by K. T. Hanna
She could feel the gripes before they knew they had them themselves, rising up in the backs of their minds. There wasn’t time to get their hackles up. Without a second thought, she sent out a feeling of general contentedness. There was plenty of time for them to get pissed off later because she had a feeling they’d wipe a couple of times on any last boss in a place like this.
They were greedy players without any real tie to Somnia. They’d never been connected or able to use their abilities in the outside world. They didn’t have a voice in their head that told them things about Somnia that no one else would know. So they didn’t understand. And she was going to make sure they didn’t ruin it for those who did.
Storm Entertainment
Somnia Online Division
Game Development Offices - Conference Room 2
Day Twenty-Six
Shayla glanced nervously around the conference room, remembering the meeting earlier that morning. She shuffled her feet as she leafed through the report file to make sure they hadn’t compiled anything unnecessary. She’d made Laria lay down on the couch in the office with stern instructions to take a nap while she compiled the information.
Not to mention that in her current state, Shayla was fairly certain Laria might punch James’s smug expression right off his face, which was the last thing they needed.
He wasn’t late; Shayla was early. She couldn’t get rid of the bundle of nerves pooling in the middle of her stomach. This had to tide him over. It was a lot of data, and a lot of research statistics. In essence it was exactly what the contract stated they were entitled to. Not a thing more or less. Technically.
She really hoped Davenport had something up his sleeve like he’d implied.
James stepped into the room, a suit worth more than his salary at Storm adorning his body. It buttoned with a single button in the front, a pristine white shirt and navy tie shining out from beneath.
Even his hair was waxed in such a way that he looked smarmy. She pushed down on the sigh of relief she felt at having told Laria to nap. The grin on his face made even Shayla want to punch it right off him.
Instead, she put on her own fake smile and inclined her head slightly. “Good morning, James.”
He raised an eyebrow and pushed his glasses up the bridge of his now. Then he simply crossed his arms and waited.
The urge to snap at him was great, but would accomplish nothing. She knew it, and she still had to fight her instincts. Shayla forced herself to speak in a non-committal tone, keeping it neutral and pleasant.
“You’ll find all of our company research and the development plans for the headsets here. Be warned.” She saw a brief flicker of irritation at those words and pushed on. “This is a lot of data. It shows everything our team has tried, dismissed, failed at, and all of the successes and partial improvements as well.”
He blinked as he received the file through the system, and a frown began to form on his face. Like he hadn’t expected for them to cooperate this much and didn’t know what to make of it. “Thank you.”
The word sounded so forced, with no genuine feeling behind them at all. Not that Shayla minded—she knew he was trying to catch them off guard. She’d been hostile toward him since he called a retrieval team to go to Laria’s and take her daughter. It was sheer luck that Wren had woken up in time.
Shayla wasn’t sure how much longer their luck was going to last. But if this could buy them a bit more time until the AIs were back on their feet and the world of Somnia was stable again? She’d do it.
“You know, Shayla, I didn’t expect you to cooperate so much.” His eyes searched her expression for any hint of a clue.
She smiled again in response. “Of course. Storm Entertainment honors our contracts to the letter. It would be bad business if we were to renege on any of our commitments.”
For a few moments he stood watching her before he finally uncrossed his arms. Letting out a little sound of irritation, he let out a short laugh. “I stand corrected. I’m glad we’ve been able to find a cordial middle ground. Hopefully we can have a great working relationship for the next year.”
It took all Shayla’s willpower not to correct him down to ten months. “So do I,” she said instead and watched as he left the room.
Bravado was not her thing, but hopefully this would be enough to buy enough time for the kids to save the game from falling into an irretrievable cascade error and bankrupting Storm Entertainment.
Murmur stood next to Devlish. He was panting next to her as he tried to catch his breath after the most recent confrontation with those damned infected Ciricians. Movement through the tunnels had been severely slowed down by the onslaught of their attackers. They both looked up at the huge structure in front of them.
Now they stood on a massive ledge that ran around a huge circular chamber. It was so wide that she could barely see the other side of it. The path they stood on that ended up dropping off was about ten feet wide.
Suspended in the middle of the gigantic cavern, over what appeared to be an abyss, was a massive structure that looked somewhat like a bee hive. Lines of thick golden rope, or perhaps something similar, ran from the huge dome to the hive anchoring it to them. Each rope-like attachment connected to the structure directly at what appeared to be an opening in the hive.
And it was definitely a bee hive. Suspended over the nothingness beneath them.
Most of it made sense now. The Cirician appeared to have a structured sort of hierarchy. Their arachnid tendencies had overshadowed the sickly black and off-greenish yellow stripes that riddled most of their bodies. In some twisted way, they did resemble bees. At least, sort of. From their behavior, it would make sense that they had a hive, perhaps not one quite this large that sat in the middle of the damned zone they needed to heal, but a hive made sense.
Now that she thought about it, anyway.
Murmur watched as the creatures scurried about along the walkways, in and out of the open holes, tracing patterns as they moved. She could see a sickly green glow emanating from several of the openings, and the only information her net fed her was the unease she could feel inside.
No amount of suggestion, no amount of gently sending in reassurance seemed to work. Whatever they were infected with, it affected their minds. They weren’t susceptible to her influence.
Shit.
“Plan?” Risk asked gruffly as he came to stand with Devlish and Murmur at the front of the raid. His dark eyes were narrowed, like he was ready to yell at someone if the plan wasn’t ready five minutes ago.
“Kill things?” Devlish asked, but the humor was gone from his voice. Murmur could tell he was tired.
“Generally, that’s what we do. But you did make a big deal about having other ways to deal with these dungeons, so I’m waiting for you to show us what.” There was grudging respect in his voice, and Mur could tell he’d never really thought about other ways to approach the instances, but at the same time he sounded pissed off. Risk was one big juxtaposition waiting to explode.
“Thanks.” Devlish squinted up at the monstrosity. “Got any beegone? You know, like something to flush them out.”
Risk cocked his head to one side and frowned. “It’s really no time for jokes. But if you’re not joking, then flush them out with fire. Fire kills everything.”
He had a point, but they didn’t know what the hive was made of, or how flammable the infection could be. Risk was right in a way, but there were lots of things they could use to flush them out if they had to. Things that might not make them raging, lit-on-fire mad.
Still, she stood there, eyeing the structure. They could sever the pathways that acted like ropes to hold it in place. But that would leave the question of whether or not their opponents could fly, in which case dropping the hive negated any type of benefit. Plus, she was quite certain this had been the home of the Ciricians originally, and she didn’
t think the queen would be happy with them destroying it.
“You know there’s a boss in there, and that it’s probably the source of the infection, right?” Devlish sighed, as if he knew Murmur would know but felt compelled to state the obvious anyway.
“Of course.” Except he could tell from her voice that she’d figured out a way to fight these and wasn’t happy with it.
“Spill.”
She sighed. “First up, we should try and save as many of these creatures as possible. We know the virus they suffer from isn’t their fault, so we can definitely help. As long as we don’t come into contact with the infected source before we get a cure to the creatures, we’ll be okay. I’m just not sure how viable that is, and how much Merlin can conjure up.
“The difficult thing will be to get the antidote to them so we can relieve them of their burden. We have to be able to distinguish between healed ones and those who are still under the influence. The latter we have to kill because we have no other choice. But if there’s a way to cure them, then we should at least attempt it.”
“I should have known.” Devlish sounded relieved. “At least here, you don’t rush in killing first and asking questions later.”
“That only leads to needless deaths and repair costs.” Murmur spoke the words out loud, and it was like something somewhere hit a gong. Like it was trying to prove her wrong. Or perhaps even make a point. “And, well…when you can feel the terror, rage, pain, and whatever else the opponents feel, it gets difficult not to try and find alternate solutions.”
Two mages—one from Spiral who she believed was Etriad, and another from Exodus by the name of Dalvin—began to argue. Their voices were loud and carried volume-wise to where she stood with the tanks. But they weren’t so close that she could tell what they were saying.
The sound crescendoed slightly and muffled what Devlish was saying to her. “Sorry, Dev. Can you repeat that?”
“I said we should see if we can clear out some of the potential mobs inside that thing before we try to do anything too crazy.” Devlish had raised his voice enough so that she could hear him over the din of the argument the mages were having.
She appreciated his effort, but it was getting harder to plan their attack and keep an eye on those two troublemakers. Spinning to face their location, Murmur cut Devlish off with a wave of her hand—not that she’d needed to, since it was obvious the commotion was irritating him too.
Masha and Risk began to move toward the mages, but Murmur knew instinctually that it was already too late. The two mages had gradually moved closer to the hide. They punctuated each word of their argument with movement, stomps of their feet. The chittering sound Murmur had heard so frequently on the path here became amplified by the hundreds, its noise overwhelming.
The two mages stopped, looking around them, as if they didn’t understand what they’d just done and where all the noise was coming from.
Groups of infected Ciricians began to pour from all of the exits and entrances in the hive. Some of them had webs; one whole group even had wings, and others ran down the golden ropes on high alert.
Murmur watched as the two mages took a step back, but they didn’t move fast enough for foes whose alarms had already been sounded. A large claw that strangely resembled a praying mantis rose up from one of the many approaching Ciricians. Murmur watched in horror as the creature severed the mages’ heads one after another.
All in the blink of an eye.
And as the hive swarmed the raid, time began to flow properly for her again. She sent out a thought to Snowy, to run and hide and just be there when she got back. She could already tell this death was going to linger in her mind, and some part of her remembered to be worried about her guildies and whether or not they’d experience the same disconnect upon dying.
Even so, she was surprised by the sharp pain that rang through her body. Looking down, she could see the tips of a pincer stuck through her abdomen. She coughed up blood as the creature withdrew the appendage, widening the wounds.
“Fuck.” The world turned grey, and the pain set itself in her skull, as if she was inside a bell that was being rung. “This is so not good.”
Murmur resurrected just down the path from the entrance to Vahrir. At least these higher tier dungeons didn’t send them back to a bind point; they used the old near the dungeon technique. She hoped the mobs hadn’t respawned. Her head was killing her, and she felt like she’d pretty much been stabbed with two huge, hooked knives. The residual pain from the death didn’t appear to be diminishing the more she died. If anything, it was getting worse, lingering for longer.
If she focused on her body, it was like she could still see it forming in code though she was already in it. Each tiny piece of algorithm a part of herself. The pain as she moved was real, but she knew it was like an echo of what had gone in the past. Maybe she’d figure it out when shards of Michael’s brain weren’t trying to infect everything in Somnia.
I’m unsure of why your level of connection makes this an issue for you. If anything, it should make it easier to ignore.
Murmur shrugged as she walked forward to join her guild mates. The brain’s reluctance to die, perhaps? Humans aren’t known for their willingness to pass on.
True. Yet you breathe poisoned air and you kill each other. Humans are odd.
Murmur couldn’t argue with that.
Sinister stood beside Havoc, her skin pale as she bit her lip in consternation. Her brow was pinched, and she looked a little shaky on her feet. Had Murmur’s suspicion been correct? Was the deeper connection responsible for the increased pain and memory effects she’d been experiencing? Did that mean the rest of them had it now? She knew they shouldn’t have been so hasty in agreeing to their headset modifications.
“Sin?” Murmur spoke softly, not wanting to startle the blood mage.
She looked up at Mur and smiled weakly. “Good thing we can respawn, right?”
“Having aftereffects?” Murmur sidestepped the question, studying Sinister’s expression intently as she continued to look her over. “You don’t look well.”
“Seen yourself lately?” Sinister scowled and then sighed rubbing the bridge of her nose. “Sorry. I’m feeling testy. I’m pissed off that those idiots aggro’d the entire hive.”
Murmur remained silent for a moment, sorting through the tumultuous emotions streaming from her Sinister. She spoke as gently as she could. “Stupid deaths in a raid are even worse, aren’t they?”
Sinister nodded emphatically and winced, probably caused by ghosting pain. Her body seemed to shake slightly, shivering, but her voice sounded steadier when she responded. “Not the time to talk about it right now, but yeah. That was definitely unexpected.”
Murmur put an arm around her shoulders and squeezed Sinister gently, letting her arm linger there afterward. Sin leaned into the touch as Devlish approached them. He kept shrugging his shoulders as if trying to dislodge something. Murmur surmised he was trying to get rid of the strange after death sensations.
“Reviewing the logs, I’m not sure they could have avoided that. I mean, aggroing more than just a small group of them,” Devlish interrupted. “From what I can see these mobs seem to be linked or something. If we want to pull them individually or in small groups, it’s going to be difficult. We’ll have to sever their connection to each other or something.”
Murmur groaned. “Lemme go over my bag of tricks. I have some really obscure shit in here that I haven’t necessarily used because circumstances.” In the back of her mind she wondered if she could always just force a spell. It seemed she’d been adjusting her existing ones lately by willing them to be more than they were. It exhausted her, flashed a heap of warnings at her, but for the most part they’d at least been useful so far. Tiptoeing around potential minefields was fun! She just never knew what backlash would throw at her.
Masha appeared next to h
er at the front of the cave entrance, an apologetic grimace on his face. “I’m so sorry, Murmur. Dalvin can be a hothead. He’s also not used to anyone other than Ishwa out-damaging him. I’ve warned him.”
Murmur sighed. “There’s not much we can do right now. We don’t have any back up people yet from any of the guilds. I’ve got alerts set so that I know when the person hits an appropriate level. Don’t worry about it too much.”
“Technically, we at least now know we have to isolate groups from the hive somehow so they can’t alert the others.” Devlish kept his tone neutral. “You know, so we got something from it at least.”
Risk took that moment to jog up, his face like a thundercloud. “Etriad fucked up. Sorry. He’s on probation now.” Murmur got the distinct impression that he wasn’t just pissed off at the mage.
Devlish raised an eyebrow. “Harsh, but probably a good idea.”
“Of course it is. It’s a new dungeon. We don’t know the layout, and we don’t know the aggro radius of the creatures in it. Stepping out of line like that deserves probation at the very least, even if it’s only because of the cost of repairs.” Risk took a deep breath before continuing, but more for controlling his anger. “We aren’t used to moving at this pace. To figuring out if anything can be done that means we don’t have to kill shit.”
There it was. Risk seemed angrier than Murmur would have thought, but he didn’t appear to like changing how he did things and had a huge chip on his shoulder. As a general rule, running a raiding guild required a lot of wipes to learn new content. The only reason Fable hadn’t wiped as much as in previous games was the option to take different approaches to solving dungeons. Not everything involved killing if you had the patience to figure it out. Well, and maybe a little bit of caution because they hadn’t known if she could die in-game to begin with.
“Still though, it seems to have helped us a bit.” She tried to smooth over his irritation, but he didn’t seem the reasonable sort. He stalked off to his guild group, face mimicking a thundercloud. Yet another reason to only raid with her own guild. If she’d only had another option.