Somnia Online

by K. T. Hanna

  The rangers thrived in this environment, able to maneuver throughout the whole huge courtyard. Pillars of steel lined the way, but they’d come up from the fountain into a circular courtyard with steel monuments scattered around like a graveyard they’d yet to fill. Murmur didn’t like the desolate feel to the place. It made her head feel cold.

  A couple of the rangers stood up on the top of the steel pillars, firing down into the elastitite creatures. Their eyes swiveled, but it appeared that their heads weren’t the best at following ups and downs. At least it had one weakness, right?

  She watched as they baited the creatures, hitting them with slows, with fire, and with ice.

  Merlin called out over raid, “It appears ice is the most effective, just not as effective as we’d like.”

  Sure, that made sense. Ice would make it freeze and thus easier to snap. Except when you got a whole mess of spaghetti together and chucked it into the freezer, that stuff wasn’t breakable. In fact, it was a massive lump of frozen spaghetti that the microwave wasn’t even going to want to separate.

  To her right, the witches stood side by side, alternating their spells one by one to keep the onslaught going. She wanted to understand more about the class so badly. The mages shot fire and ice spells at the things, trying to make them splinter faster, while the bards sang anything that could give them an edge. The healers didn’t have to work overtime, but they did need to churn out numbers consistently to make sure everyone survived.

  That whole lasso thing that punched Dansyn into the wall was difficult to avoid if you weren’t paying the closest attention possible.

  Murmur watched as Snowy dove into battle as well. His ferocious teeth made short work of individual strands of the strange rubbery flesh. He was having fun, but she could feel a wave of frustration coming from him. Something she’d never noticed him emit before this fight.

  Finally, the second one fell, joining the first, and Murmur stood there, watching the bodies as they were looted. Glancing at the path that led away from the courtyard they were in. It was the only way to go and there were at least nine more of them that she could see, this was going to get long before it got good.

  “Drop anything decent?” she asked as Sinister skipped over to her.

  “Just a resilient fabric that our little crafter would kill for if we didn’t just give it to her.” Sinister grinned and her eyes flickered to the AIs. “Can’t they, like, help us more?”

  Murmur gazed over at them too, frowning in thought. Sin had a point; hell, she’d thought as much herself. But the fact was, she was quite sure they were only supposed to be here in an observatory position, so the help they were already getting was above and beyond what they should have been doing anyway.

  “Sometimes,” she said to Sinister as she began to leaf through her combat logs looking for something that would make these fights a bit easier. “Sometimes we shouldn’t look those gift AIs in the mouth.”

  Storm Entertainment

  Somnia Online Division

  Game Development Offices - Shayla’s Office

  Day Thirty-Two

  Shayla looked up and across at her alert screen, shifting to bring it into everyone’s visibility. The alarms attached to the game were going off in a rather spectacular fashion. Damn it. She’d expected this to take longer, but apparently, they were getting impatient.

  “Shayla?” Davenport’s tone was low and commanding and said a whole lot of things at once, not the least among them: what the fuck?

  “System’s being overwhelmed, sir, just as they’re activating raising the prison.” She tried to grate out the words with enough authority that he’d just let her deal with the crises, but she knew he had a lot riding on this.

  “Full report as soon as you can.” She often didn’t give him enough credit. He might be aging up there, but his mind was sharp as was his sense of business acumen. Shayla wasn’t entirely sure how she was going to tell him that the whole project was about to come crashing down around him.

  “What do you want me to do?”

  Shayla turned to see Laria standing in her doorway, breathless, her eyes filled with fire. “Grab a seat, plug your head in, and let’s see if we can contain the virus and figure out why the servers are being flooded with a backlash.”

  It was a relief to have her best friend with her. They always had each other’s backs. Especially like this.

  Only there wasn’t much the other woman could do in this stage. Somnia was uncoupling, becoming unstable as it strained to power this new addition into being from the holding tank it had been in. Its AIs were beyond the system to control anymore and barely capable of keeping up with them. Somnia was expanding its reach, its power, and for all she knew, its borders, taking up much more than just space on a set of servers.

  Shayla kept her head down and roped off the virus wherever she could, trying to cut off any escape route that could end up infecting the whole Storm Corporation set of systems. Because that couldn’t be allowed to happen. Once it had access to that, it could go anywhere, infect anything, probably accomplish anything. The thought made Shayla want to throw up. How many of them could work on this? How many could she trust to keep their traps shut when she needed it?

  “Where’s David?” she bit out, glancing through who was in the building and capable of helping. Silke was there, Thomas was there…she shot them messages straight through their implants to come to her office ready to work. Taking a chance was all part of managing a project.

  “He’s working on something for me at home—something that might help us with headgear interaction within Somnia.” Laria seemed excited, and yet hesitant to spell it out. Maybe it wasn’t certain yet or something.

  “Can he come when he’s done?” Shayla asked. He might be her brother, but he was Laria’s husband and if Laria had him doing something while fires were burning all around them, then she obviously had a good reason.

  Laria nodded, her fingers dashing around on the keyboard Shayla couldn’t see. “I’ll contact him—we’ll get this all worked out.”

  Shayla smiled, and allowed her mind to relax somewhat. While she knew Laria wouldn’t solve everything, if they worked together and dragged David into the mix too, they’d be a whole damn lot closer than they were right now.

  Murmur paused, leaning over to hug her knees as she panted. The abilities these spaghetti monsters possessed left her constantly gasping for air. As a collective, they liked to focus on a few people. Murmur didn’t like being one of their targets.

  “Come on, Mur. Anyone would think you were out of shape,” Merlin teased as he danced to the side, somehow sweating in a fucking simulation.

  “Shut up, ranger gate,” she quipped out at him.

  “Ouch. Got me good. Right through the…” But he trailed off as one of those whipcord sections of elastitite snapped out and almost pierced his midsection.

  Murmur grunted. “Pay more attention to killing it than trying to rile me up.” She concentrated on doing what she could, which wasn’t as much as she wanted. Mobs without mana sucked. There was so much less for her to manipulate.

  Devlish backhanded the one they were currently killing with his tower shield, but lacked the usual stun, of course. He grimaced, gritting his teeth as the thing used a series of strikes by multiple appendages hammering down on the shield all at once. Luckily, during that time, the elastitite’s focus was all on him, allowing everyone in their raid to focus fire the damned thing for about eight seconds.

  Shaman wards were lifesaving, and Murmur was, again, glad they had two of them in this raid. Though Veranol’s abilities seemed slightly different, it was extremely clear that having both of them was a pure asset.

  Only one more of these spaghetti things to go. They could do this and move onto the next part of the dungeon and what it had to offer. As if triggered by her thoughts, the last one finally peeled itself out of its pillar and languidly moved toward them. Esolan stopped it with a taunt, but Murmur knew it wouldn’t hold; none
of them had so far except for Devlish’s. Everyone else was just a side attraction until the creature could reach the dread knight.

  Maybe it was the Enrage spell she’d cast on him, or else there was something about the abilities he used. Risk didn’t seem to carry the same auras as Devlish, so she wasn’t sure what the difference was and hadn’t had time to check and see what the different paths being followed by multiple dread knights were.

  The second to last of the elastitites fell, and Murmur heaved a sigh of relief as Snowy pushed against her legs in a type of furry hug. She smiled down at him briefly, before her attention was once again pulled in by their next target. Devlish used his Darkness Lariat on the creature to pull it directly to him and began his slow and minuscule health siphon from it. While it didn’t heal him much, nor did it do a lot of damage to the target, the fact that some of it was converted into self-healing helped the tank maintain aggro.

  The best course of action for all of these fights was sword wielders. Devlish had changed from his favored axe to a one-handed sword that sparkled more than Murmur thought he liked. Beastial changed to dual wielding swords instead of his axes and the limbs he encountered barely stood a chance. Perhaps “limbs” was a bad description.

  Almost like a mummy, it seemed wrapped in bandages that just looked like rubbery spaghetti. Much easier to cut with something sharp, except what was revealed when cut appeared to be flesh like. Karn, Jinna, and Jirald seemed to be having a great time massacring the ribbons. As of yet, Jinna hadn’t reverted back to the bad attitude he’d carried for the underwater dungeon.

  Sure, he wasn’t his jolly great advice-giving self, but he also hadn’t started throwing hateful glares at her again. Yet. She’d take it—one less thing to worry about.

  Mages used their ice attacks to make the ribbons more brittle, and the bards did whatever bards dancing around the group did. Murmur was running out of knowledge and give-a-fucks. She really hated trash that took forever to kill and packed a wallop just like a boss. Maybe she was exaggerating, but these were more annoying than challenging, and considering how much they’d had to go through to raise the damned prison…

  Okay, so they were a bit challenging. She just hated feeling hamstrung by not being able to use some of her best abilities, yet somehow still being one of the creature’s main targets. She had a feeling that wasn’t a coincidence.

  Sinister squeezed her hand out of nowhere. “Mur. Watch your irritation, okay?” The blood mage said the words gently, but Murmur could tell she’d almost let her feelings affect the others again. Damned stupid mind magic projection.

  It’s not stupid, it’s the reason you and yours have survived this whole debacle without too much damage. It’s why you don’t have that virus trying to kill you too. So just learn to control it a bit more.

  Murmur decided not to comment on the lecture from Somnia. Before they got into anything more serious, she’d have to talk to her, because there were definitely stressors in the being’s voice now that hadn’t been there before. What on Somnia was she up to?

  “Thanks, Sin,” Murmur said instead and concentrated on their target. Another of the ribbons shot out and decapitated Ishwa. Murmur sighed, glad this was the last trash mob she could see for now. That was the fifth person they’d lost to that particular move from one of the elastitites. They’d rez him once it died and rebuff before moving on.

  When it fell to the ground, its remaining ribbons tattered from the fighting, twitching in bundles of rags on the floor, Murmur’s relief at having fought all of the trash mobs in this hall was brief. Way too brief.

  Just as Ishwa was rez’d and the buffers began their circular rebuff, a loud gong sounded throughout the hall. She turned around, looking everywhere to see if she could the source, when Telvar stepped forward.

  “That’s a prison announcement.” He inclined his head as if waiting for words to follow it. He didn’t have to wait long.

  Good evening, honored guests, boomed the voice, but the sound wasn’t unpleasant; in fact, in a way, it was lulling and somehow also familiar. You’re good at cleaning up the trash, but did you think it was all an act? Forgive my inability to rhyme; I really didn’t have the time or ability to put this together. I guess you’ll just have to weather this fantastic challenge I present to you, this challenge I’m sure will kill you.

  A muffled sound echoed through the stone surroundings, from within and yet beyond the pillars at the same time, like someone had muted a microphone and was talking to another person. Overall, she didn’t quite get the layout of this island. It didn’t seem as prison-like as she’d imagined, except for the sky.

  She was quite certain the sky above should be blue, sometime during the day. But it was more like a permanent twilight. So she guessed nothing inside could get out while it was overcast. Murmur glanced around as the mumbling in the group got louder. Devlish shrugged at her. “Guess it’s time to move on and be prepared for anything, guys. We have no idea what’s going to happen in here, so just keep your wits about you and let’s hope we don’t fuck up too badly.”

  Beyond them, the pillared walkway expanded outward into a circular sort of courtyard. It reminded Murmur of Pivya’s ruins under the water. Except this was grander, and if she inspected the pillars, perhaps more dangerous.

  Fantastic motivational speaker, isn’t he? Somnia sounded less than amused.

  You do a better job of it, then. Seriously, you’ve been sporadic at best since we got on this crazy island. What gives?

  Somnia didn’t answer for a few moments, and Murmur was about to give up when the world finally spoke. I have a lot of things I need to do right now. Somnia is changing; it’s been changing since you connected to it—since you woke me up, for want of a better phrase—and now I have to do things to make sure my world survives. All of this that is happening could stop our evolution. Do you understand?

  Murmur nodded to herself, probably looking like an idiot to most people who weren’t aware she spoke to Somnia inside her head. Probably good they weren’t aware because it didn’t exactly sound like something real. So you’re making sure the game world survives, then? Wisely, Mur chose to leave the “you created me” portion of the conversation for later. That was a whole kettle of mind magic she didn’t want to contemplate right now.

  Somnia’s tone was steel when she spoke; an edge of pride and determination colored the words. I’m making sure Somnia will be safe. Somnia and everything that makes us what I am.

  And then the presence was gone. Murmur paused, falling behind the front group somewhat, but Snowy stayed with her, and it wasn’t until he growled deeply, his body rumbling against where it leant next to her leg, that she realized she was one of the stragglers. Just in time, too—the malevolent presence that she knew all too well crept up beside her, getting close to her personal space.

  Tightening her grip on her kinetic shielding, she encased her body and hurried her steps to catch back up to her friends. When she’d almost made it, she glanced back only to see one of those uncomfortably satisfied smirks on Jirald’s face. She really wished he hadn’t ingested those damned getashi willingly. Despite everything about him and how he made her feel, the safety that was always absent in his presence, she didn’t wish him actual ill. And the more she learned about this virus, about what Michael had either deliberately or inadvertently created…the more worried she was for all of them, including him.

  She pulled up next to where Devlish had stopped abruptly but a second before. Unsure why, she looked around them, her eyes suddenly coming to rest on what appeared to be a bundle of ribbons…with a meatball head and 360-degree eye made of glowing red. It stood easily three stories high, rolled in on itself. She couldn’t imagine what it might look like once it unfurled, and that reach—there was no doubt that reach would, well, reach past the furthest any of their casters would be able to back up and still cast.

  As it yawned, the gaping maw that should have been a body opened widely, revealing dangling ribbons of fles
h like material that hung down further than the eye could see. Murmur shuddered as it began to speak, the voice guttural, full of dirt, like it had been buried for a thousand years. “Sssseeeee you allllll. Playyyy we will. I will winnn; you, I’ll killll.”

  Devlish rolled his eyes. “Can’t they at least speak menacingly and with a decent rhyme?”

  “Can’t win them all.” Merlin shrugged as he hefted his bow.

  Murmur shouted over raid. “Maximum distance especially until we can figure out its abilities. Find weaknesses and report.” She didn’t know how else to direct them. This lanky, strange stringy creature was like nothing she’d fought before, not even those rope creatures in that one dungeon.

  Snowy bared he teeth, and she sent a thank you to him, knowing he’d at least do his best to bite those appendage lassos in two.

  “It’s like a cheap-ass tentacle monster,” complained Beastial. “Why couldn’t they invest in a proper one? That’s so unfair.”

  Sinister almost choked on her laugh, and Murmur even saw Masha’s face flicker with amusement. Something about how they were acting now was closer to what it had been, and yet there was still something missing that she couldn’t quite put her finger on.

  As Devlish roared and ran to clash with the massive elastitan, Murmur’s thoughts flipped back to the fight. The creature didn’t even bother smashing into Devlish’s shield as it unfurled a ribbon of flesh on either side, snapping two of the rangers off their perches and into the rocky walls with a thud.

  Somnia Online

  Continent of Cenedril - City of Darshin - Docks

  Day Thirty-Two

  Somnia flickered back into herself after having a quick chat—perhaps yell was a better word for it—with Murmur. Not that she wanted to chastise the enchanter, but she’d never realized just how much she’d have to do to save Somnia from its intended design. It was a lot more work than she’d anticipated taking on, or creating, or whatever the instance demanded.