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

into their bag of tricks and made light of the putrid-smelling, vile red substance that stained everyone. Murmur could have sworn the stuff was eating through some of the metal armor in the group, but Mellow’s concoction managed to make it all disappear. Good thing, really, even if it couldn’t be cast again for another hour. Hopefully everyone would avoid it next time.

Murmur paused as Devlish faced off against their opponent. She really hoped the vomit was interruptible. Her robes were her one vanity.

The creature roared and Murmur balked at its name, trying to make sense of it in her head. Htailog screamed at them again, but this time he got interrupted by Karn. At least it was her if the smirk on her face was anything to go by. Devlish called out to the raid. “Interrupt rotation. Karn. Jirald. Jinna. Me. Rashlyn.”

Murmur was a tad worried that he’d put Jinna into the lineup, but then the lacerta didn’t know the extent to which Murmur was fairly certain Jinna was infected and not being himself.

She wondered if Jirald had attempted to infect anyone else from her guild and hoped she wouldn’t have to find out the hard way. If that was even how this worked. Maybe the rogue had slipped something onto their armor, or into their in-game food that buffed them.

We might have a problem. Somnia’s comment sounded abrupt.

Is it with this dungeon? she snapped back, not unkindly, just a bit impatient due to finding herself in the middle of a battle.

Perhaps. We think Riasli gathered up James and deposited him with Michael. James has a headset very similar to yours, but he`s not an enchanter, nor is he attached to me.

You sound worried. Murmur made sure her stun was ready to go should Jinna miss his turn. There wasn’t much she could do if he did, or if Htailog evaded, but she’d try.

Well, you’re probably going to have to face all of them.

What do you mean “all of them”? Murmur muttered to her mind as she jumped the Tailwhip and cursed at herself for not having made her standing position out of range of the damned appendage to begin with.

I mean Riasli. Michael. James…maybe.

Like…in a monster way?

Sort of. Somnia seemed hesitant.

Is there any way this can wait until I’ve finished this monstrosity’s attempt to eat me and my friends? Murmur knew she sounded angrier than she felt, but to be fair, she was trying to track a plethora of things at once, and Somnia wasn’t helping.

Oh. Good point. I’ll come to you when he’s dead.

At least she’d said when and not if. And hadn’t mentioned wiping, because Murmur had enough of that already in this zone. Going on what, four days of little to no sleep? She was getting tired. Even grabbing the four to six hours every day or so they’d done before was more than this.

Her faculties weren’t completely there, and she knew she wasn’t the only one having trouble with her reaction times.

The red vomit had only fallen in an arc around the front of the monster. So when, of course, Jinna failed to interrupt, the melee classes had about one second to jump as far outside that radius as possible while the less agile classes ran back.

Only Etriad and Dalvin got any of it. While it slowed them terribly, it did little to eat through their robes and only seemed to scar the metal of their jewelry somewhat, lowering its durability.

It wasn’t as bad as it could have been, but having two of the highest damage dealers casting like snails in a mushroom patch infested with badgers and snakes wasn’t helping their job of killing Htailog.

Tail Whip was behind them, they’d figured out how to get out of the arc of red vomit, and Htailog was already at eighty percent health. What was with the amount of tail attacks in this zone? When he hit it, Murmur wished she’d stop thinking to herself that each fight might not be so bad, because it was obviously the trigger to make it just that much worse.

She hadn’t noticed the black spikes that went all down his spine. In fact, she’d not really taken a look at his back at all, if she was honest. And she really wished she had.

Because when Htailog hit eighty percent, he swirled faster than a creature of his size had any right to do, and as he did, his tail and spine rippled, shooting out all of his spines in a wide arc and catching Exbo, Farin (one of Spiral’s rangers), Masha, and Sinister with clean, painful shots.

Spine Shot has been successful. Poison damage for one hundred and eighty-seven every tick.

A glowing blue light emanated from the turtle who’d sat silent until now. Sheladrios had mentioned that he didn’t have much power yet because they’d only removed a couple of the locks, but his heal spread over the raiders, immediately replenishing those who’d been used as pin cushions, and rejuvenated everyone else.

Murmur glanced up and saw a debuff hanging over her head. That heal couldn’t be used for another ninety seconds. While she was fairly certain they’d be fine like that, it made sense why he hadn’t used it before.

She glanced over at Sheladrios and sent out a thought of thank you. She wasn’t sure if he could hear her, but she’d like to think he’d have been happy if he could.

The heal wasn’t just a heal, though; it effectively removed the spikes embedded in the victims’ bodies. Htailog didn’t like that, and he roared like the caged beast Sheladrios should have been.

She liked this type of fight. Thinking on their feet, learning the fight as they went.

No more interrupts were missed, and Htailog’s health began to go down quicker than she’d expected. His Tail Whip was fierce, but now that they knew the tricks, rather easy to avoid.

Still, though, his screeching and his normal attacks bit into Devlish’s health, and the dread knight needed a chunk of focused healing to