Somnia Online by K.T. Hanna (reading strategies book txt) 📕

she surveyed the entirety of the raid, completely oblivious to the blood-matted fur on the side of her face. “You’ve come to let me kill you, haven’t you?”

“Path sort of led here,” Havoc muttered, and Murmur knew the difficulty of holding back the sarcasm, especially in someone so strong in it as Havoc. Devlish almost wavered, almost grinned at the comment, but held on.

Murmur had to choke down a laugh.

Riasli on the other hand, practically growled. She bared her teeth. Except, Murmur realized, she was done. Riasli was intimidating because Murmur let her intimidate them. About to speak, Riasli surprised her yet again, and leapt toward Devlish so fast that the dread knight barely got his shield up to cover his face in time.

But he did, and she rebounded back, so light on her feet it looked like she was walking on air. Her tail balanced her as she tossed her staff back into her hands. She grinned at them in that decidedly street cat way, all her guile coming to the fore. Riasli bared her teeth again, and this time the sharp white rows gleamed in the sconce light, like a massive lion or tiger. The roar that gurgled from her throat actually had guts.

“Much better,” Merlin mused, standing next to Murmur. “What, about a seven on a one-to-ten scale?”

Sinister shook her head and butted in. “Please. About a seven on a one-to-fourteen scale.”

And that was the straw that broke Riasli’s back, apparently. Right on time, because Masha began to approach them just prior to the break, and Murmur didn’t want to answer the questions right then.

The feles let out another roar and cast a split-second ability—Murmur realized belatedly it had to be a hidden ability—that smacked Murmur in the chest and sent her stumbling back several steps. It didn’t do physical damage as such, but damn, did it hurt her casting ability.

You have been hit by: LIMIT

This reduces the effect of all debuffs by up to thirty percent for an eight-minute duration.

LIMIT also increases the damage you can take from the caster of this LIMIT.

LIMIT also restricts your damage spells to only be cast on people other than this caster.

LIMIT Timer: 7:56

Murmur groaned. “Did anyone else get hit with Limit?” she asked over raid.

It appeared no one else had.

“Shamans, slow. I’m rebuffed.” Short and sweet, and all they needed to take over that part of her role.

Then she ran through her arsenal in her mind and realized that the stupid spell hadn’t reduced her abilities to do anything to Riasli. She couldn’t stun or Mez her anyway, but Mana Drain wasn’t considered damaging; it only drained mana. And thus, she could tap Riasli and fill up all the other casters.

Great. This way she was going to be a mana battery. But the best part of it was how much it would piss the other enchanter off. At that moment she received a message from Belius. He’d been hit with Limit too. It only made sense, he was technically playing as an NPC, just like Riasli.

The air around her and through the entire raid was charged with anticipation. Murmur wasn’t sure what to expect from an enchanter opponent. She also had no real clue what Riasli’s hidden class or abilities were. Only moments later, she wished she’d refrained from having that particular thought.

Around them, the cobblestone mortar cracked, pushing the stones up from the ground even as arms and hands reached through to push them out of the way. Except, as she’d first thought, these weren’t undead. No, instead, these were hulking beasts with dark black eyes about the size of saucers. Horns adorned the tops of their heads, and their grayish-black skin was adorned with tufts of slick black fur in places.

Every single raid member was forced to jump back as they sprang out of the holes they’d created. Riasli threw back her head and laughed, even as her shoulders strained against her robes. “Meet my new friends. I’ve been playing with classes.”

She spoke a guttural word that Murmur knew was a command from the tone it was spoken in. Devlish hunkered down as the onslaught began. Each armored mole creature began to roll themselves into a ball and smash against him. With their main tank preoccupied, it left Riasli time to focus on all the other classes scattered through the raid. And she still had two of her pets standing by her side.

Murmur narrowed her eyes, quite sure that Riasli was about to begin expanding her physique again. Riasli had grown astoundingly. Her damage spells hit right on target, and even Murmur’s own defenses against them didn’t completely nullify them. The pets weren’t like Snowy, they weren’t a willing companion, but she fed them enough power that they didn’t appear to be fighting her too much.

With Devlish preoccupied, Murmur sighed with relief when Esolan stepped to the front and began taunting the other enchanter. He glanced at Murmur as he did with a scowl. “You owe us some major explanations, Mur.”

She sighed because he was right but tried to switch off her worry gene, because they had a long fight ahead of them. Mind Bolt would be her friend through this. Silence went a long, long way.

When the first Mind Bolt hit, Riasli’s reaction was far more violent than Murmur would have thought. The evil enchanter pulled spells from her arsenal that Murmur was certain didn’t belong in her possession, but they were there. Damage spells that hurt like fuckery.

Burning, freezing, mage spells galore. Riasli’s eyes lost any semblance of self-control as she pointed her staff at her two pets beside her and screamed, “Guttural Roar!” at them.

Magical lightning in the color of blood jumped from her staff and began to mutate her pets before arcing back to her and causing her shoulders to widen enough that her robe ripped. Those pets grew three times their size in a matter of seconds, before the one on the right ran into the melee fighters who had been darting