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

his eye, blood trickled down to soak into his facemask, and then it vanished as the group heal took away the damage. She couldn’t even tell what his expression was like under that mask, but she was fairly certain he was laughing.

She shook her head, willing herself to focus and keep the rogue out of her thoughts.

If they could keep this up, it would work, it had to work. All they could do was fight, dodge, and DPS their guts out. Through another stench cloud and more adds. One pillar left.

“Keep it tight. Push DPS, but don’t burn cooldowns.” She called over the raid, trying to regain her equilibrium. “Everyone needs to have a DoT on it.”

Devlish strained under Hipnormous’s attacks, as they collided with his tower shield and pushed him back more often than not. The lacerta used all his tricks. Even his own Cascade that bled hit points, mana, and strength. He taunted with Terror and Hatred, his whole arsenal. Everything he could to maintain its attention so everyone else could do their jobs. At least, even if she hadn’t been given a healer this time, Murmur wasn’t a tank.

The next wave of adds spawned, and the raid groups dedicated to them peeled off seamlessly without having to be told. At least that was one of the good things about repetition. Having to redo the fight over and over helped everyone remember where to be and when to be there.

AoEs ran rampant as the bards dispersed out toward the groups, stunning where they could. Murmur flung her stunlock into the mix knowing there was only a small window of time where it would be useful. But if they all concentrated on their targeting, it should be enough. Murmur took a moment of mass DPS to appreciate the fact that Somnia didn’t send DPS numbers flying all over her screen.

The adds went down in a timely fashion, and for the first time, the hippo hit twenty-seven percent. Murmur didn’t want to get ahead of herself. “Refresh all DoTs on the target. Make sure any and major cooldowns are ready to burn once the final pillar falls.”

Once the third Cascade was over, they’d be on borrowed time. They wouldn’t have a pillar to hide behind, so the fourth Cascade was going to kill them all if they didn’t have Hipnormous defeated by then. It lasted too long for any one of their players cast shielding skills to shelter the raid. She felt like she was watching it through a looking glass, sort of outside of herself. The spells flew, the sounds rang in her ears, and Tiachi clung to a strand of her hair for dear life. Murmur threw her own Suffocation into the mix, regardless of the fact that she knew it was minimal damage. It was still something. Every tick of damage counted.

Twenty-two percent. She sucked all the mana she could from the massive creature and redistributed it raid-wide, pushing everyone up by ten percent, even though it plummeted her own mana down to twenty-five. They would get through this, because wiping another time was probably going to shatter this nice new cool she’d managed to attain.

“If the adds spawn after the pillar, pull them into the middle and AoE everything,” Devlish shouted out. As usual Murmur hadn’t had to explain anything to him; he just got it. Devlish’s skill with his tanking made her often forget that he didn’t usually tank.

The island they stood on seemed too small to house such a fierce fight.

Then the Stench hit them, but the wave of disorientation was smaller than ever. With all of the resistances they’d piled up just for that reason, it barely did a thing. Murmur could feel how her head wanted to float her away, but the resists kicked in and prevented it. The result was heady and surreal. Luckily, the raid was outputting enough DPS that the third Cascade wouldn’t be on the Stench’s tail.

Twenty percent came and went, and Murmur heaved a sigh of relief. The rangers were down one of their number, and she’d really have to take the time to get to know their names, but that was for later. She signaled to the Shaman from Spiral to resurrect the fallen ranger. They couldn’t do without that AoE damage when the time came.

Nineteen percent.

She heard Mellow scream out in rage as one of Hippo’s wild lashes managed to catch them unaware and crush them against the one remaining pillar. Another one down. They only had two more battle resurrections. Frowning, and knowing that Mellow’s support meant an overall DPS increase on top of their own decent DPS as well, she signaled for Havoc to resurrect the witch. However, they needed Veranol to hold off, just in case one of the tanks went down unexpectedly.

She refused to think about Veranol being killed, because then they’d be up shit creek.

Eighteen percent.

And Hipnormous began to cast Cascade of Death.

“Pillar!” Devlish shouted, because while the beast was casting the damned spell, it was invulnerable to any new damage, which luckily did not include existing DoTs, and it was useless to leave the tanks out there attacking it and endangering themselves. Murmur booked it just like everyone else, and no one, for the first time out of all of their damned attempts to kill this thing, no one missed making it to the final pillar.

DoTs continued to tick down on the hippo, slowly whittling it to seventeen percent, just as the rockfall cascaded down on them. They huddled together, a HoT making sure the little fragments that bit into their skin were all taken care of. No wounds remained before the pillar rumbled, making some of them fall to their knees as it exploded outward in a shower of stone shards.

One of those fragments caught Murmur in the arm, and she pushed down on the sting of pain, ignoring it. She saw several other raid members do the same and allowed herself a split second of pride in