World of Eternia: The Complete Collection (29 page)

The gatekeeper openly
sneers at the ignorance of these barbarians! "You barbarians are
standing in We Tang, the First of the Three Great Kingdoms," he
states proudly. He makes a grand showing of eying the four barbarians
up and down, and making a face at their unsightly presence. "Just
what can you uncivilized barbarians offer us? We Tang values law and
order above all, and your very lack of uniformity is an affront to
our society," he points a finger at Wesley. "No,"
Gatekeeper Kang wags his finger, "you cannot be allowed to
corrupt We Tang with your chaos and disorder. You barbarians will now
be given a choice: turn around and go back, or stay and die."

Upon hearing the
gatekeeper's decision to deny entry into the Kingdom, his guardsmen
lower their dragon heads in unison, and stand ready to charge at the
barbarians if ordered to do so.

Wesley keeps his calm
in the face of the insults from Gatekeeper Kang.
I'm
glad that I'm the only one among us who can understand this pompous
fool,
he smiles to himself,
or
else there will be blood spilled
already. But given the hostile posture of the guards, I think my
party understands what's going on anyway.

"I guess they want
us to turn back, oh fearless leader?" Lucious quips while going
through his mental rolodex of spells to use in this situation.
I
think a Wall of Fire or Ice will do nicely,
he decides
quickly.

"Sorry," the
leader replies. "It appears that these natives have a beef with
the way we're dressed."

"What's wrong with
the way we're dressed?" Conrad sniffs. He likes walking around
with his chest bare. It looks great on camera. "These guys are
stiff like surf boards," he sniffs again, louder this time.

"Different
cultures have different values," Diana replies. The doctoral
psychology student tries hard to brainstorm a way to change the
hostile attitude of the natives.

Wesley tries to be
diplomatic. "Gatekeeper Kang, our society values individuality
and differences. We believe that these differences will lead to
innovation and insights that expand our horizon. Perhaps you would
permit our priestess to provide a divine demonstration of our
advanced civilization?" he asks the official.

Kang and his men laugh.
"That's a good one," the gatekeeper replies. "There
ARE no gods. Your very superstitions reflect your barbaric ways,"
he says mockingly.

"With your
permission, our priestess could demonstrate the power of the Gods of
Eternia," Wesley persists.

The gatekeeper makes a
big sigh and decides to humor the strangers. "If you insist,"
he replies.

Wesley turns to Diana.
"It's your show," he says.

The priestess looks
back at her leader. "Are you sure about this? We could get
Lucious to cast a spell instead," Diana whispers; she is afraid
that the gatekeeper with his magic earring could hear the
conversation.

"These guys are
clearly looking down on us. I'd rather save Lucious as our ace up our
sleeve," Wesley whispers back and winks at her.

"Fine," Diana
acquiesces. "I will make my cross glow."

Wesley turns back to
face the arrogant official. "My lovely priestess has agreed to
demonstrate the power of her belief in the Gods of Eternia. She will
make her cross glow," he announces aloud.

"Get on with it,"
Kang says impatiently with a wave of his hand.

Diana walks pass Wesley
to stand in front of the unbelievers. She holds up her cross and
closes her eyes. "Oh Great Gods of Eterna! Your Faithful Servant
seeks a Sign of your Favor. Amen." She opens her eyes, and sees
. . . nothing changed.

"See?" the
gatekeeper sneers at the barbarians. "There are no gods! It is
time for your superstitious lot to turn around, or else." The
guardsmen start to approach the four Strangers.

"Let's go back,"
Wesley orders as he retrieves his long sword off the ground, and
sheathes it back into its scabbard. "We'll debrief when we
return to Eternia."

The priestess is still
shell shocked at the apparent abandonment of her Gods. Diana slowly
retrieves her weapon off the yellow brick road and mechanically loops
the edge back into her belt hook. Without word, she quickly enters
the portal, the raucous laughter of the natives ringing in her ears.

The golden portal
flickers in thin air. The light pulses on and off, on and off, with a
constant beat like a radiant pulsar in a dark night sky. The pulse is
steady like a beating heart, pounding at more than a beat per second.
Suddenly, the pulse rises rapidly--double, triple, quadruple beats
per second. Finally, the pulsating light explodes in a scintillating
rainbow of colors, and then dims to a former shell of its glory.
Standing in front of the now darkened portal are The Strangers.

The four players stand
tall, immobile, like petrified statues for a moment. It takes time
for the world environment to load onto each player's computer and
then feed the three-sixty image into the player's virtual reality
visor. Even though each member of The Strangers is using the still
unreleased 2.0 version, which is half a pound lighter than the twenty
ounces weight of the original 1.0 version, it takes time for the
hardware to interpret the stream of data coming from the World of
Eternia server. Virtual reality massively multiplayer online role
playing game ("VRMMORPG") is a neat concept on paper, but
recreating the digital environment and sending the massive data files
into the player's goggles still take time, and therefore the data
transfer can lag at times. As a result, the players can't move at all
until the data streaming process is completed.

Wesley blinks his eyes
as he readjusts them to the familiar sight of his home world of
Eternia. The four of them are back at the old, hidden temple where
the portal is located. The Temple of the Dawn, as this location is
known, was another closed off area that appears on the list of
inaccessible dungeons that the players have compiled. It is really
straight out of the now familiar playbook for the game developers to
tease players with these awesome sounding names of locales, and fan
speculation among players on what is in store for them when the
locations are finally unlocked.

The Strangers are not
the only player group that has gained favor from the game developers
to beta test new locations and run in-game errands for EDE. But then
again, it is unlikely that Richard Gibson, the CEO of EDE, had
granted ownership interests in the company to another player group.
If he had, players will hear about it.

Wesley shakes his head
to push aside these extraneous thoughts.
Man,
it is so unlike me to let my mind wonder like this. I guess I was
shaken badly by the failed mission. Let's see how the rest of the
group is holding up,
he thinks. "Are we all here?"
the leader asks aloud while turning around to look at his party
members.

"Yup,"
Lucious quips quickly. He has a high end gaming computer that had
cost a hefty portion of his year-end bonus to purchase; but his
hardware allows Lucious to get back into the game quicker than anyone
else in his party. He prefers to wait for the others to make a move
first, though, whenever they go through a portal like this.

"Present,"
Diana chips in.
Can't let the
peacock get ahead of himself
, she muses.

"Yes sir!"
Conrad booms in reply. As a minor league baseball player, he probably
has the worst computer of the four.
I
don't want to hold up the party
, he thinks.

"Good," the
leader nods in satisfaction.
Looks
like their spirits haven't been broken
, Wesley thinks.
"Once we leave this pocket dimension, we can head back to our
headquarters for a debriefing. Then we will have an audience with the
King and give our report," he spells out his plan of action.
Without waiting for a reply, the knight turns back and starts to
march towards the opening in the walls surrounding the temple. Once
he reaches the outer perimeter, Wesley accesses his player menu. He
chooses “Starter Town” as the new location, and instantly winks
out of view of his teammates.

The three quickly
follow suit.

* * *

Wesley lounges on an
old creaky chair, and puts his feet up on the long wooden table. He
had taken off his full steel plate armor and left the heavy gear in
his personal room upstairs
. I’m
glad I don’t have to play Tin Man in real life,
he
thinks.
I don’t know how I
would be able to handle that
, he readily admits. He waits
patiently for his party to arrive at the headquarters. While waiting
in silence, the leader ponders the agenda for the debriefing. What
went wrong? How could The Strangers have convinced that odious,
arrogant gatekeeper to let the party through? More importantly, how
come Diana could not cast her divine spell? This last question is the
most troubling of all. Wesley is anxious to hear the theories, as
he’s sure that Lucious already has something in mind.

Wesley’s wait is
short, as the rest of The Strangers arrive a minute later. He hears
the lock at the front door turn loudly, “click,” and the three
slowly enter The Strangers’ house and then head up the stairs. Each
member of the party has his own personal room on the second floor of
this small, two story house. The first floor is a combined conference
and trophy room, with some hard to obtain in-game objects on display
along the walls. There is also a cellar for storage of common items
and supplies.

The wooden table is
oval shaped, with three set of chairs on the long sides and a single
chair on each edge, for a total of eight chairs in all. The
conference table is placed on the east side of the room, while the
stairs are along the west wall. There is also a fireplace, which is
not lit currently. The room is illuminated entirely by candle light,
as there is no electricity in the World of Eternia. Nor does it
appear that EDE will introduce modern technology into the game
environment any time soon.

The three Strangers
wordlessly go into to their respective rooms to stow away their gears
for dungeoneering, to give themselves some time to decompress and
gather their thoughts for the upcoming debriefing.

Lucious removes his
purple cloak and hooks it on a nail behind the door to his room. He
leans his magical staff against a corner to the right of the door. He
takes a brief look around the room, and sees that everything is in
order. Like all the other rooms, there is a bed, a table, a chair,
and a big vanity chest. Sunlight shines through the window, and the
elementalist frowns at the light illuminating his room.
I
was expecting to return to my room when it gets dark,
he
thinks sourly.

The master mage had
gone through the encounter with the smug NPC official multiple times
in his mind, even though he couldn’t understand the language.
Clearly the magical earring allowed the gatekeeper to understand what
the party says, and that’s why Lucious decided to stay silent
during the entire encounter. He also has a theory as to why Diana’s
divine casting didn’t work, and it bodes ill for the party if King
Richard decides to launch an invasion against the newly discovered
world. Lucious decides to leave his magical Bag of Holding attached
to his belt, and quickly leaves the room. As he makes his way down
the wooden staircase, Lucious is surprised to see that he is the
first one coming down the stairs. Usually Conrad is much faster
.
I guess the big fella was really shaken up by the encounter
,
he thinks.

Wesley makes eye
contact with the young man as Lucious takes a seat in the middle of
the long side against eastern wall. The seat allows the spell caster
to see if anyone enters the room. The Strangers have decided to keep
the door unlocked, so that players and non-players could come in to
speak with the party members per their open door policy.

This policy is one of
the compromises the group had decided to make after their win in the
Anniversary Event turned The Strangers into celebrities within the
game. As shareholders in the company now, the group has now become
ambassadors and ombudsmen, the go-between for players and the game
developers. At first, players hounded them continuously for months on
end, but now The Strangers only get a few visits a week to deal with
problems in game between players or with EDE.

Lucious is equally
surprised that he's the first one out of his room, but keeps silent.
He decides to sleep on the table instead until the meeting starts.
Nonchalantly he folds his arms on the table and rests his face, right
side down, on his arms.

Wesley's eyebrows rise
at the lack of manners from the young man; he decides not to say a
word. Lucious is not his son, and if the young man can unwind for a
moment then that's fine.

Boom! Conrad jumps down
the steps, and the loud, crashing sound of his landing startles
Lucious into raising his head to look at the big barbarian. Grinning
evilly, Conrad saunters his way across the living room like a
peacock, and takes a seat on the end opposite to Wesley.
I
have to show confidence in front of these guys, even though I don’t
feel very confident right now,
he thinks. The chair groans
in protest under the man's heavy weight but manages to support
Conrad. Like Wesley, the big man leans his chair back and puts his
feet up on the table. Unlike the leader, whose hands are folded on
his chest, Conrad puts his hands behind his head.

The three men wait in
silence for Diana to join them at the table, none of them willing to
make small talk. The silence is deafening, in sharp contrast to the
jovial mood that usually occurs after a typical night of
dungeoneering. The trio hears a door close above them, and the
priestess finally joins them. She takes a seat directly across from
her boyfriend.