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

“Ah. I am a much better puppet master than you’ll ever be.” He whispered the words to the feles that he now cradled with one arm. “But this is my fight now. These are my prey. And right now, you’re just standing in my way.”

He plunged an oversized dagger into her back, allowing it to emerge through her body in its entirety. Riasli coughed, spluttered, and her eyes grew larger as her magic began to seep out of her.

Around the wound a black shadow began to form, eating away at Riasli like a type of necrosis. Everyone but Murmur took another step back, but she was entranced. Not in a good way, but in that “train wreck, can’t look away from” sort of way.

As the puppet master began to pull his knife back out, he moved slightly, hefting the handle in order to separate it from the bone he’d cut through. Light fell on his face, illuminated fittingly by a lightning strike up above.

Murmur gasped as Jirald raised the blade and licked the feles blood from it, all of his humanity gone from his locus gaze.

Storm Entertainment

Somnia Online Division

Game Development Offices - Laria’s Office

Wee Hours, Day Thirty-Three

“What do you think this will do to the game?” Laria’s voice was calm, maybe a bit too calm if she thought about it. She certainly didn’t feel calm at all. Maybe lethargic was the best description.

David pushed himself against the wall and tilted his head to look up as if the ceiling was going to give him all the answers he didn’t have for himself. “I’m not sure. And I don’t think it’s the game you’re thinking of, as much as you love it, as much effort as you’ve put into it.” He lowered his gaze and raised an eyebrow at her.

“Fine. Act like you know me.” She snorted and then just…felt all of the energy whoosh out of her. This was getting far too heavy for the computer game design industry. Actual brains shouldn’t have been involved.

“I just want to know if she’ll be okay? You know, with that weird-ass connection she has, I’m not entirely sure if she will. Showing signs of powers extending to outside the world, showing signs that she may be able to connect even without an actual headset to link into the system? It’s all so futuristic science-fiction-esque that I can’t wrap my head around it.” Laria would have laughed at herself six months ago if she’d said any of this, but this was all such a stark reality for them now, such a potential fuck up, that there was no laughing to be had.

“Lar. That’s just it. We don’t know. Given Michael’s secretiveness, none of us really could have known.” He moved over swiftly yet somehow so smoothly that she almost didn’t register him appearing beside her until he was giving her the hug. “I adore you, I adore her, and we will figure out what we need to do together, okay?”

Laria found herself nodding, even though she thought he was being overly optimistic. But it was good to have that in her corner. “Yeah, I get it.” She considered what was awaiting her back in Shayla’s office and the amount of work she’d have to put in to finish it all.

“I have a lot of work to do if we’re going to help them gain the energy they need. Plunging the entire city into darkness would raise too many questions.” She had no idea how long such a power out might last if it did happen, and frankly, they needed the power to remain on. Generators were one thing, but not everyone who couldn’t live without power would have them. Life support machines, surgery equipment, ventilators…there were way too many people at risk to not take the whole situation seriously.

“Just remember. It’s solvable. We’ll fix it if something gets broken. Okay?” David had always been such a positive person, leaving his more realistic and pragmatic wife to toe the line when he was in fact correct. For one of the first times ever, Laria fervently hoped he really was right.

She couldn’t afford for him not to be.

Jirald leered at them. His starry eyes seemed more sunken back in his skull than Murmur remembered them. Deep and dark holes, more akin to a black hole than a Milky Way. Even his skin tone was paler, bluer than silver with an off-greenish side tone to it.

Or maybe that was just the dim light.

He was still the locus he’d always been, and yet…

Now he stood there before them, at least a foot taller. The malice he usually exuded spread out to reach the entire raid and not just Murmur, for once. She could sense it in her nets, like they were being coated in a miasma of hatred.

She shivered at the same time as beads of sweat broke out over her brow. He hadn’t even batted an eyelash as Riasli dissolved at his feet.

He didn’t move, simply allowed his gaze to sweep the entire raid slowly only pausing briefly to lands on Ishwa, Masha, and Murmur. All the while he spun and twirled that deadly knife in his left hand like it was a baton, apparently paying no attention to its actual whereabouts at all.

Murmur wasn’t sure what they were supposed to do. But their combat ended when Riasli died, and their health and mana were regenerating at their out-of-combat speed. Maybe that’s what he wanted.

Jirald tossed out a small smile, though he contacted no one. He moved his shoulders like he was limbering up and cracked his neck from side to side, subtly gaining around another foot in height as he did so.

The tension in the air rose, and the unrest through the whole raid didn’t fare any better. Risk was like a pot about to boil. She could see the steam caught under his collar, like he was about to explode from within, but