Fragments (Somnia Online Book 3), page 24
“Come on. Let’s go. Snowy is tired of waiting,” she said, stepping out in front of the group and squaring her shoulders as she planted her staff against the floor.
“You feeling all right there, Mur?” Dansyn asked, concern pinching his brow. “I mean, you can’t really blame the wolf.”
Murmur glanced at Snowy, whose tongue was lolling out as he grinned a big wolf grin.
“Traitor,” she muttered. But the rest of them laughed and followed her anyway.
Murmur dialed her MA abilities up to their max as soon as they stepped off the huge leafed platform and into the jungle. It was alive with movement and fleeting thoughts that she couldn’t quite grasp, even with her enhanced focus. Small animals darted through the trees and vines, their thoughts rapid, unfocused, unblinking. Letting herself get too carried away with following them made it difficult to concentrate on other things.
Resetting her attention, she scanned outward. The strength of her abilities now meant that she could push further, sense more, and potentially prevent another ambush that wasn’t headed by a pscyho rogue AI who’d decided to puppeteer everyone she could get her claws into.
While scanning for threats, she made sure that her group felt secure. While she didn’t want to use eighty-eight of her available 220 MA, it was easy enough to see that their mental shielding was pretty robust. It made her wonder if she could teach them some mental reinforcement on her own. Sinister and Veranol should be more than capable of the basics, considering they’d taken enchanter as their hybrid class.
“You’re lost in thought there, Mur?” Havoc’s voice surprised her.
“Not really lost, just running over my way too many skills in my head. I’ve had skill heavy classes before, but so many of these are dependent on different levels of different prerequisites, and sometimes they can be a bugger to juggle—that’s all.” She answered him genuinely, not realizing until after she finished that he might not have meant it to be an actual inquiry. “Sorry. You did ask. You know how I get when I’m concentrating.”
“Well, at least now I understand you’ve got a lot to concentrate on.” He took a deep breath before continuing. “I expanded the undead portion of my skills. Figured if I’m going to go necromancer, then I should just bite the bullet and go hard.”
Havoc had always been easy to talk to, but lately he seemed to be more quiet than usual. “You’re worried about me, aren’t you?”
He raised an eyebrow. “Very astute. More the situation and how to deal with it than just you, but yes. It’s probably something you should talk to Veranol about. You know he’s a doctor, right?”
“Seriously?” Murmur ran that over in her head. She was sure he’d mentioned it once or twice when she first met him. Made sense for a doctor to be a healer. Theoretically, anyway. Some were just money hungry bastards. “How’d he get time off?”
Havoc shrugged. “Not sure, might want to ask him.”
He was being pushy, which was unlike him.
Murmur frowned, nodding, and opened her mouth to speak when Snowy growled low in his throat, vibrating against her leg. “What’s up...” she began to ask, until she saw what he was focused on.
Six sentries guarded the bottom of the wide, moss-covered stone steps, which crumbled in places, indicating that they had originated long before this world. The guards stood tall and proud, with a familiar vacant expression on their faces and long spears with nasty tips at their sides. Even exerting effort, she couldn’t sense them. If she hadn’t seen them with her own eyes, Murmur wouldn’t have realized they were there.
Here was an enemy she couldn’t sense and couldn’t predict. For the first time since finding out she was in a coma, a true sense of fear ran through her.
The raid split off into their groups and hid behind a copse of trees to cut out line of sight for the mobs, to avoid being spotted.
“I thought you said the path was clear,” Murmur whispered at Merlin.
He shrugged. “Well, it was like six hours ago.”
Murmur tapped her foot in frustration. “How many more are there? I can’t sense them. Their minds are blocked from me. Not even like a void, but more like just plain space.”
Merlin activated Stealth and crept out, disappearing from sight after a few seconds. Murmur counted the heartbeats until he came back, fighting down an irrational sense of helplessness. After a few moments he returned.
“Just those six at the base, four camouflaged to each side a ways down. There are ledges there you could use to jump down to the bottom instead of the stairs with a good chunk of agility, if you wanted to try and avoid them, but I’d suggest better to just take care of them than be sorry. Then at the bottom in front of the actual crumbling door that is just around a corner, there are another four.” He paused, and Murmur breathed a sigh of relief. “That seems to be it. We should still be marginally refreshed by the time we move in there.”
“Do they all have that blank look in their eyes? Like they’re puppets?” Sinister hugged herself, crouching low.
Merlin nodded. “That they do.”
“Fantastic.” Murmur had grown used to her abilities making things easier on her group mates, but right now it was more of a hindrance. At least before she’d been able to compensate for her handicap. Now, this NPC seemed to be much more powerful than Murmur was, and there didn’t seem to be anything she could do. She could feel the tickle of irritation gnawing at her. She wasn’t used to being rivaled this early in the game. The fact that it was an NPC felt wrong. Riasli acted like another player on the opposite side, like she was meant to be an opponent. Nothing about her actions so far spoke of computer controlled anything. And that was scary, unpredictable, and above all, unreadable.
Still, they couldn’t let this stop them. “Well, guys, there are the ruins there that we need to get into. I’ll be pretty useless against them. I don’t have anything yet that will combat her control of them.”
“It’s all good, Mur.” Veranol didn’t even stop to look back at her. “Even if you can’t take over her puppets, you make us stronger just by being here.”
Murmur blinked at the shaman and bit back a laugh. “You know, or else by buffing the crap out of you all with all my nifty spells.” She wiggled her eyebrows.
“Exactly. We’re a team. Team Murmur’s buffs make us better, faster, stronger.” His eyes twinkled, and Murmur laughed despite herself.
“You’re daft, old man.” She couldn’t resist the jab, but then took in a breath and grew serious again. “I was just forewarning you that I wouldn’t be likely able to do as much as I usually do. You know, so we’re all aware.”
“We know, Mur.” Sinister put her hand on her friend’s shoulder and smiled. “Just buff us up so we’re super strong, miss I’m-already-level-thirty-two, and let us have at ‘em.”
She stepped forward, intent on heading back out and stopped herself to sigh. “Excellent. I shall craft out a master plan and send you all out to your doooooooom.”
She intoned the last word as deeply as she could until her voice cracked. The others laughed, and Murmur realized her concerns had pretty much disappeared. They knew her well enough to stop her frustration in its tracks and concentrate on her strengths. And be damned if she wasn’t going to buff the hell out of them all.
A sharp jab to her side made Murmur turn to Sin, rubbing at the spot.
“Better make sure you don’t forget Mana Tide, missy. Mine just ran out. What do you think this is?”
“What do I get in return?” Mur asked, teasing.
Sinister just stared at her flatly, arms crossed. “Healed.”
Murmur laughed to see her friend dishing her own old medicine back to her. “Touché! I shall gift thee with my mana regeneration. For I shall like to be healed.”
“See that you do!” Sinister grinned, wiggling her eyebrows for comical effect. “For what it’s worth, I bet your Mana Tide is better than anyone else’s.”
“Well, what can I say? When you’re right you’re right.” Murmur’s tension levels were still dropping, and her head seemed lighter. Even if she couldn’t forget there were mobs just past this tree line, she felt better about facing them.
She really needed to get a handle on the frustration that Riasli was causing her, because the NPC wanted her to get rattled, and Murmur hated letting her win that way. Sinister watched her, her clear eyes focused in a way that was more protective than previously, and Murmur felt safe.
“Good.” Sinister’s smile turned smug. “Just remember that next time. I’m always right.”
Devlish choked down what might have been a loud laugh and caused a small snort as a result. “We need to head out, but I could watch you two all day.”
“Because that’s not creepy at all.” Havoc said, one eyebrow raised skillfully.
Devlish blushed furiously. “You all know that’s not what I meant!”
“Sure, sure.” Beastial waved him away.
Murmur chuckled to herself, blocked them out, scanned her own shields, and the sensor net. She double-checked the way her shields were built; how tight they were. As usual, they were rock solid. At least there wouldn’t be any attacks on that front.
“Okay, everyone. That’s enough teasing the poor lizard. I mean, he has scales for crying out loud. He probably has to molt at some stage.”
Devlish’s eyes grew big, and then he smiled self-deprecatingly. “Thanks. You don’t really think that, do you?”
Murmur shrugged. “Would you really be surprised in this game?”
“No.” Devlish gulped, glancing down at his arms as he ran a finger across the surface of his scales. “No, I wouldn’t at all.”
“Excellent.” Sinister clapped him on the shoulder, and glared around her. “If we’re all ready, I do believe Murmur would like us to fight stuff so she can receive the healing from me.”
“Sin makes yet another excellent point.” Murmur ignored the groans coming from the rest of them. “These mobs aren’t going to kill themselves. At least, I don’t think they are. I’ve been wrong about things before.”
Murmur grimaced as she renewed the Mez on one of her targets. The effort she had to exert to override its mind was strenuous. Though it stood to reason that if she could increase her power, others would be able to increase their defenses. From the blank look in their eyes, they were definitely being controlled, just like Merlin had surmised, which meant Riasli had taken these mobs over too. Even with Murmur’s first reaction being anger at the audacity of the other enchanter, a part of her thirsted for power like that, for the ability to control a number of beings.
Snowy ran past on his way to assist the others and licked her hand. It hit her. Of course she had that. She could command pets for thirty-five MA each. Right now, she’d be able to control seven of them at a time, technically, although she could already imagine that backlash headache. Maybe that was what Riasli was using. But if that was the case, she’d have to have an obscene amount of MA. Then again, she was a part of Somnia. The rules swam in her head, just this side of a headache, and Murmur shook herself to stop the train of thought. Focus. She needed to concentrate on what they had in front of them.
Four at a time were doable. She couldn’t quite define their classes. They moved as if they possessed martial arts training, yet fought more like a ninja with swords or daggers. Their movements resembled a deathly dance, and Murmur had to force herself not to become entranced by it.
Taking on the Mezs herself allowed Dansyn the ability to utilize songs that bolstered the group with extra mana and health regeneration. Buffs like that helped their overall productivity. Not that the heals would ever save them if the healers died, but it helped alleviate a portion of the burden. And that mana song? Well, she had to admit it was delicious. That, her Mana Tide, and the fact that the healers had taken on the hybrid of the enchanter class allowed their mana regeneration to refill at a solid rate.
It made Murmur glad she’d chosen the Sidious path. With a bard permanently in their raid, it was going to give her so much more versatility when it came to dealing with mobs that seemed far too human-like to be AI products. Like Riasli. Murmur frowned, thoughts still rampant in her head as she focused half on her inner diatribe and half on the mobs. She loved their armor too. It had echoes of old fashioned ancient Chinese dynastic warrior Asian armor, and yet it conformed with their movements. The plates that seemed to be flimsy at first were made of more resilient stuff. As guards of the temple, that made sense. She knew, without a doubt, that the mobs inside the ruins, or crypt, or catacombs—whatever it would be when they opened those doors—would be at least two levels higher than them.
She frowned as she glanced up at the couple of rows of stone levels that appeared to rise out of the ground. She’d been sure that the ruins she’d seen in the promo videos had been very close in appearance to the Mayan temples with the way they stood tall out of the ground, but this seemed to have sunk down. Even the entry stairs led down instead of up. Maybe she was confusing it with a dungeon in another area.
The adjusting raid zone idea was fantastic. Requiring a level of thirty, or very close to it, allowed people to begin pursuing the end game as they leveled. It was a much better incentive. Waiting until they reached the end game to get the keys would have been a nightmare.
With the last of the four stealther mobs finished off, the group pulled back a little to take stock of their situation.
“They weren’t nearly as difficult as I’d assumed they’d be, considering how hard we had to work to get past the undead dwarves back at Hightower,” Havoc mused out loud, his fingers stroking his chin as if he had a beard there. It made Murmur curious to know if that were the case in the real world.
“No. They weren’t that difficult. Very straightforward, and not at all what we’ve come to expect from anything Riasli-related.” Veranol’s words rang deeply through Murmur.
Something was very wrong with the situation. Given their last encounters with the feles traitor, Murmur had come to expect a certain level of deviousness. The original L’tigri killers hadn’t been inventive in the way they fought, but they had been difficult to defeat, even while being controlled. But this didn’t have the same atmosphere to it. All that was similar was the way their minds and intentions were hidden from her. Could it be that she’d simply extended her mind shielding over these? But in total that made eighteen guards, which for Murmur would cost one hundred and forty-four MA. Maybe it was doable, but that was a lot of headache. Maybe Riasli couldn’t get headaches.
“Mur?” Devlish stood in front of her, arms crossed, his body moving slightly in time with the foot he was tapping impatiently. “What do you think?”
“I think it’s a trap. A false sense of security. She hasn’t given these guards anything special except for the fact that she’s encompassed them within her own mind protection, which means I can’t get a read on them, nor can I seem to break through her hold to gain my own. If she’s doing something else though, I don’t know about it yet. She is above us in levels though, so that’s not too strange.” Murmur shrugged. “I think she just wants us to hurry up and get in there.”
Sure, it wasn’t quite like fighting a really good guild leader who knew what they were doing with all of their members, but she had to give Riasli some credit. So far, she’d been entirely capable of throwing Murmur and her guild off guard. The thing was, they were fighting mechanically and not intuitively like all the other intelligent enemies they’d encountered.
“Traps aren’t that dangerous when we know that’s what they are, right?” Sinister pulled at the belt around her tunic, a thoughtful expression on her face. Her dark hair whipped in the wind, and for just a moment she held an ethereal glow to her that made Murmur gasp softly. She caught herself and blushed, glancing around to see if anyone noticed.
“Not too dangerous if we know they’re there. But since we don’t know what she’ll do or what she’s capable of, it’s still pretty touch and go.” Havoc’s no-nonsense tone was calming. “Mur, is there absolutely no way you can break her hold?”
Murmur suppressed a sigh of relief and went over all of her abilities in her mind, trying to figure out if she had missed something. “If I can get close enough to her, I might be able to put a stop to her with a one of my Sinuous abilities. She’s going to have a high magic resist, so the odds of me being able to charm or control her are relatively low. But there might be a chance, if I get close.”
Beastial clapped his hands together, making all of them jump. His face spread into a wide grin, and his eyes lit up like sparks. “At least we have the makings of a plan now, right?”
Merlin shook his head. “It’ll have to do for now. Better to run with a plan than run away, right?”
“I’m not sure if that’s supposed to be a joke, but if it was, it’s a bad one.” Rashlyn rolled her shoulders and moved her neck from side to side like she was stretching while getting ready for the upcoming prolonged battle. “Don’t know about any of you guys, but I almost feel like this game is making me fitter.”
Murmur blinked at her friend while the others laughed softly, and only half in jest. It made her wish she could log out and test that theory. But then most things made her want to log out. She shook herself and plastered a smile over her face. “Well, it might be fun for you all to sit around here, but I feel like killing some shit, and we’ve got another fourteen mobs to go before we finally get in there.”
She moved over to the next spot without waiting for the others. Pulling was a fine art if done correctly. Line of sight was no longer working as accurately as the monsters they fought leveled up in strength and awareness too, but the feign death ability that Rashlyn had managed to work wonders to split packs every now and again.
Murmur couldn’t shake the feeling that for once they weren’t the ones able to choose, that instead they were being ushered into a corner and that once they got to their designated place, it would be all they could do to avoid death.
Murmur panted, leaning up against the moss-covered wall at the bottom of the stairs. She surveyed the last group of four they’d fought with a frown. They’d been decent opponents, but nothing like the dwarves from Hightower, nothing like any of the mobs they’d fought until this whole Riasli thing. Their reactions seemed scripted, and fighting them had barely been a challenge. She wasn’t impressed, but it had nothing to do with the AIs she knew who ran the world—no, she put this down to Riasli’s interference.
