Micaela spent a couple more hours trimming the rock floor. Using ‘Fuse Stone’ with the rock shards to level it out. When the last bit of rock was shaved away, the blueprint changed from a blue glow to a green glow. And just like that, she was ready to start on the next part of the construction.
And as if it were magic, not ten-seconds later, a few men and women appeared at the edge of the pit, led by a large burly man that Micaela knew on sight. It was the man that was in charge of the construction at the Johnson farmstead just a couple months prior, Willis Sears.
“Afternoon, Mrs. Crushhammer,” Mr. Sears said, tipping his tin hard hat. “Mayor Simper said there was work to be done.”
“Good timing, Willis,” Micaela replied, smiling up at him. “I hope you’re ready to work, we’ve got a lot to do and not a lot of time to do it.”
Willis chuckled and asked, “Three subfloors?”
“That’s the idea,” Micaela replied.
“Alright, you all heard her, let us get to it,” Willis ordered, getting the men and women with him moving.
Micaela couldn’t stop smiling. She was going to build the greatest Order the World Tree would ever see. And Hurligville would be at the center of it all. She couldn’t wait to see what happened next.
Chapter 8
“Reloading,” Olaf yelled, jumping backwards and away from the pair of undead wolves that were closing on him.
As he flew back, I leaped in, bringing my spear down on one, then kicking out at the other, only hoping to slow it down and getting bitten for my trouble.
Undead Plague – A disease that will turn you into one of the undead in 1-hours. 0:59:31
Yeah, that was something we learned very quickly when dealing with these things. Every bite or scratch left behind a debuff if they managed to damage you.
Rose charged in next to me and batted away the monster, taking back aggro. “Jack, I could use a cleanse when you get a chance, I’m down to ten minutes.”
“Stop getting bitten so much then,” I teased her, casting ‘Holy Cleanse’ and removing her debuff then casting it on myself. A spell that proved to be much more valuable than I originally thought. Having finally leveled it up, it started giving a small boost to resistance for a noticeable, but short amount of time.
Spell: Holy Cleanse
Level: 19
Experience: 98.45%
Description: Suffuse a target with Holy energy, cleansing the body of toxins.
Spell Cast Speed: Instant
Range: 20-yards
Spell Effect (Active): Remove 1 poison or disease from a single target. Increase resistance to poison and disease by 10% for 9-seconds.
Mana Cost: -69-MP
The other thing about the debuff, every time you got hit, it chopped a minute off that timer. That meant Rose had been bitten or scratched almost fifty times since combat began against this latest group of undead. But given the size of the monster packs that filled this area of Hurlig Ridge, it wasn’t that surprising. Every pack we encountered was at least nine strong and some combination of undead wolves and condors. The largest we had encountered was sixteen strong, which just happened to include a pair of undead drakelings. A fight that nearly wiped us out.
Back to the fifty bites or scratches. That many bites or scratches also meant Rose needed healing, and as I was the only healer at the moment. I laid a hand on her shoulder and cast an ‘Embrace of the Goddess’, returning her health to almost full.
Spell: Embrace of the Goddess
Level: 19
Experience: 71.44%
Description: Call upon your Goddess to embrace the injured and heal their wounds.
Spell Healing: +3900-HP
Spell Cast Speed: Instant
Range: Melee
Cooldown: 5-minutes
Spell Effect (Active): Massively heal a single target.
Mana Cost: -1,900-MP
“I need mana, cover for me,” I said, disengaging from the wolf I was fighting and leaving it for Rose. Not that it was needed, the wolf all but exploded a moment later as Olaf finished reloading.
I pulled out a canteen and started drinking, watching as my MP bar started ticking upward.
“Drakeling group patrolling nearby. I counted five z-wolves with it,” Heath warned, appearing from ‘Stealth’. Z-wolves quickly became our shorthand for the undead wolves or zombie wolves as that was more or less what they were. And if there were five z-wolves and a drakeling then there were at least 3 undead condors flying above them.
“Thanks,” I said, putting away my canteen. My MP bar was just barely above half full, but I would make do. Heath wouldn’t have warned me if they weren’t about to attack us.
Heath nodded and vanished from view, he would attempt to ambush a few wolves, hopefully whittling them down before vanishing. His scouting did a lot to keep us alive.
“Jack, you got the drakeling again, separate it from the wolves. Olaf, watch for the condors,” Rose ordered, slamming the edge of her shield into the last undead wolf’s head, ending its life for a second time.
I sighed. “Oh, how I hate drakelings,” I grumbled. As we discovered, drakelings were semi-intelligent. Not quite sentient, but smart enough to give us trouble. The undead mini drakes were about the size of a small dog and faster than anything we’d encountered in the World Tree thus far. The only sign they were undead were the milky eyes and a few small patches of decaying flesh. Despite the undead status, they weren’t like the typical zombie I had come to expect according to popular culture. It was smart enough to keep to its maximum range. Seeing as they were small and fast, it made them hard to get close enough to hit. That is, unless you could hit them with instant cast spells that also stunned them, which I had.
The
Skill: Body Control
Rank: II
Level: 59
Experience: 17.77%
Description: Control of oneself is a necessary skill for any martial skill. Body Control is a step along that path and can be used to boost one's physical attributes.
Skill Effect (Passive): Increases your Strength Experience Gain by 5.90%. Increases your Stamina Experience Gain by 5.90%
Subskills:
Jump
Control the Stamina within the body to increase your maximum jump height by 12.50-feet per boost at the cost of -110-SP per boost.
I landed with a bit of backslide, my feet not quite gaining traction due to the needles that littered the ground. I kept my eyes trained on the drakeling as it followed until it was just close enough to spit black death at me. When I saw a dark purple begin glowing around the edges of its mouth, I attacked. I hit it with ‘Holy Shock’, the stun effect interrupting the fireball and making the little thing drop to the ground. I knew the stun wouldn’t last long so I needed to move quickly. I leaped forward, using ‘Jump’ again and closing the distance. I was just in time for the stun to wear off. That was one of the problems with fighting against something so far above me in terms of levels. Things like my ‘Holy Shock’ ability’s stun effect tended to wear off quickly. Still, by then it was too late for the little monster to escape my reach. I struck with ‘Ligament Rip’ aiming for the glowing wing joint that my ‘Hit Them Where It Hurts’ highlighted.
Skill: Hit Them Where It Hurts
Rank: I
Level: 22
Experience: 94.14%
Description: Combat and life or death battles have taught you how to aim carefully for any vulnerabilities in your opponent.
Skill Effect (Passive): Striking the weak spot of an enemy increases your chance of dealing a critical strike by 12.20% and increasing any damage dealt by 12.20%
With the little dragon properly slowed by ‘Ligament Rip’ and unable to fly, I attacked as hard as I could. Cycling between ‘Justice Strike’ and ‘Holy Shock’ every time they were available. Even with that, the little monster managed to breathe a purplish-black fire on me when both were on cooldown. Not only did the fire envelope me from head to toe, it left behind a pair of very nasty negative effects. ‘Zombie Plague’ and ‘Unholy Fire’, the second a damage over time effect. These on top of the massive -2,341-HP in damage at the same time. More than half my health was gone in one attack and the damage over time of the ‘Unholy Fire’ was sapping another -320-HP or so per second.
I needed to keep one eye on my health while I continued chopping at the drakeling’s HP. As soon as I saw my health drop under 25%, I hit myself with an ‘Embrace of the Goddess’, fully restoring my HP. Unfortunately, it couldn’t do anything about the ‘Unholy Fire’ debuff, and worse, my MP was almost gone once again.
“Just die already,” I ground out through my teeth as I stunned it again, taking the last of my MP. But it didn’t matter, I finally had the opportunity to really hit it. It was stunned and the ‘Ligament Rip’ debuff was still active. I speared the little dragon with ‘Power Thrust’ hitting the glowing spot on its long neck.
Skill: Two-Handed Polearms
Rank: II
Level: 68
Experience: 97.44%
Description: Two-Handed Polearms grant you the ability to wield a polearm weapon with two hands. With training, you are able to learn multiple attacks specific to polearms. Spears, Glaives, Poleaxes, Bardiches, Halberds, and Lances are all examples of Polearms.
Damage Modifier: +84.00
Critical Strike Modifier: +8.40%
Range: *Weapon Dependent
Standard Attack Stamina Cost: -10-SP
Subskills:
Jab
A quick strike dealing an additional -84.00-HP damage at the cost of -178-SP.
Rapid Striking
Attack with 46 quick strikes, dealing reduced damage in a 30⁰ cone in front of you at the cost of -348-SP.
Ligament Rip
Pierce the joint of a target to damage the tendons and ligaments inflicting a -9-HP per second bleed effect and reducing the targets movement or attack speed by 50% depending on targeted area, also increasing the damage the target receives by 35.00% for 15-seconds at the cost of -198-SP
Impale
Pierce the body of a target and twist as you pull back your polearm to inflict -80-83-HP and a -9-HP per second bleed effect for 10-seconds at the cost of -183-SP
Power Thrust
Strike with all your strength to deal a heavy blow to a target inflicting an additional -168-HP damage with a 10% chance to stun your target at the cost of -216-SP.
My Power Thrust was a critical strike. The -2,474-HP that floated away as my spear pierced cleanly through the drakelings neck brought on some much-needed relief as the beast finally died. For something so small, it sure was deadly.
Congratulations! You’ve reached Level 23!
+1 to bonus Holy Spells, +1 Intellect, +1 Charisma
I wished I had more time to celebrate, but there were undead wolves and condors that needed to be dealt with first, thankfully, I still had almost half of my SP pool to work with.
Not much later we burned the corpses, I doubted an undead corpse could be reanimated again, but then again, I couldn’t say for sure. Which also gave us a chance to finally breathe and fully recover.
“How many does that make?” Olaf asked.
It was honestly something he could have checked for himself if he just opened his quest log.
Quest Alert: Thinning the Herd (Recommended Level 25-30)
Sergeant Butters has asked for your assistance to reduce the undead population before their next attack on Hurligville. You are tasked with the destruction of 38/100 level 15+ undead wolves, 50 level 20+ undead mountain lions, 27/50 level 20+ undead condors, 4/10 level 25+ undead drakelings, 1 undead lich servant
Reward: Experience
“Not enough,” I said.
Olaf groaned. “How long have we been at this?”
“It’s just passed noon,” I said.
“Okay, a few more hours of killing and we’ll head back, hopefully we can at least finish with the condors,” Olaf said.
“Let’s hope,” Rose added. “Jack, you good for more?”
“Do I have a choice?” I asked.
“Not really,” Rose said.
Back on my feet, it wasn’t long before we ran across our next pack of undead. Then the pack after that.
A few hours later Rose and I trudged back into Hurligville looking quite a bit worse for wear. My armor had a number of rips, tears and burns that weren’t there when we left the village. Rose’s armor had plenty of dents and dings and a few punctures that looked a lot like bite marks. I wasn’t sure what Heath’s status was as the sneaky player hadn’t been seen for some time.
“It’s about time you showed up,” Olaf complained, his arms crossed, though it didn’t appear he was serious if the slight upturn at the corners of his mouth was any indication.
“You died and Heath disappeared on us. It took a bit to fight our way out of the forest,” Rose snapped defensively, not appreciating Olaf’s attempt at levity.
“Heath appeared in the graveyard a few minutes after I did,” Olaf replied, his teasing dropped, “At least you two made it back.”
“Barely,” Rose grumbled.
“What killed Heath?” I asked, then quickly added, “And, where is he?”
“Heath is . . . who knows where. Said something about needing training and vanished,” Olaf replied. “As to what killed him, he said he found the undead lich servant.”
“Well, that’s something at least,” Rose said, then deflated slightly as she let go of the tension that had been building in her shoulders. As an afterthought she added, “I need a bath.”
“Drop your armor off at Kirlan’s first,” I reminded her.
“Before all that,” Olaf said, “Did you kill more before you made your way back here?”
“Yeah,” I answered.
Olaf cursed. “I didn’t get credit for any of it. My quest information hasn’t changed since I died.”
“In other words, we need to go back tomorrow,” Rose whined.
“It’s fine,” I said tiredly. “We still need more wolves, condors, and drakelings anyway.”
Rose and I walked into the village, walking in step with Olaf as we headed toward the blacksmiths to drop off Rose’s armor.
“I’m starting to think we bit off more than we can chew with this quest,” Olaf said.
“No, we just need Baby,” Rose stated matter-of-factly. “Don’t get me wrong, Jack. You healed us fairly well right up until the end there. But we need an actual dedicated healer.”
“You’ll get no argument from me,” I stated, agreeing with her completely. “Honestly, I think we need to see if we can find a ranged damage dealer to help us. As things stand, I’m barely able to heal us and kill those drakelings.”
“Hey!” Olaf tried to protest.
“Olaf, you’re not exactly ranged. More of a short range with a little melee tossed in,” I explained. “I can fight from longer range, but my spells just don’t pack the same punch, at least not until I level them up quite a bit higher, something we don’t exactly have time for. I’m most effective when I’m working at the same range as you do. Micaela falls into the same category as both of us. Baby could be a ranged damage dealer but she’s better as a healer. I’m not sure what Heath will be able to do with his Jack of
All class, but at the moment, his skills lean more toward melee. Which leaves Rose, who is obviously melee.”
Olaf frowned and grunted before asking, “Then what do you suggest we do?”
I sighed. I knew Olaf wasn’t going to like what I was about to say, but it needed to be said. I mentally braced myself even as I said, “You need to go back to Root City to recruit a true ranged damage dealer. And maybe even another healer, at least until Baby returns to us.”
“But the quest,” Olaf tried to protest.
“I know,” I said sadly. “Rose, Heath, and I should still be able to do it . . . albeit with a few more deaths along the way, but we’ll keep pushing the progress forward. I hope it won’t take you more than a day or two.”
This time Olaf sighed. “Am I looking for a volunteer or mercenary?”
“If you decide to get a healer, mercenary would be better. Once Baby is back, we won’t need two healers,” I said. “As for the ranged damage dealer, volunteer would be better. Please, be careful about who you bring on. I don’t want another Bushy Bunny situation.” I shuddered at the memory of that woman and everything that went along with her.
“I think I can manage,” Olaf said.
Rose then added, “And for the healer, try to get a Priest or Paladin. With all the undead, a little more Holy power wouldn’t go astray for us.”
World Tree Online: The Order of Epic Grinders: 4th Dive Page 13
