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

Akelu

Akelu stood proud and tall, his eyes glowing the same fire blue as the flame growing gradually in his hand.

Merlin spoke softly, yet loud enough for it to carry. "I don't understand. He's one of the elves in the center statue in Cognitia. He's one of our heroes. Legends have been written about this guy. Akelu the great, grand, survivor... whatever you want to call him. He's not evil, he's a herald of good and healing."

"What heals can also kill." Sinister muttered, allowing a sheath of red to encase her own hands, not taking her eyes from their would-be opponent. 

Murmur watched him gathering power and on a whim, she stunned him.

Your Flux spell has little to no effect on such a great being. In fact, you've probably just pissed him off. Remember, enchanters might control the mind, but it's probably worth thinking before acting in instances such as these.

She blinked at the message and groaned as Akelu's gaze fell on her. She'd acted impulsively, drawn attention to herself, and now, in hindsight, realized she probably should have cast out her thought sensing net before she acted. 

He was angry at her, probably for daring to stun him, but at the same time a tone of bewilderment underlay all of his thoughts. Akelu couldn't seem to understand why he was fighting them, only that he was compelled to do so. They weren't thoughts so much as feelings, sensations sweeping through him and out of his control, because right now nothing was in control.

He was charmed, and it didn't appear to have any duration because his panic was obvious and full and with a countdown he could see, he might not have been so flustered.

The flame grew ever slowly in his hands, and Murmur knew he was trying his best to slow it down. He didn't understand the situation, and she had to admit, neither did she.

"I think we're going to have to fight him. He's being controlled, and the only way to free him is to figure out how to break it, of which I have no idea, or else to kill him." She watched the big legend begin to move. They weren't all that short on him. They came up to mid thigh, so enlarging potions weren't necessary, but she still felt small against him.

"Will he come back?" Merlin sounded highly reluctant.

"What use would a dungeon be if its boss couldn't respawn?" Havoc used logic, his tone even and soothing. It was a nice change from the rampant sarcasm he'd been prone to earlier.

"True. Pretty crappy game if only one guild at a time could get to a boss, I guess." Some of Merlin's pre getting impaled by a large stake attitude poked through. Murmur couldn't help the wave of relief that passed over her.

Meanwhile, Murmur concentrated on Akelu's eyes. Her stuns wouldn't work, and slowly but surely the bright blue of his eyes was being overpowered by the icy color of the blue flames. They glowed unnaturally and his skin took on an undead pallor. While she knew he was alive as such by the irritated tsk of Havoc's disappointment next to her, he seemed eerily taken over. 

She shuddered as he threw his head back and screamed. It was such a raw sound that her chest ached for him. It was eye-opening to realize that this is what an enchanter could do. Completely take over a being and force them to act outside of their usual tendencies. And all the while the person you were was still locked away inside, desperately fighting to get out.

At the same time, a sinuous whisper began in the back of her mind. What if taking others over was how she was meant to play? What if it was the next step in her evolution as an enchanter? After all, surely it was okay to take possession of things in order to reach a desired outcome. Surely no one would mind if she just...

Snowy's head bumped her hand at just the right moment. She glanced down, blinking at her companion and the thoughts fled her mind, leaving behind a trail of anger that made her frown. "Thanks bud." she whispered to him, wondering just where her mind might have wandered had he not interfered.

But movement by Akelu pulled her out of her thoughts. He'd finally succumbed to the force of Riasli's will, and he was headed straight toward her, a feral gleam in his eyes she hadn't thought him capable of. 

Devlish was there in an instant, throwing out his Hatred and forcing Akelu to look at him. While the giant elf glanced back over at Murmur a couple of times with utter reluctance, the dread knight ended up wrestling their opponent's attention solely for himself. She waited for that moment, for its attention to turn solely to Devlish before debuffing it. She'd acted rashly on a whim and it was best for her not to pull aggro again. Veranon had lesser versions of some of the debuffs she had, and so she gladly overrode them. Having his on first would make her aggro less because the mob was used to a reduction already.

The smash of the elf's magic against Devlish's shield shook the entire room. Crumbles of stone showered over them all, bathing them in a fine dust that made Shir-Khan sneeze. Blue sparks flew from the shield, cascading through the air, only to be swallowed by light that shot up through the indiscernible cracks in the ground. As they merged with the light, it grew brighter, and Murmur had a sudden wave of apprehension wash over her. The light was never just going to be for show.

"Keep together." She directed, worried that the floor was going to shoot something out at them once it had saved up enough magic. Not that they'd been far apart to start with, but if they could avoid the glowing section of floor, it would only help them in the long run. Staying out of shit was always paramount to staying alive.

Devlish grunted each time he blocked an attack, the strain visible in the way the veins in his neck stood out. His strong arms strained with the weight of each blow. "Mellow!" he called out, squeezing the name from between clenched teeth.

The witch obliged, tossing a vial of growth serum with amazing accuracy. Devlish gasped as he grew, now able to rival Akelu in height. The difference for the tank was noticeable, while for the DPS it only mattered that they make their shots as accurate as possible, which was something they were used to doing.

Akelu squealed in pain, and Murmur took her eyes off Devlish to find the cause. An arrow jutted out of his left eye. Most of it hadn't made it through, it appeared to be just the tip as the giant elf yanked it out of the wound, sending blood gushing down his face. He chanted in a language Murmur didn't understand and placed his right hand over it briefly. When his hand came back, the wound was gone, but the fire in the eye had gone out. 

Merlin glared at the mob, knocking another arrow, a look of sheer determination crossing his face. Murmur had no doubt it had been him who'd sent the initial shot. But Akelu would be more wary now. While the wound had closed, his hitpoints had remained the same. Murmur filed the information away to examine later.

She watching his life tick slowly down to ninety-one percent, just as the light coming through the floor off to the right hand side caught more of the stray power sparks from his spells and glowed its brightest yet. A light rumble began under their feet and Murmur suddenly knew with absolute clarity what was about to happen. 

"Dan, get here now!" She screamed frantically.

He heard the panic in her voice and his face paled, but he moved, bard speed helping him on his way. But not even that saved him completely. 

When Akelu hit nintey percent, the farthest portion of floor to the right back corner cracked and caved in. Dansyn still had one foot in the collapsing portion, and barely caught the side of the floor as he went down. His songs faltered as he flailed, barely hanging on with the fingers of his right hand.

"Shit!" Exbo dropped his bow and ran to grab Dansyn's free hand. As Havoc made it over as well, leaving his pet to do the damage, they managed to haul Dansyn up to safety. 

The bard had lost his coloring, and his feles ears lay flat, showing his irritation in more than just his expression. "What the fuck is with collapsing floors. There's no fucking bottom to that."

He was shaking visibly, but Murmur needed him to get himself together because it didn't matter. They all needed to give this their utmost attention.  If she wasn't completely batty, and she didn't think she'd hit that point yet, this was going to happen every ten percent. 

"Dan." She spoke as soothingly as she could manage, making sure the way her heart beat fast in her chest didn't affect the way she spoke. "I need you to pull yourself together. We all need to gather in the same spot and keep an eye on the floors. I think the light shining from underneath will give us a hint as to what piece of the floor is going to go next."

"Could have given him more warning." Exbo snapped.

"Sure. If you say so. I yelled as soon as I could, but maybe I should have figured it out earlier." She refused to let the stress of the moments get to her. Sinister and Veranol were hard at work making sure that Devlish didn't bow down to any of the massive hits Akelu was directing at him, and they needed to kill the elf sooner than later. But too fast damage and they might not have the time they needed to escape the collapsing floor.

"He's alive and he's safe and we have another five percent to watch the elf and figure out which piece of floor is next. If we maneuver him properly, it should help us avoid the floor's collapse and lead us to that back door." She pointed in the direction Riasli had left from.

"Wait, we need to go back for the kids." Merlin stated, knocking his arrows without skipping a beat. "Also, it's the portion of floor but one behind and to the left of him."

Everyone began to move, not needing to be told twice. Murmur went with them. They needed this next one to go smoothly or else her entire theory was out the window. "This isn't going to give us a way back before we make it through to the other side. I don't think this is your usual dungeon."

"You don't say?" Havoc stood, helping Dansyn to his feet. "Let's kill this fucker. I'm getting a little sick of things pulling the rug out from under me."

At least the joke garnered a few chuckles and Murmur couldn't help but be grateful that Havoc diffused the situation. Now all they had to do was watch for the floor to signal which portion of it would collapse next. Akelu's arsenal of spells was impressive. He was more true to the base mage class Murmur had witnessed in multiple games outside of Somnia. Apart from Ishwa, she'd not seen many of them in this game. 

He utilized ice the majority of the time, the cold causing steel to go brittle and breaking more than one of Devlish's weapons making the tank gnash his teeth in annoyance. Akelu's health dwindled so slowly, it was going to be a race to get him dead before mana ran out. Murmur kicked herself for not getting the Mana feeder abilities. They would have helped out a whole lot more here. Surely she was due for the damage dealing mana sucking example Dirsna had given her way back when.

Merlin led the way for the rangers, Exbo and him moving as one while they loosed sets of arrows at opposite sides of Akelu's body simultaneously. The magician in their midst barely even blinked at them, so overcome was he by whatever it was Riasli had possessed him with. He was intend on bearing down on Devlish, and it was the most difficulty she'd seen their tank have. 

Luckily, since his focus remained so locked on Dev, it enabled most of them to move around far more efficiently. Beastial and Shir-Khan darted in and out, slicing and biting so fast that they were gone by the time Akelu noticed them. Even a flick of his heel could disrupt their rhythm or else cause them damage, but they avoided every movement of the mob carefully, dancing away like they'd been doing it their entire lives.

Jinna's dance was similar, except he planted traps for Akelu to step in as the giant elf maneuvered around, poisonous barbs that wound around his legs, leeching into his blood stream to speed up the poison. Murmur filed it away as another reason to avoid getting too close to Jirald. 

Mellow stood as far back as was comfortable, with Havoc by their side. Both of them pretty much at the maximum range for their attacks to still hit, without standing too far that they couldn't get back to the group if they needed to. Mellow threw poison bombs onto Akelu, hitting him directly with a substance that ate through his clothes leaving them ragged with burning skin showing through.

"Is that acid or fire?" She asked, genuinely curious.

"A bit of both. May as well hit it with all I've got, right?" Mellow's expression was grim, their mouth drawn in a thin line as they motioned over the hovering cauldron that boiled, muttering under their breath. "Bubble, bubble, toil and trouble: unleash your strong desire. Cauldron roil and cauldron bubble, give to me your fire."

Murmur raised an eyebrow as she refreshed her own DoT. She'd not heard them incanting before. "That's seriously how it works then?"

Mellow grinned so wide it scrunched their lack of a nose. "Not really, just makes me feel more witchy. The spell is called Bubble bubble though. So it's basically just asking to be mocked."

Eighty percent came and went, and they danced around another piece of missing floor. Murmur watched their path carefully, mapping it out so they would hopefully be able to make it to the door. Slowly, they wore Akelu down, but the fewer hit-points he had, the more the insanity of the blue flame in his right eye glowed. Murmur didn't like the forewarning she felt the glow was giving them, like he was ramping up to some special ability that was going to send them scurrying away like maniacs. 

Not to mention the fact that seventy and sixty percent had dropped pieces of the floor she hadn't been wanting it to. Getting Devlish to reposition the mob wasn't an easy task. Akelu was a caster, and even silencing spells didn't stay on him for as long as they should. She'd even attempted to use Hyptnotic Suggestion on him to no avail. Being a magic user, his resistance to her mind control spells was better than any boss they'd encountered. 

She watched the rest of the group, noticing them stretching and moving, trying to force concentration on a fight that asked for it, and yet didn't provide an actual challenge outside of Devlish being able to take hits. 

"This has to be the most tedious fight I've ever fought." Veranol grumbled as he metered out yet another ward to protect Devlish from the incoming smash against his shield and body. 

Sinister rolled her eyes. "Seriously? Have you learned nothing, Ver? You know you can't..."

But whatever she was going to say got lost in Akelu's roar as his health finally hit fifty percent. It rebounded through the cavern, echoing off the rocks up high in the ceiling, and showered dust and debris down around them all, and then the pieces of floor that were still whole began to move.

#

Somnia Online
Firtulai Continent
Richnai Fortress - in the bowels of the fortress

Jirald stood panting, clutching his side as Masha gave preference to Eslan to keep him alive. If the damned warrior went down, the rest of them were toast. Swigging down a healing potion, he could feel as the skin of the wound knit back together, accelerating the healing process begun by the almost useless song DoT their bard sang.

The mobs up in the castle proper were harder than he'd imagined. Everything about them screamed at him to go back, level himself and everyone else to thirty, and go back, because at twenty-seven, it was obvious that one level was too much for their group. Two of them had already hit twenty- eight, and Jirald was close to hitting twenty-nine, but the rest of the members of their small raid force being three levels beneath the guards they were fighting was hurting them. Their attacks glanced off or were resisted for a lot of the potential damage. 

There was no easy way to get them leveled up. All they could do was fight monsters and more monsters, constantly. He watched as Masha joined in the DPS, swinging his mace around like a battle cleric. The sentiment was fleeting, but jealousy still rose up so violently, Jirald almost choked as he made his way to fight again, his health almost restored. He hadn't meant to pull aggro, but he'd managed to land a critical backstab just as Eslan got stunned for a couple of seconds. 

The only thing that saved him was his ability to Fade. It allowed the rogue to basically drop all aggro for up to five seconds, which gave the tank a chance to gain it back. If the tank was unable to, well, that just left the rogue a bit of a ripe target. That was the good thing about Eslan, he knew what he was doing. Masha might be nice to everyone, but he wasn't one to play with people who weren't good at their class. He meant to get things done, and by any means necessary. 

Finally, the guard fell to his knees, falling flat on his face, as blood slowly leaked out of his wounds. Masha glared at the corpse and began casting his resurrection spell, first on the other healer who'd accompanied them. Once everyone was standing again, Masha whirled on Jirald.

"What the hell was that?" His words came out through clenched teeth, sounding quite calm, but from the flashing of his eyes, Jirald knew Masha was anything but.

"It stunned Eslan just after I landed a critical hit. There was nothing I could do there." Except Jirald knew that wasn't right. He should have been paying more attention to what the guard had been casting. He would have known the stun was coming up. But he'd been absorbed in doing as much damage as possible.

Masha waited, probably seeing the realization as it spread over Jirald's face. "Oh good, you've reached the same conclusion as I did. Next time, Jirald. Don't be such a dick, you could have wiped us completely."

He paused, and began rebuffing the raid while he spoke to the rogue. "I'm just glad you came prepared and had a potion on you that let you help with taking him down the rest of the way."

It was the closest he was going to get to giving Jirald a well done, at least any time soon. The rogue swallowed his pride, which was difficult as fuck considering how much he had of it. He needed to get his head out of the quest he had, and out of his need for revenge if he was ever going to level up and catch Murmur.

"Sorry. I'll start playing like a rogue." Jirald mumbled the words, barely able to get them out through the anger. Most of it was directed at himself, but he couldn't seem to stop glaring at Masha.

The cleric shrugged. "Good, because you're not a healer in here. And even if you play like the best healing rogue ever, it's going to be a shadow of what you could accomplish if you'd just stop dwelling on the fact that you're not what you thought you'd be. Just give into what the game allocated you. And maybe you'll get an inkling of why it did."

Masha turned away in a clear dismissal of him, clearly done with him for now. Jirald counted to five trying to get his temper under control, and then ten. Finally he hit twenty and managed to breathe. He pulled up all of his skills and started going through them while the rest of the raid finished getting ready. Masha had a valid point, not that he'd let him know that. But it was time Jirald mastered the rogue without regrets, and the sudden peace that came over him once he made that decision only cemented it.

<<<<>>>>