Somnia Online - K.T. Hanna (best black authors .txt) 📗

though. He just needed the damned mount so he could get to the city and catch a boat. He groaned as he thought about it, glad the NPCs were alert enough to just take his gold when he told them exactly what he wanted. It could have taken him so much longer if he had to go through a script.

Mounting up, he made his way to Pelagu, determined to find Wren and force her to tell him what he wanted—no, what he needed to know. He might not have all his dev powers anymore, nor all of the warlock abilities he’d been used to. But he was a warlock, and he did have a few tricks up his sleeve.

Even as he moved out of the town, he could have sworn that damned statue in the fountain was following him with its eyes. It gave him the heebie-jeebies, and he kicked the wolf into a gallop as soon as he could, just to get away from the creepy damned fountain.

Storm Entertainment

Somnia Online Division

Game Development Offices - Artificial Intelligence Server Room

Early Day Thirty

The whir of the machines calmed Laria. She loved to come in and see them. Or she had before everything fell apart when her daughter managed to get stuck in the damned game. Rav’s machine was brightly lit, its lights blinking so rapidly it was hard to tell they were doing so at all. She watched for a few moments before speaking. Once she spoke, it would break the illusion that things were still normal. That the machines weren’t evolving somehow…and that she still understood everything that had to do with the game she created.

But she knew the new reality was different. Even Thra and Sui’s servers seemed to be working properly again. It was good to see all three machines operational. Maybe they were all cooperating with one another. Finally.

“I think we have it.” She couldn’t contain her excitement, and while she knew the AIs were approaching sentience, she wasn’t entirely sure if they’d actually reached it yet. Which would mean they couldn’t fully appreciate how happy she was.

“You have the anti-virus?” Thra’s question held an edge of hope. Like she didn’t dare believe it might be true.

“That I do.” Laria paused, knowing she had to be completely honest with them. “Well, I think I do, anyway. We haven’t completely tested it yet, but we did run simulations. And theoretically, it’s working.”

The systems made a few whirs and clicks, and a couple of squeals, but the three of them stood their ground waiting for the AIs to get back to them. Laria could feel her patience sapping away, but made herself pause. She knew the AIs weren’t being deliberately obtuse, they were just running everything over twice and being methodical.

Finally, Rav spoke. “What’s the plan?”

“Distribute it. Find anything you can and instead of killing it, make sure the anti-virus is injected through it into the system. It’s not going to be enough just to fix the base; we’re going to have to fix the portions that have already been infected in order to make sure it goes through to the source.” Laria got the words out in a rush, surprising even herself. David squeezed her shoulders again as he took another sip of his coffee. “We need to make sure it doesn’t spread farther through any means—we can’t afford it getting out of Somnia and into the rest of the net.”

It was Thra who spoke next. “They will be in that dungeon for a good number of hours yet. It gives us time to get it done, if we split up.” There was a worried underwhir to her words, and Laria wondered what it was they weren’t telling the humans.

“Okay. Just be careful,” Shayla said, like she was worried about them. And Laria found herself feeling oddly protective too. Not like she didn’t have enough to worry about with Wren, so that was great.

“We will. Thank you for doing this. We have been otherwise occupied.” Sui’s voice hummed out of the machine too. This time it was more even-keeled and held less interference. Whatever had been wrong with him seemed to be fixed.

It was a clear dismissal, and Laria left the room with the others, making sure it locked behind them. She just had to hope they could complete the task or the game world was going to dissolve, and she wasn’t sure how safe that would be with the intricate connections to it some people seemed to have.

The water was colder than Murmur expected, at least until the Boon kicked in fully. It smelled of salt and sweetness, not what she’d expected to associate with an entirely different level of the world that was out to kill them all. And she really didn’t want to put her head under, but it was either that and swim toward the rest of the dungeon, or else be left behind.

Her first instincts were to close her eyes, but that wasn’t going to help anyone, and if the buff they had cast didn’t let them see underwater as well as breathe, they were shit out of luck. Steeling herself to be stung without remorse by the salt that would assault her eyes, she opened them.

And choked in a mouth full of water in surprise as she didn’t succumb to horrific pain as caused by the sea water in the lake. Typical. Of course, Somnia wasn’t going to adopt the regular concerns that belonged to a saltwater lake. She was willing to bet that all arrows and spells were going to fly straight and true, and the physics of water wouldn’t affect anyone either.

Of course not. What did you expect? That would be a horrible disadvantage. No one would ever go to the underwater zones.

Somnia almost sounded indignant, and Murmur had to choke down the laughter along with a sliver of water that got past her lips. You make a good point, was what she said instead.

I should think