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

and counted herself lucky. Without even realizing it, everyone had stepped up, everyone had come together with determination to fight their common enemy.

But as Risk’s Torment wore off, Devlish’s wasn’t quite up yet. And from the look on Esolan’s face, it appeared that his taunt type wasn’t working. As the grin of triumph began to spread over Jirald’s face, despite the fact that he was already down six percent health, Murmur wasn’t quite so sure that he was deferrable.

He flickered away, jumping across space in a split second to land next to Sinister, plunging his dagger as he resurfaced.

Sinister has taken 1780 points of damage (967 points of which has been mitigated by outside protection).

At least her shielding had helped. The blood mage collapsed to the ground as the rogue screamed in frustration, lashing out at Exbo who’d stood next to his target, slashing him across the chest in a nasty gash that dropped his health by twenty-five percent.

Jirald didn’t let up, hacking and slashing at the ranger with all his might, even as the healers poured their healing into him, managing to keep him upright. The rest of the raid focus fired the rogue, set on taking him down, but the grin on Jirald’s face only grew darker. He was determined to take his target down.

But a flash of surprise crossed his face, and Murmur could see him trying to resist the force of the taunt. Oh, Jirald tried so hard. Resisting so much that every vein in his body stood out. Finally, as he faced Devlish, panting with the exertion to defy the game mechanics, Devlish shield bashed him in the face, leaving it momentarily bloody before the rogue’s innate regeneration kicked in.

Ninety-two percent ticked over as Jirald launched himself at the dread knight with a scream of defiance and attacked with a flurry of blades Murmur had never seen before. She glanced down at Sinister, whose mouth was set in a hard line. Ah, he’d angered the blood mage, which was always extremely inadvisable.

But hope tickled the back of her mind. It was going to be a long fight, but for just a moment, Murmur thought they might actually have a chance.

The feeling was short-lived. This time, as Risk’s final taunt wore off, and the twelve seconds of overlap timer began, Jirald was waiting for it. Sure, he was down to eighty-five percent now, but that was a long way from dead.

As soon as the overlap happened, Jirald was already gone. Just a blink of an eye is all it took for him to be standing right behind her, dagger through Murmur’s stomach as he twisted the blade.

She felt it dig in, deep, through whatever the world had her think of as innards as it pushed through the skin on the other side. The pain was initially overwhelming. So much so that she couldn’t tell what was happening around her much past the growling death Snowy promised.

Murmur fell forward onto her knees, coughing blood up onto her hands. She blinked in confusion in the dim light, like she couldn’t quite remember where she was. Her head felt light and woozy, and she could have sworn she should feel better. More than pain.

Her vision swam, and all she wanted to do was lie down on the cold stone floor and just nap. But a wave of magic lifted her, filled her up and cleared her head. She could feel each part of her body that had been maimed begin to knit itself back together and wasn’t sure which part of the pain had been worse.

“So close!”

Jirald’s maniacal laughter drifted over to her now that her head was clear. She felt like such an idiot.

“Don’t worry, Mur!” He laughed, even as Devlish forced the rogue’s attention again. “I’ll get you next time. Or I’ll just gut you over and over and over again.”

“Mur?” Havoc sounded concerned, but he still wore that concentration like a cloak. “You okay?”

“Fine. Let my fucking shield fall when Sin got hit. Wasn’t paying enough attention.” But she was now, and while that mistake almost made the raid have to waste a battle rez, she wasn’t going to make it again.

Veranol tossed a ward on her, and Murmur nodded in his direction with gratitude. Snowy licked her hand before bounding over to where Jirald was getting the shit kicked out of him and joined in.

Except that was wishful thinking. Jirald’s ability to deflect and dodge so many of the incoming attacks lent solidity to the fact that he was a damned good rogue. Even with everything aimed at him, all the weapons thrown his way, his health didn’t go down nearly as fast as she thought it should.

Spells, though. They were the one thing he couldn’t deflect. Especially not with all of the other attacks he avoided. But she could sense his determination. It hadn’t even waned in the slightest. In fact, it had only solidified more.

So far, about to hit eighty percent life, and there hadn’t been any special moves added into his arsenal. All he appeared to have got from his end of the deal was extra size and a massive hitpoint pool.

He fought with a focus she didn’t think he’d ever had before, biding his time and waiting for the next lull in taunts. She shivered just thinking about it. Who would he hit? Her, her friends? Her wolf?

She glanced at Snowy, the only one that gave her some relief. Basically, he was the only one she probably didn’t have to worry about.

A grin washed over Jirald’s face with two seconds until he was freed. It sent a chill through her as she tried to decide which of her friends to ward first. He knew that’s how she’d react; he had to know. It’s part of what was making it so much fun for the bastard.

The rogue jumped to where Veranol stood, executing his Sneak Attack in the split second of time the DoTs ticking away on him allowed. He cleaved through