Somnia Online: Fragments - Chapter Twenty-One (Patreon)

Into the Catacombs

The statue's big toe was as tall as Jinna. Its feet trod in a determined approach to them as the humungous being looked down at them, its staff resting against the floor with a bang. "Who disturbs the crypt of Naishi?"

Crypt of Naishi? Murmur frowned. She hadn't seen anything that referred to something by that name on the map, nor had she noticed anything but the ruins of Cenedril in anything she'd read in game. Not even the feles in their own city had mentioned it. So who was this Naishi?

She glanced at the others, knowing that they were waiting for her to act just like she had the previous time. It had worked with Hightower, so maybe it would work here too. Resisting the urge to clear her throat that was suddenly extra dry, Murmur took a small step forward, thus bringing the full brunt of the statue's focus on herself.

"The guild of Fable seeks to gain knowledge through the exploration and understanding of this crypt." She chose her words carefully, backing them with her thought projection, with caring and respect, with sufferance and noble intentions.

For a few moments she almost thought it worked. The statue's stance changed for an instant and an almost relaxed stance took over. But she relaxed her hold on the words just a few moments too soon. It snapped back to attention, eyes glowing red momentarily, and its stone lips spread in a snarl. 

"You are not righteous. You do not seek for anyone but yourself. You are enemies of the Naishi-dan." The statue lifted its staff several feet high and brought it back down on the ground with a resounding thud that made the ground underneath them tremor so much, a few of them lost their footing.  

The red glow to her eyes faded, but the damage had been done. A pale orange light rippled out from where the staff thundered down upon the ground in a wave of power that moved back from the statue and into the catacombs beyond them. Murmur wanted to know what they'd triggered, but she was fairly sure it had armed some kind of defence system. 

Maybe she'd been kidding herself, but since they'd solved most of the last dungeon they attended through solving riddles, she had hoped the need to fight would be negligible in all of the ones they came to face. How naive.

"The deeper you tread, the more you will face. We will not back down from protecting this place." And the huge statue, the apparent protector of the entire entrance fell back into a fighting stance, her staff at the ready, dwarfing the entire group beneath her like bugs ready to be squished.

"How the fucking hell, are we supposed to fight something this size?" Devlish growled at the toe in front of him, it came up to his chest. The huge lacerta looked like a doll beneath the giant.

"This place holds a key, we don't have a choice." Murmur was proud of her voice for coming out steadier than she expected. "Eventually we're going to have to kill these stone giants."

"But they're stone." Havoc crossed his arms. "I won't be near as much use on these fights. I can't even use my new necrosis spell."

He didn't seem to be worried, more like irritated he couldn't use a new spell he'd acquired. Murmur was about to speak when Mellow beat her to it.

"Acid might work on stone." Their voice was calm and rational, like they'd decided to tackle the problem while everyone else got worked up over how huge their opponents were. "I doubt fire will have too much effect, maybe wind. I don't have one of those potions though."

"Mind magic definitely isn't going to work." Murmur realized how ineffectual whatever it was Riasli was doing to these mobs was making her. "I know I almost had it. Just a stronger push and..."

Mellow laid a hand on Murmur's wrist, just long enough to pull her attention away from her inner diatribe. She blinked at her friend gratefully.

"We all know Riasli is probably pulling her evil nemesis not sure where she came from but she's here shit, and you know, that's okay. You're okay. We're all okay. Just wish we had some wind elements and not just my acid." Merlin smiled, taking a deep breath after finishing probably the longest speech Murmur had ever heard from them.

"Actually." Rashlyn stepped forward. "I have a windcut kick, and a burst of air punch. They cost me a chunk of energy, and I only just got them, but we can definitely use them."

"I have one acid attack I can use. It's usually a diversion, but..." Jinna shrugged. 

"Different strokes for very different encounters, it seems." Merlin smiled, and briefly spared a glare at Havoc. "Sometimes we need to adapt."

"Why is it just waiting?" Devlish muttered, never taking his eyes from the mob. "I mean, usually the attack radius is huge and we have to engage, but she's just waiting there."

"Maybe she's seeing if we're going to give up, in which case they don't need to fight. Maybe she just has a really sportsmanship like personality." Sinister shrugged. "I'm not sure how I'm going to heal on this. I can pull life, but life healing isn't quite as strong as blood. Just the way it is."

Her tone ended so apologetically, Murmur took a step over and hugged her shoulders before even thinking about it. A thought struck her. "If Rash has the ability to hurt this thing, maybe she should main tank this one?"

Devlish bit his lip, but held up a hand to forestall Murmur's response. "I'm okay with that. Sincerely. Rash is a good tank. And I think dodging on this one might be a key to winning. But I don't feel like our attacks are going to do much damage either way. We need to think of something else. Something that might bring her crashing down."

Murmur paused, he had a point, and sounded so thoughtful. He'd probably been thinking of nothing else while the damned statue talked to them. She couldn't blame him, but at the same time, she couldn't think of anything else they had in their arsenal. They didn't have a mage, just a witch, psionicist, and necromancer. And it hadn't even been their choice not to have a mage.

"Rashlyn tanks, Ver take lead on the heals then? The rest of us need to hope our debuffs stick. Anyone else have any ideas other than wind or acid?" Murmur's tone was low, because she had a sneaking suspicion that this monster wasn't above listening to them to up its advantage. 

Everyone shook their heads. 

"No more ideas right now, but we might think of something once we start fighting and learning if it has any weaknesses." Merlin wasn't playing the joker any more, not right now anyway. While it was good to see everyone's serious sides, it was scary that they needed them.

Rashlyn took a deep breath, clenched her fists against her side, and stood in front of the group. About to take her first step, she grinned back at Murmur. "We got this. Don't worry, boss."

Murmur rolled her eyes as they all moved forward as one. There was a crunching of stone against stone as the statue stood up straight, its eyes gleaming red once more. 

"Very well then. You will regret your decision to go against the Naishi-dan. We will crush you, and fertilize our nursery with your bonedust."

#

The shivers that ran down Murmur's back didn't have time to distract her. The amazonian statue roared, and the sound bounced off the rocks, shaking them, echoing down into the depths of darkness behind her. 

Nothing beyond them stirred, not even a sound. Perhaps this dungeon, these mobs worked differently. But she didn't have long to contemplate anything else. 

The Naishi'dan warrior lunged at them, surprisingly agile for her size. Rashlyn appeared so helpless in size against her. It was like time slowed for them, and Murmur couldn't help but watch as her friend stood bravely by to be squashed like a bug, even as her Weakness spell flew toward the monster. 

A small smash echoed through the front chamber, with tinkling sounds of glass resounding as they bounced on the floor. Right in front of her, Rashlyn grew to four times her usual size. The rest of them scrambled to get out of the way as Rashlyn's block of the statue's attack drove her back several feet.

But it didn't squash her, and Murmur heaved a sigh of relief. Sure, she wasn't huge, barely over the warrior's knees, but she was far more capable of fighting something that big. The only thing was that the rest of them had to be careful of not only the statue, but Rashlyn as well. 

Murmur glanced at Mellow, who grinned as they watched the fight progress. "Can't do the rest of us, sorry. It was a long shot, and I only have enough for about eight potions, and they only last fifteen minutes each, so let's hope not all the fights in here will be like this, or we're screwed."

Murmur felt a tingle of relief run through her, and focused on her own job while Rashlyn maneuvered the mob into a better position. Dodging its attacks were a great thing, and one she was perfectly capable of, but the backlash from some of those missed attacks might squelch the rest of them at this size. So, like any good tank would, she moved herself into such a position that the side wall was behind her a ways, and it let the group stay in a relatively safe semi circle. A huge semi circle which made the two healers have to space themselves out in such a way that everyone was covered, but it worked. 

Finally able to concentrate on her debuffing powers, Murmur stood back to take stock of the area. Her eyes had slowly gotten used to her surroundings, and the special sight of the locus let her take in the area. It seemed the guardian had come from a slot in the wall just inside the entrance. If the sparks from the fight were anything to go by as they lit her way, then there were more alcoves further down the path.

She frowned, trying to figure out just how it was these monsters were triggered since it didn't seem to follow the same pattern as the rest of Somnia and come when there was too much noise. Then again, why would anything in Somnia ever be the way she expected it?

And then she no longer had time to think about much at all, because a scream of pain tore her attention away from her thoughts, and she turned to find Merlin clutching his arm to his side as it dangled helplessly from the elbow down.

"Shit." she said under her breath, smacking herself mentally to focus better and stop letting her thoughts carry her away. There wasn't time for her to space out like this. 

Even as she watched Merlin's arm mend itself with a flow of sluggish healing from Sinister, she knew this wasn't a normal fight. Whatever Riasli had done, went against the original intentions of the dungeon. She wasn't sure how she knew it, but she did. 

Rashlyn's attacks changed in style. She went from using things like her Kanji flying kick, and hundred fists flurry of punches, to an air punch that appeared to be a ranged attack that punched powerful gusts of wind toward the target, making it stagger back some as tiny bits of stone began to cascade down from the impact spot. Every now and again, the monk activated a tumbling roll that ended with a slicing kick which activated a wind that, again, chipped away at the stone.

Mellow's acid bombs landed in between those attacks, thrown with an accuracy Mur didn't realize a witch could posses. Their face was pinched, their brows scrunched and she focused her sensing net for long enough to realize that the witch was worried about this fight. Perhaps they only had so many ingredients. She didn't fully understand how the witch class functioned.

Hadn't she enabled the bank usage already? She was sure she'd done so. That was another thing for after this fight.

Rashlyn's attacks were interspersed with her defensive capabilities. She threw in Dodge on cool down to avoid attacks for eight seconds, and her hidden ability Phantom which allowed her to dodge and counter every attack for twelve seconds. Admittedly, they weren't as strong as usual considering how slowly the statue attacked.

Murmur shuddered to think how it would go if she got hit though. Anything more than a glancing blow would probably flatten her. In the mean time, small cracks had begun to appear jutting out from the place on the statue everyone had been concentrating their attacks on. Even Jinna had been throwing daggers that appeared to be coated in acid. She'd have to ask him about that later.

The rangers targeted burning arrows into the growing fissures of the rock. While they weren't going to make an explosive difference, they should help break down the rock. She wasn't sure what they'd been doing before, but it didn't matter. Havoc's skeleton seemed to be pounding on the weak spot with something akin to a void staff and Havoc's scowl as his spells landed mostly harmlessly wasn't a pretty sight. 

Beastial grimaced as they fought, unable to pull the most out of his class or his pet. The stone was a harsh master, and difficult to combat. While they could chip away at it, only a few of them could do any real damage. But the weaker they made that spot, the more the rest of their attacks could chip away at it. 

Axes were useless, and so Devlish, Beastial, and Dansyn used metal tipped maces, hammering away and chipping off bits of stone slowly but surely. 

Cracking rock had a definitive sound, and the statue stumbled as it echoed throughout the chamber. Fissures appeared in her rocky facade, expanding all the way up in a gradual spreading spiders web. The stone statue blinked, and even that action caused rock to crumble and fall, narrowly missing the team standing below.

"You will have no peace. Naishi will reign. Naishi will win. She will wrest your keys from  your dead bodies and have her sacrifices. And then she will release him in your place." 

The booming sound permeated the corridor, ringing in their ears. She opened her mouth to say more, but the rock began to crumble, turning to dust just as Rashlyn shrunk back to her regular size.  The giant statue's disintegrations rapidly increased, cascading like a waterfall of rock sand out over them.

Veranon threw up his shield, expending the last of his mana in an effort to shelter them all from the keeper's last ditch effort to stop them. When the deluge finally stopped, they surveyed the area around them.

The sands of rock that littered the ground around them gave off a soft white glow. Nothing like the red or orange tinges they'd seen from it before.

"Maybe this is the way it was before Riasli took it over?" Rashlyn's tone sounded sad, like she hadn't wanted to kill it.

"Maybe." Havoc nodded, before uttering a deep sigh. "Either way, we had to get through it. It'll resurrect at some stage, even if it takes a while."

"Speaking of which." Mellow interrupted him. "We have to figure out a better way to combat these things, because I'm pretty sure they're placed at intervals all the way down the length of that corridor. And I have enough acid for one, maybe two if we prolong the fights."

"Was the acid really that important?" Havoc's drawl sounded bored.

"At least half the solid damage done to it was Mellow's doing." Rashlyn shook her head. "And I can't up my damage output anymore than I just did. Not right now. Not in this armor with this gear. I wish better gear dropped in the game."

"So basically, if we can't figure out another way to topple them, we're screwed?" Havoc asked as his tone became sullen.

Mellow nodded. "Basically. Yes."

#

Somnia Online

Fable's Castle - Mikrum Isle - Himmel Lake

Fifteen Days Post Launch

Telvar frowned and cast out his sensors again. He'd basically looked in every nook and cranny he could think of throughout the entire game world. Murmur was never not on his radar, but for the last ten minutes he'd been trying to locate her and quite literally drawing a blank. He didn't like the sense of uncertainty.

So he began to trace her movements for the day, to see where it was she'd last been before he lost track of her. Feles, and feles, and the area outside feles, and then the jungle for a while. Then suddenly nothing. 

He frowned, barely aware that Hiro stood next to him tapping his foot on the ground with impatience while waiting to ask him something. The simple fact was, Murmur had been there within his data, and now suddenly she was not.

"Stop it, Hiro. I'm trying to concentrate." The admonishment seemed to work, because Hiro would know that Telvar rarely needed to concentrate on anything. And if he needed to, then it meant something was up.

And something was very up. She'd gone missing around the old ruins on Cenedril, except...

He ran a series of calculations through his program, and then again but in a different way. There was something wrong with this, nagging at the back of his programming that he should know it for what it was.

It hit him, like a sucker punch must. The ruins felt like a back door. Something left there for a program to gain access to without being detected, and he started to have a really bad feeling about who had left it there. Still, jumping to conclusions was foolhardy. He needed to investigate to check first. Closing his eyes so as to block out the light of Somnia, he retreated into the darkness of his original programming, seeking out the makeup of the ruins of Cenedril. 

It was there, and yet it wasn't. Its appearance was vastly different to that he remembered, even after the game had launched. Sure enough, no one had been there yet because Murmur's group was the first to reach a level that would be able to access it. But others weren't too far away. Exodus and Fable weren't the only guilds that were leveling well.

However the once bright representation of the Mayan culture they'd settled near the cat kingdom had sunk into the ground, darkened the stone, and let moss creep all over the perpetually wet structure. Its entrance appeared more like a gaping maw of darkness than the original concept for the massive sandstone steps leading up to the square pyramid in its glorious sandy might. 

He could see the slowly decaying bodies of the guards. Even their vacant eyes still maintained a feral red gleam. His programming stuttered as he tried to comprehend the sight in the middle of the jungle. Something had possessed these? Who had created an AI, or an NPC that could pull something like this off?

The binders around the towns had been one thing, and they were barely contained currently as it was, but this? It was something different, with an air of evil that even made Telvar's sub routines feel dirty. 

"Telvar?" Hiro's tone held concern, and maybe a tinge of fear.

The lacerta shook his head and tried to force a smile onto his face as he rested a hand briefly on his friend's shoulder. "It's okay, Hiro. I'll get all of this under control."

Hiro's raised eyebrow told him that his foreman didn't believe him in the slightest.

"I just need to go and investigate the feles jungle. I promise I won't be long." He left without checking to see if Hiro believed him.

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