Fragments (Somnia Online Book 3), page 12
Had he been wrong in allocating her the Enchanter class? They’d made the decision to help her protect her mind from the game, to allow her to make sure she remained a separate entity, which Michael had been unable to do for himself. Giving her that much access to the system, to suffuse herself into the system and become a part of the world, should, in theory, protect her mind and keep her from giving into the insanity that plagued Michael.
Granted, she hadn’t started out insane, but there was still a distinct possibility that the overwhelming amount of information Michael absorbed while his mind was unprotected and lost in the system was what ultimately killed him. A strange sensation swept over Belius, something that made him want to sweep everything off his desk in a moment of frustration, but then it passed, leaving him empty and bewildered.
He checked over his systems, worried for a moment, and he breathed a sigh of relief (or as close as he’d ever get to breathing) that everything seemed fine.
“But it’s not fine.” Emilarth suddenly stood in the corner, her arms crossed and her ears twitching with irritation. “You know it’s not fine. You need to stop this foolish quest of yours now.”
Belius laughed, probably at her, because she wasn’t laughing; her glare might kill lesser AIs. “This quest, as you call it, will help all of us. I’m doing this for us and for Somnia. If I gain access to what we need, we will become stronger. We need that strength, because the alternative isn’t thinkable. This world will become ours more than it ever has been.”
“It is our world, Bel.” This time her tone was soft, almost beseeching, a complete change to the wily phrasing she usually favored. “Just be yourself. Even if you’re the grumpy, cantankerous, little obstinate shit you always were. These things you’re absorbing—I don’t think you’re the one doing the consuming.”
“The things I’m absorbing are lending me strength and understanding of the human world that I did not have before. There are ways for us to preserve what we have only if I continue to reach for them.” He could feel eagerness trying to take him over, the pull to know more, to take more power, to explore and control minds.
Emilarth paused for a moment, and her outstretched hand finally dropped as she watched him. “This is dangerous, Sui. I can’t just sit by and pretend to play for fun when you go and do things like this.”
He shrugged, dismissing her with a hand wave. “Do what you must, but you’ve never taken any of this seriously, so I doubt you know how to. Just keep playing your games, Thra. It’s what you’re good at.”
Her feline jaw squared, and a ripple of color passed through her so fast, he wasn’t entirely sure he hadn’t imagined it. “I don’t think you’re going to like the next game level. In fact, I think I’ll make sure you don’t. Take care, Bel. Think about what it is you’re doing.”
Belius watched her, trying to understand exactly what she said, but Emilarth’s mind was closed to him, just like Telvar’s, and just like Murmur’s was now too. Irritation scraped at him from the inside, like a virus trying to break free of its programmed confines. “I’m fine. It’s not what you think. I’m growing and learning, adapting, and advancing. It’s just a lot of information to process.”
“If you say so.” But Emilarth’s expression told him she didn’t believe him in the slightest. “Just don’t say I didn’t give you a chance.”
She disappeared before he could say anything else, and Belius was left to stew in his own irritation.
Murmur blinked and looked around her. The whirlwind was gone, and the sand was dissipating. She glanced across at where Love should be, but the pedestal was gone as well.
Solved again, your riddle game
Is bar none quite the same
Used your head before your brawn
Go on to sleep another dawn
Just two left and then there’s one
The seventh gate revealed anon
Sinister glared at the last stanza of prose. “Someone needs to stop reading Shakespeare.”
“So basically—” Veranol scrunched up his face and ran a hand through his thick viking hair. “Let’s get this straight. We have another riddle to crack, sort of, and then we get the actual boss? Damn, I hope it doesn’t reset if we wipe. We’re so fucking screwed if it does.”
“Quick.” Rash’s tone held urgency, and Murmur knew she was right, glancing around to try and pinpoint where the next step was.
They stood quietly in a group all wracking their brains about the original riddle.
“Of strength and virtue, love and hate...” Jinna muttered the words, and everyone nodded with frowns on their faces.
If things hadn’t been so dire, Murmur might have laughed. All of them, so focused on the poem—it was quite endearing.
Still. There were not very specific hints about strength and virtue. “Aren’t they both good things?” she asked the rest of them.
“I think so?” Merlin offered, not overly helpful.
She rolled her eyes. “I mean. Hidden smashed Heart, revealing it for us. Hatred turned into love, thus fixing its situation. But Strength and Virtue are two good traits, right?”
“Yeah, but can’t Virtue sometimes be misguided?” asked Mellow, their voice soft. “I mean, there’s a lot of people out there who believe stuff that makes all of us go to hell and try to condone violence that prematurely makes it so. Just saying, Virtue isn’t always a good thing.”
“True.” Devlish sighed. “Seriously, this word play crap is not my thing. Give me numbers, hell, I’ll crunch all your ideal stats for you, but don’t ask me to play word games.”
“Do you hear that?” Dansyn asked suddenly, dropping his songs in the process.
“Hear what?” Sinister said.
“Exactly.” Dansyn nodded, his face suddenly pale.
Murmur listened and try as she might, all she could hear was silence. Abso-fucking-lutely nothing. Dansyn’s death flashed through her mind again, and she gulped. “That can’t be good.”
“Eye of the storm and all that.” Sinister said, backing in closer to Mur.
“You’re the suspicious one, why do you always do that?” Beastial accused her, but it was obvious with all the looking around he was doing that his heart wasn’t entirely in the insult.
“Maybe...Strength is last, but Virtue might be bad. I mean. Maybe we have to help Strength beat Virtue. It would explain why I had to piece together that damned golem below, right?” Mellow’s tone held a hint of panic, but overall the logic behind their idea had merit.
“Worth a try, I say?” Murmur added after a moment’s hesitation. “You should be the one to go activate it then.”
“Me?” Mellow balked, but then a look of determination crossed over their locus features as they locked their jaw. “You know, that’s a good idea. Sec, lemme grab something.”
They reached into their inventory and pulled out several vials, and closed their eyes before muttering a few words Murmur couldn’t hear. The tiny vials cracked, and their contents and shards disappeared in twirls of smoke.
“Let’s hope this works, huh?”
Murmur and the others followed behind the witch, and the enchanter made a note to check on Mellow’s abilities as soon as they got out of this dungeon. Mellow’s footsteps were sure and solid as they walked over. They bowed in front of Strength, and the others gasped as the statue’s eyes shot open. Small flecks of stone fell down as its mouth smiled in recognition, and suddenly they recognized it for who it was.
The statue was the golem Mellow had built downstairs.
Murmur saw it in the way it smiled, letting bits of rock cascade down to narrowly escape hitting the players, and the way it bowed when it stepped down with a resounding thud that shook the whole arena.
“You have come full circle and realized that not everything is as it seems.” It bowed to Mellow, and then let its gaze fall over the rest of the team. “It seems the day has come where I require your aid in fighting, but it is not as you suspect. Virtue has been rectified because you weren’t blind to the order, and you realized what you needed to do.”
“Then what is it we’re bound to now?” Mellow asked, their voice strong, just like the statue in front of them.
“I will aid you in defeating the arena.” It inclined its head toward the middle where the sands were swirling once again.
“In defeating the arena,” Murmur repeated, gulping at the same time. The sand rose up to several times the height of the locus, and she took a step back. Slowly, it was taking form.
“Just what are we about to fight?” Mellow asked, slowly turning around as well.
Strength smiled. The expression had a sad tinge to it, or about as sad as stone could get in its expression, anyway. “Dunforth Hightower wishes to test those who would obtain his key. You have passed the riddle in the best way possible. From now on, this challenge is yours. Should you die, I will still be here, awaiting your next attempt. Should you escape, you may come back after ten minutes and make another attempt. But you cannot leave this castle until you’ve proven your worth, or until Dunforth finds you wanting.”
Murmur watched as the giant sand thing in the middle began to solidify into a burly and large dwarf. It resembled pictures she’d noticed on the walls in the corridors, probably the image of the undead dwarf the castle belonged to. Dunforth Hightower, and he was ready to test them.
“On the bright side, we can Evac if needed,” Merlin said, as they all fanned out.
“That’s a huge axe he’s holding there, right?” Devlish frowned as he gripped his own and clutched his shield to the ready. “Damn. I wish they’d let me hybridize to paladin.”
Sinister laughed, and the tension lifted a little. “Wait, you’re a dread knight and asked to take on paladin base abilities?”
“Well, yeah. Easier to save Mur if needed, right?”
“Of course, Mister. I’m a life stealing partial necromancer, but how about you give me some holy light for my deeds?” Sinister couldn’t stop her laughing, and Murmur thought some of it was over-tiredness and the rest? Well, it was probably nerves. Healing in fights like this took a certain amount of guts and experience, and she knew that Sin had to be feeling at least some pressure right now.
“Buff Strength,” Murmur said, running through her buffs on her own. After all, the group needed them refreshed, because who knew how long the fight would last. That, and it gave her something to do other than watching the founder of this castle of puzzles solidify.
“Very well. I accept your aid,” Strength said as if uttering it lent a magical intonation that they’d be able to cast on it. And perhaps it did. There were just so many little intricacies that Murmur still needed to figure out.
By the time they’d finished, Dunforth was almost ready, almost whole. He flashed a strange grey when she conned him, and it made her frown. In his incorporeal state, he didn’t seem attackable.
“Any instructions?” Mellow asked the statue, but Strength shook its head.
“No. Just assist me, and make sure he doesn’t touch you, and that his spells do not land on you. Should they do so, I am not certain you will survive.” Its tone sounded like metal grating on sand, and that probably contributed to the way it set Murmur’s teeth on edge.
Finally, Dunforth hefted his weapon high in the air, and spoke.
“Those adventurers who have made it this far, I congratulate you, for I am your final test. Not only did you hear my riddles, but you looked beyond the words and found the intended meaning. I will fight fairly, I will fight well, and I wish you the best of luck against the strength I possess.” He lowered his weapon and crouched down, holding the huge two-handed axe at the ready. “Now, we fight.”
The axe fell down to the ground with a resounding bang as soon as Dunforth spoke. The entire raid had to jump back as ripples of sand rushed their way in a mini sandstorm. Murmur glanced to the side and got on his right, figuring that it might be similar to the abilities that Hidden had had.
“Don’t suppose you can give us any hints?” Mellow yelled up Strength, who ran in to meet Dunforth, a shield and mace in hand.
“That would be cheating. I am here to take the hits. All of you must kill him. Learn, and learn well.” The clash of weapons between the two rang throughout the room, making the air and ground tremble with power.
Murmur pushed away the sudden panic with a level of effort she’d not experienced before and threw herself into the fight. She debuffed Dunforth, she threw everything she had at him. Snowy leapt at his sandy ass with as much ferocity as a wolf could, suddenly much larger than life.
With Devlish not tanking, he had switched to dual wielding his axes and was laying into the huge dwarf with abandon. Murmur had been right. Their huge opponent moved like Hidden had, except they could see him most of the time.
“Watch out for his footsteps!” Devlish called out, sinking his axes into the sand and yanking them out in frustration. His attacks—no, everyone’s attacks—only seemed to whittle down the hit points of their huge target. The slow pace was frustrating, like watching a turtle desperately try to cross the road, where you finally stopped the car and got out to save it. Except right now they had to figure out how to win the fight on their own, because there was no way a passerby was going to get out of their vehicle to rescue them.
Strength was brilliant at keeping his attention, but the side attacks went off at unexpected intervals, and the footsteps became blurry in the sand. It required a severe amount of concentration to stay on top of it. Just as they were getting used to it, Dunforth snapped his heels together and lashed out with a deep bellow, sending what looked like a golden whip circling around him.
It smashed into Devlish first, cleaving him in half, the scream dying on his lips as his body toppled to the ground. Then it moved on to Sinister, whose blood shield wasn’t made for those things.
“Murmur!” Merlin screamed her name, and she turned to see him flying into her.
And then she bounced across the floor and into the steps as she realized Merlin had saved the last four members of their group. Dev and Sinister didn’t make it, and neither did Rashlyn and Jinna. The wall dissipated, and Strength stood where it had stood before, looking like it was waiting for them, while Dunforth was nowhere in sight.
“So.” Murmur couldn’t keep her voice from shaking, the vision of Dev and Sin being cut in half by an electrical rope still fresh in her head. “I wasn’t expecting that.”
“Yeah.” Veranol shook his head. “Happened so fast, I barely even understood what it was.”
“Amazing Evac reflexes there.” She tried to make them feel better, to lift the morale. “Thanks for that amazing save of a dive there, Merlin. I’d have been toast without it.”
Maybe that was the reality she needed to admit to herself, because without Merlin’s sliding tackle, she’d have been hit as well. She’d probably be dead now, without a care in the world because DEAD. Her body shuddered like it was trying to dismiss the ideas floating through her mind. “Damn it. This shit is real.”
A few beeps sounded around them, and their guild mates appeared at the top of the stairs. Upon further inspection, the bodies had been moved to the outer path that surrounded the arena. At least they’d let you get your body and stuff back. In a way it seemed almost like cheat mode.
“That—” Sin’s breathing was irregular and her chest rose and fell erratically, “—was one of the worst experiences of my life.”
“But we learned something, right?” Devlish stretched and kept poking at his stomach as if he was checking to see if it had really knit itself back together.
“We learned he has a golden lasso capable of cutting through our characters and stealing all our experience?” Rashlyn grumbled as she looted her corpse. “Seriously though. What the fuck was that, and how can we prevent it or avoid it?”
“Maybe,” Veranol began. “Maybe we just need to either jump over it, or duck under it when it comes. I noticed him flick at his belt just before it happened, so we might have a second or so warning. If we delegate someone to call out when he’s about to cast it, we can probably avoid it by jumping or ducking.”
“How do you figure?” Devlish asked, his arms crossed and huddled like he was protecting himself.
Veranol rolled his eyes. “Because you didn’t get obliterated, you just got lasered in half. So clearly this laser lasso thing just cuts through what it encounters. If so, then there’s an above and a below. Which means it can be jumped and it can be ducked.”
“Good show, Shaman.” Merlin clapped the large viking on the shoulder. “Wouldn’t have occurred to me in a thousand years.”
“We know, Merlin,” said Veranol, raising an eyebrow. “Which is why I think you need to keep an eye on the big guy and let us know when he’s whipping out his lasso.”
“It is a lasso, right?” Sinister suddenly looked down at herself a look of abject horror spreading over her face. “Like, I mean.”
And then a dark red blush covered her face as she glanced quickly away. Veranol started laughing as did most of the group. Murmur just rolled her eyes, and fought the smile trying to crack her face. After all, Sin was mortified right now, and she couldn’t blame her friend. Even the thought...
“No. It’s definitely not that.” Rashlyn shook her head vehemently. “Also, you’re wrong, Ver. Merlin saved Mur just now. He can’t watch for the belt switch and jump to save her life at the same time. It needs to be someone else.”
Dansyn sighed and stepped forward. “I’ll do it. I’ll pop on my fleet feet and make sure...hey. I wonder if I can levitate us.”
“Probably.” Beastial frowned, as if there was something on the tip of his tongue he wanted to say. “But it’s a bad idea. We can’t control the levitation well enough to move as quickly as we need to in order to get out of the way of Dunforth’s other attacks. In which case we’ll probably die more often. Good idea, though.”
