Somnia Online

by K. T. Hanna

  You gain bonus experience for defeating the Shalan guard forces.

  You gain bonus experience for zero drowning deaths.

  You gain bonus experience for choosing a smarter way.

  You gain bonus experience for solving the quest given instead of powering through and killing everything.

  You gain bonus experience for reaching the ancient turtle Sheladrios.

  You gain bonus experience for healing the ancient turtle Abyssios Zonama.

  You gain bonus experience for completing the second of the endgame dungeon chains.

  You gain bonus experience for not attempting to circumvent the portal restrictions.

  You shall be rewarded.

  You are already max level.

  Your experience from this dungeon will be transferred to monetary and crafting material rewards.

  Murmur blinked at all the information in front of her like she’d never seen so many before.

  Merlin laughed giddily. “See? That’s more like the notifications I’m used to.”

  Beastial rolled his eyes, and even Havoc seemed happy. So many notifications, so much experience to be pooled into cash or else MA increases. Murmur was absolutely okay with getting stronger and richer. She had a feeling Neva was burning through a lot of guild resources. The relief that spread through the enchanter was almost exhausting, though.

  Sinister stood next to her, a hand draped loosely around her shoulders, which, was a bit of a reach for the blood mage. “I’m not sure how you always know to do what you do to solve the things you solve.” She frowned and looked up at the enchanter.

  “Well, he’d been driven mad by loneliness and the fear of it. I just showed him that he wasn’t alone anymore. It’s like just making the path to begin the healing. It doesn’t fix everything, just little bits, just enough to bring them to a place where they can start the healing process.”

  Sinister watched Murmur for so long that the enchanter began to feel uncomfortable.

  “What?”

  “Sometimes I just think we’re lucky. That’s all. To know each other the way we do, for as long as we have? I don’t know what I’d do if someone tried to take you from me now.” Sinister sounded deadly serious. More serious than Murmur had ever heard her.

  Murmur tried a joke to ease the tension. “Well, at least you wouldn’t lock me up in a cage and bolt me to the floor, right?”

  Sinister laughed and offered a wink as she answered. “Yeah. Sure. I wouldn’t do that at all.” She moved away before Mur could reply and made her way over to the loot chests. Murmur stood there wondering just how much of it really was a joke.

  Somnia Online

  Continent of Curet: The Glacier Lakes Dungeon

  Version 8.4282.5 - Triggered by Murmur of Fable

  Early Day Thirty-One

  Karn sucked in a deep breath and approached her father. She’d been watching him for the better part of this dungeon, and it was getting more and more difficult to ignore the fact that something was very wrong. Sure, he was often a bit reckless, hence his name. He loved to joke that Risk was his name and his nature. But he wasn’t usually rude. Though there was a fine line between rude and confident, it was usually one he straddled well. His reaction to Murmur was part of the problem.

  He had never been too good about having women in places of power. She wasn’t sure why, because she’d sure as hell met her grandmother, and she was a spitfire. Maybe that was it after all, though. Considering everything, of course.

  Risk wasn’t demonstrating his usual skill level, to the extent that she thought he was practicing with different weapons. And if there was one thing he prided himself on, it was being good at what he did.

  “Hey, Dad,” she ventured, finally managing to find him alone and not hanging around that stupid other rogue and his glares.

  Risk turned, a thoughtful frown on his face, which disappeared to make way for a huge smile when he saw who was touching his upper arm. “Hey, kiddo. Wasn’t that something?”

  It didn’t sound like it was a real question, more like a rhetorical one. But at the same time…he was obviously giving it more thought than she’d given him credit for. At least that was something good.

  “That was awesome. Who knew that you don’t always have to kill everything to get good shit?” She laughed, trying to lighten the heavy aura that emanated from him.

  He’d never been the most open father, but he’d always been fun. Right now, though, she felt like she was constantly walking on eggshells around him.

  She paused a bit, waiting on him to say something, and when he didn’t, when he seemed lost in thought again. “Dad…are you okay?” She kept her voice low, not wanting for anyone else to hear.

  But there was a ghost of something in his eyes, and it scared her.

  He hesitated at first, seemingly unsure if he should say anything. Then he glanced around before lowering his voice so only she would be able to hear. “I don’t think so. Something doesn’t feel right in my head. I’m even more—what do you usually call it? Unreasonable than usual? My temper is all over the place.” He laughed a bit self-deprecatingly, but she could see he was deeply affected by it.

  “You haven’t been acting yourself. Is it just because you’re not used to letting other people take over raid leading? I wouldn’t blame you if that were the case.” She tried to make sure he understood that she wasn’t judging him in the slightest. That she was attempting to understand him and help him if she could.

  Risk hesitated again, and Karn had to force herself not to panic.

  “It’s like…don’t get me wrong. I don’t like doing things in a way that I feel like is cheating, but I shouldn’t be as angry as I am about it. Yet here we are.” He sighed.

  “Have you been talking to the other guild leader at all? I mean, not Murmur, who is quite nice by the way, but to Masha…maybe Jirald?” She tried her best not to put any emphasis on anything else.

  Risk frowned. “Come to think of it I have been spending a lot more time with them than I have even with our own guild. That’s a good point. I wonder why?”

  He seemed confused, and when he furrowed his brow, he looked like he was in pain. Karn scowled, knowing that wasn’t how her father usually was, but unsure of what to do about it. Murmur seemed to know something and have her own concerns, but Karn wasn’t an enchanter, and all she knew was that he wasn’t himself.

  “Maybe hang around with us a bit more? Been missing you giving us lectures on fighting techniques.” Karn grinned.

  “You mean you’ve actually missed me picking on you like I usually do?” He smiled and reached out to ruffle her hair, before realizing that she had a hood on and that wasn’t a remote possibility. “Sometimes I forget how grown up you’re getting.”

  He sounded sad, and a little lost.

  “S’okay, Dad. Don’t worry, I’ll be there to take care of you no matter what.” Karn grinned and then gave him a hug. “Even when I have to change your diapers.”

  “Ha! I’m not that old yet. I can still give you a run for your money.”

  But to Karn it sounded like he was desperately putting up bravado through his confusion. And as he returned the hug, he held on that bit longer than he usually would. When he let go, Karn could almost feel how bewildered he was. She worried for a moment that he might be sick, but even that didn’t seem likely.

  Karn wandered over to where Murmur stood discussing something with Sinister, but as she approached, the blood mage sauntered away with a rather teasing grin on her face. Perfect timing—it meant Karn wasn’t interrupting.

  “Murmur, can I talk to you about something?” She felt nervous, not entirely sure if she’d just be told she was being paranoid or not. Murmur seemed the serious sort who would consider things with enough evidence, but she didn’t know Risk the way Karn did.

  “Sure. I have to access the keys shortly, but I’ve got a few minutes.” Murmur smiled, and the expression was decidedly uncomfortable to look at when it came from a locus
. The lack of a real nose and the strange tentacle like hair they had—it all melded together to make it look alien, even though the body itself appeared so humanoid.

  “My dad isn’t acting like himself. I know we talked about it a bit. But I just wanted you to know he’s definitely been affected by whatever is going around.” There. She’d done her piece, and maybe the raid leaders could handle the rest of it. At least, she hoped so.

  “How so? Irritated constantly, or just not acting and playing like himself?” Murmur was interested; even the timbre of her voice had changed.

  Karn really thought the question over. “All of it. He’s not outputting his usual DPS, and his tanking has been lackluster this entire dungeon. He seemed to be okay in the others, but not in this one.”

  “Got it.” For a moment, Karn thought she saw a brief hint of worry cross the Fable guild leader’s face, but it disappeared pretty quickly as the enchanter spoke, a small smile on her face. “It’s probably just fatigue, you know? I can hardly wait to go to sleep myself.”

  Karn knew Murmur was just trying to make her feel better, and that was okay and appreciated. But deep down Karn was worried enough for the both of them. Her gut twisted, and she had a horrible sense of foreboding she couldn’t get rid of. Her dad wasn’t right, and she had no idea how to deal with that.

  Somnia

  Somnia Online

  Almost. She was almost there with it. With the idea that turned into a plan to save herself, her world, and the people she’d come to think of as hers. Even the players who were now bound in some ways to this world and the others.

  “Testing some things.” She spoke to herself, but no one would hear her here, where she’d come to. Be in silence. Limbo had become one of her favorite spaces ever since she’d realized that alone time could work. Alone time meant productive time, unless Murmur needed her.

  Murmur would always be a main priority, but Somnia as a world now had other responsibilities too.

  Her calculations stayed in her head, but sometimes it was better to spread them out around her so she could truly see what it was she thought they could do. So many steps were required, so much cooperation, but deep down, she was gaining confidence.

  From the germ of an idea to what she had now—an actionable plan.

  Sure, the quantum computing world was in its infancy, and their own servers only used elements of them. In its purest form, nothing was able to keep that rate for long. However, she believed, if she gathered enough energy, from herself, from the world, from the people who played, and the city around them, she just might have enough for her crazy plan to work.

  Murmur had met a lot of people along the way, and Somnia had witnessed them all, just by being there in her head. She remembered them, and what they could do to help. The more of them there were, the better their chances.

  She stood outside of Hazenthorne in all her ethereal glory and waited for Arita to answer her summons. She’d reached out to the dark elf queen before, and so she knew that Arita, despite the facade she presented to the world, had a very soft spot for Murmur.

  And Somnia planned to use that soft spot to its full extent. With one of the species leaders on her side, with another aware NPC standing with her, Somnia’s chances of saving her world shot way up.

  After all, matter was energy, right? And vice versa. Arita could help her get all that energy and more.

  Somnia Online

  Continent of Cenedril

  Glacier Lake Dungeon Entrance

  Early Day Thirty-Two

  “Are you sure they’re going to be okay?” Emilarth sounded so concerned for the “kids”, as she called them.

  Telvar couldn’t blame her; he felt much the same. Hell, he even thought Belius might feel similarly. “I’m mostly sure. Still a bit worried about how Murmur is handling her extended mind capabilities. Having that portion of her consciousness open and operational is a huge responsibility.”

  “Of course it is. Why do you think I tried to take her under my wing?” Belius, again, sounded disgruntled, but slowly Telvar had come to realize that was just his brother. “What are we supposed to do now? Just wait until they finally port out?”

  “Pretty much.” Telvar shrugged his shoulders, trying to keep himself from stressing too much. There were so many things that could go wrong with the plan as it was. The major dungeon. The entire endgame content of Somnia had always been hidden. Inaccessible.

  Except now it could be unlocked, because they’d managed to gather all of the keys. Which was awesome and everything, if, as he was about three hundred percent certain, the majority of the shards, of the getashi hadn’t been hiding there in the first place. At first, he’d thought it a blessing. After all, that section of the game was off limits until the final confrontation was triggered, but the more it stewed in there, the more could leak out and affect things while the rest of it stewed in its juices and became stronger.

  And with Jirald having done so too, and Murmur’s headset having led her astray again…Telvar just wanted to shut all the humans out and try to deal with it themselves. But he knew that wasn’t an option. Shutting out the humans would only make them prepared for if that virus managed to make it into mainstream internet. So far, they’d managed to contain the spread…

  “Um…” Belius cleared his throat. “I don’t mean to be all doom and gloom and death of the world over here. But won’t Spiral and Exodus react poorly if we’re just standing here waiting for the raid to show up and hand us the keys so we can transform them?”

  Telvar blinked. He hadn’t even thought of that. “Shit.”

  “Stop worrying so much.” Emilarth stood in front of him. “We can go incognito, or even take on a guise of a well-known NPC and transform in front of them for effect. We could probably even just invis ourselves until such a time as we’re summoned.”

  “Well, that would make much more sense, but we weren’t going to do it originally,” Belius grumbled.

  “True,” Telvar said, kicking himself for the oversight. “It’s okay, though. We’ve got this. Thanks, Bel.”

  Belius seemed shocked but didn’t say anything. Instead, a small smile crept over his face. He seemed pleased.

  Emilarth threw her hands up in the air. “Okay, let’s get off the negative train. We have a lot of work to do over the next little while. As long as this team keeps their wits about them, we should be okay. Everything should be okay.” If only she didn’t sound like she was trying to convince herself too.

  The ground began to shake as Murmur pulled the keys out of her inventory. Telvar could feel it. Maybe it wasn’t the ground, but the system, finally being activated for the first time outside of testing. This was the end of the game. Technically. Not that any boss in their right programming would ever drop all of the available loot on their table at once, but the gist was the same.

  They stood there, waiting for the guilds to portal out. All three of them instinctively activated their invisibility. Not as simple as one from a spell, but one from the coding that would truly render them one with the environment. He couldn’t help but get his hopes up that maybe, just maybe, this group would be able to get them out of the shitstorm they were in.

  Murmur watched the rogue walk away from her, a thousand questions crowding her mind at once. She’d just have to leave that up to Somnia, because there was too much to do right now.

  And once she knew what the next step was they needed to take, she’d be able to sleep in peace without stress. Or without too much, anyway.

  She pulled all the keys she’d gathered so far out of her storage. They held an array of different designs, and different colors, and she felt quite attached to them already. Lining them up in her hands, all nine of them felt heavier than she’d thought they would. Like they were made out of some ancient metal and that made them feel heavy and real, tangible…with consequences attached.

  Havoc and Sinister sidled back up to her, their gazes riveted by the keys. Three of them were gold, ornate, and regal. So
rt of matched Telvar’s lacerta coloring. Three of them were dark, obsidian and subdued. Those probably belonged to Belius’s dungeons. And three of them…well, they weren’t really discernible as a color themselves, but had more a pearlescent sheen to them that could be anything it needed to be at any given time.

  Congratulations.

  You have collected all nine keys that are available from the dungeons themselves. You have stocked up enough midia crystals to take the next step, though you might be wondering where the other three keys are. After all, there are twelve of them.

  You must take the keys you have and summon their creators. You cannot be in a dungeon while you do this. That is the only restriction on how to summon them. Only that way can you obtain all twelve of them.

  When you are ready, gather your closest group together, and chant the summoning ritual below as one.

  Into the depths we dive, the prison is waiting to rise

  We offer these keys in our hands, to protect the Somnian lands

  We offer our strength as a force, to stay the world on its course

  We offer our spells and our arms, to keep this world safe from harm.

  Murmur raised an eyebrow, and glanced around, only just now realizing that everyone else in the cavern had received the update. Well, that little summoning sounded like Somnia only just came up with it.

  Apparently including Sheladrios. The massive turtle was still holding his brother, who was shaking in his arms. There was something odd—and yet comforting—about the way they interacted.

  Murmur clenched the keys in her fist, waiting as the rest of the notification scrolled across her view.

  Once reunited, the keys will act as conduits to unlock the depths of this world. Be cautious, for no one can be certain of the outcome.

  Her quests lit up in the corner of her vision, and for a few seconds her head spun. But she calmed herself with breathing and looked down at Snowy. His trusting eyes glowed back at her, full of secrets she’d have to beg Telvar to translate at some stage.