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

They’d certainly never experienced it before. Her gut instinct was that it would herald something else, and she felt wary and a strange sense of foreboding. Like her sensing nets were trying to tell her something.

Two and a half percent later, she found out what.

The long creature began to writhe. Its mouth opened wide, letting out another one of those piercing squeals. It lifted its tail and the body began to convulse and twirl, whirling around, creating a massive whirlpool that formed a shield over it and paused all incoming damage for those few seconds.

Then the whirling mass exploded out from its center, damaging anyone in its way.

Bodywhirl has been released in place of Poison Fountain.

Bodywhirl hits you for 622 damage.

Murmur grimaced as more than half of her hit points vanished. Notifications shot across her vision as some of the raid weren’t so lucky.

Beastial has died. Veranol has died. Cardishan has died. Ivinel has died.

Okay, that wasn’t the best result. Murmur called over the raid chat as the rest of the raid healed up. “Rez Veranol, Beastial. Veranol, rez Ivinel.” The witch was just going to have to wait.

Back in business within those two percent, Murmur messaged Karn to hold off on interrupts for now. Considering how it appeared that they’d just get the Bodywhirl if they interrupted the damned Fountain, then it might just be better to take the Fountain hit. HoTs seemed to clean that up fairly well, especially if the raid was HoTed in advance.

Eighty-five percent passed with little to-do. Damage output was up nicely, but Murmur knew she couldn’t take a moment to relax, not yet. They weren’t even a quarter of the way through the fight. Two abilities weren’t enough, not for a boss like this. She needed to stop this wishful thinking thing. Its eyes glanced back and forth like it was waiting for something. As eighty percent neared, Murmur made sure Karn didn’t interrupt the spell again.

But even as she made that decision something nagged in the back of her mind.

As eighty percent hit, its horn began to glow again, just like it usually did for the prelude to its Poison Fountain, but at the same time, its tail began to lash back and forth, creating furious waves about it. And even as the Fountain began to fall over them, a massive wave rolled out from the tail end of Pivya, smacking the front lines with so much damage that some of them fell instantly.

Beastial has died

Veranol has died

Devlish has died

Risk has died

Rashlyn has died

Jinna has died

Jirald has died

Karn has died

You have been hit by Poison Fountain for 218 points of damage recurring for the next 7 seconds.

Pivya has hit you with Tail Whip for 532 damage.

Even with the HoTs active, they still lost a few more raid members, twelve in total. There was no way they were going to make it further without that. But Murmur thought they should have enough of a combat log for her to comb through and come up with a strategy, or at least the timing they needed to get further.

“Wipe it!” she called out, easily falling back into her routine of old when she had to call these damn things all the time.

Still, they’d come a decent way so far. Now if only the DoT would kill her faster.

Murmur.

The enchanter was eyeballs deep in the combat logs for Pivya. Trying to make sure she understood what she thought she did. No mean feat.

Mm-hm?

Jinna is...infected.

That stopped Murmur’s calculations in their tracks. What?

Somnia sounded actually worried, like she didn’t believe this could happen.

I said, Jinna is infected, or else, his headset has been damaged or infected. Either way, it`s making his moods swing, and homing in on anger. That specific anger seems to be directed toward you specifically and Fable in a broader sense. But I can`t figure out why or how yet.

How do you mean? Murmur needed Somnia to take a moment and think over the answer before blurting it out, or it wasn’t going to help either of them.

Somnia paused, like she was mulling the words over. His emotional reactions are fueled by you and your abilities, by what you do.

Could he have been infected by Jirald? Murmur asked, knowing that was one of the only sources that would probably hate her enough to do that. Besides, it was a logical next step. Otherwise it just didn’t make much sense to her. Not that she didn’t believe Somnia, she just found it very coincidental. And coincidences were some of her least favorite things.

Perhaps, but it would involve so many remote possibilities.

Somnia sounded like she was contemplating something, so Murmur continued her calculations while the world decided what it thought. She laughed at that, a bit at herself too.

That entertaining?

What? Murmur pulled herself away from the calculations somewhat irritated. After all, they didn’t have that much time between runs. At least they’d respawned back on Hipnormous’s platform. So they didn’t have to swim the whole way.

The combat logs, are they that entertaining?

Oh, no. These are just what I thought they’d be. I was a bit more amused at your comment, that’s all. Murmur frowned as she came upon how hard the damage hit different armor classes.

Somnia fell silent, and Murmur turned her attention back to the strategy she’d been contemplating.

She was pretty sure her theory was right. Every twenty percent or at least—that’s how it appeared—the Tailwhip would happen. If you interrupted the Poison Fountain on that percentage, then you’d only get the Tailwhip, followed by the Bodywhirl. That should give the raid just enough time to recover so that the next Poison Fountain could erupt at seventy-five percent. Then there wouldn’t be anything but Poison Fountain until sixty percent again.

Not really complex, just having to know where to set the interrupts and make sure they weren’t missed. Although it really did seem a bit too simple, so she was ready for a big doozy to hit them at some time.

It could be Jirald. There’s