Somnia Online

by K. T. Hanna

  Early Morning Day Thirty-Two

  Laria clung to the evidence she’d gathered and the information she’d sniffed out about the headgear and how the ideas came about. She’d already managed to compile a list of places, most of them passworded through several rounds of security and hoops that needed to be jumped through, where differing variations of the headgear schematics could be found. Not that it was difficult, just time consuming.

  Included in that lot was one of Michael’s earlier models. She believed it was one of the ones he’d submitted for his research thesis back in college. People she’d never even realized had access to this technology had been fiddling with it for years. No wonder people entering the game were experiencing problems or glitches that shouldn’t have been present. And the shards were able to find those more susceptible to them. Or something. If she’d understood it correctly.

  They should have been stricter with the TOS enforcement. And that was something they’d need to rectify as soon as possible. But that could wait until she got back into the office. Laria was good working her way around without being tracked when it came to the net. But David was far more capable of downloading things they might need without leaving a trace of himself. Laria…she tended to be pretty stubborn about those things which didn’t always work in her favor.

  David, on the other hand, had much more finesse with it. Not that she’d ever admit that to his face. They did have a rivalry to uphold, after all. Their whole marriage was based around it. She chuckled to herself and only belatedly realized he was standing right behind her. She whipped around and half scowled at him.

  “Are you going to tell me what this is about?” David’s tone sounded amused as he leaned against her office door.

  “What is anything about anymore?” She almost snapped the words out but took in a deep breath before continuing. She hadn’t called him here to snap, but he had startled her a bit. “Sorry. You don’t deserve that. I just can’t believe I didn’t think to compare this before.”

  “Slow down. What are you talking about?” David pulled up a chair and settled down beside her like he was in for the long haul. Oh, how she appreciated the reality of that fact.

  She thought for a few moments about how to phrase what it was she wanted to say. Finally, she thought she had it. “Wren mentioned something today; I can’t even remember what it was. But it gave me a thought, about the headgear.”

  Turning to the computer, she pulled up the folders of research she’d managed to save. “See, the thing is, Michael’s headgear was his thing. It was his pet project. I remember numerous comments from him about how it was finally coming to fruition, how all his hard work had paid off, and soon everyone would see what a great idea it had been all along.”

  She shrugged. “You know, generally-impressed-with-his-own-genius sort of talk. But Murmur got me thinking. It wasn’t just talk. It had been his graduation project, then he’d evolved it within his thesis. This headgear was never just intended to be for gaming. But he fucked up too soon, and that’s where it stuck. And that’s why he is stuck in there, seething with anger.”

  Laria turned to look at David, hoping he didn’t think she was insane. He was frowning, but it was a thoughtful expression, not a cautious one.

  “Well?”

  He raised an eyebrow. “If it was his thesis, then I’d say the university he attended has the schematics of his project on file, doesn’t it?”

  “Exactly.” Laria grinned triumphantly. “And if you know where to look, and what you’re looking for…Which—why we didn’t see that he was an evil genius with the mind manipulation overtones of that thesis project, I’ll never know. But yeah…it’s all there, and by now, so are a thousand differing variations that are almost as dangerous as Wren’s.”

  “Are you sure you’re okay?” Sinister hovered around Murmur like a hummingbird trying to feed. While Murmur loved the attention under other circumstances, the current ones set her anxiety levels spiking.

  “I’ll be fine.” Even though she really wasn’t sure if that was true. They didn’t have the time to spend making sure that she had the mental capacity to process what was happening.

  It’s probably something you should make time for, though. Somnia’s concern was easily conveyed through her words, and even tone had begun to creep into these conversations more than initially.

  Murmur rubbed her temples, like she was trying to fend off a headache. Sure enough, the damn things were definitely piling up. All the damned things. I know. I know. But this, isn’t this more important? Didn’t you say we don’t have a lot of time to deal with this final step?

  Well, yes. This is the ideal time frame to undertake what we’ve spoken about. His strength will weaken when the entire continent has to pull from him and his reserves.

  I’m going to pretend to understand what it is you’re talking about. Murmur pinched the bridge of her nose and turned to look at Sinister. “We’re not that early that we can stand around here on the telepad and wait for the others to show up. We need to go see Neva.”

  Sinister pouted. “You’re always taking care of everyone else and never of yourself. And you wonder why we all worry.” She threw her hands up and sashayed her way into the workshop ahead of Murmur like she’d given up all hope.

  “You really shouldn’t taunt her like that.” Emilarth was suddenly at Murmur’s side and almost gave the enchanter a heart attack.

  “You’re one to talk. Taunting is all you do to your brothers,” Murmur quipped dryly.

  “Yes.” Emilarth winked at her. “But Sin isn’t your sister, now, is she?”

  Murmur felt the heat rush to her cheeks and quickly changed the subject. “So why are you all hanging around now. Like is it okay for people to know that you’re AIs?”

  Emilarth feigned surprise. “Whatever do you mean? We are but harmless NPCs, my dear. Quest givers and all. You have me wrong.”

  “Pull the other one.” Murmur rolled her eyes. “It’s got bells on it.”

  The feles AI laughed loudly, and her eyes sparkled with mirth. “You’re so easy to tease, Mur. Lighten up. It’s not the end of the world. Yet. Or, well, it’ll be different after this, but it won’t end.”

  “Thanks for making me feel so much better.” Murmur hastened her steps and caught up with Sinister as she entered the workshop, looping a hand loosely around her waist.

  It was busier than usual, and Neva’s eyes shone while her ears twitched, and her nose did that little scrunching thing that rabbits sometimes do. Murmur hadn’t known canines could do it too, but she learned something new every day.

  “Neva.” Murmur smiled. It was never difficult to begin a good mood around the luna. Hands down, one of the best things about this world was having found someone like Neva. No matter what, the little master crafter always made Mur feel like the weight was momentarily lifted. Gods knew she needed that right now.

  Not that she didn’t love her friends, but they all knew about everything that had happened. All eleven of them. People like Neva, they didn’t know. They wouldn’t even try to guess at something like that. It made being around her so much easier and so relaxing.

  Except maybe when it was busier than she’d ever seen it before, and there were huge chests lining the walls looking like they were meant to be going somewhere very soon. She really found herself hoping it was with her raid.

  “Mur! I’ve missed you. Trapped in that damned dungeon loop thing.” She held a wooden pencil between her teeth and was rummaging around in a box of things someone had brought in.

  Murmur raised an eyebrow as Telvar entered the room. “Why is there like, a physical box of stuff? Shouldn’t people just be able to drop it in the guild bank?”

  Telvar smiled at her. “If they’re a member of your guild, of course they can. But not everyone Neva acquires things from is from this guild, so they must resort to less convenient ways of good transportation.” He finished the statement with a flourishing bow.

  Murmur tapped her foot
and tried her hardest not to roll her eyes.

  “Too much?” Telvar asked, raising himself up so he stood to his full seven-foot lacerta height.

  “Way too much. With whipped cream, even,” Sinister answered before Murmur could. “Now be quiet. Some of us are trying to concentrate on lists Neva has placed in front of us.”

  Neva grinned up at Mur and beckoned her to come behind the massive crafting station to join her. The enchanter looked around, frowning slightly. “Has this all changed since I was last here?”

  Neva looked away, a flush hitting the pink of her ears. “Well, in order to craft better quality and higher tier items, I needed to upgrade pretty much every workstation and forge on the island. Got to keep you all protected and equipped, you know?”

  Murmur grinned. “Yep. Wouldn’t want to have old shit now, would we?” She knew it was a lot of fun for the crafter and was glad Neva found joy in it. Somnia was meant to be fun, and in reality, it was for most people. As long as they could make it to this next boss, and as long as they could defeat it . . . then everyone could keep having fun.

  “So why the trunks? Are you hinting that the guild should move out and leave the rest to the crafters?” Murmur tried to keep her voice stern, but she was smiling too much.

  Neva winked. “Well, now that you mention it…” She peeled off with laughter, and then her expression grew serious. “Down to business, though. I wasn’t sure if you’d have access to the guild stores in…wherever you’re going. I tried to make sure that if you take a couple of chests with you, you should still be good. You know, on top of the guild inventory, if it works. Never bad to be overprepared, am I right?”

  The nervousness was obvious. Neva’s shoulders were tenser than Murmur had ever seen, and her nose kept doing that bunny thing.

  “Excellent thoughts,” Murmur added, trying to put all her appreciation into that one comment. “We do appreciate you. So lucky we have you.”

  “Hey Mur!” Devlish yelled from the door. “The others are here. Did you want to let them into the crafting hall? See if we have anything for them laying around that might actually increase performance?”

  Murmur glanced at Neva, whose face was positively glowing. “You have no idea how much stuff we had to make to get the rest of the crafters up levels. Let them come in. We have so much junk, we’d otherwise just have to port to market to sell.”

  “They still make you schlepp it?” Murmur was surprised; she’d thought they at least had an auction system that could be used as easily as a guild bank.

  Neva laughed. “Of course not. Not if you’re using the auction house, but we take it to the markets in Pelagu. A lot of passers-through will stop and buy things just because they’ve seen it. These are too mundane to bother with the auction house fees, but good enough that I don’t want to sell them to NPC vendors. I can totally get more out of the players for them.” There was a business-luna’s gleam in Neva’s eyes.

  “Bring them in. Just a few at a time?” Murmur hollered over to Beastial before turning back to her master crafter. “You know, I’m really glad you talked us into expanding the crafting workshop. You’ve done so well with it. I’m so proud of you. Thank you.”

  Neva smiled and her canine teeth peeked out of her mouth. “Well, thank you for letting me call the crafting shots. You know, and giving you me full access to the treasury. Did you ever get your cooking higher?”

  Murmur laughed and shook her head. “Oh, gods, no. Never will, either. Supply me with all the food my favorite crafter in all of Somnia. Are you ready for the onslaught of high levels to outfit?”

  “Shush, you’ll offend them.” Neva motioned Murmur away with her hand. “Besides, I have work to do now, fitting all of these lovely folks with armor. No time to chit chat, because knowing you, you’re leaving sooner than later.”

  Murmur smiled to herself as she left the almost overflowing crafting hall. She seriously hadn’t realized Fable had grown so big. This was the first time they’d ever had a crafting arm of the guild. It was something she’d definitely want to institute in the future. It had been a long time since she last checked the guild roster. Beastial had been busy, too. She had no idea where he found the time.

  “Delegation, my dear friend.” Belius stood at her left elbow and almost gave her another heart attack. What was it with AIs and their silent approaches?

  “Seriously, Bel, don’t do that.” She glared at him. “And I’m still mad at you.”

  He regarded her for a moment. “If that’s because of what I did to Telvar, I do apologize, but I had to get a sample of an organic anti-virus somehow, and I couldn’t guarantee that any of the rest of us would have come out of that unscathed. I knew he would. He was never in actual danger.”

  “Says you,” she replied hotly. But she paused, took in a deep breath, and counted to five in her head before continuing their conversation as they walked. There really was a lot to this calming herself down. It worked, gave her enough time to analyze other aspects. Maybe she was growing up.

  “The guild has grown. I was just surprised by how much, in such a short time.” Pulling up her guild interface she ran through all of the names and the ranks and their permissions within the guild.

  It was so in-depth—and damned well-organized. She suspected that Neva had a hand in it. Since she’d been recruiting the crafters, it was highly possible.

  “Did you have anything else to tell me?” Murmur asked Belius absentmindedly. “I mean, apart from peeking in my head when I had my guard down.”

  “No. Not really. Just that Masha, Ishwa, and Risk are waiting for you in one of the gathering rooms.” He gave her a brief bow and smiled, in that creepy, disjointed locus way. “I shall take my leave of you, then.”

  Murmur really didn’t think locus were supposed to bow. She just wanted to go lay down in her bed and fall asleep for an unspecified amount of time, but they all knew that wasn’t going to happen.

  She pushed her hair out of the way, irritated at how it twined around her now. It almost seemed to be a separate entity sometimes. Tiachi had been quiet lately, but she was always wound securely close to her head. Murmur guessed it must be difficult to remain vocal when you were barely ever used for your main purpose.

  Walking into the hall, she found Devlish and Veranol already in there and suppressed her sigh of relief. It wasn’t that she couldn’t deal with the others, but she knew that when she came down hard on things, that while people might be nice to her face, they called her bossy bitch, and no-talent hack behind her back.

  Right now, she wasn’t emotionally set up to deal with that, so guild company was welcome.

  “Hi, guys,” she said by way of greeting, putting on her best professional level voice to try and pour some niceness into the other sentiments she was having.

  “Hey.” Masha stared at her for a moment before shaking his head like he was trying to knock water out of his ears. “Sorry. Feels odd, like I haven’t really seen you in a while.”

  Murmur smiled but thought that sounded distinctly weird. “Well, you know, this time we actually got some sleep.”

  Somnia Online

  Continent of Tarishna - Mikrum Isle

  Gathering of the Guild Alliance

  Day Thirty-Two - Early Morning

  Masha watched Murmur, uncertain as to the feeling of discomfort he experienced when he looked at her. There was a hazy reason just out of his reach, and the more he tried to grab at it, the more it slipped away. Had he been angry with her about something? He couldn’t quite remember, even though it was there, on the tip of his tongue so to speak.

  She spoke with the same self-assurance he’d known in her for the last couple of years. Working with Fable and healing a bunch of people who knew not to stand in shit should have been a lot of fun. But while they’d been raiding, things got a bit hazy, and he couldn’t tell why. He directed his attention back to the conversation, trying his best to concentrate on the words so he could deal with his head stuff later. Maybe he nee
ded to adjust the headset again.

  “…Neva has prepared a couple of trunks for us to take in our inventory with supplies in them, just in case. Probably a good idea, since we won’t know if we will have access to our guild bank in the next stage.” It sounded like Murmur was sick of saying this, or that her mind was elsewhere.

  “What do you mean, ‘not have access to it’? Why wouldn’t we have access to it?” Ishwa asked, his eyes narrowing. He was always so curious about everything, and probably a little bitter that Neva was the one doing everything for Fable, considering she was Ishwa’s sister.

  Devlish glanced at Murmur, who gave an almost imperceptible shrug. “It’s a new event that didn’t even undergo alpha testing. And to be honest, we’ve tackled some of these dungeons very differently. We aren’t certain that how things were solved wasn’t as big an element as that they were completed. For all we know, different key variations might trigger different final encounters. So we…” but he didn’t get further, because Risk crossed his arms and glared at all the members of Fable.

  “Look, I can handle being kept in the dark about some things. We got taken along for the ride with these last few dungeons, which is pretty cool of you all. But you also have to realize that we can’t do our jobs as our classes if you don’t let on with all of what you know.” The glare continued, focusing on each of them in turn, including Ishwa and Masha.

  Murmur sighed and rubbed her temples. Masha glanced around for Sinister but couldn’t see the blood mage anywhere. Strange. Sin could usually change Murmur’s moods easily.

  He could sense, without having any of those mind power abilities, that Murmur was struggling hard with what she could and couldn’t tell them. Wasn’t her mother a developer? Maybe they were secretly trying to iron out bugs.

  Like she could read his mind, the next words out of her mouth reflected most of what he’d thought. “Look. We don’t have all the answers. Frankly, I don’t even think the developers do. They gave the world so many different variations and possible combinations that even if they had another ten years, they probably couldn’t have tried them all.”