Anomaly (Somnia Online Book 2)

by K. T. Hanna

  “You probably need to take a rest. If not sleep, your mind needs some peace.” His tone was soft and tentative, like he knew how she felt, the immediate rejection of the idea that formed in her mind.

  Murmur took a deep breath and nodded. Her head felt like it was swimming through sludge, heavy and unmanageable. “I think I’ll do that.”

  “Excellent. You can’t hear the construction in the kitchen, so I’ll put a cot there for you to lie down on. You don’t need long, but you need something.”

  His gaze held a sincerity of care she’d not expected, and she smiled at him gratefully.

  “I’ll take a nap after I check in with Neva.”

  “Good plan. Resting before might lead to consequences neither of us want.” He winked at her and she laughed, and headed to the crafting area, her emotions no longer in such upheaval.

  Murmur might not strictly need sleep, but her mind had definitely reacted well to her quick nap. She felt rejuvenated. A little bit of mental rest never went astray. She’d made her way back to Cenedril after saying hello to Neva and curling up on the cot. She stretched her arms out stretched her arms out, feeling the wind run through her fingers, and smiled.

  Rummaging through her inventory as it sorted itself, she double-checked the potions Neva shoved upon her when she went to say hello.

  First things first though. She had to go and discover how the whole hybrid class system worked, so she headed back to the enchanter guild to see Geshua, greeting him with a smile as she walked through the door. In the heat of the battle, she’d almost forgotten about it.

  “‘Allo Murmur, good to see ye again.” His smile shone through his words. “What can I do for ye?”

  She hesitated, not entirely sure how to approach it. “I need to—how do I go about starting my hybrid path?”

  He raised an eyebrow at her, and peered, narrowing his eyes. “That’s probably best discussed with Dirsna. But it’ll depend on what ye’re wanting. There are many different avenues you can take.”

  “I don’t just get allocated a hybrid class?” She hadn’t even considered a choice. She just thought you got what you were given.

  Geshua chuckled. “The only thing chosen for ye in this game is yer initial class. Everything else is a choice. The actions you take, the people ye interact with, the way ye treat others, and the hidden paths ye choose. Options will open up to ye depending on how ye play your class, on your play style, and well...on the game’s perception of ye as a person. Taking away that initial choice, just opens up paths ye may never have considered.”

  Murmur nodded slowly. “So, what’s the usual then?”

  “Enhance yourself, strengthen your group, go to the dark side.” He shrugged, and his eyes twinkled merrily.

  “I can’t choose all three?” She grinned and winked at him.

  His laughter rang heartily throughout the foyer. “Don’t be too greedy there. I’ll give ye a bit of advice. Once ye hit level twenty-five, ye’ll have to diverge yer path as an enchanter. Keep in mind that whatever hybrid path ye choose will have to complement that or ye’ll lose advantages you might have otherwise had.”

  “Like increasing my amazing prowess as an awesome enchanter?” She half meant it as a joke, and half didn’t, but Geshua’s serious expression gave away how not kidding he was.

  “Well, ye could choose to psionically enhance some of yer abilities, or some lesser attack skills.” He leaned forward on the counter, the eagerness in his eyes catching. “Ye can also take Dirsna’s suggestions on how to hybridize ye know.”

  Murmur shook her head. There was just so much to take in. “So, basically, I can go talk to Dirsna who can help me decide which type of path I should take, and perhaps help me answer what will be available once I hit twenty-five, so that I can make a more informed choice? Instead of standing here and taking up all of your time?”

  “Excellent observation. Should I let him know ye’ll see him now?” Geshua’s dwarfy grin was catching.

  “Please.” She returned his smile and headed into the back to see her trainer.

  The door opened before she could knock, but that didn’t bother her anymore. She’d grown used to a lot of things over such a short period of time.

  Dirsna watched her closely as she approached, and reached beneath his desk, pulling out a huge spell book. The pages were worn, and aged, almost yellow, and the cover was nicked in places. Like it had been very loved, and age had beaten it down.

  “Hybrid consultation?” He asked with a twinkle to his eye.

  Murmur nodded. “Wow, it’s like you can read my mind!”

  The dwarf laughed, the hearty sound bouncing off the walls like the merry bells outside. “Well, let’s see what might be best suited for ye. There are four different types of hybridization. The first is support. This is an addition that will ground ye an’ add a certain strength to all of your skills, a robustness that makes it harder to disrupt or tear down what ye’vr created—like Charm or Mezmerize.”

  Murmur bit her lip, running the words over in her mind. “Like a reinforcement of all my abilities then?”

  “Exactly.” Dirsna, glanced down at the book, flipping the pages. “Next is an enhancing option. For this ye basically just stick to the class an’ choose to strengthen certain elements of yer skills.”

  “Will that intersect with my class specializations once I hit twenty-five?”

  “Yes!” Dirsna beamed, as if he was very impressed she’d understood the concept. “Both support an’ enhancement will allow ye to strengthen yer main class to the best ability available depending on what ye choose for yer specialty. Support however, will simply ground ye an’ strengthen yer already strong support skills. Enhancement will make yer skills more dangerous.”

  Murmur blinked. “For me or for others?”

  “Both.” Dirsna didn’t miss a beat. “Then there’s defensive an’ offensive. To allow ye to take an’ receive damage. I wouldn’t recommend these for ye, simply because ye never want to willingly take damage given yer circumstances, an’ while ye may want to mete out damage, it’s not a good idea considering the amount of aggression yer skills already generate for ye. Adding extra nuke-like damage to that is probably not the best idea.”

  “Yeah, I get it.” She eyed the book in his hands. “Does that have all the potential information in it?”

  “Technically, but it’s not for yer eyes.” He took a deep breath. “I hereby recommend that ye journey to the druid’s guild an’ speak to Master Sangilla. She will show ye the mark ye’ll need to endure the things facing ye. Remember, every path has light an’ dark. Yer choice is what ye make it.”

  His words left a bit of a shiver running down Murmur’s spine, but she dug her heels in, unsure if she wanted to take the advice. Something nagged at her about it. “I assume that the druid role is the support role, to give strength and grounding.”

  Dirsna hesitated and took a deeper breath before answering. “It is. For what it’s worth, I believe yer skills are dangerous. Given yer attachment to the world an’ the system’s influence on yer strength, I caution ye against taking on too much power. Giving yerself the ability to ground an’ maintain yer own train of thought, is what I would advise ye choose. Considering ye’ll get to diverge as an enchanter shortly anyway, an’ that yer on the psionicist path, strength will help ye in many ways.”

  Murmur ran his words over in her head, trying to find fault with them. He was right. Being able to protect herself, to protect her mind with stronger shields would be useful. Hell, maybe she could reinforce that kinetic ability she’d learned on the battlefield. Speaking of which...

  “Do I have to talk to Belius about kinetic abilities, or can I talk to you about them too?”

  Dirsna raised an eyebrow at the sudden change of subject. “Ye may talk to me as well. Have ye learned a kinetic skill?”

  He half closed his eyes
and muttered a few phrases under his breath before opening them again. “Ah, I see. Excellent. Forcefield manifestation. Ye’ll need that.”

  “So being able to ground myself would strengthen that ability too, right?” She played the scenarios over in her head as he nodded his assent. “Okay then. Druid it is.”

  Dirsna smiled, and she wasted no time in heading out on her mission to obtain her hybrid class.

  The druid’s guild wasn’t hard to spot. It stood in one of the many clusters of trees toward the outer walls of Verendus. The small building was surrounded by herbs of all kinds. She spied chamomile, and sage, and lavender, and night’s bane, and any number of nastier-looking ones. Two sides to every coin, huh?

  “Greetings. I am Master Sangilla, and you, I presume, are seeking me out as a hybrid trainer?” The voice that greeted Murmur was soft and lulling. She looked around for the speaker and only noticed when the druid moved toward her. The dwarf was almost petite for the species, and her hair and clothing blended with the trees making her eerily difficult to track with Murmur’s eyes.

  “I’m Murmur,” she said inclining her head. “I had thought...Dirsna suggested I come here.”

  “Mm-hm.” Sangilla walked around Murmur slowly, so much in fact that the enchanter felt like a piece of meat. “I think I see why. You have darkness in you, young Murmur. Perhaps we can ground it for you.”

  “That’s what he said. What exactly does grounding mean?” Murmur was still slightly hesitant, that part of her wanting to be the most badass enchanter there could be, but she felt this was the safer and more logical choice.

  “Druids work with nature, and you work with the mind. Both of these occur naturally throughout the world. If we can get you used to grounding yourself with the earth when you have to utilize your darker powers, it may help you fight the temptation they represent for longer, as well as stabilizing you and adding to the strength of your powers.” The woman smiled, and Murmur found herself hoping she’d be able to fight them forever. Sometimes her own thoughts really annoyed her.

  “Will I heal?” Because Murmur wasn’t stupid, giving an enchanter her own healing seemed tantamount to painting a massive over powered neon sign over her head.

  Sangilla laughed so hard she coughed. “Oh no. Definitely not. I don’t think giving you healing powers would bode well for people. What is healed can also be killed. No sense in putting that much power into your hands.”

  Murmur wasn’t sure if she should be flattered or offended.

  “No, no.” Sangilla continued. “I’ll teach you to ground, and ward yourself. Not as powerful as a shaman and different to your illusionary shield, but the earth will assist you. And we’ll make sure you can call on the thorns to protect yourself in dire situations. Oh, and you’ll probably find that you like animals a lot more than you used to.”

  “That’s an odd side effect,” Murmur mumbled. “I already like animals.”

  Sangilla handed her three scrolls. “Odd—perhaps, but fun nevertheless. By the time I’m done with you, you’ll understand nature in ways you probably didn’t want to.”

  A crow cawed up on top of the little hut, drawing Murmur’s eye. It seemed to be watching her, but didn’t give her any foreboding feelings. Instead, it made her feel safe, and just for a moment she imagined that someone was watching over her like the crow on the battlefield seemed to when she was injured.

  Only for a moment did she consider it as creepy.

  Storm Entertainment

  Somnia Online Division

  Game Development Offices Artificial Intelligence Server Room -Limbo Sector

  Day Eight Post Launch

  Shayla paced her office while Laria spun on her chair, back and forth like a yo-yo. Reports littered the background of her screens. They were so neat, so almost perfectly what was needed to push the project along on a steady tangent of tweaking to get the results their sponsors required. She stopped her useless momentum and traced a couple of those folders with her fingers, frowning so hard she almost pulled a muscle.

  “There’s really not much you can do. Those AIs...” Laria sighed, stopping her spinning too. “Those AIs are superb. Whatever Michael did to them, he did well. I have no clue how he accomplished it, but he set them on a path to understanding how exactly to propagate the world, how to run the game. All in all we need to be thanking those AIs for Somnia’s success, because I don’t know about you, but compared to other releases, this has been too smooth.”

  She sighed again, drawing some of Shayla’s ire, except just as Shayla was about to yell at her colleague, something clicked in her mind. The AIs were running everything. Sure, they needed customer support for those people who weren’t satisfied, or else were stuck in-game, or needed help returning an item. But in most cases, the AIs seemed to correct mistakes and manage all of that before it even reached their lines. Added to that, coding and keeping bugs to a minimum had seemed like a breeze in the last week.

  Ideas that sprouted a couple of days ago—when she’d realized that so much of the data they had was a bit too perfect—began to grow in her mind. Was the data actually exactly what they needed? Or was it engineered to look that way?

  “Laria? Have you ever spoken to the AIs?” Shayla kicked herself for not being able to hide the hitch in her voice, the curiosity that just couldn’t be satiated. It really couldn’t be happening the way she thought it was. It made no sense. And for no one to have noticed...

  Laria put her elbows on the desk, and clenched her fists together. Shayla watched as her friend’s face traveled through myriad emotions including confusion and fear, anger and worry. Finally, when she spoke, Shayla had to sit down herself.

  “Pretty sure I already told you that. How do you think I managed to get Wren into the game into the character? She had brainwaves with that headset. I couldn’t give up, Shayla. So I came in here and talked to them.” Laria shrugged, the tension leaking from her shoulders like she was admitting defeat. “At first I wasn’t sure if it was just the game or if they’d heard, or if they understood. I would stand in the server room for hours just talking out my feelings, my frustrations. After a few days, it worked. And I know that right now, they’re specifically keeping an eye on my girl, specifically making sure she’s as safe as she can be.”

  “How? Laria, how do you know this? Are you going to tell me they’re talking to you without specific direction?” Shayla had to stop the hysterical note building up in her voice, the laughter that threatened to bubble up and overflow.

  Again, Laria shrugged, but this time she wouldn’t meet Shayla’s eyes. “I talked to them. I took my coffee in there. I sat down in despair. What am I supposed to do? I’ve practically killed my daughter by using the headset Michael prepared for her.” Tears welled in the woman’s eyes, and her struggle to choke them back was visible and scary. When she spoke, her voice cracked multiple times. “These machines, these AIs—they are the only things who can see her in that game, can see how her brain is interacting in that world. The only things that can help her maintain this connection.”

  “Hey. Hey, Laria, honey.” Shayla pushed herself to her feet and forced herself to hug her friend. Despite all the screw ups and the credit Laria didn’t give to herself, the game was a success mostly because of her. It was her brainchild. The AIs had originally been built to her specifications, and it was her imagination, her drive that fueled the development team, that gave Storm Entertainment its first huge success in the virtual world. Even less than two weeks in, Somnia was already exceeding all expectations.

  “Don’t blame yourself. You can’t have known he was a total loon. We only found out after we managed to unlock the files he kept, and we still don’t have the whole picture. Michael had great ideas, but his implementation of them wasn’t ideal. It was self-serving, selfish, and pretty much batshit. Knowing him and that he knew about Wren’s book smarts, he probably specifically set out to test
that headset with her. I wish I could see it. I wish I could see the differences. Maybe it’d help us get her back.”

  Laria blinked and perked up. “Do you think so? You could come over. David hasn’t seen you in more than passing for ages, and you could check her headset out without taking it off her, right?”

  Shayla nodded, only just realizing that her tiredness prevented her from seeing an obvious solution. “Yes. Actually, let’s do that tonight? We have the rest of the day to go here, and there’s a shit ton of work to get done, but overall, we should be able to manage a trip to your house. What’s a few hours sleep, right?”

  This time Laria laughed, and the expression even flitted through her eyes for a moment. “True. Who needs sleep when you have worlds to create, and people to bring back from a coma?”

  “Stop saying shit like that. I’m quite certain even Wren isn’t holding this against you.” Shayla suppressed her own sigh, concerned for her friend, and slowly began to worry about what would happen to the game if the AIs really were the driving force, and not the headsets. How the fuck were they going to explain that to the military? It wasn’t like you could replicate partially sentient AIs at will. “You don’t need to worry so much. The malfunction was in the headset’s connection to the world, to the AIs right?”

  Laria nodded. “At least as far as I can figure out, that’s exactly it. I’m not sure Sui and Rav even agree on what happened, and getting Thra to capitulate to anything is like trying to get blood from a rock.”

  “You even know their names—” Shayla paused, disliking her emerging train of thought even more. “I think we might need to go and talk to those little buggers. With everything going on, and all the information they’ve been tweaking, I think they owe us some answers.”

  Murmur went over her hybrid skills again. She’d not headed into this expecting to get druid talents. Didn’t everyone want phenomenal cosmic power? Begrudgingly, though, she admitted that it made a lot of sense. Being able to strengthen the powers she had would be marvelous, and grounding herself might actually make it so she didn’t keep getting those waves of dark temptation. They made her skin crawl and her guilt fire to new heights. Taking a deep breath, she ran over the six new skills she’d gained.