Fragments (Somnia Online Book 3), page 16
“I thought there had to be more to his just being a dick.” Masha prodded, hoping for more information.
“Well, he is that, and more. He’s very demanding on himself. Which in turn leads to jealous rage and in this case, obsession. None of that, of course, excuses the choices he does make. Taking aggression out on others is never a good idea. It’s going to land him in trouble, and worse, it could hurt someone else.” Ishwa stopped for a moment, and locked eyes with Masha when he began speaking again. “I just feel that if we were to remove him, he might go completely overboard and then anything that happens to that enchanter would partially be my fault.”
Masha nodded thoughtfully, running their options through his head. “Guilty by default. Maybe you’re right.”
He muttered the words so softly that Ishwa frowned. “What was that?”
But the cleric shook his head and headed toward the door again, waving behind him. “It’s all good. Don’t worry, I’ll keep him under control.”
Masha just had to hope he wasn’t overestimating himself.
Murmur glanced dubiously at the disc her Tiachi produced. It was sleek, round, and dull in appearance. When she leaned down to feel it, it was matte, hopefully not slippery. “I’m supposed to ride on this?”
Selrahc nodded, a bright grin on his face. “I’ve not sold a locus their Tiachi before. This is fascinating. Most of the high-level locus I’ve met just teleport places.”
Swallowing a frown as she glanced around, she realized he’d probably just met Belius in one form or another. He popped up everywhere. Her friends were picking out their mounts, and Sin seemed to be set on a Synthclaw. Which looked like a horse, but had claws for feet, and two sharp horns at the tip of its head. Like a double unicorn, except the horns were slightly curved and serrated on one side. The fact that it was pitch black didn’t instill confidence in Murmur either, but if that’s what Sin wanted, no one was going to talk her out of it.
Since the others were almost done choosing, Murmur guessed she should probably try hers out since her and Mellow didn’t exactly get a choice. It was almost like a theme within the world. Don’t give Murmur any fucking choices.
She sighed as her little Tiachi flitted around her head, up and down, to the side, its tiny face earnest as it passed in front of her eyes. “Yeah, yeah ‘Chi, I get it.”
The disc was about three feet in diameter, with a handrail that seemed to have no attachment to the base and floated about where her waist would go. She assumed it would either cradle her back if she didn’t want to balance herself, or else, she could use it to hold onto. Gritting her teeth, she took the short step up and placed her hand on the rail. Chi darted in and out of her vision, chattering wildly, tapping on her hand and tugging at her finger.
Murmur moved her feet, and realized the board conformed to her foot shape once she faced the correct way, with, as she’d guessed, the bar at her back for support. With her feet molded and the bar lending her that bit of solidity, it was actually comfortable and took the weight off her joints.
She wasn’t going to question the logic of it, so she smiled at Chi, who seemed satisfied and entwined herself on one of Murmur’s strands of hair, giving it a double glowing bulb. Now she had Snowy and Chi. Pretty soon, the way this was going, she’d have an entire army of familiars. At least Chi didn’t cost any MA to maintain.
Dev rode up to her on what looked like a large alligator with strangely longer legs. “Ready?”
“Seriously? You’re riding one of your own?” Murmur’s words came out flat.
The tank laughed. “I didn’t think of it that way, but he sort of matches me, don’t you think?”
Murmur leveled a glare that was just as flat as her initial response. “Sure. Whatever you say.”
Merlin laughed as he trotted up to join them on a nice, plain chestnut horse. “I’m sticking with the tried and true. You two on the other hand have…” but his words broke off as Sinister joined them.
“Holy fuck, Sin. What is that?” His eyes held a good dose of fear.
“I’ve been saving. A Synthclaw is the perfect mount for a blood mage. I’m broke now, but Jareth is the perfect mount.” Her grin was almost full gloat. Murmur didn’t have the heart to tell her that not everyone would have wanted one for a mount. Besides, if her sensor net was even partially correct, Jareth seemed to have its own opinions about things, so she thought it better to steer clear of those comments.
“Where to, boss?” Mellow asked, and Murmur spun to see what sort of Tiachi he’d received. They were on a disc, with green undertones, matching their own coloring. Maybe it was a locus thing.
“As far as I can tell, there’s another non-max level dungeon on this continent. Some ancient ruins in the Curet jungle. We can go via Cognitia and see that city if we want.” She didn’t mention that her intention to see the city was purely because she wanted to inspect the damned fountain and see if the binders there set off any red flags like they did everywhere else. No one but her seemed to have picked up that quest, from what she could tell through her HUD. And she’d hate to think about how many steps behind they’d be if they did now. Of course, the odds were it probably didn’t work that way in Somnia either.
“Sounds like a plan.” Beastial nudged his horse forward. It looked like a Clydesdale. Tall at the wither, with fluffy feet. The draught horse was perfect for Beastial’s viking build.
Murmur fell into line next to Sinister, wondering at the slight tension there still was between them. She didn’t want to admit it, but it pained her more than she’d realized. Fighting was something they’d done so rarely through their lives that she didn’t know how to deal with it.
She was used to leading, but she understood why they wouldn’t let her. Riding second in line irritated the crap out of her, and her nerves were frayed. Become a jumbled figure amongst them, so people like Jirald had to get past them all to get to her. He’d painted a target on her, and it bothered her more than she cared to admit. She really needed to get the Getashi back to Telvar again. The less she had to focus on her self-declared stalker, the more she could put effort into figuring out different methods they could try to boot her back into her body.
“Hey.” Sinister pulled Mur out of her self-analysis.
“Yeah?”
Sin didn’t look at her, but instead stared straight ahead, focusing between her mount’s horns. “I didn’t mean to overstep. I’ve just always felt like such a part of the family, and I wanted things to be okay again. For all of us.”
“It’s okay.” Murmur realized it really was. She wasn’t angry anymore, she didn’t have time to be. But this awkward feeling between them needed to disappear. She gestured to her head with a sigh. “I’m not sure how normal this is ever going to get.”
“It will.” Sinister’s voice held steel. “We’re going to get you out of here, or at least, out of here so you can use a headset to log in normally.”
“A new headset. A normal one.” Murmur laughed, feeling more at ease than she had in hours. The sound got lost as their mounts clattered over the bridge that spanned the neck of Glacier Lake. She looked to the side at the spires that rose out of the ice-cold water and frowned.
There was one particularly long dragon-like sea creature she could con that swam close to the center. Deep, deep red. Even at level thirty. This was the highest-level dungeon on this particular continent. And each continent had one of them, smack bang in the middle. They were all surrounding by high level gatekeepers, and the probably level fifty-two water-dragon was no exception. It’s eyes never left their party as they crossed, as if perfectly okay with their presence as long as they stayed far away. She shuddered before speaking. “That’s one of the final castles.”
“Yeah.” Veranol spoke from behind, but kicked his mount up to ride next to Murmur’s hover thing. “Like the one over on Tarishna in the marsh.”
“That’s the second end game raid we’ve seen then. If we count that one near Ululate.” Murmur mused. They really did need to level, but since they were doing quite decently, she didn’t feel the need to add more pressure. Somnia wasn’t easy to level in. Although she didn’t relish the idea of the rest of the guild catching up to them before they hit fifty, some of them might reach forty-nine just before they dinged. With the amount of experience needed in order to level that high, she was quite certain of it.
Veranol nodded. “Yeah, one on each continent.”
“The keys don’t add up.” Murmur frowned. “One for each dungeon almost works, but if that’s the case, including the ones in the middle, that would be nine.”
“The world doesn’t much run on logic,” Sin’s tone was distant. “I mean, look at us.”
Havoc laughed. “We’re fine. And I don’t believe the dungeons necessarily match up with all the keys.”
“Obviously. Guess we’re going to find out.” Murmur looked ahead of them, at the winding path and the surrounding area as it changed before them. It transformed from snowy mountain tops down to rolling hills, through to towering trees in the distance on the right-hand side. To their left Glacier lake spread out, its icy depths causing a soft fog as the hot air from above collided on the surface. In a few moments they’d clatter over the bridge and officially begin to leave the mountains behind them. Beyond the lake, the ground seemed black, but Murmur couldn’t get a solid feel for it yet. Nothing other than a sense of foreboding.
They kicked their mount’s speed up a notch. It really bothered her that as of yet she’d only been able to find three obvious places on each continent to find keys. Research was easy enough to do from her position in-game most of the time, but it was frustrating to be a touch ahead of the game because no one else knew anything either.
They continued on at a solid canter after the bridge. It took them all a little while to understand how to go at a faster pace, and Murmur watched Snowy galloping along next to them, his tongue hanging out of his mouth as the wind pushed his fur back.
All she had to communicate to Chi was that they needed to keep the same pace as the rest of the group. The hoverboard felt overly exposed but somehow still safe. It was like her feet had a nice and comfortable locked-in spot, and her body was supported at the back, making it sort of a leaning situation that didn’t hurt her feet. Locus knees were definitely cushier than human knees, because there was no way she’d be able to stand this long in her real body without her feet starting to hurt.
The wind whipped at her hair, and she glanced at the tiny Chi perched on a strand at her shoulder, even though it put a crick in her neck. But the joy she saw on the tiny creature’s face was worth it. Galloping might be faster, but damned if it wasn’t boring. Shouting conversations over the pounding of hooves, claws, and humming got annoying fast. At least the terrain changed from snow-covered mountain tops and started to pan out to green grassy shores that led down to the lake, and forest on the other side. But the further they went, the more the ground to the north of the lake cracked, dry and brittle, like a field of death.
She glanced at Snowy again, worried about him in a climate that warmed up even slightly, but he didn’t seem to be unhappy, and she was sure he’d tell her anyway.
So caught up in her own thoughts was she that she didn’t notice the rest were slowing down until Chi screeched in her ear like a warning, telling her just that. Which was amazing, but even more astounding was that the round, hovering disc she rode on held her feet in place, gently decreasing the pace so that it didn’t jolt her in the slightest.
Mur didn’t see a city, and all of a sudden wondered just where they were supposed to leave their horses. Not that her or Mellow had a problem. The Tiachi created and took care of the hover discs. She supposed they had a name, but she’d not yet found it out.
“We’ll have to walk the mounts from the tree line.” Jinna squinted at the forest. “It’ll be fairly dense in there, but we should be okay.”
“How do you—” Exbo stopped, chuckling at himself. “Yeah, I see it.”
Murmur glanced around and saw the carvings higher up in the trees, spelled out in the ones directly facing the road were the words Welcome to Cognitia.
The trees in the middle of the forest were so large, so encompassing, it felt like the whole place was hugging them. Too tightly. So tightly it landed just this side of suffocation. Murmur shifted, the tiny weight of her Tiachi against her shoulders as it slept on one of her hair strands barely noticeable in the presence of such oppressive air.
It took a few moments to focus properly amidst all of the greenery, but ivy-covered walkways stretched between massive tree trunks that it would take four people to surround with arms outstretched. Creepers cascaded down the sides of some of the hanging bridges to create an almost waterfall effect.
Upon closer inspection, up high in the trees, she could see small hut-like entrances built into the trunks—or maybe they were around the trunks. She couldn’t tell.
“Wow.” Sinister breathed out the word, echoing the thought in everyone’s heads. Murmur could tell from her sensor net that everyone simply stood there in awe. She had to admit it was pretty damned impressive.
“Anyone any good at climbing?” Rashlyn crossed her arms, squinting at the trees.
“Not that good.” Murmur sighed and cricked her neck from side to side, suddenly overwhelmingly tired. It washed over her in a wave of sleepiness, with sounds of the forest flittering around in her head, lulling her into...
She blinked, looking around at all her friends. Everyone except Merlin looked like they were about to fall asleep standing up. Her MA was full, baring Snowy’s thirty-five, so she had a full load to spare. Without a second thought, she extended her Shield Expansion over the whole group, protecting their minds from whatever was making her sleepy as fuck.
A wave of renewed energy rolled over her, and she could see the others blinking back from their induced stupor even as a jolt of pain ran through her head from using one hundred and ten MA at once. She grimaced, clamping down on her teeth to lessen the pain, though it didn’t quite work. The drawback of traveling as a small raid, yet she was glad she could do something to help them break this spell.
Slowly, as if by magic, a group of five elves exited the cover of the forest, pushing through one of the ivy waterfalls to stand in front of them. The lead elf was as tall as a locus, their pointed ears long with an abstract trace of curling at the end. Narrow blue eyes surveyed them, and the green of their tunic and pants kept shifting so much it was difficult to keep them in sight.
“Well. We weren’t expecting a psionicist.” The lead elf spoke, and Murmur couldn’t tell if it was sarcasm or irritation that formed the words.
“I am Lideshu, the captain of the perimeter. It’s my job to keep unfriendlies out. And while I would say you’re not unfriendly, as you travel with one of our kind, I do find it quite disruptive that you have magic powerful enough to interfere with my inspection spell.” He stopped, standing right in front of Murmur, and made direct eye contact. “I see however that there are no ill intentions, simply a wish to protect yours from something you didn’t recognize.”
Murmur nodded, uncertain how to respond without smacking the smug elf in the head. Something about Lideshu set off alarm bells in her head. “Sorry. It’s against my instincts to let our minds be probed by something we can’t identify.”
Lideshu inclined his head. “As I said, we weren’t expecting a psionicist.”
It would have been fine if they hadn’t had a psionicist with them then, because he would have probed their minds and had them be none the wiser? Before Murmur could give in to the sarcastic comment sitting on the tip of her tongue, the elf suddenly turned to Merlin and gave a half bow of sorts.
“Merlin. It is good to see you again. May I ask the purpose of your visit?”
Merlin returned the strange gesture and spoke more formally than Murmur had ever heard him before. “We are on our way through to the Jungle of Curet, and I wanted to show them my home town,” he said smoothly.
“Excellent!” Lideshu clapped his hands and the creepers parted to reveal what looked like an ivy-wound wooden elevator. It was massive with waist high railings made of ivy-wound wood. “Much easier than climbing the trees, wouldn’t you say?”
Lideshu winked over his shoulder at the group, giving Murmur proof that he’d been listening when they first got there. He must have some form of enchanter as his class make up, because his thoughts had been far too well quieted for her sensory net to pick up. Which gave her pause for thought; perhaps she could upgrade her sensory abilities and refine them, hone them. To focus in on areas with an absence of thought, because that would often imply that someone was trying to mask them.
Thought Sensing (175)
Thought Shielding (175)
Thought Projection (175)
You have reached the next stage of your hidden class. Adjusting and refining your skills is a huge step. For this perspective your skills have leveled enough to allow you to reach level four of Mental Affinity. Please see a trainer at your earliest convenience. Sooner than later. Like seriously. An extra fifty base MA is nothing to scoff at. Off you go.
Murmur frowned at the notification. She didn’t know if she’d be able to trust the elves. She’d never met their trainer before, and they didn’t seem entirely on the up and up. This forest, and these elves gave her pause. They were too wary, and too guarded. At least from what she’d witnessed so far. So perhaps she’d wait to train in Curet. First though, she needed to see the damned statue in the fountain. Not to mention that changing their minds right now would seem suspicious. They had to go through with the visit on the pretense Merlin had invented.
The lift moved smoothly, which led Murmur to believe that some form of magic powered it. Stepping out on the platform at the top of the elevator was surreal to say the least. Varying shades of green adorned every platform, leaving little room for wood to peek through. Elves, also clothed in a variety of nature’s colors, roamed everywhere. They’d not been visible from below. Two wooden hanging bridges left off from the elevator’s platform to others. One was far longer, and Murmur couldn’t make out where it ended up, but the other one led over to a huge platform around a spectacular tree, and there, winding around that trunk, was a fountain.
