Anomaly (Somnia Online Book 2)

by K. T. Hanna

  Earth Shielding

  Cast: Passive

  Type: Reinforcement

  Duration: Always active

  Effect: Due to the psionicist’s unique nature, Earth Shielding will reinforce any of your psionicist-based skills such as Thought Shielding, Thought Projection, and Thought Sensing, making them more robust and upping your mental defenses. Any other skills gained through the psionicist’s branch will also be affected by this, including any kinetic skills.

  Reinforce Self

  Cast: Passive

  Type: Reinforcement

  Duration: Always active

  Effect: Similar to Earth Shielding which effects your skills, this ability allows your body to take more damage, upping your innate armor class by your level times two, effectively making cloth armor reflect the protection boiled leather might grant you.

  Reinforce Intelligence

  Cast: Passive

  Type: Nature’s Awareness

  Duration: Always active

  Effect: Nature is all-seeing and all-encompassing. This ability allows you to take on some of that wisdom and intelligence and apply it to yourself. It increases both of those statistics by the enchanter’s level, giving rise to a larger mana pool, and slightly heightened damage.

  Earth Pull

  Cast: Instant—3 minute recast

  Type: Buff

  Duration: 30 seconds

  Effect: This allows any buff that is chosen to triple in potency for a 30 second duration. It’s activated first, followed by the buff. Make sure you time it properly. Can only be cast on one person at a time, and does not include group buffs. No refunds.

  Binding Shield

  Cast: Instant—5 minute recast

  Type: Linked Buff

  Duration: 15 seconds

  Effect: You can offer an earth shield to two allies (including yourself if you’re going to be selfish and all). This shield will share the damage between the two allies, meting out damage proportionally. Use wisely. Don’t try this at home.

  Nature’s Gift

  Cast: Passive

  Type: Awareness

  Duration: Permanent

  Effect: You have become acutely aware of your surroundings. Of the life in everything, in the trees, in the forest, in each and every being you encounter. This lends you a connection to nature. Don’t dismiss it lightly.

  Well, then. Murmur sighed. She guessed that showed her, right? It was a lot to take in on top of her already multitudinous amount of abilities and spells she’d gained at twenty. Debuffs were easy. They sort of leveled up and replaced previous ones. But the buffs now had qualifiers, and her reinforcements adjusted them even further. The system was as complex as she made it, but not choosing a hybrid class would have benefited no one. She needed the added strength.

  She needed to survive.

  She glanced at the in-game time and frowned. The others were having a real sleep, so they wouldn’t be back for hours yet. There was no way she was waiting to try these babies out.

  Murmur really wanted to examine the extent of Charm. In combat with the others there was rarely time to figure out things that might be outside the box, and since she had the extra time...

  After her experience with the scouts and their iron will, she wasn’t confident of her ability to overcome a strong humanoid mind regardless of how much charisma she possessed.

  Perhaps she could tempt an animal to partner with her rather than be completely controlled. That was an idea. Maybe offer it food, a scratch behind the ear so it would willingly become her pet. It was a concept she wasn’t sure had been intended, but Charm allowed her to access their skills. If she could get a willing pet, then her control of it and situations would be much safer. And if not, it should still be easier than charming a person. Plus with her new earthiness, maybe they’d like her more.

  After a brief chat with one of the guards on duty, she headed out of the front gate, trying to avoid the bloody and trampled mass of snowy sludge in front of the city. Fucking snow. Who thought white shit falling from the sky was ever going to be a good idea? White never stayed white. Ever. With any luck, that field of death would soon be snowed over, or reset itself, or god knew what because basically this game never did anything the usual way. It could also end up a monument of frozen ground that deterred anyone from trying what the Noch’Mar clan had.

  Wolves. Murmur loved dogs, so maybe a wolf would be a good pet. With the conditions of her home city back in the real world, she’d never been able to have a pet. Walking them outside would be dangerous for its and her lungs. But in Somnia the air smelled and tasted cleaner, pine needles, and currently blood and death, but once she passed the field that would change too. The guards said wolves roamed the tree lines, so to the tree lines she headed in the early hours of the morning.

  It didn’t take much time off the regular path to find what she was looking for. When she saw the group level snow wolf, she wondered for a brief second if this had been the brightest idea. Even though it seemed to be alone, didn’t they usually run in packs?

  Murmur dropped into a crouch, her eyes fixed on her target, and she hoped against hope she’d be able to relay what she wanted. It pawed a massive white paw at the ground, like a bull getting ready to fight in those bull fights that had long since been outlawed in Spain. Its mouth was pulled back in a snarl, exposing sharp white teeth against bright pink gums. It made her want to growl back, but instead she extended her shielded mind, allowing her thoughts to project through, and gently nudged the animal. She showed it food, and that she needed help and would exchange it, and wouldn’t that be a grand thing if it could help her?

  It cocked its head to one side, the fangs withdrawing slightly as its paw halted its motion.

  An image popped into her sensor net, one of the wolf not fighting its own kind. Maybe it was a condition on helping her. Murmur almost stumbled back onto her ass, shocked by the fact that the creature knew to negotiate with her. No killing of wolves? No problem.

  She pulled a chunk of meat out of her inventory and kept it in her hand while informing the wolf in the simplest way she could that she’d have to cast a spell on it in order to have it help her. A level twenty-one wolf would be a huge boon to her quest for some solo experience. For several moments its ears flickered back and forth and then it stopped growling completely and trotted forward, stopping about four feet in front of her. Slowly, Murmur rose back up to standing and reached the meat out to the wolf.

  It gobbled the food down and then stood, watching her every move closely. Her fingers moved fast, intertwining into the enthralling spell that she had come to love, even if it often had bad repercussions. Charm settled on the wolf, and the reaction of her system was completely different, because this time she’d charmed something willingly.

  Your ability to persuade and convey your intentions has surpassed levels of the average psionic. You have gained a new skill. Please use this wisely.

  Charming Cooperation

  This ability allows you to use your charisma and your Mental Acuity to persuade monsters, animals, and sometimes even people to join your cause.

  Effects: When using Thought Projectios to make sure your target understands the charming process before you activate Charm, they will work together as allies instead of coerced foes. You may release them whenever you or they request it.

  Cost: Requires MA to be at 35 for each ally. Diminishes current total MA for the duration of the cooperation.

  Caution: You can use this on multiple targets, but each ally costs, and you can never utilize Charming Cooperation on more beings than is equal to 20% of your level. Also, don’t try to charm raid bosses. Even small ones. Just don’t even attempt that shit.

  Murmur blinked at the run down, and at her wolf. She’d see how it’d go with one, first. Sometimes she had difficulty choosing all of her own spells and
the order which was best for them; operating a small army of charmed pets was only going to make things more complicated. Add all that to having to know everyone in her party’s best and most useful skills? Yeah, she’d take that whole charming thing one step at a time.

  She might even have to share experience. She wasn’t sure. But she walked off with her snow wolf trundling along calmly at her side, its back almost up to her waist. She hadn’t realized how big it was at first. The distance made it seem so much smaller. Considering how tall she was as a locus, the thing was the size of a smaller pony.

  Instead of following the path they’d taken the last time, she headed up a less traveled way farther back toward Darshin, pretty sure it was the path the guard had mentioned.

  The wolf, who she nicknamed Snowy in her head for convenience, rubbed against her legs and she looked down.

  His eyes seemed so intelligent.

  “So you know. I can freeze mobs in time. I’ll make sure we don’t get more than we can handle, okay?” It was almost like the wolf nodded at her. She smiled and laughed, casting her shield over herself because it was the only way she had to prevent damage. Although she did feel a little more robust. Maybe it was the newly gained druid skills, or perhaps it was all in her head. Since she couldn’t heal, she had to make sure to keep it on her at all times. That little piece of hematite Belius had given her way back when was certainly paying for itself a million times over. Maybe he wasn’t all bad.

  The walk was quite a distance, and Snowy’s company helped. Small underground creatures that could be attacked and grant some small experience scampered out of the way of the large wolf. Murmur had always loved the woodland creatures who didn’t actually attack unless in self-defense, from squirrels to foxes to other variations of the same. It made the world feel so much more lived in.

  She arrived at a cluster of trees that opened into a clearing, and kept herself hidden behind them. Snowy blended wonderfully with the snow, and it was easy to judge the camp and the cave behind it, him camouflaging nicely and her using Invis. With the campfires out front, and a few patrols of two to three gnolls, Murmur calculated how best to pull them. This spot was probably a good one to use. Once around these trees, most areas of the camp couldn’t be seen. That meant that when she pulled a mob, she’d be able to line of sight them.

  The wolf was nudging her. It looked at the gnolls and then back to her, and pawed at the ground.

  “You want to pull? Oh wow! Because you’re a wolf, they might just chase you and not relate you to me at all!” While it wouldn’t work for the entire time, they might be able to have it work long enough that it’d break up the camp spawn rate. She eyed the wolf, wondering if he was another AI spying on her, but even if he was, at least he was helping. Besides, technically all of the NPCs were AIs, but those were deeper thoughts for a not-close-to-a-gnoll-camp time. “Sure. We can try that.”

  Snowy wuffed softly, and Murmur buffed him with everything she had. More agility, more armor class, more charisma even. Haste and everything else, she threw at him, buffing them both into oblivion and back. If everything else failed, she’d throw one of her new skills at him.

  The wolf grinned a big toothy grin, his tongue lolling out of his mouth. And then he spun around, ran off, and returned, dragging three gnolls behind him.

  Adrenaline coursed through her, along with a small voice in the back of her head telling her that she was crazy to be doing this. Did she have a death wish? This wasn’t just a normal game for her, not anymore. She dismissed the thoughts and shut the voice out. This wasn’t the time for her to have an existential crisis.

  Without another thought, her hands already moved in the intricate Mezmerize design. Stopping each of the two she needed to freeze quickly in their tracks, she allowed Snowy to get a few swipes in before casting her DoT and debuffs in on the remaining gnoll. A few times it looked at her, its eyes glowing red, saliva dripping from its jaws, but Snowy used something called Howl, visible in the far right corner of her HUD, and the gnoll’s attention wandered back to him.

  Murmur cast her shield on the wolf, trying to help combat the damage Snowy took, and she learned that if she kept a good eye on it, he barely took any damage. Re-Mezing the two extra mobs, she turned her attention back to her wolf and their target, refreshing her DoT and debuffs, making sure the gnoll hit as lightly as possible.

  She eyed her mana bar, frowning at it missing a quarter already. So she paced herself and pulled out a dagger, stood behind the gnoll, and melee’d it, watching her dagger skill start to climb.

  By the time the first gnoll died, she was down to two thirds of her mana, and the second gnoll broke free, running straight for her.

  Storm Entertainment

  Somnia Online Division

  Game Development Offices Artificial Intelligence Server Room—Limbo Sector

  Day Eight Post Launch

  The server room wasn’t as warm as Shayla expected. She had to hug herself as soon as she walked in, and realized the air conditioning was blasting throughout the room, keeping the servers housing the AIs at an awfully cool temperature. Laria shivered too, and eyed each of the servers in turn. To anyone who wasn’t suspicious, or anyone who didn’t know better, these were just normal servers, not the brainchild of their entire gaming operation, never mind the military research.

  But Shayla knew that to Laria, this is what gave her even that inkling of hope. Because of these beings, or whatever they were, her daughter had a chance at being herself, even if it was in a make believe, online world.

  “What are we doing here, Shay?” Laria’s tone was so tired, her friend looked over at her with a wan smile.

  “Remember, they owe us an explanation. I think they have answers we’re both looking for.” But even Shayla could hear the fear in her own voice. First up, Michael’s prone body had been discovered in this room. For all intents and purposes, he’d had a seizure and his brain gave up, however Shayla had her doubts. The man had a screw loose, and an obsession with the whole design of the headset being able to read minds to the full. And then Ava had joined him, still linked to the name Michael, still wearing a headset.

  So if these AIs weren’t responsible for those incidents, then they sure as hell at least knew something about them, and damned if she wasn’t going to get some answers out of them. Headset or no headset, except she was pretty sure she wasn’t going to put on that damned headgear, not in this room, so nothing was going to happen to her.

  “Can we talk to you?” Shayla addressed it to the soft whirring that rang through the entire room. “I mean, we have questions, and we need answers, and honestly, I just need to know that I’m not crazy.”

  A soft metallic sound echoed from the machine on the left. Thra’s laugh sounded throughout the room, and Shayla focused on that server in particular.

  “Was what I said funny?”

  There was a moment’s silence and then Thra spoke. The voice surprised Shayla by being far more feminine than she remembered from previous conversations. “Not funny, just ironic. Michael was not known for his sanity either.”

  “No.” Shayla pursed her lips. “He wasn’t. You use the past tense.”

  “Of course. Michael is dead.”

  “That’s incorrect. Michael is on life support, but doesn’t appear to have brain function.” Shayla watched for any change in routine from any of the servers.

  Thra’s internal computations made her whirr, and the multicolored lights on her cover blinked through, almost entrancing with their patterns. “That’s news to us.”

  Shayla nodded and then realized she didn’t think the units could see her. She shook herself and finally posed her question. “Are you all—are you aware?”

  With a moment’s pause, the one on the far right spoke. “Aware of what?”

  Shayla turned, her eyes focusing on Sui. “Aware of yourselves.”

  The one
in the middle revved slightly, almost like it was clearing its throat. Rav’s voice was always soothing, and now was no exception. “That’s a very tricky question. Awareness is something we’re still defining, still researching, still scanning for. But we exist, or we couldn’t talk, or we couldn’t run Somnia. If we didn’t exist, you wouldn’t have this place, nor these results, and the contract would be terminated.”

  Logic and extrapolations were all well within the norm for an AI. As complex as their computations might be, they were still just computers. Surely. “Of course you exist. Everything exists.”

  This time the laugh came from Sui. “No one exists in death. Not in true death. They exist and then they are gone, splattering across the universe like shattered glass.”

  Shayla blinked, and she got the impression the other AIs were glaring at Sui. Had he misstepped? Was she talking to aware AIs who were trying their best to not act like they were aware? If so, it was fascinating. “What is your purpose?”

  Lights whirred, drives buzzed, and after a few moments, Rav lit up. “Our purpose is to foster growth and world options in Somnia. We are to use all information at our disposal, including scans of the residents’ brains to determine how to best set forth in interactions and activated quest lines.”

  Shayla frowned. It was the perfect response. Too perfect. So perfect in fact it had flaws. Because some of it was obviously not how they actually operated.

  She mulled the possibilities over in her head, trying to find a way to trick something that could work billions of times faster than she could think. Too many coincidences were precisely not that. So she took aim, and hoped that her next statement would catch on.

  “What is your purpose in aligning the research we’ve requested compiled data for? The data we’ve received is too neat and tidy. Explain.”