World of Eternia: The Complete Collection (11 page)

“Oh right! You lent
your staff to Wesley to hit the trigger on the wall blocking the
passageway,” Conrad shares his understanding of the mage’s point.

“Very good, sir.
You're smarter than you look,” the battle mage notes with approval.

Walking in his
customary spot at the front, Wesley is listening to the conversation
as he leads the party through the long passageway.
Man,
what a backhanded compliment
, he thinks in bemusement.
Be
careful, Lucious. Conrad is smarter than he looks.

“So without access to
my focus item, I had to create magic the long hand way, with
elaborate hand gestures. It takes more time to cast without the
focus, time which I might not have if I'm facing monsters in combat
and my spell casting could be interrupted by taking a hit,” Lucious
continues with his explanation.

“So if I'm fighting a
hardcore magic user, say a lich, then I just need to disarm his focus
to impede his spell casting ability?” the barbarian speculates.
If
that’s the case, then fighting spell casters will be a breeze.

“Not exactly,” the
priestess jumps back into the conversation. “A lich is an undead
spell caster who is tethering his soul to this mortal realm through
his focus item, which could be anything that was significant to the
lich during his mortal life. The focus could be something in the
monster’s physical possession, or it could be located nearby but
not on his person. So it's a special case with a lich as the focus
item is what allows this creature to continue its existence in this
world. Again, the focus item has to be something significant to the
lich while it was alive; it could be ring, a hat, a book, a bowl, or
just about anything,” she lectures.

“Let's not get too
deep on liches,” Lucious interrupts. “These creatures are
rare
.
In the year that we have played WoE, we have never encountered a lich
even though there are occasional posts in the forum boards from
adventurers that come across one somehow. Why bother lecturing us on
something we're not going to face?” he remarks.

Wesley shakes his head
and turns to look at the naïve young man. “If you play the law of
average and consider all the monsters that we have faced in this game
so far, then we are
due
to encounter a lich. Besides, it's
quite possible that the campaign designers saved a lich for special
occasions, like this mission. Heck, we never faced a chimera before,
either, until this mission,” he reminds the mage.

Lucious shoots the
cavalier a doubtful look, but reminds silent. He notices something
ahead and points. “Look, an opening dead ahead!”

The party as one turns
to the spot pointed out by the mage. The descending path ends in what
looks like the opening of a large cave. Anxious to leave the never
ending tunnel, the party quickens its pace and makes its way to the
opening.

Skritter-skritter!

“What was that?”
Conrad tries to peer into the dark cave, but can't locate the source
of the noise he just heard. He pulls his ivory club off his belt
loop, ready for some action!

“I didn't hear
anything,” Lucious replies.

“Can you give us more
light to fill up the entire room?” Wesley requests.

“It will drain my
mana reserve a bit, but I think I can whip up something short term,”
the mage replies. He holds out his right hand, with his fingers
spread out and his palm facing upward.
“Nert-ciko-wind-zipy-milt-ergy-wixx-uoff,” he chants softly.
Suddenly a tiny ball of flickering light appears in his outstretched
hand. The player switches to magic screen view, and directs his
summoned Will-o'-the-wisp to enter the cave, fly up to the ceiling,
and glow as brightly as possible.

The tiny air elemental
zips into the darkness, and flies in a swirling pattern upwards until
it hits the ceiling. Gathering all its strength, it unleashes a
bright light that illuminates the entire cave.

“That's an expensive
spell, isn't it?” Diana remarks, once her eyes readjusts to the
light in the big cavern.

“Summoning this
Will-o'-the-wisp will suck up 20% of my mana bar right off the bat,
because I'm not an Air Mage. Remember, an elemental specialist caster
gets a 50% discount on spells from his favored element, but pays
double the cost for spells from an opposing element. Furthermore,
controlling this air elemental drains another mana point per minute.
Thankfully, the long walk through the passageway allowed my mana bar
to recharge completely. The levitation spells I cast didn't use much
mana, so I'm fresh and my mana pool is completely recharged,” the
battle mage explains. He looks at the melee fighters and says, “Let's
clear out this cavern before the Will-o'-the-wisp drains all my
mana.”

The two men stand at
the entrance of the enlightened cavern and see six man-sized holes in
the rough surfaced wall directly opposite from the entrance. The
cavern itself is an elongated oval in shape some forty feet wide,
five feet across, and two floors up. The holes are stacked in two
rows of three horizontally. The entrance to the cavern is placed
right in the middle of the long sided wall.

The cavalier quickly
turns his head from side to side, scanning the room for any hidden
dangers. He finds the room empty. A quick tilt of his head to the
ceiling uncovers nothing neither. He marches into the room, signaling
that the room appears to be safe, and the rest of the party enters
after him.

Out of curiosity,
Conrad walks over to the other side of the cavern and examines one of
the holes on the uneven wall. The hole he has chosen is the lower
right one. He tries to peer into hole, but his eyes cannot see
anything inside. He looks back at the spell casters, who are standing
in front of the entrance. “Can I have my torch back, Diana? I want
to see where these holes lead to,” he explains.

Skritter-skritter!

The barbarian feels a
rush of air heading straight towards his unprotected back. He
instinctively drops to the ground. Remembering that he is standing
next to the wall on his right, Conrad rolls his body to his left
side. He raises his tower shield to cover his body, and feels his
shield absorb a powerful blow. Clang!

The remaining Strangers
stare in horror at the sudden appearance of a red Giant Centipede,
with dozens of thin, moving legs attached in pairs to segments that
make up an elongated red-colored torso. At the top end of the torso
is a set of huge, sharp mandibles that could easily cut a man in two.
The centipede twitches its antennas in the air, and quickly backs
into the hole. Skritter-skritter!

“Back up, Conrad!”
Wesley calls out as he turns his head back and forth along the wall
with six holes, fully expecting the centipede to emerge from one of
the openings again.

Keeping his tower
shield facing the hole in front of him, the barbarian sits up and
quickly rises to his feet.

Skritter-skritter!
The giant centipede suddenly pops out of the upper left
hole. Sticking just its head out, its antennas twitch in the air as
the monster tries to get a reading of the location of its prey. Not
sensing anything within reach of its mandibles, it quickly backs into
the hole again. Skritter-skritter!

Lucious turns to his
leader. “Should I collapse the holes and crush this bug?” he
suggests.

Wesley eyes the six
holes on the opposite wall for a moment to contemplate the
suggestion, and shakes his head. “That's a negative,” he
inadvertently drops into his military jargon. He closes his eyes for
a moment and reopens them to clear his mind of his old, familiar
military lingo. “No, what I mean to say is that this monster seems
to be a guardian, a gatekeeper if you will, to the next portion of
our campaign. I don't think the dungeon designers placed another
hidden door for us to find here in this cavern. It is apparent to me
that they want us to defeat this WoE version of a whack-a-mole
encounter, and move on to the next stage,” he shares his train of
thought freely with his party members.

“How are we going to
get this bug? It disappears back into its lair faster than we can get
in position to hit it,” Conrad pats his ivory club into the palm of
his left hand with apparent frustration. "It's one thing if each
party member could stand in front of a hole and whack the centipede
when its head pops out. But we only have four adventurers to cover
six holes. So obviously that won't work," he adds.

“How about this
then?” Diana chimes in. “Since these six holes are obviously
interconnected, all we need to do is keep one of them open for us to
pass through after the monster is defeated. In the meantime if five
of them are collapsed, we just have to wait for the centipede to rear
its ugly head out of the remaining hole, and then smack it down,”
she proposes while pantomiming an uppercut against a phantom
opponent.

“That's a good plan,”
the cavalier offers his assessment. “If no one else has a better
idea,” he looks at the two men and sees them both shake their
heads, “then let's do it!” Turning his head in the battle mage's
direction, he asks, “Any ideas on collapsing just five tunnels?
Obviously, you can't create an earthquake to collapse all the
tunnels, and then recreate a new tunnel with Move Earth spell.”

Lucious mentally checks
his spell book for something powerful enough to collapse the tunnels,
but still allow for one of them to remain open. “This is a
toughie,” he starts to reply after a moment of thought. “Normally
I would just create an Earthquake to collapse the tunnels and crush
the centipede in between. But given our need to maintain one of these
tunnels, the spell would not achieve this objective. No, I need
something that is still earth-based, like Earthquake, but with more
refinement. The best solution I can come up with is Move Earth again,
but use the spell in a different way,” he answers.

“Sounds good to me,”
Wesley replies. “I need you the leave the lower middle hole open.
This opening gives us a strategic advantage compared to the other
ones. I need you to collapse the hole above that first, but allow
room for an alcove where Conrad could jump down for an ambush from
above.” He looks at the other members. “Once the giant centipede
emerges from the hole, we need to take it out fast, before it could
scurry back into the hole.” He turns back to Lucious again. “Better
yet, if you could use your Move Earth spell to impale the monster in
place once it's out in the open, that would prevent it from
retreating back into the tunnel. Can you manage that?” he asks.

The mage shoots him a
doubtful look. “You're asking me to block off five big holes, and
then impale the monster in place? I don't think I have the mana to
accomplish all that plus maintain the Will-o'-the-wisp,” he shakes
his head while directing a thumb at the small flickering ball of
light above their heads.

“What if I share my
mana with you?” Diana offers.

Lucious turns to face
the priestess. “I appreciate the offer, but the Succor Prayer is an
inefficient exchange that yields only one point of health or mana to
the recipient for every two points offered by the giver. Besides, if
you run out of mana then we have no way of healing until you
regenerate your mana pool,” he replies.

“I will give you just
enough mana to supply your Move Earth spells,” she insists.

“Just take her on her
offer, man” Conrad opines. “We have no way of moving beyond this
stage otherwise. This is no time to be shy about seeking the lady's
help,” he grins.

The mage shoots the big
man an angry look.
Stop trying
to make me look bad in front of her
, he thinks angrily.

“We're a team,
Lucious,” Wesley adds while still facing the wall full of holes.
“We do whatever is necessary to win,” he reminds the young man.

“Fine,” Lucious
snaps. “Let's get this over with.” He moves his avatar back to
the entrance of the cavern, and lowers his character. He kneels on
the ground and wills his torso forward until his head and both palms
touches the ground. In truth, he hates this spell because it requires
him to be in such a humble position, one that he would never adopt
with his real life body. Clearing his mind of all extraneous
thoughts, he chants the arcane words of the Move Earth spell:
“heth-voke-putu-masu-move-heth-voke-putu-masu-taal!”

Lucious switches to
magic screen view, and directs the reshaping of the environment. The
player directs the stone to close off five tunnels. He remembers to
leave amble space for an alcove in the upper middle tunnel. He closes
off the intersection connecting the six tunnels to an unseen seventh
tunnel, leaving intact just the lower middle tunnel and the hidden
tunnel. After one last check over his input, he finally clicks the
“Enter” icon, and switches back to regular view to watch the
environment change.

The changes in the
interconnecting tunnels squeeze the giant centipede out of the upper
right tunnel and force it to crawl into the lower middle tunnel.

Conrad sees the alcove
form in the upper middle tunnel. He makes a running dash towards the
hole and launches his massive body into the air. He grips the edge of
the alcove with hands, and slowly pulls himself into the alcove.

Diana sits down on the
floor next to the prostrate mage, and begins her Succor Prayer: “Oh
gracious Gods of Eternia! Heed my plea to Share my strength, to
another servant in your names! Amen.” She reaches down, places her
hand over his, and squeezes his hand softly.

Lucious feels her hand
over his, and turns his head inside his virtual reality headset. At
the upper corner, he sees his mana pool being replenished as the
number keeps increasing.
Let's
finish this before she is completely drained
herself, the
mage reminds himself. Looking through his headset again, the battle
mage sees his large comrade climbing into the newly formed alcove,
and wait for the barbarian to set himself in position. "Just
give me one minute to replenish my mana," he announces.