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

by M. A. Carlson

  I called out to Rose, “Charge it again!”

  Rose shifted backward several times, keeping her shield raised as the archer kept firing. She blurred again, her shields hitting the door and bursting through to the other side, the table and chairs easily knocked aside.

  I followed right behind her. A few more players were there waiting for us. wore heavy armor and carried a two-handed ax typical of some manner of Warrior. wore robes and carried a staff. That his face had a skull painted on it suggested he was a Dark Mage or possibly a Necromancer, though I didn’t see any undead minions. Last, looked like the typical Rogue with a dagger in each hand.

  “Ooh, Jon Boy, long time,” Pwn said with a wicked grin on his face, twin black fireballs hovering above each open palm. “I still owe you, don’t I?”

  Jon snarled and glared, “Pwn. I’ll gladly kill you again.”

  “You have history with this guy?” Rodger asked, floating just over Pwn’s shoulder.

  Pwn nodded. “Oh yeah.”

  “I guess I’ll keep detergent boy busy,” Rose said, nodding toward Dax Ajax. “Finish these other two off fast.” Clapping her shields again, she started the fight, charging the short distance to collide with Dax.

  At the same time, Pwn tossed his spells at Jon Boy, an action mimicked by Jon, but with your standard fireballs.

  That left Dagger Flip for the Fairy mage duo and me. Except, when I turned to face him, he was frozen from the waist down and a jet of fire was cooking his top half.

  Fiery had taken it upon himself to freeze the Rogue in place while his sister, Icy, burned him to death.

  I looked at Dagger one more time and his HP bar was steadily dropping. As long as Icy and Fiery had the mana to keep it up, I wasn’t going to get involved.

  Instead, I leaped across the entry hall and struck at Dax, my spear glancing off his armor, much to my surprise. I immediately ducked under a wide swing of the two-handed ax and stabbed for a shoulder joint. Again, I met armor.

  Dax started laughing. “I can do this all day. My ‘Always Armored’ skill ensures you’ll always hit my armor. And I have a lot of armor.”

  I frowned. “Then I guess we’ll see how your armor enjoys lightning,” I said, striking again, but this time I had ‘Storm Lance’ active. His armor reduced the damage of my spear, but the holy lightning finally did some damage, even if it weren’t as much as I would have hoped for. I had gotten really spoiled with my ability to leap high into the air and drop on an enemy causing crazy damage.

  “Oh, finally did some damage, too bad it won’t be enough to kill me,” Dax boasted. He pulled back his ax and swung it forward like a bat. It cut through the air as Rose and I easily dodged. And then came a shadow of a second and then a third ax. I was so surprised, I failed to dodge all of the damage. I learned quickly that he hit hard. “I told you, your damage won’t be enough to kill me. At least, not before I kill you.”

  I growled and shifted forward. Dax swung at me again, but I was ready this time. I easily flipped over and past the heavily armored player. I struck again, this time with ‘Artic Lance’. I was intent on slowing him down.

  Dax laughed again. “Smart, slowing effect was a good idea. But I’m a Juggernaut. Nothing can slow me down,” he boasted before he swung at me again, just as fast.

  Rose met his attack with her shield as I slid under the attack and came up behind him, striking again, this time with ‘Burning Lance’. I heard two additional clangs from Rose’s shield and saw her HP dip. Thankfully, Baby was with us and healing us all.

  “Ha!” Dax barked a laugh as he kicked Rose’s Shield-Wall sending her skidding back several feet. “You really think you will live long enough to kill me with a damage over time effect? I am unstoppable!”

  I smirked. “Not quite unstoppable.”

  “You really don’t get it,” Dax said. “I’m the number two of the Order of the Backstabbers. You never had a chance of beating me with just the two of you.”

  I laughed this time. “You might be right about that. But I’m just helping Rose keep you busy. You may not have been paying attention, but your buddies are all dead. Back to level one and banished from the province.”

  Dax finally took a step back, his head turning left then right. “I didn’t see a light. I didn’t see the white light. And you’re not one of the Justice Freaks, you can’t be. No, you’re lying. They’ll be back soon.”

  “Not lying,” Pwn crowed as he cast a stream of black fire at the Juggernaut.

  Icy, Fiery, and Rodger all joined in, casting their own spells.

  I joined in casting ‘Holy Blast’. It was only a single cast with a 10-second cooldown, but it was enough when combined with all the other spells cast.

  As Dax’s corpse vanished, Baby asked, “Should we go find Heath?”

  I looked at my group interface and saw that he was alive and well. “He’s fine,” I said. “Let’s keep moving.”

  The rest of the main floor was vacant. We found a pair of staircases leading up and a single staircase leading down.

  “Assuming Heath is good up there, I say we go down first,” Rose said.

  I agreed. It didn’t make much difference if we went up or down. We would be clearing the place out regardless.

  The stairs down led to the typical medieval fair, a dungeon with cells. And in one of those cells we found our main objective. , , and occupied a single cell. It looked like they had been stripped of all their gear. They were dirty and had several debuffs.

  Hidden was the first to speak upon seeing us. “I hate you, Tiny. You just couldn’t help but ask, ‘how could things get any worse?’ Well, guess what? Things have just gotten worse.”

  “I’d kill you myself if I could,” Black said, glaring threateningly at Tiny. It was only then I saw all three of them had their arms bound in iron chains that were bolted to the floor.

  “I wish you would,” Tiny said. “I’m tired of hearing you two complain all the time. Besides, if these guys made it this far, they needed to kill a lot of the Order. And that means if we die and resurrect back in the graveyard, we might have a chance to escape.”

  “Sorry guys, it’s not that easy,” I said. “See, the Goddess Issara knows you’ve been really misbehaving.”

  All three cursed then cursed each other, casting blame at one another until Black finally broke down into tears.

  I almost felt bad that I would be required to kill them. I mean, hadn’t they suffered enough?

  The series of lightning bolts Rodger shot into the cage made it clear, he didn’t think so.

  “Feeling better?” Baby asked.

  Rodger nodded once. “Yes, I am. Thank you for asking. Now, let’s finish killing the Order of Backstabbers. Then I feel like ice-cream, with sprinkles and a cherry on top. Oh, and maybe a cookie . . . or better yet, a brownie.”

  Rodger was already moving back toward the stairs when I heard a female voice asking, “Is anyone there?”

  “Hello,” I called back. “Is someone else here?” Then louder, I yelled for my friends, “Hey, come back, someone else is in here.”

  The woman’s voice asked, “Are you with my Order? Have you come to rescue me?” She sounded hopeful to me.

  “Probably not with your Order,” I replied, looking through the various cells but not seeing anyone. “But I’d be happy to rescue you. Um, where are you?”

  “Up here,” she said, her voice coming from directly above me. It was a Fairy in a cage and not just any Fairy. It was Sara Goodearth, the Fairy we met in the Grand Sage’s office.

  “We need to get her down from there,” Baby said, immediately going into healer mode.

  It took some work to find the lever that lowered the cage then a little longer for my clumsy ‘Lockpicking’ skill to set her free.

  Eventually, Sara stood straight. It was then I saw one of her wings was missing. She must have seen me loo
king because she answered my unasked question, “He tore it off. It will regrow, it just takes a while. Anyway, thank you for the rescue.”

  Rodger unthinkingly asked, “How did they capture you? What about your Order? You guys should have been more than strong enough to deal with these guys.”

  Sara’s face turned dark, she hissed “It was that . . . woman.”

  “What woman?” I asked.

  “Jinn Sade, at least, that’s what her nameplate read,” Sara answered.

  “Oh, we’ve met her before,” Pwn said, looking around nervously. “Really don’t want a repeat.”

  “Is she here?” I asked.

  Sara shook her head. “I don’t think so. I just hope she didn’t get what she was after. At least, I don’t think she did.”

  Baby asked, “Was she after the Royal Fairy Seed?”

  Sara nodded. “I need to get back to my Order. I need to make sure they kept it safe.”

  “Is that why they were holding you?” I asked.

  Sara looked at me sharply, then nodded slowly. “Buchannan, that’s their leader. He kept asking about it. Asking where my Order was located. And when I didn’t tell him . . . well, you saw my wing. I can’t say it really hurt but it certainly didn’t feel good. Thank goodness torture isn’t a thing here unless you count being held captive.”

  “We’ll escort you out,” I said. “But first, we need to finish them off.”

  Sara looked me up and down then snorted. “You have no chance. What is a level 30 going to do against a level 80?”

  “He’s not level 80 right now,” I said with a smirk. “Just like you’re not level 58 right now. For the next forty minutes, we’re all the same level.”

  “And how is that?” Sara asked, studying me, looking for a lie or some sign of deceit.

  I explained briefly.

  “So we can kill him, take away his levels?” Sara asked excitedly.

  Rose grinned and nodded, she said, “You bet we can. Want to help?”

  Sara matched Rose’s grin. “You bet I do.”

  Before we got too gung-ho about it, I asked, “Just a few questions. What class is Buchannan?”

  “Not sure about his class. He uses a spear, jumps around a lot. Does crazy damage,” Sara said, shivering a little.

  Things were about to get interesting.

  We caught up with Heath on the second floor, blocking the stairway.

  “Heath, what’s up?” I asked.

  “Just waiting on you slackers,” Heath replied. “I figured we should all get a crack at the final villain of this story.”

  I nodded. “So, he’s up there? Have you scouted it out?”

  “Yeah, he’s up there,” Heath said. “I’ve got to say. I don’t like the look of him. He might actually be a challenge, even with the levels balanced.”

  Sara chimed in hotly, “He’s going to die even if it takes my life in the process.”

  Heath looked Sara up and down. “Ah, no offense, little miss, but how do you plan to do that if you can’t fly?”

  Sara smirked, “I don’t need to fly.” She raised her hands causing earth and dust to begin collecting, forming into a large humanoid rock that wrapped around the Fairy, covering all of her but a slit for her eyes.

  “Right,” Heath said nodding. “Scary Fairy. Got it. Well, lead the way.”

  “With pleasure,” Sara said, then started running up the last stairway.

  The stairs opened into what I’m sure was once an elegant ballroom. Now it was dirty, the furniture was destroyed, and the smell . . . was unpleasant to the point of nauseating. At the back of the room was a giant window looking out over the harbor. At the bottom of the window was a bench stretching the length of it. And laying down as if he didn’t have a care in the world was .

  “Took you long enough,” James said in a long, slow, southern drawl. He almost sounded bored. “Do you know how much trouble you’ve caused me? Not that it really matters. I can always find more men and women looking for a handout.”

  “I’m going to kill you,” Sara raged, her rock form storming across the room.

  James lazily rolled into a sitting position. “So you’ve said,” he replied.

  As Sara reached him, her fist swung out.

  James moved fast. A hand touched the rock, and he was vaulting over Sara. He twisted in the air and stabbed with his spear, sending sparks flying as metal met rock leaving a shower of pebbles as he flipped away from the Golem Sage.

  James frowned as he landed. “That hit should have done considerably more damage. Color me confused,” he said as he turned to look at the rest of us. “Ah, that explains it,” he said, focusing intently on me. “So, you’re Bye-bye Jacko. Jinn told me about you.”

  “Oh, and did she say anything interesting?” I asked, readying my spear.

  “Oh, this and that,” James replied. “I think her words were, ‘clever but easily defeated’, or something like that.”

  “Then she’s gotten sloppy,” I replied. “But that doesn’t surprise me all that much. I mean, she is a psychopath. Escaped mental patient and all that. Or didn’t you know?”

  “I had no idea,” James replied. “And I really don’t care. You see, crazy as she no doubt is, she gave me power. An ultra rare class. And one that I’ve mastered. I doubt even Titan Beast could defeat me. Now that would be a fun fight. But you . . . all of you, are just . . . boring.” The almost ten thousand marks of judgment under his nameplate was testament to just how powerful he really was.

  I needed more answers. But right now, I had a more pressing question. “Before we get started and you slaughter us all, could you tell me, why does she want the Royal Fairy Seed?”

  James smirked. “I suppose it won’t hurt nothing to tell you. It’s not like you can stop that woman. She wants to corrupt it. She said something about making an Imperial Demon Tree. Not sure how that would work but I can admit, it’s got me mighty interested. Now, as you said, it’s time for you and your companions to perish.”

  James leaped across the room, his spear glowing black.

  I leaped and met him in the air, the holy energy of my spear countering his and sending him skidding back, using the blade of his spear to slow himself. “My, oh my,” he drawled, sounding slightly excited for the first time.

  The fool never should have slowed down. He left himself in range. I stabbed forward, bolts of holy lightning flew, striking him center mass. I leaped up, turning, and pushing off the ceiling. I was intent on doing as much damage as I could while he was stunned.

  Unfortunately, the stun wore off too soon. James was able to roll out of the way then leap back at me.

  I flipped backward, then pushed off the air to suddenly change direction, when I saw a wave of dark energy surging toward me. I shifted in immediately and stuck him under his still outstretched arm, though it only resulted in a glancing blow as he barrel-rolled through the air to avoid the majority of the damage.

  James chuckled. “Well, I’ll be damned. I do believe that woman may have underestimated you.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “I’m not surprised.”

  “I am,” James replied, his eyes flitting to the giant window at the back of the room. Suddenly he kicked out and Heath appeared and fell sliding across the floor. The hit had broken Heath’s ‘Stealth’ prematurely and stunned him. “Ah, ah, ah. Mr. Jacko and I were having such fun. Please don’t interrupt again.”

  I used the distraction Heath caused and shifted in to strike at James’ exposed backside only for Sara to move into my path, intent on doing the same.

  I couldn’t see James because of the bulk of the golem armor. I didn’t see him leaping over Sara. I only saw his dark spear stabbing toward my heart when it was nearly too late. I shifted ever so slightly. He still stabbed me in the chest, but I managed to avoid a hit to any vitals.

  With him so close, I used ‘Holy Blast’ hitting him at nearly point-blank range. It was my turn to kick him away. My foot landed high on his ch
est, lifting him off his feet. I leaped after him with my spear held above my head. I brought down my spear, aiming for the throat.

  James was fast. He rolled and I only scratched him with my weapon. The ‘Earth Lance’ I was casting at the same time pierced him in multiple places, both injuring him and making him bleed.

  James kept rolling until he was clear of the field of earthen spikes. “I am more and more impressed, Bye-bye Jacko. You might just prove to be the toughest fight yet. Especially confined in here. I just can’t bring my full power to bear. Why don’t we take this outside? A duel to the death. Just you and me?”

  I answered immediately, “Alright, you’re on.” I ignored the protests of my friends, and an incredibly angry Sara, as I followed him out a door next to the large window. I hadn’t seen it before, but there was a balcony out there.

  “Jack, this is crazy. We should fight him together,” Rose protested from behind me.

  Rose was probably right. But for some reason . . . some primal desire, I wanted to fight James. I wanted to fight him, and I wanted to win. “I’ve got him. If I fall, kill him. But let me do this.”

  Rose frowned, she shouted, “Fine, but if you lose, you’re sleeping on the floor.”

  I smiled. I said a barely audible, “Thanks,” and turned to face James.

  “You never should have agreed to this,” James shouted over the sound of the ocean far below. “Out here, in the open air. I’m invincible.”

  “Oh, and what makes you think so?” I asked.

  “Unlike you Warrior-Priests who are spread thin, forced to gain stats across the board, stuck between spells and melee damage and needing to constantly choose between them, I have a single class with a narrow focus. You might be more versatile. But in a straight-up one on one fight, I’ll take my Dark Dragoon class every time,” James boasted.

  I laughed. I was right. He was exactly what I thought he was.