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

in and out to inflict damage to Riasli and began trying to gore them all with their horns.

Riasli, on the other hand. She grew. About twice her height, hairier, and severely resembling a werewolf, she lifted her muzzle and howled like she was baying at the moon with her pack.

When she looked back down, the injured part of her face appeared to be slipping slightly, like someone had melted her mask. It gave the macabre appearance of her wolf-like transformation an aura of nightmares.

As Riasli opened her mouth to howl again, her teeth gleamed in the night, saliva dripping from them to burn the stones beneath her feet like acid. And all at once, a wave of utter hatred hit the raid, flattening every single one of them to the ground.

Storm Entertainment

Somnia Online Division

Game Development Offices - Shayla’s Office

Late Day Thirty-Two

Laria could see the stress lines around Shalya’s eyes expanding in real time. The call center call volume had increased by approximately four hundred percent since the headset notification went live a few hours ago. It almost made her want to put her own work aside and figure out how to help, but there was too much she was trying to squeeze into her job description for her to take a break from it.

A warning beeped in the corner of her AR vision, and she frowned at it, willing it to explain itself by itself so she didn’t have to expend her thoughts or brain in any way other than that which she was already doing.

Finally, she gave in and opened it, yet she wasn’t sure how to react to it once she did. It was an alert.

System Alert - Server load at eighty percent capacity.

Please make sure the servers are fully operational and fix whatever is causing this issue.

Remember: more servers can be added, but each must be individually calibrated and tested.

Laria stared at the words like they were from some other language, even though she knew they weren’t. In fact, she knew them well, just not in the context it was giving her. There was no way in hell that the servers they had running the game could be full. They could carry a massive load of shit. They weren’t restricted to mere millions of terabytes or anything; this system went far beyond that. Shayla had helped her make sure they wouldn’t be dooming their game world to a small fate from the start.

It’s why phasing was so easy in the world, why it worked so seamlessly. It created different layers upon layers in the same world, practically like parallel universes of the same world within the same world so it could all function as one without having to worry about joining separate servers like so many of the games in the old days had done.

But now, it didn’t seem to be going so well. Had she overestimated it? She glanced at the massive workload in front of her and groaned. It might be a workload, but it involved her daughter more than it did the health of the actual game, and she did get paid for the latter. Steeling her breath, she stood up and walked to where Shayla was listening to a customer. The boss was rubbing her temples like her life depended on it, and if she wasn’t careful, from the red marks where her fingers were, she’d end up hurting herself.

Laria stood up and walked over to the woman, gently lifting her hands from where they were trying to bore holes in through her scalp. “Shay?”

Shayla looked up and rolled her eyes like she couldn’t believe she was stuck here doing this rudimentary shit when so much was going on. She shrugged as if she was asking what was up, but then she motioned to stop with her left hand and turned her attention and professionalism back to the caller on the other end of the line. “We do apologize, but for the safety of our gamers, we have had to tighten our monitoring of unauthorized modifications to the approved headgear for the game. There are many older models that have been approved as well. However, modifications never have been.”

Another pause, and Laria had to stop herself from biting her nails with impatience.

“Yes, exactly. The reset is all that’s required, and your son can continue his journey safely and happily.” Shayla paused, rolling her eyes again. “Yes, I understand that he didn’t explain it clearly to you. That’s perfectly okay. Yes, you have a nice day too.”

Shayla hung up, and Laria could see her practically counting to five in her mind before she disconnected herself from the system and stood up. “Silke, Thomas. I’ll be running an errand with Laria. Ping me if you desperately need me, but I think you’ve got this for a short while anyway.”

Silke nodded from where she was already on a call, and Thomas did the same as he turned to answer one himself.

Laria waited until they were outside of the office to speak. “That many escalated calls?”

Shayla shook her head, and the tiredness seeped into her shoulders. “You have no idea. It’s been a nightmare. But I can’t put you on the phones—we all know how that ended last time.”

Laria had the good grace to blush. “Look, I wasn’t coming to ask you that. I was wondering, with all this hullabaloo about the damned headgear, have you had a chance to check the warnings we’ve been getting for the past few hours about the power fluctuations?”

“No…” Shayla walked with Laria as they made their way to the server area, obviously checking how the power reserves were going as they walked. “This is a joke, right? We almost got space-age shit for this. For the specific reason of not wanting to overtax the systems, should it come to several tens of millions of players. We’re nowhere close to that right now. Maybe what? Sixteen million?”

Laria nodded. “Something like that, but the servers are pooling major power in