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

by M. A. Carlson

Rose seemed to notice and rolled her eyes. “Jack, this is Tessa, a maid in the house here, we rescued her and bunch of other girls they were keeping as slaves. Tessa, this is Jack, he’s . . . alright, I suppose.”

  Baby giggled. “What she means to say is Bye-bye is hers, hands off or else.”

  Rose blushed but didn’t refute the fairy’s words which in turn made me blush if the heat in my face was any indicator.

  “Much as I would love to continue to embarrass these two as much as possible, I’m ready to go,” said Heath, vanishing from everyone’s sight but my own.

  “Vari, are you ready for this?” I asked the dwarven girl that accompanied me from the battlefield. I hadn’t really asked her about this, about the situation ahead of us, about coming face to face with her father.

  “I am as ready as I will ever be,” Vari answered, putting up a brave front.

  “Rose, show us in,” Olaf requested, his maul put away and his hand-cannons at the ready.

  “First things first,” started Rose, turning to the nervous maid. “Tessa, you’ve taken us far enough. You need to get out of here now, go meet up with the others.”

  “I can stay,” Tessa tried to protest, but it was clear she really wanted out.

  “Nonsense,” said Olaf, snorting. “You’ll only be in our way now, go on.”

  Tessa didn’t argue any further, she nodded and ran back from the way I came.

  “Let’s try this again, Rose, show us in,” said Olaf, cocking both hand-cannons.

  Rose grinned and clapped her shields together twice, then stalked forward. “Knock-knock!” Rose yelled as she kicked open the double doors of the misshapen, silvery-green, pockmarked mithril dome.

  Thankfully, inside of the dome was empty from what I could see with the exception of Mardi, Cap Alone, and the Barber of Fitti who seemed to be filling the role of officiator.

  Cap looked at us with anger and rage, his cigar working from side to side, looking very much like he wanted to attack us. He barked angrily and loudly, “Connie, keep them busy, we are finishing this ceremony.”

  Connie crawled out of a shadowed corner of the shrine, her face streaked with tears and a status indicator just below her health bar, ‘Broken-hearted’. It was easy to have missed her presence by how haggard she looked, from the puffy red eyes to the runny nose, not to mention the dark shadowy corner she had hidden away in.

  “It was you,” Connie said softly, sob and quavering of her voice. “It was you,” she repeated a little louder, sniffling. “It was you!” she all but screamed, the status indicator changed from ‘Broken-hearted’ to ‘Vengeful Lover’. “First, you kill my love, murder him in cold blood. And now, now you seek to interrupt the most beautiful and sacred of ceremonies. I will kill you all!” she screamed, a score of ice shards forming in the air around her.

  “Great, a mage,” said Rose, staring her charge into the fight, hoping to interrupt the cast.

  “Witch, I think,” said Olaf.

  “Whatever,” said Rose, lowering her shoulder in preparation to charge. She charged forward, a blur of movement at first then slowing suddenly and moving in slow motion towards the witch. A quick look at Rose’s status showed a new debuff, ‘Winter Heart’

  Winter Heart – The fiery roar of love and passion have turned ice cold. An aura of cold expounds from this witch’s heart, slowing anyone that approaches. Reduces movement speed while in the area of effect by 70%.

  “Any suggestions?” Rose asked, her mouth still moving normally, while she took each step forward slowly.

  “Stay at range,” Olaf ordered, firing one of his hand-cannons at the witch, the bullet unimpeded by the aura as it struck the witch in the throat, interrupting her spell, but doing nothing for the aura.

  “It’s a magic fight,” said Micaela, launching her first fireball from Sundance. The ball passed through the cold aura well enough but had visibly shrunk by the time it got to her. “Okay, this could be a long fight, only -153-HP damage from that.”

  I hit her with a ‘Lesser Holy Shock’, the instant spell doing considerably more damage, but only just, -236-HP damage. It really made me regret not spending more time training my magical abilities, especially when I looked at the time left on the quest timer, just over 10-minutes.

  “Okay, spread out,” ordered Rose. “Focus on range damage. I’ll try to get agro, if I can ever get to her.”

  I agreed and moved to the left around one of the pews while Micaela went right, and Olaf remained in the middle. Vari moved to the right but further back toward the wall of the dome. It was just a matter of waiting for Rose to get close enough to get agro. All the while I watch that timer continue to tick downward.

  Rose finally reached the witch and smacked her with her shields, doing almost no damage due to the speed reduction, not even interrupting her spell. “I’m not going to be able to get agro. Olaf, you’ll need to tank at range. Baby, focus your healing on Olaf,” ordered Rose, the she shouted, “Shut up you witch,” stopping the witch’s spell and silencing her for the moment. It was good to know that if her ability to keep agro wasn’t working, she could at least try to silence her.

  Olaf didn’t need to be told twice, he let the witch have it with both barrels, ripping into the woman for a whopping 5% of her health.

  At the back of room, I noticed Vari, her mouth already moving, a spell chanting under her breath follow by a spear of light piercing the witch’s shoulder, chopping off almost 3% percent of her HP.

  I chanted for my own ‘Holy Smite’ just to compare the damage, it wasn’t even close, I barely did -189-HP damage, it didn’t even take off a percentage point of Connie’s health. This was going to be a long fight if we didn’t find a way to do a lot more damage quickly. I cast my first ‘Lesser Holy Fire’ adding the damage over time effects first stack, dealing -44-46-HP damage per second. It was my strongest spell but still way too weak. A glance at the ever-looming timer told me we were in trouble.

  “More damage,” called Olaf, firing both of his cannons as the same time, a critical hit chunking 11% of the witch’s health. It cost him though as the witch blasted him in return with a barrage of ice shards, stripping away Baby’s ‘Sage’s Ward’ from him in seconds then reducing him to just about 11% health.

  Baby healed him up quickly, but I wasn’t so sure anyone else but Rose and maybe Micaela could survive an attack like that.

  I took that to mean it was time to cast and keep casting until I was completely out of mana (OOM), then find a way to cast some more. I just wished I had more power to my spells or a greater variety of spells, what I wouldn’t give for a simple fireball right now. Still, I did as I was asked, hitting the witch with ‘Holy Smite’ repeatedly, then throwing in ‘Lesser Holy Shock’ when I could, and keeping up three stacks of ‘Lesser Holy Fire’ at all times. It wasn’t much damage, but it was better than nothing. I was sure even Vari was doing more damage than I was.

  “More damage,” ordered Rose, panic starting to creep into her voice. Another look at the time showed about 4-minutes left.

  I looked over to see Olaf getting absolutely pummeled by spells from Connie, but he kept shooting, reloading, firing one hand-cannon then the other, reloading again and firing both hand-cannons at the same time then repeating the process.

  Baby’s status bars showed she was also getting low on mana.

  “15%” shouted Rose, 3-minutes on the timer.

  “10%” and 1-minutes, 30-seconds.

  “5%, give it everything you’ve got,” shouted Rose, as the timer seemed to speed up for that last 30-seconds.

  “At least I will get to rejoin my love,” gasped Connie, her last words as she fell lifelessly to the ground. The timer stopped, 00:00:00:07 was all that we had left. I couldn’t help but reflect on the fact that if I had spent even a little time on leveling my magic, we wouldn’t have been in this situation. That or had a dedicated spell caster. Aside from the stopped timer, I noticed that most of us were completely drained of stamina and mana alike.


  “If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself,” said Cap angrily, working his tie lose. “Fitti, keep the Duchess safe.”

  “Yes, boss,” said the Barber, chanting under his breath, causing the air in front of him to shimmer slightly, some kind of shield I guessed and one we wouldn’t be able to get past until Cap Alone was dead.

  “Drink fast,” warned Rose. “Jack, heal me for a bit if you can while Baby drinks.” I took a couple of quick swigs from my thermos filled with M1, regaining +600-MP, bringing me back up to 935/1,660.

  Cap removed his bowtie and suit coat, laying them over the table in front of the shrine. “Fitti, hold on to my blushing bride while I deal with this rabble.” He then rolled up his sleeves. “Gremlin, my pistols!”

  “Coming master,” said a little green creature, scurrying out from under one of the pews. It was long and gangly and seemed to walk on all fours like a monkey but with arms just as long as its legs, kind of like a walking table. It had a large head with teeth everywhere. I would have said horns but when it opened its maw, the horns all retracted, showing they were longer in the mouth and actually teeth. The body of the little thing was absolutely covered in leather holsters, each one containing a pistol. It then fit a holster to Cap’s waist with a pistol at each hip.

  “You just could not leave it be,” Cap complained, pulling two more pistols from the many the gremlin carried then roughly kicked the gremlin way.

  I barely glimpsed a closer look at the pistols before the first shot rang out, they had three barrels each. Probably able to fire one at a time or three shots at once.

  The loud ‘rat-tat-tat’ against Rose’s shield suggested he started by firing three at once. Cap tossed the weapon away carelessly and took one from his holster as the gremlin scurried out from hiding and put an identical weapon in the open holster, it then scurried after the weapon before diving back into hiding.

  I couldn’t worry about where the gremlin went at the moment. I was too busy quickly draining my mana pool casting ‘Lesser Heal’ repeatedly on Rose while she took a pummeling to her shield. That was probably the only saving grace of having low level magic spells, they cost almost nothing.

  Olaf finally joined the fight, his stamina replenished, he fired on Cap, dropping the boss’s health pool by a few percent.

  Cap turned and fired a single round at Olaf, catching him in the shoulder, making the minotaur drop one of his hand-cannons. The boss then turned back to Rose and fired again.

  It was all I could do to keep up with the damage Rose was suffering, until I was completely out of mana. “I’m OOM!” I called loudly, searching my bag quickly for a mana potion but finding none. I did find my fully charged ‘Mana Crystal’ and quickly added the 1,000-MP to my mana pool. It seemed though that Baby had restored enough of her mana as Rose was back up to full health as was Olaf though his arm was still hanging limply.

  Rose blurred forward, smashing her shoulder into Cap. At least I thought she did. Cap though slid backwards on the ground, firing at Rose, propelling his slide and hitting Rose’s body instead of her shield, dealing a high amount of damage to our tank.

  I cast a ‘Lesser Holy Fire’ on Cap, to test a theory and was shot in the throat for my troubles, adding a ‘Silence’ debuff for the next 30-seconds.

  Meanwhile, that rotten little gremlin kept sneaking in and out of hiding, constantly feeding weapons to Cap Alone, allowing him to fire at us nonstop. Then it would disappear again, only to pop out some place else. If this was a fight of attrition, we would lose if we couldn’t stop him from shooting, even if just for a few seconds, long enough to unleash a volley of damage on him.

  The next time the gremlin popped out, it gave me an idea.

  “Jack, stop standing there and start damaging the boss,” shouted Rose.

  I would have shouted back at her, but I was still under a ‘Silence’ debuff. I focused my stamina into my limbs with ‘Body Control’, waiting to spring. As soon as I saw the tip of the gremlin’s mangled green ears, I leapt, bringing my spear down as hard as I could on the little goober, only for him to dodge. It rolled back suddenly into the shadows of the pew it just left.

  I heard a few more shots fire.

  “Gremlin, weapons!” shouted Cap, both hands and holsters empty.

  “Now!” I shouted, my debuff finally gone.

  We attacked as a group, each hitting as hard as we could, Heath faded in and out of ‘Stealth’ hitting the boss as hard as he could, his dagger cutting deeply and often. Olaf got off a few shots before he holstered his guns and equipped the maul, swinging on the boss with all his strength. I brought Gungnir to bear, hitting him with ‘Justice Strike’ first for -732-HP Damage, a critical strike, then ‘Lesser Holy Shock’ and ‘Power Thrust’, trying to push for as much damage as I could. Micaela, likewise, was putting all three of her wolves to work, her wielding the axes and Vision’s teeth and claws doing the rest. We chopped down almost 20% of his health that way in a very short amount of time.

  “That’s enough of that,” said Fitti, his shield fading for an instant as he threw a small, black colored bomb at Cap Alone’s feet. Thinking for a minute the Barber had betrayed his boss, I backed up as did the rest of the group. The little bomb burst, filling a small area around Cap with smoke and driving us further back, coughing and wiping away tears.

  “Sorry master, big meanies attack, Lem, but Lem remember plan and hide and wait and bring pistol soon as can, Lem do, Lem do,” the gremlin said proudly as it rearmed its master.

  “Fail me again,” Cap threatened the gremlin, before breathing in the smoke deeply, seemingly ignoring the debilitating effects. “I love the smell of a good cigar in the morning.”

  I suddenly suspected it didn’t bother him because it was made of the same stuff as his cigar was. “You got lucky, this time you die,” Cap said, opening fire on us once again.

  “Kill the gremlin!” I called loudly. It would have been great if we could have just taken cover and waited for the little beastie to appear, but we had to see it to be able to attack it. Add to that, the little stinker seemed to have gotten faster, and we had no choice but to endure.

  “Got him,” shouted Micaela in celebration. The gremlin was rolled up on its back and smoking as if recently cooked. Unfortunately, it wasn’t dead. The little guy rolled to his belly then scrambled quickly out of sight.

  “Get ready,” said Rose, grinning excitedly.

  “Gun, now,” ordered Cap, snapping his fingers.

  “Now!” Rose shouted, blurring from view, her shoulder finally impacting the dwarf mob boss. She followed up the hit with a double slam of shields.

  Knowing it was our turn to join in, we attacked, pushing our dps hard while we could, whittling him down to the 50% mark, just before Fitti tossed in another smoke bomb, this time it exploded as soon as it hit, giving us no time to get away or try to kick the bomb away.

  Coughing and tearing at the eyes I tripped over something trying to get clear of it. It was Vari’s foot. She was huddled low and crying behind one of the pews. She jerked her foot back and looked at me regretfully.

  “I am sorry . . . I just . . . I still . . . I am sorry,” Vari said quickly.

  I put reassuring hand on her shoulder. “It’s okay. You don’t have to fight him.”

  “It is just . . . he is still my father . . . I still remember him taking me to the park and playing with me . . . then one day my mother and I were just cast out . . . I swear it looked like it pained him then. Maybe it was just my imagination, I was so little back then, maybe that is what I wanted to see. But even now, when I look at him, that is all I see,” said Vari, her voice shaking.

  “It’s okay,” I promised her.

  “Jack, where are you, we need help here,” shouted Rose.

  I peeked over the pew towards the fight, then looked back to Vari. “I am not asking you to fight, Vari. But we do need your help. Please, just heal us, help us survive this fight,” I pleaded with her.

>   Vari huffed a few times before nodding. “Just healing my friends, right, I can do that.”

  “Good girl,” I said to her, rushing back into the fight.

  “Now!” Rose shouted.

  I missed who hit the gremlin this time, but it didn’t matter. I had to push as much damage as I could until the smoke bomb sent us coughing and gagging to get away from the boss.

  “One more time,” Rose sort of said, she was still coughing and hacking from the smoke, Cap’s health just under 20%.

  The gremlin got faster again, it now sported a dwarf sized boot print in the middle of its forehead and a trickle of blood running from its lip.

  Heath finally got the gremlin. The thief appeared from ‘Stealth’ right on top of it, his dagger driving down stabbing through the runts shoulder and pinning it to the stone floor. The little beast screamed and fought against the dagger that had him pinned. Olaf put an end to that, his maul splattered the little devil’s head, spraying Heath with a green mist.

  “Awe, mate, come on. Oh God, that stinks too,” complained Heath, wiping furiously at the blood.

  “Sorry,” said Olaf, shrugging.

  “Now!” Rose called out one final time.

  Heath and Olaf both forgot the blood and attacked, eager to end the fight, once and for all.

  We attacked again. Pushing damage, for all we could, knowing that he wouldn’t be able to rearm with his gremlin dead. Then the unexpected happened.

  “NO!” Vari screamed, leaping in and blocking me from attacking, stopping everyone in their places, surprised by the move.

  “Ha, fools,” said Cap, pulling a knife from his belt and holding it to Vari’s throat. “Now, you are all going to drop your weapons and surrender or the girl dies.”

  “Father, do you not remember me?” Vari asked.

  “Father? What is this? A joke? I have no children,” said Cap, flinching, his eye twitching.

  “Do you not remember the park with the carrousel? You took mom and me there every 7th day for a picnic, called it your work free zone,” said Vari.

  I don’t know what she was trying to accomplish other than putting herself in danger. On the other hand, I noticed Cap’s twitching was becoming more pronounced, the hand holding the knife was also shaking. “I do . . . I do not . . . I do . . . I do not . . . stop talking girl,” Cap said, seemingly arguing with himself.