by K. T. Hanna
Telvar was taken aback. He hadn’t expected his brother to be so candid and wasn’t sure how to respond. The anger still boiled in the back of his mind, making him wonder if maybe he still had a portion of the infection inside him. Still, for the sake of continuing to exist, he could tolerate his brother for now.
“Fine. You’ve got our attention.” Telvar crossed his arms and pinned Belius with his gaze.
“Thank you.” And for the first time it sounded like Bel actually meant it.
“Don’t get me wrong. This is for the good of Somnia and our continued survival.” Telvar needed to set the record straight, to let his brother know he wasn’t forgiven. “When we’re done with that, you and I are having a long talk.”
Murmur wasn’t left much time to worry about why Masha suddenly radiating hatred. The larger ice giant presence was approaching faster than the next wave of normal ice giants. She could feel its anger over anything else.
While glad that her sensing abilities had returned, Murmur wasn’t too happy about the animosity she felt leaking through the ranks of her raid. Had she been so tyrannical? What had she done to set people off?
“Top people off!” Veranol called out, and Murmur refreshed her buffs on the off chance that this fight would take a while.
Boulders, she had to keep an eye out for those and anything else trap-like or tricky that might surface from this super ice giant. Even though her nets were catching the strange sensations sweeping through the raid, she had to push past those to tap into potential hazards scattered around the cavern.
She wasn’t about to let them wipe if she could help it. Wiping to trash had been embarrassing.
Raid buffed, they waited. Not all gazes were directed the way of the incoming opponents, no, some of them tried to bore holes in the back of Murmur’s head. She tightened her own shielding, making sure nothing could affect her. There wasn’t time to figure this out now, but as soon as they were done with this dungeon, she’d spend those four hours trying to solve this shit instead of sleeping if she had to.
“Merlin, three smaller ice giants will be incoming shortly after we engage. Keep them locked down with root if you can. Divvy out the responsibilities now.” She kept her voice down so that not many around her would hear but had to make sure the volume made it over the thudding that made the ground shake.
Masha’s sullenness was wearing on her. Karn and Risk didn’t seem to be much better. All of them acted like they wanted to be anywhere but in Tieflos. So much so that Murmur was dreading the fight.
Then King Egnaro crested the rise, his head almost scraping the ceiling. He was almost twice the size of the previous ice giants and moved slower as a result. His bulky form appeared to find turning especially difficult, and slivers of ice splintered off and cascaded around him like porcupine quills falling off and down to the enemies below.
The first time he moved to twist around while Devilish was trying to taunt him and coax him back, a splinter landed inside of Devlish’s tower shield range and impaled him through the leg.
Murmur had never heard the dread knight scream so loudly. A moment later he was healed, but his face was pale beneath his scales, and she knew it had shaken him to feel the increased pain.
Is it always like this, Mur? he asked over guild chat.
Sometimes it’s worse, Sinister answered for her.
Havoc joined in too. I’ll take the extra damage, but the side effects of this deeper connection are pretty severe. I don’t like not being able to dial down the realism factor.
No one said anything for a moment, and Murmur threw her debuffs out and onto the King, trying to calculate just how far behind him the adds were.
Then I guess I better figure out how to compensate, Devlish said over the chat once more. This should have come with a warning.
Murmur agreed, but there wasn’t a need to say that. There wasn’t time. Keeping King Egnaro fixed in her vision, it allowed her to see when he was casting. At eighty-nine percent, he began to cast Tantrum. Murmur attempted to interrupt it, but the cast was fast, and she’d had to read it first.
Tantrum saw the king throw himself to the ground faster than she thought something of that size should have been able to move. It flailed once there. Its long arms pounded the ground, shaking it and causing most of the raid to lose their footing. Meanwhile, its feet kicked violently, creating slivers of ice that shot out unexpectedly.
Merlin got whooshed away and nailed to the wall. Luckily, it missed his vital organs this time. She needed to talk to him about that whole impaling fetish he seemed to have. He yanked the icicle out of his chest as a heal hit him and grinned at Murmur, a trail of blood leaking out of his mouth the only remnant of the injury left.
She rolled her eyes and turned to look at the king. He rolled over onto his back and executed a surprisingly agile flip back up to his feet. But when his shoes hit the ground, it sent a jolt through the room and caused most of them to fall to their knees again.
“All out for now, get him down as fast as you can,” Devlish called out. Murmur couldn’t blame him. They were about to get three more adds, and she didn’t like the odds of being able to control those three while this dude was pulling off a tantrum. She had no idea what set him off, and really…tantrum?
“You’d think…” Havoc ground out as he concentrated on upping his damage, “a king wouldn’t be so childish.”
Murmur nodded. “I’m trying not to think.”
At least that got a laugh out of the necromancer. “Good call, Mur.”
King Egnaro wasn’t hard to damage. Not when all of the fire weakened the ice. He was down to seventy-five percent before he began to cast Tantrum again. This time, Murmur was on the ball and actually managed to interrupt him. Which was strange, because she’d been almost certain she shouldn’t be able to interrupt a boss.
Her thought proved correct several seconds later, when he began to cast Tantrum again. Interrupting that one cast wouldn’t accomplish anything. All the king did was wait until the recast mechanism wore off so he could spam it again.
Warning
You cannot interrupt a boss. He will attempt to throw a Tantrum until he succeeds. Each successive attempt will allow him to build anger making the eventual resulting Tantrum that much worse. At least you won’t have to worry about being caught standing still.
Shit.
Murmur readied her Forcefield Barrier, pushing it to encompass the rest of her raid just as the tantrum hit. She was relieved to see that it worked, even while the ground beneath them threatened to become a trampoline of ice. And even while the slivers of ice might have been closer to ice javelins this time.
It drained about half of her MA, and Snowy nipped at her hand, concern showing in his eyes. Even after the Tantrum was over, Murmur watched as her MA began to refill itself naturally, pulling on the constant use of her nets.
“Incoming,” Jinna called out, his voice not the usual jolly dwarf he normally was. Murmur frowned, putting that too to the side. Focus on the monsters before she had to focus on the brewing problems. Jinna hadn’t even made eye contact with her, but maybe there was a first for everything.
Snowy pushed to the fore, his hackles rising as he mutated again, becoming larger and fiercer than he’d been the last time.
Merlin and his rangers rooted the incoming ice giants to the spot, close to each other but not enough to touch. He flashed a grin at Murmur as he directed the relevant people to watch out for the boulder throw and interrupt it.
The now massive wolf kept the three ice giant kids focused solely on him so the raid could use the most of their DPS. Murmur wondered for a moment, scrolling quickly through her spell book.
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.
Should she use it? Was it necessary? She glanced over at the huge ice giant king and at the smaller ice giants. Was she completely out of it, or were they attempting to reach one another? Was the king protecting his children?
No, that couldn’t be it. But hadn’t they made alliances previously based exclusively on what something couldn’t be in a game. What if anything were possible?
“Sin.” The blood mage nodded, her concentration obviously on the fight and healing. “Do you think—are they trying to reach one another?”
Sinister blinked, looking back and forth between the two groups. She squinted and then laughed. “You know, I think you’re right. I think king is trying to protect his children.”
Murmur mulled it over in her mind. The father was already down to sixty percent health. If she was right and his Tantrum was timed and not triggered, he was about to throw his tantrum again.
“Stop all damage to the king!” she called out. The three rogues paid her no mind. “Stop it now!” she yelled out.
Begrudgingly, all three of them glowered at her and moved away. Devlish refrained from doing damage and only used his sword and a smaller shield. He didn’t seem amused. “I hope that whatever you’re doing is the right thing and isn’t painful.”
So did Murmur, but she just nodded in response and readied Soothe.
When she cast it, at first, there was no response and for a moment of panic she thought she’d read the possibilities wrong. Were her sensor nets so out of whack?
She cast Soothe again, and this time sent an overwhelming sense of calm along with it. It suffused the cavern, enveloped both the younger ice giants and the king, and the king stopped its fighting to look down thoughtfully at Murmur, tiny in his shadow.
What do you seek? he asked in a booming voice that echoed through the chamber even though his lips didn’t move.
Murmur paused for a moment, trying to figure out how to magnify her own voice when Dansyn laid a hand on her shoulder. “Speak normally. I can make you sound like a loudspeaker.”
She managed to refrain from laughing and continued. “We seek to finish this dungeon and reach the end so that we might acquire the key. We only fight that which attacks us.”
But my children were afraid. You have fire and acid. These things are big danger, much damage. These things kill us. The king peered down at her, a bemused look on his face.
“We apologize.” Murmur bowed. “Your children are safe now, and we shall harm no more.”
The king looked thoughtful. They did kill you all once. I suppose that’s fair, then. They are better than you at some things. Truce?
Murmur let out a soft sigh of relief and nodded. “Truce.”
Thank you. The king stood up tall, then reached down to tap each of his children on the head with a finger. They looked up and nodded, falling into line behind their father.
For this, the voice boomed, you have our gratitude and will be rewarded. Make your way to the end and watch your step. Ice is treacherous and has a will of its own.
King Egnaro walked away with his children, vanishing into the icy landscape ahead of them.
“What the fuck?” Masha spat out, startling Murmur. “We were killing it. We so could have won.”
“We did win.” Rashlyn pointed out. “There are chests waiting for us when we reach them, and we don’t have needless death repairs.
Buff
You have been granted the Boon of the Ice
Boon of the Ice:
This is a buff that renders you impervious to ice damage. Ice cannot harm you, nor can it slow you. This buff removes all previous debuffs and persists through death. It will remain in force until you have completed your task.
“Great. Another cryptic fucking message.” This time it was Risk, just as angry as Masha, speaking in the same tone of voice with the same intonation. Definitely something Murmur had to look into once she got them to the end of the path.
Moving ahead with Devlish, she had to admit the dungeon had been a pain in the ass, and she was relieved to be leaving it. They passed through two more chambers, and the grumbling behind her became ever louder, until they reached a doorway that led outside.
In a massive semi-circle of ice jutting out toward the final rope bridge, were thirty chests, perfectly spaced. The mood of the raid lifted, and then the notifications began.
You receive one of the twelve keys.
You receive a getashi.
You receive a midia crystal.
You have completed the Tieflos dungeon as compiled by Thra, Version 22.4283 triggered by Murmur of Fable.
You have successfully completed the quest: Find your way to the end, the choice is yours.
This version of the Tieflos dungeon will no longer be available to future raiders.
You gain experience.
You gain experience for being the first to complete any version of the Tieflos dungeon.
You gain experience for choosing to complete the quest: Find your way to the end, the choice is yours.
You gain bonus experience for choosing your disadvantages in ways unexpected by the dungeon.
You gain bonus experience for sparing the young ice giants.
You gain bonus experience for learning to harness each of your debuffs’ attributes.
You gain bonus experience for choosing the smarter way.
You gain bonus experience for solving what riddles were placed in front of you.
You gain bonus experience for reaching the Ice Giant King Egnaro.
You gain bonus experience for allowing him to retain his honor.
You gain bonus experience for completing the Tieflos dungeon as an alternate version.
You gain bonus experience for completing the second of the endgame dungeon chains.
You gain bonus experience for not attempting to circumvent the portal restrictions.
You shall be rewarded.
You are already max level.
Your experience will be funneled into your hidden ability pool, allowing you to work toward higher levels with more battery power.
Around her, the last members of the raiding party had finally reached level fifty and were busy memorizing their spells, scrolling through the boxes they’d received and inspecting the loot from their chests. Sorting through her own chest, she sealed the getashi away in the container Neva had made for them.
The urge not to seal it back up was so great she had to bite her lip to distract her from the sensation not to. Level fifty. She glanced around, taking in deep, cold breaths. They’d defeated the dungeon, and she’d gained twenty-two new MA points to her pool. Impressive.
A hot gust of air washed over her face just after she pulled the cape out of her chest, causing the material to billow in the wind. Looking around her, she dismissed the stats for the garment that had just popped up in her vision to find the source of the elements.
A portal with murky green and swirling brown rings had appeared in the middle of the vast ice field they’d just battled on. She didn’t understand why the air was hot. Glacier Lake implied that it was cold, unless it just meant that the water source was from a glacier?
She shook her head, something seemed very wrong about the opening, tainted, dark.
Glacier Lake shouldn’t be as cold as Tieflos, but it should still be chilly. I’ve checked the game settings, and the temperature modulation isn’t functioning as it should right now.
There wasn’t panic so
much as bewilderment in Somnia’s voice as she answered Murmur’s unasked question. Okay. What are we looking at then?
The castles aren’t ice; they’re built out of stone, but their shape was to imply a fortified ice castle. The creatures should all be fine in the adjusted climate…
Murmur had an idea. Isn’t it near Curet, which is a rain forest? With a lot of humidity, and the weird ground around the dungeon, it probably has adapted as Somnia has become…more.
Somnia was quiet for a moment before answering with a distinct flavor of relief. Yes. I believe you are correct. The continents are evolving.
Murmur smiled to herself and then blinked as something darted out of the portal toward there group, so fast she could barely follow the movement. The tentacle snaked around Sinister’s mid-section and dragged her back into it with a screech from the bloodmage that made Murmur’s heart run cold.
Summer Residence
Home of Laria, David, and Wren
Summer Condo
Real World - Day Twenty-Nine
Laria glanced scrolled through the readings she’d been trying to make sense of for the last few hours. She was almost considering standing on her head to see if that helped when she squinted at her display and then gasped.
“You’re not going to believe this,” she began, already biting her tongue. Why she hadn’t thought of it before was beyond her. Perhaps she’d been too obsessed with her daughter’s predicament to think about anyone else’s.
David took a moment to pull himself away from his own research and raised an eyebrow. “Unless you’re going to tell me my daughter is, in fact, Somnia itself, do you seriously think you can shock me at this point?”
Laria swallowed past the lump in her throat. She guessed they were about to find out. “The adjusted headsets have higher reading outputs. They can access more of the abilities; their processing time is shorter.”