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

it was for most people. As long as they could make it to this next boss, and as long as they could defeat it . . . then everyone could keep having fun.

“So why the trunks? Are you hinting that the guild should move out and leave the rest to the crafters?” Murmur tried to keep her voice stern, but she was smiling too much.

Neva winked. “Well, now that you mention it…” She peeled off with laughter, and then her expression grew serious. “Down to business, though. I wasn’t sure if you’d have access to the guild stores in…wherever you’re going. I tried to make sure that if you take a couple of chests with you, you should still be good. You know, on top of the guild inventory, if it works. Never bad to be overprepared, am I right?”

The nervousness was obvious. Neva’s shoulders were tenser than Murmur had ever seen, and her nose kept doing that bunny thing.

“Excellent thoughts,” Murmur added, trying to put all her appreciation into that one comment. “We do appreciate you. So lucky we have you.”

“Hey Mur!” Devlish yelled from the door. “The others are here. Did you want to let them into the crafting hall? See if we have anything for them laying around that might actually increase performance?”

Murmur glanced at Neva, whose face was positively glowing. “You have no idea how much stuff we had to make to get the rest of the crafters up levels. Let them come in. We have so much junk, we’d otherwise just have to port to market to sell.”

“They still make you schlepp it?” Murmur was surprised; she’d thought they at least had an auction system that could be used as easily as a guild bank.

Neva laughed. “Of course not. Not if you’re using the auction house, but we take it to the markets in Pelagu. A lot of passers-through will stop and buy things just because they’ve seen it. These are too mundane to bother with the auction house fees, but good enough that I don’t want to sell them to NPC vendors. I can totally get more out of the players for them.” There was a business-luna’s gleam in Neva’s eyes.

“Bring them in. Just a few at a time?” Murmur hollered over to Beastial before turning back to her master crafter. “You know, I’m really glad you talked us into expanding the crafting workshop. You’ve done so well with it. I’m so proud of you. Thank you.”

Neva smiled and her canine teeth peeked out of her mouth. “Well, thank you for letting me call the crafting shots. You know, and giving you me full access to the treasury. Did you ever get your cooking higher?”

Murmur laughed and shook her head. “Oh, gods, no. Never will, either. Supply me with all the food my favorite crafter in all of Somnia. Are you ready for the onslaught of high levels to outfit?”

“Shush, you’ll offend them.” Neva motioned Murmur away with her hand. “Besides, I have work to do now, fitting all of these lovely folks with armor. No time to chit chat, because knowing you, you’re leaving sooner than later.”

Murmur smiled to herself as she left the almost overflowing crafting hall. She seriously hadn’t realized Fable had grown so big. This was the first time they’d ever had a crafting arm of the guild. It was something she’d definitely want to institute in the future. It had been a long time since she last checked the guild roster. Beastial had been busy, too. She had no idea where he found the time.

“Delegation, my dear friend.” Belius stood at her left elbow and almost gave her another heart attack. What was it with AIs and their silent approaches?

“Seriously, Bel, don’t do that.” She glared at him. “And I’m still mad at you.”

He regarded her for a moment. “If that’s because of what I did to Telvar, I do apologize, but I had to get a sample of an organic anti-virus somehow, and I couldn’t guarantee that any of the rest of us would have come out of that unscathed. I knew he would. He was never in actual danger.”

“Says you,” she replied hotly. But she paused, took in a deep breath, and counted to five in her head before continuing their conversation as they walked. There really was a lot to this calming herself down. It worked, gave her enough time to analyze other aspects. Maybe she was growing up.

“The guild has grown. I was just surprised by how much, in such a short time.” Pulling up her guild interface she ran through all of the names and the ranks and their permissions within the guild.

It was so in-depth—and damned well-organized. She suspected that Neva had a hand in it. Since she’d been recruiting the crafters, it was highly possible.

“Did you have anything else to tell me?” Murmur asked Belius absentmindedly. “I mean, apart from peeking in my head when I had my guard down.”

“No. Not really. Just that Masha, Ishwa, and Risk are waiting for you in one of the gathering rooms.” He gave her a brief bow and smiled, in that creepy, disjointed locus way. “I shall take my leave of you, then.”

Murmur really didn’t think locus were supposed to bow. She just wanted to go lay down in her bed and fall asleep for an unspecified amount of time, but they all knew that wasn’t going to happen.

She pushed her hair out of the way, irritated at how it twined around her now. It almost seemed to be a separate entity sometimes. Tiachi had been quiet lately, but she was always wound securely close to her head. Murmur guessed it must be difficult to remain vocal when you were barely ever used for your main purpose.

Walking into the hall, she found Devlish and Veranol already in there and suppressed her sigh of relief. It wasn’t that she couldn’t deal with the others, but she knew that when she came down hard on things, that