Kapitel 107: Ready number one
Oh, come on. This is out of line. Zee just took off just to be away from her happiness! I really resent that kind of attitude! Harley was too insistent on harassing the sorceress's ass, but you can't have a perfect body and still wear a bathing suit and fishnet stockings! No one can resist.
At the same time, I have to be fair. Zee had been a pig, but she'd given me access to Shadow Peak. She could have hinted at it by text, though, or what if I hadn't decided to visit her?
Hmm, but to be honest, it's a bit strange. It's a magical mansion, and I walk around here like I'm at home. The fact that you can not get into some rooms, so in the secret shelter under the manor is a natural reactor, and there is no way to simply enter it, even if you are a hundred times the legal owner. There may also be sealed some creepy artifact that turns people inside out, or a natural demon.
My gaze fell on the door leading to the hallway.
Damn, what the hell am I thinking... I now have unlimited access to the largest magical library in the world, and a huge supply of natural mana that Abby is kind enough to share with me. Isn't that what I've been dreaming of lately?
Naturally, before I went into the world of magical literature, I called Harley to tell her the not so happy news about the departure of a pretty sorceress. Apparently, the blond cutie was very sad about the departure of a sorceress, because her answer consisted almost entirely of prepositions and interjections (the rest was not allowed by the censorship).
"I'll be there soon," she said toward the very end of her emotional tirade, hanging up the phone.
Well and good, will be someone to help with the search for the necessary literature and preparation, and that alone I certainly will not manage until the evening, and still have to be on duty at the hospital.
While my faithful assistant made her way to Shadow Peak, I got busy exploring an incredibly interesting area called Taboo.
If you don't go into details, this thing can be called a magical ban, and it can be regulated in incredibly wide limits and ban almost conceptual things, of course, without forgetting to invest a ton of energy and correctly calculate everything.
Unfortunately, taboo spells are very difficult even for small conditions, so it won't be possible to conjure up immortality or invulnerability, as Frigga did for her son Baldr, if Scandinavian mythology is to be believed... But preparing the place in advance to seriously weaken the enemy is quite possible even with my meager strength. And if I also apply normal rituals and charms, it will be a real candy, but I just need to persuade Alfred to allow me to slightly spoil the floor, ceiling and walls of the Wayne estate.
Harley's arrival at the magical mansion brought shocking news on her tail. While one aspiring magician was devouring book after book, the city's media space was in a complete mess. The police still managed to identify a few bodies while clearing the rubble in the labyrinth, and then the workers began pulling dozens of bodies out of the ground. A howl went up to the heavens. What a way to go, Gotham's most prominent citizens suddenly found themselves brutally murdered. And no one cared that they were found in some unsuspecting marble labyrinth with owl masks on their faces.
"The shenanigans of the maniacal First, who brought a monster to the city," was the meaning of most of the articles that came out, flooding the first pages of the search engine.
Maybe such an excuse would have been enough for the common man, but then someone threw in a huge archive with a lot of dirty laundry on the "innocently murdered" patrons of the arts. And there was everything there: racketeering, blackmail, kidnapping, contract murders, Marquis de Sade-style entertainment with underage orphanage students, tax evasion on a cosmic scale... By the way, I think because of the latter, the corrupt journos changed their rhetoric dramatically, and they made the First into a messiah-liberator.
Alastor had gotten his revenge on the Court of Owls. It wasn't as if Bats had gathered all that data in a couple of days, but Winslow had both motive and opportunity.
"Here!" A weighty volume suddenly landed on the table, dragged by my lovely companion, who had a big smile on her face.
"Magicis ritualia?" I read the title on the cover. - Is it in Latin?
"Yeah, well, doctors have to know that dead language. Heh," she fluffed her frizzy hair, "I didn't realize I'd need it to learn magic.
"And what did you find?" I asked with interest, flipping through a couple of pages and understanding only a few individual words.
"We had a magical marriage," the beauty jabbed her finger at one of the paragraphs, continuing to smile contentedly.
"I'm sorry?
"Sex on the altar and the consent of all involved. Z's not getting away from us now!
"Hmm... Are you sure? I don't think she could have been so careless.
The girl hesitated for a moment.
"Well, not a hundred percent. But how else do you explain that we can walk on Shadow Peak in peace? I've read a bit about the history of the Shadow Peak, and there's so much enchantment that outsiders can't even get to the door, let alone the magical library.
"No argument there. What does this marriage even bring? Any benefits? Or any responsibilities?
"Mages are pretty free-spirited people, so there's not really any responsibilities. It's not much of an advantage, except for the increased resistance to mental magic, but we're good with that," she shrugged.
Damn, I'm missing out on a lot of information because of my lack of language skills, and that's just wrong. So I'll have to move my schedule around a bit to make time for that, too... Or try to summon the right demon? Nah, I'm not that badass yet.
We spent the rest of our time learning various rituals, and afterward we went to the hospital to guard one fat rat.
There was plenty of time before duty started, so I and Harley were able to surround the approaches to the ward with security charms, and then go up to the roof, where I found Gloomy Mouse, not alone, but in the company of a latex and whip lover.
Ha! I'm not the only one who likes to mix business with pleasure.
"Oh, I see your friend has already arrived," Cat noticed my appearance.
"Mrh..." the superhero mumbled something indistinctly in response.
"All right, all right, don't grumble, I won't bother you," she kissed Bats' mask and deftly jumped on the parapet. - Don't miss me, boys.
A second, and she leaped down, only to leap over to a neighboring building a moment later, using her whip.
"It's none of my business, but are you going to do anything about her criminal past?" I asked, glancing at the flexible silhouette skittering across the rooftops.
"You're right," the man replied abruptly.
"Am I right?! Are you serious? So, confess, did you get hit on the head again?" I stared at him suspiciously.
"You're right, it's none of your business.
"Ah, phew, you don't scare me anymore... But solve the Cat problem.
There was an awkward pause, which for once the Dark Knight decided to break as he typed a long command into his wrist computer.
"You've clearly become more proficient in magic. To be able to fully master illusions and protection spells in such a short period of time... That takes talent.
"Heh, you say that too. Just learned a couple little tricks by running through the basics.
I decided to downplay my abilities. As the saying goes, "if you can count to ten, pretend you're retarded and list the colors of the rainbow instead of the numbers". It's like, "If you can count to ten, pretend you're retarded and list the colors of the rainbow instead of the numbers".
Soon Bats was gone, handing over his post, and Babs came over, and then we all went to one of the empty rooms as planned. That's where the taboo magic came in handy, making those around us simply forget the whole room existed! It was only for a relatively short period of time, but it was much cooler than a simple diversion.
***
"Why are you such a pervert?" Babs asked doomedly, slapping my assistant's naughty hands, which were once again reaching for her lower nineties, draped in the black latex of her costume.
Now our group was hanging out on the roof of the hospital, watching Harvey Bullock strutting around, supervising the loading of Zuko into the police van. After the medics had managed to stabilize the mobster's condition, it had been decided to transport the crippled man to a more secure location, where there would be no need to bring in superheroes for protection.
"Hmph," Harley snorted, holding back a laugh. - You call me a pervert, and you're the one carrying big anal balls on a string in your space pockets.
"It's a bolas designed to bind criminals," she blushed sweetly, and I hugged her and kissed her on the cheek. You're so cute!
"Yeah, but you also got all sweaty when I suggested we use the bolas," the blonde pointed her fingers at the quotation marks, "for kinky stuff.
"Yeah, but, uh.
"Oh, don't be afraid," my faithful assistant hugged her friend, rubbing her cheek. - As long as Ivy doesn't strengthen you, you shouldn't think about such things. We don't want to hurt you.
"That's right, so stop harassing Mousey and get back to the office, we've got a game to release today.
In principle, I liked being on duty at the hospital. And it wasn't just the presence of two lovable beauties, but also the fact that they were both incredibly intelligent people, with whom it was interesting to just talk, not just to fuck. And as a cherry on the cake, in the morning I managed to beat up a couple of gangsters who had come for Tony's life, and then hand them over to the police.
The school of illusions and signaling charms at the expense of more energy-consuming rituals proved to be excellent. The jerks didn't even realize that they had entered the wrong room and tried to shoot the empty bed, and then our friendly trio pulled up and explained to them that it wasn't worth distracting the heroes from their pleasant rest.
To be honest, I was glad Bats had asked me to keep an eye on Fat Tony, because the streets of Gotham had been pretty bleak this night. Most of the gangsters had gone into hiding yesterday so they wouldn't get caught in the act, and the bodies found in the maze had caused the mafia to go full-on underhanded, trying to get their hands on at least some of the assets of the city's former rulers. And Falcone didn't need to continue harassing his competitors, since they had thinned them out pretty well yesterday, and the scattered remnants of the warring family didn't pose much of a threat in the short term.
The game's release was, in my opinion, a bit too bland. We simply uploaded the finished version of Crystallia to the app store, waited for the first in-game purchase, drank champagne in honor of this momentous occasion, and then quietly went home to persuade Abby to help a little with the preparation.
The next few days before the celebration were filled with running around and a lot of magical practice, I would even say too much magical practice. One taboo ritual had to be redone almost seven times, constantly making adjustments. I'm afraid, if it hadn't been for Bats's supercomputer, which he took pity on and allowed me to use, the large-scale ritual would have had to be abandoned. Too many conditions had to be taken into account for it to work properly. If you messed up the position of the planet or missed the number of visitors, the ban wouldn't work to its full potential, or maybe it would distort its conditions, turning the mansion into one big trap, where oxygen would instantly turn into carbon monoxide.
The time was catastrophically lacking, but having given up sleep, which was successfully replaced by meditation with the dispersal of prana, I managed to fulfill almost all the ideas, which were not few.
First, to Alfred's delight, the green guardian of the Forest decorated the Wayne Manor, turning the entire area surrounding the mansion into a lush garden.
Secondly, as I had planned, I managed to perform a couple of rather powerful rituals in Bruce's house, tying their power supply to a whole battery of diamonds. And it was not easy, because some of the rituals worked on neutral mana, which had to be converted from natural energy.
Thirdly, dancing. Harley found a good teacher, and under his wise guidance we learned a great number that is bound to win everyone over.
Fourth, I bought a small two-story building on the outskirts of Gotham, where Arkham Incorporated's gaming division had moved, and began building a huge refrigerator in its basement based on Dr. Fries's blueprints. Naturally, I didn't do it personally, but a hired construction crew did, but I had it under control, because it wasn't a VSO. So what? Money is a pity, there is enough time before the trial, everything is quite official, so there was no need to turn to the best construction organization. Besides, Victor suggested contacts of a reliable firm, as well as a place where I could order cheaper materials.
Fifth, while I was solving the main issues, Harley managed to digitize a lot of interesting books from the library of Shadow Peak, so we will not be left without magical knowledge, even if the sorceress decided to close the shop.
Sixth, after a short discussion, a small island near the Bahamas was purchased. In fact, it was a small piece of rock of four thousand square meters sticking out of the sea, but it was incredibly cheap. To create normal conditions, we have Abby or Ivy, who can turn even a lifeless wasteland into a paradise where you can have a wonderful New Year's Eve. At the very least, thanks to the books you've read on the basics of nature magic, you can always try to do everything yourself. Because, to be honest, Gotham is really boring me. I wanted to get away from all these superhero problems, and I wanted to get away from Zee, too. A magical wedding means there was a wedding, and yet a sorceress dares to shirk her marital duty!
Things were going pretty well with the game, too. The money was slowly dripping in, and the popularity was growing, but not as fast as I had hoped. Still, the novelty was very different from what most of the users of this world were used to seeing, and the colorfulness with bright special effects didn't help much. Hopefully, in time, advertising will help my beauty to promote, to get to the top of sales and at least return the money spent on it, and then "Tower Defense" will see the light.
Of course, there were a few spoils in the honey barrel. For example, there was a discord in Paradise. Selina was obviously not too happy about her beau's constant absences, and she began to eat his brain with a spoon. Bats tolerated it, but I felt that their relationship was unlikely to last long. That's the real Cat: she's always wandering around, but she has to be waited on at home.
Eh, Gloomy Mouse is an independent adult man, so he should be able to handle himself, but I have bigger problems, because right now I'm standing in front of the door with Harley, Alfred, Dick and Bruce, which will soon open to let in a lot of guests.
There was a slight shiver, but it passed immediately, as soon as I remembered the interworld.
My lips parted in a smile, revealing a satisfied grin. Heh-heh-heh, the actors would be in their seats soon, and Gotham would see an amazing performance.
"Keep your face simple, or the guests will start turning around and leaving right from the doorstep," Bats suddenly advised.
"Ha ha ha, I'll try.
Wöchentlicher Energiestatus
-- Power-
Rangliste 
-- Power-
Stein