Somnia Online: Fragments - Chapter Nine (Patreon)

Riddle me this

Somnia Online location: Brevint

Ishmael Tavern: main room

Somnia - End of Day Eleven

Ishwa stood leaning against the far wall of the tavern, watching the front door and tapping his very small gnome foot. Masha would have laughed at the comical appearance had his friend not been in such an obviously bad mood. Jirald was an in-game hour late. Normally that wouldn't have been a problem, they would have left without him. But the rogue was notoriously good at seeking out hidden places and since the building they were purchasing as their guild base was old, they wanted him to find any secret entrances or tunnels so they could either guard them, or use them.

"Settle down." Masha drawled the word out, refusing to let anything about the game irritate him, and Ishwa flashed him an angry look.

He wondered if Fable had this much drama. Somehow he doubted it, after all, everyone seemed to follow Murmur willingly. Another thorn in Jirald's side. Masha wasn't sure the kid realized it yet, but he was pretty much obsessed with the Fable guild leader. While he didn't know the exact details, Masha was fairly certain that obsession had taken on some twisted romantic undertones. So he'd assigned himself the task of keeping an eye on the rogue just to make sure he didn't do anything he'd regret later.

Finally, as if thinking of him summoned him, Jirald pushed through he door, sauntering like he hadn't a care in the world. "Hey. Still here then?"

Ishwa glared at the rogue with enough intensity that Jirald actually backed up a step.

"Sorry I'm late." He ground out from between clenched teeth.

Masha strolled up to him before he could decide to say something he'd regret and slung an arm around Jirald's shoulder. "Look at you kid. Not sounding sorry at all. Might want to at least open those teeth before you grind them into dust."

He could feel the tension rise in the shoulder beneath his arm, and squeezed just a bit harder, trying to lend a friendly warning. It took a couple of seconds, but he could feel the deep breath Jirald took, followed by the slow release of some tension at least. "Much better."

Masha looked back over his shoulder at the rest of the guild. "Shall we venture forth to our new place of residence then?"

Ishwa waddled up and glared at the cleric, but it was half hearted at best. After all, if Masha dealt with the pain in the ass rogue, then Ishwa didn't need to.

Letting everyone pass them, Masha kept the smile rigid on his face, holding Jirald in place just long enough to keep him out of earshot of the others.

"Stop pulling this shit. You're better than this." Jirald opened his mouth to retort but a glare from Masha silenced him.

The cleric rarely got angry, and he rarely got worked up. He believed that games were there for a relief of tension, and that games would provide their own entertainment given enough of a chance. But Jirald was endangering the very foundation of gaming that Masha held so dear, and he was getting fed up with it.

"You have always been an excellent player. If you keep this vendetta up, if you pursue this strange obsession you have with that girl? You're going to get burned in some way." Masha kept his eyes locked with the locus. "Whether you get nabbed by the police for stalking and harassment, or else she duels your ass into the ground more times than you can count, or you alienate everyone who ever gave you a chance -- in some way this will come back to bite you. So cut it the fuck out. Got me?"

Jirald nodded, ever so slowly, his eyes widening just a tad.

"Good. Now let's go." And Masha kept his arm apparently loosely draped over Jirald's shoulders as they sauntered out, leaving the rogue no hope of escaping his grip.

#

All of them huddled at the base of the stairs got a little crowded. Merlin stood just outside of the group, rubbing his hands together. It looked like he was either trying to remain warm, or else was nervous as hell. Murmur was willing to bet it was a bit of both of them. It took a lot out of her to admit that she was going to be the one holding back their progress on fight discovery. At least until they figured out if she really couldn't log out.

Hey is this thing on?

Murmur blinked at the words across her eyes, calling up any chat related data she could from her HUD with a frown. It was the enchanter chat she'd forgotten all about.

On and in the middle of something. I'll catch up later.

Finished relaying her thought, she blinked it away automatically setting it to pull up only with soft notifications that would only flash once in a while to let her know there was something there for her to see.

On the bright side, it had distracted her long enough that Merlin was ready to go. Now was the time to see if her theory had been correct, and if this method would work for testing some things out without them all having to suffer experience loss.

Merlin cast something over himself, a buff of some sort that swirled around him, and then he placed a foot into the sand.

The effect was almost instantaneous. A bright wall of light emanated up from where the path began, creating a barrier around the actual arena. Merlin stopped only briefly before taking off at a run. The statues didn't move, and nothing appeared out of the floor. He stopped in the middle and turned around, gazing at all six of the statues in turn. They'd decided which one strength could be. The one that was wielding two ridiculously heavy looking maces in each hand. Strain showed in the veins and muscles in his neck and he seemed quite formidable. Walking up to the statue, Merlin took a deep breath, and pressed against a jutting out piece of sandstone or whatever material the base was constructed out of.

At first, it appeared as if nothing was going to happen, until Merlin took a step away and shrugged.

The monstrous dwarf jumped down so quickly, Merlin barely had time to backpedal.

One wrong choice, replied in verse
No more wrong, go in reverse

The words boomed out around the huge chamber, echoing like they were in a canyon as the strength statue lifted its maces up, and Merlin finally hit evac, bringing him back to group with the others. The dwarf appeared back on its pedestal and the path around immediately dropped its shield.

"Well, that didn't look terrifying or anything," quipped Exbo, probably just nervous that it was going to be his turn next.

"Probably the most straight forward bit of information the damned dungeon has given us." Veranol growled. "I believe that means we have to activate hidden first."

"It's easy enough. Until you actually activate them, they don't come to life. Or at least, they didn't for me." Merlin smiled wanly. "Although I can tell you it's sort of overwhelming when that huge thing suddenly appears in front of you. I'm not entirely sure I didn't shit my pants."

Sinister sniffed in his direction. "Pretty sure you're okay on that front."

The group chuckled collectively but an aura of unease crept through it.

"Okay then. Guess it's my turn, right?" Exbo didn't appear to be asking anyone in particular, so the raid just chorused yes back at him.

"Any tips?" he asked Merlin.

"In my expert status as a run the fuck away ranger, I'd like to say jump back as far as you can as soon as you activate the damned statue. Otherwise...well I think it's just leaving yourself open for the inevitable." Merlin shrugged and patted Exbo on the shoulder. "You got this man."

Murmur tried not to cringe, after all, it wasn't the most convincing encouragement. "Go go Exbo. You got this. Make sure you have Ecav formed in your mind." If that was how other classes even cast their abilities and spells, but since he nodded, she assumed he understood her.

Exbo moved out, not as light on his feet as Merlin, considering he was a human ranger, but still quite stealthy. As soon as he stepped onto the sand, the wall shot up. Murmur watched with bated breath as he approached the hidden statue, and took a deep breath.

He moved so fast, Murmur wasn't sure he had. But the huge statue moved, blurring, slowly, almost blending with the sand. What, did they have to make the most difficult one go first? It flitted around, in an odd, almost knight in a game of chess pattern, if there had been squares on the floor. Exbo managed to dodge it three times, but the last was close enough that sand exploding next to him took about thirty percent of his health, so he hit evac, resetting the statue and bringing him back to safety.

"Okay, I'm not sure what that thing looks like from out here, but up close you can barely define its outline. Like, it sort of jitters so fast it almost blends with the sand. I took to watching the footprints to know where it would be and how it was moving, and obviously that's not failsafe because one hit took almost half of my health." Exbo panted, and Murmur didn't think she'd ever heard him say so much at once.

Devlish nodded, and his eyes grew distant for a second, probably making notes of everything he saw and witnessed. Tanking wasn't an easy job. You had to know everything, expect everything, account for differing situations. "Do you think a few of us could go out there and try it? A healer, a DPS, and me?"

"Probably Veranol is best." Sin said, and there was a mild hint of resentment in her voice. "My good heals take far too long to build up, and Ver will be able to ward you before you even set foot on the sand."

"Ver, Dev, and swap the rangers in and out?" Murmur reset the groups, replacing herself and Sinister with Veranol and Dansyn. Exbo's Evac wouldn't be up for another nine minutes, so she'd make sure to swap the rangers each time they went in and out. "Dansyn go with to provide speed and some more buffs. And we'll give a full compliment of buffs before you enter the arena."

Devlish frowned. "We'll see how I go. I can get instantaneous agro, but maybe some of Rash's guaranteed dodging might make it easier for us to observe about twenty to thirty seconds of the fights. If I get flattened too easily, we'll swap us out."

Murmur nodded. "Best to see what type of skills we're dealing with." She resisted the urge to give him more confidence, digging into the ground beneath her to ground her thoughts and have some logic infiltrate them instead of constantly trying to infect her thoughts. Thought projection was a double edged sword, and it kept increasing potency regardless of whether she realized she was using it or not. What if her friends found out that sometimes, she may have nudged them toward accepting her decision even if she'd done it without realizing.

She pushed the thoughts aside, choosing to examine them at a later time.

"Okay, you should all be good to go. You've got all the strengthening I can give you anyway." She stepped back, irritated that she couldn't go out there with them, but she couldn't risk it.

"Wards are up." Veranol grinned.

Devlish raised a fist in the air and shouted. "Off we charge!"

#

Hidden hit like a wrecking ball. But at least, on their fifth attempt at seeing just what the statue did, it gave them some idea of how to navigate the fight. Murmur actually raised her hands to her mouth multiple times to try biting her finger nails, which was something she only did when nervous. Locus fingernails were apparently made of sterner stuff though, and biting them wasn't a good idea if she didn't want to risk chipping her equally sharp little teeth. They'd managed to pull Hidden out for almost a minute before the four of them in the field had to Evac back to the stairs.

"Watch his footprints. Careful of the side sweep if on his left hand side as a ranged class. Probably on a forty-five second timer." Murmur frowned at the notes she'd made herself, not entirely sure what she meant by josb. Then she smiled. "Don't forget to jump over the sand blast. Do we have that timing down?"

Dansyn shook his head. "No, but I can call it out when it's about to happen, because he has this weird tell when he does it. I think it's about every twenty seconds starting at thirty."

Murmur flashed him a smile and tried to find anything else that would help. "Seems to dislike ice and water. Heat probably won't help as it just makes things work better for it. Although I'm sure hefty heat could make sand melt into glass... which we probably don't want to do."

"Mur?" Sin bumped her with her hip. "Stop overthinking things, lets..."

But she stopped, her face flushing a bit red. "Sorry. I forgot."

"We'll still have to do trial and error to a certain extent. I just may have to." Mur paused and laughed. "I may have to use that forestall death thing, so here's to keeping my MA up there so I can."

Rebuffing as a group, all Murmur could think of was that she hoped the statues didn't just leap down and fight them one after the other, because if they did they were so screwed. Although perhaps ordering a complete Evac would mean that they could reset the fight and restart again. Anything was worth a shot, but if they were all connected, and there wasn't time to learn the other encounters without going through Hidden again. It was going to take a lot longer than anticipated. Her first instinct was to save the fight until they hit fifty, but at the same time, she couldn't guarantee that she'd have figured out how to get out of the damned coma by then either.

Frustrating as it was, she had to hope for the best. Playing with the threat of true death over her head wasn't something she'd wish on her worst enemy, if she had a worst enemy. Not even Jirald.

They stepped out onto the sand in unison and the wall shot up behind them, encircling the entire arena in a dull orange glow. Murmur glanced at Hidden, still standing there, never quite revealed, and yet completely there. Dansyn ran forward, standing in front of the huge on button and waited, looking back over his shoulder at Merlin. "Both Evacs are up, right?"

Merlin flashed a nervous grin. "Ready and raring to go."

Everyone was buffed, and ready. Now or never, the first moment of truth for them as a guild.

Devlish nodded and the bard activated the statue before escaping back to the safety of numbers as they watched Hidden reactivate and jump down with a resounding boom that made the ground shake underneath them.

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