World Tree Online: The Order of Epic Grinders: 4th Dive

by M. A. Carlson

  “It would be if this were an act of war. I hope it’s obvious I’m not trying to take over the world,” Dawson said. “It’s why I’m reaching out to you now. My company is dedicated to undoing this. We’re putting an unbelievable number of resources into getting to the bottom of all this. Please sit, we’ll tell you everything.”

  Cassi frowned, looking at me nervously. “And . . . he’s . . . stable?”

  “Completely,” Dawson said. “All of them are. It’s not like what happened back then.”

  Back then, being the last major Earth war. One nation got a little too enthusiastic with genetic editing. It started causing some . . . issues. People started becoming unstable. Naturally, some of the people who enhanced themselves through genetic editing began thinking of themselves as better than everyone else. They started thinking they should be in charge. A lot of people died.

  “All?” Cassi almost screamed. “What do you mean ‘All’? Just how many people have been edited?”

  “One-hundred and one,” I answered softly, then added quickly, “Including me.”

  “It’s even worse than that,” Dawson added. “The A.I. has threatened to edit another hundred people. It’s demanded that those who have already been changed must continue to play.”

  “How did this happen?” Cassi asked.

  So, Dawson and I told the tale. Laid everything out for her. I explained Epic’s creation and subsequent sale. Dawson explained the purchase of the A.I. and how it was installed. I then added in the in-game events that eventually led to Epic confronting me. Then it was Dawson’s turn again, he explained how he rounded up everyone, made the NDA agreements and paid off everyone affected and their families. I then gave her the details of the deal I made with Epic just a few days ago.

  “Which brings us to now,” Dawson said. “As much as I did to keep this as quiet as possible, eventually someone is going to slip up. Or someone’s family is going to go to the press regardless of the NDA and the hush money I paid. I need to get ahead of this.”

  “That is a big ask,” Cassi said. “And if the press ever gets wind that you paid so much money to keep this quiet . . . your reputation will be shot.”

  “My reputation would be shot regardless. But as far as I’m concerned, this was an act of terrorism,” Dawson said.

  “I don’t think we can charge an A.I. with an act of terror,” Cassi said.

  “No, I don’t think we can either. But we can charge the A.I.’s accomplice,” Dawson said seriously. “From what we’ve been able to piece together, this woman-” Dawson paused to slide a tablet across the table to her, “June Sadoyoshi may have corrupted the A.I. She has a history of instability and was a leader in the field of Artificial Intelligence. She is one of the few people in the world that could have done something like this.”

  Cassi picked up the tablet and thumbed through a few of the screens before speaking. “She’s not exactly a scapegoat. But I think I can work with this. It just might save the lives of everyone affected.”

  “Thank you, Cassi, I owe you,” Dawson said.

  “You do owe me, you owe me so big,” Cassi said. “Okay, if we’re going to sell this as an act of terrorism, we’re going to need to put a face to it, hopefully a lot of faces. Are any of the people who have been affected willing to do on camera interviews?”

  “I’m sure a lot of them would,” I said. “I will if that’s what it takes.”

  “Good, we’re going to need to get as much of the public on our side as possible,” Cassi said.

  Dawson jumped in, “Ideally, this will never get out to the public.”

  Cassi nodded, “Hopefully it never will, but we need to be prepared for it.” She paused, sighed, and set the tablet back down on the table, apparently satisfied with the information it provided.

  “I want to save these people, Cassi,” Dawson said.

  “You want to save your company,” Cassi quipped.

  “That’s also true, but if I can’t save these people, there won’t be a company to save,” Dawson replied.

  Cassi sighed and shook her head. “You’re probably right. Okay, first things first, we need to get these interviews setup immediately. As many as are willing.”

  “I can do that. Some of them have already returned to the game, we are still forced to adhere to Epic’s demands,” Dawson said.

  “Do what you can. The more pathetic they look, the better,” Cassi said. It was a rather harsh thing to say but I understood it. If public sympathy was the goal, then that was one way to get it.

  Cassi continued before Dawson could reply. “Second, I need everything you’ve got on this June Sadoyoshi. I know you have more than just this dossier. I need to get the Intelligence Services looking for her.”

  The Intelligence Services or IS were basically spies. Though instead of spying on governments, they spied on everyone and everything. Everyone heard rumors about them, but no one could, or would verify those rumors as true or not. It was probably better that way as some of those rumors were terrifying.

  “Lastly, Bye-bye, can you win?” Cassi asked, looking at me carefully.

  “I haven’t lost yet,” I replied. I was confident in my friends and me. We definitely had the ability to keep winning, and it was never as important to win as it was now.

  Cassi sighed, then said, “I suppose that will need to do for now.”

  “We also need to at least try to mature Epic,” Dawson said. “I’m not entirely sure we can do that as we can’t seem to find him in the system to isolate him. But given that Epic seems to pull Bye-bye in for a regular chat, Bye-bye might be our best bet in that department.”

  “Yeah, I’m not so sure about that,” I said. “Epic really doesn’t like me. It’s angry, mostly with me.”

  “And yet Epic keeps talking to you,” Dawson said. “Sounds like a child trying to get the attention of a parent to me.”

  I frowned. What did I know about being a parent? I was barely an adult myself. Still, I nodded. I would try. I wouldn’t stop trying either.

  Cassi and Dawson went over a few more details before we left the sealed greenhouse, my hat and sunglasses back in place.

  Dawson let me off on my floor and promised to stop by later. Then he rode the elevator the rest of the way to the lobby with the Senator, leaving me to return to my room.

  I was barely in the room before Rose bombarded me with questions. “How did it go? Is the Senator going to help us? How freaked was she when she saw how strong you were?”

  I answered each question in order, “It went good . . . I think. She says she’s going to help us, but . . . I’m still worried. And she leaped away from the table like a scared cat when she saw my strength.”

  “Oh, I wish I could have seen it,” Rose complained, wrapping her arms around my neck, and pulling me close, pressing her lips to mine. “Hey, we’ve done everything we can,” Rose said reassuringly, pulling me closer.

  “I know, but I’m still afraid,” I said. “What if we can’t beat Epic this time?”

  “Jack, please, you’ve been beating him since day one, I’m pretty sure you . . . no we, we’ve got this,” Rose said confidently.

  I hugged her tighter, not worried about my strength with her, just as I was genetically edited, so was she. That, and she was stronger than I was. “I love you,” I whispered.

  Rose was my girlfriend. We met during my very first month in the World Tree. She played as a half-Dark Elf, half-Vampire, and her avatar was a rare class called Vampiric Knight. She’s kind of amazing. She is probably the best tank in the game with her dual wielding shields, but I’m definitely biased.

  “I love you too,” Rose whispered back, hugging me tighter.

  As the hug broke, I asked, “Did you talk to Babs?”

  Babs, a.k.a. Barbara, a.k.a. Babies Breath, is Rose’s cousin, though they refer to each other as sisters. Babs also plays World Tree Online as our Fairy Sage, and an immensely powerful healer.

  “She’s called a few times asking
for updates,” Rose answered, “Oh, and Marylin called me looking for an update.”

  That surprised me. “Why is my sister-in-law calling you?”

  “We’re friends,” Rose answered.

  “You’ve known her for like, a week, if that,” I said, feeling all kinds of confused.

  “So?” Rose asked, raising a single questioning eyebrow.

  I had no response for that, so I just pressed on with the results of the meeting with the Senator, “Anyway, the Senator wants us to do interviews. She wants them ready for if the story about us somehow leaks.”

  “Probably not the worst idea,” Rose said.

  Rose and I spent the rest of that day lounging around. There really wasn’t anything for us to do at that point. We would be meeting up with the players that hadn’t logged back into the game yet, though that wasn’t until later. We would go over strategy and share details about what we’ve learned. There wasn’t much left to share to be honest. I learned about a few skills that might be beneficial but nothing world changing. I also learned about some interesting sounding dungeons and provinces.

  The hardest part about talking to the others was talking to those who lost to Epic and the consequences of those losses. One of the highest-level players, an Elven girl named Kay Sara said that an entire province was destroyed, including the portal. She did say she got a follow up quest to go to the provinces that surrounded it to try to recover the lost province. I didn’t even know such a thing was possible. I hoped that she and her friends would try to recover the lost province, but from the sound of it, she and her friends probably shouldn’t have been in that province in the first place.

  I tried to learn from their losses. The one thing I picked up on, with most of them, was that there was always someone hidden in the shadows pulling strings. In Kay’s instance, it was a stable boy, whispering rumors to the lords when they came for their horse. In another province, it was the mayor and in yet another, the mayor’s aide. It also seemed that the lower the level of the province the more obvious they were to spot. The higher the level of the province, the harder they were to identify.

  It all told me one particularly important thing, Epic was getting smarter with every loss and every victory. If not for Rose, I might have been a complete mess by the time we were due to log back into the game.

  The interviews began the next day with Olivia Walters doing the interviews. Apparently, she was the great-great-great-granddaughter of some famous broadcaster. I was unimpressed. She kept asking questions I was fairly sure were geared toward making the interviewee cry. I really didn’t have anything to cry about though. Yeah, I was changed but I didn’t have some secret deep dark pain. The only thing that might have made me interesting was my involvement with Epic. But it was agreed upon by pretty much everyone involved, that any mention of my involvement would potentially lead to bad things. As a result, I was probably the most boring interview she had. Needless to say, I was quite sure they weren’t going to use my interview, if they ever needed to be used. And I really hoped they would never need to be used.

  All too soon, it was time to log back into the game.

  ***

  “Daphne, let’s go,” Melanie Meadows yelled through the house, the frustration in her voice was evident.

  “Relax, mum, it’s not like the World Tree is going anywhere,” Daphne Meadows-Eastmont replied with a roll of her eyes.

  Daphne was the only daughter of Oliver Eastmont and Melanie Meadows, otherwise known as Olaf and Micaela Crushhammer. She was only slightly taller than her mother and took after her father in looks and sometimes in both behavior and attitude. In fact, the only time she reminded her parents of her mother was when she was barking orders.

  “You’re the one that wanted to spend her summer hols in the World Tree,” Melanie replied impatiently. “I agreed only if you logged in with us and if you agreed to start in Hurlig Ridge. This is nothing new. Now, hurry along or we’re going to be late meeting our friends.”

  “Mum, I heard you,” Daphne complained. “Just get dad in his Seedpod first. I still don’t know why you setup all three in the same room. It’s beyond me.”

  Melanie sighed. “It’s the way the company set it all up,” she said, looking to her husband for support.

  Oliver just shrugged, adjusting his armband, and pulling the lid of his Seedpod closed.

  Melanie frowned and glared at her husband’s Seedpod. She huffed once, then looked back toward the door that led to her daughter’s room and said, “There, his lid is shut, now let’s go.”

  Daphne leaned her head around the door frame to look into the family room where the three Seedpods had been setup side by side. She stepped into the room only once she was sure her father wouldn’t see her in a sports bra and cycling shorts. It was too embarrassing to be seen by her father like that.

  Melanie could only roll her eyes. “Come on now, we’re going to be late.”

  Daphne rolled her eyes then stepped into her Seedpod, somewhat nervously while her mother helped with the armband and adjusting its location.

  “There. All set,” Melanie said. “Ready for me to close the lid?”

  Daphne didn’t trust herself to speak so she just nodded.

  Melanie smiled. She placed a hand on her daughter’s cheek and kissed her forehead. “If I don’t see you in Hurligville in a few hours-”

  Cutting her off, Daphne reassured her mother one more time, “Mum, I know, relax, I’ll be there. I promise, Wendy is meeting me there.”

  Melanie nodded, glad her daughter had someone at the same starter level to join her on their adventures. Melanie had met Wendy a few times now. She was her daughter’s roommate at the university they both attended. Daphne and Wendy hit it off almost immediately, which was great in Melanie’s opinion. Less great, was Wendy’s spending habits, which meant Daphne had inevitably convinced herself that she needed to spend to keep up. It meant Oliver and Melanie would need to be much more frugal inside the World Tree, especially after buying a third Seedpod. But for their daughter, Melanie and Oliver would walk through fire, destroy cities, and do whatever it took to see her happy and healthy. With one last look, she carefully closed the lid of the Seedpod over, hearing Maggie’s voice come through the cracks in the side of the cover before it fully sealed a minute later.

  Melanie looked at both Seedpods on either side of her own then stepped in, ready to start on the next epic adventure.

  Chapter 2

  Looking as calm as usual and as unnaturally still, Maggie asked, “Are you ready to return?”

  And as usual, I replied, “Give me a moment.” With that I opened up my Status and Equipment screens.

  “Jack, it’s not like anything is going to change,” Rose complained.

  “They still patch stuff. I wouldn’t be too surprised to see a change pop up. For example, what if they changed the stats on your shield-wall?” I asked, focusing on my status first. From the corner of my eye, it appeared Rose was doing the same.

  Level:

  22

  Experience:

  86.92%

  Class: Beginner Warrior Priest of Issara

  HP (Health Points):

  5,550/5,550

  MP (Mana Points):

  4,370/4,370

  SP (Stamina Points):

  3,280/3,280

  Base

  Total

  Strength:

  211

  261

  - Melee Damage Modifier

  +211

  +261

  Dexterity:

  216

  282

  - Melee Critical Strike Chance

  28.18%

  28.18%

  - Hit Chance

  74.09%

  74.09%

  - Dodge Chance

  28.18%

  28.18%

  Endurance:

  440

  555

  Stamina:

  218

  328

  Intellect:

  322<
br />
  437

  - Spell Critical Strike Chance

  35.00%

  35.00%

  Wisdom:

  205

  250

  Charisma:

  325

  341

  Health Regeneration per 10-seconds:

  278

  278

  Mana Regeneration per 10-seconds:

  125

  145

  Stamina Regeneration per 10-seconds:

  164

  164

  Holy Spell Damage Bonus:

  219

  561

  Holy Spell Healing Bonus:

  219

  463

  Carrying Capacity in Lbs.:

  1,305

  I nodded to myself, glad to see everything was in order. Then I accessed my equipment.

  Equipment Slot

  Name

  Armor/Damage

  Helm:

  Holy Fired Light Leather Helmet

  +25 Armor

  Bonus Stats: +15-Intellect, +15-Wisdom, +20-Holy Spell Damage and Healing

  Head Accessory:

  Empty

  Bonus Stats: N/A

  Shoulders:

  Holy Fired Light Leather Shoulder-Guards

  +25 Armor

  Bonus Stats: +15-Strength, +15-Dexterity, +15 Intellect, +20 Holy Spell Damage and Healing

  Back:

  All-Weather Cloak (White)

  +0 Armor

  Bonus Stats: N/A

  Chest Armor:

  Holy Fired Light Leather Jerkin

  +50 Armor

  Bonus Stats: +15-Endurance, +15-Stamina, +15 Intellect, +30 Holy Spell Damage and Healing

  Chest Clothing:

  White Cotton Shirt