by K. T. Hanna
Now you’re thinking.
Yeah, yeah. It wasn’t Somnia’s place to tell Murmur how to play the game. It had been remiss of her to expect it. She’d been gaming for years and should be used to figuring things out herself. She should have been more alert about things that had to be more than they seemed.
Keeping her wits about her, she made sure to inspect every surface from as far away as she could. The ice walls were so blue, with endless reflections in on themselves. If she wasn’t mistaken, as they moved further into the huge cavern, she was almost certain there were openings in the walls, waiting for them when they least expected it.
Either it was paranoia, or it was her forcing her observational skills. Pushing down instinctively, she activated Earth Shielding Forte, only to be greeted with pushback, and a notification in her vision.
This ability has no effect in this icy wasteland. Please be advised that in order for druidic Earth Shielding abilities to function, there must be an overwhelming presence of that element.
Gritting her teeth, she called out a warning to the raid instead. “Be careful, there are creatures locked inside these walls waiting for us.”
While the raid had been on high alert before—as they should have been due to the collapse in the previous section—now they became actively cautious.
A ripple of power flowed through the room, buffeting every single one of the raid members, moving them slightly. Weapons were drawn immediately, their defenses piqued, and she could almost feel the underlying will of the raid to be done with this encounter.
So sad, you saw through our plan
And thus, we must think of another
Welcome the drain hole you fear again
Think of this zone like a brother
Beneath them the floor began to shift, and Sinister’s hand tightened around Murmur’s, but it didn’t explode, and it didn’t just fall away. Instead, it sloped down into the middle like one of those old coin games where you rolled the coin down a chute and it went around and around until it landed in the bucket.
Just like it had in that previous zone.
At least they weren’t being washed down this one.
The slick ice made it impossible to find purchase, and once Murmur gave up the effort to try and stay afloat and let herself fall, it was almost like they were swallowed up by darkness. The only thing that remained real to her as the raid fell down the drain was Sinister’s hand gripped tightly in her own.
Not knowing where they were going but for the long and winding free falling slide made her oddly understanding of what it had been like for Alice. Suddenly, they tumbled out onto another platform, in a dark cave. Wind whipped through the surroundings, bringing frigid air just this side of frostbite.
Congratulations. You have made it through to the second level of Tieflos. Here you will find what you seek is not what you thought. Remember to keep moving, or you might not wake up!
Murmur shivered, unsure why that last comment felt it was directed only at her. Moving, they had to remain moving or that damned debuff was going to kill them. She stood, swaying from one foot to another, while the rest of the raid picked itself up.
“Mur.” Masha was beside her, and she hadn’t noticed him approaching. Her sensing nets should have warning her. She’d have to check them over. It seemed they’d been limited yet again. That’s what she got for learning to rely on an ability that could apparently be negated sometimes.
“What’s up?” she muttered, her eyes trying to scan every inch of the dark cavern. It was mostly rock with some ice-covered stone on the ground. This definitely wasn’t a part of the proper dungeon.
“What the fuck is going on?” Masha’s tone sounded good natured and almost jovial, but she could see past that.
His guild hadn’t encountered any fucked-up zones before. They’d just gone in and done killing and winning. On the other hand, Fable had managed to solve most dungeons in completely unique ways that probably wouldn’t have been possible without the whole system being infected. The only thing was, she couldn’t exactly tell him that.
When you’re right, you’re right.
Shut up. You’re not helping. But Somnia was right, and Murmur had to figure out how to handle this. There was no better place for it. Here, beneath the craggy, sharp rock face that rose above them into blackness without letting any outside light filter inside, her imagination definitely wasn’t on its best behavior. And she had to think on her feet while moving constantly.
“Well, whenever we encounter dungeons, they sort of, give us options. We can kill shit, or solve shit. This one, however, was apparently designed to be one, huge practical joke.” There, that sounded believable.
Risk grunted, and his menacing eyes had a more thoughtful look to them this time. Murmur almost jumped in shock at not having noticed him approaching either. What was wrong with her abilities?
“So you’re saying this zone is trying to catch us unawares?” He sounded like he didn’t believe that for a moment, even if the evidence surrounding them was trying to prove it. His suspicions hadn’t lessened much, but at least he wasn’t actively yelling at her.
“In a nutshell.” Sinister’s voice rung out confidently next to them. “Not the best practical jokes, and not the safest, but we’ve managed to ruin one of them already and it moved us to the next level, so all we have to do is solve the rest of them, and we’re done.”
“You make it sound so easy.” Masha smiled, his eyes searching through the dark area they had landed in. “Do we know the way out yet?”
“You’re just going to take this information at face value?” Risk’s patience appeared to be wearing thin. “Is this really how you run your raids?”
Masha shrugged. “I may not be guilded with Fable, but I’ve been in enough games with them to know Murmur and her group aren’t about to pull a fast one like this. Remember, they’ve been dying and getting hurt just as much as we have.” As always, the cleric spoke in clear and impartial words.
Risk stared at Masha for a few seconds before nodding reluctantly. “We haven’t been in a dungeon like this before, and I have no idea what to expect.” It was a grudging admittance, but Murmur admired the strength it took to make it. Even stepping side to side, she could see the effort it took him not to lose his temper at something he didn’t understand.
“I think we’re in a safe spot, or about as safe as we can get in this funhouse.” She glanced around, trying to find the exit, and going on the tug of her bond with Snowy, she knew where they needed to head. “Let’s buff up and head out and follow the only path there is. Regardless of how we do it, we need to get through this dungeon.”
She took confident steps toward where Devlish and the rest of her team stood, hoping no one could see how confused or out of her depth she was. There was a roaring boss out there that had been waiting for them for longer than she cared to admit. She hoped impatience wasn’t one of its superpowers. Her only guide in all of this was the tether between her and her in-game wolf. Any success ahead of them was completely relying on it.
The guild navigated a spiral stone staircase back down onto a solid icy platform. Every fiber of her being screamed at Murmur to climb back up and stay there until the world came to an end. Only that was exactly what they were here to prevent.
Find the puppy, find the boss
Find yourselves another fight
See the puppy, roll the moss
Live to see another night
“I really don’t like riddles.” Risk bit out the words, loud enough for all to hear, and the rest of the raid mumbled in agreement.
It did seem to light a fire under most of them. They were being led around by a dungeon that changed on whim depending on actions, debuffed them, and apparently thought for itself.
“It’s Snowy, isn’t it?” Merlin asked softly, only loud enough for Sin and Mur to hear.
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br /> “Yeah, I think it is. All I can do is feel where he is. My other sensing capabilities are all mixed up unless a person is about three feet away from me. I have next to no control over anything Snowy does right now, although I don’t think we’ve ever had a master and pet sort of relationship.” She was worried. Had he been infected and was fighting it? He’d always been more of a fighting companion than a pet.
“I’ve read better riddles on the back of cereal boxes.” Jinna’s comment made Murmur smile for a brief moment, and he grinned at her as if he’d accomplished his task.
“I guess we have to find the puppy, right?” She felt far more hesitant than she sounded, at least she hoped so. Signaling to the rest of the raid, Devlish began to march forward, Murmur and Sinister close on his heels.
The ice platform widened into another hall, but the walls of this one were different. They were sheer rock like on a cliff face, and the water that ran down their surface wasn’t as fluid as she’d have thought. It looked like blood as it glugged down, and the dark trails it left behind did nothing to dissuade her idea.
It was like the walls and floor, the ceiling and cold were warning them to go back, to stay away. The groups behind them moved cautiously in tight knit formation. It only took one explosion to make them warier of their surroundings and more protective of one another. Maybe there was hope for them yet.
Suddenly, inside of a split second, the surroundings around them altered, and they stood on the outer edge of what appeared to be stadium seating. The rest of the cavern looked like a football venue without the lines in the ice. If possible, her sensing nets went even more haywire, leading to a pulsing ache behind her eyes. Considering she couldn’t turn those abilities off anymore, it was just a fantastic turn of events.
Behind them, an icy gate slammed shut, leaving them locked in the arena with no exit in sight.
“Fan out. Keep your guard up,” Devlish barked out, his own tower shield pulled up high, as if he was waiting for ice javelins to fall from the ceiling and kill them all.
Murmur shook her head, trying to get a hold on her abilities. They weren’t reliable anymore. She felt blind and unused to compensating for her lack of power. She couldn’t do anything to fix the rising panic she knew was occurring around her. Without Devlish, they wouldn’t even have direction right now. Murmur was failing abysmally.
“It’s okay, Mur. Breathe.” Sinister’s whisper reached her ears just as the squeezing of her fingers reassured Mur of the blood mage’s presence. A sensation of relief washed over her, and she allowed herself a measured breath to return her focus to normal.
Looking out over the vast arena, she could see the groups fanning out cautiously. There were no monsters shrouded in the cliffs that she could see. No, the monsters—from ice fae to gobcrabs and aboms—were all sitting in what appeared to be icy bleachers on the other side with little flags in their hands.
A ferocious growl reached her ears, and Murmur sought out its source.
Snowy stood in the middle of the arena, his fur positively glowing and his jaws wide open in a vicious snarl. In front of him was a creature that it took Murmur several seconds to categorize.
It possessed a beak, and a bird’s face, but that was where the similarity to avians ended. The rest of its body resembled a minotaur, except with a bird head. And it wasn’t brown or black; its fur appeared white and fluffier. The marriage of those elements was a strange juxtaposition to its fiery red eyes and frothing beak. Then the minotaur-yak-bird-thing let out a shriek, and Murmur had to cover her ears.
Challenger Snowy has requested back up from his raid.
The voice boomed out in a way that would have made sports announcers worldwide very proud. Hisses and boos rang through the crowd as the stairs they stood atop suddenly turned into escalators and delivered them to the base. It made the arena appear just that much larger. The spectators threw rotten oranges that made a sick splat when they landed, and other fruit she couldn’t recognize down into the arena. At them. At the raid.
Snowy let out a howl of his own, and Murmur had to blink at his size. Surely, he’d grown a bit? How had he become a challenger?
Defender Martimight has refused assistance outside of his usual entourage who will appear later in the fight.
The cheers that broke out from the spectator ranks were almost deafening.
Let’s get ready to fight!
Three!
The entire raid buffed to their max without anyone needing to call it. After so many strange encounters, they’d learned to simply do things without asking. Being prepared was better than dead. Murmur counted it as a win despite the fact that the abilities that had helped Fable through multiple raids and monsters were failing her. At the moment, she couldn’t take away her own worries, let along those of her friends.
Two!
As if all she’d had to do was ask, all of her worry disappeared, and emotions stopped reaching her. She looked out over the crazy arena in front of her and smiled for the first time in a while. Nothing they did could reach her. Not here in the cocoon where her mind and thoughts could be her own. It was safe to watch from here, safe to participate. Not being able to experience the sensations of others took away her boundaries. There was nothing anything could do to harm her, and everything she could do to them.
One!
She glanced around at the other twenty-nine people who’d accompanied her into this mess and nodded to herself. The whole scene passed her by in slow motion as she focused her gaze on Snowy. Be strong. She whispered in her mind, stretching tendrils out to reach him. Be fast. She spoke in his mind lending him her strength. Be victorious. She sang in symbols representing her words.
Fight!
Be death, she commanded her wolf as she let go of Sinister’s hand.
Somnia Online
Continent Tarishna: Belius Office in Stellaein
Belius Office
Day Twenty-Eight
Belius was unsure how to approach the situation. Riasli hadn’t left his side in days, making it almost impossible for him to complete his initial plan. Everything he’d worked for was on the verge of unravelling and he couldn’t afford to let it. The problem was that he wasn’t sure how to prevent it.
Deliberately having set things in motion that would come back to haunt him, he’d been okay with his siblings hating him, or even trying to stop him if it meant keeping them safe. The same went for Murmur. She was such a stubborn individual, suspicious and headstrong. He’d not meant to watch out for her as much as he had, not meant to be as fond of her as he was, but she’d got under his coding. Her predicament was a direct result of system compromises, and a part of him thought he owed her the attention.
“I realize you’re stalling, Belius.” Riasli didn’t stop what she was doing to look at him. “I just have to figure out why.”
Now she turned to him, her gaze on the thoughtful side of scheming. “You can’t be trying to save your siblings. You know they’re doomed. The virus is already implanted, thanks to you. It’ll slowly chip away. So, what can it be?” She pursed her lips and continued rifling through the incidentals that decorated his office. Defunct weapons with coding that wouldn’t mesh, magical items that clashed with the world’s purpose. He wasn’t sure what she was looking for.
Belius shrugged, trying to make it seem as if her question was inconsequential. He cleared his algorithmic processes of any trace that might link him to either Murmur or his siblings and resigned himself to having to begin from scratch again later.
They’d survived his dungeon without any help from him. It was only a remnant of what he’d envisaged way back when they’d created the world. Just a husk of what it had once been. Only it wasn’t nearly as damaged as Tieflos was. He worried the failsafes he’d put into place might have the opposite effect, and he wasn’t able to monitor it with Riasli there like a chain around his neck.
“I’m trying to get this whole thing done sooner than later.” He exaggerated a sense of apathy, attempting to heighten his indifference with coding accentuation. “By all means, if you want to waste your time overseeing me, can you at least not make a mess?”
He closed his eyes, his calculations flickering behind the thin eyelids of the locus, fully aware that it lit him up like party lights. Belius didn’t need to see Riasli to know that he’d aimed perfectly. She was irritated now and trying harder to catch him out. But when she did that, it meant she pushed her processing capabilities too far. She wasn’t nearly as refined as Thra or Rav, even if she constantly deluded herself into thinking she was.
“Fine!” Her voice was heated, erratic, like most of her moods. “You’re tagged. We’re watching.”
He didn’t even open her eyes as her presence around him vanished. Though he knew she wasn’t completely gone, it was still a relief to have her out of his immediate vicinity. Belius waited a while before opening his eyes and tapping into the surveillance section of the system through multiple layers of protection, seeking out both his siblings and his charge.
Thra and Rav had, it seemed, figured out that Belius wasn’t telling the whole truth to anyone. With luck, it would still take some time for them to locate him. He was tagged, but Riasli had never been intended to be the computing force that the others had. She was a bit character, a minor processor. And when she realized it, her wires would fry, and she’d be gone. But he had to wait for her to achieve that measure of self-awareness yet.
But Murmur, oh, she hadn’t come out of this minor interruption unscathed. He frowned, trying to figure out what he’d missed while he was trying to mislead Riasli. Murmur barely managed to retain herself when she was bombarded with the motherload of getashi. It was only with some very intricate coding adjustments that he’d managed to help her, but now, something was wrong.