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

Murmur knew the bloodmage was trying not to throw up. She couldn’t blame her.

After all, hundreds of small anemones wiggling their tentacles in front of them was just too much.

 

At least the Anemomight appeared to be frozen in time. As if in doing what it did, birthing these baby versions of itself, had somehow frozen the boss mob. Murmur couldn’t help the relief that flooded her. She knew that if they’d had to deal with all of them at the same time, loss was definitely on the agenda.

She took a deep breath, conning the creatures and realized they were all level fifty-one. Hard group mobs. Enough to swarm the lot of them. Murmur took a deep breath and counted to two, but only because when she hit two, their opponents began to move forward.

“To me!” Devlish cried, and Murmur hoped he was right. AoE time…if it could even work in water.

She moved to him as fast as she could, but barely faster than the mobs reached the raiders. She saw Etriad, the Spiral mage, go down under a swarm of ten or so, and gulped nervously. Letting go of Flux, she hoped for the best, and it worked. At least with her stun rotation, and that of the bards, this might be doable. “Dansyn, Ivinel, help stun. Stun on cooldown. Stun all the time.”

Because a percentage would always resist. It was just the way these things worked. And when there were hundreds of the creatures, the resists were no longer negligible. More stuns wouldn’t break a stun, and might even catch some of those who’d escaped the first time around. At least, that was the theory she’d been working on these past oh, fifty levels.

Murmur kept an eye out as she found her groove, and tried tapping the Anemomight for mana, but received an annoying notification.

Anemomight is currently phased out of this battle. You cannot harm, heal, or otherwise attack this creature. Only those spells already in effect will run their course.

Irritated, Murmur attempted to tap the smaller ones. They had some mana, but not a lot. It would have to do, or else herself and the healers were going to run out before this battle was over.

While she stunned, everyone else had fun. Not that stunning wasn’t fun, but it required concentration and well-timed debuffs that didn’t get in the way of her rotation.

Snowy got to dart in and out like a white fur whirlwind. The rangers loosed their AoE Rapid-fire, and the mages had a field day with what appeared to be whirlwinds and blizzards, but she couldn’t be sure.

The way ice flew through the water gave Murmur pause. If it was ice and unable to melt because magic, then wouldn’t the water around it attach to it and also become ice? Shouldn’t it end up just freezing everything?

You’re thinking too much.

Somnia sounded disgruntled by the train of thought, and Murmur shrugged.

Resist!

A majority of your targets have resisted your current stun. Please be aware you will be their first target.

Fuck. Murmur glanced around, noticing Dansyn to her side. “Need your stun now!”

He shook his head. “Waiting on refresh.”

But about twenty of the little shits were already converging on her position, and Murmur took a deep breath, hoping they didn’t hit as hard as she thought they did. She hated death, even if it was in a game. At least the creatures had to fight through the rest of the raid in order to get to her.

The blobs didn’t seem to have any ranged attacks and they ran over everything and everyone on their way to her. While it was probably the only reason Mur survived, it left Jinna and one of the Exodus rangers she’d never caught the name of, in the rampage’s wake before Dansyn’s stun hit them.

Three people down and the boss was only at fifty percent. Devlish called for a rez on both Jinna and Etriad. The rogue’s damage was excellent, and as annoying as that mage could be, his DPS output was brilliant. They needed everything they could get, especially AoE in nature.

Murmur stumbled back as one of the resisting anemones barreled into her. To be more precise, tentacles jettisoned out and smashed into her. She doubled over, coughing with the impact. Each spot they hit hurt like acid was trying to eat through her gut. Her next stun caught the creature mid-strike, and Snowy leapt at the offending tentacles like he was fighting for his own life and not hers.

She moved quickly, yet felt sluggish. Just like the healing spell she knew Sinister had thrown her way felt more like a trickle than a full heal. She could feel every portion of her skin being knit back together. Murmur executed her stuns, still able to do that, but the sensation of her wounds healing set her teeth on edge.

“Petrification aftereffects,” Sinister shouted over the raid. “If you get hit by one of the tentacles, you need to chug an antidote immediately. We will heal you as we can, but without the antidote, we’re just burning mana.”

Murmur chugged one, and her health regenerated faster even as she threw out more stuns. Keeping her mind on the fight, she searched for Snowy, checking he was okay. Though he didn’t get hit by Petrification even once, she still worried about him.

She eyed her mana and that of the others. They were starting to get low. Lower than she wanted given the Anemomight still had fifty percent health left. They’d massacred almost half of the little buggers, but still, they came. It was like their numbers were solely there to wear the raid down.

Wait a second. Maybe that was it.

She tried again to leech from the Anemomight, and it didn’t work. She frowned, tossing a DoT onto the thing as well. Again, it gave her the error message. She kicked herself, almost missing the cooldown for her recast of one of the stuns. Taking a breath, she forced herself to think clearly.

“Is the wave ebbing