by K. T. Hanna
“These have to die faster.” She stated the bleeding obvious and got a nasty look from Havoc and Jinna, but she shrugged. Better to have said it than for someone to pretend they didn’t realize.
Mellow moved over to her side. “I might be able to undo the next lot of them. As long as these don’t make the next wave of blue turn purple.”
Murmur nodded, her concentration on the debuffing and damaging the specters in front of her. Snowy wove his magic around them, much like he had with the hellhounds back with the minotaur in Hazenthorne. It seemed to restrict their movement, not by slowing them, but disallowing them to move from their places, and yet it didn’t have the vines that signified root.
This group was more difficult. Their hit points decreased slower than the other groups, and they were able to fling their abilities out over a distance. The second in from the right waved its hand overhead and then cast out a shining thread that resembled a fishing line.
Mellow screamed, and Murmur looked back at the witch. A massive and nasty hook jutted out from Mellow’s cheek, and then the line began to pull taut. About to direct a Chaotic Blast to the line, Murmur watched as Jinna leapt high into the air and sliced the hand off the warrior holding the line.
Murmur blinked as the appendage fell to the ground, and the line went limp, allowing Havoc to assist Mellow in getting the damned hook out. That was one way to take care of it. Much more efficient than what Murmur had been about to do.
“Just AoE the bastards, Mur,” Mellow mumbled through the blood in their mouth.
Even though Sinister was healing them, it took a long time for the gaping wound to close. But the witch was right.
Murmur stepped up. “Back away.”
She eyed the squares that were beginning to glow again. They had to do this fast, or they were going to get purple. Oddly enough, her favorite color.
Standing in the center, barely out of reach of the clawing weapons that hooked into flesh and took hold. Beastial was nursing a nasty rip, only slowly being closed up by the heal, leaving the material ripped and tattered.
Flux
All four shadows froze in place, and the deluge of Area Effect spells began. Havoc’s pet, Leeroy, spun with abandon, its scythe rotating through whirls of attacks, cutting chunks of health from the warriors. Mellow’s acid bombs landed in the middle, spreading their tendrils to each of the warriors. Beastial and Shir-Khan executed a magnificent dance, and a rain of arrows descended on the warriors.
Shift
This time once of the warriors broke free from the stun. Murmur noticed Dansyn switching to the song that debuffed magic resistance. But that wasn’t going to help until Murmur cast her next stun. Veranol threw a ward on her, and Murmur upped her personal shield as well as her depletable one. She eyed the tiles and the remaining health bars of the current group and hoped they’d make it. Rashlyn was busy tanking the one that didn’t play ball with the stun. Murmur took a deep breath, and cast again.
Concussive Blast
It hit three of the four warriors again, but this time a different one resisted. The one who had the hook and line. Before anyone could react, it jumped toward Rashlyn, wrapped the wire of line around her neck, and pulled with more strength than Murmur thought possible.
The resulting decapitation made Sinister throw up in the background, and Murmur couldn’t take her eyes off her friend’s head as it rolled along the floor and came to a rest at her feet, the feles eyes staring up at her in frozen shock.
Somnia Online
Hightower Castle
Version - Triggered 8.207 by Guild - Spiral
Day Nineteen
The guild Spiral has defeated Earlien Hightower of Hightower Castle and gained one of the twelve keys.
You have completed the Hightower Castle Dungeon.
You gain experience.
You gain experience for navigating the maze.
You gain experience for the defeating the plague.
You gain experience for defeating Eronath.
You gain experience for freeing the prisoners.
You gain experience for killing Earlien Hightower.
You gain bonus experience for tackling the dungeon before reaching maximum power.
Karn gulped in the hot air, her eyes on the massive undead dwarf they’d just downed. Earlien. She frowned. That didn’t hold with the lore she’d read. Weren’t they supposed to defeat Dunforth Hightower? The creator of this place?
With a shrug, she moved toward the platform in the center of the huge, sand-filled arena. The light that shone down on them was far too real to be magic, but considering they’d somehow landed in the basement of the castle, she wouldn’t put it past them to mimic the sun with some spell.
The heat was almost unbearable for someone who hated it. Karn’s preferred garb was highly inefficient in this type of weather. She made a note to herself to choose something more versatile next time.
Risk reached the chest before she did, which was only natural. As the tank he’d been the closest to it. With Earlien’s back turned toward the melee, it made everyone’s job easier.
True enough, just as that Riasli feles had said, there were two chests. The first was golden filigree, studded with gems and a heavy lock that had fallen open. The other was plain and made of a smooth metal with no visible way to open it that Karn could see.
“Which one do you think is the original?” she asked softly.
Risk shook his head. “I’m not sure.”
For once, his bravado wasn’t there. Though usually it was simply part of the confidence he possessed, the Riasli encounter had left them all a bit off-center. Karn could understand his reticence. “We could just open both.”
He looked at her through narrowed eyes like he was trying to figure out just what she was thinking, what angle she was coming from.
Then he nodded. “Good call.”
The bejeweled chest held loot. Lots of loot. Karn’s eyes grew big, and she caught herself holding her breath. Each member of the raid received one piece from the chest. Hers was a gorgeous dagger. The only problem with it was that she’d have one amazing and one mediocre weapon while she waited to get her hands on something better to match.
She watched as everyone else received their items. Rings, a couple of necklaces, but no actual armor. Had they done something wrong in the dungeon? Were there different version they could access?
While everyone else inspected their newly-acquired item and computed their best possible slots as a result, Karn sidled over to the other chest with Risk.
He seemed more indecisive than she’d ever seen him before. She wasn’t sure if she should be worried or not.
“Do you think we should open this?” There was hesitancy in his words, something she’d never equated with him.
“If we open it, then we’re saying we’ll do whatever this Riasli wants us to, right?” Karn wasn’t so sure that was in their best interests. She’d never seen Risk take orders before, and she was fairly certain he’d suck at it. But this damned dungeon had taken a day. She was tired and wanted to get it over with.
“If we open it, we have the key to topping the game’s hierarchy.” It sounded like he was trying to convince himself.
“And if we don’t open it, we get there on our own steam, right?” Karn smiled, but Risk didn’t lose his reluctance. If anything, he seemed worse than before.
“Look. No matter what we do—” She tried to come at it from another angle. “Once we open that chest, we’re no longer playing by our own rules.”
Risk’s brow furrowed in irritation. If there was one thing he hated, it was having someone else dictate what he did. He turned his head and focused on Karn, one hand resting on the top of the nondescript chest. “We’ve always made our own rules, regardless of what the game dictates. Why would this mean it has to be different?”
&nb
sp; Karn hesitated and gestured around them. “Because everything in here is different.”
Risk nodded, and placed both hands on the chest.
Murmur couldn’t move. Her brain wouldn’t wrap around the fact that Rashlyn was dead. Not just dead. “Decapitated? Fucking what?”
“Stun, Mur!” Devlish yelled, and she reacted, barely in time to keep all four of them stunned now. Their health was so low, and Snowy was making very definite work of the hook warrior. The pack of opponents dropped dead almost as one.
They only had a few seconds at most.
“Get her up.” Devlish commanded, and Murmur heard it, but in a distanced way. She couldn’t tear her eyes away from the head. The way the mouth opened with lips softly parted, like Rash was going to speak at any moment, but the clouding over the eyes had begun, and the lifelessness was infectious.
“Mur.” Havoc shook her shoulder. “Mur!”
“Yeah?” She blinked at him, and realized her face was wet. Reaching up a hand, she came away with thick liquid. Sticky and red.
“Focus.” His face was right in front of hers. “The next wave is spawning.”
Murmur noticed movement off to her right, in front of Sinister. Rashlyn was there, cracking her neck from side to side.
“Damn it. That fucking hurt.”
The monk seemed fine. And the head at Murmur’s feet was beginning to decay. The fur degraded visibly until the skin was noticeable underneath, turning a rotting deep grey as it began to fester. She looked away and stepped mechanically to stand just behind Devlish.
Resurrection was a funny thing. Good thing it didn’t always need three days.
Murmur concentrated on the area around her and cast Flux again. Rinse and repeat. All of the stuns.
But this group hit harder and had higher defenses. And her stuns didn’t make any of them invincible. This time, Murmur lashed out with Stupefy if one of the stupid warriors managed to resist her spell. Screw that. She wasn’t about to let another friend go through decapitation. Her reactions hadn’t been fast enough. She should have been able to prevent Rashlyn’s death.
Mechanical. It felt so mechanical.
She shook her head, unsure how they’d avoided the purple, but hoping now they could begin to change the colors of the tiles? Everything was so vague.
The rotation of Flux, Shift, Concussive Blast, and Stupefy weighed in her mind, and when the last warrior fell, Murmur almost forgot to stop casting.
“Mur?” Rashlyn was speaking next to her, concern dripping from that simple syllable. “It’s just a game.”
Do you agree? Is it really just a game, Murmur?
Murmur’s head spun for a moment, and her chest sent a shock of pain rushing through her system as it remembered. She stumbled, coughing, before righting herself. Damn Riasli and her way of getting underneath her skin.
“I’m fine.” Murmur ground out the reassurance, even if it wasn’t quite true, and she cast another stun a split second before the other wore off. She needed to get her shit together.
Rashlyn had died, in-game, and it was okay. Because she was standing right next to Murmur now, whole again, nothing like the decaying corpse that was slowly seeping into the ground behind them.
Maybe that’s a part of her she’ll never get back.
The maniacal cackle in the back of Murmur’s mind almost made her lose it. This Riasli devil she had sitting on her shoulder needed to vanish. She gritted her teeth, focusing on the final wave of warriors in front of them. Rashlyn seemed to be disarming her opponents every few seconds. Since they were stunned for the most part, that meant that if they broke stun, they had to retrieve their weapon if they wanted to do more than just hand to hand damage.
Clever. And a wave of relief swept over Murmur as she clamped her shields down tighter. The fight settled into a rhythm. Stun, debuff, nuke, fire, repeat. This wave hit harder and resisted stun with an alarming frequency.
But no more tiles popped up, no more colors seeped through, and when the final warrior fell, a wave of complete silence swept the room.
“Didn’t you say they’d leave you a spot?” Mellow suddenly asked Wartia.
The brother nodded, confusion clear on his face. “Something isn’t right.”
As if on cue, the ground began to tremble.
“Was it something I said?” Merlin joked half-heartedly. His attempt to ease the panic that slowly rose around them all fell as flat as the floor beneath them that began to glow blue and red so fast it made purple swirl before their eyes.
Just as suddenly as it began, it stopped.
The silence that followed was way too loud, and Sinister’s sneeze made every one of them jump. Xestia turned to her. “What was that?”
“A sneeze?” Sinister offered, somewhat confused.
“Interesting.”
It would have been funny except it was all Murmur could do to fight off the foreboding she felt trying to push past her shields.
Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
You didn’t warn me!
Murmur cringed as everyone in the room with her, including the NPCs yelped in mental pain. Shit. She had to not yell like that until she learned to focus it. “Sorry.”
Point! But I could have, if you’d joined me. Now you’ll have to pay.
And then the space where Riasli usually spoke from was vacant. Murmur gasped softly as a pounding began in her head. What the hell had the feles pulled this time? “Um, everyone. I think...I think shit is about to hit the fan.”
Xaskia and Warinthe, the overlords of Stellaein have been freed. Please take the necessary precautions to avoid death.
“That would be our parents.” Hortia’s voice was empty of emotion, just like her eyes. She seemed almost entranced, forlorn. Wartia pulled her close to him, as if he were going to protect her, and yet he bit his lip, fear painted all over his face.
Murmur gulped, glancing over at Mellow who nodded almost imperceptibly. She glared at them, trying to get her point across, and the witch actually smiled.
“Nothing new. Just the riddle, and free them, et cetera, et cetera. Seems we’re all on our own here.” Mellow’s tone portrayed confidence Murmur didn’t feel.
“What can your parents do?” Veranol asked, his tone low and serious.
Xestia’s eyes grew wider and she opened and closed her mouth a couple of times before speaking. “Their abilities had to do with nature, morphing stone, growing trees. Now? Now I don’t think they’ll be quite the same. It’s been a long time.”
The ground rumbled again, and the unease pressing down and attacking Murmur’s shielding intensified. She strained against it.
“Whatever they can do, it’s big,” she managed through clenched teeth.
Snowy butted her hand with his head, lending her whatever strength she needed.
A soft rumble began in the belly of the mountain, slowly intensifying, building up until it became a roar of power. A portion of the floor dropped away so suddenly that Merlin barely grabbed Dansyn in time to pull the bard back up before the massive platform shot up from below.
The raid stumbled back, Xestia and her siblings practically dragging Merlin and Dansyn with them. Hortia whimpered and hid her face in her brother’s chest.
“I can’t—” Wartia’s face contorted in pain as he tried to get the words out. “I can’t guarantee they won’t exert control over us.”
“How do you mean?” Murmur frantically checked her MA. Of course, she could charm them if she needed to, sort of like Snowy? Except they weren’t animals, so she wasn’t sure how that would work. Maybe it would protect them though.
“We have blood bonds. You will not have that here, but our parents...they have power over us.” Hortia whispered the words softly, her eyes round as saucers. Tears ran down her face. “They’ve known this all along.”
Ther
e wasn’t time to take in what the siblings had said; there was barely enough time for Veranol to activate his shielding and protect the entire group from the immediate onslaught aimed at them as the sibling’s parents drew to their full height on the platform, activating a series of colored tiles all around the cavern that they’d not noticed before.
The colors radiated out from the middle in a mix of yellows, blues, purples, reds, and greens. It looked like a disco floor in one of those ancient movies. She had the distinct urge to ask them if they were supposed to dance.
But it wasn’t to be. Because Xaskia opened her mouth and screamed.
The sound was so loud, so destructive that Murmur could practically see the circles emanating out from around the siren locus. Veranol’s shield managed to absorb the damage, but it didn’t dampen the sound effectively, so Murmur was left with ringing in her head.
Mid-scream, Mellow threw something toward the queen, or whatever she was. A bright yellow-green concoction in a glass vial shattered at her feet. Fumes rose from it, cutting off her voice, and Xaskia’s gaze pivoted to the witch, fire in them. Upon inspection, Murmur noticed a debuff that would last sixty seconds. Was that the cure Mellow had several of? In which case, they didn’t have all that long to figure out the fight.
I can do that every minute. For the next thirteen minutes. Figure it out fast. Mellow’s words flashed across Murmur’s eyes, and she nodded.
Xaskia’s focus was pinned on Mellow, and Rashlyn intercepted it by throwing out her own taunts, Jeering for all she was worth. Xaskia howled—or would have if whatever Mellow had done to her hadn’t taken away her voice.
Murmur was going to have a long talk with the witch when they got out of here.
Devlish ran in to engage Warinthe, taunting him with Hatred. The huge locus—taller than any Murmur had run into so far—screamed, distorting his face into pure rage, animalistic in its visage.
More than just animalistic. Slowly, the locus began to transform, its limbs lengthened, and its face contorted into a long snout and twitching ears. She’d call it a hound, but it didn’t appear to have fur, just a leathery hide like a rhinoceros. Its legs were thicker, a darker grey with black undertones, far less ethereal than the usual locus skin.