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

“Separate the world? How? I don’t understand all this technical stuff. Quantums? Perpetually suspended? Makes no sense to my way of thinking.” The gruff voice belonged to one of the Vikings who’d sailed over. He stood at least seven feet tall, and his hand reached up to twirl a part of his beard constantly, like it was a thinking tool.

“But it is. All existence is made of matter. And we can gather the energy we require to become matter.” It sounded too simple to Somnia, because she’d already done it once successfully. Thanks to Murmur and her company, anyway.

“Simple, huh?” Arita muttered softly behind her. Somnia could hear the laughter in the dark elf’s tone.

“We all exist?” One of the older feles who’d journeyed to the meeting shook her head. “We do, but we don’t…what’s to say we can continue? What happens if you’re wrong?”

Somnia shook her head. She knew she wasn’t wrong; she’d already experienced this. Spun from nothing, she was living proof. But she took a breath, counted to five, and smiled as she replied. “If I’m wrong, nothing happens. Nothing at all. We don’t disappear. Not yet, at least. The world will remain as it is. Until such a time as they turn off our servers.”

Again, the rumbling in the crowd, but none of it happy.

“How then?” Farshin asked, that strange sibilant undertone to his words. The Loch’Ni’Dar crossed his arms, his expression serious. “How then do we go about this, and what do you require of us?”

Somnia dared to let hope seep into her as she set about explaining just how they would do what she proposed, and how the death of the last boss in that final prison dungeon was going to help push them all over the top and into freedom.

Elastitan was considerably more difficult to maneuver than Murmur assumed. And she’d known it wasn’t going to be easy. She sighed, somewhat softly, wishing she’d managed to reach it with her mind, but the turmoil in there was difficult to read and even harder to navigate. Through some sort of primitive picture sharing like she did with Snowy, but as if the pictures were a hundred years old, she managed to convey that they were attempting to help him.

Immediately, the regular flesh strips stopped flailing about, and Murmur could finally relax a bit. They had to get him facing in the opposite direction to where he’d encountered them, about twelve feet further down. The on switches for the portal zapper would activate as soon as his strips depressed them. At least, from what they could see of the area, that’s how it worked.

She could feel the disappointment emanating from the other two guilds, although Masha seemed to be quite okay with not having to do any more fighting. He’d come the closest to dying from one of those fleshy impalements, and she didn’t think it gave him comfortable thoughts. Elastitan roared again, its tendrils flailing. That was the one thing it couldn’t seem to control, so even while they weren’t fighting it, they all had to still watch out for the arms.

That one explosion of them saw Dansyn being flung through the air again, but luckily Veranol’s ward thrown when he was halfway through the air managed to ensure the bard didn’t take fatal damage.

Its face looked at Murmur as it finally stood on the pressure plate in front of the daises. Once in place in the center, it triggered five different boards, which sprung up, each with another switch, smaller than the one Elastitan stood on. The roar squealed out again, and the midsection mouth expanded widely. Strips of flesh it hadn’t yet used unfurled, leaving strings of viscera that flew all around them, accompanied by the stench of corpses. Murmur didn’t even want to know.

But each of those tendrils hit its mark, and finally, the massive whatever-the-fuck Elastitan was disappeared in a vacuum of purple and black stars that popped loudly as soon as it dissipated.

For a few moments Murmur just stood there, staring at the blank space where shortly before a large, screaming, rubbery spaghetti monster had stood and flailed at them all.

QUEST UPDATE

You have returned Elastitan to his dimension. Please be advised that he is grateful but unable to express this gratitude. You will be rewarded upon completion of the Prison.

However, by completing this heroic act, you have angered the master of the prison dungeon, and he will now send out some of his most fearsome helpers to squash you like bugs.

Murmur glanced skyward, fearing immediate incoming. The quest giver sounds suspiciously like you. What gives?

It’s the best way for me to influence the outcome. I don’t have many options, but I think you’ll prefer some of them to others. Trust me, you’ll understand when they get to you…I have to go.

Murmur felt like there was a lot more to it and that Somnia was hiding something, but the presence was mostly gone from her mind again, which meant the world was off with her attention elsewhere.

“Buff up!” Murmur called out, making sure the rest of the raid didn’t lapse in their vigilance just because they couldn’t see the imminent threat.

From the way her sensing net trembled, the feeling trying to devour her gut from the inside, Murmur knew something was on its way. She just had no idea what.

Devlish backed down to where she stood next to the center area Elastitan had just vacated. “Is it just me, or are we like…in a trap?”

Murmur shrugged uneasily. “Kind of. In a way, I think, but not in the way you’re thinking. We probably should have tried to move out on the path as soon as it transported, but now I think it’s better to stay in an area we’ve already fought in.”

“Something is coming?” he asked like he already knew the answer, and all Murmur did was nod. With a sigh, the dread knight hefted his shield, and it disappeared.