World of Eternia: The Complete Collection (3 page)

After a lengthy passage
of time stretching pass several minutes, the foul water starts
stirring as the earth begins to shift under the mage's command.
Lucious switches his player's normal view to magical screen view, and
directs the reshaping of the environment. At the top of the screen is
the mana pool remaining to accomplish the task. With his virtual
reality gloves, the player carefully draws a bridge an inch above the
surface of the water, and makes it two feet wide. Lucious extends the
bridge straight across the moat, but to his dismay the bridge ends a
good three feet before reaching land again. Looking at the upper
right corner of the screen, he sees that the mana pool for this task
will draw the pool down to zero. Seeing no alternative, the player
sighs as he clicks the “Enter” icon to confirm the spell.

Finally Lucious
re-enters the regular player screen view again and opens his
character's eyes. The mage stands up and walks over to examine his
magically created bridge. As he had directed, the bridge is two feet
wide, and rises just an inch above the water. The bridge extends
straight across the moat, and it ends just before reaching solid
ground on the other side, leaving a two foot gap to jump across.

“Nice work,” Wesley
congratulates the mage with a pat on the back. He was skeptical that
the bridge would work or hold up a player character’s weight. But
seeing Lucious actually stand on the bridge alleviates his concern.

“Indeed,” Conrad
agrees. “The gap looks small enough for even our valorous knight to
jump across. Too bad I won't get a chance to toss him over,” he
frowns at the missed opportunity as he flexes his right bicep for the
in-game camera.

Lucious' knees buckle
from the enormous mana drain of the spell as his mana is now reduced
to zero, and abruptly falls down to one knee. Being a virtual reality
game, WoE tries to mimic the effects of dizziness by shining beams of
light directly into the player’s eyes via his visor equipment and
induce player discomfort. Not used to draining his mana pool in one
shot like this, Lucious is caught off guard by the game’s
biofeedback loop. The screen turns blurry and switches the axis back
and forth like a kaleidoscope, making it impossible for the player to
see the in-game world clearly. He has no choice but to take a knee
until his avatar’s vision returns to normal.

“Here.” Soft,
delicate hands touch the mage's face, and a wave of energy washes
over him, as one hundred points of mana are added back into his mana
pool instantly. The biofeedback loop abruptly dissipates, and Lucious
can see the in-game world clearly again. He opens his avatar’s
eyes, and sees Diana kneeling before him, her hands still on his
face. “Thanks,” he smiles.

The priestess blushes
and looks down. As a healer, she went through the dizzy spells often
when she started out in this game, and emptied her mana pool on
healing spells for the party. Unlike Lucious, though, Diana’s
tolerance for the biofeedback loop is apparently a lot higher, and
the effects are as annoying as mosquito bites to her. However, she
has read about different tolerances for mana drains in the public
forum boards, and as a spell caster she alone understood how much
mana the Move Earth spell would require. Thus, she had her “Mana
Link” prayer ready in case the mage needed a little bit of a pick
me up. She quickly gets up, and pats the dirt off her legs. Diana
looks at him again, and holds out her hand.

Lucious accepts her
hand, and gets back to his feet.

“I'm sorry to break
up this precious moment, but we need to hurry across the bridge,”
Wesley reminds the two gently.

“Right. I will take
the lead. Diana follows me. You're third. And Conrad takes the rear,”
Lucious replies. The mage looks at the cavalier silently, daring
Wesley to argue against the mage's proposed party order across the
bridge. The idea is to have the unarmored spell casters get across
the bridge quickly, and then see if the knight could make it across.

“Fine with me,” the
cavalier nods in agreement, as he quickly understands what Lucious
wants to accomplish. Normally he would take the lead; however, in
this case if he somehow falls off the bridge, Conrad can fish him
out. Furthermore, the spell casters would be safely across first. The
battle mage takes the lead across the bridge in case something comes
out of the water and blocks the bridge.

With a slight nod, the
mage enters the bridge. Lucious holds out his staff and taps it on
the solid bridge lightly every other step he takes. The mage ignores
the people behind him, focusing solely on the path in front of him.
While maintaining his head straight ahead, his eyes move from side to
side, keeping an alert eye on the murky water next to the bridge and
checking for unnatural movement in the water.

As the battle mage
reaches the middle of the bridge, he hears a “flik” sound coming
from the right. Lucious turns his head and sees a disturbance in the
murky water, but he is unable to make out the cause of the break in
the calm water. “Guys, stay alert. Whatever is in the water knows
we are here. Go across the bridge as fast as you can,” he says
aloud while returning his eyes to the clear path straight ahead.

“Roger that,”
Wesley replies.

“'Kay,” Diana says,
with some anxiety creeping into her light voice.

“Time for some
boom-boom,” Conrad says menacingly as he slaps his ivory club
against his open, left palm. Lucious has been hogging all the lime
light with his fancy spells. It is time for the big boys to shine!

Ignoring the remarks,
Lucious starts jogging across the bridge. Thankfully, nothing jumps
out of the water to challenge him.
So
far so good
, he thinks as he glances at his mana pool on
the upper right corner of his player screen. With the amount donated
by the priestess along with his fast mana regeneration due to his
exemplary intelligence player attribute, the battle mage’s mana
pool is already half full. He has enough points to cast both
offensive and defensive spells now.

At the end of the
magical bridge, Lucious jumps over the three foot wide gap between
the bridge and the ground. He lands safely on solid ground with a
“pupf.” He quickly turns around, gripping his staff tightly with
both hands, anxious to see the progress of his comrades across the
bridge.

Diana is just a half
dozen steps behind him, almost reaching the end of the bridge.

Swirrrr. Suddenly a
small fish with rows of sharp teeth jump out of the water, and latch
its jaws onto her robe.

The priestess draws the
steel mace from her belt loop, and smashes the fish on the head.
Whack!

Stunned by the blow,
the fish loosens its jaws and drops onto the bridge. Pit-pit-pit.
Lying on one side, the fish flips its tail, and struggles to leave
the ground and get back into the water.

Lucious stares at the
fish for a moment, and suddenly identifies the animal. “PIRANHA!”
he shouts at his party. “Get off the bridge as fast as you can!”

Heeding his warning,
Diana quickly hops off the bridge.

The two melee fighters
look at each other, and start to run across the bridge. Since the
barbarian is unarmored and therefore much less encumbered, Conrad
quickly widens his lead over the knight. Realizing the growing gap
between himself and the knight, and reluctant to abandon his leader
to save his own hide, the barbarian starts to slow down his pace.

“No! Keep going!”
Wesley shouts at Conrad, understanding why the barbarian is slowing
down on the bridge. “I’m wearing armor, you’re not! I’ll be
safe!” the knight points out.
As if to prove his point, a pair of piranhas jumps out of
the water and try to bite his legs.
Bing! Bong! He feels the impacts on his legs, and sees the
piranhas lying on the bridge. Their jaws are unable to penetrate
through the cavalier's thick, steel plate armor.

Splash! The water on
both sides of the bridge stir violently as piranhas start jumping out
of the water, this time in much greater numbers.

“Yahg!” Conrad
blurts out in pain as a piranha latches its sharp teeth onto his bare
right thigh. The barbarian slams his ivory club onto the piranha, and
it falls lifelessly onto the floor.

“Run!” Lucious
yells again.
I can’t blow
these piranhas away with a fireball if the two of them are still on
the bridge,
he thinks with frustration.
What
mass effect offensive spell can I cast? Think, mage, think!

The barbarian decides
to heed the mage's advice, and makes a quick dash for the end of the
bridge. “Yecqk!” he blurts out in pain as more piranhas latch
onto his body. The biofeedback loop delivers small jolts of
electricity into the player’s hands through his virtual reality
gloves. Grinding his teeth, Conrad ignores the pain and the fish, and
concentrates on making it across the bridge. The piranhas continue
biting him, causing him to bleed out his health points rapidly: 10%,
12%, 14%. . .

Finally, Conrad stops
at the end of the bridge. With a big exhale of his lungs, the
barbarian jumps across the gap above the piranha water, and lands on
both feet. Thud! Another piranha tries to nip at his heel during the
jump, but misses.

Diana pounces on the
barbarian right away, smashing her mace at the piranhas still latched
onto Conrad's body.

Conrad takes out his
club, and the two of them forcibly remove all the attached piranhas
in short order. As the piranhas release him, drips of blood begin to
run down his legs.

Diana attaches her mace
back on her belt loop. She places a hand on the wounded warrior’s
chest, and starts a low level Heal Simple Wounds prayer: “Oh
Merciful Gods of Eternia, Please grant my request to Heal this mighty
warrior, To continue his valorous deeds in your names. Amen.”

In the meantime,
Lucious keeps his eyes on the bridge, and sees that the piranhas have
formed a living wall of teeth blocking Wesley's path on the bridge.
An idea begins to form in his mind. Raising his voice, Lucious asks
without looking at the pair standing with him, “Approximately how
much damage does each piranha take?”

Diana looks back at the
mage with a slight frown. “One or two hits from my mace,” she
replies, worrying over what the unpredictable mage has in store.

“One hit from my
club,” Conrad adds.

Satisfied with their
answers, Lucious raises his staff in the air and starts casting a
spell: “lite-augh-lite-ghal-lite-tuuu-lite-jolt.” Switching over
to magic screen view, the player directs the Chain Lightning bolt to
target the wall of piranhas blocking the bridge. Dark clouds begin to
form over the bridge, and thunder rumble within the fast growing dark
clouds.

Conrad suddenly
realizes what the Lucious is planning to do. “Wait! Wesley is still
on the bridge!” he yells out, and starts to move towards the mage.
Before he can reach Lucious and shake the mage violently to interrupt
the spell, Lucious clicks the “Enter” icon and finishes casting
the spell.

Crackle! A bolt of
lightning crashes from the sky in a brilliant flash of light, and
hits the wall of piranhas. BBBBOOOOOOOOOMMMMMM! The thunder bolt
dances across the bridge, jumping from one living creature to the
next and hitting every creature on the bridge. Ccchhhheeeee! The bolt
jumps off the bridge and electrifies the surrounding water.

“Augh!” Wesley
yells out in pain as the character is seared by the powerful
lightning bolt, and the pain feedback loop hits the player's hands
via his virtual reality gloves. The cavalier drops down to his hands
and knees on the bridge, vaguely aware of the charred fish
surrounding him on the bridge.

Conrad sees his fallen
leader, and twirls on the mage with unbridled rage. The barbarian
grabs Lucious by his collar and pulls the battle mage off the ground.
“Are you crazy!” Conrad yells into the mage's face.
If
Wesley's character dies from this spell, I’m going to teach this
treacherous yellow bastard a lesson!

Lucious stares back
into Conrad's eyes defiantly, not at all surprised by the big man’s
anger.
The old man is like
Conrad’s daddy or something
, the battle mage smirks and
begins to explain his action on the bridge. “Wesley was surrounded
on the narrow bridge. There was no way for him to move across while
the school of piranhas was still alive. I used a relatively low
damage inflicting spell to clear out these critters,” he calmly
explains.

“What about Wesley,
huh? Is he just collateral damage to you? ” the barbarian spits
out. “You don’t purposely hit your teammates in the crossfire!”

The mage shakes his
head, and wipes away the spittle on his face with his sleeve. “The
Chain Lightning spell won't inflict enough damage to kill him. Give
the old man more credit than that,” he smirks.

Diana puts her hand on
top of Conrad's. “Just let him go and help Wesley get off the
bridge,” she suggests softly.

The barbarian turns his
menacing, ogre-like eyes, and stares at her.

The priestess stares
back, refusing to yield even an inch.

After a long moment of
silence, Conrad's eyes finally soften, and he nods in agreement.
Conrad lets go of the errant mage like a piece of filthy trash, and
the barbarian jumps back onto the bridge. Half-running across the
bridge, he makes his way to Wesley, who is still on his hands and
knees. The barbarian takes out his ivory club and knocks the charred
fish back into the water, clearing a path towards his fallen comrade.

“That was a dangerous
trick you just pulled,” Diana comments frostily as she stands next
to Lucious. She could understand the logic behind his spell, and the
priestess has no doubt that Wesley would agree with it even. Still
the mage needs to communicate his plans with the party, especially a
sensitive guy like Conrad.