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

Murmur cast her gaze around, watching as everyone swam through the water. No one felt comfortable. In fact, everyone seemed to be just as on edge as she was. Maybe the countdown that hung over the water breathing buff in the corner of her vision had something to do with that.

Oh, that’s right!

Murmur was about to ask what Somnia was talking about when an eyeful of information flashed across her vision.

Due to the complexities of the underwater world, your casters have received a mass AoE version of Underwater Breathing.

Unending Breath

This spell allows you and all the raid members you buff to breathe underwater. This ability can only be removed by the players choice, or else by death of the player. It must be recast after a death. Or else, you know, they might drown.

Murmur blinked at the spell and the muttering around her. At least she wasn’t the only one who got the damned thing. With this, though, she could feel palpable relief flooding every single member of the raid. Even Jirald. It made sense, though. No one wanted to die from drowning.

“Hey, guys. The good news is I don’t think any of us are in any danger of drowning now.” She knew she wasn’t imagining the relief in some people’s faces. It would have been tough to make sure everyone was always one hundred percent covered. Murmur cast it for the first time; the complexities of the spell almost knotted her fingers. Directing a scowl inward, she thought with all the heat she could muster in Somnia’s direction.

Fantastic. Couldn’t have made it a bit easier to cast?

Mur could swear she heard a chuckle, but no response.

“Okay, let’s move on out, then.” Murmur laughed and Devlish raised an eyebrow ridge at her.

He grinned. “Follow me. Let’s get our serious swim on now!”

He leapt through the water and began moving with powerful strokes, like the fact that everyone else could breathe under water had somehow rejuvenated him. Dev and the other three lacerta in the raid swam circles around the rest of them. Sadly, the buff didn’t make the water feel warmer. Despite having the Boon in their favor, the water surrounding them still had a horrible chill to it. Murmur didn’t like the way it felt against what skin she had exposed.

It all just reinforced her hatred of underwater zones. Telvar would pay for not warning them about this. Although, given the name of the dungeon, she should have guessed. He’d point that out to her too.

Small batches of fish swam around them. All of them conning a yellowish green that meant they wouldn’t fight them unless attacked. It gave Murmur a moment of thought. Because if they used AoE attacks during the raid and hit these, they could swarm and become a problem. She knew Devlish had seen them and noted the same thing. Their pretty underwater rainbow colors might be appealing to the eye, but if they weren’t careful and got ambushed in a school of apparently harmless fish, they could end up being eaten alive.

In the game. And respawning. At least the death wasn’t permanent, right? Imagine that being possible in the real world? Murmur shuddered at the thought. Where would the crossover for her end?

Sinister swam beside her and reached for her hand to squeeze it. “You okay?”

Murmur was surprised. Sinister’s voice didn’t gurgle like Murmur expected it to under water. Of course. It was a game, and water breathing just meant it treated the water like oxygen. So of course, breathing was going to work and everything would sound the same. It was just a pain in the ass to have to swim through everything. She still didn’t like thinking about the fact that she could see underwater. Too much thought about it made the logical part of her brain panic.

“Yeah. Got a lot on my mind. The least of all is that I hate water dungeons, and I’m never sure what to expect.”

The underwater world was beautiful: kelp strands in different colors rising from the bottom of the lake, fish with darker mirrored colors swimming in and out of the leaves. Serene was the best way to describe it, so soothing. The sound of the water moving leant a gentle swishing to the atmosphere, lulling and almost hypnotic. Corals with rainbow hues, and anemones as big as a room with their tentacles swaying in the current. Beautiful to look at, scary to swim through.

Even scarier to swim through as Murmur realized that one anemone wasn’t fixed to the ground, but actually trailing after them. It was massive, like could barely fit in a house massive.

She cleared her throat, but thought against alarming the raid. That sort of creepy shit was bound to make some people panic. She spoke over guild chat instead. Dev. Don’t look now, or, you know, look now, but that anemone behind us is chasing us way too fast to like be a simple anemone.

Shit was all the response Devlish gave.

Stopping suddenly, the lacerta tank turned and observed the massive hunk of pinkish-orange anemone making its way toward them. Considering the bulk of it, it moved surprisingly fast.

“Incoming,” he announced, boosting his voice so it reached the whole raid.

The word caused the rest of the raid to turn as well. Most of them seemed surprised by it, except for a few who were more hyperaware of their surroundings. Like the rangers and their tracking. Maybe the water had lulled everyone a little too much.

The absolute worst thing about water raiding was moving in it. Everything they did moved slower, and it was all Murmur could do not to scream for Telvar to come so she could give him a piece of her mind right there and then.

Finally, the monster came into view. Anemomight, level fifty-four, conned dark orange. The worst thing was definitely going to be the difficulty in figuring out how to melee attack the thing. Devlish prepared for impact, his tower shield raised. Murmur readied herself, watching the types