Dissonance

by K. T. Hanna

  “Those were probably its babies, you know.” Havoc spoke softly as they moved to engage the creature.

  “Shouldn’t have attacked us then.” Sinister bit the words out from behind clenched teeth, her mood sour.

  “Point. Now focus.” Murmur cut them off. It was fun to level and banter and all, but at the same time they needed to maintain wariness. This boss wasn’t like others, and the fact that she jumped down at ninety percent didn’t feel like that was a special ability. Its many eyes simply watched constantly, not missing a thing, not in front of her, to the side of her, or behind her. Frankly, it was unsettling.

  The others riveted their attention onto their target. They danced around Web Blasts as they came, avoiding pools of venom as they coagulated together underneath her and interrupting her Venomous Waves as best they could.

  Now that she was on the ground with them, her size was daunting. Each leg was about as tall as Jinna, and her body rose above them, glittering eyes seeing all. While the rogue and monk continued to focus on the right second front leg, deftly avoiding being swiped by it and the long and sharp hairs that protruded from the limb; the other melee switched to the back-left leg, hacking away at the joint. It was more difficult for her to lash out with one of those, because the spider’s body weight was held up by the two back sets of legs, but even so, she was pretty impressive while fighting to protect her domain. Or maybe to avenge her children.

  At eighty percent, she lunged forward, fang exposed and instantly huge, biting down where Devlish had only just managed to stumble away. A splashing spray of venom shot out of fangs, spraying almost their entire circle except those at the back hacking away on that limb.

  Exbo and Jinna both screamed, the agony far too evident in the sound. Veranol and Sinister immediately began to patch everyone up, making sure to take care of them all. But the burned holes from where the acrid venom hit their armor didn’t heal over for the first time since they’d entered Somnia, and Murmur didn’t know how to deal with that. She was a tad obsessive about her armor.

  Snowy nipped her fingers hard enough to make her jump, and she was completely certain he was glaring at her. Nodding, she motioned for him to continue fighting as well, and returned to her routine of keeping their enhanced buffs up, and debuffing the shit out of the creature.

  She needed to be better than that, they all did. If anything, that Venom Spray was what they needed to watch out for and was likely her special move. Except the longer the fight went on, the more she had to wonder if this spider even had a special move.

  Sure, it had a lot of moves, but none of them seemed to have an order, and they had to focus in order to interrupt the boss.

  Murmur’s attention focused back where it was needed. On the small movements of its legs that seemed innocuous at first. There was a pattern to them, like a buildup of power. They needed to disable one of those limbs and fast, because if she’d surmised what she was sensing from this monster correctly, the first two large attacks had only been the tip of the iceberg, and each time they would grow in power if the spider were allowed to build it unchecked.

  “Focus on the front left limb,” she called out, knowing the monster would hear it too. Maybe she should have said that over the guild chat, but it was too late now.

  The spider twitched to the side, as if it was trying to protect said limb, almost squashing Jinna in the process because its side hit the wall in the very narrow space. While it hadn’t been narrow with just them in it, add a gigantic spider to the mix and there was barely any room.

  Murmur frowned, watching the health tick down slowly, despite the fact that all of them were aiming at critical joints and mostly hitting them. Her hide must have major protection underneath the hardened carapace. Perhaps their next best bet would be to aim at the eyes. But before she could call out a change in strategy, their opponent began the crouch attack again, causing them all to spread out as far as they could.

  The spider jumped high into the air, landing with a resounding thud on the tiles again, making the ground shake and lending instability to all of their stances as her huge fishing web was sent out. Despite being ready for it this time, it managed to catch Sinister by the foot, and half of Mellow’s body. While they managed to free each of them in quick order by switching targets with perfect timing, both of the victims looked decidedly uneasy.

  If Murmur wasn’t mistaken though, that left front joint on its appendage seemed to be wobblier. Now all they had to do was bring one down, and work on the next. Which happened sooner than expected.

  Suddenly the spider dipped, its leg buckling under it at an awkward angle when it tried to temporarily put weight on it to maneuver. The unexpected shift sent her careening against the wall, practically smashing the life out of Rashlyn whose health plummeted down to ten percent before Veranol could get another ward on her while his HoT healed her up.

  Rearing itself up on its four hind legs, with the damaged one dangling useless at the side, the spider’s eyes rolled and flashed to red, staying there as it opened its gaping maw once again to projectile vomit venom, but she wasn’t sitting at sixty percent yet, and all of Murmur’s concepts about how games were supposed to work flew out of the window. Somnia had just changed the rules.

  Again.

  This time the venom spatter hit Devlish’s shield dead on, sizzling away as it trickled down, eventually rounding out the point that had been at the end of it with its caustic spit.

  “Shit,” he sputtered, pulling his hand out of it and showing off reddened skin on his greenish scales, like it had been burned. The shield clattered to the ground, and the spider chose that moment to take advantage of the confusion.

  It stabbed directly at Devlish, a fang extending down ready to impale him, and only Snowy jumping in the way in time to shove him out of the way saved the tank.

  Murmur screamed as pain tore through her skull, sending her buckling to one knee, panting. She looked up her eyes resting on the wolf that had accompanied them for so long, and she watched as his eyes rested on her, filled with pain and worry, but the worry wasn’t for himself, it was for her.

  “No, no, no,” she muttered and began to run toward him, totally forgetting about the damned spider that was trying to kill them all, just wanting to get to him. Even as the fang withdrew and she saw blood gush along his white fur, Beastial caught her around the waist and wrestled her back.

  “Not now!” He got in her face sternly while the battle raged on. “Focus. I know what that pet bond is like. You’ll be fine, but we need you more than he does right now.”

  Murmur shook her head, trying to clear it of all of the thoughts whirling around. Then she nodded, ignoring the stream of tears she could feel falling down her face. “Got it.”

  She looked back at where Snowy had lain, only to find he wasn’t there anymore. Pushing down on the panic that rose within her, she focused on the fight, comforted by the fact that she could at least feel his bond to her, his charm. It was still active, if weak, which was okay since he likely needed all his strength.

  She glanced up at the stupid spider, hatred brewing in her mind. Now she really didn’t like this monster. Devlish had pulled out another shield. One she’d not seen before. It seemed to be glazed with something shiny—she only hoped it worked better than the Telvar shield he’d been using for an age.

  Percentages were out, so they were left with watching for signs the Buntu queen was about to execute a special attack. “Keep your eyes open for when she crouches, and when she draws back for that split second before she spits venom in our faces.”

  Everyone nodded, and she’d known that they knew, but at the same time, she wanted to have said it, so no one could say they didn’t know. With Snowy weighing heavily on her conscience, she didn’t want anyone to be taken unawares. It’d be worse with a larger raid force. She was growing far too used to a small twelve-person team.

  Just as
the spider crouched down to execute her next jump net, casting venom-spitting extravaganza, the limb they’d been hacking away on next collapsed, and she toppled instead, flailing her spiky legs in the air before she righted herself, heavily leaning to one side as the back-left leg now dangled uselessly as well. The action caused her health to plummet by twelve percent, and Murmur frowned, glancing around the beast as it moved into place, to try and find what else had happened.

  Right where her body joined the spider portion of the monster, was a huge gash, with a dagger embedded into the skin at the end point. Black blood dripped out of it, sluggishly, more like tar than anything else, and Murmur eyed Jinna, who shrugged with a toothy grin.

  “Stealth attacks work so much better when they’re distracted,” she thought she heard him mutter, as he ran to the back to work on the last good weight-bearing leg the spider had on the left-hand side.

  With its weight off kilter now, their opponent’s attacks were easier to predict, and no one got caught in the web, let alone hit by the venom or fangs. Murmur fought against the urge to find where Veranol had left Snowy and concentrated on her job, on everything she could do to help. The spider didn’t have mana, so there was nothing she could do with her Mana Block or Drain or Theft. And it had to have mana apparently to activate it at all, because she’d tried. It wasn’t possessable, and because it wasn’t humanoid at the base of what it was, it didn’t appear to be susceptible to any of her hallucination-inducing Sinuous spells.

  When the back leg finally gave way, the spider could barely even drag its huge body along the floor. Sure, it still attempted to web them if they got too near her rear, or bite them or drip venom on them from the front, but it was amazing how much less imposing a spider without legs on most of one side was.

  After that they focused on widening the wound Jinna had started and their opponent’s health began to plummet until it finally gave way, and the huge beast shuddered through its death throes before collapsing into silence.

  You have defeated the Hidden Boss Spidoptria. You are the first to have discovered this being. Not even Somnia was aware of its existence.

  You gain experience for defeating Spidoptria.

  You gain experience for discovering a new foe.

  You gain experience for defeating an advanced encounter at a low level.

  But Murmur ignored her own ding and the dings she heard around her, ignored the messages and followed Snowy’s tenuous thread, desperate to find her wolf.

  She found him sitting with Mellow, a wide bandage around his middle, licking his paws and looking entirely all too pitiful. The relief that flooded through her took her by surprise. That he wasn’t dead, that he hadn’t done a suicidal rescue. She didn’t know if he could respawn, but she wasn’t about to try it out.

  Just before she dived in to hug him, Mellow put their hand out to stop her. “Mur. I’ve just applied a salve to his wound. He’s going to be okay, but it was all we could do to keep him alive during the fight. Without Veranol’s constant HoT on him, well...”

  Murmur nodded, a lump in her throat and leveled herself down to his wolfie face. “Silly Snow. Don’t scare me like that.”

  He whuffed hot dog breath in her face, and she almost regretted crouching down, but then he grinned, and she forgave the stank breath in favor of hugging him gently, carefully. Now a little more composed she stood, brushing off her robes. “You be good and heal up. We have to get going soon.”

  She headed over to the decaying Spidoptria corpse and checked it for the midia crystal.

  “Well, that was a fight and a half, wouldn’t you say?” She glanced at her experience, and at her friends. Half of them were thirty-six now, with Exbo and Merlin lagging slightly behind. What was it with rangers and death? A brief vision of Merlin with that huge wooden dart impaling him against a wall in the ruins flashed through her head, and her breath caught in her throat. No. There were reasons for their experience deficit; she just wished she’d been able to react in time to avoid it.

  Apparently hidden bosses were worth more. So well-hidden that Somnia hadn’t even known she existed. The ramifications of that sat uneasily in her mind, nagging at the back with everything else that didn’t quite synch up for her.

  She sighed. “One of you took the getashi, didn’t you?” She feigned a glare at them, but she really did appreciate them looking out for her even if she was fairly certain it was no longer needed. They hadn’t heard from Jirald for ages. Maybe he’d given up, yet she knew that was about as likely as the sky turning orange.

  “Maybe.” Devlish winked at her. “But you’ll never guess who it might be!”

  She rolled her eyes and Sin linked arms with her. “You know, Mur? I’m all for dangerous worlds and shit, but this one needs to give us more goodies. All we seem to be getting now is gear that can be crafted.” Her friend pouted, as if Murmur would be able to fix everything.

  Mur sighed. “The good news is that we all have excellent armor, and Neva will make us even better shit with this stuff. Be happy. All of what we have on is going to get scrapped before we hit max level anyway.”

  Sinister pulled away affecting shock and twirling so that her segmented robe twirled around her. “How could you say that?” she lamented, gesturing toward the magnificence of her outfit.

  Murmur coughed with a laugh. “Yeah, yeah. Anyway everyone. It is time for us to head out. We have things to do and places to be.”

  “Need I remind everyone what happened last time we stood dawdling in this hallway?” Merlin offered up the memory of the spider they’d just defeated and Murmur watched everyone hurry away. Except Mellow who brought up the read with a limping Snowy.

  She fell into step with them trying to figure out how to lend her wolf some strength and support.

  “He’ll be okay, Mur. He’s a pretty strong guy. He doesn’t want to be injured, which is always half the battle.” Mellow’s words were soothing.

  “You sound like a nurse,” she said, scritching Snowy’s head.

  Mellow chuckled, and then silver words appeared over their heads, and the loud ringing of a server announcement pummeled their eyes and brains.

  Erichu of Richnai has been defeated by the guild: Exodus.

  The fortress has welcomed them and provided one of the twelve keys for their dedication.

  Murmur frowned at the announcement, but her face widened in a grin as she grew excited. All of the others reacted in a similar way, all their eyes gleaming with anticipation. Murmur couldn’t clamp down on the buzz. She faced forward, ignoring the spider guts as it squelched beneath her boots, ignoring the corpses that scattered out in front of them, and nodded with grim determination.

  “Time to kick Arita’s butt.”

  Somnia Online

  Richnai Fortress - Firtulai Continent

  Day Sixteen

  Erichu of Richnai has been defeated by the guild: Exodus.

  The fortress has welcomed them and provided one of the twelve keys for their dedication.

  Jirald let himself stumble to one knee, his health precariously low, and applied a bandage to his gouged thigh, knowing Masha and their druid had people with far more dire injuries to heal up than him. Even with the pain his wounds caused, even with the dagger lost and embedded somewhere in the monstrosity they’d just brought down, Jirald reveled in the announcement that flooded the server.

  They’d done it. After a huge freaking ordeal of almost slaughtering each other out of the levels required to access the dungeon, Exodus had finally begun its rise to the top. He reached into his inventory and pulled out a flask, drinking from it and watching his health rise more rapidly. If he put aside the fact that he felt like he’d been run over by a steamroller, this dungeon had been trickier than he’d thought it would be.

  His health finally over half way there, he stood up and knelt down next to the massive creature they’d downed, tryi
ng to place exactly what it was. While humanoid in shape, it didn’t appear to be clever, or quick witted in any way, which had made for a perplexing fight. Everything about it screamed wildly mutated giant, but that wasn’t it. And since it wasn’t what they expected, they hadn’t been able to guesstimate its moves correctly. When they thought it’d take on a defensive maneuver, it rushed them instead. There was no process to the way it fought, just gut instinct.

  And that made it unpredictable and very dangerous. The amount of times they’d wiped on this guy before finally getting it down?

  He frowned, mind racing through every step of the fight, replaying the occurrences, replaying its actions. Nothing was in a rotational sequence; it simply acted and reacted on a whim. Or at least, it appeared to.

  Still, he couldn’t complain. With the dungeon totally completed, and this last beast finally dead, Jirald had just slipped just under level thirty-two. A bit of creative soloing and he’d ding. Although perhaps during would be safer. It felt good to sit in the thirties instead of the twenties. That much closer to level cap. Which begged the question—why was there a level cap in this game? Although, it might have been an equalizing factor, and it did mean there was an end to the leveling where Murmur wouldn’t have room to pull away from him. Eventually they’d all be equal, and they he’d see how well quick reflexes served her.

  “Jirald?” Masha stepped over what looked like a piece of bowel. Since the entrails had spilled once they managed to hack open the beast’s vulnerable midsection, there was a foul stench lingering in the air that the rogue desperately wanted to make disappear.

  “Mhm?” Jirald’s gaze was still focused on the offending bodily organs, and he realized he was wearing a scowl. “What?”