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

Fighting yourself

Murmur drew in a ragged breath, none too impressed with the difficulty of fighting herself. She wasn't sure exactly what Riasli had used to trigger this type of effect, but damned if she didn't want to learn that spell. Her hand to hand skills were negligible, just like her weapon skills, so her problem didn't lie there. 

What she was having difficulty with was her otherself's magical resistance. Even stripping her down with nullifying, it could cancel that magical effect out. Not that Murmur couldn't do the same, but it was basically a who could cast faster fight and while Murmur could resort to casting about seventy-five percent of her abilities without the hand gestures, it was only marginally faster than her mirror twin. 

She didn't have time to worry about the others, because she was occupied fully by herself. Taking a deep breath, she pulled out flux, hoping against hope it was going to work for its full duration, and then she DoT'd the thing. Life leeched so slowly away and landing two nukes inside of that window was barely anything. She sorted through her MA abilities in her mind, as well as her expanded ones. Surely there had to be something there to use. 

And then it hit her. Her opponent didn't seem to have the same level as she did. Just the basic skills and hitpoint pool. Its armor also didn't seem to contribute. "They're just the basic version of ourselves."

"Just, she says." Exbo laughed, filled with nervousness and perhaps a tinge of fear. "It's just fighting ourselves, Mur."

"I know. But it doesn't think like you, it can only react to what you do, so you have the chance to outthink it." It made sense in Mur's head, she hoped it made sense for her friends, but she no longer had time to think about if it did or not. Fighting another enchanter, even if it was herself, wasn't an easy feat. 

Her best rotation consisted of stuns, because her DoT was able to tick while the mob was stunned. She refused to keep thinking of it as herself, because it wasn't, and it couldn't be. She had a four second recast gap between firing off her stuns though, as she hadn't yet received her third stun. Of course, there was always the risk of it being resisted anyway, but so far, it hadn't been. 

As the second stun wore off, she had a mez ready to go, and just didn't nuke in the time it took for the timer to reset. The three second tick of the DoT allowed for the mez to mostly hold the other enchanter for long enough that Murmur's stuns were back up. She didn't want to risk using her AoE stun for that small duration just in case it not only got the mob, but also perhaps her friends. Since the zone had gone haywire, she no longer had any idea what to expect.

One thing she noticed during the fight, was how quiet it was outside of their battle. Sure she could hear the clashing of steel as Devlish and Beastial clashed with their own clones, and the casting coming from Sin and Havoc next to her. But the wailing undertone to the zone had stopped. The children expected them to return, they trusted their word, and so Murmur knew they couldn't fail, so they wouldn't. It just wasn't an option.

Pixelated or not, those kids were very real to her. She squared her jaw and continued to whittle away at the other enchanter's health, hoping against hope that it wouldn't get off a cast in the split second it had to do so, and not wanting to admit how lucky she'd been to get the first stun off.

Considering her opponent didn't have the gear boosts that Murmur did, only in appearance, their hitpool and manapool were both pitifully lower than her own. And she didn't have Snowy, who was flitting around and biting the other enchanter's legs and heels, and generally just taking out his anger on her. Which meant it hadn't evolved its MA abilities past some point in time. So where was it that Riasli had pulled the information from? What was it Riasli had access to?

Murmur shook her head, trying to clear out the thoughts. First things first. She had to defeat her clone, and then she could worry about finishing the dungeon and freeing the children, because if there was one thing she knew for certain, this wasn't the end Boss fight. This was a distraction, and she couldn't help wondering from what.

While combat wasn't difficult, it was drawn out. Mainly because all of the skills they pulled from, allowed their opponents to pull from the same. Murmur groaned by the second time she'd been dispelled. She couldn't be bothered recasting her Mana Tide, though. Her low damage spells were lucky she had Snowy to rely on, because otherwise her twin was never going to bloody well die. And the bad thing was no one could come and help her.

Jinna had managed to finish his own opponent off quite quickly, and he moved to assist Sinister who was having a hell of a time considering she was fighting another healer. Talk about the duel that wouldn't end. But as soon as he attempted to hit her mob, it respawned his. And he had to fight it all over again.

So helping the others was out. All they could hope was that Veranol and Sinister did more damage to the others than their heals enabled them to cover, because they had buffed stats and the clones did not.

"This is so fucking boring." Beastial roared, sending in Shir-Khan cloaked and ready to go rogue on his clone's ass. It wasn't a challenge as such, but more of a test of endurance, and Murmur was failing it abysmally. It was all she could do not to scream out just like Beastial had. She groaned, releasing what she hoped would be her last stun, and nuked three times in quick succession only to see her twin vanish in a cascade of sparks that burned her up from the head down and left a small pile of soot sitting in its place.

Murmur frowned, but didn't dare approach it yet, considering how drastic the reaction to Jinna had been. She glanced around. Both rangers, Mellow, Dansyn, Beastial, and Jinna were done. Veranol and Sinister were going to take forever at this rate, but she'd expected that from the start. Havoc finished shortly after she did, and stood scowling at the spot where his twin had collapsed. 

"This is wrong. There wasn't even a point to these mirror images. What did Riasli gain by putting these in our way?" He asked the questions of no one in particular, but Murmur felt like she could answer.

She'd put them in their way to delay their progress, because their first reaction was to fight the clones in order to bypass them. She'd never even contemplated that not fighting them might be an option. "You know, maybe we just did exactly what she wanted us to do."

"How do you mean?" He lowered his voice, eyes darting around to make sure everyone else was busy.

"It's not that big a secret, but what if we hadn't engaged them. They only did what we did, would they have followed us?" Riasli was thinking outside the box and Murmur was still stuck in the mold of an enchanter and not in the mold of the puppetmaster she probably should be. What use was choosing the Sinuous line otherwise?

His brow wrinkled in concentration and he thumbed at his chin again. "That's a really good thought, if a little late." He squinted, trying to look past the line where the opponents had been and into the darkness beyond. The only people left fighting were the healers, and Murmur knew they were going to win. It was going to take a while longer, but it'd happen.

She studied the huge hall they were in again, knowing she was missing something because there was a persistent wriggling at the back of her mind. They couldn't send messages out, and they couldn't receive messages while in the dungeon. She was grateful that they could Merlin when they did. 

Murmur quickly pulled up the browser, trying to figure out if they could use outside internet, but it drew a blank as well. Why were they cut off in here, and how did she go about letting the others know. Just when she'd been ready to send her mother a message too. Sinister finally finished her twin off with Veranol close behind.

"Well that was damned annoying." She huffed, and sat down to drink a bottle of water to help with her mana regeneration. "What was even the point of that. No loot, none of our in depth skills. Just a tiresome and irritating waste of time." 

"Maybe Riasli needs us to be distracted for some reason?" Murmur offered, still not sure why. 

"Probably so she can prepare more booby traps." Merlin's joke fell a bit flat, but Murmur was quite certain he didn't put his heart into it. "Let's move on. Jinna, check for traps again?"

The dwarf moved forward, nodding. 

And then the ashes began to swirl in a whirlwind, and a loud cackling filled the room.

It took several seconds for the dust to settle in the room as the breeze caught it from underneath. A sickly orange-red light shone from between the cracks Murmur couldn't even feel with her fingers, lending the swirling ashes an ethereal pallor as they slowly moved, coalescing into a form that was, at first, difficult to determine. 

It rose up, slender and tall, but not like the massive guard statues they'd encountered at the entrance. Maybe eighteen feet tall or something. Murmur wasn't sure where the analytical side of her was coming from in amidst this crazy dungeon. Perhaps her brain was feeling the fatigue, or maybe she'd just gotten used to outrageous things happening one after the other.

Finally, a large elf stood in front of them, an odd frown on their face reflecting consternation and not the evil snarl Murmur was expecting. She noticed a flurry of movement behind its right foot. 

"Riasli! Stop hiding!" She yelled out, knowing it wasn't going to do a bit of good.

The cackle had been hers, because it echoed through the room again. "Of course I'm going to hide. I have things to do, and killing you all is just too trivial a matter. I'm sure Akelu will take excellent care of you."

The elf started at his name, eyes darting around wildly trying to find the source of the voice, but turning around didn't seem to be an option for him. Murmur eyed the mob and realized with a touch of her thought sensing net that he was being controlled. Some massive level of charm spell she had yet to receive, or that was perhaps a glitch in the system. Considering the current state of chat and internet access outside of the game, she wouldn't have been surprised if it was all Riasli's fault. Was she malfunctioning? Because Murmur highly doubted she was acting as intended.

"You're forcing him to do this." Murmur stated, not wanting to hear lies as an answer if she phrased it as a question.

"We're enchanters, Mur dear. You need to lighten up. We have the power to control, the power to set the boundaries, the power to infect the mind. What better playground than a bunch of undeveloped psyches just waiting for me to play with them." Riasli's laughter rang cruelly through the zone again. Murmur opened her mouth to respond but the other enchanter was far too fast.

"Anyway," she stood up brushing her hands against each other as she did so, glancing at the ground with a small smile of victory and made Murmur wish she could see what had been done. "I have so much to do. Places to be, things to set up, people to kill or lure into traps. Oh. Just like you."

"Get back here you coward!" Jinna yelled, his voice filled with anger.

Riasli chuckled this time, further infuriating the dwarf if the red of his face was anything to go by. "Oh my darling man. Would that I could. But I have to prepare things you know. Or else he'll just get so mad!"

In an instant, Riasli was gone, simply disappeared, and Akelu blinked as if his eyes suddenly came into focus. Murmur didn't have time to dwell on Riasli's words, because the huge elf began to summon a strangely blue fire in the palm of his left hand.

#

Storm Entertainmemt
Somnia Online Division
Game Development Offices Artificial Intelligence Server Room
Day Fifteen - Late Afternoon

Shayla lifted her head briefly and eyed Laria. Nothing they'd been able to find on their end indicated any type of problem in the game. Everything seemed to be running normally. But they'd not been able to send messages to Wren, Harlow, or Ethan. Actually, none of the group had responded, even though they could send each other links and other things through the game if they each logged in. 

There were no complaints about communication not going in, or any other glitches in the world, so it was probably concentrated in that one area. Considering it was the area Murmur was currently active in just seemed far too big a coincidence.

"You ready? You might not like what they have to say." She asked her friend, watching Laria closely for any signs of the breakdown Shayla knew had to be just around the corner.

"I'm okay, I'm not about to run screaming in the other direction. Stop looking at me like that." There was an air of irritation in her voice, and Laria sighed, taking a deep breath. "Sorry. Of course I'm ready. Activate the biometrics so we can get in already."

Shayla smiled to herself and obliged, bending down slightly to let the scanner hit her iris while she simultaneously scanned her fingerprints. After Michael, they'd doubled down. They had to. Their servers were far too important to have people snooping around. Well, it was also great that he didn't have family to worry about because anyone else getting trapped like that and they were going to be up to their necks in lawsuits. She was barely keeping Ava's family at bay. At least the police report was helping there.

She shook her head to clear the thoughts as they entered the room, noticing how tightly Laria held her laptop as she entered, almost crushing her chest with it. She'd wanted to be able to witness whatever it was the AI could do, if they could do anything, first hand. Shayla didn't blame her. The whole incident was just becoming more and more surreal.

"Take a deep breath, Laria, they're going to help us." She blinked at the servers, noticing far more activity than usual. Lights flashed so fast back and forth that for a couple of moments it appeared they were never blinking off. "Maybe they already know why we're here then."

Laria leaned against the table in the middle of the room, flipping open her laptop so she could adjust to it through her augmented reality contacts. The ones she wore on a daily basis didn't have the power to boot up the game by themselves, hence bringing her laptop so she could interact, or perhaps show the AIs just what she meant.

"What you up to?" Shayla propped herself up against the wall closest to the servers, making sure she could keep them all in her view, hoping she'd notice any type of pattern that emerged in their communication. 

"We are busy today. Much needs to be addressed to keep things running smoothly as the adventurers travel further out into the world." Thra's tones were about as soothing as an artificial intelligence unit could be, at least within the parameters of speaking from her server housing. Shayla only wasted a moment wondering why she found it so easy to attribute personas to the AIs. That was just it, they made it easy to do so.

"Can you define what it is you're currently addressing in the game, please?" Laria's tone was formal, and she wasn't looking at anything in particular, so Shayla knew she was engrossed in the developer interface for the game.

Thra's server whirred a little louder before she responded. "We are attempting to validate several zone implementations."  

"Speak to me in I'm not a server language please." Laria crossed her arms, a small scowl appearing to tug at her lips. She wasn't about to be dissuaded from her trail. 

Again, Thra's server lit up momentarily, almost like she was arguing with someone they couldn't see. Shayla watched in fascination. 

"There have been several complications with the raiding zones for the end game key items. Considering these zones are required to scale with the players as they enter as long as they're able to fight mobs level thirty and over, they require some fine tuning in order to assure that things will run smoothly."

Shayla blinked at the AI. It was one of the best non answer answers she'd ever heard, and she included Teddy Davenport's answers in the ones she compared it to. "Which zones in particular are we talking about, and what precisely is the problem?" Shayla didn't feel like wasting any more of their time in here than she had to. 

If the AI were being obtuse, and she was quite certain Thra was doing so deliberately, then the direct question requiring a specific answer was the only way to figure them out. She'd leave her thoughts about why they were trying to hide something in the first place for later. 

Just as she expected, Thra's machine lit up again, and this time Rav's did so in response. The lightshow was quite effective in demonstrating what Shayla assumed was an argument between AI units.

Finally, it died down, and this time Rav's voice filled the room. "You know which zones we're talking about, or else you wouldn't be here. The Ruins of Cenedril, and the surrounding Curet Rainforest." 

He paused for a moment, his lights cascading in a beautiful array of gradating colors. "And I'm quite certain you also already know who is in there. So next time, please have the respect for us to ask directly what it is you wish to know instead of trying to trick us into revealing something you're fishing for. We don't have the time to play games on the outside while trying to run the world of Somnia in there."

Well, that was something she never thought she'd witness. Getting taken down a few pegs by a computer. Shayla opened her mouth to speak, but Laria beat her to it.

"Look. You're an artificial intelligence unit that was made to do what you're doing. My daughter is in there. My daughters mind is running around in your world accessing a heap of shit I can't explain to myself." She took a breath, and Shayla marveled at the evenness to Laria's tone.

"So I need you to stop this busy nonsense and get to the root of the problem and either help me figure it out, or figure it out yourselves, but either way, I need to know why the fuck I can't seem to track, see, observe, or interact with my daughter in any way while she's in that fucking zone that we never okayed that design of." Laria's tone dropped. "And what the hell happened to that zone anyway?"

A ripple of sound flowed around the room, like the AIs were sighing in unison. "You're right of course." Sui's tones were more subdued than Shayla had ever heard them, and she felt a flare of concern.

After a couple more moments, Rav spoke up again. "That's fair. We apologize. There has been a glitch in the servers interpretation of programmed directions. In short, one of our NPCs has grown in an unanticipated way and we are attempting to head her and her agenda off before she can do anymore damage, or before it becomes irreversible."

"And let me guess." Shayla had known, but having it confirmed made her wish she'd been wrong.  "Wren's stuck inside the bit the NPC has taken over and altered, correct?"

"Affirmative." Sui shot the answer out so fast, Shayla started slightly, not having expected it.

Laria stood and began pacing, hugging herself. "But it's not just her, is it? It's her friends too. We can't reach any of them. What's going to happen to their bodies out here?" Panic started to infringe upon her words as she finished, and her deep breath following her questions was more akin to gasping.

Silence followed, only interrupted by some intermittent whirrs and beeps. Shayla waited, the seconds growing longer the more time passed. Just as she was about to say something, as Laria looked ready to burst into tears, Rav spoke up again.

His voice seemed tired, not something Shayla had ever expected to hear from an AI. Weary and a bit frustrated, but overall, he sounded empathic.

"It's their whole small raid group. We are investigating just what's gone wrong. The reason we're being evasive is that we don't have answers for you yet. There are algorithms behind walls that misdirect us. We're getting closer, but having to dig through an amount of code so huge, it almost feels like a virus. We promise you, we're not just letting this go."

A chill crept down Shayla's spine. For the AIs not to know what happened in their own world was unsettling. "You mean this happened and you only realized it when you noticed Wren not there?"

She knew Rav had been tracking her, just like Laria had. 

"It was sudden. She was there, and then she wasn't reachable. I traveled directly to the spot and the ruins are not what were there a few days ago. We routinely check everything, but we're investigating the glitch we believe is tied to one rogue NPC."

"There's a rogue NPC?" Shayla raised her eyebrow, trying hard not to sigh with relief that Wren and her friends were but a handful of gamers currently even able to experience the glitched content. "How did that happen?"

This time Rav hesitated, and Sui stepped in. The transition was almost seamless, but just enough that Shayla noticed something off. 

"That's what we're investigating. As we've been experimenting with allowing an increased amount of autonomy to our sub AIs, we think something may have occurred in their processing certain data." Sui's voice held a smooth tone, like a used car salesman of old. "Rest assured we're doing everything we can."

Laria glared at Sui, obviously having seen the pause between the two AI units. "It's not enough. Get them back and do it now."

"We can't work faster than we are, Mrs Summers." Rav sounded genuinely sad. "But I assure you, we're doing everything we can to restore the system."

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