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

that made her think she’d either eaten something really bad, or else, the universe was trying to tell her something.

“Slow down on the red one,” she yelled. “That’s Dev’s target. Concentrate on grey first, and then black.”

She could see Devlish stiffen for a moment, the red head hanging nicely at twenty-five percent. Then his shoulders slumped and he spoke over guild.

You’re going to have to brink-of-death me again, aren’t you?

Murmur grimaced. Yeah. Sorry about that. And it’s Forestall Death. Get it right.

“I might be able to help too,” the large amphibious reptile behind them grumbled. Murmur wasn’t sure if it was wrong to want to hug him, but she really wanted to. She also randomly really wanted a pet turtle now.

“Excellent,” she said, hoping he heard her.

Just then, one of the beak pecks resisted its interrupt and almost cleaved Karn in two. The scream that came from the young rogue was terrifying as her health dropped to five percent. Jinna stood over her, a strange ghost of his usual self. The expression on his face was almost as scary as the injury Karn was being healed for. He looked nothing like the healer Murmur had played against for however many games and more like Jirald the assassin every single second.

She had to shake herself away from the vision and call out orders over guild, no longer giving a shit about Jinna’s perceived feelings. “Dansyn, replace Jinna in the interrupt rotation, please.” Her words were calm and commanding, but only because she managed to suppress the rage she felt.

Sinister gave her a quick smile before returning her attention to the fight. Maybe that meant she hadn’t given the whole raid a dose of her own anger.

Most of the rest of the fight went off without much interference. Murmur barked out commands in a militant fashion, and even Veranol shot her a concerned glance. She tried to give him a tight smile, tried to make herself convince herself that it wasn’t her fault. No one should ever betray another raid member just because they were feeling petty. Maybe this time the creature had resisted, but it seemed awfully coincidental that Jinna’s turn in the interrupt rotation had failed. She had no proof, though, and no proof that Jirald had done anything…yet. But she would. Eventually.

So, in the end, even with keeping all her emotions under wraps and not trying to coerce people into doing what she felt was best, she’d still managed to hurt two of her raid members.

“You know,” Havoc said from next to her, his eyes still fully focused on the battle, “if I were able to read locus expressions as well as I can human, which I’m not saying I can, then I’d say you’re in the middle of blaming yourself in a bit of a spiral of doom.”

“What?” She looked back at the fight, more than a bit put out by his statement. “You’re talking nonsense.”

“Am I, though? I mean, we’re fighting a big three-headed chicken here. You can be honest.” His face didn’t even flicker in the direction of a smile, and yet Murmur found herself laughing.

“Fine. Maybe a bit,” she admitted, not really wanting to.

“Yet…you don’t need to, you know.” He grimaced as an eyebeam got through, hitting three of the melee fighters in its path with about five hundred damage each. “You can only do what you can control. You should really keep that in mind. You do not control others, as much as you are capable of it, because you are aware of your abilities and are essentially a good person.”

“Any of you would do the same,” she said, blushing slightly, that whole compliment thing still strange for her.

He eyed her very briefly, what with a battle all around them and such. “I think you’d be surprised.”

And he moved a bit to the right of her, further away so talking would require yelling. And even though she continued to go through the motions of the fight, his words sat heavily on her mind.

Somnia Online

Cenedril – Curet

Riasli’s Exile Hideout

Late Day Thirty-One

Riasli almost tore the magical leaf door off her house in her fit of rage. This whole situation was too much for her to handle. She hadn’t evolved of her own volition in order to feel this uncontrollable despair. When people played with their headsets, like they technically weren’t allowed to, they didn’t always know what they were doing. So many times, it ended up allowing the system a deeper access than it should have had.

Sure, she could talk into the minds of people with normal headgear, but she couldn’t affect their minds like she could the others. Those deeper reaching headsets…those were where the fun was at. James’s headset had smelled of Michael’s interference. She couldn’t access the areas of James’s mind that she should have been able to. She threw her hands up in the air and morphed herself into a fluid type of spirit.

It was always far easier to scream in that form, because it stretched through to her outer appendages and flowed the rest of the way outward. Except there was no one she could use it on right now. Not a thing she could sense, not a human she could exert her influence on. It frustrated her to the edge of the world.

And then she fluttered back into herself. Perhaps there were some who might be susceptible. Hadn’t that Jirald boy somehow managed to absorb some of the shards into him? In fact, hadn’t Belius been the one to encourage the boy? Part of the AI’s stupid ruse that was over now?

A devious smile spread over her face. First, she would go and find the prey that she’d delivered to Michael and retrieve him. Once she had him back in hand with the promise of more of his kind, she’d make a nice little house call on Belius. He may have thought he’d gotten rid of her, but it wasn’t so easy to cut ties with an enchanter