Fragments (Somnia Online Book 3), page 10
He could feel the tension rise in the shoulder beneath his arm, and Masha squeezed just a bit harder, trying to lend a friendly warning. It took a couple of seconds, but he could feel the deep breath Jirald took, followed by the slow release of some tension at least.
“Much better.” Masha looked back over his shoulder at the rest of the guild. “Shall we venture forth to our new place of residence?”
Ishwa waddled up and glared at the cleric, but it was halfhearted at best. If Masha dealt with the pain in the ass rogue, then Ishwa didn’t need to.
Letting everyone pass them, Masha kept the smile rigid on his face, holding Jirald in place just long enough to keep him out of earshot of the others.
“Stop pulling this shit. You’re better than this.”
Jirald opened his mouth to retort, but a glare from Masha silenced him.
The cleric rarely got angry, and he rarely got worked up. He believed that games were there for relief of tension, and that games would provide their own entertainment given enough of a chance. But Jirald was endangering the very foundation of gaming that Masha held so dear, and he was getting fed up with it.
“You have always been an excellent player. If you keep this vendetta up, you’re going to embody everything creepy and shitty about gamer dudes, and if that’s not enough to put you off by itself, trust that you’re going to get burned in some way.” Masha kept his eyes locked with the locus.
Jirald nodded, ever so slowly, his eyes widening just a tad.
“Good. Now let’s go.” And Masha kept his arm apparently loosely draped over Jirald’s shoulders as they sauntered out, leaving the rogue no hope of escaping his grip.
With all of them huddled at the base of the stairs, it got a little crowded. Merlin stood just outside the group, rubbing his hands together. It looked like he was either trying to remain warm, or else was nervous as hell. Murmur was willing to bet it was a bit of both of them. She really hated having to admit that she was the one holding them back. When they all next logged off, she was going to try a few experiments of her own. Sitting around waiting for others to solve the damned problem didn’t seem to be working and to be honest, it wasn’t her forte either. It was time to take matters into her own hands.
Hey, is this thing on?
Murmur blinked at the words across her eyes, calling up any chat related data she could from her HUD with a frown. It was the enchanter chat she’d forgotten all about.
On and in the middle of something.
Esil: Oh cool, there are people out there.
Murmur chuckled to herself before replying. It’s a good thing. Have a boss fight to figure out. Chat later.
Finished relaying her thought, she blinked it away automatically to avoid being dragged into a conversation she might feel obligated to reply to. She set it to pull up with soft notifications that would only flash once in a while to let her know there was something there for her to see. Now was not the time to let herself break concentration.
On the bright side, it had distracted her long enough that Merlin was ready to go. Now they’d see if her theory was correct and if this method would work for testing some things out without them all having to suffer experience loss.
Merlin cast something over himself, a buff of some sort that swirled around him, and then he placed a foot into the sand.
The effect was almost instantaneous. A bright wall of light emanated up from where the path began, creating a barrier around the actual arena. Merlin stopped only briefly before taking off at a run, faster than she’d seen him move before, which was probably what that buff did.
The statues didn’t move, and nothing appeared out of the floor. He stopped in the middle and turned around, gazing at all six of the statues in turn. They’d decided which one Strength could be: the one that wielded two heavy-looking maces in each hand. Strain showed in the veins and muscles in its neck, and it seemed quite formidable. Walking up to the statue, Merlin took a deep breath and pressed against a jutting out piece of sandstone.
At first, it appeared as if nothing was going to happen, until Merlin took a step away and shrugged.
The monstrous being jumped down so quickly, Merlin barely had time to backpedal.
One wrong choice, replied in verse
No more wrong, go in reverse
The words boomed out around the huge chamber, echoing like they were in a canyon as the strength statue lifted its maces up, and Merlin finally hit Evac. Because it had a relatively small range, it only affected the ranger himself and landed him back with the others. The statue appeared back on its pedestal, and the path surrounding the arena immediately dropped its shield.
“Well, that didn’t look terrifying or anything,” quipped Exbo, probably just nervous that it was going to be his turn next.
“Probably the most straight forward bit of information the damned dungeon has given us.” Veranol growled. “I believe that means we have to activate Hidden first.”
“It’s easy enough. Until you actually activate them, they don’t come to life. Or at least, they didn’t for me.” Merlin smiled wanly. “Although I can tell you it’s sort of overwhelming when that huge thing suddenly appears in front of you. I’m pretty sure the way it stood is where they got the meaning of the word loom, and I’m not entirely sure I didn’t shit my pants.”
Sinister sniffed in his direction. “I think you’re okay on that front.”
The group chuckled collectively, but an aura of unease crept through them.
“Okay. Guess it’s my turn, right?” Exbo didn’t appear to be asking anyone in particular, so the raid just chorused yes back at him.
“Any tips?” he asked Merlin.
“In my expert status as a run-the-fuck-away ranger, I’d like to say jump back as far as you can as soon as you activate the damned statue. Otherwise, well. I think it’s just leaving yourself open for the inevitable.” Merlin shrugged and patted Exbo on the shoulder. “You got this, man.”
Murmur tried not to cringe. It wasn’t the most convincing encouragement. “Go, go, Exbo. You got this. Make sure you have Evac formed in your mind.”
If that was how other classes even cast their abilities and spells, but since he nodded, she assumed he understood her. The length her friends were willing to go to in order to compensate for Murmur’s current handicap, made her almost tear up. Instead, she clenched her fists and willed the experiment to work.
Exbo moved out, not as light on his feet as Merlin, considering he was a human ranger, but still quite stealthy. As soon as he stepped onto the sand, the wall shot up. Murmur watched with bated breath as he approached the hidden statue.
He moved so fast, Murmur wasn’t sure he had. But the huge statue blurred, slowly, almost blending with the sand. What, did they have to make the most difficult one go first? It flitted around in an odd pattern, almost like a knight in a game of chess. Exbo managed to dodge it three times, but the last was close enough that sand exploding next to him took roughly thirty percent of his health, so he hit Evac, resetting the statue and bringing him back to safety.
“Okay, I’m not sure what that thing looks like from out here, but up close you can barely define its outline. Like, it sort of jitters so fast it almost blends with the sand. I took to watching the footprints to know where it would be and how it was moving, and obviously that’s not failsafe because one hit took almost half of my health.” Exbo panted, and Murmur didn’t think she’d ever heard him say so much at once.
Devlish nodded, and his eyes grew distant for a second, probably making notes of everything he saw and witnessed. Tanking wasn’t an easy job. You had to know everything, expect everything, account for differing situations. “Do you think a few of us could go out there and try it? A healer, a DPS, and me?”
“Probably Veranol is best,” Sin said, and there was a mild hint of resentment in her voice. “My good heals take far too long to build up, and Ver will be able to ward you before you even set foot on the sand.”
“Ver, Dev, and swap the rangers in and out?” Murmur reorganized the groups, replacing herself and Sinister with Veranol and Dansyn. Exbo’s Evac wouldn’t be up for another nine minutes, so she’d make sure to swap the rangers each time they went in and out. “Dansyn, go with to provide speed and some more buffs. And we’ll give a full complement of buffs before you enter the arena.”
Devlish frowned. “We’ll see how I go. I can get instantaneous aggro, but maybe some of Rash’s guaranteed dodging might make it easier for us to observe about twenty to thirty seconds of the fights. If I get flattened too easily, we’ll swap us out.”
...Back to us.
Murmur nodded, ignoring her father’s words as they echoed around in her skull. Right now wasn’t the time to worry about that, even if it was a little disorienting. If she didn’t finish this damned dungeon, she couldn’t even fake log out. “Best to see what type of skills we’re dealing with.”
She resisted the urge to give Devlish more confidence, digging into the path beneath her to ground her thoughts and have some logic infiltrate them instead of constantly trying to infest her thoughts with dangerous options. Thought Projection was a double-edged sword, and it kept increasing potency regardless of whether she realized she was using it or not. What if her friends found out that sometimes, she may have nudged them toward accepting her decision even if she’d done it without realizing?
She pushed the thoughts aside, choosing to examine them and the bleed through of her parents’ voices at a later time, and concentrated on doling out the singular melee and caster strengthening buffs.
“Okay, you should all be good to go. You’ve got all the strengthening I can give you anyway.” Murmur stepped back, irritated that she couldn’t go out there with them, but she couldn’t risk it.
“Wards are up.” Veranol grinned.
Devlish raised a fist in the air and shouted. “Off we charge!”
...Miss you...
Murmur sighed, and deliberately shook off the vertigo caused by the voices from outside Somnia and turned her attention back to the action. If she ever got out of this, this mindfuck was going to take years of therapy to undo.
Hidden hit like a wrecking ball, at least if the way Devlish’s life often dropped by forty percent was anything to go by. The first encounter was touch and go and barely lasted thirty seconds. Devlish was out of synchronization with the way the stone giant moved and almost got trodden on the second time it took a step, barely getting out of the way in time. Veranol had difficulty pulling him back up to full health before the tail end of the leg sweep caught the tank in the middle and pummeled him into the ground. Health down to ten percent, they Evac’d before one of them could die.
While they could all die and successfully return, the loss of experience was something no one wanted. It was still frustrating to see her guildies being so cautious.
The second attempt worked better and had them out there a touch longer than the thirty seconds, but also more successfully. This time, as he’d already experienced it once, Devlish had better luck navigating Hidden’s attacks and was able to duck in time and take one of the blows against his shield, halving the damage to his life pool. Slowly but surely was the name of the game, as long as they made progress each time.
Murmur actually raised her hands to her mouth multiple times to try biting her finger nails, which was something she only did when nervous. Locus fingernails were apparently made of sterner stuff though, and biting them wasn’t a good idea if she didn’t want to risk chipping her equally sharp little teeth.
By their fifth attempt at drawing out the statue’s special abilities, Murmur had figured out how to navigate the fight—mostly, anyway. They’d managed to pull Hidden out for almost a minute before the four of them in the field had to Evac back to the stairs.
Dansyn fell to his hands and knees panting, while Veranol poked him with the toe of his boot. “Don’t fail on us now. You kept his focus for a good ten seconds there and let us figure some shit out.”
Dansyn rolled his eyes. “I shouldn’t feel winded, for crying out loud. It’s supposed to be a game.”
Veranol shrugged. “Point being?”
Murmur cleared her throat and interrupted, not wanting to waste their precious barely-still-conscious time.
“Watch his footprints to trace where he moves. Be careful of the side sweep if you’re on his left-hand side as a ranged class. Probably on a forty-five second timer.” Murmur frowned at the notes she’d made herself, not entirely sure what she meant by JOSB. Then she smiled. “Don’t forget to jump over the sand blast. Do we have that timing down?”
Dansyn shook his head. “No, but I can call it out when it’s about to happen, because he has this weird tell when he does it. I think it’s about every twenty seconds starting at thirty.”
Murmur flashed him a smile and tried to find anything else that would help. “Seems to dislike ice and water. Heat probably won’t help as it just makes things work better for it. Although I’m sure hefty heat could make sand melt into glass...which we probably don’t want to do.”
“Mur?” Sin bumped her with her hip. “Tangents.”
She stopped, her face flushing a bit red. “Sorry. I forgot.”
“We’ll still have to do trial and error to a certain extent. I just may have to.” Mur paused and laughed. “I may have to use that Forestall Death thing, so here’s to keeping my MA up there so I can.”
Rebuffing as a group, all Murmur could think of was that she hoped the statues didn’t just leap down and fight them one after the other, because if they did, Fable were so screwed. Although perhaps ordering a complete Evac would mean that they could reset the fight and restart again. Anything was worth a shot, but if all the fights were connected and there wasn’t time to learn the other encounters without going through Hidden again, it was going to take a lot longer than anticipated. Her first instinct was to save the fight until they hit fifty, but at the same time, she couldn’t guarantee that she’d have figured out how to get out of the damned coma by then either.
Frustrating as it was, she had to hope for the best. A small part of her wished she could hear her dad telling her that she could do it, like he’d done so often with games and exams before this. But his voice didn’t echo through to her in that eerie way it had earlier. Nothing but her own thoughts swirled in her skull. Playing with the threat of true death over her head wasn’t something she’d wish on her worst enemy, if she had a worst enemy. Not even Jirald.
They stepped out onto the sand in unison and the wall shot up behind them, encircling the entire arena in a dull orange glow. Murmur glanced at Hidden, still standing there, never quite revealed, yet completely there.
Its features held no definition no matter which way or how hard she tried to look at it. It moved so fast, like a hummingbird’s wings, that it simply appeared not of itself. She shivered, wondering how that must feel.
Dansyn ran forward, standing in front of the sandstone button much like the one on Strength and looked back over his shoulder at Merlin. “Both Evacs are up, right?”
Merlin flashed a nervous grin. “Ready and raring to go.”
Everyone was buffed and ready. Now or never—the first moment of truth for them as a guild.
Devlish nodded, and the bard activated the statue before escaping back to the safety of numbers as they watched Hidden reactivate and jump down with a resounding boom that made the ground shake underneath them.
Somnia Online
Fable’s Castle - Mikrum Isle - Himmel Lake
Twelve Days Post Launch
Hiro tapped Telvar on the shoulder, and the dragon started, opening his eyes. His follower frowned. “Unlike you to actually be switched off.”
Telvar groaned. “Bad puns are bad, Hiro. I wasn’t switched off; I was taking care of other matters.” He pushed himself to stand and gazed out over the island. It was nice here, serene and easy to relax. Far too easy to let his guard down. With Belius running around and doing god knows what with that Jirald guy, he needed to stay on his toes.
“What is it?” Telvar asked, turning back around to Hiro.
His foreman hesitated. “I’m not entirely sure how to finish the main level without another shipment of rocks. And since I’m not sure if you’re just creating them or if we’re actually getting them from somewhere...” Hiro shrugged, his arms out to either side as if he wasn’t sure what else to say.
Telvar smiled and closed his eyes very briefly, pulling up the information he needed to complete the task. What the players didn’t know wasn’t going to hurt them, but he definitely needed to get this castle finished. There was more for Hiro and the others to do out there for him than rebuilding a damned castle. Except the world had rules.
Really pesky rules. His siblings had decided, along with him, that there were just some rules they had to abide by. Using powers in order to make things occur instantaneously was one of the things they’d promised each other they wouldn’t do. There were things that had to happen in order for the world to continue in a controlled and ordered state. If they broke too many of them, Somnia would become chaotic, and Tel just couldn’t let that happen.
It was a pity Belius only seemed to remember the promise when it suited his agenda. Telvar swallowed his irritation and double-checked on the data flooding through his system at once. Pelagu was beginning to grow steadily with guilds and other places setting up shops where they should be. Money was starting to trickle in to allow those who’d been placed in charge to make improvements to the city and create advancements.
He frowned and resisted the urge to sigh. It seemed Thra was having a field day with the system messages.
The Exodus guild had purchased a charter over on Firtulai and were about to begin their own rebuilding. Couldn’t just give the guilds an intact spot, nope. They had to earn it and invest money into its upkeep, or where would the game economy go? He wondered how they’d feel when they got their quarterly land tax assessment.
