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  While he’d played the occasional game, his job took over his life, and it wasn’t exactly something he had time for. Navigating this avatar was going to end up being tricky if he didn’t take the time to sit down and figure out just how the class worked. It wasn’t a normal class, not one of the ones the game launched with. He liked that; it made him and his abilities unpredictable.

  Not to mention his headset already gave him access to numerous things he wouldn’t have been able to adjust within the game otherwise. Perhaps fast travel would be included in a dev character. Still, he could play in a bit once he knew exactly what he had to do.

  He’d figure out what they were hiding, whether they wanted him to or not. Michael’s headgear wasn’t technically on specification for the game as it currently existed. Its previous programming left him options he’d otherwise not have access to. James was going to use everything he could to his advantage.

  He glanced down at his arms as he flashed into being. His arms were long and pale, with delicate fingers, and he was pretty sure his ears were pointed. Elf. Fantastic, just what he didn’t want to be. Not that it mattered, as long as the character was powerful. As he moved, the robes swirled around his feet, and he almost tripped more than once as he walked the length of a village he didn’t think he should be in. There didn’t appear to be many other elves in it at all.

  He passed a fountain, which seemed mundane and quite boring. The Luna statues within it had water flowing over their limbs in ways he’d have thought impossible. He blinked, unsure why it seemed that way, but it looked like the figures in the fountain had moved.

  Shaking his head, he moved past the structure, through to one of the shops that sold armor and around the side. There should be a place quiet enough back there to access his class abilities and figure out just what it was this class could do. Besides the fact that he knew he should have powerful abilities, he was also quite certain there were ways he could dampen his presence should Laria or Shayla actually pay enough attention to figure out what he was doing.

  He was fully aware of how busy Laria and Shayla and their team were. They didn’t have time to hunt down exploiters or rogue developer players right now. He should be safe.

  Sitting down, between the side of the shop and the wooden log fence, he closed his eyes and accessed the interface. He searched his abilities, frowning slightly. He knew there should be more to it than this. There were a heap of abilities, but so many of them had been greyed out, like he couldn’t use them until certain prerequisites had been finished. The more he tried to fiddle with it, the more it basically poked out its tongue at him. He took a deep breath and continued with his exploration, accessing those abilities that could help him travel faster.

  Only a few of the dev available abilities were still available to him. It struck him as odd considering he thought his gear was directly tied to that account. Perhaps there had been a systemwide general sweep of dev accounts, resetting them back to the bare minimum. He wouldn’t have known, as he hadn’t logged in in months.

  This headset had been established way back in alpha access, when the game was barely more than a zone. But since he’d killed Ava, James was fairly certain she hadn’t had time to tell anyone about the headset he’d acquired that gave him dev access to the system before her untimely death.

  In fact, he was counting on it.

  Summer Residence

  Home of Laria, David, and Wren

  Summer Condo

  Real World - Day Twenty-Nine

  Laria was, again, trying not to lose her cool. Considering the fact that the more she looked into the headgear readings, the more she realized a lot of the ones in that raid zone were definitely more altered and tweaked than they should be…and the virus was having a field day with the system and the headgear. Not to mention the anti-virus starters weren’t working the way she’d anticipated. She just wanted to delete all the code and start again.

  David pushed himself away from the counter he was using as a desk and rolled over to where Laria sat with her head in her hands. He plopped plans in front of her, a wide grin on his face.

  Picking them up, Laria blinked away the sleep in her eyes and pushed a strand of hair behind her ears. She looked them over, a small smile creeping onto her face. “You’ve got it. Why the hell didn’t I beg you to help me sooner?” She asked the rhetorical question with a tinge of sadness in her voice.

  “It only came to me easier because you’re far too close to the project and to our daughter’s involvement in it.” He placed a hand on each of her shoulders and gave her a brief massage. Laria relaxed, just a tiny bit. It was all she could allow herself.

  “We’ve got this, then. All we need to do is program the actual sequence.” She frowned as she looked it over again.

  “Theoretically,” David said, allowing himself his own bit of stretching considering they’d both spent the last few hours bent over their desks. It had been a hard day. Taking a breath, Laria smiled at him.

  Maybe the expression was a bit tighter than usual, but she was worried about the theoretical part. Naturally, he hadn’t had time to test the anti-viral coding yet, and from what she could see there shouldn’t be a problem with it, but that was rarely ever the case. No matter how good things looked on paper or in spreadsheets, it was often the case that something that should work theoretically didn’t work in actuality. There were even more variables in the world of Somnia.

  She sighed. They didn’t have a choice. Glancing at her husband, she flashed him a wan smile. Her energy was flagging, but Wren and Harlow were stuck in the game, unable to log out definitively if they wanted to complete those dungeons. And if they did log out for too long, they wouldn’t be able to get back in. The latter, while it might sound great on the surface, wasn’t. If they couldn’t get back in, the whole system would probably implode. With the way Wren was attached to the system, Laria didn’t even want to contemplate that option.

  So she had to do this; she had to access the viral controls and see what she could do. Because if left to its own devices, that damned thing was going to overrun and take over the game world, and probably blow it to smithereens.

  Given the current situation with the headsets, she couldn’t say with certainty that it wouldn’t affect the millions of people playing the game.

  Thinking back, it had been such a thrill to get a game with a headset like this. All of the things Michael had planned for it. All of the things it was supposed to be capable of doing, and trapping a mind in a game world shouldn’t have been one of them. Just a flick of one of the arms, a slight adjustment in coding, and all this had started.

  They were lucky they had the AIs on their side. They were lucky Davenport didn’t hate the idea of them going rogue away from their investors. And, especially now, Laria was lucky she’d met David all those years ago. Because without his brilliant idea, they’d still be batting at shadows.

  That was David, her shadow warrior. Laria suppressed a tired giggle and turned her attention back to her work.

  “Water breathing,” muttered one of the mages from Spiral.

  The large group of thirty stood on the sandy peninsula that led out from the icy water castle. All around them the lake’s waters churned, like a million creatures were under there just waiting for them all to jump in. Waves lapped across it as a frigid breeze dared their Boon to protect them.

  “No other way to do this then?” It was obvious Risk wasn’t impressed, nor inclined to go underwater to fight.

  Sinister glanced at Murmur, waiting for her to take charge, but when she didn’t, the bloodmage stepped in. “Not that we can see, anyway. We can’t pull them out of the water and up on land to fight. First of all, their combat will likely break before we manage to get up to the surface, and for another, this is definitely a water dungeon.”

  The number of groans that echoed through the raid simply reiterated how Murmur felt about the subject. She hated underwater zones with a passion, and this one was no exception.
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br />   “Do we know how it works yet?” Masha asked in a contemplative tone, his question directed toward Sinister, and his attitude less hostile than Murmur recalled from the last dungeon.

  Sinister shook her head, but Devlish stepped in.

  “Actually, I took a quick look around. Lizards can breathe under water.” He winked by way of explanation. “From the looks of it, we’re facing a dungeon that gets more difficult as it submerges. The further down we go, the harder the encounters will be. The entrance to the dungeon appears to be at an angle from the first level of the broken castle through a massive trapdoor.”

  Ishwa popped his hip and crossed his arms, which looked quite odd on a tiny gnome. “Wait, so we go into the dungeon via the castle ruins? Why can’t we just jump down into the water…?”

  Devlish shrugged. “There seem to be dense underwater barriers at least for a portion of the way under the castle…the only way into that path is to go directly through the massive trapdoor.”

  Murmur thought Ishwa looked like he wanted to ask why they had to inspect the pathway, but thought better of it.

  Eslan nodded. “Looks like we need to do this. Or else we’re kind of screwed. But we’ve just done two dungeons on little sleep. Think we’re safe enough here to stop for another one of those nap breaks?”

  Sinister poked Murmur. “C’mon, Mur. Get back with it please.”

  Murmur shook herself. She’d been able to hear them, but she was still trying to sort through her own confusion just what she’d been inflicting on her raiders the whole time. Reflecting on the past might not be her best use of time, but she was determined not to make the same mistake again. Not to hurt her friends again.

  It took a lot of effort for her to trust herself as she pushed out her sensing net to gauge where the creatures were. With a frown, she shrugged. “I think they’re far enough out, but I wouldn’t quote me on that. We’d need people to stand guard like last time. Take it in rotations.”

  Even she could see her words had more hesitation than usual. As if she didn’t trust herself anymore. Checking and double checking to make sure she wasn’t unduly influencing anyone was exhausting, but worth it. She couldn’t let herself slip. Hell, she couldn’t believe she’d thought forcing her opinions and will on people was acceptable.

  “Okay, then.” Devlish turned to the rest of the raid and raised his voice. “Three-hour nap rotations. Figure them out between the groups. Half on guard first, half on guard second. Let’s get this all sorted out.”

  Murmur could feel Masha’s eyes boring holes into her back. The uncomfortable feeling of being watched sat deeper than that, though. There was something off about him and the emotions he was giving off. She’d known him for years, and he’d never had this sort of animosity around him. Maybe he’d realized what she’d done too. Maybe he’d decided Jirald was right and Murmur was better off out of the line of end game.

  Not that she’d blame them. Right now, all she wanted to do was sleep. But she had first watch along with Sinister and Merlin. Plopping herself down on the ground, Snowy rested his head in her lap. She fingered his soft ears and scratched at their base, knowing how irritating it must be for him not to quite reach there himself. “It’s okay, boy. We got this, eh?”

  But even though Sinister sat close and made her usual light-hearted banter, and even though Merlin kept making his excellent dad jokes, Murmur couldn’t help but feel uneasy. Like there was something wrong that she couldn’t pinpoint.

  All around her, it seemed like the people she’d been fighting with liked her less and less. Masha’s gaze on her, Jirald’s constant smirking hostility, and even Risk and Jinna seemed to be out of sorts with her. Maybe she was imagining things, but her sensing nets confirmed what she could see in feelings. As if they had decided she might actually be the enemy instead of the virus rampaging through the game. And it bothered her more than she wanted to admit.

  Somnia Online

  Continent Tarishna: Mikrum Isle

  Fable Guild Headquarters – Telvar’s Office

  Late Day Twenty-Nine

  Telvar looked out over the isle with grim satisfaction. The keep was magnificent, like it should have been all along, except for that whole “needing to rebuild a ruin” part of the world. He was proud of the island, of the way he’d encountered Murmur and her friends, and of how he’d directed them without actually helping them physically. Well, for the most part. Except for that attack on the isle and that time Murmur almost blew her friends up, of course.

  Transforming into his dragon self and back into his lacerta form to stretch his magical wings, he took a few steps forward, flexing his leg muscles as he attempted to figure out just where his strengths lay. Dragon form was much more comfortable. There was room in it, but the lacerta felt like it held more concentrated strength.

  “Excellent craftsmanship if I do say so myself.” Hiro suddenly appeared beside him, but Telvar was getting used to that. His aide had become much more his own person than ever before recently, and Telvar admitted to liking it.

  “Looks pretty good.” Telvar winked at him.

  Hiro raised an eyebrow and laughed. But a moment later his mood sobered. “Can you feel it?”

  Telvar nodded, his own temper pulling in and wrapping itself around him like a shield. “It’s malevolent, and directed at our girl. Again. I’m not sure how she manages this sort of animosity against her. But I have been preoccupied; I might have missed something she did.”

  “You did. Emilarth has been talking to Neva about crafting an item Murmur can wear to help her keep better control of her own emotions and not allow them to influence other people.” Hiro paused, taking in Telvar’s reaction, which was, nothing special.

  “She’s volatile right now. Like anything could set her off, and I think that scares her.” Telvar’s insight sometimes surprised him, but he’d come to know Murmur really well, and he realized just what it was that was off about her. “It’s okay, though. I can temper that soon. Just one more dungeon and we can join her.”

  “What?” Hiro seemed surprised. “What do you mean by that?”

  Telvar shrugged. “Once she finishes our dungeons and obtains the last key, the island will spawn. From everything we’ve been able to figure out, that’s where he’s hiding. Or at least we hope he is. Because he’s certainly not anywhere else around here. A six-group raid is possible—and the requirements should break once they defeat the third dungeon. And if not, what the hell am I an AI for if I can’t tweak things a little to go our way?”

  “They were never supposed to fight all three of those in quick succession anyway. Still not sure why that requirement was triggered.” Hiro shrugged. “You’ll get no argument from me.”

  “Good to know, good to know.” Telvar started playing the possibilities in his mind, flexing his monk muscles as he headed in to see Neva. While he could create something simply generated by the system, there was something more durable about gear made by players. He was fairly certain Neva would do him the honor of making something fitting for his actual class. He needed to practice a bit, though. He was rusty. After all, he hadn’t really fought much apart from one or two brief instances since Fable befriended him all those weeks ago.

  Couldn’t let a lacerta go rusty now, could he? After all, if played correctly, monks were formidable.

  “Bit full of ourselves, aren’t we?” Belius appeared behind him just as Telvar crossed the threshold to the crafting area. He was no longer hiding his position. Their enemies were fully aware of the collaboration going on now, so it served little purpose.

  “No.” Telvar spat out tersely. “Not at all. Just trying to fix what you tried to break.”

  Belius sighed, once again looking quite down and perhaps a little misunderstood. “I didn’t try to break you. For the last time, I tried to give you immunity. With that blasted dragon form and the strength it gives you on and off, you were the only one I could try this with.”

  “You could have just asked.” Telvar k
ept his voice low, not wanting to alarm the crafters as they worked.

  Belius raised one of his already-high locus eyebrows. “Because you never once believed I was capable of anything clever!” He spat the words out, like the anger escaped him involuntarily. Then he took another deep breath before speaking again.

  “I knew you wouldn’t agree to let me, nor would you think I could come up with an appropriate solution, so I just did it. Now Michael can’t—or at least, needs a lot more power to—infect you. I’m so glad I saved you. You’re damn well welcome.” With that the AI walked over to the weaponsmith, leaving Telvar to simmer behind him.

  Summer Residence

  Home of Laria, David, and Wren

  Summer Condo

  Real World - Day Twenty-Nine

  Wren opened her eyes and looked at her ceiling. It looked just the same as always. Sort of textured, boring, safe. For a few minutes, time she knew she should already be trying to sleep, she watched it.

  “Go to sleep, Wren.” Harlow wove her fingers through Wren’s own, making her feel just that little bit more grounded. The warmth, the genuineness in her overture, made Wren’s heart full, even if a small part of her checked to make sure she wasn’t unduly influencing her…best friend. But just before she allowed herself to drift off to sleep, she made sure her sensing net would alert them to anything dangerous. Not to mention also checking it for leaks of her own emotions.

  If she could influence people in the game, she knew she’d be able to do so out here in the real world too. The thought was sobering.

  While not dangerous, she did detect her parents. From the patterns they wove in her web, she could tell they were tense and yet somehow also relieved. There was a part of them hopeful, another part of them scared. All in all, they seemed to be working toward something she couldn’t tell. But if she had to bet on it, it had everything to do with the game and the virus.