by K. T. Hanna
He hesitated.
“At least they hadn’t, or James hadn’t. He thinks you’re hiding something, as far as I can tell.”
“You didn’t send James?” Shayla hedged her bets.
Davenport shook his head. “No. I did hire James, unaware at the time of his other affiliations. When he was employed, it was as a coding tech. All of his references checked out, and he had the relevant experience. Trust me, there will be words had with our investment partners as to what is acceptable behavior. Sending in someone disguised as a team member was not the way to go about things and actually violates one of the terms in our agreement.” He frowned, and she could see a plethora of other things running through his mind.
“Anyway, don’t worry about him. Our main cause for concern should be how to detach your daughter from that headset, wouldn’t you say?”
This time it was all both Shayla and Laria could do to not let their jaws hit the floor.
Laria shook her head, as if she were trying to clear cobwebs out of it. “Wait, wait...you know about Wren?”
Shayla could see, and almost feel the panic rising in her friend. From the way Laria’s eyes darted around as if they were seeking an escape route, to the small beads of perspiration on her forehead. She placed a hand on her forearm, and started at Laria’s startled eyes until the woman left panic mode. For a few moments, it was pretty touch and go.
Davenport sighed, the twinkle was still in his eye, but he suddenly seemed so tired, and a lot older than he was. “I didn’t one hundred percent know, but I do now. It was the only reason I could see for the secrecy, and for the one strand of almost unstopped connection to be allowed to continue for so long. I know we built in fail-safes to kick someone out when the brain initiated dire physical needs, like going to the bathroom, but for a connection to be there for all this time? Well, it had to be that.”
He shrugged and continued. “That, and you requisitioned a containment pod for further testing.” He raised an eyebrow, and Laria actually blushed. Shayla watched them, grinning. Like the dad her friend never had.
“So. Explain to me what happened to Wren, and we’ll figure out a way to fix it together.” He leaned forward, his fingers steepled, and his bright eyes clear and eager to listen. “Because I’ll be damned if I’m going to let even a heavy investor try to derail the advancements we’ve made because of an anomaly. The headsets are such a small part of this world. Let’s see what we can do with Storm’s intellectual property.”
For the first time since Wren’s predicament had been brought to her attention, Shayla allowed herself a glimmer of true hope.
As soon as light bathed the first few stones in the entryway of the dungeon, a clear voice rang through it, echoing off the stone as it spoke.
Welcome to Lilithheim. You have entered a dimension separated from the world as you know it, separated from life, separated from death. Neither one, nor in between. Be careful, for what you cast might not be as you expect.
Choose your path, and never exceed fifteen.
“Never Exceed fifteen? Thanks for the lack of information.” Beastial sighed.
You are welcome.
He blinked and then began to laugh as he realized he’d just been trolled by a dungeon, or at least that’s why Murmur thought he began laughing.
“No one else is freaking out at the fact that this place is called Lilithheim?” Mellow moved skittishly, looking around them before taking out another vial of light.
“Why should the name be freaky?” Beastial shrugged. “I mean, it’s just a name...oh.”
The beastmaster paled, and Murmur was about to speak when she realized what it was that Mellow had hit on. “If Lilith is in here, then let’s just get to her and kill her so we can get the key and get out.”
Matter-of-factness. She had to keep this up or the rest of them were going to be susceptible to whatever this place was exuding.
Do you really think you can protect them from everything?
Riasli’s voice was bad enough, but the whole comment echoed through her head with a maniacal laugh. Murmur just wished she knew what it was the other enchanter had done to her and how. Her being able to speak directly into Murmur’s mind was starting to piss her off.
Don’t be that way. You know you belong over here. With us.
And then Mellow’s new light went into effect, interrupting the sinuous whispers in Murmur’s head, and pulling her focus back to their current predicament. Just beyond the shadows, so that she could see their pale sclera—crouched, strange goblins. They were short, maybe thigh high on her, but they had wicked long nails and rows of sharp little teeth that gleamed in the magical light.
They seemed blind yet raised their heads with their little nostrils flaring about as they attempted to locate their prey. Murmur extended her shielding, inserting the feeling of smallness around them, making them appear to be unthreatening.
Which was probably the exact opposite thing she should have done because their little faces turned into scowls just before they launched themselves at the group.
You have alerted the ghouls of Lilithheim. If you do not kill them all at the same time, they will evolve and increase exponentially in strength.
“So, keep them together and massacre them all at once. Got it.” Devlish grinned and began rounding them all up close to him. Murmur cast Flux and her other AoE stuns, but a couple of them resisted constantly, so it wasn’t nearly as much help as she would have liked. Still though, the little buggers were fast, so any way to slow them down, including freezing them mid-stride helped.
One of them darted forward so fast and attached itself to Dansyn’s leg. The bard had to stop concentrating on song maintenance and actually attempt to detach the bitey little creature. The noise grew, what with needing to defeat them all around the same health, it meant all she could do was stun, because otherwise they couldn’t attack them.
Only the noise didn’t just reach them, it seemed to echo down into the back of the corridor, into the stones around them, giving just enough of a distance that it appeared the next group could hear them. Murmur heard a rallying cry, a screaming, blood-curdling yell that allowed them only a moment’s warning notice of the next group.
Regardless of how useful or useless it might be, Murmur slammed her Mass Enthrall, knowing that she had to do something. If she could stand-in the middle of the group they were fighting, her odds of getting everyone in her stuns would be far better. So would her odds of dying.
But the game had proved it wanted her there, and now it was going to have to prove her theory. She lined herself up and began to execute her three-stun lock. She was going to have to leave any that broke to the rest of the group, because if she didn’t, she’d miss a stun. They weren’t the easiest things to wrangle.
The first stun was short, only four seconds, and a five second recast. Flux had an eight second duration and a ten second recast, and the last one had a twelve second duration with a fifteen second recast. It was the only one she’d have a few seconds of breathing room in between. Her only window to get debuffs and buffs in if she needed to.
Devlish and Veranol barely even raised an eyebrow at her when she went to stand in the middle of the battle. The Defiler simply cast a ward on her and went about his business while Murmur began her rotation.
Shift, Flux, and Concussive Blast. Technically twenty-one seconds of consecutive stuns that she could repeat for as long as she had mana considering she had to allow for overlap between them and not let it drop. It ended up shaving about one second off each duration. In theory anyway. It worked for the most part. But at least one of the little gremlin monsters they were fighting resisted every single stun. There wasn’t a time one of them wasn’t beating on her. Perhaps not her wisest decision, but Veranol’s wards were helping, and she wasn’t about to die.
Yet.
“Well, these little buggers s
ure as hell aren’t ghosts!” Havoc chimed in gleefully after about twenty seconds of fighting. “They’re ghouls, undead little fuckers that I can nuke the shit out of.”
“Aw. Happy necromancer,” Sinister teased as she readied another Blood Bomb, her smile contorted like a mask of madness.
Murmur smiled softly, and concentrated her attention on her rotation, only to realize after a couple more casts that they were all dead at her feet. Or more accurately, in a circle around her.
The ding of hitting level forty was slightly muted, so she turned it up with a mental note to her HUD as it began to filter in notifications.
You gain experience.
You have reached Level Forty.
You gain bonus experience for being the first to discover a ghoul.
You gain bonus experience for grouping your kills to die in the same blow - Bonus per five (5) deaths.
“That was damned fantastic.” Rashlyn spoke breathily, her face flushed as her breath fogged the air in front of her. “Whatever you were doing, Mur, they couldn’t touch us. They couldn’t move long enough to, anyway.”
“Stun lock. It takes a chunk of mana, and I can’t do it all the time, nor as I’ve realized, to all mobs. Sometimes the monsters will have a higher affinity. At least one of these eight resisted the stun each time I cast it, but with wards, I’m pretty set. Stuns can’t be broken because they literally just stop them in place.” She smiled, so happy her plan had worked, even if a little tired because of the tension.
“If they all have to die close to the same time, this is logically the best way for us to proceed.” Devlish smiled thinly. “Next time give us a heads up. If it didn’t work, we would have had to save you anyway.”
“True.” Murmur smiled. “But it did work. I’m not sure how it would go against ghosts or anything incorporeal, but there we have it. Just give me a few to go over my spells. Level forty. We’re so close to max level I can taste it.”
“Maybe you can.” Sinister pouted. “I still need like sixty percent of my level.”
Murmur couldn’t even bring herself to cast a sympathetic glance at her friend before she sat on the cold stone and pulled her scrolls out of her inventory.
She frowned at the listings. It seemed each level included specific upgrades from earlier levels. She couldn’t help feeling a little disappointed even though she’d known this was coming. She glanced over each of the upgrade scrolls, lingering just long enough to take in the new information each provided before placing her hand on the scrolls and absorbing them.
Altruism (Upgrade)
Cast: Self or Others
Type: Buff
Duration: 45 minutes
Effect: This allows a faction increase to your target. It will lift you two faction levels. Depending on how badly they hate you, this version might even make you neutral if you’re kill on sight. This buff will update again at level 50. Tip: You can use this even if you’re already neutral. Nothing wrong with people liking you more. They tend to be more helpful.
Signet (Upgrade)
Cast: Group
Type: Buff
Duration: 45 minutes
Effect: This buff will increase the intelligence and agility of all group members by an amount equal to the caster’s level. Signet will not stack with Fervor and can be overridden by casting the latter, should melee need their own boost. Both stats will be boosted to the level of the caster
Arcane Cure (Upgrade)
Cast: Self or Others
Type: Cure
Duration: Instant
Effect: Should an ally receive a magical debuff, you can cure them of this ailment.
Her runes flared, and the lights at the end of her hair strands lit up. Tiachi glowed too and chittered excitedly, swinging back and forth with the sway of the now lit tendrils. Murmur grinned and patted the tiny head with the tip of her finger before turning her attention back to the two scrolls that held more than just an upgrade for her.
Manabalize
Cast: From Self to Others
Type: Transfer
Duration: Instant
Recast: 2 minutes
Effect: Gives target a portion of Enchanter’s mana equal to four times the enchanter’s level. Don’t be an idiot. Make sure you don’t drain yourself empty.
Raising an eyebrow, she absorbed this one too. It was like a play on the word cannibalize but so badly done that she had to roll her eyes at it. It’d come in useful for the healers, anyway. They should never run out of mana now with all of Murmur’s mana shit.
The next spell piqued her interest more, though. She found herself smiling as she read through it twice just to make sure it was what she thought it was.
Spell Block
Cast: Enemies (or friends, if you want them to be enemies)
Type: Debuff
Duration: Instant
Recast: 90 seconds
Effect: Slows the casting time of the next or current spell by 200%. Most people won’t be inclined to like you after you use this on them.
A spell block that should really be called more of a spell slow. But whatever floated their boat. Either way, being able to draw out whatever spell they were casting was going to be a huge benefit. She frowned, uncertain if it was going to be useable on bosses, but placed her hand on it and absorbed it anyway. They didn’t really have time to wait around on her to get these spells memorized. After all, those other ghouls could trigger at any moment.
She moved onto her Sinuous line, unscrolling the next spell carefully.
Confusion
Cast: Enemies
Type: Debuff
Duration: 12 seconds (maximum 4 seconds if cast on a boss)
Recast: 5 minutes
Effect: Envelops the opponent’s brain in a cloud of confusion. This allows their spells to misfire, hitting their allies, and usually avoiding their enemies completely. Effect severely diminished when used on boss mobs.
Well, that was interesting. Definitely useful in a pinch, she hoped. Four seconds was still four seconds more than she’d had before. Finally, she moved on to the last scroll.
Thought Leech
Cast: Enemies (or friends, if you’re really nosy)
Type: Thought transfer
Duration: Immediate
Recast: 4 minutes
Effect: Allows the Psionicist to know the order of the next three abilities or spells the target is going to cast. Can effectively render the attacks useless if countered in time. Can also be totally useless if used incorrectly. Good luck!
“Wow.” She breathed out the word, ignoring the inquiring eyes that pivoted toward her. Sort of like telling the future and requiring immediate action. No pressure or anything. She stood up, petting Snowy as she did so and put her hands on her hips. It had taken her maybe five minutes to read and absorb them all, but Merlin was fake snoring against the wall and she glared at him.
“Ha ha, very funny,” she said, poking him in the ribs.
He laughed and moved away from the wall. “What? Oh, you’re done. Excellent.” He winked at her and moved to the side as the rest of them prepared to move as well.
Mellow was peering down the hall, holding up one of their vials, glowing with a hungry light. When they spoke, their voice shook just a bit. “So, guys. Just so you know, we’re going to need a lot more of Murmur’s awesome stuns, because I’m pretty sure we have packs all the way down this hall. Packs I’m not even sure we can pull separately.”
Mellow hadn’t been kidding. These groups of ghouls weren’t easy to separate. The first pull after she’d dinged level forty didn’t go as planned.
Not even Rashlyn could ditch the second group of five that managed to see her. They didn’t believe her corpse was dead, and the monk barely got back to the group alive. Fighting nine ghouls at once was difficult.
> Murmur questioned the wisdom of putting herself in the middle of these ravenously hungry ghouls more than one. Their fingers caught in her tunic, scratched at her bracers so much she was grateful the clear material that showed off her runes was so resilient.
Their sharp teeth were filed into tiny points, and they used them like a rabid dog might. Nine. She’d not been expecting nine.
Their resistance to her spells seemed higher than the previous lot, and she attempted to inspect their levels all the while being jostled by those that weren’t stunned. It was all she could do to not focus on her own health. It had to be dipping drastically low.
Of course, she could have counted on Sinister’s constant gasps to give away just how low her health was getting. Tunneling her focus onto the creatures, Murmur reached down with Reinforce Self and Earth Shielding to ground her power and strengthen her own defenses. She’d be damned if these trash mobs were going to wipe them.
And then one of them let out a wail.
The sound reverberated around them like they’d just been struck like a gong. Murmur stumbled, as did the rest of the group. Rashlyn, mid-kick, even landed unceremoniously on her butt and was promptly swarmed by six of the little blighters who were free because Mur missed one of her stun timers.
The monk’s health depleted before Mur could recast. So fast it happened in the blink of an eye. She barely managed to get the next one off, because she was so stunned too. But it was obvious if she missed again, she’d probably be the next victim.
“Who cast that?” Murmur tried to keep the desperation from her voice.
“No clue.” Havoc ground out. “Probably the one with the tattered robe.”
“We’ll keep it stunned.” Devlish sounded more confident than Murmur felt, but she nodded and noticed Rashlyn’s body begin to decay as the monk managed to get back from the entrance. The one good thing about trash mobs. You didn’t have to wait until the end of the battle to respawn.