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

Rewind

Murmur braced herself against the floor, her legs wide in a squat, just in time to reach out to Sinister who'd been so intent on healing Devlish that she hadn't noticed the floors were moving. Her hand gripped around Sinister's wrist, and jolted Murmur to the ground. Snowy managed to get his teeth around the bottom of her tunic and pull. And all the while fucking Akelu floated away on a different platformwith Veranol and Devlish scrambling to get their footing back after the sudden jolted movement.

The shifting platform made for unsure steps on all their behalves. Murmur glanced around as soon as she'd managed to gain her bearings and frowned. She couldn't see a pattern in the way the sections of floor moved. Having cleared out four of them when they collapsed made for a floor puzzle she'd not been expecting. Akelu fought Devlish, locked in a battle that the dreadknight was going to lose unless they could figure out a way to keep up with the damage they needed to do.

The platforms moved, and locked into place next to another one for approximately five seconds. It was the only window they'd have to change platforms.

Havoc, Mellow, Sinister, Merlin, and Exbo balanced precariously at the edge of their current platform using their ranged attacks for all they were worth. Beastial growled deep in his throat, and she knew he was angry that he couldn't contribute, while Rashlyn and Dansyn paced irritably.

Murmur kept all the platforms in her view while absent-mindedly casting her debuffs and weak damage spells at Akelu. Right now he wasn't her concern, as callous as it sounded. She just had to make sure he was as weak as possible and get their group out of the fight mostly alive.

"Do you think a platform is still going to fall at forty percent?" Rashlyn sounded too calm. Murmur glanced at her, noting the way she was biting her fingernails.

"I can't see any light to give us an indication of which one it might be, so if it does, it's not letting us know in advance." Those probably weren't the words Rash wanted to hear, but they were the words Murmur had for her. It'd have to do.

"Great." The monk answered joylessly.

"Rash. Focus. Help me figure out how best to jump these platforms so we can help more, and think less about how frustrating this damned fight is. We're all right there with you." Having to calm her not stuck in the world friend down wasn't Murmur's first productivity choice.

While the platforms didn't seem to have a pattern, some did bump up against each other every twenty seconds for five seconds. Some of them even moved together. Murmur frowned and raised her voice. "We need to travel as far as we can on the platforms. We have a five second window to make it from one to the other, so we need to stick together. Line up with me on this side, and as soon as these two platforms stop," she indicated the one approaching them, "we need to cross."

The first time traversing the platforms went smoothly, and luckily it coasted ever closer to Akelu and his battle with Veranol and Devlish. Two more jumps and Beastial, Dansyn, Jinna, Rashlyn, and Sinister jumped to the platform the boss was on. They weren't small by any means, but that was more than enough people crowded onto it with the mob.

The rest of them were going to have to consistently jump from one platform to the next in order to stay as close as possible to Akelu. Which was easier said than done, but at least it was possible for the ranged classes to still do damage.

Forty percent came and went with no sign of new attack, or new surprise. Akelu appeared to have unending magic, and reinforced his blows with the strength of his craft, sending Devlish buckling to his knees multiple times. They'd fought so long that Mellow had to refresh his growth potion on the tank.

This boss mob seemed completely focused on the tank. He rarely lashed out at other players, so focused was he on Devlish. Maybe that focus gave him extra tenacity because the dreadknight seemed to be having a time of it. Even pulling out the stops and using all of the abilities he had, Murmur hated to think what would have happened if he didn't have Telvar's shield.

The percentages of his health dwindled, and slowly but surely, Murmur thought Akelu's attacks sped up. Not hugely noticable at first, but Devlish was barely managing to fend off the attacks now, going down to a knee more often than not. Veranol's wards disappeared in an instant, and Murmur could practically sense the frustration rolling off Sinister as the healers fought to keep Devlish up.

That regeneration assisting bard song had never been more practical, because as it stood, the healers barely had enough to keep Devlish up. Murmur frowned as Akelu's health approached zero. Down past twenty percent now, and the magical attacks were sparked with red. Which either meant greater force, or contaminated spell weaving. Or, you know, fire. But since he'd had yet to use fire, she highly doubted the latter was true.

Fifteen percent, and that well of foreboding built up in her chest. She knew, instinctively, that something was about to happen. "Shit. I think he has an enrage quotient."

"What now?" Devlish gasped out, as he buckled behind yet another onslaught.

"When he hits a certain percentage, he's going to attack faster and harder, and we'll have to race that timer to his death." Murmur saw the way Akelu's eyes shifted toward her, and the way an almost imperceptible smile crossed over his lips, as if he was relieved they'd figured it out.

He'd had enough energy to try and fight the possession earlier on, so maybe this was his way of warning them, of trying to help them help the children of his species. Murmur nodded, not knowing if the boss would see it, but feeling better for having responded.

And then she turned her attention to figuring out how to beat the damned boss, and make it to the room beyond.

His health slowly approached ten percent, and Murmur was ready to cringe. "As soon as he begins to launch rapid attacks, everyone needs to burn any DPS cooldowns you have. Like seriously, burn him down. I have a bad feeling we'll barely make it as is."

She couldn't explain the feeling either. All she knew was being separated from the rest of the group gave her tension levels she didn't want to deal with, it left her head and plans split in two trying to figure out how to save them all. Sinister shot her worried glances, like she was thinking of the same things, which she probably was.

Snowy barked from the platform, she'd not even see him get onto the same one as the melee, but she guessed it made sense. He focused in on her, like he needed her to understand something. Images flashed into her mind through their connection, broken platforms plummeting down into the abyss beneath them, and suddenly, with alarming clarity, she knew what he meant.

Horror filled her as Akelu's health lowered further. "All to the main platform. It'll be a squeeze and we'll have to be careful, but we need to get on there."

And they were going to have about ten seconds to move to it before he his enrage mode.

But enrage didn't come at ten percent, and Murmur felt like she was on tenterhooks waiting for the damned stage to hit, which it did at eight percent.

Akelu's eyes lit up, a fiery blue and white, sparking even from the one that Merlin damaged. He threw his head back and roared, giving them all the warning they needed.

Crowded into place behind his feet, Murmur realized their positions were precarious. But she'd never have guessed how much. Because Akelu didn't release a rage filled flurry onto Devlish as she'd expected, but instead shot at the platform they'd just been standing on. Several blasts was all it took to demolish it and send the fragments plummeting below.

But in the same instant he began destruction of the very floor they'd stood on, the rest of their little raid activated their DPS cooldowns. Everyone's movements sped up. Arrows flew faster than Murmur could track with her eyes, and Jinna flitted in and out leaving bloody marks in his wake. Beastial roared louder than Akelu had and his cat joined him.

Murmur nuked for all she was worth too, and noticed her casting was faster. Checking her system she noticed a buff she'd never seen before. It was white like fur, and she glanced at Snowy, whose teeth were currently ripping at the calves of the giant mage in front of them. He'd sped their attacks up for an amount of time she didn't have the ability or patience to check right now. Just what was Snowy, and why had he chosen to be her companion?

The last few percent were agonizing as the only ones of them with multiple abilities appeared to be the rangers, beastmaster, and rogue. There were only three platforms left by the time Akelu collapsed, his arm outstretched to reveal a key in his open palm. Murmur knelt down and took the key, pocketing it to go with the one they'd received from Hightower.

And then the platform jolted into motion toward the back of the room. For which she was grateful since she otherwise had no idea how they were going to make it back there. The door opened, revealing a gaping black maw. Nothing inside it was visible, and it felt like spiders were crawling up her spine.

Congratulations. You have gained the key of the Ruins of Cenedril. Beware, not all is as it seems. The system's overrides are failing their checks. Please continue with caution.

"What the fuck was that." Sinister glanced around nervously as Devlish bent to loot Akelu. A series of notifications scrolled past so fast for the loot. Murmur dismissed them, saving them for later.

"I don't know, but I don't trust these floating platforms either." Murmur tried to smile and push down on the feelings of unrest she was having. Stay on the floating platforms that could fall at any moment, or step through into the unknown darkness.

"Guess we should probably step through then. I don't feel like we've completed everything it has for us yet." Snowy butted her hand, nipping at her fingers gently with his teeth so that she looked down at him.

"What's up boy?" He wuffed, and she wished she spoke wolf. "I don't understand."

He pushed up against his side, eyes darting around and watching their surroundings.

"Kind of anti-climactic?" Merlin shrugged, his discomfort obvious.

"I thought he was the end boss. I mean, didn't he give you one of the keys?" Havoc ventured, chewing on his lip yet again. "Gate isn't working, like that time on Mikrum Isle when we started the event without knowing."

"Yeah, but apparently that's not all there is to it." Gathering up the courage, Murmur poked Devlish. "Come on oh amazing took a huge beating tank, let's see what awaits us in there. After all, we can't go back the way we came."

"Devlish nodded, his lacerta scales paler than she remembered. "Always moving forward, right?"

Murmur nodded, took Sinister's hand, and stepped from the platform through the doorway.

And everything went black.

#

The message flooded the screen, server wide, bolded in front of the players eyes.

Akelu has been defeated by the guild: Fable.

His corruption has been cleansed, and his spirit is free.

Tertiary dimension initiated. Cautionary shutdown implemented. Please stop what you're doing and begin the log out process. You will be able to log back in momentarily.

A countdown appeared in the corner of everyone's vision, counting down backwards from three minutes. Players scrambled to finish fights, to log out of the game world, some dying in the process.

An alarm sounded through Laria's system as she watched in bewilderment, the sound finally pulling her out of her stupor. "What the fuck?" She glared at the screen, accessing commands she never thought she'd have to use.

Nothing worked, the system was overriding all manual input and rebooting itself. Everything she was observing, and all the things she'd done to try and make the ruins accessible was going to have to be repeated. And worst of all, she didn't know why.

"Laria? What the hell is happening? Why is the system booting all the players?" Shayla dashed around the door, her usually calm face panicked.

"I don't know, why don't you go and ask the powers that be?" Laria snapped, still trying to stop the countdown.

"Seriously?" Shayla's expression was incredulous.

"Look. I don't know why it's doing this, but I do know one thing." Laria gulped as she tried several programmer commands and failed. "Akelu was never meant to be a final boss, he is a reward and was never corrupted."

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