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

of the enchanter. Spreading out about twenty feet, it missed the rogues and their backstabbing blades.

It hit everyone else dead on at chest level, even the dwarves and gnomes in the group. Murmur waited to see if an effect hit her, but with her MA and her mental protections all in place, she was well-grounded enough that she got the resist message yet again.

You have resisted Innermost Fear.

Your innermost fears have been left dormant and will not affect you or those around you.

Oh, fantastic. Because that meant anyone who’d been affected was going to be doing a whole lot of affecting to everyone else.

She glanced around and caught sight of Masha, who’d stopped healing. He was looking at his hands in a horrified way, like he had blood on them or something she didn’t understand. She tried to Nullify him but got her friendly neighborhood resist message back.

Your Nullify could not remove this effect. Please try something else or wait the timer out.

She couldn’t even express how exasperated that made her feel. She took a deep breath, knowing the mages had possible other spells able to strip debuffs, and had to let the others do their jobs. There was enough for her to focus on with draining as much of Riasli’s mana as she could. With no mana, the other enchanter couldn’t cast. She glanced at Belius, who already appeared to be assisting her.

A thought struck her. How the hell did Riasli’s mana pool manage to stack up against two enchanters draining her?

The other enchanters’ attacks didn’t seem to be on any percentage timer. She just cast them when she felt like it. It made judging them difficult and avoiding them even more so. Murmur wanted her to use that damned Disturbed spell so she’d help kill herself.

Idly, Murmur wondered just what the fight originally intended for this location would have been like, but that was something she’d never find out. To her left, Belius flickered, and she realized how not there he actually was. No. No. That wasn’t a good thing.

She glanced over at Telvar, noticing his significant drop in DPS, and Emilarth’s similar performance in healing. It wasn’t that they required them for victory, it just helped. Especially since Jirald had taken off to the gods knew where to sulk.

Riasli’s health continued to drop. First seventy-five percent—where she cast another Disturbed. Only Etriad was caught by it this time, even though Murmur barely refrained from asking why he’d been in melee range in the first place. The action meant Riasli’s health plummeted to seventy percent, and she had to ask herself why the feles would use something that used up her life.

Finally, Risk roared with triumph as he managed to lasso one of the damned mole creatures. Caught in his trap, slowed and DoTed, the thing was finally properly targetable, and thus killable. The melee made short work of him eliciting a scream from Riasli as her life plummeted another twelve and a half percent. Murmur blinked as Innermost Fear and Disturbed went off again, catching a few of the raid in their radius.

Merlin huddled on the ground, his head in his hands, his bow discarded. Beastial and Mellow faced off against each other, coughing with remnants of Disturbed, all the while circling each other as if they were mortal enemies. Karn and Jinna locked themselves into a cycle of battle that had eyes for no one but each other.

Murmur knew Nullify wouldn’t work and was glad when she saw Veranol at least cure Disturbed. Esolan and Ishwa were yelling at each other, and it took a moment for Murmur to realize it was the Fear spell and not just them having an argument.

The whole raid had been thrown into disarray because they killed one of those mole creatures. Next time, they’d have to use it to their advantage. Riasli was close to fifty percent life now, and her howl of rage echoed that of a wolf more than anything feline.

If they could get her angry and off guard—and stay out of the range of spells—they could probably win this fight.

Storm Entertainment

Somnia Online Division

Game Development Offices - Shayla’s Office

Late Day Thirty-Two

“That’s not possible.” Davenport put his foot down as he leaned against Shayla’s desk and crossed his arms like that was the end of the discussion.

Before Laria could jump in and comment, he continued.

“I don’t care what sort of theory you’re going to throw at me. Be it string, quantum, gravitational force, power, just…no.” Except he seemed to be fidgety, which meant he knew there were possibilities according to physics.

“We’re not saying we’ve even seen it at this point, or expect to see it soon, but we are fairly sure the AIs and Somnia have done the correct calculations.” Shayla tried her best with that soothing voice she often used to diffuse difficult situations.

For a couple of seconds, it seemed like it might even have worked on Davenport.

“There’s just no real proven science about what you’re insinuating out there. Theories about and a few maybe fringe experiments, but…” He sighed and rubbed his forehead. “Are you saying that the world—the virtual world you created—has somehow become aware enough to want to separate herself from her servers?”

“Yes,” Laria ventured a little hesitantly. “I mean, pretty much. Herself and the three AIs.”

“Wait, those too?” He seemed like he might be counting to ten under his breath before he continued his questions. “And you haven’t told me about this for their own good, or for my own?”

“Maybe a bit of both?” Laria answered in a mousy voice.

To her relief, Davenport chuckled. “I’m not processing this properly yet. My brain is in a bit of a freefall. I did say this project was yours and you had free rein. This is what I get for that, I guess.” He paused for a moment before his expression turned completely serious.

“We’ve got our contract with our investors worked out now. We’re not in any danger of being shut down by them, and