by K. T. Hanna
The tunnel was quiet, almost too quiet. Hell, who was she kidding. Definitely too quiet.
“I don’t like this.” She whispered the words, and they bounced all around them in a cacophony of gibberish.
Sinister pushed up against her side, hugging herself. “So you just stun everything that tries to eat me, okay?”
She grinned impishly up at Murmur. But her attempt to be brave and make the enchanter laugh didn’t work. Instead, Mur hugged her quickly.
“Something’s coming,” Devlish whispered.
“Or we’re about to find it,” Merlin muttered matter of factly.
Devlish shot him a glare. “Seriously, man, let’s not try to scare ourselves shitless.”
It was odd for Devlish to be so touchy, but Murmur couldn’t help sympathizing. It was claustrophobic down here when they battled those damned worms that originally just seemed to keep multiplying. On the bright side, if they could actually be stunned, they could have farmed experience for days. Probably why they were immune.
Then they heard it. A slithering sound that squelched every now and again. It sounded like something was dragging a limb along with it. Something that had been severed and like the flesh part of it was all that hit the ground. Murmur’s senses screamed at her to back up, but she stood her ground. Far ahead of them she could see a fork in the tunnel, and the noises emanated from those. Just before it reached them, the tunnel widened to produce two entrances.
Murmur didn’t want to know where it led to, but she knew when they got there, they were going to have to fight.
Drawing weapons, the group moved forward, focused on that spot in front of them. Each step took them nearer, and Murmur wasn’t disappointed when they finally reached the location. Another piercing sound ripped through the air, only this time it was louder, like a choir of the things.
“If they come from both tunnels, we break up and pull each group to one side. We take left, Ver’s takes right.” Mur knew they knew, but it was always better if she said it out loud. Everyone moved into formation silently.
She wasn’t sure what she was expecting, but as the huge moleworms slithered into view, she hadn’t expected them to be twice the size of the first two groups. The others had been babies by comparison. These were at least twice that size, with half a dozen per group.
Murmur threw out her AoE Mez. It stuck on four of the six in her group.
Warning: These creatures are not immune to Mesmerization. However, they may have intermittent power surges that allow them to break the hold.
Murmur rolled her eyes. Because of course. Dansyn appeared to have about as much luck. Fine. They couldn’t stun or AoE, but fighting two was better than six. “Pick those two off. Can you tank them both?”
Devlish nodded. “I can try.”
“Do. Or do not. There is…” Merlin began.
“Shut it, ranger,” Havoc muttered under his breath.
In any other situation, Murmur would have laughed. Instead she concentrated on her usual fare: Mez, debuff, throw out a DoT, rinse and repeat. These strange moleworms broke her Mez at differing intervals, so she had to be ready at any point to recast it and couldn’t rely on its normal duration to hold. In any other situation it would have been exhilarating, but here, with the way these monsters attacked, it was anything but fun. The way they had sharp teeth like no worm she’d ever seen—and the tiny arms and sniffing noses of the mole heads—just made it worse.
Three down, and Sinister was drawing all the blood she could from them. Siphoning it out like a needle and dispatching it to each person in the group. Murmur was proud of the way her friend had grown into the healing role. It was like she took pleasure in hurting their enemies and making that pain heal her allies. What an awesome healing class.
In the few seconds she’d been distracted by the bloodmage, Murmur managed to miss the warning signs that her Mez was about to be broken. Without the forewarning, she looked back just in time to see a moleworm two feet away from her, its claws blindly reaching for her face.
While she managed to dodge out just in time to avoid a fatal blow, the claws of its left hand did catch her in the face, while the other sliced down her arm. She let out a shrill scream of pain, reflexively tossed out a Mez just as the moleworm made another move toward her.
Sinister’s healing flowed into her, knitting up the deep slice to her arm and bracers. Murmur could feel the cut on her face healing too, but there was still a warmth that came from inside her where the cuts had reached, like something was festering in her blood. She didn’t want to question the ability to heal armor, but she might have a word with her mother about those.
Finally, the creatures were defeated, and the two groups gathered around the corpses, prodding them with their feet. Several dings had rung around the room, and only Mellow had died. Murmur took stock of their group as they waited for them to rematerialize.
“It’s never a clean kill with those.” Rashlyn pouted. “Bashing its head in so it can’t multiply is just…gross.”
“Yeah, they’re like—” But whatever Beastial had been going to say was drowned out by the roar from up the tunnels where the flock of moleworms had come from.
Suddenly, the bodies they’d just defeated began to move, slithering back toward where they came from, their bludgeoned ends leaving behind a trail of blackened blood.
The next shriek that reached their ears promised nothing but pain, and Snowy braced himself against the ground, teeth bared viciously. Murmur would have joined him if she could look quite that threatening.
“Going back the way we came probably isn’t an option, right?” Dansyn hopped from one foot to the other, his face impossibly white in the shadow of his electric blue armor.
Murmur shook her head. She refused to look behind her, quite certain that any way back was only an illusion. No, they were meant to be here. Stuck between no way back and a monster that was just waiting to devour them. Perfect, really.
She took a breath. “I think we have to go through those tunnels and find what’s making that noise.”
Rashlyn groaned. “I knew you were going to say that. I didn’t want to know, but I knew! Now my day is ruined.”
Murmur shrugged. “Let’s see how many times we have to try this boss before we die. Think of it as practice, you know, for the big bosses in the other dungeons.”
“That doesn’t make us feel any better,” Beastial mumbled, but Devlish just growled.
“Come on. Let’s do this.” And he pushed through the tunnel on the left, where their group of moleworms had come from.
On a whim, Murmur ordered the others to go around through the other tunnel. When they reached the massive chamber the paths led to, Murmur was so glad they’d split up. The huge room resembled an auditorium in its size. The sounds made by the hulking beast in the center of it echoed off the walls like they were meant to be sung.
The creature was humungous. Easily the height of a five-story building, it was sleek and moist; rippled muscles surrounded it. Something dangled from its neck, grown into its detestable skin, almost like a collar that hadn’t been removed and had been taken over by the beast’s body. Huge leashes dangled from that very harness, some of them absorbed into the creature’s flesh as well.
It must have been in here for a very long time. Ages in fact.
Suddenly, Murmur knew exactly how it had gotten here and what had happened.
She gulped, almost choking. “Shit, guys. I think we’ve been duped.”
Somnia Online
Ruins of Curet - Curet Continent
Version: 2.0875 - Activated by Guild Spiral
Day Twenty-Two
Karn scowled. She wasn’t sure what she’d been expecting from the Ruins of Cenedril, but this god-forsaken continual battle wasn’t it. The statues at the entryway had been bad enough. They’d barely gotten past those, but these
labyrinthine stairs were straight out of an Escher drawing, and navigating them was perilous.
They’d already had to have their necro summon two bodies who’d managed to fall over the edges at the most inopportune moments. The flying gargoyles in this place were dangerous. The stairwells had no walls, and no railings, no means of anchoring themselves to them.
The gargoyles shot out of their purchases from so high that Karn couldn’t quite fixate on their spawning place. She glanced at one of the rangers close to her, Ashin, who raised their bow and enabled something called Trueshot. So far, it was one of the only ways they’d managed not to wipe.
The flying goblin creatures had big round noses, ruddy cheeks, and large pointy ears. Their skin was a pale marble of coloring that included sandstone and moss. Their cackles rang through the huge structure, echoing so much that it was difficult to figure out where the noise came from. Thus, it was difficult to coordinate an attack.
Luckily, her father was such a hardened warrior that his defenses were legendary. Risk had killed the bulk of the damn pests with his shield so far, sending them plummeting into the depths of the cavern to smash on whatever the ground was below. Except that didn’t do much. There were so many of the gargoyles that they needed to be able to launch an effective attack on them. She couldn’t believe that these little gnats were getting in their way.
Karn growled low in her throat, frustrated by her inability to do anything constructive. She’d already run out of shurikens, and while she knew she’d hit a few of the creatures, it just wasn’t enough.
They could see the open chamber not far down and the huge rolling rock beast that lived within it. It had to be one of the next challenges, if they could get past the gargoyles.
Suddenly she had an idea and reached into the guild vault to pull out one of the alchemist recipes she’d been trying. It only had about a sixty to forty percent success rate, but surely that was better than nothing. Handing a vial to Ashin, Karn whispered, “Coat an arrow and let it hit your target. It should, if it’s going to work, explode on impact. But it’s not guaranteed every time.”
Ashin nodded their head and smiled. “Got it, boss.”
“Shush, you,” she muttered, focusing on the bow. But she did like the sound of it. Always made her stomach flip when she was called that.
Ashin applied the golden liquid and drew their bow. The arrow released, flying straight and true, but bounced harmlessly off where the shoulder blade would have been. There was no explosion, and her confidence swayed just a bit, but Karn bit back and continued to observe.
She watched as Ashin drew the bow back again, took sight, and released. The arrow hit the join of the gargoyle’s neck and body, wedging it in there. Karn waited for a couple of agonizing seconds, like the clock was ticking slower for everyone, especially her.
And then a spark, just a small one, but enough to catch light. Then it spread so fast Karn could barely trace it, until it reached up into the gap and blew the creature apart sending a cascade of tiny stone fragments showering over the group.
Grinning from ear to ear, Karn grinned widely. Ashin gave her a hug, smiling.
“You should have enough for several more. I’ll give some to the other archers.” Karn set off happily, aware of her father’s eyes following her wherever she went. That would show him. She’d known alchemy would come in handy, and she’d just proven herself a million times right.
Now all they had to do was finish this dungeon in style.
“Lull it, Dan!” Murmur spoke urgently, trying to keep herself from raising her voice. A panicked order wasn’t going to go down well with the mother moleworm. Dansyn didn’t question why, but he switched his songs up.
The moleworm still swayed, but she’d calmed down a little and didn’t appear like she’d attack immediately. There was an impatient harrumph from behind the group, and Murmur sighed. She twisted around and wished she’d been disappointed.
“Well, that’s just not going to do any good is it? They’ve gone and made friends with the mom.” Dizzi sounded so dejected, it was almost instinctive to try and feel sorry for her. “I mean, we asked you to do one thing, and you can’t even do that.”
“I knew they wouldn’t be helpful,” Prizzi said, her tone bored. “We’ll just have to wait for the next set of wanderers who have half a brain.”
Drizzpt stamped her foot, a scowl on her face and the mother moleworm began to weave restlessly, like it could sense her presence. Murmur glanced at Snowy, a couple of ideas sprouting in her mind as she ignored the antics of the three Eiriarpths. Crouching down, she looked her wolf in the eyes, trying to see if he could understand what she wanted.
“Can you talk to this creature?” She watched his eyes for any indication that he understood and received a very slow, deliberate blink. Hoping that meant he could talk to it, Murmur hedged a bet. “Can you tell it that we won’t stand in its way?”
Snowy nodded once and approached the massive moleworm as Murmur stood up to face their deceivers. But Sinister beat her to the punch, and her friend’s voice shook with rage.
“Let me guess. You enslaved these creatures, at least one or more, to dig or widen these tunnels so it was easier for you to find the rumored treasure. But eating the stone made them too large to handle, and you lost control only to be turned on.” Sinister took a step forward every few seconds, her hands molding a type of Blood Bomb Murmur hadn’t seen before.
Drizzpt sneered. “They’re just moleworms. They can’t feel.”
Sinister’s eyes flashed dangerously. “Because you are one? Is this how you know?”
A brilliant idea came to Murmur. She’d not used her sinuous ability Feedback Loop yet. Technically she was supposed to pluck a memory out of her target, but surely she could twist that? Take a memory from the victim and make the perpetrators experience the pain they’d caused in a loop for twenty-one and a half seconds? Half her level.
It was a just punishment, she argued with herself. The perfect loop to get payback for the poor creatures, and perhaps make sure those damned torturers knew what they’d done.
She let Sinister continue talking while she projected her idea to Snowy, hoping he’d understand. Out of the corner of her eye she could see him sort of swaying in time with the moleworm, and just a couple of seconds passed before he nodded his head toward her, and she felt an overwhelming sense of consent.
Scanning the creature, she shuddered at the memories it held. Of the pain it suffered while enslaved, of the agony it endured while it grew, and of the torture it was to watch the Eiriarpths take its babies and enslave them in the same manner. The mother had wept, and she had raged, and the anger boiled across Murmur’s tenuous connection, eliciting a bubbling fury inside her.
The enchanter drew from it and relished in it, drawing the visions and the pain from the monster and bottling it up into a condensed experience of trauma. A side of her enjoyed this, punishing those who had escaped wrath. Vaguely in the back of her mind she could feel a sense of shock at what she was doing, but it didn’t register fully.
Why should she be shocked at meting out an eye for an eye? Surely, someone who could inflict so much damage on another being should pay for it. Before she knew it, the vision firmly locked into her mind, she began weaving the spell.
Her fingers danced through the pattern, quick and deft, encompassing all three of the lowly shits in front of her. She could feel her face pulling back into a sneer of contempt for them and threw all the weight of her hatred for their actions behind her spell. It was supposed to work on individuals, but the five-minute recast was too great to do what needed to be done, and so she pushed, and she pulled at the very fabric of her mind, at the very stuff the game was made of, and the spell encompassed all three of the attackers before her.
After all, weren’t they smaller than the average target? Shouldn’t they make up just one space to cast the spell? She gat
hered her power, the vision, and her own malice and projected it toward the three deceitful Eiriarpths.
Dizzi’s annoying chatter cut off mid-word, and all three of them froze as the spell landed. Their faces contorted in mental anguish, and all three of them clutched at their heads, pain projecting outwards, even reaching the raid group who recoiled and stepped back out of its reach.
Except for Murmur. She watched as they fell to the ground and writhed, enjoyed witnessing the agony they felt, and basked in the fact that she’d been the one to inflict it.
You have inadvertently upgraded your Feedback Loop Sinuous Ability.
Feedback Loop - Reckoning
Cast: Instant - 120 minute recast
Type: Offensive - Maximum four targets
Duration: Half the level of the caster in minutes
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.
The notification was enough to bring Murmur out of the semi-trancelike state she’d fallen into, and she stepped back, marginally horrified by what she’d just done. The Eiriarpths writhed on the ground, clawing at their eyes and hair, moaning in pain. It was no longer fascinating, but sickening. She swallowed with difficulty as Snowy came to her side and licked the tips of her fingers with a reassurance only he could give her.