Initializing

by K. T. Hanna

  Real World Day 2: Somnia Online

  Murmur waited while Rashlyn hugged the rough part of hewn stone wall between the ramps and ran across it on light feet. Her dark grey ears twitched in time with her whiskers as she balanced easily. She smiled when she reached Murmur and Sin, and they embraced. Even in the virtual world it felt real.

  “So glad to have more women around me. Mellow and I were about to drown in guy-ness.”

  Rash smiled with a roll of her eyes, and her tail peeked around from behind, like it had a mind of its own.

  Murmur grinned at her friend’s choice of species. If there was a feline species, Rashlyn played it. Her feles had black stripes flowing throughout her grey fur, and she seemed perfectly at home with the long claws on her hands. Rash’s feline ears moved at every sound, and Mur had to resist the impulse to reach up and scratch behind them.

  Murmur sought out Mellow among the guys, frowning a moment before raising her eyebrows in recognition. Mellow was a locus! “Cool! Mellow! Hi!”

  The last time Mur’d seen Mellow, they’d been playing a male character.

  Mellow gave a shy shrug. “If I’m going to run around in a different body all day, I figured I might as well get to feel relaxed for once.”

  Sinister smiled. “Makes sense to me.”

  “Locus are pretty androgynous,” Mellow said with a sparkle in their eye. “I like it.”

  “I wish I’d known you were in my starting area,” Murmur said. They could have met up sooner. “What’s the witch like?”

  “Surprisingly fun. I get to stir a big, black pot.” Mellow winked and a chuckle ran through the group.

  Rashlyn was watching everyone. “Your group has a pretty solid make-up.”

  “Your group has a pretty solid make up, too, Rash. Shaman, bard, ranger, rogue, and witch. I see you got to keep your class.”

  Murmur couldn’t help some of the resentment in her voice. Even though she was used to the enchanter now and didn’t want to change, she still missed her healer.

  Rash shrugged again. “This is a little different. Monks tank on an avoidance basis. It’s nothing like the paladins I’ve played before. Oh, oh—but watch this, and don’t try to butt in!”

  She ran toward the mobs, aggroed them, moved back toward the group several steps, and then fainted onto the floor. The opponents blinked at her body, prodded her a couple of times, shrugged, and went back to what they were doing. Rash stood up, and brushed herself off as she moved back to Sin and Murmur with a satisfied grin on her face. “Tada!”

  “What the fuck was that heart attack you almost gave me?” Sinister put her hands on her hips and glared.

  “It’s called Feign Corpse.” Rash laughed. “It’s freaking awesome to do in front of someone in the middle of town too. People panic.”

  Murmur frowned, trying to figure out the best way to work Rash’s and the other’s abilities into their rotation. Dansyn was a dark elf bard. What was with all the bloody dark elves? Still, he would have similar functions to her, just in song form, with lots of juggling. Veranol was a stout viking shaman. Exbo, a human ranger, and Jinna appeared to be a dwarf rogue. Should be a great and versatile raid make up. Even if it was only two groups worth.

  She motioned the others to come with her and went to stand in the crowded area the guys were taking up. “Look. Depending on how the pulls go, Dansyn and myself can probably keep four to five under control easy enough. But it might be best to have both Dev and Rash ready to tank at the same time. Different opponents of course.”

  Dev nodded. “Makes sense, especially if we manage to get all six of those at once. They don’t seem to be your average mob. And they’re level thirteen. I’m about to hit eleven, so at least there’s that, but splitting the mobs into groups should help us whittle them down.”

  Rash piped in. “I’m close as well. Once we hit that eleven, this should go smoother.”

  “If these things give us experience,” Merlin threw in.

  Murmur glared at him. “You talk to Exbo. You rangers need to work your shit out.” She turned to Dansyn and grimaced. “I’ll take the left and you take the right? Should help us if the shit hits.”

  “Sounds good to me. I can’t keep more than two under control at a time anyway. You’d think I’d just be able to cast spells. But no, it gets way too noisy in my head if I try to play more than five or six at a time. Considering I need to keep several buffs up, two is my limit.” Dansyn didn’t sound happy with his class, and Murmur studied him for a few moments.

  “I get it. Trust me.” She turned back to the rest. “I don’t think we’re going to get any more ready than we are.”

  Murmur activated the raid and initiated the invitation, which Rashlyn accepted immediately.

  The first thing Murmur noticed once Merlin pulled, was that the mobs came as a set of six.

  The second thing Murmur noticed was that they hit like a brick shithouse.

  And the third thing she noticed was that their resistances were far higher than the mobs she’d Mez’d beforehand. While her first one stuck, the second one took three tries, and it was only Beast’s quick thinking that got his tiger to intervene so she didn’t get pummeled into pulp. The rogue in the opponent’s group was rooted.

  Dansyn shrugged. “I got the one, but that rogue is resisting the fuck out of my abilities.”

  Murmur nodded and included it in her rotation. The thing was, with three highly resistant mobs it was all she could do to take care of them. Both Rash and Dev were fighting their own mobs, back to back, heals flying in a constant arc. Shaman heals from Veranol were fantastic, but seemed to take a heap of his mana. He placed wards on his target that absorbed damage, effectively increasing their current hit pool, and small heals that buffed the healed and increased the next one within a certain number of seconds. Rashlyn rarely got hit. She dodged and avoided most of the hits of her mob, and Murmur found herself wondering what the monk’s agility looked like. Still, if Rash got hit, it showed, and the wards were a godsend.

  The crowned mobs were definitely raid trash. Their hit points went down in a decent fashion, not much slower than the other trash they’d fought in the caves. But this time they had two groups beating up on them.

  Jinna, Rashlyn’s rogue, was lethal. He could shadow meld and sneak around to get the best possible vantage point for backstabs and the gods knew what sort of knife work he occasionally executed. Silent and deadly.

  Mellow was fascinating to watch. Murmur hadn’t seen a witch in the game yet, and remembered Mellow often playing a healer or bard type of class before. Still, the witch was frightening. Concoctions appeared in their hands as if pulled from a cauldron, thrown like bombs to detonate over the mob, slowing and weakening it. Curses appeared overhead, flashing into enemies like runes rammed by a truck into their bodies. Damage leaked, blood spilled. Murmur sort of wanted to be a witch.

  By the time they were done, they all needed to either meditate or heal up.

  “That was a wake-up call.” Sinister leaned back, stretching. “There’s a lot to juggle with this class. Keeping damage up, making sure my transfer spell is on Dev at all times, making sure I don’t tap into my own health too much.”

  “At least you do damage while you heal.” Veranol smiled in what appeared to be a reassuring way.

  “True.” Sin pondered the fact. “I do pretty good damage.”

  “Mel, that witch is fascinating.” Merlin piped up. “You lucked out.”

  Mellow opened their eyes and smiled, their thin lips spreading just wide enough to hide the vicious teeth and their hair lit up softly. “Yeah. I was a little worried at first, but since it let me choose whatever gender I wanted, I was pretty okay with that.”

  Beastial chuckled. “Color me happy for you.”

  “Dev. Rash.” Murmur coughed. “Did you not notice you leveled?”

  Both of them grew distant before grinning sheepishly.

  “I was probably getting kicked in the head that one time when I dinge
d or something.” Rash said, rubbing her temple as if it still smarted.

  Dev chuckled. “Might have been when one of mine shield bashed my freaking ears. Seriously, there are some elements of this game that are woefully realistic.”

  “Well,” Exbo stood up, wiping off imaginary dust from his pants. “I guess that means two down and ten of us to go. Time to get leveling Fable.”

  “Time to get leveling,” they all chimed in together.

  Murmur smiled, comfortable with her friends. If she had a choice, this would be her reality. Double checking her shielding and sensor net, she moved forward with the others.

  It was quite a smooth run all told. A few bad pulls, but overall, with the twelve of them, they could tear through anything. The best part of it all was the experience. They received raid experience bonuses. Apparently organizing forces and utilizing skilled tactics was rewarded in Somnia.

  Personally, Murmur thought it was more to encourage people to play together instead of playing everything by themselves. As they’d witnessed earlier, soloing in this game wasn’t the best way to play.

  Her DING to level didn’t take long at all. With the way experience worked, they were getting closer and closer together in the leveling range. She deliberately refused to focus on the amount of experience each level now demanded. But twelve was so close.

  The thing was, when it came to playing in a specific area for a certain time, it was sometimes easier to become complacent. As they worked their way toward the back of the huge cavern and the throne that sat there, they began to fall into a reckless rhythm, punctuated by low-pitched inane chatter and baiting.

  “Don’t see you putting your back into it.” Rash needled Devlish.

  He grunted, swinging an axe into the face of his opponent, just under the helmet line and causing severely critical damage. “Probably because that’s not my line of work.”

  “Low blow, Dev.” Dansyn mumbled as he took care of his mob. “Careful, she holds grudges.”

  “It’s okay, Dan.” Rash roundhouse kicked the head of her own mob, which let out a satisfying crunch as it toppled to the ground. “I’ll Feign Corpse when he’ll least survive it.”

  Her grin wasn’t kind.

  Murmur directed her attention to the area around them and the mobs in it. The cavern was deep and vast. The walls shone with black iridescence. From the faint sound of trickling water she could hear, it appeared there was water somewhere down here. It might explain the slight damp smell to the air too. None of the mobs triggered any of her alarms, but she made sure to maintain her skills as active so her Mental Acuity wouldn’t dampen.

  The final mob dead, Murmur glanced at her level progression and smiled. Not too bad for a few hours work. They’d might even hit twelve before in-game sunrise.

  Veranol stood up, stretching his arms above his head. “Ready. Full Mana.”

  Merlin grinned and released his arrow.

  Everything seemed to be going exactly as every other pull had. This one was only five enemies.

  Two casters suddenly appeared out of nowhere, standing to either side of the mobs as they ran. Wizards, if Murmur’s guess was right.

  Level fourteen.

  And their nukes hurt.

  Even though she managed to Mez two of the mobs while Dan took care of the third, they weren’t fast enough to stop the wizards’ initial casts. Two fireballs landed in the middle of their raid causing both Mellow and Havoc to screech in pain. Murmur could smell charred flesh behind her, and refused to look.

  Targeting the wizard on the left she fired off Mind Bolt, hoping that the pain she felt in her own head upon casting was reflected hundredfold on the mob. It stopped and screamed, unable to cast, and ran forward as she lashed out toward the second mob. “Grab it, Dan.”

  Not waiting for a reply, she let her second Mind Bolt fly free, glancing at her Mental Acuity bar as she went. She was down to forty-eight out of a hundred. Two more if she had to. They couldn’t let those nukes go off again.

  Devlish screamed, and the coppery scent of blood filled her nostrils, tinged with something else. Perhaps lizard men’s blood had a different chemical make-up. She threw a Mez on the second mob before the silence could wear off, and refreshed the next two. Her mana was fine, but her head pounded. Two Mind Bolts in quick succession was hurting. Was that one of the side effects? The consequences?

  Murmur shook her head, putting it to the back of her mind. That was for future Murmur to deal with and present Murmur had to survive first.

  Things seemed to be calming down. She only had to maintain two Mez. One on the caster, and the other on what appeared to be a berserker. The thing was, she’d already discovered that bard Mez wasn’t the most reliable thing in the world. Since bards had to juggle different songs in order to play effectively, it meant the Mez was one of those songs.

  Sometimes one of them could lapse.

  Murmur noticed it too late to do anything. By the time Dan cried out for her to grab it, it had almost finished its spell.

  Rashlyn threw herself in front of it, just before it hit Dan, and Murmur sent her third mind bolt in ninety seconds barreling into the wizard.

  She could hear a scream, and scurrying voices, footsteps, the sounds of a fight. The scream continued, sad and painful, angry and hurt.

  It took her until her head hit the ground to realize it was her own.

  “Shit!” Sin yelled, and began barking out orders just as the final mob in the pull from hell went down. Murmur could hear a scuffle, but it sounded so far away. She wondered why her best friend sounded so frantic. “Veranol meditate. I need your mana. Rash, try to meditate if you can. That’s not a life-threatening bleed—you’ll have to wait.”

  Rashlyn laughed, and coughed up a tiny bit of blood onto her pale lips. “My own heal will be up shortly. It’ll help. Don’t worry about me.”

  Murmur could sense the change in attention as Sin shifted and spoke to someone else. “You can’t funnel mana yet, can you?”

  Havoc sighed. “No.” She could tell it was him, because there was always a musical cadence to his sighs.

  “Fuck.” Sin sounded worried, and Murmur could hear her grunting with effort, with exertion, but she couldn’t see why. The noises were distant and her mind swam so peacefully. Her vision blurred in and out of sight. The fuzzy ceiling gave way to a soft darkness all around her, only to repeat the cycle again. She tried to lift herself, but her body wouldn’t respond. It was so heavy. Everything was heavy.

  Murmur had no idea why everyone was so far away and struggled to remember what happened. One minute they’d been fighting, and the next, she was lying down somewhere soft and comfortable that didn’t seem to resemble the stone floor of the cavern she’d been in at all. Odd? Was she in bed? Either way her mind felt trapped, she just wasn’t sure where.

  Finally she heard something shift around her, pulling her back toward the noise. From the direction, it was Veranol who stood up and began casting. A wave of relief washed over her, filling her head with calm. Murmur’s health pool rose as well, and she heard Sin sigh as she sat back to catch her breath as Devlish’s flesh seemed to make popping sounds as it knit itself back together. At least she remembered that wound. That was something.

  “Well.” Sin spoke, and Murmur could almost see the smirk on her face. “That was the closest to a wipe we’ve come so far.”

  Havoc’s footfalls approached her, and she felt more than heard him kneel down next to her. “What happened to Mur? Is she going to be okay?”

  “She silenced that mob so it couldn’t nuke us again.” Rash sounded contemplative. “Maybe the ability is still too raw for her to have used so often. I know she used it at least twice.”

  “She shouldn’t have fucking done that. Risking herself like that just isn’t worth it.” Sinister’s tone was heated, much more serious than Murmur was used to. And it didn’t really make sense. Maybe Sin just didn’t want her to do a corpse run.

  Havoc felt her forehead. “She’s
cool. Do we have some water or something? Like would that work?”

  Beast’s heavy footsteps echoed through the stone floor, and she heard the sound of something being unscrewed. “No better way to find out.”

  Havoc’s tone changed. “You just want her to hit me if she lashes out when she wakes up.”

  “See,” Beast said. “I always knew you were a clever one.”

  “Yeah, yeah. Flattery doesn’t hold well with the necromancers.” Havoc muttered as the glugging liquid hit Murmur’s parted lips.

  Storm Entertainment

  Somnia Online Division—Development offices

  Countdown: six weeks before release

  Ava Jackson sat in her chair, legs on her desk so she could sway back and forth, twirling her hair on one finger while she waited on her phone call. “No, Luke. You look. That Headgear shipment has been waiting in your warehouse for far too long. Get it to our postal division and do it yesterday. Those need to go out.”

  She rolled her eyes to the ceiling as he muttered out another excuse. “Do you want me to send Shay-la?”

  The stammering on the other end halted immediately.

  “Excellent. Let me know when the delivery’s done.” She disconnected the call and fist pumped in the air.

  James tapped her on the head with a file folder and leaned against the door to her office. “You know Shayla doesn’t have time to breathe at the moment, don’t you?”

  Ava shrugged. “Yeah, but Luke didn’t know that.”

  James wandered off, chuckling softly.

  Ava wiped her hands on her jeans trying to get rid of the cold clammy uneasiness she felt in her stomach. Taking a deep breath, she activated her call device and patched through. “Hey, Michael, it’s Ava.”

  She swallowed hard as he spoke on the other end, wondering briefly why his voice had such a hyp-notic quality to it. That lulling, calming quality that spoke to parts of her brain she didn’t understand. Even nervous to call him, he put her at ease. There were four more shipments of headgear due over the next month.