Dissonance

by K. T. Hanna

  Amber shards shot out from the casing, showering the entire area, and even forcing their way through the shields in some cases. It was then that Murmur realized exactly what he’d been shooting out of his fingertips—solid amber shards.

  Three warnings shot up in front of her, causing her to startle for a moment. She eyed the timers. These were shorter than the one Sinister had been inflicted with. Without a moment’s hesitation, she fired Cancel Magic off to Devlish, and a second later, one to Beastial. They both had two though, and Veranol only had one, so she removed that and Devlish’s second.

  She beat canceling the one on Beastial by approximately zero point five seconds, and she’d never felt so out of breath in her life. “Havoc, don’t you have a Cancel Magic type of spell?” She thought he would have used it if he did, but had to check.

  He shook his head, and she noticed Mellow rummaging.

  “I have a few concoctions that might work.” They eyed the battle beneath them, waving their hand and sending another red vial toward the minotaur, who was sitting at seventy-six percent. “I can take care of two within about eight seconds.”

  Murmur ran through the amounts in her head. Two would free her up a bit, and allow for one more to get hit and cured, comfortably at least. “Set your HUD to watch for Stone of Ages. If it flashes, take anyone on the stairs who’s been hit. I’ll take care of the people on the floor, but if I need your help I’ll tell you who to target.”

  Mellow nodded as they continued to bombard their opponent. Murmur didn’t let herself feel the relief that was dying to let out a sigh. There wasn’t time yet. She could sigh with relief when the damned minotaur was dead.

  Like it knew she was thinking about it, its head swiveled up to look at her, gaping teeth spreading in a yellow smile for just a second. She gulped heavily and counted to three before letting her breath out. He was watching her, and he knew things she couldn’t even guess at. Waves of power and fire, fight and pain flooded up to her from him, and for a moment she felt a little sorry for him, until she saw Rashlyn barely dodge a sudden back kick. The foot grazed along her stomach and sent her tumbling back. Only her agility saved her from the shower of amber splinters that launched her way as soon as she was hit.

  She shuddered, looking back at them, waves of fear and adrenaline rushing through her. The aura pulsed out to Mur, giving her insights into the way Rash fought, and it leant her a new form of respect for the monk. She channeled both elements and pushed herself with all she had.

  The fight continued on, and Murmur tried to keep an eye out for the next level of special attack. This dungeon not only didn’t play by normal rules, it didn’t play by any rules that she could see. But nothing came. They dove past sixty percent, and the boss practically danced with them. He kept most of them in his field of vision, although he seemed to be having difficulty keeping an eye on the rangers, and his amber dart attacks were consistently more accurate. Murmur was juggling her debuffs and cancelling magic so much, it was starting to make her head spin. She was really beginning to despise fighting monsters who didn’t have mana. It relegated some of her most powerful attacks to useless.

  Dansyn kept his songs up, but changed around fifty-five percent to one that gave Murmur pause. It was almost a jig, uplifting and rejuvenation, like an anthem. She smiled and pulled herself together, glancing down to see Snowy and the hellhounds ducking in and out, and between the minotaur’s feet in a game that looked like tag, but seemed to have much more significance.

  It appeared, from where she was standing, like they were weaving a spell. Even if that wasn’t it, Murmur could feel the irritation flowing out from the minotaur, escaping his control. It leaked up to her, showing her far more than he likely meant her to see. It showed her glimpses of what was to come.

  His amber grew in thickness and power. And he had two more explosions in him. He was also completely aware that Veranol’s shield had a recast timer and it wouldn’t be back up enough if he chose to execute two of his attacks back to back. She almost froze with the vindictiveness behind the thoughts, the feelings, the malice that wrapped through the minotaur’s mind.

  But instead, she began to run all of the options through her head. If they used Veranol’s first, and gathered together, it’d work. And then she could use her shielding to reinforce and protect them through the last one. That should work. She hoped.

  What if her shield was considered a buff? It was, wasn’t it? If she reinforced it with her druidic spells it should make it more powerful. Again, she kicked herself for not checking in with a druidic trainer, but she’d rectify that as soon as they got out of this damned castle.

  After shooting the direction over the raid chat, she waited for minotaur to begin to execute his abilities. They wouldn’t move until he began the amber transformation, or he’d know what they were going to do and perhaps change his plan. She couldn’t be sure that she would get another chance to know what he was going to do. That glimpse into his thoughts, into his mind had been a lapse on his behalf and she doubted it would happen again.

  They sailed passed fifty percent and kept on heading south. She didn’t even want to contemplate anymore when he was going to let the next amber wave happen. His autonomy to do so was mind-boggling. And though the others in this castle had exhibited similar tendencies, she hadn’t realized just how much more exhilarating this complete unpredictability could make a fight.

  He moved fluidly, far more agile than she’d ever thought a minotaur could be. His feet almost tapped a rhythm out on the stone ground as he moved, and as he strafed once more to the left, she suddenly realized what the dogs had been doing. They’d been binding him. He couldn’t move against the patterns they’d created.

  However Snowy had managed it, whatever the abilities were that the hellhounds had thrown into the mix, they’d created a spell to keep him in place. Their opponent was trapped and hadn’t even realized it yet. It wasn’t as if he was rooted to the spot. Instead, he was restricted to a very specific area in the middle of the floor. This allowed the melee better access and less weaving in and out of the already stone statues standing in their way. They could concentrate their attacks better, hacking away at that same joint, which was only very slowly showing signs of true wear.

  But each hit took a fraction of a fraction of his life. Every single blow counted. And when he hit thirty-two percent, she could see he realized just what had happened. And the hounds had only kept casting their spell, until it was tight and impenetrable.

  Once again, his horns began to glow, but this time there was a distinct red undertone, like the amber was angry now. His agitation reflected in his movements, and he glanced up at her, and up at Veranol twice on separate occasions. Shivers ran down her back as she realized he knew that they were the ones protecting the raid from his onslaught.

  It meant they were either targets or there was something they didn’t know.

  “Move now!” She yelled out and everyone moved to their positions down on the floor, spread out around the minotaur. A swell of surprise rolled out from him, his aura flickering briefly before the amber began to harden. While it was spreading all over his body was the perfect time to move, because they couldn’t attack him anyway for fear of third-degree burns, and he was frozen in place for the duration that it hardened. But now as it set, and they could attack it once more, Beastial let loose his roar again and began to break it.

  Murmur glanced at Veranol and he nodded subtly. This was going to be his turn. The casing broke free, shattering and only two of them were hit this time. Murmur cast her Cancel Magic without a second thought, her eyes on the boss, her sensor net waiting for any further indication of his mood, of his plans.

  And then she noticed his health. It was sitting at twenty-five percent. A full five percent less than when the amber had completely solidified. So the shield was a part of him, and caused him some minor damage to fling out, but had the potential to c
ompletely protect him. Now that was pretty bloody awesome.

  Except his eyes remained focused on her, and the smile that tilted his bovine lips into a smile was unkind. She knew he was focusing on her. But given his abilities, she wasn’t sure what more he could do. Even the red color change to the amber hadn’t made anything change in the way it worked. At least not that she’d seen yet.

  His health dwindled, and he buckled when Rashlyn finally cut through the tendon they’d been working on from the beginning. He eyed her nonstop, even while deflecting attacks from and beating on Devlish. It was unnerving that no matter where she moved, he followed her.

  Fifteen percent. Slowly it ticked down, like a time bomb waiting for her to notice what it was he was going to do. But no matter how hard she tried to hear him, no matter how hard she tried to discern what it was he was about to do, it wouldn’t let her in. It wouldn’t let her hear.

  Twelve percent. The hounds began running their odd little pattern again, Snowy in the lead. Reinforcing what they’d done previously. An idle thought occurred to her that their spells seemed to last a hell of a lot longer than her own.

  Ten percent. The minotaur showed no sign of enraging and kept fighting valiantly even though he was down to a crouch on one knee. Still, his eyes never left her movements, and everything he performed seemed to be with practiced ease, just less movement because his leg was out of commission.

  When nine percent hit, he began to glow again, this time shimmers of red and yellow, orange and fuchsia whirled around him like sashes. He grinned, and seven percent hit, and she knew exactly what he was doing. He wasn’t planning on surviving, just taking the rest of them with him.

  Amber flowed again, but this time it sparked with every advance it made down his body.

  “Don’t touch that.” Murmur knew they wouldn’t, but she didn’t think they realized that this one would do a lot more than just burn them. Stepping back, she double checked where everyone was, readying herself mentally to push the fuck out of herself in an effort to enable her Forcefield Barrier, because this was going to hit hard.

  This was going to hurt.

  The liquid was thicker this time and took an extra percent to harden so that he was at four percent when finally encased by it, his gaze still set on Murmur.

  Beastial frowned, axe held high. “He seems to like you a lot, Mur.”

  She nodded, unable to get past the fear in her throat.

  “Yeah,” was all she could say while he hung there in amber stasis. What if they just left him this way? What if they simply didn’t break it and left the encounter? Would it let them?

  The questions bombarded her, but then the minotaur answered it for her. The crack began, this time at the top and not from where Beastial would have hit it. It spread quickly like a spider web, cracking like snap pops all the way down.

  And then the minotaur glowered at her, his eyes flashing dark red.

  “How quick are you?” He said in a guttural rumble of a voice just before the shards flew, just before she enacted her shield, and just before she realized who he was focusing all his firepower on.

  “Sin!” Murmur yelled, turning to fling another shield over the blood mage and be damned the cost to her head.

  Storm Entertainment

  Somnia Online Division

  Game Development Offices

  Day Seventeen - Early Morning

  Shayla threw her arm over her eyes and tried not to keep seeing the pages and pages of reports she’d had to go over so far. Teddy was going to be here any moment to go over all of the information regarding the unscheduled downtime. In a way she understood his ire, because games just didn’t crash in this day and age.

  People’s expectations of uptime were virtually one hundred percent. The company was probably looking at giving two days grace on the reset of payment plans for this. Technically at this rate, that could cost them millions upon millions of dollars. So, while she understood his reasoning for wanting to dig as deep as he could, she still resented it.

  At least this made Wren not the only anomaly. Maybe they could play on that for a while. Perhaps she could pass the fact that one account had been online almost non-stop since the launch. Although in those first few days before she’d found out, she’d technically been logging out and into her fake house. Which had given them some sort of correlation to present. But ever since then, her log outs had been sporadic.

  Maybe Shayla could pass it off as a glitching headset. Maybe tell them that the headset must be flagging her as being falsely logged into the game. That could work. She opened her eyes and moved her hands, staring up at the ceiling. It could work, but then they might want to recall that particular headset, and right now it wasn’t an option to take that away from Wren. Not if they wanted to figure out how to get her out of there, out of that coma.

  Shayla wasn’t entirely convinced that the headset wasn’t part of the reason she was in the coma to begin with, but they couldn’t risk removing it, could they?

  There was a knock at her door, and Shayla whipped her head around, glaring at wood like she could burn it to ashes. If that was James, she wasn’t sure if she could keep her mouth shut.

  “Shayla?” Laria seemed somewhat pensive in the way she asked, which meant either something was wrong, or she was trying to appear meek. Either way, it was likely trouble.

  Shayla took a deep breath and answered. “Come in.”

  Laria walked in and closed the door gently behind her, before turning around with a huge grin. “Guess what!”

  “What?” Shayla couldn’t bring herself to get excited yet. She needed facts, and oftentimes, Laria didn’t come equipped with facts. She simply came equipped with ideas.

  “I’ve been code diving, because you know, that’s a thing I do.” She grinned, drawing the news out, whatever it was. Shayla wanted to smack her. “And I think I can trace some fluctuations in the system back to well... this is going to sound strange, okay? Don’t blame me, it’s just the germination of an idea.”

  She glanced behind her at the door and moved closer to Shayla, until she was crouching next to her chair. Then she lowered her voice, while reaching for the noise machine that Shayla kept on her desk, and turned it on.

  Shayla raised an eyebrow, but didn’t say anything. She kept the machine there for times when she needed to think and couldn’t have voices or anything filtering through to her.

  “The fluctuations are very subtle, just slight changes in some of the bosses in different leveling areas, and not only the areas Wren’s been in. Like a heap of them. Anyway. This is before the game launched even. Quite a while. I can’t pinpoint a date or an actual pattern yet, but—and it pains me to admit this—I think there’s something we didn’t catch in the game before we launched it.” She bit her lip and stood back up, looking down at where Shayla sat, still in her chair.

  “How did you find this?” Shayla asked, pitching her voice just as low, and Laria rolled her shoulders, appearing a little uncomfortable.

  “I searched for the ruins’ original code and found data breaches on a couple of the days. Not huge ones, nothing that seemed to have taken anything specific from us. Nothing like hackers, though.” Laria put her hand up on her own shoulder and squeezed her collarbone. “I can’t help feeling that I’m missing something.”

  “Something you think I can help you with?” Shayla asked gently.

  Laria had the grace to blush. “No. That wasn’t entirely my reason. But I think a fresh set of eyes might actually see what I can’t, and right now, we really need that. It looks so smooth, that I think I might be missing a trapdoor.”

  “Trapdoor?” Shayla sat up straighter, her attention piqued.

  “Yeah, you know, like the Trojan horse from ancient...” Laria stopped herself. “Sorry, I’m tired. Didn’t sleep much last night.”

  “And what’s the horse doing, Laria?”


  She cringed. “That’s just it. I can’t find it, but I need to, because we have to give these reports to Davenport in the next two and a half hours, and I can’t explain a few things otherwise.”

  Shayla got a grip on her own impatience and pushed forward. “What do you think the horse is doing?”

  “Oh.” Laria smiled sadly. “The point is, it’s there, and I can see it, but I can’t find it. Sort of as if it’s eating grass that wasn’t intended for it and I have no idea how or why.”

  “We better get to work then, eh?” Shayla shoved down a yawn, and suppressed the irritation at Laria’s conceptualization. Now was not the time to need more sleep.

  Sometimes Murmur felt like Sinister was an extension of herself, like she didn’t even need to think and she’d know where she was instinctively. Their movements were so often in sync; she’d assumed it was because they’d known each other most of their lives.

  As Murmur turned and flung a thick, reinforced barrier toward her friend, willing it to pop up directly in front of her, almost like the amber coating had been but not attached to her clothes, she realized how true it was that Sin was never far from her thoughts. Such a realization to come to in the middle of a battle.

  The shield solidified, sending pain shooting through Murmur’s head that she hadn’t yet experienced in game, only a split second before the massive red darkness bore down on the blood mage. Sinister shrank back, pushing what looked like a massive glob of blood to the fore, encasing her chest in a blood-shield.

  The red splinter slowly began to bore through the forcefield. With each twist, it shrieked in Murmur’s head, trying to break down her wall, to break down her will. The others kept fighting the minotaur with resolve.

  Three percent.

  The minotaur’s eyes wouldn’t leave Sinister, and it barely even tried to defend itself as it focused on the only real weapon it had left. Murmur could see him scowling, even through her head pain. Bit by bit she could feel her Forcefield Barrier wavering, buckling under the pressure.