World Tree Online: The Duchess of Hammers: 2nd Dive Begins

by M. A. Carlson

  “What?” Ralph demanded loudly. “That is not true. You are lying. That priest must have been lying.”

  “See, told you the rumors were not true,” whispered Wes to Docksen, just loudly enough to draw Ralph’s attention.

  “What? What are you talking about? What rumor?” Ralph demanded, releasing his grip on me. Instead, taking a fistful of the robes of the two mages.

  “Nothing, it is like you said. It must have been a lie,” said Wes, acting afraid, which he probably was.

  “Tell me now,” Ralph demanded, heat starting to waft off his body.

  “Well, it is like the prisoner said, you and Sam and all that,” said Wes.

  “Who said these things?” Ralph demanded.

  “Well . . . Charlene for one,” said Docksen, looking thoughtful. “But . . . nah, forget it.”

  “What? Tell me?” Ralph demanded, starting to unravel.

  “Well, it is just something Charlene said earlier. She might have let slip that there was more happening here than just getting this guy. Something about a sacrifice of love being made. But with that bundle of crazy there is no telling what she meant,” answered Docksen.

  “Hmm,” I mumbled, drawing Ralph’s attention back to me.

  “What now?” Ralph asked, his eyes working back and forth a little wildly.

  “Well, I was just wondering what your escape strategy was once you did capture me,” I said.

  “We walk right out the front door and run for a hidden sewer entrance just down the street, then vanish,” answered Ralph.

  “No, it is not,” said Wes, acting surprised. “We are supposed to slip out the back. There is a covered wagon waiting for us to smuggle the prisoner to a safehouse until the heat dies down.”

  “You are lying, you were with me, both of you were when we were given the plan,” insisted Ralph.

  “Yeah, but Charlene told us later there had been a change of plans. One of the guards that works for the Guild is supposed to sound the alarm out front, so we can escape out the back,” said Docksen.

  “I . . . I . . . they . . . they betrayed me!” Ralph screamed. “I have been a dedicated soldier. I have fought and killed all in the name of love. All for the promise that I would be shown the way to my one true love. How could they do this to me?”

  “Sam,” I said suddenly. “Who was this Sam you killed?”

  “He was no one important,” insisted Ralph. “A low-level newcomer to the Guild.”

  “That is not what I heard,” said Wes. “I heard he was Lady Helora’s newest plaything.”

  “Really, I heard the same, but about Sir Travers,” said Docksen.

  “What?” Ralph shouted. “I heard no such thing.”

  “Obviously or you probably wouldn’t have killed him,” muttered Wes, just loud enough for Ralph to hear.

  I could clearly see Ralph’s whole world crumbling around him. It was deceitful and maybe a little evil tricking him like that, but it was no less than he deserved.

  “I will kill them . . . I will kill them all,” shouted Ralph, his defeated look shifting suddenly to that of a crazed man with nothing left to lose. Suddenly the man ran, knocking aside Wes and Docksen as he did. I watched him flee, making straight for the back of the sundry and the booby-trapped back door.

  “I have to say, that worked a lot better than I thought it would,” said Wes.

  Docksen nodded. “Mmm, I would say so.”

  I slipped the ropes from my wrists and joined the pair. “I should say so. How mad do you think he’ll be when he figures out he was played?”

  “Depends on if your trap actually knocks him out or not,” added Wes.

  The cage of fire behind us suddenly went out. “Took you long enough,” complained Herb, hobbling over. “Still, not bad work. Might have to have the Runemaster come by and amend the runes for guards and certain guests.”

  “Yeah, a weapon would have made this much easier,” I agreed.

  “Now, do you have any idea where my grand-daughter and Rhyes might be,” asked the old man, making me cringe. If the enchanter was telling the truth, then Rhyes and Molly could be . . . indisposed . . . for a few more hours.

  “Ah, yeah, our . . . er . . . Charlene, the enchanter . . . she put a spell on them,” said Wes.

  “Sleep? Mind-control? What kind of spell are we talking about?” Herb demanded.

  “Uh . . . Ardentia Guild was behind this,” I said, feeling decidedly uncomfortable.

  Herb paled then reddened. “Well, I suppose I have a new grandson-in-law.”

  Meh, it could have been worse.

  Chapter 15

  Rhyes and Molly were blushing atomic red when they finally returned to the front of the Sundry, both looked disheveled and were trying to look anywhere but at each other.

  “Welcome to the family,” said Herb first, grinning broadly.

  “There is nothing that says we have to get married,” protested Molly, heat still flushing her skin red, but now she was glaring at her grandfather.

  “Only if Rhyes intends to keep living,” said Herb, the grin not leaving his face.

  As much as I was amused by Rhyes embarrassment, I did need to return to the barracks sooner rather than later. “Rhyes, maybe you should go signal for more patrolman, there are a few prisoners that need to be picked up.”

  “What about those two?” Rhyes asked, pointing to Wes and Docksen. “You sure you can trust them?”

  “I think so, I don’t think I would have succeeded without their help. And I promised I would speak on their behalf,” I replied.

  “Alright, I will be back shortly then,” said Rhyes.

  “Speaking of success, I do think we owe you a little something for saving our collective bacon back there,” said Herb, then grumbling he added, “even if you did almost let us get cooked.”

  Quest Alert: Sundry Under Siege (Recommended Level 6-8) – Completed!

  Wally's Sundry has come under siege by the Ardentia Guild. Rescue the hostages and end the siege by any means necessary.

  Reward: +2.000-Experience, Title: Wally's VIP

  Well that was interesting, I hadn’t expected to get any kind of title, let alone a title specific to the store.

  Wally's VIP (All goods and services provided by Wally's Sundry are discounted 35%)

  Okay, so that was a significant discount, especially considering the items I was still planning to purchase.

  “Grandpa, you can do better than that,” protested Molly.

  Herb turned sharply to glare at his granddaughter who matched his glare with one of her own, a test of wills ensued. It felt like a good old-fashioned, anime-style stare off, the only thing missing was the lightning bolts zapping between them.

  “Fine,” said Herb. “But just for one day, you can double your discount.”

  “Grandpa,” said Molly, still not sounding pleased.

  “That is more than generous,” I interrupted before the two could start arguing again. It really was too generous, 70% off for today only. That took each of those books I wanted down from 100-Gold to just 30-Gold each. I hadn’t even gotten to finish my search through the book options when the Ardentia Guild interrupted. I was positively giddy to return to the aisle of skill books and see what I could find.

  “See,” protested Herb, looking to his granddaughter for a little relief. “He is fine with it.”

  Molly frowned but seemed to finally relent.

  “Great, everyone’s happy, I am going back to the skill books I was looking through prior to the attack. If any of the patrolman need me, they can find me there,” I said quickly, escaping as fast as I could and making a beeline for the aisle only to halt suddenly when I got there. Payton, the mage I had escaped around was there, or rather his body was . . . a body that seemed to still be breathing, albeit shallow sharp breaths. Apparently, I hadn’t killed him nor had his companions, but he was in no shape to fight. Looking at him, his body was riddled with ‘Crippled’ debuffs and his health was ticking down slowly on
ly to suddenly jump up a little while his mana pool dipped lower, almost depleted.

  I cast a ‘Lesser Heal’ on him, restoring a few more HP than whatever he was doing. “Surrender and I will heal you,” I promised him, using the spell ‘Order: Surrender’ at the same time. He couldn’t speak but the ‘Captured’ debuff appeared all the same. I cast ‘Holy Shackles’ on him binding him then began to properly heal him.

  “Thank you for that,” Payton said once his voice had somewhat recovered.

  “No problem,” I replied, stopping my healing now that he was back up to almost 50% of his health pool.

  “I do not understand though, why did you show me mercy? Why save me, your enemy?” Payton asked, his voice still scratchy to the point of sounding painful to talk.

  “Why wouldn’t I? So long as you surrendered, I had no reason to kill you,” I replied.

  “Any other adventurer would have just killed me, like they did Francine,” Payton replied, his eyes suddenly downcast.

  “Yeah, well, a lot of adventurers aren’t very good people. Is that why you joined the Ardentia Guild?” I asked, curious about how this organization worked.

  “No, I did not meet Francine until after I joined the Ardentia Guild. It was providence meeting her. I joined because I feared I would never find love, it was the same for her. And then we met, and Ardentia Guild was responsible for that,” explained Payton.

  “I see, and then Francine was killed by an adventurer?” I asked.

  “No and yes,” said Payton sadly. “She left me for one. We were so in love. He must have used a spell of some kind to trick her or to control her mind. I just . . . I just cannot believe she would leave me like that. I heard later that she was killed, she took a fatal hit for the adventurer she left me for.”

  I had never heard of an NPC falling in love with a player, but anything was possible, especially if that character had a really high Charisma stat. It was also kind of disturbing, thank goodness the Charisma stat doesn’t affect other players. I was also disturbed by the player sacrificing an NPC to save himself. All that would happen to the player is being sent for respawn. If anything, the player should have sacrificed himself to protect the NPC. NPC’s, the citizens of the World Tree, don’t respawn, they don’t get second chances. Maybe I thought too much of the NPC’s, thought they were too real. I definitely expect too much of the other players.

  “I’m sorry that happened to you, what was the Adventurers name?” I asked, feeling for him. I could only imagine that kind of hurt, thankfully both of my ex-girlfriends had never cheated on me or left me for another man, at least not as far as I knew.

  “Robert Dread, I will never forget the name of that man,” he answered. Payton seemed to be lost in his own thoughts at that point, staring off into space. I took note of the name but returned to the books and began digging through them for anything that might be useful.

  I don’t know how long I was pawing through books looking for anything that might be useful, things like the Elf equivalent of the dwarven books but there were twenty-four of them, four books for each race of elves, that ended up being a hard pass, it was just too many books. There were books for all the races and their ancient languages, if they had one, but there were none that I felt it was pressing to learn. However, there was one book for the Vampires and it was a language book, ‘Vampin with Friends – Goddess Lilith Edition’, so I grabbed it for myself, seeing as Rose already knew the language. I don’t know why, but I figured it could be a way for us to communicate in secret if we ever needed to. I also grabbed a book on Norse history, I figured it couldn’t hurt to learn a little more

  Then I found a book of ‘Dwarven Runes’ which I had to get, even if it cost me 150-Gold even with my discount.

  I was about to give up on finding anything else useful when my UI lit up, highlighting an unassuming book, nothing obvious on the cover to hint at what it was but the fact my UI highlighted it, something it had never done before, suggested it was probably worth picking up.

  The Out of Place Book – Teaches the ‘Perception’ subskill ‘See Intrigue’

  It was a 1,000-Gold for this one book, for just one subskill to ‘Perception’ but it sounded like this was a great skill to pick up, especially for me, a hunter of all things mysterious and intriguing. Still, that price tag hurt even if the total was less than I had originally planned to spend with the first three books.

  I added the two books to my basket that was still sitting on the floor where I dropped it earlier. I then helped Payton back to his feet and escorted him to the front of the store where several patrolmen were taking statements, three of them were escorting a very unhappy and groggy looking Ralph, my trap having clearly done its job.

  “Find everything you want?” Herb asked, drawing my attention from Ralph and the patrolmen.

  “Yeah,” I said, activating the new title ‘Wally’s VIP’. NPC’s could be shrewd when they wanted to be, and Herb definitely struck me as the shrewd sort. It would be my luck, he charged me full price simply because I didn’t have the title activated.

  “Right, eight books at 30-Gold each, one book at 150-Gold, one book at 300-Gold, and 10 ‘Adventurer’s Pemmican’ at 3-Silver, 50-Copper each, 5 pencils for 3-Copper apiece, comes to a total of 693-Gold, 5-Silver, 15-Copper,” said Herb, checking each item in my basket.

  That hurt to hear, like really hurt. I made the payment and watched my previously healthy purse shrink by more than half, nearly three quarters of my recently acquired, small fortune was gone.

  After putting my new supplies into my inventory, I looked around for Rhyes. I found him near the entrance canoodling once more with Molly and had to clear my throat loudly to get his attention.

  “Right, sorry Bye-bye, are you ready to go then?” the patrolman asked, trying to act like a professional, but I knew better.

  “Yeah, unfortunately I need to get back to the barracks for training with Lieutenant Saaya,” I answered, feeling bad for interrupting his time with his new . . . girlfriend? Either way, I needed to get back.

  “Sure thing,” Rhyes said before turning back to Molly. “Sorry about this, but duty calls. I promise I will come back as soon as I am off duty.”

  “You had better,” said Molly, brooking no room for Rhyes to argue. “Now go to work, I should be doing the same,” she added, walking away swiftly.

  “It is a shame to see her leave, but I do love to watch her go,” Rhyes said, clearly staring.

  I rolled my eyes, “Come on lover boy, we’ve got to get moving,” I said, shaking my head in chagrin. It was almost 11:30 already, I had just 30 minutes to get back to the barracks to meet the lieutenant for training.

  The return trip was quick, once again ending too soon for my liking, I just could not get over that view of the tree, I couldn’t wait to start climbing it.

  “Well, I suppose we should report in,” said Rhyes, leading the way. It was a short enough walk to the lieutenant’s office.

  “Welcome back, I am happy to see you both made it back in one piece,” said Lieutenant Saaya. “I have already been receiving reports on the excitement of the day.”

  “These Ardentia Guild members are certainly persistent,” I commented.

  “Indeed,” replied Lieutenant Saaya. “Tell me, has your lady friend had any success in breaking that enchantment?”

  “Not yet, I’m afraid,” I answered. It was true. More-true would have been to tell him Rose hadn’t even gotten started yet, at least not that I knew of.

  “Please encourage her to hurry, I feel time is of the essence,” warned Lieutenant Saaya, sounding slightly ominous. “Either way, you have both done well today.”

  Class Quest Alert: Tour of Duty – Completed!

  Accompany Patrolman Rhyes Everson on duty and assist him in any way possible.

  Reward: +1,000-Experience, 3-Silver, 5-Sigils of the Goddess Issara

  “Happy to help,” I said, happy for the completed quest and especially happy to have collected more sigil
s.

  “Now, Patrolman, I believe you have done enough for the day, take the afternoon to recover,” said the lieutenant, dismissing Rhyes who looked only too happy to comply. I knew well enough that Rhyes hadn’t actually done much but I wasn’t going to stop him from having a free afternoon.

  Finally, Lieutenant Saaya turned to me. “Are you ready to get to work or was today too much for you?”

  “I am so ready,” I replied eagerly.

  “Then follow me, Vari is waiting for us, I am sure,” said the lieutenant.

  I followed the lieutenant back to the same training ring I had used the night before.

  “Greetings, Jr. Patrolman,” said Lieutenant Saaya formally, nodding to the waiting dwarven girl.

  “Sir,” said Vari sharply, saluting at full attention.

  The lieutenant sighed heavily. “At ease,” he said shortly, snapping off a short return salute. “You know you do not have to be so formal when it is just us.”

  “But it is not just us today,” replied Vari, looking sidelong at me.

  “Bah, Bye-bye is no soldier, he is more of a friend . . . yea, I think friend best describes this adventurer. What do you think, Vari? Friend of the family?” the lieutenant asked, stressing the word ‘family’, his feline smile looking more threatening than the amusement his voice betrayed.

  Vari had a similar grin then giggled a little. “Papa, you should not joke about such things. If any of the others heard you speaking of ‘family’ like that, they would think you are part of the Stonebreakers.”

  “Bah, let them think what they wish,” said Saaya, clearly acting more the part of doting father than that of a lieutenant at this point.

  Vari could only sigh, sounding slightly defeated. She clearly knew Saaya well enough to know when it was not worth arguing with him.

  “Good, you see my wisdom,” said Saaya with a small chuckled that sounded more like a chuff. “Now, let us get to training our new friend, shall we?”