Distortion (Somnia Online Book 5)

by K. T. Hanna

  Not really. Rav will be able to. More so than me. At least he should be able to soon. I’m not entirely sure. Go on. Try some of it out. Our connection has expanded elements of your mind.

  Then the voice was gone, and Wren scowled, wishing she’d had time to ask it all the more questions. So many questions.

  “Wren?”

  She finally focused on her dad kneeling down in front of her, fear coloring his face. Sheepishly she realized he’d pulled the headset off and then not heard a word from her. Probably thinking he’d permanently damaged her or something. “I’m okay. Just thinking.”

  “That’s a relief. I thought your mother was about to kill me. Not even joking.” His grin was a watered-down version from his usual expression. “You really okay? I didn’t break anything?”

  Wren shook her head, taking stock of herself yet again. “I’m fine.”

  She frowned and wiggled her fingers in that same intricate pattern to increase her intelligence this time. A sheen of sparkles settled over her for a few moments before sinking into her flesh. Her head immediately felt clearer, and everything around her held new information, new meaning. She reveled in it.

  “Yeah, Dad. I’m good as new.” She grinned at him. Somnia had been right. She didn’t need the headset. She was connected to the abilities and the game world. She just had to hope the headset’s sponsors didn’t find out and come for her.

  “Are you su—” Her mother’s sentence cut off and she frowned, pointing at her ear to indicate that she’d just gotten a call. Laria ducked out of the room, and Wren felt slight frustration at the fact. She took in a breath and let herself relax first.

  Her dad took over the worrying from her mother. “You really should rest more, you know.” His words held an air of strictness, but Wren knew he was aware she’d probably ignore him.

  “You really should,” Harlow interjected. “We might need you in there, but we also need you well. If that means you can’t log in for a bit, then so be it. I’ll deal.”

  Wren knew it was more about Harlow than the others. They’d fend fine without her, but the two of them fed off each other while in the game. She always felt so vulnerable when Sin wasn’t logged in. Co-dependency at its finest.

  But she really did feel fine. It was hard to swallow her impatience, especially when she understood why everyone was worried. Hell, she hadn’t thought she’d ever be able to log out. Going back in so soon would worry anyone.

  They didn’t need to know that, though. “Really. I get why you’re concerned. But the game isn’t going to put others on hold because I need sleep.”

  “That’s ridiculous, Wren.” Her father’s tone surprised her. It was the closest she’d ever heard him come to snapping at her. He took a breath, apparently surprised a bit himself. “Look. How do you feel? You need food, and frankly, you need more sleep. At the very least you have to eat before you dive back into the game.”

  Her stomach took that precise moment to agree with her father. The growl was embarrassingly loud. She could feel the blush rise in her cheeks. “Roger that. Food is a go.”

  Harlow laughed. Wren smiled at the sound. She hadn’t heard her friend laugh like that in what seemed like forever. She reached across and twined their fingers together, resting both of their hands on her shoulder. It grounded her, and she looked up at her dad.

  He grinned. “Excellent. I made a delicious shepherd’s pie. You will eat a bowl now. I made enough to last a couple of days. So that is our deal, okay?”

  Wren flung herself from the bed and at her dad. Shepherd’s pie was one of her favorite meals. Everyone knew it. His cooking was miles beyond her mother’s. “Okay. I get to eat and log in?”

  He hesitated. “One helping now. And the other five within forty-eight hours. Harlow cannot help you. You need to regain your strength. This has protein and veggies. I want you to drink plenty of water at each sit-down meal. And I’ll restock all the fruit you love as soon as you log in, okay?”

  “Deal.” Wren’s mouth was already watering by the time they shook hands. Her father definitely knew just the right way to bribe her. At least she’d enter the game ready to figure the rest of this shit out.

  Murmur blinked as the world gathered around her, slowly taking in the huge amount of work it took for it to materialize. She stretched her hand out in front of her, watching the fingers curl into a ball and back out to splayed, and wondered at the realism of it all.

  Her vision was markedly different. She saw things in hues of color she didn’t think existed in the human spectrum. Subtleties to the land, the plants, all of the life around her. All of the digitized life, she reminded herself.

  Sinister began to materialize not too far off on Mikrum Isle, when Snowy trotted up to the enchanter and sat in front of her, his tongue lolling out of his mouth like he was saying about damn time.

  “Hey, boy.” Murmur almost choked up as she crouched down to run her fingers through his bushy coat. It was ridiculous the amount she’d missed his fuzzy face. “Did you miss me?”

  He wuffed at her, his warm wolfy breath sending one of her strands of hair waving like in a breeze. Then he sat back on his haunches, grinning from ear to ear.

  “I’ll take that as a yes, then.” Mur continued, watching them contemplatively. She leaned forward and hugged the snow wolf, letting his warmth suffuse her, his reality sink in. “Ready?”

  Snowy ruffed and closed his eyes. Mur cast the spell deftly, her MA only just having reached thirty-five since she logged in. It was a strange sensation to have to build it back up from nothing when no fighting had been involved. There was a part of her that missed being attached to the game, but only a part. The other was simply glad she was actually alive.

  “There we go.” Snowy butted up against her leg, his smile still in place. She could feel him again, right there with her. Always protecting, making sure she was never alone.

  “He seems so real,” Sinister noted as she reached and patted his head too. Snowy loved the attention, and his tongue continued to loll out his mouth as he got spoiled.

  “He really does, doesn’t he?” Mur turned around, drinking in the visage of Fable’s home base. “Feels like forever since we’ve been here. I didn’t really get to take a good look at it the other day.”

  The castle rose up before her, so much more majestic than it had originally been. Even though the stones looked like they’d come from the same quarry as the originals, scaffolding only on a couple of the tower parts now. The rocks fit seamlessly together with mortar holding them tight. The roofs were attached and beautifully mounted, their red color reflecting the sun like a bright piece of copper.

  She hadn’t had a chance to take anything in lately. Her brain had been preoccupied with so much. The weird shit that happened in-game like Riasli, the getashi quests, Jirald potentially killing her, her inability to die in-game…all of it seemed so distant now that she could actually log out of Somnia. Not to mention being able to die in the game without too huge repercussions.

  Sure, it hurt and gave her weird flashbacks, but that was a small price to pay to not be dead. Her gaze swept around the island, noticing the bridge being built at the far end, where they’d once used that tiny bridge to cross. Precarious though it had been, it had also been fun.

  This castle was so much more regal now, almost restored and gleaming in the sunlight.

  Sinister stood at her left elbow, and Snowy sat on her right-hand side. For a few moments everything felt right with the worlds, both Somnia and the real one.

  “This is almost perfect. Can we just pretend the outside and inside aren’t falling apart and stay like this forever?” Sin mumbled the words, leaning her head against Murmur’s upper arm.

  “You and your wishful thinking,” Mur replied, her eyes not leaving their study of her guild’s base. It was defensible as well. Should anyone think to attack them here, it was well pr
otected, fortified, and the only way in was across the river. Or if someone figured out how to get across on the bottom of the ocean floor.

  “I’m allowed wishful thinking. I like it here.”

  Sinister sounded like she was pouting a bit, but she only held on tighter and sighed deeply.

  Mur put her arm around Sin and squeezed. “You are definitely allowed to love it here. We both are.”

  They stood there, watching the sun rise in the sky, stretching its fingers through the tree branches to lend warmth to the air. So surreal.

  “Do you like what we’ve done with the place?” Telvar’s voice was soft, filled with a tiny bit of wonderment as he drew up to stand beside them as they drank in the view. Hesitation lay under his words, like he wasn’t sure if he was welcome to approach them.

  “Yes. Love it.” Murmur smiled at him and sighed as she scratched Snowy’s head. “I believe you have some answers for me?”

  Telvar seemed to gulp down a sigh himself. “I do. I’m not entirely sure you’re going to like them though.”

  But Murmur laughed. “Since when is that a new thing?”

  Telvar smiled, but the expression didn’t seem at all genuine, more forced than Murmur was used to from him. “I’m sorry I took you by surprise. There really wasn’t another way to do it safely. At least not the first time.”

  Murmur cocked her head to one side, contemplating his words. He wasn’t lying, because he didn’t usually do that.

  “Why?” She felt like a toddler with her why questions, but they’d been on her brain since he’d shoved her out of the game.

  “There was interference with your connection caused by the attachment to the world in general. The only way I could see them releasing was with a shock disconnect. To pulse you out of it.” He shrugged, looking uncomfortable. “Keep in mind, you’d only just hit a point that it was even remotely possible that it’d succeed. Because you died in-game, what we did to maintain you and bring you back pushed the connection that bit further.”

  “So dying in-game helped?” Wren tried to wrap her head around it. Shocking the system into suddenly releasing her? That didn’t sound safe at all. Calculated risk perhaps, but being on the receiving end of it didn’t feel good.

  “Definitely. When getting you back into your avatar’s body, there were strings of coding I had to disentangle. In doing so, it led me down a path that resulted in my attempt to push you out of the game.” There was still something in his tone that told her he was holding back.

  Murmur wasn’t sure she wanted to know, even though a part of her was egging her on. She concentrated briefly on her thought sensing net. There was something at the edges of it, something she couldn’t quite touch. Shaking her head and dismissing it as too far away, she got back to the conversation. “It was basically trial and error, wasn’t it? You had no idea if it would work.”

  The hesitation appeared again. “I was about ninety percent certain it would. But that ten percent was scary.”

  Murmur didn’t even want to know what might have happened had it not worked. The point was that it had, and she could log out now, even if it meant she had the system’s voice talking to her while out of the game. Even if it meant that her MA abilities appeared to be on the fritz. She frowned again at the presence just tickling the edges of her reach. It resounded through the webbing she had cast out, making the individual wires vibrate ever so slightly.

  “Frankly, I think that ten percent would have been scarier for Mur.” Sinister was glaring at the AI with undisguised irritation. Yet her next words held a grudging understanding. “But I get why you didn’t forewarn any of us. Just don’t do it again.”

  Telvar’s expression lightened, and he nodded. “Not planning to. I don’t believe there’s any logistics I still need to solve now she can log out, right?”

  “Well. Sort of wrong, actually.” Murmur cringed at the admission, her attention finally pulled from worrying about her Thought Sensing and Thought Shielding. “It seems some of the game has exited Somnia and set up camp in my head.”

  Telvar peered at her, like he was trying to tell if she was kidding or not. He closed his eyes and Murmur suddenly felt a heavy presence around her. Not hostile, just weighty. She gave him time to sort whatever that was out, but it did make her remember just how powerful the AIs really were.

  “That’s…unprecedented.” The lacerta made the word hiss in the middle.

  But Murmur already knew it was. Being told so didn’t improve the situation any. “Is there any sort of testing you can do to make sure this isn’t eating away at my brain cells or something?”

  I take offense to that.

  Sorry. Murmur directed her thoughts back at the voice that she couldn’t seem to sense in her head except for when it spoke. Perhaps that was what was making the waves in her sensing nets.

  No. It’s not me. That’s...

  There was a pause and nothing for long enough that Murmur became aware of both Telvar and Sinister watching her expectantly. “What?”

  “You do that when you’re thinking extra hard.” Sinister noted. “Or when you’re talking to yourself?”

  Murmur scowled. “I wasn’t talking to myself.”

  But what exactly was she talking to? It wasn’t Riasli, and it wasn’t one of the AIs. From everything she’d gathered and talked about, it was Somnia’s awareness. That in itself was a huge red flag. Even the gradually increasing dinging that meant her friends were logging in fell to the back of her awareness. Right now, figuring this out was more important.

  It’s not me. And I’m not you. Awareness is apt for now. I’m checking on your surroundings. There’s something off about them. I can’t...I can’t track something I think I should be able to see. I can sense it, but it’s not revealing itself.

  It fell quiet again making Murmur feel less than safe.

  “Something’s not right. Can’t you feel it?” She whispered the words, ignoring whatever conversation they’d been having. Just beyond her reach, just beyond her sight, just beyond her ability to sense it.

  Telvar balked. “I don’t know. It doesn’t feel like it should be like this.” Even he appeared rattled. It made Murmur wonder if perhaps he’d been sensing something and put it down to a glitch as well.

  The system had, after all, been having issues ever since it had to shut down and threw them into limbo. Ever since Somnia gained a sense of self.

  Wait! Watch out. Be careful, Murmur.

  The words echoed through Murmur’s head, and she twirled around, uncertain where this perceived threat was coming from.

  “Something’s here,” she said at the same time that Telvar spoke.

  “There’s something out there with an invisibility spell to rival the AIs.” He crouched into a fighting stance, body lowered, leg outstretched, his tail whipping back and forth with irritation so much that Murmur wasn’t sure how it didn’t overbalance him.

  About to ask him what was on his mind, she was interrupted by an all-too-familiar voice that made her freeze in her stride.

  “Well. What do we have here? Everyone I want to be rid of on one small island?”

  Murmur turned around just as her sensor net started to inundate her with notifications. She knew that voice, and while she hated it in her head, she despised it in the flesh.

  “Now, my dear.” Riasli’s ears twitched with amusement, as the army Murmur’s brain was warning her about blinked into existence around her. “Surely it’s not that surprising to see me here?”

  Somnia Online

  Exodus Guild Raid - Illinish Threshold

  Day Twenty

  The octopus’s corpse had still been sitting there when Jirald logged back in. He’d not stayed to see what the loot was; in fact, he hadn’t been the least bit interested. All he wanted was the getashi off the mob. It remained on its rotting corpse until all the others were gone,
and Jirald ventured back in. Luckily, with the boss dead, he wasn’t shuttled to the front of the dungeon. It left him where he’d logged out, staring out into the vast lake that the cavern housed. Without the monster in its center, it appeared like serene water under a shaft of moonlight.

  Only Jirald knew better. He knew it was thick, black sludge and not beautiful clear water. Like so many things, the lake was not what it seemed. Just like this last getashi he retrieved from the massive octopus of death. This one was larger than most of the others, but not as big as the trapdoor monster he’d blown up to gain entry to the dungeon in the first place.

  He stroked the smooth blackness of the shard, his fingers seeking imperfections and not finding them. What was it they contained? Why were they so special to that NPC? Murmur had seemed angered by the fact that Jirald was on the quest too. But he wasn’t sure if it was because she disliked him, wanted the quest for herself, or something else he wasn’t aware of.

  By now he had a dozen in his possession. Sometimes, when he was alone or the surroundings were close to silent, he imagined them speaking to him. Nothing overly audible, but whispers just beyond reach of his hearing. They seeped into his consciousness so that when he slept in his real bed outside of the game, the shards were all he could think of. The getashi and getting his hands on more of them.

  Murmur hadn’t seemed amenable to completing the quest. Which meant that if she was collecting the fragments, that she would have them somewhere. If not in her personal vault or on her person, surely they’d be somewhere in the guild vault. On that island. He knew it was on that island. All he had to do was get to them. Perhaps he could avoid confrontation completely and just ruin her quest without her knowing it.

  He could beat her to gathering them. Sidius wanted them, was willing to pay handsomely for them. But then why did they seem to speak to him as well?

  The getashi in his hand became warm as the octopus it came from began to melt into a jelly-like substance. Like it knew. So many elements of the world seemed to stay with him both in-game and out of it.