by K. T. Hanna
“What are you here so late for?” James asked, his tone lighter than she expected, almost like he was simply acting curious, and not actually curious at all.
Now the overtime and late nights were making her paranoid, but it was difficult not to be when her original assistant had been murdered not all that long ago. Besides her brain’s unwillingness to take in the facts, it was very difficult to stab yourself in the back of the neck. She allowed herself a lopsided grin at James before speaking. “I’m your boss. I should be asking you that question.”
He grinned, and the expression was so natural it alleviated a few of Shayla’s concerns, but not enough to downplay her wariness. He should be there, right? Especially if he had his own and Ava’s work to shoulder right now.
“I don’t know how she did it,” he said quietly, eyes focused on the toes of his shoes. “Ava had all your shit under control, and a heap of side projects for herself. I can’t keep up. I’m here until this time almost every night scrambling to be as efficient as she was.”
Shayla blinked at him, and stood up, brushing off her pants despite the fact that her office was usually spotless. “Sorry. I know you’re juggling your own workload too, which means you currently have more on your plate than even Ava did. I keep forgetting you had to take over with mere days to go before the launch.”
James shrugged, “Part of the job. Part of life, right?”
“Yeah.” Shayla glanced down at the huge mess all over the floor. She still had no answers, but her current brain capacity wasn’t about to make it easy on her anyway. With a sigh, she stretched. “I think I’m seeing things, and reading things wrong. The game’s launch has been so damned smooth that I can’t quite believe there’s not something I’m missing.”
James laughed, the tension in his shoulders dissipating. Even then, Shayla couldn’t stop thinking uncomfortable thoughts. Was he less tense because she’d just said she was seeing things? Shaking her head she smiled. Paranoia was coming to get her, armed and ready with pitchforks. “Probably time we left. You included. I’ll even wait until you’re gone before I go, because I’m quite certain otherwise you’re going to creep back in here.”
He nodded, and gave a small smile. “You’re not the tyrant everyone thinks you are, you know.”
“Shhh,” she cautioned him, “or I’ll make you transfer departments.”
James raised an eyebrow. “And have to train a new assistant? I think not. I call bollocks on you.”
Shayla laughed, but couldn’t shake the uneasy feeling. Perhaps it wasn’t coming from James. Maybe it came from somewhere else, but she was far too tired to try and figure out where.
Murmur opened the door to the enchanter trainer’s chamber and clamped her mental shields down so tightly and so quickly that her skill level jumped up however many points it needed to hit one hundred. Fucking fantastic.
“Why the hell are you here?” The words slipped out of her mouth before she could pull them back, and yet when she thought about it, she realized she’d wanted to say them anyway.
Belius turned his full attention to Murmur, the galaxies in his eyes swimming. His white tendrils of hair lit up brightly at the ends, lending him, just for that moment, a mad-scientist appearance. “Why, I came to see you, my dear. I knew you’d be hitting level twenty soon, and I wanted to check in on you. Congratulations.” He narrowed his eyes as if drinking in her aura, and for a brief moment a look of consternation crossed his face. “It seems you’ve not leveled your affinity any further. Pity.”
There was a different air to Belius now. Did he know she’d given Telvar the piece of Michael’s brain? Was he angry? His body language was different from before, more distanced, less personal. Perhaps it was because there was another enchanter master in the room with him. Maybe he wasn’t supposed to be so familiar with his students. She’d also been more distant toward him since the Shard absorption incident, so that might even have something to do with it.
Forcing a smile onto her face, she kept her tone as civil as possible, trying to blend out any of the paranoia she could feel building in her mind behind its tight shields. It wasn’t that she hated him—she just didn’t understand his motives, nor did she trust his reasoning when he’d been hiding so many things from her all along. “Well, I wasn’t expecting to see you here, I was looking forward to meeting other enchanter masters. It’s good to get different perspectives.”
Taking deliberate steps and not letting Belius’s belligerent glare unnerve her, she walked up to the dwarven master and inclined her head. “My name is Murmur. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
The dwarf guffawed, much like Jinna did, and she immediately felt safer. His eyes sparkled and he held out a hand, grasping hers firmly but not yanking at her arm. “Fine of ye. I’m Dirsna. I’ve been talking to my old rival, ye see. He’s a bit of a stick in the mud in’t he?”
There was a twinkle in the dwarf’s eye, and at first glance he seemed jovial and easy to get along with. She wondered if he had the same penchant as Belius for not telling her anything in everything he said. “Please to meet you, Master Dirsna.”
“Ack, no. Jus call me Dirsna. Only people who call me master are people I pay. And while I can teach ye, I only charge for materials.” He looked her up and down, his gaze discerning and not lecherous. “So, so. Level twenty. Psionicist. I wish ye’d reached me first. I’d have guided you down a less dangerous path there, missy.”
“Less dangerous?” Her curiosity was piqued. What did he mean, less dangerous? Wasn’t most mind magic dangerous anyway?
“Yeh mind is a tangled web. It holds secrets ye might not even know yeself. Mind reading is well and good, but sometimes, if ye’re not careful, ye can get lost and never found again.” His eyes were deep and soulful, and the seriousness in them didn’t wane. He wasn’t joking.
A wave of irritation at Belius passed through her again. “There are always side effects, aren’t there? Guess we should make the label spell them out to us.”
Dirsna guffawed. “Yes! A fine sense of humor. Here, come here.”
He motioned her to follow him over to one of the larger cabinets in the room and opened the doors. There, nestled in amongst heavy-duty velvet, were some beautiful scrolls. They seemed heftier than the ones she’d received earlier and Murmur could feel her mouth salivating. Considering the spells she already had were powerful enough, she couldn’t wait to get her hands on these.
“May I?” she asked, her tone almost reverent. It was something special to be able to reach in and pull out scrolls that would turn into pure power once her skin absorbed them.
Dirsna nodded, and Murmur smiled, almost giddy with excitement.
She reached her hand in, and even before she touched the parchment of the scrolls, her runes began to glow. It was like they could sense the power emanating from the pages she was about to acquire, even without her having to read and absorb the knowledge. This was different, like she’d truly passed some sort of threshold.
Suddenly Dirsna stood next to her, his hands behind his back as he leaned in, his brown eyes sparkling with gold flecks. “You’ve noticed already haven’t you?”
Murmur hesitated. “Maybe. These just seem so different; even their energy sparks differently.”
“Exactly. Ye’ve hit the first true milestone level. Twenty is different from the levels before. Ye’ll receive significant upgrades an’ from now on only every five levels. Twenty is sort of like ye’ve grown up an’ left the nest and there’s nothing new we can teach ye—it’s up to you to expand your horizon.” His smile put her far more at ease than Belius’s ever did, and for some brief moments she was even able to forget Belius stood behind them in a corner of the room, likely fuming silently.
“Milestone level, huh?” She sorted through the scrolls, relishing in the tingles of power that darted up her arms as she did so. She knew twenty was always a milestone, but here it
truly felt like it. More illusions—so fun spells were still included—but if this is where things got serious, then she wanted far more than mere illusion spells.
Altruism
Cast: Self or others
Type: Buff
Duration: 45 minutes
Effect: This allows a faction increase to your target. It will lift you one faction level. However, should you be kill on sight to any faction, not even altruism can help you. This buff will update again at level 30.
Shift
Cast: Area of effect
Type: AOE Stun
Duration: 8 seconds
Effect: This stun effectively locks all enemies around its epicenter in place for 15 yards. They will be unable to move for 8 seconds.
Fervor
Cast: Self or others
Type: Buff
Duration: 45 minutes
Effect: This is an attack speed buff, but it also increases agility by the caster’s level. Cannot be cast on the same target as Beserker.
Beserker
Cast: Self or others
Type: Buff
Duration: 45 minutes
Effect: This buff adds strength to the amount equal to the level of the caster, however it also reduces agility by half the caster’s level. Best used for classes or pets who will not need agility stacked. Cannot be cast on the same target as Fervor.
Charismatic
Cast: Self or others (but who are we kidding, you’re an enchanter, you’ll never not cast this on yourself).
Type: Buff
Duration: 45 minutes
Effect: This buff increases your target’s charisma equal to the level of the caster. No restrictions. Cast away!
Murmur chuckled at the description and couldn’t wait to increase her charisma up to seventy-four. That was a huge jump. She smoothed the next scroll out before reading it too.
Magic Resist
Cast: Group
Type: Buff
Duration: 45 minutes
Effect: Increases your magic resistance by an amount equivalent to the caster’s level.
Armored
Cast: Group
Type: Buff
Duration: 45 minutes
Effect: Increases your AC by an amount equivalent to the caster’s level.
“Holy crap.” She muttered to herself as she began to absorb them. The purple in the runes underneath her skin flared up with a sort of electricity. She smiled at the light show, loving the locus body, and happy to have chosen it. At the time she hadn’t even realized how beneficial her strange sight was, or the tall body could be.
“I’m starting to feel more like an enchanter. These are fantastic spells.” She looked up, grinning, to see Dirsna looking at her fondly.
“Ye’re a real enchanter. A psionicist even. Hopefully by the time ye next come back to town, ye’ll have hit your next Mental Acuity level. That’s a large part of what defines ye now.” Dirsna’s tone didn’t hold condescension, but a genuine fondness for the knowledge he was speaking about. He seemed to be a born teacher, and certainly nothing like Belius. But there she went again, forgetting that Somnia wasn’t real—or at least wasn’t as real as some of these NPCs seemed to believe it was.
“I guess it does.” She glanced down at her fingers, long and sleek and silvered grey with their purple-hued undertones running through her skin. Her heart beat in her chest. She could feel it. Even the air in here tasted like old books and leather, with a hint of cinnamon. Maybe cinnamon was just something she smelled no matter where she was.
“Now.” His tone had changed, and his gaze caught her own, holding it as he spoke. “Ye’ve past this first milestone. One ye hit level twenty-five, ye’ll start to diverge on your path. Ye may choose different enchanter branches if ye will. Like a tree, all of yer limbs grow from your trunk, but all are different, an’ ye must decide for yerself which way ye want yer class to proceed.”
She blinked at him, running his words through her head, trying to understand exactly what he meant. “So you mean there won’t just be spells everyone can have? We’ll have to choose between some in order to progress our class?”
Dirsna paused for a moment, a small frown on his face, before he nodded tentatively. “In a way. There’ll be choices to make every level. Say ye can choose blue, red, an’ yellow. An’ ye choose blue. The next time ye’ll be able to still choose red an’ yellow, but ye’d be able to choose a deeper, darker, more powerful blue. Once ye gain yer level, ye’ll be given choices on how best to specialize yer class.”
“In addition to the Mental Acuity skills?” Murmur understood the analogy, or at least she thought she did, and the potential of it sent tingles through her entire body.
“In addition. Some of yer Mental Acuity skills have already begun to develop into their kinetic counterparts, have they not?”
Murmur paused, feeling the blush rise in her cheeks. She hadn’t meant for it to manifest when she sent Jirald tumbling through the air, but he did have a point. “Technically, I guess.”
“Then make sure ye practice those. Feel them out, test the waters. Mental Acuity will not increase unless ye explore it.” His eyes were so kind, such a contrast to Belius’s hungry expressions she was used to.
Murmur stood and bowed briefly to Dirsna, appreciating the way her new armor wasn’t a robe. It fit her perfectly, conforming to her body as she moved. “Thank you, for everything. We’ll be out this way for a good while. I hope to see you again.”
Dirsna smiled. “I hope ye do. I’ll look forward to seeing ye. I can see why Belius wants to keep ye for himself.”
The words sent a shiver down Murmur’s spine, but she tried not to let it show, and instead forced her smile to remain in place. There was no way she was getting out of here without speaking to Belius again. She knew that. And while she knew it, she still didn’t care for it. It made her wonder exactly what had changed. Was it his actions or her perceptions of them?
She stopped in front of him on her way out and crossed her arms, jutting out her chin stubbornly. “So. What do you want with me? I didn’t think trainers scoured the corners of Somnia to find their favorite students.”
Belius smiled, but the expression died on his lips. “I want...” He paused as if mulling it over in his head. “I want you to hand in your quest.”
Murmur rolled her eyes. “I don’t have to hand in any subtle hint-based quests if I don’t want to. Also, I’m an enchanter, and therefore the same things you might need could reveal buttloads for me. So, I’m using my freedom of choice and individuality to keep some things to myself. Also, I have too many flipping quests running through my interface right now. I’m not even completely sure which one you mean.”
Belius’s stare grew harsher—even for him—and his lips drew across in an angry thin line. “That’s the story you’re going to maintain?”
She blinked. “What do you mean? Shouldn’t I be curious? Aren’t you the one who told me to be—wait, wait, I’ve got it here somewhere—to listen and sound out, to pay close attention, and to block my thoughts from others?”
This time Belius’s mouth dropped open slightly in shock, and he took a couple of steps back. “I didn’t mean from me! I’m your teacher.”
“Teacher yes, controller no!” she snapped at him, barely keeping a lid on her temper.
Stars clashed in his eyes, eliciting tiny explosions that rained through them. He squared his jaw with visible effort and practically spat the words out. “Fine. You make a good point.”
Murmur smiled. “Sometimes I even make sense, but don’t get used to those moments. I have some more levels to go fetch now, Bel! Thank you for coming to see me. I do appreciate it. I’ll see you soon.” She tried to smile at the end to take a little bit of sting out of her words. It wouldn’t do to make him an actual enemy after all.
Not leaving herself time to hesitate, she walked straight passed Belius and exited the room. She waved as she closed the door behind her. Out in the foyer she didn’t linger and sold her stuff to Geshua for a tidy sum before heading out to the center of the village.
Or at least, that was her plan.
As she stepped outside, she walked into bedlam.
Dwarves ran screaming. Arrows flew through the air, thudding into signs, roofs, and people, sending them toppling to the ground in a fit of agonized yelling.
She darted forward, hiding behind the great dwarf in the middle of the fountain. He held a bow aloft with one hand, and a horn in the other, the latter raised to his lips like it hadn’t been before. She frowned at it. Damn it if they only had a horn of their own to blow. Glancing around she spied a few of her guild and motioned them over.
The horn did sound, loud and angry, almost deafening her as she stood underneath it. So the fountain was also a warning bell of sorts? That was interesting.
You have noticed the dwarven fountain sometime moves for specific reasons. This is just one piece of your puzzle. Make sure you don’t lose the box.
Murmur frowned. Box? That was fucking vague. Again.
Moments later the dwarven horn received a more distant answer from outside the city walls, and Murmur made the mistake of trying to peek through and see what was going on.
There, mounted on a horse directly in front of the city gates, with a couple of chained pet golems in tow, was a woman who looked suspiciously like the scouts they’d taken care of earlier. She wore the same type of dark brown armor that blended easily with trees, but stood out in the cold and mostly snowy landscape around the city. And she had fiery red hair that would have stuck out anywhere but appeared like a blur of blood on the snow. Tattoos graced her body symmetrically, their lines interwoven with each other as symbols writhed and wriggled on her skin.