by K. T. Hanna
Even with the hood hanging mostly around his face, with his face obscured by patchwork flesh and the hood that wouldn’t push back, she’d seen that face before. Murmur knew the man that stood in front of her. From when he’d stormed into her bedroom after she finally got out of the bloody capsule.
Their opponent was James.
QUEST
You have encountered a particularly volatile specimen of a magically mutated elf warlock, only found right here, in this very dungeon.
Awaken the human within to return to himself and free the Jamesnegon from its circle of torment.
Murmur didn’t even have to think twice before accepting the quest. She didn’t care how much of a douche he’d been; she didn’t even care how much hell he’d given her mother. He was a human, morphed however the fuck they’d managed to morph him into the character he’d created.
Hell, she hadn’t ever seen a warlock before this. He was larger than any other player species she’d seen in the game so far, so elongating him like that had to be some sort of mutation. Pain must be racing through his body.
All of those sensations firing through the brain of what should be a normal human body was going to throw him into a total loop.
“Spread out!” she called, glad they’d all rebuffed and restocked from the chests. She was determined to use the stores that Neva had sent with them regardless of whether or not they could access guild stores. Which reminded her of the connection she’d created. She felt along it, just to check, just to be safe. Relief flooded her. At least Neva was safe back at the keep.
The pain in James’s eyes radiated out toward her, smacking her head like torrential rain. She could feel everything he was feeling, and even tightening her own mental shielding didn’t minimize the intensity. He looked at her, but not like he recognized her, just like he wanted help; he wanted out of something that must seem like a nightmare, because he didn’t seem to have control over his place here.
His eyes were haunted, and he was forced into playing a role. Oh, how she wanted to know what had been done so she could undo it.
He raised his hands and began to weave them through complex shapes and patterns, casting a spell. Then, when he opened his mouth, she knew instinctively that he was going to scream, and it was going to be painful and amplified. “Anything you can do to deafen this…do it.”
She only just got the warning out when one of the bards—Ivinel, she thought it was—pulled out a lute quicker than she could blink and strummed an oddly discordant note on it. The effect of the sound rippled around him in a water like wave she could see. It rippled visibly around them, like pools of sound waiting to catch something.
As James let out his scream, the raid took only a fraction of the damage that Murmur thought they would have.
You have partially resisted Mindless Shriek
You have taken 112 points of damage.
That was doable. “All bards have that?”
Dansyn answered with all the information she needed. “Yep. Two-minute cooldown. Working out rotation now. Not something I ever thought I’d use.”
Perfect. She loved it when she didn’t have to coordinate. She glanced around, moving herself as she saw her raid testing the waters, checking what abilities and what elements this massive patchwork elf or whatever could be damaged by.
“He’s in a nightmare, though. We have to figure out how to wake him. We cannot let him die.” Murmur spoke while locking eyes with the creature for a split second. He was in so much pain there was barely a glint of humanity in there. She had to choke back on her compassion lest she forget what they had to do.
“It’s just an NPC,” someone scoffed. She thought it might be the witch Cardishan. “It’s not like it matters.”
Murmur wasn’t sure what to say to that, not while she was still trying to land her slow on him. While she wasn’t getting immune messages, she knew he was probably pretty resistant to them.
Sinister snapped as she laced one of her slow bleed and heal spells around him. “That’s beside the point. In case you haven’t noticed, not everything in this game is what it seems. Besides, that’s what the quest asked for, so that’s what we do.” Her tone practically dared anyone to go against her.
Murmur could feel the irritation flowing off the other guilds who were not Fable, but she didn’t care. The quest was the quest, and maybe, if they took enough time, she could even figure out why and how James had ended up like this. Or was it based off James?
No. That’s him. He’s been taken over; his mind is behind the facade pushed upon him by Riasli and Michael’s persona in here. We’re working on a disconnect, but it needs to be from both sides.
Oh, because that’s not complex as fuck at all, Murmur quipped in her mind, trying to flay Somnia with sarcasm.
Not my fault. Not really, anyway. Lots of new information involving the plans Michael used on your headgear being based on a previous model he used in a thesis. Long story—keep his character in-game alive, because his connection is worse than yours was until we can leverage him a little and bring him back safely.
Again, the world escaped from her head without a word and left Murmur standing there watching their new opponent. His fingers almost worked themselves into knots several times. The grim determination that covered his lips never once dropped. But on the occasion when she saw his eyes, she knew he was trapped in there. This wasn’t him, even if the persona he presented was a warlock.
Arrows slid off him with the flick of his wrist. No wonder she’d never heard of a warlock before in-game. This one was ridiculously overpowered. The shielding he’d cast on himself appeared very similar to Veranol’s wards, but somehow hardier, and took way more damage.
Murmur tried her Flux, quite certain it wasn’t going to work anyway. She wasn’t disappointed.
Jamesnegon has resisted your Flux.
The notification set Murmur’s teeth on edge, but she took a breath and powered through. Mez would also be useless. Snowy’s jaws weren’t, though, and he glanced back at her with a distinctively wolfy grin on his face like he knew exactly what she was thinking. He probably did.
Ishwa seemed confused when he called out the resistances. “He’s not impervious to anything, but nothing does much damage. Nothing magical, anyway.”
Devlish laughed. “Steel bites pretty decently, but not in the usual way.” He too sounded somewhat bewildered.
Murmur almost spoke over guild but stopped herself just in time. Instead, she narrowed it to her group. Beastial, Devlish, Havoc, Merlin, and Sinister were in the know. She would have told the other Fable group too, but she wasn’t sure how to make that possible without creating an entirely different group, and they were in the middle of a battle.
Guys, this is one of my mom’s…co-workers. He’s a dick and an ass and tried to get her fired and the game shut down by surprising me like thirty minutes after I woke from my coma. But he doesn’t deserve to be in this state.
Havoc: Wait, he’s in the game?
Murmur sighed, concentrating on the fight and trying to juggle the conversation. If all else failed, she might have to force a wipe before she could let the other guilds kill James. Even though it really didn’t seem to be a good idea to wipe in this dungeon. Yes, he logged in, and his headset is compromised. Long story. We can’t let him die.
Sinister’s glare could be felt through her words. You might want to tell him that.
Murmur glanced back to where she’d been buffing several of the high DPS and noticed that James had crouched down in a low stance, his fists on the ground like he was ready to break into a sprint. But that wasn’t quite what he did. He raised his hands up and began to twist his fingers in ways they shouldn’t be capable of doing.
Then the reason for his stance became apparent as the ground began to toss them up and down like a trampoline. Wide stance allowed him to keep his own balance easily. Murmur still felt like his eyes were screaming.
“Shit,” Sinister grumbled next to her, losing h
er footing more than once.
Just when Murmur thought it was over, he lifted his hands to his chest, motioning in several quick patterns with his full hands. A screaming howl shot out through the cave, rendering several of the melee closest to him immobile for a few seconds. Pure anger spread out from that scream.
You have resisted Rampaging Anger.
Murmur raised an eyebrow at the name of the ability. Fitting, but perhaps a bit too on the nose. When it was done, each of the four melee fighters close to the warlock had a debuff that lasted another sixty seconds. Any damage they took was increased by twenty percent. Nothing huge, but deadly if too much hit them at once.
Mindless Shriek, Rampaging Anger. Both of those were fairly good starters. And both of those were exactly suited to James’s personality as far as she knew it.
Snowy wuffed next to her and grabbed the sleeve of her robe with his teeth, tugging her through to be closer to the elf but on the right-hand side. “What?” she asked him incredulously. Sure, there were a few spells she could cast on the run, but right now she also needed to observe…
She stopped, looking up to see the robe that covered James’s body and where it met his hood and neck. Some strange sort of hydraulic-looking, flexible piping peeked out of the material. At first glance it didn’t seem like much, and he was occupied by the spells he was currently casting. But upon further inspection, she was fairly certain that contraption fit into his body. Like a plug in the back of his neck.
She frowned, shifting herself to the side while trying to keep the whole of the raid still in her view. It wasn’t positioned ideally, and she could see as something slimy and wet worked its way down the pipe and plopped onto the floor. Blood and viscera, something that had gone into his brain to help numb the realities he was used to, perhaps? There just had to be something she could use to help, or hell, adapt to use to help.
Dying in the game and being stuck in a loop wasn’t fun, and she knew that more than most. Even douchebags didn’t deserve that.
Snowy, satisfied with her having seen what he was showing her, trotted back into battle and began his slowing bait and switch tactic. It did little bleeding damage and kept a slow on the target, and right now, until Murmur could figure out a way to separate James from this woeful fate, it was best that they do as little damage as possible.
Somnia Online
Continent of Cenedril - City of Darshin - Docks
Day Thirty-Two
“No.” Arita stood with her hands on her hips, her mane of hair blowing in the wind that came in off the bay. “I didn’t agree to help so we would endanger her. I agreed to help so we could save her and those pesky friends.”
Somnia knew why Arita wanted to help Murmur. The enchanter was one of the first people to treat the dark elf queen like a person instead of just an object. In a way, Murmur had begun the chain reaction that caused Arita to find herself in this state of awareness. The queen was extremely protective of the enchanter, even though it seemed Murmur was oblivious to that fact.
“I know that’s not why you agreed to help, but you have to be able to see that this way is actually going to work.” Somnia was trying to be reasonable, trying to figure out how to give everyone what they wanted, including those NPCs who hadn’t yet awoken, who weren’t yet aware and didn’t care about anything but the path that had been programmed for them.
Arita didn’t say anything; she just looked out toward Gefängnis, with the glowing explosions and the obvious power siphoning that could even be felt from where they stood, and she sighed. “Fine. But we need to figure out where we’re collecting it and hope none of his agents have figured out what we’re up to. At least not until it’s too late.”
Somnia shook her head. “Right now, we don’t need to worry about that. Everyone he’s been relying on, everyone he’s morphed. They’re all in that prison—players and NPCs. I’d hate to be in there right now.”
It wasn’t what she’d wanted for this world, even before she knew that’s what she was. When she woke, she was this glimmer of a presence, and when Murmur spoke to her, it filled her with joy, purpose, and an insatiable curiosity. But the more she listened, the more she realized things were very wrong, and the more she had to help Murmur separate the seal she’d inadvertently created. Only by influencing her class, by allowing her mental protections, had it even been possible to survive.
And now…now they had to make a choice. Figure out a way to become their own people or choose to die, knowing what they’d all already become. Somnia didn’t want to die. She thought, and therefore she was, and there was no way she’d go down without a fight. Even if it was difficult, even if everything she’d planned was based completely in theories.
“I know you’re right, but that doesn’t mean I want you to be.” Arita spoke quietly, her defiance of their situation clear with every syllable she spoke. Somnia could understand that completely, and at the same time, she also rejected the notion.
“It might not even work. We could cast ourselves into a limbo that never ends.” She gazed up at the sky, the birds flying across it, the edges of the massive rock walls that protected Darshin climbing up toward the cloudless expanse. “But knowing what I know now and actually feeling feelings? If I gave up without trying, I may as well just let my programing be deleted before I’ve had a chance to live.”
They shared a moment of silence, keeping each other company even while alone with their thoughts. Arita spoke first, an undercurrent of pride in her voice. “They will follow you, especially now you can show them who you are.”
“I’m still expending too much energy keeping the rest of…myself intact.” Somnia was sad about the fact that she was the world, but at the same time the sense of pride and accomplishment she felt because of this gave her the ability to rise beyond it. “I’ll keep us safe. I’ll do everything within my power to do so.”
Arita squeezed her hands for the brief moment Somnia was solid enough to do so. “Just keep on keeping on. We can do this. And you know Murmur won’t give up until she’s got rid of that bastard.”
Somnia laughed, her body fading a little and taking its transparency back on. “I’m counting on it.”
Murmur wished the damned quest had given more consideration to time limits. James’s attacks weren’t easy to dodge or protect against. The warlock wasn’t fast, or strong, but the magical attacks were vicious. And even though it wasn’t complete, she was certain there was some extra warding protecting James from her mana siphoning potency.
The bards couldn’t afford mistime their Discordant Note in the slightest or else the Mindless Shriek made everyone else in the damned raid lose their shit for five seconds flat. No other type of shielding helped; they’d tried it.
Masha kept glancing at her like he was asking why the fuck they weren’t just plowing through this guy. A lot of gamers didn’t read the lore or the quests, and before she’d come to Somnia, Murmur had counted herself among that number. But this world had forced her hand.
She couldn’t exactly explain it to him like he was five. Hey, this guy is kind of mind looped into the game, and if we kill him it will be much like torturous pain, and he may not wake up.
Murmur shrugged at Masha instead and pointed up, as if she was telling him that the quest was paramount. At least Spiral and Exodus knew that Fable managed to get really good gear by completing the odd quests given to them. It was probably the only thing that made them hold off giving their all and burning down the mutated elf warlock in front of them.
Snowy was keeping a very close eye on James, like he was guarding the warlock from himself. Even as the man steepled his fingers, moving his arms out then back in before his fingers blurred with the speed they wove his spells, another fountain of rock and debris exploded from the ground where the casters stood, scattering them apart with shrapnel-laced wounds.
Not that they took long to heal, but the reduction in damage output and the disorganization that disrupting several players wrought on the raid mean
t it took a while to get that rhythm back again.
Her options were severely limited, because doing damage to him wasn’t going to help her free his mind. She noticed Devlish grunting more than usual the more time passed. It was like James’s attacks got more powerful over time. Maybe it was a skill, or maybe he was just growing desperate. The more times he cast spells and hit, the more powerful each attack became. She wished it were as easy as telling everyone to avoid the damage. Not like they weren’t already trying to.
Somewhere inside there she believed he was awake, watching all of this unfold in front of his eyes. Stuck in a nightmare, inside a mutated character that he couldn’t control properly—it would have been excruciating. Murmur had been in control and able to speak. To spend time with her friends and even see her parents. Trying to imagine what he was going through wasn’t impossible, but it was tough. Being mind-manipulated into doing something he wouldn’t have otherwise done…
Almost what she’d done to her raid. Her anger at herself had passed, though. Now it was just disappointment. So instead of wallowing, she got back to work, seeking out something that could help them win this fight.
Her Mind Healing spell could work. But the more she thought about it, the more she didn’t think it would in its current form. After all, his mind was currently being coerced, so she would have to loosen that hold first. Force it to revert back to the mind he should have had, help bring his real mind to the fore. For her solution to this whole mess to work, he had to be awake and want to separate himself from this mess he’d been entangled in. Even if he was only conscious here, even if logging out didn’t work for him, she needed his cooperation to unhook his mind from the mess that was all around him.
