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

by M. A. Carlson

  Subskill: Norse Mysticism II

  Your knowledge of both the Ancient Norse language, runes and their Mythos has granted you a higher level of mastery. Knowledge of Norse Skills and Spells is greatly improved.

  And just 6-levels to ‘Cartography’, which kind of surprised me. What did the science of the portals have to do with mapmaking?

  Cartography (Evolved from Drawing)

  Level: 46

  Experience: 87.24%

  Professional Skill: Cartography is the ability to read and draw maps of varying detail.

  Professional Skill: Drawing is the ability to communicate through drawn images.

  And 12-levels to ‘Runology’, which was much less confusing given all the writing I had done while taking notes.

  Runology (Evolved from Writing)

  Level: 56

  Experience: 68.47%

  Professional Skill: Runology is the art of communicating power.

  Chance to Learn Rank I Unknown Rune: 28.00%

  Chance to Craft Rank I Skill Book: +14.00%

  Chance to Craft Lesser Spell Book: +7.00%

  Professional Skill: Writing is the ability to communicate through the written word.

  Norse Expertise: +100% to craft any known Norse spell or skill book of Rank I regardless of level.

  One of the beautiful things about both ‘Cartography’ and ‘Runology’ was that they still leveled up when you used the un-evolved skills, ‘Drawing’ and ‘Writing’ respectively. It made leveling my professions a lot easier.

  Still, I was puzzled by the massive gains to ‘Lore’. I had read a lot of books since I came to the World Tree and uncovered a lot of history and mythology. But in all that time, I had never gained so many levels in such a short period of time . . . and from reading a very heavy science book . . . it was just odd. I wondered what would happen when I finished the book and the other two. Would they all yield such massive gains to ‘Lore’?

  I shook my head and followed Olaf back into the manor and a waiting Micaela and Rose, both with crossed arms.

  “You’re late,” they said in one voice.

  “Sorry, traffic in the fourth ring was horrendous,” I joked, clearly striking the wrong tone . . . until Micaela snorted.

  Rose cracked too once Micaela laughed.

  “Okay, have to give that one to you, Jack. That was funny,” Rose admitted. “So, why were you really late?”

  “That would be my fault,” said Olaf. “I got a bit involved in my engineering training.”

  “Gain some good levels, babe?” Micaela asked, interested to hear more about her husband’s day.

  “It was fantastic,” started Olaf excitedly, walking away with Micaela into another room to wait on the Duchess.

  “And how was your shopping?” I asked Rose.

  “Fine,” she answered, a small blush tinting her cheeks making me wonder just what kind of shopping she did that would earn such a reaction.

  But before I let my imagination run away, I reigned it in. “Ready to go?”

  “Yeah, we should probably hurry, I don’t want to be late to my first day of training with Patrolman Harrison,” she said, a small eager smile on her face.

  It still struck me just how pretty Rose could be with just a small smile like that.

  “Don’t just stand there,” snapped Rose impatiently. “We gotta go.”

  I nodded and followed her.

  Thankfully, it wasn’t very far to the barracks and the guards let us through with just a nod.

  “Where can I find Patrolman Harrison?” Rose asked, startling a young boy with two bundles of arrows under each arm.

  “He just came in from his patrol, so I think he’s in the mess hall, ma’am,” the boy replied politely, a small blush on his cheeks.

  “Can you point me to Sr. Patrolman Habersham?” I asked, earning a sigh and frown from the boy.

  “He has spear class now, northwest dummies,” the boy snapped. “Can I get back to work now? Patrolman Wixel is going to tan my hide if I don’t get these arrows to her soon.”

  “Thanks for the help,” I said, even as the boy was already running off.

  “I’ll catch up with you later,” I promised Rose as we split up.

  I found the northwest dummies rather easily as well as Habersham. who was a tall lanky elf with a dark complexion, not far off from Rose’s but with pitch black hair peeking out from under his round helm. He was otherwise unremarkable, except for the spear he wielded, which was a work of art as far as I was concerned.

  It was far and away the most intricate weapon I had seen to date. Silver filigree wrapped around the wooden shaft, set into the wood in the form of a leafy vine. The spearhead was also bright silver and shaped like a leaf or rather five leaves, the central, largest leaf had two smaller leaves connected to each side at 60⁰ degree angles. It was ridiculously large for a spearhead, but I could imagine the kind of damage it would cause if it stabbed someone.

  “Well, well, look at this, boys, the adventurer the Lieu promised would come see me for a little training finally decided to show up,” sneered the dark-elf. “Does not look like much to me, boys, what do you all think?”

  “Weak . . . pathetically weak,” growled an orc patrolman, his spear was thick as a tree trunk yet still looked small in his meaty hands.

  “Scrawny too, can he even lift a decent spear?” another patrolman asked, this one rather small, looking like a squirrel-man, but wielding a spear at least four times taller than he was. It was strange to see such a small patrolman, more so as he wore no pants, just a leather vest that extended to his knees, a round helm and metal gauntlets. I wondered how he fought with his spear being so much taller than he was.

  “Might have potential,” said the only female patrolman of the group. “In fifty years if his balls ever drop,” she added, laughing raucously. The woman was an orc too, she had one arm draped over the larger orc that insulted me first. Her spear was only slightly taller than she was, and she was the only one there who wore a phalanx shield on her other arm.

  “So, adventurer, anything to say about that?” Habersham asked.

  There were several ways I could have answered. I could have insulted each of them in turn, but that wasn’t really me. I could have laughed with them, but I had never been fond of retreating from bullies. Instead, I did one thing, a very simple action really. I equipped my shiny new spear and slammed the butt of it into the ground, gathering their attention and a certain amount of reverence at the sight.

  “Good answer,” said Habersham, grinning from ear to ear. “And that my idiot pupils, is why the boss sent him our way. So, what say you, we train the whelp up and make him worthy of such a fine spear.”

  “HOORAH!” they shouted in chorus and approval.

  “Alright, now put that thing away. You have got an old spear for practice purposes, right?” he asked.

  I grinned and nodded, putting away the legendary spear and equipping my old hasta. Even though my new spear was indestructible, I did want to improve my ‘Maintenance’ skill which meant I needed a weapon that would lose durability. I kept it in good repair, knowing it would eventually break beyond my ability to repair it, but it was perfect for leveling ‘Maintenance’. When it did break, I would just buy another cheap spear for training.

  “Right then, pick a dummy, you dummies. I want a hundred ‘Jab’ attacks and you had better be using ‘Shift’ to move in and out. And yes, Squeelrick, you can use ‘Acrobatics’, you noisy rodent,” said Habersham, getting the patrolman moving.

  With each of the patrolman facing a dummy and attacking as ordered, I was left to face the patrolman.

  “Do you need a personal invitation?” he asked, glaring at me.

  “No, just a question first,” I said.

  “What is it then?” Habersham asked, his patience wearing thin.

  “I know both ‘Shift’ and ‘Acrobatics’, do you have a preference?” I asked.

  “Both,”
he replied, grinning. “That is . . . if you think you are competent enough to figure out how.”

  Both? Really? I hadn’t even considered something like that as being possible. How would you even do something like that?

  “Stop just standing there and get to it,” snapped Habersham, encouraging me to get moving.

  The training dummy I chose was in rough shape. There were missing chunks of wood, holes gouged in the armor it wore, and the weapon it bore was once a sword but now all that remained was a hilt and part of a dull blade. Despite that, I could see the dummy was almost new, the wood still had a smoothness to it and the metal a shine. I imagine with so many soldiers’ training so frequently, they went through a lot of dummies, unlike Hurlig Ridge’s worn and beaten up dummies where it was mostly the sergeant and adventurers that used them.

  Jab, the very first skill I learned from Sergeant Butters, though I originally learned the ‘One-Handed Polearm’ version first.

  Two-Handed Polearms

  Level: 72

  Experience: 99.09%

  Current Damage Modifiers

  Damage: +36.00

  Critical Strike Chance: +3.60%

  Subskill: Jab

  Damage: +36.00

  Skill Stamina Cost: 20

  I also learned ‘Shift’ from the sergeant, my first combat movement skill though one that had mostly been left to rot since I learned ‘Acrobatics’.

  Shift

  Level: 52

  Experience: 16.32%

  Combat Movement

  Range: 1.52 yards

  Skill Stamina Cost: 5 per move

  And then there was my ‘Acrobatics’ skill. By far the most difficult and intensive skill I had learned from this game to date. It took more than a week of daily training, building from one exercise to the next until I earned enough experience according to the quest I had at the time. It was now my go to combat movement and for good reason.

  Acrobatics

  Level: 48

  Experience: 68.11%

  Combat Movement

  Dodge Chance: +24.00%

  Skill Stamina Cost: 5 per second

  Shaking away the memories, I had to think about how to combine ‘Shift’ and ‘Acrobatics’. Not combine them, get them to work in tandem. With my Hasta in hand, I started with just using ‘Shift’ to close the distance, striking out with ‘Jab’ as soon as I got close. Rather than ‘Shift’ back out, I barrel rolled through the air to the right of the dummy and struck again, ‘Jab’ hitting true between the neck and the shoulder. I chose to ‘Shift’ away from the dummy and reset. It made sense to me, a hit and hit then run tactic might be the way to combine these skills.

  “Not bad,” said Habersham, walking past, checking on various patrolman.

  It was grinding, but I had a goal in mind, so I tried to focus on that. I lost track of time pretty quickly, just getting into a groove, not really counting my ‘Jab’ attacks.

  “Alright, that is enough, get some water,” ordered Habersham. “10-minutes and get back here,” he added.

  A glance at my stamina showed I was way down, only 15/1160 remained. It cost over 90-SP per ‘Jab’ while each ‘Shift’ or ‘Acrobatics’ move cost 5-SP per move. If I currently regained 62-SP per 10-seconds, if each series was three movements, and two attacks that put the cost around 200-SP and each series took about 30 seconds from start to finish, including a short break in between. That meant the net cost was about 20-SP per 30 seconds and after about 25-minutes attacking the dummy, being that low was about right if I had done 100 ‘Jab’ attacks.

  “Come on, Rookie,” said orc spearman loudly, a fanged grin sent my way.

  His female companion rolled her eyes, and commented, “You’re too soft on the pink skins, Groggy.”

  The patrolman shrugged, “He did alright. Kept up with us at least.”

  “He is more skilled than both of you,” said the rodent halfling, Squeelrick.

  “You only say that because he uses ‘Acrobatics’ like you do,” said another of the patrolman, one I hadn’t heard from yet, a human by the look of him, blonde and tanned, maybe a little shorter than me. His spear was a good 10-feet tall and had a massive spearhead. If my memory was correct, this was a boar spear, designed to stop a charging opponent.

  “And?” Squeelrick asked rhetorically. “You are just jealous we have both skill and good looks, unlike you, Thacker, who could not get a date if his life depended on it.”

  Thacker blushed a little. “I am just particular, unlike you who will hump anything that moves.”

  The two orcs laughed heartily at the barb toward their diminutive comrade.

  “Most of my wives would be less than pleased with that reply . . . though a few of them may agree,” Squeelrick finally replied, laughing a little.

  “How many wives have you got now?” the female orc asked. “Any new ones since yesterday?”

  “No, still just the same nine I had when I woke up this morning. Why? Were you looking to become number ten, Taleska?” Squeelrick countered, silencing both laughing orcs but getting a laugh from all the other patrolman.

  “I will gut you, rodent,” threated Taleska, though there didn’t seem to be any real heat behind the threat.

  “Alright, that is enough of the insults. You are going to give our new friend here the wrong idea about us,” said a timid female voice with a thick brogue, drawing my attention to another of the patrolman. A dwarf, one I had mistaken for a man. She had enough dirt on her face, I mistook it for a five o’clock shadow or a very short beard. I know it is popular in such games to give female dwarves a beard, but to me, bearded women were just creepy.

  The other patrolman all clammed up at that, each of them casting a weary eye at the woman, clearly uncomfortable with her. She just ignored them and moved ahead of the group, her short legs pumping furiously to get away from us and toward the water barrel next to a large supply shed.

  “What’s that about?” I asked.

  “Ah . . . she is not really a bad sort . . . it is just . . . well,” Thacker started and stopped a few times. “She has bad relations. The Lieu had to pull a lot of strings to get her accepted. It cast a bad light on him, it is why he is still a Lieutenant and not a Captain or Major by now.”

  That got me curious, was there another quest here? I glanced at the dwarven woman at the lead of the pack, . So, it was unlikely I would be eligible for any quest relating to her given the level difference, but it would be something to maybe look into the next time I came to Root City.

  Taleska had no qualms about making her opinion of the dwarf known. “She is scum, just like her father. How could they let her into the guard? You have to wonder if she does not have some kind of dirt on the Lieu or maybe someone in his family. How that mobster’s daughter got accepted to the City Watch, I will never know.”

  “Mobster?” I asked, surprised by the outburst.

  “Aye, the little princess there is the one and only daughter of Cap Alone, head of the Stonebreaker Mafia,” answered Taleska. “I do not care if she is a bastard, bad blood is bad blood.”

  That bothered me a lot when the orc said that. “No such thing,” I snapped. “Bad blood? How stupid!”

  “You calling me, stupid?” Taleska asked, barring her fangs and hissing at me.

  “If you really think that who her father is determines who she is, then, yes. You are stupid,” I insulted her, feeling my cheeks heat with anger.

  wrapped his massive arms around the woman lifting her into the air before she could attack me. In hindsight, I shouldn’t have antagonized her. would have undoubtedly crushed me with very little effort.

  “Calm down, Tali,” said Groggy, causing Taleska to struggle more for a moment before finally giving up.

  “Fine, I am calm, let me down,” Taleska request.

  “Promise me, you will not attack him first,” Groggy insisted.

  “I promise, I will not attack the p
ink skin, scum lover. There, happy Grogan?” Taleska asked, sounding angry but accepting of the situation.

  The large orc, his nameplate updated to , not Groggy as he had first been called, nodded and set the angry orcish woman on her feet.

  “Right, let us all get some water and a little rest, we only have a few minutes left before we return to training,” said Squeelrick, not defusing the situation, but getting all of us moving again.

  At the water barrel, I filled the canteens I had designated for stamina water, making sure to take at least a minute to drink and recover whatever stamina didn’t recover naturally.

  I also took a quick gander at my skill levels.

  Two-Handed Polearms

  Level: 75

  Experience: 59.14%

  Current Damage Modifiers

  Damage: +37.50

  Critical Strike Chance: +3.75%

  Only three levels, but not bad for just 30 minutes of work.

  “Okay, you lollygaggers, we have more work to do today,” shouted Habersham at almost precisely the 10-minute mark. “Next up sparring, pair up with someone close to your level. Alone, you are with the adventurer.”

  just nodded her acceptance, quiet as a mouse.

  “Hello, I’m Bye-bye,” I introduced myself to her, holding out a hand.

  She looked at the hand nervously, then at the other patrolman who seemed to be studying her to see what she would do.

  “I am Vari,” she stuttered softly, barely shaking my hand then jerking it back as if burned.

  I cringed, what a cruel name, Vari Alone. I started to hate her father in that moment . . . or her mother . . . basically whoever the cruel, troll-dung slinger was that gave her the name.

  “Sparring time, boys and girls, do not forget to cap your spears. We do not want another accidental stabbing, now do we, Patrolman Taleska?” Habersham asked, glaring at the orc woman.