“Niece or nephew?” Rose asked.
“They refuse to find out. Apparently, it’s a tradition in my sister-in-law’s family and my brother honestly has no say in the matter.”
“Ooh, that’s so exciting. You’ll have to share pictures with us when the little blob is born,” Rose added.
It was rare that I ever heard her gush or get girly about anything, but apparently, babies were one such area where she did. Though, I’m not sure calling the baby a blob was appropriate despite the description being somewhat apt.
“I will if I can. I requested very strongly to my niece or nephew to hold out on being born until I finish this login,” I shared. “My sister-in-law gave me a look for talking to her belly like that, but I thought it was justified.”
Rose giggled a little. “So demanding. I probably would have given you the same look.”
“Nah, you would have been right next to me demanding the same thing. Be honest, if I wasn’t here, who would you mess with?”
“Heath?” she stated sounding unsure of her answer. “Well, there is always my sister . . . yeah, you might have a point.”
We settled into a comfortable silence as we walked slowly up the street.
“So, about that kiss . . .” I started lamely, bluntly even. I wasn’t completely sure at all how to broach the subject, but knew I had to address it sooner rather than later.
Rose suddenly looked rather shy, refusing to look me in the eye. “I can be . . . impulsive sometimes.”
“I know, I like that about you because I’m not impulsive,” I replied. I took a deep breath, steeling my nerves. Then I asked, “Do you want to . . . go on a date . . . with me?”
“You sure?” she asked, finally looking at me. She looked somewhat vulnerable which was new, I don’t think I’d ever seen that side of her either. It kind of made me feel a bit protective of her, not that she needed protecting. Rose was very strong all on her own.
“I’m sure,” I replied.
“Okay,” she nodded. “Maybe once we decide on a new province and get settled in we can go on a date,” she suggested.
“Okay, it’s a date,” I replied, now suddenly feeling a little nervous and excited all at once.
Rose and I chatted a little more as we walked, Rose leading us to the inn where the others were waiting for us.
“Bye-bye is back!” Micaela cheered as soon as I entered.
I couldn’t help grinning to match her enthusiasm. The tall, one-eyed, ogre shaman with short, spiky, hot pink hair was as pixyish as ever. I could immediately see her stone armor covering most of her, but still incomplete. It still appeared to be coming along nicely, the limestone carved so carefully to form to protect her. I was still amazed that each stone was also a totem granting different effects. I also saw attached to the back of her belt were three large gourds, also totems, and on each hip hung one of her two axes, Butch and Sundance, and guess what they were, more totems. It was awfully impressive if you thought about just how many non-player characters (NPC) she had with her at all times.
“I don’t know why you say Bye-bye, I say hello,” sang Heath, grinning a little bit. He looked as relaxed as ever in his black leather jacket with garish red shoulders and sleeves and intentionally ripped jeans. He was sitting comfortably with a guitar, plucking strings for some tune or other. “Good to see you made it, mate. We were beginning to think you forgot about us,” he added without moving from his seat. His bad British accent ever present, probably worse than before he logged out.
“Ha, as if he could forget my ugly mug,” laughed Olaf, greeting me with a handshake that nearly crushed my hand. Like his wife Micaela, Olaf was an ogre and a really strong one at that. The large bald man easily towered over me, cutting a rather imposing figure. Especially, considering how physically chiseled with muscle the one-eyed ogre was.
“Good to see you again,” said Baby a bit icily. If I didn’t know any better, I would say she was glaring at me, as if I’d done something wrong. The effect lost a bit of its power considering she was barely over two feet tall and looked like a child with short, spiky, blonde hair and the cutest cheeks you ever saw. I just couldn’t picture her getting married, she was much too young.
“Oh stop, Sis,” said Rose, clearly understanding something I didn’t . . . and then I did. Rose was still firmly attached to my arm, her grip at my elbow tightening a bit. Was Baby jealous? Or was she being over-protective of her sister?
“It’s great to see you all again,” I said. “Sorry if you were waiting long for me.”
“Nah, not more than an hour,” said Olaf. “Anyway, we’ve mostly just been catching up on what we all did with our time off, but now that you’re here we can plan our next steps.”
“Before I can leave Root City I have to pay a visit to a few of the gods,” I started, best to be upfront about that in case they had forgotten. The goddess I serve, the Babylonian Goddess Issara, still owed me some answers. I also had to pay a visit to the temple of the Dwarven god of smiths, Ivaldi.
“I remember,” said Olaf. “Micaela and I have to visit a few of the professional guilds ourselves. She needs to get her license from the Builder’s Firm and I need mine from the Corp of Engineers, so we can start getting profession quests.”
“Which reminds me, I need to pay a visit to the Cartographer’s Guild and Rune College, too,” I added.
“My point, is that we all have business to attend to in the city before we select a province,” said Olaf, sounding a little annoyed that I interrupted him again, which was understandable. “I’m thinking it would be a good idea for us to spend a few days here, Root City here, not this inn here specifically, but closer to the trunk.”
“What are you thinking?” Baby asked, finally deciding to stop glaring at me.
“As you all know by now, Root City is huge. It’s a day’s travel to the trunk from here and that’s if we get a wagon to take us. I think we should travel to the third inner ring together and pick an inn there. That will put us near the temples, administration buildings, and the crafter’s ring. We can then spend a few days taking care of any business we need to, while also remaining somewhat close together. It’ll be a little pricey that close to the trunk, but we should all be able to afford it after the various rewards we got from our last week in Hurlig Ridge. Is anyone opposed to this?” Olaf asked reasonably.
“Works for me,” I said, the others quickly echoed the same.
“Right, I’ll see about getting us a carriage,” said Olaf, starting for the door.
“Maybe we could hire a portal mage,” I suggested, stopping him before he could leave. “It will be much faster and probably cost a little less than a carriage for all six of us.”
“That’s a good idea,” said Olaf, halting his exit. “I guess I’ll go spam trade chat,” he joked. There wasn’t actually a trade chat in the game or any kind of in-game instant messenger. You could talk, yell, scream and shout but if someone couldn’t hear you, then they couldn’t hear you. There was however in-game mail, so you could send letters and packages, there were rumors of them adding magical cellphone-like devices, but I personally didn’t buy that particular rumor. That said, they could implement some kind of magical chat eventually but for now, I liked things the way they were, it added a level of authenticity most other games didn’t offer.
While Olaf worked on that, I decided to try and talk to Baby and deal with whatever I’d done to upset her. Rose wished me luck and went to chat with Micaela about something or other.
“Hello Baby,” I started, taking a seat next to her and somewhat regretting it immediately. Not sitting next to her but sitting in that particular chair. The instant I sat in it, I felt unsanitary, like the chair was covered in dried beer and grease and who knows what else.
“Bye-bye,” she said coldly.
“Can I ask what I’ve done to get you so angry with me?” I requested.
“Are you serious about Rose?” she asked very directly.
“Yes,” I a
nswered honestly and without any hesitation. I don’t know why I like Rose considering all the grief she continued to give me, but I do.
Baby studied me for a minute. “You hurt her, and they’ll never find the body,” she warned me coldly, and I felt she meant it too. Then a second later, as if a switch had been thrown, she was back to the cute and childlike fairy I’d come to see as a dear friend. “So, how was the week off?”
And just like that things were back to normal. It didn’t take long before Baby was demanding pictures of my niece or nephew when they were available as well as her suggesting that I offer the name Baby for the baby.
“Alright, got a guy,” said Olaf, coming back into the inn. “It’ll cost us a gold apiece.”
That was actually a good rate, it cost me as much a week ago when I ported to the temple district by myself.
The mage Olaf found was, in fact, the same mage that ported me last time. He still looked disreputable, but I knew he was at least reliable.
“Oi, don’t I know you?” the mage asked, pointing at me.
“Yeah, you ported me to the temple district a week ago,” I answered.
“Wait, when did you go to the temple district?” Olaf asked, causing me to cringe a bit.
“When all of you logged out I chose to make a quick trip to visit my Goddess’s temple. This guy ported me there and the Goddess Issara ported me back, it’s why I was about an hour behind you guys to log back in,” I answered, slightly fearing their responses but I wasn’t going to lie to my friends. “Anyway, I barely got to talk to her before she kicked me out and told me to come back when I returned to the game.”
Olaf frowned for a moment before shrugging. “No worries, mate, learn anything worthwhile?”
“I was promoted to Initiate rank,” I answered.
“Alright, way to go, Bye-bye,” cheered Micaela. “We’ll have to celebrate tonight. You’re the first of us to be promoted.”
“How’d you manage it?” asked Olaf, seeming to have forgotten all about my delayed logout.
“I think it’s class quest related,” I answered. “When I get a class quest she rewards me with these sigils. I have no idea what they do yet but I’m hoping they’re awesome. Anyway, I’m guessing I got promoted for completing a certain number or earning a certain number of sigils.”
“How do we get class quests?” Micaela asked.
“I’ve gotten just one from Lilith so far, but she rewarded me with my class and Panther, no sigils. I’ll have to visit her temple and see if she has anything for me,” added Rose. She had attained the class of Vampiric Knight and was gifted a small black snake she named Panther. The diminutive snake was currently hanging around her neck like a necklace which kind of creeped me out. Much like the greatest cinematic adventurer of all time, I had a strong dislike of snakes . . . and worms . . . and anything that would fall within that particular realm of creepy-crawly.
“I would imagine, Heath has gotten a few from the thief’s guild,” I added.
“Only the Jack of All quest so far actually. I became a thief my first day rather easily, then I got my quest for Jack of All a few days after I learned to play the guitar in game. I haven’t done much of anything but work on that since. Most of my leveling has been done by earning experience for successfully picking locks and pockets,” He explained. Heath was an odd character even by gamer standards. He spoke with a bad British accent because he wanted to be rock’n’roller. His skills were a bit odd too, he apparently knew five spells that consisted of illusions though I’ve yet to see him use one, and he knows several thief skills. As he tells it, once he gains Rank II with the thief skills he’ll be able to test for Jack of All class, which is an advanced bard even though his class is a thief. I’m still trying to understand how that works but his skills that I’ve seen are no joke and we’re lucky to have him as part of our group . . . just don’t tell him that.
“Then possibly you need to find an NPC artillery officer?” I suggested, looking at Olaf. “Maybe check at one of the military barracks?” Olaf might have had the most powerful damage dealing class among us. He’s an Ogre Artillery that wields a pair of hand-cannons that were as long as my arms and easily twice the circumference. They fit well with the camouflage motif his armor presented. Eventually, he’s supposed to be able to equip a cannon, like a real cannon. I shudder to think about how much damage he’ll be able to do with such a thing when he gets one.
“That’s not a bad idea, I’ll have to look into it,” Olaf replied.
“Ooh, what about me?” Micaela asked excitedly.
“Shouldn’t your spirits be able to tell you? I mean, have you ever asked them?” Baby suggested before I could. The fairy made a good point. Micaela was a shaman, she imbues . . . captures . . . enslaves? Actually, I’m not sure how she gets her spirits and I haven’t really asked. Anyway, she has totems and they have spirits in them that can level and advance gaining abilities that operate on a global cooldown (GCD) system. Personally, I thought a GCD spell system like that was totally unfair, but given she was on my side, I found I didn’t mind so much.
“Then what about you, Baby?” asked Micaela.
“I need to talk to a fairy sage, probably going to need to take a few days to travel to one of the fairy trees if I want to look into it but that will have to wait until I hit level ten, so I can get some new spells. Don’t get me wrong, the holy spells Trini taught me are great, but they just aren’t as powerful as equivalent spells in the nature category would be for me,” explained Baby, her six wings fluttering slightly as she shifted their position. Despite being of small size and limited in what she could equip, Baby had a great deal of power behind her class, especially in the magical arts and as a sage she could become a really powerful healer. Trinico, or Trini as we sometimes call her, is the high priestess from the last province we were in and played a large role in training us. She also had nothing but praise for Baby and her class’s ability to heal.
“Not to be rude, but do you want the portal or not?” the mage asked, sounding slightly impatient.
“Right, sorry, yes, we’ll take it,” said Olaf, giving the mage the 6-gold after collecting one from each of us.
“Right, one portal to the third ring,” said the mage lazily, weaving his hands in some kind of intricate pattern before he suddenly jerked his hands apart creating a tear in the air in front of him. The portal was a simple hole in the air that showed someplace other than where we stood.
“Okay, hurry up and go through already,” ordered the mage, sweating slightly as he worked to maintain the portal.
Heath sauntered through first followed by Baby then Rose and I with Olaf and Micaela coming through last.
The area was quite different from where we’d just been. Where the area we’d been seemed a bit impoverished or maybe inexpensive while this area looked lavish. The buildings were all crisp and clean and there was lighting enough that it felt like daylight all around us as opposed to the almost constant darkness of the outer ring we just came from. After I took a deep breath, I noticed it even smelled better.
“So, any idea where we can find an inn?” Rose asked.
“A cheap inn,” added Heath, looking around. “I would bet even the cheapest inn around here is still nicer than Dogson’s and probably triple the price or more.”
“When in doubt, ask a guard,” said Olaf, motioning to a rather stalwart looking man labeled
“Excuse me,” I started as politely as I could manage.
“Move along,” the guard replied tersely.
“Would you mind pointing us to a cheap inn nearby?” I requested.
“Move along or you will be arrested,” warned the guard, successfully getting my hackles up as well as Rose’s.
“Now listen here jerk, we made a simple request, now I suggest you drop the attitude and answer the ques
tion,” Rose nearly shouted at the soldier.
“Last warning, move along or face the consequences,” warned the soldier, his hand drifting toward his sheathed sword.
“What is with all this ruckus?” a voice demanded from behind the guard, the door now open revealing another soldier, this one seeming to the one in charge.
“Apologies sir, I advised this riff-raff to move along already and they are being uncooperative. I was about to call the city watch to have them arrested,” said the guard, not taking his eyes off us.
I looked at the man the guard deferred to,
Sergeant Butters was a skills trainer in Hurlig Ridge. The man was a heavily scarred soldier, formerly a knight but put in disgrace by his family. Anyway, the sergeant was a good man and taught all of us a great deal.
The officer before us, carried himself much the same way, however, that was where the comparison ended. Unlike Sergeant Butters, this man was unblemished and clean shaven as well as being well-dressed. All this in addition to being a soldier, and he was probably someone of rank if he warranted a private guard.
Rather than address the guard, I chose to address his commander. “Sir, we only asked for directions. This soldier was unnecessarily rude.”
The man took a deep breath and sighed. “Lieutenant Wilkes, how many times do I have to tell you to treat the adventurers with at least a little respect. Most of them are not the complete waste of life you seem to feel they all are.”
The lieutenant’s lip curled slightly as if he wanted to lash out at his commanding officer but remained silent.
“I apologize for my adjunct’s behavior. I am Major Daws, may I have your names, ranks, and classes?”
“Rose Thorns, Squire, Daywalker Vampiric Knight,” said Rose first. I’m certain she added the Daywalker part as it was often met with distrust in the past when she only said she was a vampire.
“Micaela Crushhammer, no idea, and Shaman.”
World Tree Online: The Duchess of Hammers: 2nd Dive Begins Page 2
