Somnia Online

by K. T. Hanna

  But as Risk’s Torment wore off, Devlish’s wasn’t quite up yet. And from the look on Esolan’s face, it appeared that his taunt type wasn’t working. As the grin of triumph began to spread over Jirald’s face, despite the fact that he was already down six percent health, Murmur wasn’t quite so sure that he was deferrable.

  He flickered away, jumping across space in a split second to land next to Sinister, plunging his dagger as he resurfaced.

  Sinister has taken 1780 points of damage (967 points of which has been mitigated by outside protection).

  At least her shielding had helped. The blood mage collapsed to the ground as the rogue screamed in frustration, lashing out at Exbo who’d stood next to his target, slashing him across the chest in a nasty gash that dropped his health by twenty-five percent.

  Jirald didn’t let up, hacking and slashing at the ranger with all his might, even as the healers poured their healing into him, managing to keep him upright. The rest of the raid focus fired the rogue, set on taking him down, but the grin on Jirald’s face only grew darker. He was determined to take his target down.

  But a flash of surprise crossed his face, and Murmur could see him trying to resist the force of the taunt. Oh, Jirald tried so hard. Resisting so much that every vein in his body stood out. Finally, as he faced Devlish, panting with the exertion to defy the game mechanics, Devlish shield bashed him in the face, leaving it momentarily bloody before the rogue’s innate regeneration kicked in.

  Ninety-two percent ticked over as Jirald launched himself at the dread knight with a scream of defiance and attacked with a flurry of blades Murmur had never seen before. She glanced down at Sinister, whose mouth was set in a hard line. Ah, he’d angered the blood mage, which was always extremely inadvisable.

  But hope tickled the back of her mind. It was going to be a long fight, but for just a moment, Murmur thought they might actually have a chance.

  The feeling was short-lived. This time, as Risk’s final taunt wore off, and the twelve seconds of overlap timer began, Jirald was waiting for it. Sure, he was down to eighty-five percent now, but that was a long way from dead.

  As soon as the overlap happened, Jirald was already gone. Just a blink of an eye is all it took for him to be standing right behind her, dagger through Murmur’s stomach as he twisted the blade.

  She felt it dig in, deep, through whatever the world had her think of as innards as it pushed through the skin on the other side. The pain was initially overwhelming. So much so that she couldn’t tell what was happening around her much past the growling death Snowy promised.

  Murmur fell forward onto her knees, coughing blood up onto her hands. She blinked in confusion in the dim light, like she couldn’t quite remember where she was. Her head felt light and woozy, and she could have sworn she should feel better. More than pain.

  Her vision swam, and all she wanted to do was lie down on the cold stone floor and just nap. But a wave of magic lifted her, filled her up and cleared her head. She could feel each part of her body that had been maimed begin to knit itself back together and wasn’t sure which part of the pain had been worse.

  “So close!”

  Jirald’s maniacal laughter drifted over to her now that her head was clear. She felt like such an idiot.

  “Don’t worry, Mur!” He laughed, even as Devlish forced the rogue’s attention again. “I’ll get you next time. Or I’ll just gut you over and over and over again.”

  “Mur?” Havoc sounded concerned, but he still wore that concentration like a cloak. “You okay?”

  “Fine. Let my fucking shield fall when Sin got hit. Wasn’t paying enough attention.” But she was now, and while that mistake almost made the raid have to waste a battle rez, she wasn’t going to make it again.

  Veranol tossed a ward on her, and Murmur nodded in his direction with gratitude. Snowy licked her hand before bounding over to where Jirald was getting the shit kicked out of him and joined in.

  Except that was wishful thinking. Jirald’s ability to deflect and dodge so many of the incoming attacks lent solidity to the fact that he was a damned good rogue. Even with everything aimed at him, all the weapons thrown his way, his health didn’t go down nearly as fast as she thought it should.

  Spells, though. They were the one thing he couldn’t deflect. Especially not with all of the other attacks he avoided. But she could sense his determination. It hadn’t even waned in the slightest. In fact, it had only solidified more.

  So far, about to hit eighty percent life, and there hadn’t been any special moves added into his arsenal. All he appeared to have got from his end of the deal was extra size and a massive hitpoint pool.

  He fought with a focus she didn’t think he’d ever had before, biding his time and waiting for the next lull in taunts. She shivered just thinking about it. Who would he hit? Her, her friends? Her wolf?

  She glanced at Snowy, the only one that gave her some relief. Basically, he was the only one she probably didn’t have to worry about.

  A grin washed over Jirald’s face with two seconds until he was freed. It sent a chill through her as she tried to decide which of her friends to ward first. He knew that’s how she’d react; he had to know. It’s part of what was making it so much fun for the bastard.

  The rogue jumped to where Veranol stood, executing his Sneak Attack in the split second of time the DoTs ticking away on him allowed. He cleaved through multiple shieldings, and right on the end of that attack, began to whirl his blades with abandon. The Flurry of Blades tore into the shaman, and his skin paled immediately.

  The onslaught of attacks on the rogue seemed to double as people used short duration cooldowns to do as much damage as they could whilst hoping they might loosen his focus on the healer.

  Just as Murmur was about to call out the resurrection, Risk managed to yank Veranol clear of the attack with his lasso. It all happened so quickly, and Veranol’s hit points dropped so low, Murmur’s heart sat in her stomach. But the HoTs kicked in and kept him alive, even as Jirald turned to face his next target.

  Karn barely dodged in time, so intent was she on attacking Jirald herself. She was constantly improving, but Jirald was just better. He beat her back, inflicting gashes and ripping holes as he did, dropping her health by seventy-five percent. The glee on his face made Murmur sick to her stomach, and for a second, she hated the quest requirement to not kill him.

  Jirald chuckled, continuing to fight from where he stood. “Almost. So many weaknesses to exploit.” He left Karn bleeding out, coughing up blood as the healers dashed to repair her body, and returned to facing Devlish with a renewed glint in his eye. It was like he was playing a game. A game where he had twelve seconds every minute or so to wreak as much havoc as he could.

  And now he’d tested out his bounds, she knew who his next target would be.

  It was like the train wreck she knew was coming and couldn’t see past, couldn’t prevent no matter what she did. Even piling up shielding, pushing Snowy toward the blood mage, and making sure she kept Sinister in sight didn’t save her.

  When the break came, Jirald was faster than he’d been previously. He made it there in less than a blink of an eye, and this time executed a double blow that cleaved her head clean off her neck.

  Murmur stood there like time had stopped, watching Sinister’s head roll away, her life bar immediately depleted. She barely even registered as Veranol called out that he’d resurrect her. Murmur’s gaze remained glued to that spot on the ground and the blood seeping out of the body. To the lifeless eyes as they stared at the feet of the raid members. Sin’s skin had immediately taken on an ashen hue, and regardless of whether it started out blueish, the effects still seemed so real they hit her in the gut like a wrecking ball trying to make her throw up.

  Snowy wasn’t by her side comforting her; he was in the thick ripping what he could out of Jirald’s hide. All of the sensations warred within her, and Murmur barely pulled back in time not to cover the entire raid with a wave of grief-
filled anger and revenge.

  The cold feeling of rage centered in her chest. Not at the world, not at the game, not at anyone other than Jirald. To him Somnia was a game, perhaps a bit more. He wasn’t even aware of how screwed he was with the adjustments he’d made to his damned headset. But to Murmur, Sinister was everything, and Sinister had been targeted because of Jirald’s hatred for the enchanter.

  She couldn’t forgive him for that.

  Murmur formed the spell in her mind, like she had what seemed like an age ago in one of the dungeons that seemed to blend with the others in her mind. Time slowed so much that she saw every strike Jirald executed on Merlin and his slow responses that barely managed to save him from Sinister’s fate.

  Even blinking her eyes took what seemed like forever. She summoned Insidious Lure to the fore. She wasn’t angry, really. Instead, there was a crystal-clear path that she needed to follow, or else more of her friends would suffer, and Murmur wouldn’t allow that.

  Insidious Lure

  Cast: Instant once released

  Type: Entrapment/Psychosis

  Duration: For as long as your will remains focused.

  Effect: This will lure your enemies into a trap of the mind, forcing them to see their worst fears and act on them, even to the detriment of their peers. It will continue until the caster releases the spell, or the enemies have killed each other.

  Caution: This spell can be mentally taxing and even damaging. Make sure your reasons for using such force are justified. Try not to get caught in your own nightmare along the way.

  Last time she’d used it, she’d felt such overwhelming guilt afterward. But not now. No, now it was a means to an end. Releasing it, even though she knew there were only a few seconds left before Devlish could taunt again.

  It hit Jirald with a warning.

  System Warning. This particular subject will become immune to this over time. Be cautioned against overuse. Do not succumb to its Lure yourself.

  That was okay, though—she had other tricks up her sleeve.

  Jirald stopped in place, his hands clutching his head for a moment. When he looked up, his eyes were haunted, like he could see something they could not. A sneer passed over his face as he grabbed his daggers and lurched toward Ishwa.

  Devlish’s taunt popped up just as Ishwa managed to blink out of Jirald’s reach. Murmur cringed. That hadn’t gone as planned. Her only other option was far too long a recast. She’d have to time it perfectly so it hit on the next window. It would buy her time to figure out what to do about the rest of it.

  “Good call.” Ishwa was suddenly next to her. “I know his family. His dad gave me my first internship, so we know each other. You couldn’t know I’d become a target.”

  For a moment she wanted to ask if he could read minds, but she was focused on disabling Jirald as much as she could. In fact, the attack on Ishwa and the beheading of Sinister seemed to have spurred the entire raid into defeating the damned rogue.

  Sixty-four percent left. They’d whittled him down a decent chunk in a short amount of time, even though it felt much longer than it had been.

  Sinister built up her healing spells again, needing to tap into Jirald to fuel the way her healing worked. There was a grim determination to the set of her jaw now. He’d crossed the line and pissed her off.

  She only hoped everyone else felt that way.

  It was like his sheer arrogance, the realization that Jirald was really setting out basically to player kill each and every one of them, had hit the rest of the raid. Their rotations smoothed out, flowing into each other, effectively lifting their DPS. Even fractions of seconds of difference in timing made an impact. By the time it came for Murmur to make her next move in time with the onset of his next twelve seconds of freedom, he’d managed to hit fifty-five percent health.

  Feedback Loop - Reckoning

  Cast: Instant - 120-minute recast

  Type: Offensive - Maximum 4 targets

  Duration: Half the level of the caster in seconds

  MA Cost: 150 MA for the entire duration

  Warning: This is a spell that you will need to consider the ramifications of deeply before casting. Overuse could result in permanent scars to your psyche. It will also heavily impact your current MA availability.

  Effect: Must be used in conjunction with the psionic MA Thought Sensing and Thought Projection. Pluck any type of memory out of the head of an attacker, foe, or friend and create a feedback loop in your target(s) mind(s). They will be stuck in this loop and not attack anyone for the duration.

  Effect Warning: Note that this is a cycle of torment and will render the target useless for its entire duration. Use with caution.

  Murmur readied herself to cast the spell, just as the taunt dropped. Her stomach bottomed out when she did, lurching as the impact of the spell hit Jirald. Surprise washed over his face, and Murmur barely got out her raid warning. “Twenty-five seconds, full out DPS.”

  The DPS didn’t even blink, but they pushed up their output with cooldowns and potions and anything else they could throw at him. Meanwhile Murmur could feel the anger and frustration, the hopelessness. She’d pulled the only memory from him that she could think of, something that she knew well enough to inflict on him over and over again.

  The constant death loop she’d sent him into what seemed like years ago now. He was experiencing it on high speed over and over. The hopelessness and doubt grew inside him, but the anger and frustration took the brunt of it.

  Out with her, the raid went at it. Her friends pulled out all the stops. The rangers attacked with Jumpshot and Flameshot, combining attacks and fueling their damage with determination. Karn and Jinna Hamstrung him on cooldown, bled him with the help of potions to augment their damage, and used Stab in what seemed to Murmur to be a bit of self-vindication.

  Sinister’s Blood Grenade went off multiple times, and Murmur felt that it had become distinctly personal for them both. Havoc even went so far as to release Abomination, which he didn’t use often because of the concentration needed to focus on a construct and pet. It pulled from Riasli’s corpse, or the dust that was left from it, creating a stone-like golem that punched so hard Murmur could have sworn she heard bones breaking.

  Mages showered him with their most powerful spells, their longest and harshest DoTs, while Rashlyn and Telvar laid into Jirald like they were fighting their own demons. Mellow and Cardishan contributed vials and bottles in an array of colors Murmur hadn’t seen used before, and the bards built up a crescendo of Discordant Melodies that hurt even her ears.

  Jirald’s health plummeted, fifty percent, forty percent, and down past thirty percent with a couple of seconds left on the spell.

  It was then that his eyes regained focus and homed in on Murmur as he managed a grin despite the pain in his head. Maybe it hadn’t been the best idea to use the vision she’d used. Hindsight being all twenty-twenty and all that. She kicked herself, but just as the spell wore off and he began to lurch toward her, Devlish threw his Torment on him, forcing the rogue to turn away.

  Murmur didn’t relish the next lull. She just hoped they could kill him in the remaining two or three, without losing more people and running out of resurrections.

  Masha: We aren’t killing him, right? First up, he’s Jirald, and second, I don’t really want the quest to punish us.

  Murmur thought for a moment before replying. I think I know what we can do, but it’s going to require excellent timing.

  Masha: Can we help?

  Yeah. Just—Veranol will let you know when DoTs need to stop, and damage needs to pull back. Bleeds will have to be gone, direct damage only for the last few percent. The idea formed in her mind, making complete sense as long as her theory was correct.

  “What are you thinking?” Sinister was there, her voice strained under her levels of concentration.

  “Gotta Forestall. If I do, it should let us almost kill him without killing him, and technically fulfill the quest.” Murmur kept her eyes trai
ned on his back as his health hit twenty-five percent and kept heading south.

  “If it didn’t mention punishment, I wouldn’t care about the damned quest.” Sinister pouted but left it at that. Murmur knew she approved about as much as any of them would.

  It wasn’t like Jirald had been captured like James. Everything Jirald was doing was just typical for Jirald. No one had influenced him. He’d chosen this himself.

  The next lull was about to hit them, and Murmur was certain she’d be the target. He was angry at her, in a magnified way that was completely her fault considering the Reckoning she’d put him through. Forestall Death had to be the answer, because the way he was, not defeating him wasn’t an option. There had to be no doubt in the rogue’s mind that he’d been bested even in boss form.

  Forestall Death

  If applied before potential death takes place, this will enable you to maintain your health at 0.5 hit points as long as you are receiving some sort of healing effect.

  Effect: Target is able to ward off death for a limited period of time and will not die when they should have, as long as heals are actively channeled in their direction.

  Cost: Requires Mental Acuity to be at 60

  Caution: This spell can only be used on one person at a time. Attempting to use it twice at once is not recommended. This will usually result in things worse than death.

  Eighteen percent hit just as Risk’s taunts dropped. Jirald vanished in a whirl of smoke so fast Murmur’s blood froze. He was behind her; she could feel it. Her ridiculous mind ability to slow things down to her perception received all her hatred right then and there.

  “Shouldn’t have reminded me, Murmur.” His breath was hot against her neck, and Tiachi screamed at him in locus even as both knives plunged into Murmur’s body, angling out each side of it from the middle.

  You have been hit by Jirald`s Spite.

  You take 2,483 damage. Your shielding absorbs 1,042.

  You have died.