The Cloister and the Hearth by Charles Reade (most interesting books to read .TXT) 📕

“Ah, here.”

Jessica held up a finger and Jeb watched as a thread of pinkish Myst swirled out of her hand and condensed around her finger. It settled into the shape of an armored finger ring, with an inch-long talon jutting off of it.

Cool. If that’s the first thing she can make right out of the gate, then she should be able to armor her entire body in no time. There’s even the possibility she might be able to make more than armor, possibly weapons or enchanted gear. It’s a good fit for her. She probably hasn’t even started taking in Myst seriously yet, so we can expect a lot of improvement.

“That’s –“

“That’s hilarious!” Ron said. “It’s like a magical girl transformation! What are you gonna do with finger armor?”

Jess jabbed him with the razor sharp talon, punching through a joint in his armor.

“…I stand corrected.” Ron whispered, clutching his bleeding side.

“Jess,” Amanda admonished, healing Ron with a tap on his side. “There was no need to go that far.”

“He stands corrected.” Jessica said, brows raised.

“it’s a good power,” Jeb said. “I can already think of a couple ways you can use it. Now you just gotta draw in Myst and burn it...

“It’s not a star.” Jessica said.

“What is it?”

Jess actually blushed.

“It’s…a magical wardrobe. I fill it with Myst folded into bolts of cloth. The more I add, the bigger the wardrobe gets, but some of them spill out because it’s not a one to one ratio. I use the ones that spilled out to make clothes.”

“So it’s functionally similar to mine. Where did you get the idea?” Jeb asked.

“Amanda was saying we would make me some new armor if we had to,” She said, motioning to herself. “I remembered, I used to watch…anime when I was younger, and there was a girl who could summon armor and weapons. I thought she was badass. When I tried making a core with that in mind, it clicked.”

Ron put a hand on her shoulder. “Everyone thinks Erza Scarlet is badass.” He nodded sagely.

Jeb frowned.

“Who?”

Brett raised a hand.

“I’m starting to feel left out here.” He said.

Jeb sat down with Brett and explained Myst and his experience with it. Even Amanda was able to make some improvements in how she used her Myst. Amanda had, until this point, dipped directly into her ‘well of life’ rather than use the stuff that sloshed over the edge, stunting the growth of her powers.

Brett didn’t currently have any Myst, but he was eager to get some.

That meant levels and accolades.

Are there any more bosses left in the forest? There’s gotta be. If not the forest, then the lands beyond.

Jeb saw a familiar lump in the ground to the south.

“Hold up.”

Jeb jumped off the palanquin and zoomed forward, crossing the distance to the barrow in moments.

“We meet again, scarab dungeon.”

Jeb distinctly recalled promising to pay the dungeon a visit again when he was strong enough to tear the guts of the dungeon out of the stone.

Well, he was strong enough now.

He walked into the single hall and hopped over the beam, then stood under the hollowed out ceiling where he’d stolen the lens.

He reached up into the stone and yanked.

There was a crack and the entire dungeon rumbled. A moment later, the center of the ceiling fell loose, slamming down onto the earth in front of him with a cacophonous explosion.

When the dust cleared, he was faced with a massive wedge of stone.

“Are you okay?” Amanda called from the entrance.

“Fine!”

“That made a lot of noise!” Brett said. “Whatever you’re doing, make it quick. I don’t want this to be our last stand!”

Jeb crouched down in front of the wedge and ran his gaze along the rough stone.

There. A silvery dot that had no place in the stone. When he looked closer, he could see a faint difference in the quality of the stone on either side.

A seam.

He grabbed either side of the seam telekinetically and wrenched the stone apart.

With a crack, the stone split, revealing more of the guts of the scarab trap.

It was a god-damned gold mine.

There was a little tube that looked something like a fuse, except it seemed to have a blue sphere at one end and a prism in the center. The other end had a tiny hole.

Myst seemed to be sucked into the hole as a vapor, then when it hit the prism, it was changed into a light-wave and ejected out through the glass sides, creating a steady rainbow glow emerging from it.

Very Small Myst Generator (Uncommon)

Found in enchanted objects that need to perform a discrete external effect without input from the user, The Myst generator passively draws in Myst and converts it to a usable state for lenses.

Due to the cost inherent in creating them, they are seldom found outside military and industrial applications.

Mine. Jeb shoved the finger-length glass tube in his pocket, then scavenged as much of the rest of the trap as he possibly could.

He found a Myst capacitor that made the one in his lantern look like baby-time, along with a little snarl of magi-tech that was responsible for making the capacitor click ten times.

He grabbed that, and several feet of what looked suspiciously like fiber-optics, stuffed them all into his bag and hustled out.

The beam in the center of the hall was dark, not having a constant supply of Myst delivered to it.

I wish I had time to steal the trigger mechanism too, but Brett’s right. We can’t afford to dick around here too long.

Jeb hurried out and the train of humans and zombies got back underway.

Not a moment too soon, because a few minutes later, they heard the sound of