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

“Burn it!” Sinister called, and Murmur thought there might have been a bit too much glee in the blood mage’s words. She smiled anyway, because Sinister was having fun—all of them were.

And burn it they did. Murmur threw everything she had at it. Arrows flew through the air as the rangers shot their weapons in a rather beautiful display of synchronicity. All the spells being fired at their opponent sent sparks flying over like a fireworks display. For the first time in this dungeon, despite apparently hating her for some reason now, Jinna and Jirald were actually on their A-game. Karn had improved through all the dungeons they’d done so far and her Hamstrings, Bleeds, and other abilities rivaled those of the more seasoned veterans.

At twelve percent, the next wave of adds hit, and Risk used his own Darkness Lariat to drag them into the center so the groups could peel them off. Each group overlapped slightly, as did their damage, but it made attempting to AoE everything much easier. Murmur could barely tell her ass from her elbow in there. There was so much going on. Cooldowns being fired off constantly, boosting speed and damage, and a heap of other things.

The mages were the only ones who didn’t have to stand in the middle of the AoE group in order to cast their AoE spells. Still, though, everyone worked as a cohesive unit, pummeling through the adds and the boss alike. By the time the adds went down, Murmur noticed that one of the other rangers, and Ivinel were dead. She couldn’t risk the rez though, just in case.

Hipnormous sat at eight percent. There was a race between getting him dead and another Cascade of Death. They had to kill him, or else they would wipe and need to start all over again, and Murmur was tired. She double checked her buffs, watched Beastial out of the corner of her eye as he executed Companion Fuse, Pack Bond, and Venom. Shir-Khan moved with him seamlessly, their movements playing off one another and making it look like they were dancing.

Snowy dashed in and out, DoTing the massive creature with as many nips as he could, all the while with his tongue lolling out of his mouth in the way of a happy wolf.

Five percent.

Exbo went down when he got a little too close to the left-hand side of the gigantic hitbox. And Rashlyn executed her Storm ability a split second too late, which resulted in her not saving him, and dooming herself.

It was okay. She’d been in tank mode; they’d just need to up it a bit more. She yelled out, trying to put as much fierce determination behind her words as possible. “Okay, fire away on any and all cooldowns that have popped back up or you’ve yet to use. Burn him!”

Three percent.

She screamed without words, a guttural sound with an oddly freeing sensation. DPS managed to pick up again as recycled cooldowns came back into play. But she glanced at the duration of the fight so far, knowing the Cascade was due soon, as was a…

Deafening Stench Roar

You have been hit by a deafening stench roar.

Disorientation Resisted

Murmur groaned, because even though they were largely protected from the effects because of buffs and the like, she could still smell it. And it wasn’t pretty. Just a few more percent.

One percent.

“Go, go, go!” Devlish roared out. Murmur could barely identify the creature’s health bar due to all of the damned debuffs and DoTs on it. And a sliver before its health was gone…

Hipnormous begins to cast: Cascade of Death

Storm Entertainment

Somnia Online Division

Game Development Offices - Shayla’s Office

Day Thirty

Davenport sipped on the fresh coffee David brought him as Wren’s father sat down. Laria kept shooting Shayla side glances to see if she could telepathically inform her of why their big boss was visiting. He’d been more than patient with them, and he’d been quite helpful when it came to the whole James thing. But she wasn’t sure what he was doing there now, and he wasn’t exactly being forthcoming.

He placed the coffee cup on Shayla’s table and cleared his throat. “I know you’re wondering what I’m doing showing up here. You know, in the offices of the building I own.” He raised an eyebrow, and the tension dissipated somewhat.

“Have to admit, it crossed my mind,” Shayla muttered, although even she seemed less stressed than previously.

“Nice to see you here, David. My offer still stands, by the way. We’d love to have you on board any number of Storm Corp’s ventures.” From the twinkle in his eye, it was easy to tell that Davenport was half kidding. He knew David wasn’t about to leave his tenured university position.

“So. Why are you here?” Laria’s patience ran out.

Davenport sighed, like he was mulling over what it was he exactly wanted to say. “James is in the game.”

Laria blinked. “What? I didn’t think he was a gamer.”

“He’s definitely not by the terms that you would use.” Davenport laughed. “You’re a lot more gamer than developer, Laria; it’s why what you develop is so much fun for people to play. Still, he is in the game and…well, as you know, everyone in our sponsor’s offices has an account. It was part of the deal to monitor and allow them access to watch how the headsets worked in the game.”

He paused for a moment before continuing. “This wouldn’t normally be a problem. They’re allowed to play the game. But…I can’t trace him now. He’s logged in, but I can’t find his character location.”

“Wait…why do I only vaguely remember this information?” Shayla asked the question sharply, and Davenport hesitated.

“This was something I ran past you while you were extremely busy, and we agreed I’d okay it for Michael to oversee. It really wasn’t of consequence until a few hours ago when I got an alert that James Dougray’s account had logged in. My authorization is needed to access the data connected to those accounts—not