Anomaly (Somnia Online Book 2)

by K. T. Hanna

  All they could do was wait there while Sui, Rav, and Thra blinked back and forth among themselves.

  Finally, Rav’s metallic tinted voice clung through the room. “It was requested that we assist in compiling the data from brain activity, scans, and specific allocation selections for the purpose of adjusting the headgear. In order to make sure timely adjustments could be made, we simplified some of these read-outs for the sake of expediency. This should have resulted in less turnaround time for implementations to be performed. Did we err in this?”

  Shayla blinked, not entirely sure how to respond. She should have known the answer would be faultlessly logical, very computer-based. Completely algorithmic. Yet there was something bugging her that she couldn’t quite put a finger on.

  “No. You have done well. We didn’t realize you were performing in that capacity and it has indeed lightened our load.” She spoke the words almost mechanically, trying to make sense of the way these AI communicated amongst themselves. Although, she still had no idea why she felt they were hiding something from her. They were machines, for crying out loud. They were made to follow directives, to perform tasks, to run the world of Somnia.

  And they were definitely doing that.

  Instinctively Murmur activated Clone Warp, and the beast stood there wavering between her and her copy until Snowy let loose a wild sounding howl and it decided he looked far more appetizing.

  The whoosh of relief that escaped her gave way to a certain glee at mastering her MA abilities. There wasn’t time to be scared of potential backlash anymore; her life depended on it. She refused to admit that it might be mildly irresponsible of her to solo, but technically she wasn’t alone anymore.

  Snowy’s jowls pulled back in a wolfy snarl, baring gleaming white fangs that somehow seemed whiter than the snow. He seemed to possess some kind of taunt, because if an enemy wavered between them, it always ended up going back to him, even after the clone dissipated. Of course, two-manning gnolls who were usually meant for a group took a while, and the balance was precarious. But as long as Murmur kept the monsters debuffed and DoT’ed, it should all be controllable. Technically.

  The gnoll finally fell to the ground, blood leaking into the snow beneath it. Snowy planted his backside next to it, tongue lolling out of his mouth. If she read his mind properly, she was pretty sure he was proud.

  “Okay. Let’s keep this up,” she said, leaning forward to scratch behind his ears. He stood up, and ran toward the camp as she got ready to fight another.

  Hours later, Murmur collapsed onto the ground as soon as she DINGed level twenty-two, panting, totally disregarding the snow beneath her. The wolf nuzzled her cheek, and she hugged it. Seriously, best decision ever had been to try this out. Snowy sat, leaning against her and lending her warmth. Utilizing the earth as a way to pull shielding and reinforce her armor class let Murmur hold her ground better, take less damage, and be hardier. Plus it added strength to her Mind Bolts and any sort of damage punch that she threw. Overall, the system knew her better than she knew herself, and she’d lost round two to it.

  She looked up at the trees, catching her breath, and shaded her eyes. “Druid hybrid, huh? Who’d’ve thunk it?”

  The sun had come up a while ago, but they’d been so busy killing level twenty-two and twenty-three gnolls that Murmur barely noticed. Leveling by herself in this way, with a group mob pet and fighting other group mobs solo was definitely faster than leveling in a group. It made the adrenaline flow through her veins, made her truly feel like she was alive and had a tenuous hold on reality. Perhaps it was foolhardy, but she’d needed an affirmation, something that wasn’t safe, that meant she wasn’t being protected by everyone all the time. Even though a bit harrowing at times, this has been perfect.

  Murmur was fully aware that she’d been lucky that no boss gnolls spawned.

  She withdrew another goose leg for Snowy, who munched it happily as she stood up and brushed herself off. “Let’s set out. Do you want to come with me?”

  As an answer, Snowy took a few steps down the roughly trodden path and looked back at her as if to say hey are you coming? Murmur laughed. The wolf was better company than she’d expected, and he embodied no guilt and no pressure.

  Traipsing down the path, they finally arrived at the main road when her interface started to light up.

  Sinister: Mur, where are you, and how did you level?

  Havoc: I see you got sick of waiting for those who need sleep.

  Murmur cringed. Had she been close enough to her friend to hear him speak, she was quite certain she knew exactly what tone of voice that was said in. Sometimes, he could be a dick.

  I decided to see what some of my spells could do, and I got to try out Clone Warp too. Now I know how it works in combat. There, that wasn’t a lie. Snowy was pretty amazing when she buffed him to the max. Then as an after thought she sent them a warning. About to get to Verendus. Don’t try to shoot my wolf.

  Sinister:...

  Havoc:...

  Stop it, guys. Just go get your damned hybrid classes, and get yourselves prepped for a good amount of grinding time. We’re slacking!

  Sometimes she felt like the only adult in the group.

  Instead of gating back to the town, Murmur decided to walk. It was a lovely day, with good wolfy company, and it would give the others some time to get their hybrid builds started.

  After a while she approached Verendus’s walls, Snowy close to her side, eyeing everything. She could feel him become skittish and knew he was having second thoughts. She stopped and crouched down to face him, making sure to send soothing thoughts his way and let him know she wouldn’t let anything or anyone harm him. It was such a different way to approach charming than she’d initially been set on.

  She’d grown very used to him over the last few hours and hadn’t realized how badly she’d needed to be able to just fight without having to worry about everyone else, even if she had to worry about herself. While they’d had a few close calls, they’d developed a fantastic teamwork ethic. Not that it was ideal for everything, but working off steam was a great thing.

  Murmur nodded at the guards, whose eyes widened when they saw Snowy trotting along at her side. She grinned, liking the very slight discomfort and half step they backed away. “Guess you’re a lot more ferocious with other people, huh?”

  Snowy gave an almost offended growl from the back of his throat, and Murmur laughed.

  “Oh.” Devlish eyed the wolf somewhat apprehensively when he almost ran into them. “That’s what you meant by wolf. Beastial had no idea what you were talking about. Do you think he’ll get on with Shir-Khan? I mean, your wolf is the size of a small pony, Mur. And holy shit, twenty-two?”

  Murmur shrugged. “Leave Snowy alone. He’s a good boy.” She reached down, scritched behind his ears, and watched his tongue loll out. His pink-black nose sniffed the air, obviously tasting more than she could sense.

  He really was a huge, beautiful pup.

  “You have a puppy!” Sinister dashed to Murmur’s side, giving her a huge hug, and then bent down to Snowy. “Who’s a gorgeous pup, who is a good boy? You are!”

  Snowy looked up at Murmur—almost like he was rolling his eyes—and she had to bite back a laugh. Sinister had always been that way with animals, probably because her parents never let her have one either and she reacted differently to things.

  “Be nice to him. He just kicked ass for me. He likes goose legs, if anyone wants him to befriend them.”

  Beastial joined them, and he didn’t laugh at the latter. He frowned instead. “How did you get a pet?”

  Murmur raised an eyebrow and waited for him to realize.

  “Ah, that’s right. Charm-enthrall-thingamajig.” He grinned. “This one doesn’t seem to want to go anywhere.”

  Murmur nodded. “We have an understanding that involves food, conversation, and scrit
ches. So far, I think he’s pretty happy.”

  Just then, Snowy butted at her hand, reproach in his beautiful eyes. She obliged with another chunk of meat and some more behind the ears action.

  “It got me a new skill too. Charming Cooperation. I can raise an army—of four—if I want to sacrifice all my MA. Thirty-five a pop, that gets taken away from my available MA for the duration of the charm.” She laughed, in a good mood. She’d not thought this was going to work out.

  “So you charmed him, and he’s staying of his own free will.” Havoc sauntered over, a frown on his face. Murmur nodded before he continued. “Not only do you get to mind control and influence shit, but now you have a pet on your side? If I’d have known that and could have chosen, I’d have gone with the enchanter too.”

  Murmur raised an eyebrow, not used to Havoc’s jealousy. His stance was rigid, and he didn’t usually get this ruffled about anything. Jealousy of other’s abilities was something you just dealt with in an MMORPG, but something was obviously bothering him, and she’d have to figure out what it was sooner or later. “Let’s just say it was an experiment that could have gone horribly wrong, and luckily didn’t. My hybrid class probably helped, but either way, it worked.”

  “Hybrid class?” Sinister perked up. “What’s your hybrid class? I just got mine, and it was a lot more complicated than I thought. I haven’t even looked at my skills yet.”

  Murmur shrugged. “Yeah, it kind of turned into this thing and now I’m part druid with an earth affinity to ground my psionics, so I hopefully don’t give into the evil.”

  “Well, then.” Devlish laughed. “Not what I would have pictured you with, but I guess it makes sense.”

  Murmur scowled at him as Veranol made his way over and hailed them while Rash and the rest followed. She turned to Sinister. “What’s your hybrid?”

  Sinister looked away, her lips pursed. “Enchanter. And before you say anything, I’m using it for the buffs. It gives me innate increased mana regeneration, as well as an intelligence and wisdom boost. Plus I get a de-aggro spell I can transfer over to Dev if I need to. It’s about our survival, so I went with what will let me heal the longest.”

  Murmur held up her hands in defense. “Hey, I’m fine with that.”

  Veranol cleared his throat. “Good, because I went with the same thing. I have enough spells to increase my own defense, but as a group, we’re all better off if Sin and I have fewer mana issues.”

  “Awesome.” Murmur was genuinely impressed. Their choices made sense, and not in a let’s do what we need to in order to save Murmur sort of way.

  “We heading out with your wolf?” Rashlyn butted in, her eyes focused on Snowy.

  “Yep. Snowy and I found a nice little camp of gnolls. We only cycled through about twelve of them, and there are more camps there for us to demolish. So far there also doesn’t appear to be any sort of animals they worship, so that’s a good thing. I’ve been mind scanning the lot of them.” She laughed at her own Verendus war reference, but quickly realized it was in bad taste.

  “Your jokes are only getting worse, Mur.” Devlish shook his head, looking away from her in mock shame.

  She rolled her eyes. “What do you expect? It’s me, my mind, and I in here.”

  A ripple of laughter went through her friends, the awkward type that said they weren’t really sure if they should be laughing. Murmur counted to five in her head before clapping her hands to get their attention.

  “Come on guys, let’s go get level twenty-five!” She waved them all to follow her and headed out through the gates.

  “Won’t you be twenty-six by then?” Rashlyn sounded sulky as she fell into step next to the enchanter.

  Murmur shrugged, nudging her friend with her elbow and tried to take the edge off it with a smile. “Sure I might, but remember each level is worth exponentially more than the one before it. So every level will whittle this gap down a bit.”

  “Why did you bother then?” Merlin nudged her with his bow.

  “Because I was bored. I was a bit frustrated with how fragile I can be, and because honestly, I wanted to see what I could do myself while testing out my new hybrid reinforcements. Having a level or two on the mobs will make sure my resists are far and few between. Right now, I think we could do with any advantage we can get.”

  “Makes sense.” Mellow glanced up at the high ridges of the mountains, a hint of trepidation in his eyes. “ So, which way do we have to go?”

  “Up the mountain paths, through the wilderness!” Murmur laughed, and Snowy bounded on ahead. She refused to pay attention to the darkening clouds coming in over the mountains. They had shit to kill and levels to get. No damned snowstorm was going to stop them.

  Murmur stood absentmindedly petting Snowy’s head, tearing down and rebuilding her shields all the while exploring her affinity with the earth. To be honest, it was probably the best choice of a hybrid build she could have made. Not only did it make her less squishy, but it strengthened her base, and her ability to reach with mind magic branched out farther than she’d dreamed of. Her survivability went up tenfold, and her group utility was off the charts. In that moment, she felt dreadfully overpowered.

  Sure, she’d had a narrow escape or three while leveling with Snowy, and because of mana the kill rate had been quite slow, but still.

  She watched as her friends looted the last of the mobs at this camp, and glanced at her bar, just past the twenty-four mark. They’d been at this for hours, but as she stood there and looked at the horizon, she realized those dark clouds were almost upon them. Snowy pressed himself against her legs, his hackles rising just a bit, she soothed him with a thought, a show of her protecting him and not letting him come to any harm. The stiffness left his body, and he relaxed, but from the way he moved, she knew he was alert.

  “Guys.” Her voice sounded distant, even to her own ears. “That storm we thought was ages away, looks like it’s going to land on top of us at any moment.”

  Jinna glanced up, shoving something into his inventory while he studied the sky. “Shit, that moved quickly. It stayed far away for so long I didn’t think it’d make it here.”

  Beastial shaded his eyes, his heavy brown hair whipping around him. “Damn it. That storm means business. We need to find shelter.”

  “We haven’t gone into these caves yet.” Havoc looked dubious, peering at the dark opening. “Probably worth a try, maybe there are mobs down there for us to fight too.”

  Murmur sighed and shot a thought over guild chat. Hey, you do see that storm coming, don’t you guys?

  Neva: Stop talking like this is your personal communication channel. Makes the rest of us feel left out.

  Murmur started. She’d not thought of it like that before. Sorry. Just the easiest way for us to communicate when we’re not in a raid group.

  Rashlyn: Yeah, we’re about done with this round, and will probably pull back into their caves.

  Veranol: Not really sure what to expect yet though. You guys okay?

  Beastial: We will be.

  At least she didn’t need to worry about her guild members. Slowly, she moved toward the cave, having to fight for each step against the wind that was trying to bowl her over. She should have kept a better eye on it. Quickly was relative, considering they’d been leveling for several hours now. Snowy gently tugged at her arm, his teeth only just grazing her wrist. She wanted to make sure he was okay, that he was fine staying with them and didn’t have someone else to go check up on. But his answer was simply a vision of her and her group, as if he felt he belonged now, a view of them as pack. It was amazing being able to communicate with an intelligent animal—though she doubted she’d have had the same luck with other creatures. Snowy just seemed to be perfect. Maybe too perfect, but she’d deal with that later.

  They all pulled into the cave in time to see the snow start to come down heavily. All th
ey saw outside the lip of the cave was white coming down so hard and fast, it seemed like a sheet of water.

  Sinister hugged herself. “Should we go in deeper? I mean, I can’t see a thing in there, and I have infravision.”

  Murmur squinted, trying to see, and a low growl began to emanate from Snowy. “Is there something in there, boy?”

  He spared a glance for her that pretty much said, no shit, Sherlock.

  Murmur sighed. She couldn’t even escape the sarcasm in the thoughts she made up for her pet wolf. “Any volunteers? I’m not sacrificing my wolf. Just putting that out there right now.”

  Devlish laughed. “How about a torch? I’m sure Mr. Merlin over there has an arrow he can light on fire for us.”

  Merlin scowled. “That’s so not fair. Just because I can loose fire arrows doesn’t mean I want to waste them all on allowing us to see in the dark now.”

  Murmur knew he was half jesting, but since she had no idea about the cost of his arrows, she couldn’t really judge.

  He grabbed an arrow, wrapped a scrap of cloth around it, and murmured a word, touching it to the tip and it burst into flame, and he grinned. “I give you a torch!”

  “Color me impressed, elf.” Sinister grinned, the shadows from the firelight making her face take on an expression that was solely her name.

  “Can you see anything?” Havoc asked. His specter hovered eerily behind him. “You know, over the smoke trail.”

  Merlin rolled his eyes. “I haven’t looked yet. I’m still standing right here.”

  Havoc shrugged. “Hey, you lit the arrow up, how do I know what you can do?”

  Murmur laughed. While it had been fun on her own, she’d definitely missed the company. The interaction that wasn’t all in her head. A sudden thought stopped her cold. What if everything was in her head? Maybe she wasn’t even in the game. Maybe this was just a coma dream. Her hands shook and for a moment oxygen seemed to have left the area. And then Snowy’s wet nose touched her hand, bringing her back to herself. Even if it was all a dream, it was a pretty damn cool one. Plus, wouldn’t the pain she’d felt in the dream wake her up?