection thirty or forty years ago," someone reasonable allowed.

"You're fired." Piggot snapped, angrily.

"Stern, but fair," another of her toadies praised softly in the background.

OoOoO

"So Grue has elected to leave us," Jared complained, rejoining the girls at the Belmont estate. "We went through a number of options, some good, some bad. But in the end he preferred just to accept a quarter million severance pay, take his sister, and go far away. I wish him luck, but I fear he'll need it. Guy has his mind set being a proper villain his own way, and I could not shake him from it. Although he will be contacting you, Lisa, for referrals to places to arrange his own IDs."

"Already called, and I already handled it," Lisa reassured him. "Brian is looking to go to Chicago for some plastic surgery for his sister and himself, then down river to set up in Louisiana under whatever new ID he buys. He figures the traffic brings enough capes through for a darkness controller to blend in. I picture him getting involved in the smuggling business. He'll do well, if his sister doesn't spoil it for them both."

Jared mimed a headache. "Which means, naturally, they'll be broke and homeless and on the run inside of a couple of weeks, at most. Set up a contingency plan for them, would you?"

Lisa smiled, liking that he was that perceptive and on the ball. "Already done."

"As for Regent, he agreed to stay local and rebrand as a doctor running a shadow clinic, someone the gangs and capes like us can go to for life-saving emergency surgeries that don't end with a hospital's legally required reporting of things like suspicious bullet or stab wounds."

Taylor brightened. "I didn't know he was a surgeon. Wait, isn't he the same age as us?"

"He's not, and yes, he is," Lisa agreed, now giving Jared the gimlet eye. "Somehow I don't suspect even the gangs will be happy to have an unlicensed fifteen year old looking after their wounds."

"That is because the gangs are idiots," Jared countered. "In a world of capes? They ought to keep a more open mind. But all that draws me back to a subject I was trying to get to much earlier today. Taylor, two days ago you asked me the question of how we were going to fake residence in a place for twenty years when we are only teenagers ourselves. Well, Jeb, that's the name I've given to the Frankenstein's monster you all saw me raise last night, is part of that answer. Jeb Belmont is believably of an age where he could have lived here twenty five years easily. But all us Belmont children ought to start getting used to calling him Uncle Jeb, as he'll officially be our guardian while we are staying here - once we get his own credentials properly established, of course."

"I thought you were only faking raising a Frankenstein's monster," Dinah blurted out suddenly, startled that she'd forgotten to check that over with her power. But it only had so many uses per day before giving her a headache!

"Nope!" Jared disagreed, popping the 'P'. "The process I use is firmly based on the one originally developed and pioneered by Doctor Victor L. Frankenstein. Later generations have refined it, but it remains essentially the same as its progenitor. I am just one of the few who does not lose control over their creations, because, you know, I'm just awesome like that."

He beamed proudly.

Taylor's hair was standing on end. "You sewed together bodies to get that thing?!" She shouted, openly displeased by this conclusion.

He tutted her concerns away lightly. "The spell Flesh Shape turns any one creature into an exact, physical duplicate of any other. And the change is strong enough, the new form is considered the natural form. So I grabbed a sample of blood from where two homeless men were already having a knife fight, paid them fifty dollars for it, and whipped up a quick vat of all of the blood I needed - you've seen me do that before, I'll remind you. I'll also jog your memory that plants are creatures. So I went to a kelp forest, and had it donate a couple of stalks that became new human bodies - only with plant brains. That is, incidentally, also where the tree in the library went to. So by strange coincidence, Jeb actually *has* been residing in this place for twenty years."

His lips quirked into a smile. "So the bodies are more legitimately 'vegetables' than any coma patient you'll ever find. After that, yes, the process does call for a certain amount of limbs getting chopped off, then sewn back on to different bodies. But when you start with six identical bodies the parts are all pretty much interchangeable anyway. And that's as gruesome as it got. The brains are all pretty much blank. I could program in a few skills, but not many. Which brings us back to the second point I wanted to raise about the hospital, earlier.

"Do you recall the potions I was showing you? We got sidetracked by everyone needing a dose of Heart's Ease, then to recover from the shock of taking it, and after that the interruptions just kept falling on top of each other. Well, as you may have noticed I had made rather a lot of potions in that lab, most of which were not present when I was showing you the guided tour. Those extra potions, the bulk of my stock, all got traded away to Toybox as my part of a deal."

Seeing he had their attention, he smiled. "Toybox, you see, has this wonderful Tinker called Cranial, who is known for her ability to record both memories and skills, then turn around and sell copies of them to other people. Well, how useful is that? It's amazing in its utility, I'll tell you. So what I did was to call up Uber, of Uber and Leet, to offer him a deal - his power lets him have any skill at expert level, but only briefly. What I proposed was that he would go to Toybox and get Cranial to record a lot of skills (in the end, we settled on sixty). That was his part. Then in return I bartered with Cranial that Uber and Leet would be paid by granting them both full copies of all sixty skills - and so would we! My part in this exchange was to provide a large supply of potions for Cranial and Toybox to resell."

"So Toybox gets a brand new product line, and we," Jared whipped the cloth dust cover off of a chair that had obvious, built-in tinkertech. "Got one of Cranial's devices that program skills! Not to mention," he opened a drawer on a nearby nightstand, revealing rows of brightly colored glass beads, Taylor would guess sixty of them, at a glance. "The skills we want to program in. You see, this one here is Driving, that one is Kung Fu..." Jared started pointing out the baubles.

"Wait!" Lisa waved her hands, stopping him. "So you are going to make Regent, I mean Alec, a surgeon using these?"

"Why not?" Jared asked, genuinely puzzled. "Oh, us as well, obviously. I offered Brian a similar setup and he refused, along with about two dozen other semi-legitimate careers - including a number of very well paid engineering positions. I did *try* to help him, you know."

"Where is he going to get his drugs from?" She demanded. "His surgical tools? Everything?"

"Being Alec's partner, or the pharmacist supplying him, were two of the positions I offered Brian. But he did not think his sister was responsible enough to be a nurse, even with the skills programmed directly in. Frankly, I think he just wanted to make a clean break and get out of Brockton Bay entirely... and I can't say I truly blame him."

"And my question?" Lisa repeated, crossing her arms and tapping one foot.

"Medhall sells everything a clinic might want. Off the books and out of the back door only increases the price marginally."

"And what about his clones?" she demanded, skeptically.

"His decoys (clones are something else entirely, don't get me started) and he can all take six hour shifts and have the place open twenty-four hours a day. They'll all have the same surgical skill he will. And when they don't have any patients, they can all play four player games together. That's what they're doing already."

"So wait, are we going to be doctors too?" Taylor broke in to ask.

The wizard smiled at her. "Of course! Don't you want to play Doctor with me?"

She blushed to near-nuclear levels.

He gave off a friendly laugh and continued, "Did we not tell you one of the properties of an ideal lair was medical equipment to support whatever level of medical care your team knew how to supply? Does that not imply you ought to be seeking said ability? After all, sucking chest wounds are nobody's friend, and very few cape teams have their own healer on hand - and even those that do could often use a back up, for in case their primary healer gets hurt."

"Huh." Taylor blinked in surprise, never having imagined herself as a doctor before.

OoOoO

Story Day Four, April 9th 2011, Saturday, Night

OoOoO

Late that night, the door opened to Taylor's house. Stepping carefully over the discarded beer bottles, the intruder made his way to the stairs, then up.

The target was found on his bed in a drunken stupor, surrounded by empties, a loaded pistol having fallen nearby, unused. From this it got determined that the subject had been contemplating suicide.

Well, that's what this mission was here to fix, after all.

A bottle of Heart's Ease got uncorked, then placed into Danny Hebert's sleeping hand.

A spell of Command got cast, forcing the subject to follow any one-word order faithfully.

"Drink!"

OoOoO

Author's Notes:

Like any reasonable adventurer who wants to survive, my SI character has pumped his initiative bonuses sky high, and Initiative is all about acting first. Vista was dead before they even finished saying 'Halt!'

Sorry about that. She will get better! Promise!

About that first scene, creating a golem, a flesh golem in this case, in D20 Modern is a simple ritual that anyone can do. You don't even have to be a spellcaster. It's just a few hours and a couple of skill checks, and there is nothing easier than getting sky-high skill checks in D20.

Now, the SI did NOT use that method, precisely *because* it is so easy he rightly feared Lisa would be doing it on her own in no time. But he does have other methods of making a golem quickly. It does not even count against the limit of magic item crafting per day. They are just a bit too involved to describe quickly.

And yes, D&D flesh golems are directly inspired by the story of Frankenstein's monster. They even go berserk. But it is possible to reliably control them if you know how, which naturally my character does.

There is a feat, Rapid Scribing, listed in Ultimate Feats by Mongoose Publishing, that allows one to bypass that tricky limit of crafting "no more than one magic item per day" concerning scrolls. It also gives you a gold piece limit of 2,000 per day for scrolls. What this means is, instead of spending your entire day creating one magic scroll worth 25gp, you could instead scribe eighty of them, or any combination of scrolls whose value did not exceed 2,000gp. I explain this so you'll understand when I say our table has allowed for years a homebrew version of that feat, Rapid Brewing, which applies to potions.

So, yes, my SI character has that, and is able to produce truly staggering numbers of potions per day, when supplied. More on that later.

And yes, for those of you keeping track, the SI has exceeded the normal limit on number of feats allowed. That's long enough to be worth its own story segment, and is planned to get one.

The five feats needed to get at-will teleport are: three copies of Transcend Distance, out of Anger of Angels by Sword & Sorcery Studios, Magic in the Blood from the Forgotten Realms book Player's Guide to Faerun produced by Wizards of the Coast, and finally Magic Weave, from the Complete Guide to Fey, by Goodman Games. Although if you also want to carry passengers then I'd suggest adding Heavy Teleport, from Dragon Magazine issue 325. That gives you ability to carry one medium creature as a pasenger on a teleport that previously allowed none. From there, various methods double what you can carry.

Gathering Swirl is a cantrip from the Oriental Adventures series, Magic of Rokugan (and how bad is it that I can spell that word without having to look it up?), by Alderac Entertainment Group. Blockade is from the Complete Scoundrel, another Wizards of the Coast product.

Ghost Sound is from the Player's Handbook, and always useful to a creative mind. Even if that use is just to make fart noises come from under some stuffy nobleman's chair. Invisibility, the same (although you have to make the fart noises youself, in that case).

The Forget spell is found in the book Mercenaries, also by Alderac Entertainment Group. And the Detect Elements cantrip is from Oriental Adventures, produced under contract from Wizards of the Coast by Alderac Entertainment Group. Tales of Stone and Wood is a divination spell from City Works, by Legends & Lairs.

And yes, lots of people have worked out my SI character is casting a lot more spells than ought to be available to a wizard of his level. I even said as much when I stated, back in chapter three, "Jared, in his munchkining, had chased down every source of extra spells per day he could think of while at Redhurst, and had a lot more than a wizard his level was supposed to; but not as many as he would have if he still had the equipment being moved here had stripped from him".

Frankly, the same goes for feats.

The spell Flesh Shape is found in the source 17 Spells For Necromancers. It's 7th level, but the SI has it loaded in his staff. Incidentally, a spell used but not named in this chapter, Flesh Golem, in the Secrect College of Necromancy, that does exactly what it says and creates a flesh golem for you, as permanent as the normal version and at a 50% cost discount.

Because necromancers get all of the best toys, apparently.

Beta work by Dogbertcarroll