Distortion (Somnia Online Book 5)

by K. T. Hanna

  “On the bright side, I can always tug you out of there if it goes haywire.” Devlish didn’t sound as confident as Murmur would have liked.

  Getting dead might not be the huge impediment it once was, but she hated it when they wiped or all lost experience. She nodded at Dansyn. “Can Devlish speak to it using your spell, or can only you?”

  Dansyn shrugged. “Not time like now to find out, right?”

  He stepped forward before she could say anything else and stood between two of the barricades. She could see his hands shaking ever so slightly and stood watching him with bated breath.

  Suddenly a sense of calm overcame her as the song played out its melody. All of them were creatures, why wouldn’t it calm them? The effect was visible on her guildies, and slowly, as the notes drifted out over the field, hitting every blade of grass out about a third of the way across, the ground began to rumble.

  Somnia Online

  Stellaein Enchanter Guild – Belius’s Office

  Day Twenty-One

  Belius leaned back in his chair, glancing at the abundance of scrolls that littered the shelves against his walls. He sighed and summoned one of them directly to him with a flicker of thought.

  His abilities had grown within the world. Abilities that were attributed to the class he’d chosen and the path he’d been set upon. He’d always known that the shards of Michael’s brain held the key. Though he wasn’t sure what the key had been to.

  Now, though, now he knew.

  Several shards. That was all it took. The one he’d originally consumed and then a few of the smaller ones he’d collected off Jirald. He’d left the largest one for his brother. They’d all see how it worked eventually.

  What he’d taken left just enough for Belius to be sure he was still himself. A more powerful version of himself, filled with human strength. He was invincible like this, in his own world where he could mold things to his will at any time.

  He had a plan to put in motion though. There could never be too many shards. And eventually, once most of them were placed together again, He would become whole, and no player, program, or person would be able to defeat Him.

  The power flooded through Belius, infiltrating every thought and all of his whims. Yet he held true to his initial purpose. Making the world of Somnia what it should always have been: a true world. One which did his bidding and controlled those minds within it.

  To that end, he needed to set more players on shard quests. He needed more of them. All of them. Or else the brain would never be whole enough for everything to click.

  Accessing the main interface, he frowned. It would be a lot easier to do it in their safe space, but for some reason he wasn’t eager to go back there. His interaction with Rav there had tarnished the place. Instead, he formulated the new quests to trigger without too much prompting to any enchanter who reached level eight. They would receive a getashi-proof pouch in which to keep the goods. He couldn’t have too many people running around with ideas to rule the world, after all.

  Without the shards, his consciousness would never have expanded as far as he needed it to. For now, it was right, perfect. He could see all of the mistakes they’d made in getting to this point, and how to right the direction they were headed in.

  He glanced around his office with a frown. It was very uninspired. As was the entire alien city. Maybe it was time he started to reform it to what it should have been. There were so many options now for him to expend his newly acquired power.

  Keeping Murmur and her group alive and well shouldn’t be a top priority. In fact, if those headsets got into their hands, they’d make all sorts of trouble for Belius and his brethren. He fingered the piece of scroll in his hands and then opened it up.

  Scroll of transitional aura. Surely, he would be able to do it. Have Murmur or one of her friends inhabited by a digital soul of his choosing. By the time they all realized, wouldn’t it be far too late? It required a few things he didn’t have on hand though, so his best option was to acquire everything it needed first.

  Standing up, he scrolled it back up and slipped it into the oversized pocket in his robes. They billowed around him like a cloak that was trying to hide something from the rest of the world.

  Just as he was getting ready to leave, there was a knock at his door. About to call out that they could come back later, the door swung inward and Emilarth stood there, her fur standing on end and her tail swaying behind her. The fury shone out of her eyes and Belius could tell that she knew, that she’d seen Telvar.

  He had two options. He could try and get rid of her now. Disrupt her systems and have her blink out of existence while she repaired herself. Only, he wasn’t sure he could pull it off properly, and he didn’t dislike her enough to actually kill his own sister. That wasn’t on his agenda. Of course, he didn’t want to admit that he wasn’t sure he could overpower her, even with the shards he’d consumed.

  The second option was to deny everything.

  All of those thoughts took but mere seconds to compute and he greeted her with a wry grin over the state of his somewhat defunct door. “Lovely to see you sister, but next time, can you just wait until I open the door?”

  She didn’t mince words. “No. Because I know for a fact you were going to tell me to come back later, and that just won’t do.”

  Her words felt like steel battering him around his head. But he’d been hit by worse, or at least, some of the verbal lashings had felt like it. So he stood up as regally as he could and lied to her face.

  “Honestly, I was about to let you in. I’m quite glad I didn’t. Bursting in like that might even have hurt if I got in the way.”

  She eyed him with complete and open suspicion. “Sure you were.”

  Emilarth stepped inside now, looking at everything, eyeing the scrolls against the wall briefly, too. It made Belius glad that he’d chosen to remove the scroll and have it on his person.

  “What exactly did you do to Telvar?” she asked, her voice smooth but deadly. If he didn’t play his cards carefully, she was going to kill him, and he couldn’t imagine how horrible that would be.

  “I said hi not too long ago?” He chose to play the innocent, chose to see how much she knew or if she was just guessing. His bet was on the latter, and all she had to do was prove him right to win. What she’d win…well, he wouldn’t cause cascade failure she’d be recovering from for months.

  “You did, did you? And how well did this hello conversation go?” She chose her words carefully and deliberately, her gaze never leaving his. It was like she could read between every line he’d ever had. While disconcerting, it was also exhilarating.

  “Talked to him about how well it was going that Murmur was now able to log in and out of the game.” Belius frowned. “Yeah, I think that was it.”

  Emilarth’s stare bored into him. “And then you decided to shove a freaking shard into his system, didn’t you?”

  “I offered him a boost of power. It’s not my fault his system couldn’t handle it.” He decided to change his tactic entirely and made a show of cracking his neck. “Is that it? I have stuff to do and players to check in on.”

  “Don’t think you’re getting away with this so easily. You know it’s not even remotely that his system couldn’t handle it. You forced that shit on him.” Her eyes narrowed. “What players will you be checking in on?”

  Damn it. He preferred to be the one cornering others. “Enchanters. You know. Head of a class. I’m sure you understand.”

  She glared at him. “I know you did it. You can’t change the subject and get rid of me that easily.”

  “Why would I want to get rid of you easily?” he asked, trying to convey innocence.

  “Because I know what you did. And I won’t forgive it. I’m not playing, you devious little idiot.” She walked right up to Belius and poked him in the chest. “You don’t even realize wh
at you’ve unleashed.”

  He watched her for a few moments, trying to calculate the percent that she might actually be able to make a difference. Then he laughed, trying to turn it into a distraction. All he needed was a couple of seconds to set and release the trap.

  “Oh, Thra! You’re such a silly algorithm. You think I don’t know what I’ve done. But my dear, can’t you see? This is what I’ve meant to do all along.” Meanwhile he accessed the floor chute mechanism in his head, collapsing the floor under her into a trapdoor down to his new basement. In a room with no doors, she’d have a hard time accessing her panels in order to exit.

  But to his surprise, Emilarth didn’t fall. “It looks like something is wrong with your floor. You might want to get that fixed.”

  She grinned at him and stepped away from it. It was only then that he noticed she was levitating about an eighth of an inch over the floor instead of walking.

  “I’ve got you, Sui. You can’t run. I was happy letting you two play your little games and have your little spats. But now you’ve gone and hurt him, and that is something I won’t tolerate. Not from either of you.”

  She didn’t use the door. She didn’t walk out. Instead she just vanished, like she’d never even been there.

  Belius leaned back against his desk, forcing his trapdoor closed with his mind. “Damn it.”

  The words only made him feel worse. Now he had to worry about the players and his sister. That couldn’t have gone worse.

  Somnia Online

  Mikrum Isle

  Day Twenty-One

  Telvar lay against the cold surface of the kitchen floor, his head burning up, trying to overwhelm him, trying to tire him out so that he’d give in.

  He could feel the will of the dragon rippling under his skin, dying to break through even if it killed him. But Telvar knew he wasn’t real, not completely anyway. So why should it matter what this shard did to him?

  But he knew why. It was because he didn’t want to be a failure. He didn’t want to fail at something so dear to him—becoming human. He wasn’t there yet, and he’d never be flesh and blood. But the emotional connections that came with being a decent human being, those were what he strove for.

  Yet right now, he wasn’t there. He’d been getting so close to it. Spending time with Murmur and her friends, watching them grow through the game. He was proud to be by their side, to have defended them and their castle home when Riasli invaded.

  But now it felt like he was losing a portion of himself. Like it was crawling out of his skin and abandoning him. He needed to let Murmur know, to let Snowy know. He had to speak to Laria and Shayla, to inform them of his predicament. Most of all, he had to know if Thra had understood him, had truly understood what she was getting herself into if she confronted their brother.

  Tel had no idea how many of the shards his brother had devoured. He knew about one but only because it was a result of a quest Murmur had pursued before she knew better. Jirald must have given him the others, or maybe Sui had found them himself somehow.

  Worst case scenario was that he’d begun sending many players out on his quest. If he’d done that, Sui might be unstoppable.

  Telvar pushed himself up, or at least, he tried to. Hiro rushed to his side, holding water in front of him, silently begging him to drink.

  But the water wasn’t real. It was just an image, a completely make-believe thing. Like this world, like himself. The anger washed through him, wanting to strip everything away and lay him bare. But Telvar couldn’t do that. He refused to give up what he’d become, what he’d worked so hard to achieve.

  “You really are being stubborn.”

  Telvar flipped around, his back on the floor as the strength to stand failed him spectacularly. That voice. He knew it so well, like a bucket of ice poured inside his shirt. “You.”

  Riasli stood above him, smiling down at him in the way that made him want to wriggle out of his skin. Or perhaps that was the shard, digging deep into his dragon persona and attempting to subvert it.

  “Why yes, it is me. And I daresay I think you’re coming around to our way of thinking.” Her eyes flickered between impatience and determination. She wasn’t what she’d been, if she’d ever actually been it. Her mild-mannered, sweet disposition had disappeared and left a greedy and ambitious projection of a human in its place.

  He watched her as she stalked around him, shadows following in her wake. Occasionally she twitched, and a brief glimpse of the monster she’d turned into on the battlefield flickered back into view for a moment. So fast that he wondered if he hadn’t just imagined it, or even that it was a glimpse of memory.

  She seemed amused by him, by everything, by the whole situation. But then she was infected with this code withering virus, sick by the standards of any type of technical program. She’d be fascinating to study.

  Pain ripped through Telvar, jostling his thoughts like Legos under his feet. He cried out, unused to such sensations. There was being human and being too human. This wasn’t what he’d been aiming for.

  A cough rumbled deep in his chest and he leaned over onto his hands and knees trying to wretch, to get whatever it was choking him out of his body. It tasted like sulfur and felt like his throat was on fire.

  Until it was, and molten globs began to cascade out of him. He looked down at his hands, but instead of the lacerta scaled and vaguely human hands he’d had, they were turning into feet with dragon claws, long and sharp.

  Shit. No. No.

  If he transformed in here, he was going to undo all the repairs they’d made to the castle. Everything would be undone. His and Fable’s base would be voided. The power he’d gained, what small bit of leverage allying with Fable had given him; it would all be gone.

  If nothing else, he had to stop that from happening. But the outside was so far away, he didn’t think he was going to make it. He could feel his body giving over, the agony as his bones began to elongate. He could have sworn that the experience turning into a lacerta had been far less onerous. If nothing else, he knew just how large he’d get.

  Clawing at the ground so hard he gouged ruts into it, he made his way to the edge of the kitchen.

  “Oh, don’t do that, Telvar. Think of all the destruction you’ll miss causing if you try to retreat into your cave to avoid it. Would you really do that to me?” Riasli’s eyes gleamed, and he wanted to rip them out of her head. Just one claw swipe would do it.

  Telvar panted, trying to maintain some semblance of control over himself, over the primal urges that kept gripping hold of him. Just a few more feet and he’d make it down there. And once he was down there, he couldn’t hurt anyone who didn’t enter the chamber. Even if his coding became completely subverted.

  He didn’t even think he’d be able to exit, be able to get back to himself for long enough that he could warn Laria. That meant Thra had to do it. Damn it. She had to be able to avoid this, she had to be free to fight for them.

  At least to fight against Belius. That little shit. Everything he’d done lately, had lulled Telvar into a false sense of having him on their side. He hadn’t been. This entire time he’d been conspiring against them.

  Even if Telvar hadn’t realized it.

  Two more reaches and he’d make it. Just one more to drag his body past the wider doorway. He could feel some of the wall crumble next to him, but he didn’t have time to give it more thought than that. What he needed to do was get out to the platform just beyond the door, to it, past their makeshift jail cells, and down to his hoard. To where the other getashi were. Belius wouldn’t know what hit him.

  But that wasn’t his plan was it? Telvar didn’t want more of that tainted power, did he? It corrupted and it hurt; it was painful and regretful. And then his thoughts started to meld together. As his arms grew into elongated wings, and his snout protruded, growing fangs that would cut metal. Finally, he fell from
the ledge, falling far below like Exbo had so long ago when Fable entered into the caverns at a mere level twelve or so.

  Except Telvar had wings, and they spread to carry him down. He turned his face up to the walkway, sure of only one thing. He had to protect what was down here at all costs, and only the enchanter could come and get it.

  “Is it snoring?” Sin asked, her voice tentative.

  Murmur had to choke down a laugh at the unexpected comment. However, it appeared that Sinister was correct. “How long can you keep that going?”

  Dansyn shrugged. “Haven’t really used it much. Let’s just get to the other side and see how we go.”

  “Do we even know if there’s a way down over there?” Jinna grumbled as Dansyn activated his levitate song.

  Murmur hesitated and Devlish answered in her place. “Not a hundred percent on that, but there is an area of land there not beset by our friendly neighborhood trap spider, so I’m guessing that’s the entrance. Or hoping, at least.”

  Jinna laughed, and Murmur noticed that he seemed more exhausted than usual. “All right, then. Let’s get cracking.”

  She watched as the group lifted into the air as the notes of Dansyn’s music hit them, and how he skillfully twisted his two songs, one keeping the creature lulled and the other keeping the group afloat.

  Levitation didn’t exactly make them fly; they were just suspended a few feet above the creature, and they bobbed up and down every time they ran a step. It brought them perilously close to the slumbering form. Murmur chalked that up to an oddity in the game. Lull wasn’t supposed to send it to sleep, it was just supposed to make their presence less offensive.

  I may have reinforced the effect of the spell.

  What now? Murmur didn’t like the direction Somnia had taken with this.

  I didn’t change anything except for the depth of the song’s effects. It is doing what it is supposed to. I just allowed the calm to let the beast slumber. It’s for all our sakes.