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

But before she knew it, they were practically attached to Devlish’s shield. The force of their impact made him stagger back, and she could see a visible dent in the heavy metal unlike any damage it had been through before.

She cast her AoE Mez, but nothing happened.

High mental fortitude detected. You’ll just waste mana if you continue to throw this spell at these creatures.

Murmur took a deep breath and swallowed her irritation. Digging her staff into the ground, she pushed forward with her area of effect stuns. Flux did almost nothing.

Derivative effect.

Crocohusks are, by their very reptilian nature, largely immune to stuns. While this might buy you a split second or three, be warned that no lasting effect will remain.

Fantastic, just what she needed to hear. Couldn’t have a cure-all, though, that would make the game unbalanced. Murmur snorted to herself as she observed both Esolan and Rashlyn engaging another group of three each. Slowing the creatures was all she could do. None of them were casters, so draining their mana wasn’t even an option. She couldn’t silence them, either. At most she could allow her DoTs to drain some of their health. Something was always better than nothing.

It was one of the first fights Murmur felt mostly useless at. These were trash mobs, gating their way to entering the underwater dungeon. That’s all they were and the only purpose they served. Their lightning speed barely lessened even with her debuffs, and their attacks gouged holes in people. Including Jirald. Although the latter might have made her smile somewhat vindictively.

Most of her spells, regardless what tree they came from, were magic based. For non-magical creatures she had to resort to casting Veto on cooldown so that the others could land their spells. And because she could tell just as well as the others what the next in the mob’s attack rotation was, Murmur could easily pull out her Reinforce Others from her druidic line to make sure they took less damage.

Still, though. Maybe she did have a lot she could do; it was just finicky. And Snowy, he dashed in there without her giving him a thought, intent on biting and maiming as much as he could. He was a good wolf, a great companion, and made Murmur feel like she was supporting everyone else in at least some way.

Merlin and Exbo’s precision with their bows was out of this world, or probably just about average for Somnia since the other rangers echoed their accuracy. Whatever ability they used to send shots into the eyes of the crocohusks with deadly precision was on a timer. If it wasn’t, the fight would have been over almost before it began. The beasts flailed around, but it still made killing them somewhat easier. Their rotation was flawless with it. But she was quite certain that if they’d been fighting a boss, the ability wouldn’t work. Like all the good stuff.

Murmur watched out of the corner of her eye while Sinister wove her bloody healing. It was mesmerizing, so much so that she almost missed refreshing Veto on the crocohusks in front of them. Blood swirled in self-contained balls around the room, splotching into raid members, replenishing their health. Sinister’s look of pure concentration was only enhanced by the small smile that played on her lips. She enjoyed this class, enjoyed defeating enemies. And even though she’d had to change from her usual bow wielder, Murmur was quite certain the bloodmage gave her a lot more fun than any of them expected.

The crocohusks were super-fast. Just like the crocodiles they were mutated from. It was important to make sure that Languidity never dropped from their debuffs, even if it only offered the barest of help. Breaking through the lines was fully possible as exhibited by one of the crocohusks that managed to fling itself past Devlish’s defenses in the split second before Languidity refreshed and chomped down on Masha’s leg.

The cleric screamed, and the anger that shone in his eyes as he beat the Croc’s head in with his mace seemed out of character, even for someone who almost had his virtual leg chomped off. Healing potions or a healing spell would fix that, so his reaction made Murmur pause.

Now that she wasn’t constantly trying to fix others and make the experience nice and easy for them, she had more time to observe how people were actually reacting to the encounters. And the more she observed Exodus, and some of Spiral, the more of their resentment she picked up. Always directed toward her. Not toward the game or the shards, nor the AIs or the mobs. Solely toward Murmur.

She pushed the observation away to be dealt with later. After all, the middle of fighting wasn’t the right time to try and analyze her raiders’ motivations. It was still difficult to control her reactions to their overall state of mind. Resisting the urge to just make things easier for them to accomplish, to take away their worries, and to just let them all get on with their jobs without any mental interference from their own worst enemies? It was difficult. And strange that she had to avoid that sort of thing at all.

There were waves of the crocohusks that came barreling in with seemingly no end. They always attacked in groups of three, and they threw themselves and their spiked spines at the raid with abandon. Which felt decidedly off. Like they were a distraction from something else.

Murmur began to stretch her sensing nets, trying to feel if there was something she hadn’t seen or noticed yet. Pushing out, she worked past another four lines of the crocohusks, a total of thirty-six monsters still waiting to pounce on them.

“Thirty-six still incoming after these are taken care of,” she announced over raid before delving back into her nets even as she continued to maintain all of her debuffs on their current opponents. They could hold for these; it was fairly predictable even if they hit hard.