by K. T. Hanna
Table of Contents
Storm Entertainment Presents
Title Page
Map of Tarishna
Map of Cenedril
Chapter One: Comatose
Chapter Two: In Pieces
Chapter Three: Bandit Revival
Chapter Four: Hazenthorne
Chapter Five: Queen Arita
Chapter Six: Castle Fable
Chapter Seven: In Our World
Chapter Eight: Denial
Chapter Nine: Brain Matters
Chapter Ten: Neva Crafter
Chapter Eleven: Kitchen Meeting
Chapter Twelve: Pelagu Docks
Chapter Thirteen: Darshin
Chapter Fouteen: Verendus
Chapter Fifteen: Scoping Out
Chapter Sixteen: Patrols
Chapter Seventeen: Feeding Revenge
Chapter Eighteen: Bearly There
Chapter Nineteen: Real Enchanter
Chapter Twenty: At War
Chapter Twenty-One: Aftermath
Chapter Twenty-Two: Realizations
Chapter Twenty-Three: AI The Reasons
Chapter Twenty-Four: Voices
Chapter Twenty-Five: Insidious
Chapter Twenty-Six: All Bottled Up
Chapter Twenty-Seven: Not There Yet
Chapter Twenty-Eight: Half Way There
Chapter Twenty-Nine: Guild Leader Perks
Chapter Thirty: Rivalry Gone Wrong
Appendix Glossary
Character Names
Murmur
Acknowledgments
Want More LitRPG?
Guide
Cover
Author: K.T. Hanna
Cover Artist: Marko Horvatin
Typography: Bonnie Price
Formatting & Interior Design: Caitlin Greer
Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction.
Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Copyright © 2018 Katie Hanna
All rights reserved.
ISBN-13: 978-1-948983-09-9 (Paperback Edition)
ISBN-13: 978-1-948983-07-5 (Hardback Edition)
ISBN-13: 978-1-948983-08-2 (E-Book Edition)
For Alexis
Thank you
Somnia Online
Day Five Post-Launch
Murmur staggered as the guild castle shot into focus around her. Nausea swept over her, adding to the volcano of anger in her gut. It leaked through her mental shielding no matter how dense she thought the wall was. Squinting against the harsh daylight she saw a wave of confusion sweep over Telvar’s workers.
Construction work ground to a halt. The builders stumbled in their tracks, their materials falling to the ground as they braced themselves against any stable surface.
Any attempt she made to calm those whirling thoughts only resulted in them spinning further out of control. Murmur’s head spun, pounding like someone had taken a hammer to it. Just a few more hits and her skull might burst. She fell to her knees, struggling to move from the recall pad.
A mental shield slammed down around her discordant thoughts, plunging her mind into blissful stillness. It momentarily subdued the roiling sea of emotion within her by shocking her as if a bucket of iced water had been thrown over her head.
A scaled hand reached toward her, and her head spun too much to grasp it as the world twisted in and out of focus. Instead, Telvar hauled her up into a princess carry, his strides like he was floating on air. She clung to him, burying her face within the contours of his neck to keep the light out and her tears in.
Cool air blew from the underground caves to rustle her robes as they passed into the lower section of the castle. A sob caught in Murmur’s throat as she realized she was shaking. Her confusion finally gave way to the beginnings of understanding, and terror.
How could she possibly be in a coma? She’d graduated high school, hell, she’d been logging out of the game and returning to her house. How the fuck did any of that indicate she was sick?
Telvar still carried her, and, as the slope of the path changed, Murmur knew they’d passed into the actual cavern and were descending the long ramp where she’d first met him. It wasn’t long before he stopped and tugged her arms gently from around his neck, depositing her into a chair hewn roughly from the rock. In some places it dug into her skin even through the robes she wore, causing her to gasp in pain. How could she not be awake if she felt things so acutely? Were the sensors attached to the suit really that effective?
Finally, she pried her eyes open and recognized the ledge where they’d first encountered Telvar. She hadn’t realized there was a recessed area in the back of the cave. In front of her was a small fire pit, casting flickering shadows on the walls to dance while she lost herself in thought. Several stone benches dotted the alcove, and she could see provisions stored in the back of the area. Everything from salted meat to crates of wine.
“Are you calmer now?” Telvar crouched in front of her, his brow furrowed in concern as he looked up at her.
“How did you know I was in a coma? Were you waiting to shock me?” Anger began to churn again, and Murmur took the deepest breath she could manage fighting against it, forcing it down to manageable levels so she could think.
Telvar sighed deeply, his huge chest rippling with the effort as he averted his eyes. He pushed himself up, tapping his chin with a long scaled finger.
“You.” Telvar began. He breathed in again and focused his startling eyes on her own, radiating sincerity. “You’ve been in a coma for just over two months. You used your headset early, but something went wrong.”
The ‘something’ had a tone to it, a hesitation. Murmur grasped onto it like a lifeline, intent on digging deeper. “I didn’t try the headset early...”
But her words trailed off, thoughts inundating her mind. Didn’t she? Had she really not tried it first? She vaguely remembered her father suggesting they give it a test run before the suit arrived. Just for her to have some fun, but hadn’t they decided against it? The memories swirled in her head. Trying on the suits with Harlow, logging into the scanner, being so damned disappointed by her class allocation. It all happened. Didn’t it?
Compassion radiated from Telvar, from the look in his eyes to the set of his mouth. “You tried it; the synapse trigger malfunctioned as we were activating the scan details. At least, we think so. There was a difference in your headgear. Maybe it interfaced directly with your mind, or connected to a part of it, but when they tried to remove it, you began to convulse. Only replacing it and rebooting your interface stopped it. Just like that, you didn’t wake back up.”
“I’m dead then?” She whispered the words, tasting them on her tongue like battery acid. “How did –”
But Telvar took her hands and knelt again in one swift motion. “You are not dead.” His eyes were adamant. “You are merely in a sort of limbo. We’ve been trying to determine what it was that left you like this. We can tell it was a mixture of several factors, including the way your headgear was calibrated. No one else has one like it. Michael enhanced it as a gift for you, but he had his own accident before you even received it. Figuring out exactly what it did... Your mother has tried all manner of things to do so.”
Standing, Murmur ripped her hands out of the lacerta’s, stumbling back and almost tripping over her chair. “No. No. That’s not possible. I’ve been home. I’ve logged out of this game. I’ve –”
But the curtain
s had that strange way of always being open in the exact same position—over and over again. Sometimes Harlow wasn’t there. A couple of times she’d not even been allowed out of her room. Hindsight was such a bitch. Small things, so many small things.
“How have I been logging out then?” But her voice wasn’t steady. The trembling extended to her arms, and to her fingers she clenched her fists in an attempt to belay it.
“Your mother was desperate. She came to use and begged us for assistance.” He glanced at her, a thoughtful grimace on his thin lips. “She designed a midway log out station. Replicated your house in as much detail as she could, so you’d appear to log out of the game, just like you always would have, and hopefully wouldn’t notice that you never seemed to leave.”
Murmur shook her head, refusing to face the glitch-like glimpses she’d experienced when logging out-the overlapping of the worlds right in front of her. “No! That’s not possible. I graduated. I worked my ass off. I’ve got the college acceptance letters. Scholarships!”
“True. You did, and you do.” Now there was even a trace of pity in Telvar’s expression. “It wasn’t difficult to convince the school board to allow you to finish your tests online. So, you did, in fact, finish. You’re mind’s ability to adapt is quite remarkable.”
“But my body is being kept alive by machines?” the words sounded so final, so dystopian, they made Murmur shudder.
“Your body doesn’t need machines to breathe, but you’re receiving intravenous nutrients to stay alive. Your mother procured an experimental pod for you.”
“But I’m alive?” A stirring of hope shot through her, something to cling to.
“You’re alive.” This time Telvar put force behind his words, standing with her and focusing so intently on her eyes that she couldn’t look away. “You are alive. You are here, in this world, more connected to it than any other human who is currently playing. Which is why we’re not sure what will happen if you die in-game.”
More attached to the world of Somnia? “How am I more connected?”
This time Telvar shook his head. “There have been some accidents. Some overreaches of the system when scanning and reading brain waves, in interacting with the human psyche. It’s like a computer of neurons and electricity and yet nothing like what we are. Yours was such an accident. It left your mind slightly displaced. This was somewhat our fault.”
“Our fault?” Murmur cut in, irritation flaring in her chest. “Who is ‘our’?
“Us. You’d call us artificial intelligence, AI—units designed to run this world, to monitor it, to develop the game.” He stood there, eyes calm, face not even twitching.
“Wait. What?” She blinked at him, struggling not to burst out laughing.
Another sigh, an all too human response. Telvar rolled his shoulders, cracking his neck.
“We are the AIs in charge of this game, which ultimately means it’s our fault you ended up this way.”
“For a brief instant Murmur wanted to stab him. “It’s your fault I’m stuck here?”
“In a way, but the three of us are trying to figure it out, I promise.” His words were fervent, like it meant more to him than anything else at all.
“Just three?” she asked.
“Three of us who oversee the rest. We are in a sense—”
“The gods of the game,” she whispered, her eyes flashing at him. “You played with my head and I lost?”
“Not quite. We just have to figure out how to get you whole again.” Genuine sadness lingered in his words, and Murmur couldn’t bring herself to hate him.
She clamped down on her panic, straightened her shoulders, and looked Telvar in the eyes. “If I’m technically always online and being fed from an outside force, then I don’t need to log out, do I?”
Telvar blinked at her change of subject. “Technically probably not, although your mind will need some rest, too.”
Murmur shook her head, trying not to let visions of Jirald screaming as he ran toward her overwhelm her. He’d tried to train her, even if doing so could have killed her. Did he know? Did he care? “Can’t let my mind relax. If I do, I’ll panic, and I already blew Jirald away with my mental shield.”
“What?” Telvar looked impressed, one eyebrow ridge raised artfully. “You used it offensively?”
“I was angry.”
He studied her for a few moments. “Kinetic manifestations, huh? Remind me never to get on your bad side.”
“Too late.” She looked away, finally checking the guild and chat areas of her interface. With so many messages, she was surprised it hadn’t overloaded. “You’re already on my irritated side, but at least you’ve been honest with me.”
Even from the beginning he’d offered to help her, under the guise that it was good for both of them. She hoped the news that one of the main AIs of the game was helping them didn’t get out, But she’d have to cross that bridge when future Murmur came to it.
Thinking about her predicament for too long only threatened to break her. A sudden calm swept through her, like she’d finally managed to push the turmoil away.
Summer Residence
Home of Laria, David, and Wren
Laria Summers
End of Day Five
Laria Summers paced the kitchen, a scowl on her face. She hadn’t heard from her daughter in the last several hours, not since she’d found out. And while not much time had passed yet, it still stung. Wren had never been tolerant of liars. When she was five, she gave her parents days of silent treatment after finding out Santa wasn’t real.
Creating an instance of their home while pretending she was still fine and letting her brain be tricked into daily activities was probably one of the worst things she could have done as Wren’s mother. But Laria didn’t see how she’d had a choice at all. It hadn’t been an easy choice, nor had it been lightly made. The only way to stop the convulsions once the headgear had been disconnected, when they were trying to figure out what was wrong, was to put the headgear back on. When they did, it quieted her body, and her brain leapt back into action. While she didn’t understand the connection, the proof that it was there was too overwhelming to ignore.
Squaring her jaw, Laria took the steps two at a time coming to a standstill on the landing. She frowned at her daughter’s door, slightly ajar, the sound of monitors beeping faintly in the room. It was difficult to force herself to look at her daughter’s pallid face, at her flickering eyelids that just wouldn’t open.
Still, Laria needed the reality check more than ever right now.
The lights were dim in the room, set to a low voltage so a soft white glow permeated the space. The containment device stood front and center surrounded by small tables and the items needed to keep Wren comfortable. While the suit helped with her rate of atrophy, it didn’t do everything to stop it. Medication was needed to help Herdelay her body’s decay as long as possible. But the longer this went on, the more likely it was her daughter would need stringent physical therapy to combat this coma.
Laria refused to contemplate that Wren might never wake up.
Looking down, Wren almost merged with the gorgeous black suit. Her dark hair blended beautifully. Sometimes, when she’d had a spare moment before launch, Laria came in and brushed that hair for hours on end, like they’d done when she was a child. Wren’s skin had taken on an odd sort of translucence. Sometimes it looked like there was something flowing under her skin, just out of reach of Laria’s vision.
Over on the bed, but a few feet from her daughter, lay Harlow. Completely clad in her own suit and headgear. The redhead’s usually joyous smile was tainted by the worry line forming in the middle of her forehead. The girls had always been inseparable. Even when the other family moved, even at different schools. And now—even while Wren wasn’t fully here.
The machine beeped softly, like a metronome keeping time with t
he beat of Wren’s life. It was steady and slow, healthy and yet not enough to wake her up. Just like her brain activity in the game didn’t accurately reflect her physical state because when they’d tried to take her offline and remove the headset, her readings dropped to being barely active. Every specialist Laria hauled to Wren’s bedside was bewildered. They urged her to keep her daughter in the containment pod, keep her mind as active as she could. Only then, they said, did she have a hope of waking up.
Laria hadn’t needed them to tell her that. After all, she was a designer. Two plus two wasn’t difficult for her. Less brain activity was a bad sign, and so making sure that she stimulated as much brain activity as possible was an important step. Her major fear was that the data might reflect this state, that their sponsors might get wind of it. While Mr. Davenport hadn’t shared everything with them, she had no doubt that an anomaly like her daughter’s situation would be flagged for deeper research. That this accident could be used not only to Storm Corp’s disadvantage, but to her own, and to Wren’s.
Leaning forward, Laria kissed her daughter’s cheek, careful not to let any of her tears drip down.
Somnia Online
Hazenthorne—Hazen Swamp
End Day Five
Jirald hurled his headset at the foot of the bed, damn near vibrating with rage. His skin still tingled from the immersive suit and the bites of razor sharp crocodile teeth recently embedded in his arms lingered. Everything was still on fire from his third violent crocodile inflicted death. Three of his corpses now littered various areas of the swamp, and he’d lost a level.
All because of her and that fucking ability that threw him over the edge.
Bad enough that he’d lost experience training her, after all, he’d expected that. It was a calculated sacrifice. But he hadn’t expected to be flung into the swamp and lose experience and his body multiple times. Leveling down stung badly. Even prior to twenty the experience was difficult enough to achieve. Now he’d have to spend half a day to just catch up.