Dissonance

by K. T. Hanna

  In this case though, the silence worked on whatever possessed him. Given enough time, Wartia should come back to himself the way his sisters had done.

  Skin began to form over the muscle and sinew. It was pale and see-through, not enough to conceal the underneath but enough to begin containing it. The grey skin took on translucent tones as it repaired itself, and slowly the red stars in his eyes began to change to blues and purples.

  Murmur let another Mind Bolt hit him to keep the possessor from regaining control. But she wasn’t ready for the resist or for the scream out of Wartia as his newly formed skin ripped open again, and the blood burst out in a fountain of red.

  “Fuck!” Murmur couldn’t get past the anger that welled up in her. It seeped through her pores, climbed into her skull and began to take over. With the iota of self left to her, she cast Arcane Cure on herself.

  A loud squealing sounded in her head, and blood trickled down from her ears as the portion of whatever this thing was disappeared from her mind, unfogging it momentarily. She blinked. She was annoyed with the fight but angrier with herself for not having a better hold.

  Wartia’s skin was battling valiantly, but Murmur knew another resist would probably kill him for good.

  Mellow’s eyes were distant again, and they worried at their lip. “Dan, can you play a magic lowering song? On top of the resist you have going for us? Like for the target?”

  Dansyn nodded, and slowly the songs swapped out.

  Murmur’s Mind Bolts were diminishing in effectiveness. With that resist she probably wouldn’t get more than five seconds on this one. She had to hope it would be enough. Taking a deep breath, she signaled to the rangers to follow their last plan, and she cast her Bolt.

  It hit, sticking this time, and she followed it up quickly with Nullify. Anything to help lower its resistance to their only plan. Her five seconds, plus about the same from the two rangers still wasn’t enough, again.

  Murmur continued the round with another cast of Mild Bolt. Only four seconds this time and her head began to pound, down at the base, radiating toward the rest of her skull. Just a little more. That’s all they needed.

  Just after Exbo cast his second silence, Wartia stood up rigidly, straight as a flagpole. The blood suffusing him began to boil, big bubbles bursting with a vile odor and slowly began to retreat from his body. Murmur saw Sinister’s sickly pallor out of the corner of her vision, but she’d have to worry about that later.

  The blood retreated, still hissing as it writhed like a venomous serpent, whirled in on itself, and just like the room before this, it spiraled up in a plume of smoke and fled somewhere else.

  Wartia collapsed to his knees, his chest heaving with coughing spasms, and Murmur noticed with relief that her DoT had disappeared.

  “War!” Hortia flung herself at him, clinging to her much larger brother with all her might.

  Even though it must have hurt, he didn’t try to loosen her grip. He just let her hold on, probably because he sensed that she needed to. But his skin was brittle beneath her hold, tearing in places and leaving tears of blood to trickle down his body.

  Xestia stood to the side, wringing her hands as if she didn’t dare to approach either of them. Torch laid a lit hand on her shoulder, none of the fire touching or harming the locus girl. She glanced at the elemental and smiled wryly before turning her attention back to her siblings.

  Wartia looked up at her, his eyes fully formed now, and his skin began to slowly knit back together. It would take it a while to solidify past the rice sheet consistency. “Thank you.”

  Xestia shook her head. “Thank them. They chose to help us lift the curse.”

  He nodded, holding onto Hortia, who seemed to have fallen asleep next to him. “Are they—are the doors still locked?”

  Xestia swallowed visibly, and Murmur just wanted to dive into her head and find out what they were hinting at. Sinister, as usual, jumped in instead, like she could read Mur’s mind.

  “Stop with the cryptic. What doors, and why is this a scary thing?”

  Xestia sighed, her eyes darting around the room as if sure the weird blood monster thing would reappear.

  Wartia cleared his throat, but it was still raspy when he spoke. “Our parents. This is all our parents’ fault, all their doing. They did this to us when they willingly accepted the curse. If we don’t defeat their wards now that we’ve begun, the curse will spread until all of the locus are enslaved by it.”

  “Wait.” Veranol shook his head. “Do the wards have something to do with the rooms needing to be defeated in a specific order?”

  Xestia nodded but it was Wartia who spoke. “If you approached them in the wrong way, you could have faced up to twenty-nine wards. Not everyone likes to do things in order. I’m grateful that we face the smallest possible number of wards: Sixteen.”

  The guild Spiral has defeated Earlien Hightower of Hightower Castle and gained one of the twelve keys.

  Murmur raised an eyebrow at the golden writing that managed to leak into their dungeon.

  “Earlien?” That didn’t sound right. Had they triggered a different version and not met with Hightower? Which version was the right one?

  “Focus, Mur. Don’t focus on them, focus on us,” Havoc reprimanded her. She was about to speak when he added, somewhat smugly, “Looks like they didn’t get to fight the man himself. I’m amazed at these differences.”

  “Can we get back to defeating this quest now?” Mellow glowered, studying their HUD and barely paying attention to anything else. “I have a feeling the rest of this will take us a while.”

  Havoc kept his voice low as if he expected one of the possessors to be listening over his shoulder. “Point. What are these wards, then?”

  This time Wartia hesitated, and his sister took over. “The wards are warriors who guard the gates Mother and Father erected to keep out, well, everyone. Mother and Father were taken over before we realized it. Their orders changed until they no longer cared for their people. Until no one thought fondly of them anymore.”

  Xestia sighed before continuing, fiddling with a loose thread on her robe. “They subverted many of our race. What you have up there in the city is only the remnants of people we managed to save before we locked ourselves in here, to protect them. It was all we could do to save them. Rescuing Mother and Father isn’t an option. They are too far gone, melded with their possessors, and not the people they were.”

  “So, we have to defeat your parents?” Sinister muttered.

  “Yes,” Hortia responded. “The things we had to let into us just in order to be able to protect Stellaein to this extent… Had we not placed the conditions on the rooms and not placed the conditions on ourselves, we too would have been consumed. When you activated Torch’s quest to lift the curse, you saved us. Thank you.”

  Mellow smiled, even if it seemed a little forced. “You’re welcome.”

  But Murmur knew how they felt. Being thanked for something you did inadvertently stung a bit.

  Murmur tried to lighten her mood. Killing stuff should work for that. “What do we do now?”

  Xestia drew herself up tall, squaring her jaw. “Now we have to open the doors, make it through the guards, and kill our parents. The first parts should be easy. But uncursing our parents will only lead to them being freed in death. It’s taken too much of them to be anything like what they were. When the curse is removed, they will die.”

  “You’re very calm about this.” Merlin raised an eyebrow, glancing at Murmur as he spoke. “I mean, if I had to go kill my parents, I know I’d be shook up as hell.”

  Hortia stirred, looking up at the elf. Her tone was somber, and her eyes still hadn’t regained the liveliness of the others. They seemed almost dead. “They’re not who they were. They are not themselves.”

  “They aren’t our parents anymore.” Wartia’s tone held a sadne
ss Murmur couldn’t empathize with. She’d never lost anything like that, never had to suffer that way. What did you say to someone who’d lost something so dear? He continued, interrupting her thoughts. “Doing this will let them rest, finally.”

  “Guess we should open those doors then?” Devlish attempted to sound like his usual determined self, but Murmur could tell he wasn’t entirely sure about this whole situation. Indeed, in the depths of this dungeon, far inside the mountain Stellaein was built on, very little made sense in either world.

  The door’s hinges squealed, loudly, like a dying mouse. Nothing like the sleekly-oiled doors of Hazenthorne. Murmur cringed inwardly, hating that it alerted whatever they were about to fight to their presence. A wave of dust billowed out from the opening, sending specks through the air to catch the light. Devlish and Rashlyn coughed, receiving the full brunt of it.

  Anticipation grew with every second that passed, but nothing jumped out at them from the dark room beyond. Xestia frowned and inched closer to the entrance. She moved into the opening, standing next to Mellow.

  “Are you ready?” Murmur asked them, her expression serious.

  Mellow nodded. “I have several of the antidotes brewed up, just in case.”

  Murmur really wanted to know what they needed antidotes for.

  “Excellent.” A smile lit up Xestia’s face. “Then I think we’re ready. We should be able to move in. Torch, I’ll need you to light the way, if you can?”

  Torch nodded, and the bright lights of her body flared once, lending new brightness to the interior.

  Only Murmur wished it hadn’t. There, in front of them, waiting silently like assassins, were more shadow warriors than she could count. Although, she was willing to bet there were sixteen of them. They stood, in varying degrees of fighting poses, their faces contorted in screams or cries, weapons frozen in time, held at the ready, looking decidedly sharp.

  She didn’t want to ask questions out loud and give away any of their plans. There was no doubt in her mind that these were part of the sixteen wards they needed to break through in order to access the parents. Yet they weren’t moving—they weren’t even looking in their direction.

  “How do we activate them?” Havoc spoke softly, his question directed at Xestia.

  She frowned, Torch’s light lending her face a macabre expression. “I’m not sure. I think it’s a proximity thing. The closer we get, the more we activate.”

  “If we need to proximity pull them,” Mellow chimed in softly, “then Rash is probably the better person to do that.”

  “Why?” Xestia’s curiosity was genuine.

  “She’s the most likely to fool them into coming in smaller groups.” Mellow didn’t explain it as well as Murmur thought they might.

  But in hindsight maybe they were right. How were they to know what would happen to NPCs they helped? Giving away all their secrets seemed counterintuitive.

  “Something like that.” Wartia didn’t sound like he was paying full attention. His gaze traveled across the front four warriors like he was waiting for them to give him a sign. “It’s not them. Next ones probably.”

  “Probably what?” Murmur pushed the subject. Even if he’d said it without really thinking, she needed to know what he meant.

  “Sorry. The next four will have a slot vacant for me. A spot held just for the heir to the martial throne.” He shrugged. “It’s not exactly what I’d like to do for all eternity.”

  “‘Protect the prince from battles past?’” Mellow read out slowly. “Guess that’s what I have to do, then.”

  “Good to know.” Devlish hefted his axe and frowned before swapping it out for a flaming blue blade that Murmur hadn’t seen before. He caught her eye and winked. “One of those upgrades Neva was talking about.”

  Murmur nodded, wishing she’d thought to check too. But her staff was supposed to grow with her anyway. “We ready then?”

  No one answered, they just looked ahead. Murmur took that as a yes.

  As soon as they stepped into the room the massive doors behind them slammed shut. Murmur resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Somnia seemed to like slamming doors a lot. It was growing a bit stale, and she directed the thought into her sensor net, hoping that maybe the world would realize it was getting predictable. Or childish. Maybe repetitive.

  With a brand-new boss fight to overcome, predictable wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.

  It took around five seconds for the first section of the room to light up. Square sections on the floor lit up with a pale blue underglow.

  “We can all fight these.” Xestia sounded relieved, and Murmur was about to ask why she said that when four of the warriors looked up at once, slapping their arms over one another on their chests and opened their eyes. They moved fluidly in an attempt to circle the group.

  Murmur threw out a Mez each to the two on the outer perimeters.

  You have attempted to Mezmerize a protected being. Please do not make this mistake again.

  She frowned and had to fight hard against the instinct to do just what she’d been told not to. Instead, she chose a stun, which gave her no system warning and stopped the mob in its place.

  Murmur grinned. “AoE it is, guys.”

  She stepped into the middle of everyone as the statues continued their approach. Not waiting to see if they understood what she said, Murmur cast the first of her stuns. Xestia, Hortia, and Wartia were all caught in the first one, and Murmur kicked herself for not foreseeing that. She had to loose single stuns instead and wait for the stun to wear off them before she could begin the rotation again.

  “Move out of the radius,” she yelled just before it wore off and didn’t cast again until they were standing back with Mellow and Havoc.

  Murmur grinned to herself and began her rotation again. The first four went down relatively easily. They resisted her stuns less than the ghouls had in the entryway. She frowned, because too easy was never a good thing in her book. And despite death and almost death and bashing into walls, there had been a lot of far too easy lately. She wasn’t sure if it was meant to lull them into a false sense of security—but it made her warier.

  Sure enough, as soon as the warriors died, another set of them popped up, only this time the squares lit up a darker blue.

  She heard Mellow gasp behind her and turned to glare at them. Luckily, the new additions were swaying in wait, not yet totally activated. “Spill it. What?”

  Mellow sighed and the read off their HUD.

  Floor squares are red

  Floor squares are blue

  Don’t underestimate purple

  Or it’ll kill you

  Turn the squares white

  Turn the squares green

  Don’t mix all the colors

  They’re not what they seem

  Murmur groaned along with most of the people in their group. The chorus made the blue squared warriors swivel their heads, like they were searching for the sound.

  Suggestions? She asked desperately over raid chat.

  Mellow: Can’t have blue and red activate at once. That would be purple.

  Merlin: Okay. That makes sense. But if that’s the case, how do we turn them white?

  Havoc: Make them crumble to dust?

  Sinister: But then how do we get green?

  Mellow: Maybe we free them? I mean overall this quest is supposed to be about freeing the cursed family and their subjects from Lilith. So...green means go and therefore free?

  Beastial: That’s the best theory we have.

  Murmur sighed. Guess that’s what we’re going with, then.

  Devlish moved forward slightly, positioning his shield in front of him. It covered his entire torso, right down past the thighs to his calves. Murmur thought it was a tower shield and wondered if he had real world repercussions from carrying that much weight during a fight
.

  With the tank’s movement, all four of the warriors activated at once, moving in unison. Their heads craned to the side as if they were all being pulled by the same string, and their eyes roamed over the entire group, seeing through them. Murmur shivered at the nothingness that emanated from their minds. Nothing but kill or be killed. There was no emotion, no loyalty, nothing that revealed the mind within to be anything but a puppet.

  And Murmur didn’t have the guts to cast another Mez, just in case she only got one warning for the entire fight. This time both Rash and Devilish tanked two of the warriors each. The wooden movements of their opponents should have been easy to avoid, but they weren’t. Instead, there was strength behind them that Murmur hadn’t anticipated. Even Beastial groaned with the effort it took for his axe blades to connect.

  Without the area of effect attacks they mowed the original group down with, these took longer. Murmur sighed, knowing that it might take longer but was less potentially fatal this way. Except, she could have sworn a different set of squares was slowly lighting up.

  Mellow’s breath hitched. “This is taking too long. These are on a timer. And if those red squares go full throttle, we’re going to have purple and we’re all dead.”

  Only three of the second group of warriors were still standing, and all of those were low on health. Frantically, Murmur popped her Earth Reinforcement cool down and hastened everyone. Without it, they weren’t going to make it. She refused to think of what she could use for the next round.

  They barely made it, and four more warriors enabled without downtime between them. There was no time to heal up, and no time to regenerate mana. And if Murmur was right, she couldn’t syphon mana from them because they had none.