Somnia Online: Fragments - Chapter Nineteen (Patreon)

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Feeling refreshed, Murmur placed a hand on Snowy's head and looked out over the lily-pad center of Curet. She knew her friends would be logging in soon, and she knew she needed to try and figure out her abilities. That reinforcement of her basic skills made sense, in an eerie way. She didn't even want to think what might have happened if she'd attempted to use more of her kinetic skills. The headache backlash had been bad enough.

A sudden growl in Snowy's throat reverberated through to her hand, and made Murmur whirl around quickly. In front of her stood a tall Feles, with siamese markings and colorings. She was at eye level with Murmur, and utterly gorgeous. Her fur was sleek, and her face spread into one of those lazy cat grins, as she glanced at Snowy, whose growling subsided immediately.

"Murmur. I've not seen you for a while."

"We've met?" Murmur thought she would have recalled a Feles this pretty.

"I'm Emmilarth, and looked a lot different last time I saw you." Their laugh was melodic, echoing around through the trees. "I wanted you to know that the Enchanter master here has been restored to her rightful place, and that you will now be able to study here without fear or misdirection."

Emmilarth inclined her head.

"Thank you." Murmur wasn't sure what else to say, but didn't want her to leave yet. "What happened?"

"A greedy enchanter decided to take something for themselves instead of working hard toward it." Emmilarth smiled with a type of graciousness she seemed to think would appease Murmur.

"Look. That wasn't just some random scripting incident gone wrong. That was totally off anything supposed to happen. I'm not sure if you're a GM, or another damned AI, but this one was dangerous." She didn't like that she could feel a tremor spreading through her body, or that she was genuinely upset at the game for throwing this wrench into the works. Most of all, Murmur didn't just want platitudes that things would be okay. She needed guarantees. With the way her kinetic magic seemed to react with the world, she wouldn't feel safe using it deliberately until she knew no one was out to get her group. Well no one outside of Jirald that is. She'd not heard a peep from them since they'd trounced Exodus in the gnoll caves, and the building tension waiting for him to stab her in the back again wasn't doing her disposition any favors.

Emmilarth raised a delicate eye ridge, studying Murmur with catlike precision. "We know. You know. Don't scare others needlessly. It's under control now. Just remember that nothing will rectify it quicker, than playing the forced storyline through to its end."

Murmur blinked, her seemingly irrational fear fading instantly at the calmness in the feles' words. "So you're saying we need to play her game and defeat her to cast the evil out forever?"

"Something like that." Emmilarth chuckled, and spoke words that left no more doubt in Murmur's mind. "I can see while Telvar finds you so fascinating."

In a blink of the eye, Emmilarth was gone.

Snowy wuffed at the air where she'd been, and looked back somewhat beseechingly at Murmur as if asking her what the fuck.

"Right there with you boy, right there with you." Murmur gave him an absent-minded pet behind the ears and turned to the fountains. The balancing feles were intriguing. If she'd done her mental calculations properly, and the ruins were in fact a part of the key quests, then this fountain, and perhaps the fountain in Cognitia might even have something to do with it. Thing was, she had no idea in which way.

Sighing, she sat down on the edge of it while waiting for her friends to log in, closed her eyes and crossed her long legs. She reached out with her sensor net, and attempted to activate her passive kinetic ability. The blinding headache as she triggered it was definitely not something she'd been expecting.

Backing off, she blinked her eyes open, trying to chase the black spots away from her sight. Snowy nudged her knee with his cold nose, concern in his intelligent eyes as he focused on her.

"It's ok. May have overdone the intensity there." She mumbled at him as she readied herself again. No use in giving up, the others weren't here, and the abilities weren't active ones, so sitting in peace and quiet should help her.

Not that it was all that quiet. Feles children may have been light on their feet, but their games weren't. Their laughter echoed through the canopy, like tiny bells ringing. In a way the melodic strains of their play helped sooth Murmur in a manner she hadn't realized she needed.

She watched them run back and forth playing tag, hide and seek, and something she didn't understand that involved a strangely bouncy ball with a mind of its own. Watching them had a hypnotic effect on her, calmed her mind, and let the Basic Kinetic Structure flow through to her sensor, and shield.

Her eyes opened wide as she realized she could feel the actual mental shields surrounding everyone within her range. Barriers that were no longer such for her, but instead doors she could open so much easier, because they weren't walls, but innate defenses that the mind gave itself. Unlike her own protections that she'd mortared together with her thoughts and sheer will, these were reflexive barriers the mind had built to protect itself from mental attacks.

She knew it, she could identify it, and she could reach out with a thought and touch those same shields, bounce on them, feel their tangibility. If she punched just a little harder...

And then she realized she'd even bolstered her thought projection. What was punching through a shield if it wasn't an almost physical manifestation of thought projection. Excitement began to build up in her. She could reach through and affect people's thoughts whether they were shielded or not, whether they wanted her to or not. Punching through to directly affect them, deliberately effect them -- that had a multitude of possibilities.

For stubborn enemies, for great enemies, and if Jirald kept up this fucking quest to kill her for those damned shards, for stubborn, misogynistic enemies too. The only downside was that if she effected minds in here, did it transpose to the outside? Probably not, right? Or she wouldn't be in a coma.

#

After a couple of hours sitting there and honing her skills with their new found bolster, Murmur tracked Sinister's progress to her as her best friend logged in, right until she sat down next to Mur, on the opposite side of Snowy, and just waited. Sinister seemed content to sit next to her and wait, and her mind was a strange sort of melancholy mixture, its thoughts whirling just beneath a surface that was sturdier than others Murmur had faced. It made her wonder if the choice of enchanter as Sin's hybrid class had helped inadvertently reinforce her own mental protections.

Technically, Mur now had the ability to dive in and sift through thoughts, whether the target wanted her to or not. While the back of her mind screamed at her that such a thing was wrong, the forefront was trying to logically calculate just how much of what she saw in-game, would remain in-game. Would she only have access to thoughts centered around Somnia, or would they extend to the much larger real world?

So many questions, and that damned annoying moral part of her that wouldn't let her test anything out. At least not on her friends. Maybe her enemies, maybe some NPCs.

"Sleep well, Sin?" She asked, remaining in her relaxed pose and not even opening her eyes.

Sin chuckled next to her. "Sleep at all, Mur?"

"I napped." Murmur didn't let that phase her. Sin had a way of only answering what she wanted to answer when she wanted to answer it. Sometimes it was endearing, other times it was fucking infuriating. "You're a bit earlier than expected."

She could sense a feeling of discomfort within Sin, but it didn't appear to be directed at Murmur herself, but more at the game and reality not being one. Was that invasion of privacy? Murmur couldn't be sure, but in her current half-trance, she could see so much without any effort, so it wasn't like she'd pried.

"We don't seem to spend much time together. I miss just us time. The others can be..." She paused as if trying to find the right word, the least offensive term.

"Sort of rowdy?" Murmur offered with a small smile. Finally, she uncrossed her legs, opened her eyes and half-turned to Sin. "Yeah. I miss our time. We used to log on together all the time, remember? Make it in a little earlier so we could get shit done, so we could research, so we could plan our next course of adventure?"

Sin grinned. "So we could figure out who we were going to practical joke next. Those were the best of times."

"For us, anyway." Murmur sighed. She really did miss just having her friend by her side. Somnia felt so crowded, so teeming with life, even if a lot of it was AI driven.

Sinister leaned in, resting her head on Murmur's shoulder. The proximity and warmth her body leant the enchanter was remarkably solid and real. Calmness suffused Mur's body and she relaxed, not having realized she was so tense to begin with. Just having Sin there often helped her moods, and she'd hated arguing with her. The irritation she'd had melted away and she leaned into the half hug.

"Can we just stay like this for a bit, Mur?" Sin sounded uncharacteristically sad. The melancholy in her voice leaked through, concerning Mur so much she reached her hand around Sin's shoulder and squeezed gently.

"We can stay like this forever," And for several minutes they did.

She'd always taken for granted that Harlow would be there, that Sinister would play games with her. But what happened if Murmur died? What happened if Somnia crashed and burned after a while like so many games that gave way to the latest and greatest? What if she still wasn't out of her coma by then?

The thoughts scared her, the situation was so unpredictable. So she leaned into Sin, drinking in that constant that she barely remembered not being there next to her. She let it wind into her, and calm her fears, at least for now. After all, they're working on it, everyone was trying to figure it out. There was no way she'd let go of Sin, and no one could make her.

#

It took a while for everyone else to get back, so Murmur and Sin visited a couple of the stalls to make sure they had enough potions and supplies. With Snowy bringing up the rear, most of the feles kept their distance. Murmur smiled to herself, maybe that cat and dog thing had a lot of base.

"You know I can make temporary healing potions in my cauldron now, right?" Mellow spoke softly from behind her and almost made her drop the healing potion she was holding.

"No, because none of you tell me what skills you get and I've been having to wait until someone else gets them and mentions them in a forum somewhere online that I can access." She glared at them, but her heart wasn't in it.

Mellow laughed. "You have to make up your mind. Either you want us to share, or you want us to hoard every advantage that we have. You can't have it both ways."

"Pedantic. Just tell me, you don't have to tell everyone." Murmur placed the potion back onto the stall table and turned to Mellow. "So, what do they do, how do you do what you do, and what do I need to know."

"I can concoct batches of five health potions at a time. No one can have more than five at a time. They heal up two hundred hit points, which isn't huge, but it's good in a pinch, and they have a four hour lifespan." Mellow's eyes were distant, obviously immersed in his HUD to retrieve information. Murmur wondered just how many spells and concoctions Mellow had. Not even that, what about everyone else. Was she the only one with a massive spells and abilities list?

She realized Mellow was waiting for a response of some sort from her. "That's amazing. We should probably make sure we all have a set of them before we go into the ruins."

"Thought as much." Mellow grinned, and eyed the mana potions at the stall. "Can't do mana until level forty though."

Murmur sighed and shook her head. "They're not very generous with their mana regeneration abilities, are they?"

"Gotta impose strictness somehow. Can't make it too easy to win now, can they." Sinister interjected making Murmur jump. Last she'd seen, Sin had been over at another stall picking out rare tailoring ingredients to help Neva's ongoing quest to get the best stuff into the armory.

It was weird to think they had an armory now. "You need to start announcing your presence." She mumbled grumpily.

"Nope. Not going to do that." Sinister's grin was infectious though and Murmur was grateful for having got over the awkwardness after their argument. It never sat well with her when they didn't agree, or they didn't make immediate peace.

"So, are we ready, or did you all want to spend more time shopping?"

Murmur turned around to find Devlish standing behind them with everyone else in tow. "We thought shopping would be best. Next on the agenda: shoes." She added a wink to the end of it which had the others laughing softly. Snowy nudged her fingers and she petted him obediently. It was like he'd trained her. And she didn't entirely object to it either. She barely noticed the diminished MA, and it didn't really impact her usage. Snowy contributed to her damage, and his evasion and defensive abilities made him an excellent companion. "Well. Are we ready then?"

"I was waiting for you." Beastial scratched his cat behind the ears, glaring mildly at Snowy while he did so. "Thought you were too busy talking."

Sinister rolled her eyes. "Sure you did. We believe you think all the time." And she patted his arm gently.

Murmur had to fight hard not to laugh at the expression on Beastial's face. He excelled at walking into every single trap Sinister set for him. But they'd literally spent no time at all leveling in around fifteen real world hours, and Murmur was starting to get antsy.

"Come on. Let's go. Snowy is tired of waiting." She said, stepping out in front of the group and squaring her shoulders as she planted her staff against the floor.

"You feeling alright there Mur?" Dansyn asked, concern pinching his brow. "I mean, you can't really blame the wolf."

Murmur glanced at Snowy whose tongue was lolling out as he grinned a big wolf grin. "Traitor," she muttered. But the rest of them laughed and followed her anyway.

#

Murmur dialed her MA abilities up to their max as soon as they stepped off the huge leafed platform and into the jungle. It was alive with movement and fleeting thoughts that she couldn't quite grasp, even with her enhanced focus. Small animals darted through the trees and vines, their thoughts rapid, focused, unblinking. Letting herself get too carried away with following them made it difficult to concentrate on other things.

Resetting her attention, she scanned outward from them. The strength of her abilities now meant that she could push further, sense more, and potentially prevent another ambush that wasn't headed by a pscyho rogue AI who'd decided to puppeteer everyone she could get her claws into.

While scanning for threats, she made sure that her group felt secure. While she didn't want to use ninety-nine of her 205 MA, it was easy enough to see that their mental shielding was pretty robust. It made her wonder if she could teach them some mental reinforcement on her own. Sinister and Veranol should be more than capable of it a little, considering they'd taken it as their hybrid class.

"You're lost in thought there, Mur?" Havoc's voice surprised her.

"Not really lost, just running over my way too many skills in my head. I've had skill heavy classes before, but so many of these are dependent on different levels of different prerequisites, and sometimes they can be a bugger to juggle, that's all." She answered him genuinely, not realizing until after she finished that he hadn't meant it to be an actual enquiry. "Sorry. You did ask. You know how I get when I'm concentrating."

"Well, at least now I realize you've actually got a lot to concentrate on." He took a fairly deep breath before continuing. "I expanded the undead portion of my skills. Figured if I'm going to go necromancer, then I should just bite the bullet and go hard."

Havoc had always been easy to talk to, but lately he seemed to be more quiet than usual. "You're worried about me, aren't you?"

He raised an eyebrow. "Very astute. More the situation and how to deal with it than just you, but yes. It's probably something you should talk to Veranol about. You know he's a doctor, right?"

"Seriously?" Murmur ran that over in her head. She was sure he'd mentioned it once or twice when she first met him. Made sense for a doctor to be a healer. Theoretically anyway. After all, some were just money hungry bastards. "How'd he get time off?"

Havoc shrugged. "Not sure, might want to ask him." He was being pushy, which was unlike him.

Murmur frowned, nodding, and opened her mouth to speak when Snowy growled low in his throat, vibrating against her leg. "What's up..." she began to ask, until she saw what he was focused on.

Six sentries guarded the bottom of the wide, moss covered stone steps, which crumbled in places, showing an apparent age that originated long before this world did. The guards stood tall and proud, with a familiar vacant expression on their faces, and long spears with nasty tips at their sides. Even exerting effort, she couldn't sense them. If she hadn't seen them with her own eyes, Murmur wouldn't have realized they were there.

Here was an enemy she couldn't sense, and couldn't predict. For the first time since finding out she was in a coma, a true sense of fear ran through her.

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