World of Eternia: The Complete Collection (33 page)

With her opponents
finally defeated, Laura’s avatar drops to the ground as the effect
of emptying her mana pool causes a biofeedback loop to the player,
resulting in a mild shock and blurriness inside the player’s visor.

The barbarian's mad
dash towards the seated man is thwarted when Blackheart snaps his
fingers, and a Wall of Air appears right in front of Conrad. Splat!
The player's screen view is blurred momentarily as his in-game avatar
is stunned by the impact of his character smashing into the unmovable
wall. Bam-bam! Conrad slams his fists against the magic wall in
frustration.

"
Well
played, Blackheart," Conrad says aloud as the fighter turns
around to face the two Armor Guardians slowly approaching his
position and exposing his back to Blackheart. He hears a chuckle from
the NPC. Keeping his focus on the two suits of armors approaching his
position, the experienced fighter quickly formulates his strategy for
this encounter.
There's no point
in trying to locate the edge of the wall; there's no time for me to
do so before the guardians reach me. If I can lure Blackheart into
dropping his Wall of Air during my fight with his minions, I might be
able to bum rush him when the opportunity arises.
Conrad
leans his left leg back so that his heel is touching the wall. The
instant the magical shield drops, he will know. Also, in this
position, his back won't be exposed to attacks from the guardians. He
clangs his axe and club against each other in anticipation.

Taking the sound as a
signal, the two enemy fighters launch their attack in unison with the
left guardian chopping down with its sword from above, and the right
guardian thrusting its blade into the human's torso.

Conrad expertly blocks
the blow above his head with his ivory club. The fighter times his
axe swing perfectly and turns his arm and wrist in unison to deflect
the point of the other blade to smash into the invisible wall behind
the defender. The deflection causes the attacker to over extend its
arms, and Conrad turns the table on his opponent by smashing the top
end of his war axe into the guardian's head. The player quickly
follows up the smash with a kick to the guardian's torso; the strong,
heavy blow catapults the suit of armor back a few feet.

The other guardian
pulls its sword back, readying for another strike at the human
player.

Conrad wastes no time
in launching his counterattack. He throws two opposite, horizontal
attacks simultaneously, swinging his ivory club from right to left at
the area underneath the helmet while swinging the flat part of his
double axe from left to right against the torso. Both strikes land on
the Armor Guardian, causing the helmet to be knocked off and thereby
decapitating the guardian. A fine black mist starts to envelop the
fallen Armor Guardian as it starts to disintegrate.

"Drat! My Armor
Guardians are hard to replace! I guess I have to defeat you myself,"
Blackheart says as he points his black, ebony staff at the human
fighter and starts chanting the words of a powerful spell.

This
is it,
Conrad notes as he runs back toward the Armor
Guardian still on the ground. When he arrives, the minion tries to
take a swing with its gauntleted fist. The player drops his ivory
club to the ground and catches the fist in the human's palm. The
barbarian takes a mighty swing with his war axe, and chops off the
guardian's arm at the elbow. He quickly follows up taking another
mighty swing to cut off the guardian's other arm, this time at the
shoulder.

The Armor Guardian
tries to head butt the player, but Conrad reads the move and nods his
head back in time to avoid the blow.

"Disintegrate!"
Blackheart yells out and a black beam shoots out from his magical
staff, aiming directly at Conrad!

The barbarian throws
the Armor Guardian directly into the path of the deadly beam, and a
black aura immediately envelops the minion. Conrad ignores the
spectacle, choosing instead to run at Blackheart.

"Missed!"
Blackheart says with irritation as he snaps his finger to throw up
the Wall of Air again to intercept the charging human. However, his
timing is too slow, and the wall appears behind the barbarian.

With a crazed look in
his eyes, Conrad grabs his war axe with both hands and takes a mighty
chop down on the NPC's head, intending to split the evil wizard in
half!

Blackheart lifts up his
magical staff with both hands and manages to block the blow. However,
the force of the mighty blow causes the staff to crack!

Seeing this, Conrad
presses on and takes another mighty swing downward again on the same
spot. The barbarian swings a third time, and finally the ebony staff
snaps! The vicious chop cuts both staff and man, splitting the two in
half.

Black mists start to
envelop Blackheart, and he too disintegrates before Conrad's eyes
until nothing remains--except a smooth black gem the size of a human
eye. The gem is opaque and dark as night. Although there is a lantern
on the table, the light from the lantern is greedily sucked into the
gem.

Conrad picks up the
mysterious gem, which is cool to the touch
.
I guess this is what Laura is seeking.
The victorious
warrior looks around the room, sees nothing of value and hangs his
head
. Maybe I can convince the
necromancer to reimburse me for the used potions,
he
thinks as Conrad slowly walks over to Laura, who is leaning against a
wall on the far side of the cavern. Kneeling down before the spell
caster, Conrad asks, “Are you okay?”

“Eventually,” Laura
groans. “I emptied my mana pool,” she explains.

“Ah,” the barbarian
nods in understanding as he recalls Lucious using up his own mana
during the Castle Eternia campaign last year, and being incapacitated
as a result. Unfortunately, there is nothing the fighter could do
except wait patiently for the spell caster to recover on her own when
her mana regenerates. He sits down next to her and passes the time in
silence.

“Did you find the
Blackstone?” Laura asks when she opens her eyes a few minutes
later.

In response, Conrad
holds the stone in front of Laura’s face. When her hand reaches for
the valuable treasure, he quickly pulls his hand back. “Uh! Not so
fast, Laura. We need to discuss compensation for my services,” he
says.

“What do you mean by
that?” the spell caster asks. “Didn’t we agree that you get two
thirds of the gold we find and I get first pick of magical items? I
choose to take the Blackstone,” she says while holding out her
hand.

Conrad shakes his head.
“Unfortunately, it appears that the game developers decided to be
stingy in rewarding players completing this quest. This stone is the
only item of value that I found. There is no gold I’m afraid,” he
shrugs.

“In that case what do
you propose, sir?” Laura looks directly into Conrad’s eyes.

“Two Elixirs of
Health were used during this quest. I would like you to replace them,
that’s all,” the warrior replies. He could probably get more for
the item on the auction block, but in doing so Conrad would make an
eternal enemy out of the necromancer and he would rather avoid that
outcome. Besides, Laura could easily make a post of this mission in
the public player forums, and subject him to ridicule from other
players for his conduct.

“Fine,” Laura sucks
her teeth. It's going to set her back a few hundred gold pieces to
replace those potions, but she could easily make it back as a
mercenary to adventuring parties in need of a spell caster. Besides,
once the Blackstone is in her possession, the necromancer's mission
will be completed and the experience reward will bump her character
up to the next level. That in itself is worth the cost of
reimbursement for the two Elixirs of Health.

“Good,” the
barbarian nods and gets back to his feet. He holds out his hand.

The necromancer stares
at it for a moment, and decides to accept his assistance.

“Let’s get out of
here,” Conrad says. “The exit is supposedly under the throne.”

“Lead the way,”
Laura replies, drawing a chuckle from the warrior.

Lucious finds himself
standing in front of the doorway. Before him is a tall, circular
tower taking up an entire block in the southern end of Starter Town.
The tower is made of stone and extends some two hundred feet into the
air. Visible even from a long distance away, the Sky Mages, or Air
mages specializing in flight magic, often use the tower as a marker
while flying in the sky.

The tower belongs to
the Magic Guild, a collection of mages who banded together to
purchase land from King Richard, and received permission to create
this enormous tower. Only the Lion Castle stands taller in the
Starter Town, and that's because it is located on a small hilltop. If
placed side by side, the tower is easily twice the height of the Lion
Castle. In addition, the tower had cost over one hundred million gold
pieces to construct, easily the most expensive player housing in the
game.

Until the lifting of
the Regent’s Curse over Castle Eternia, Eternia Development &
Entertainment, Inc. was steadfast in its refusal to permit player
housing. The game developers relented as part of the package that
provided player housing to The Strangers; implicit in the deal was
the ability to create player housing within the Kingdom.
Subsequently, the player class guilds decided to pool their resources
and competed with each other to create the most extravagant housing.
The Magic Guild quickly stood out from the other guilds in its
ability to amass from its membership tremendous resources to create
the runaway winner, resulting in the so-called “Mage Tower”
overlooking the rest of Starter Town.

Standing on either side
of the entrance of the Mage Tower are two lion statues. They are
magical guardians which could animate and leave their guard spot when
necessary. The two are imbued with limited sentience, and allow
passage to recognized members of the Magic Guild only. Meetings with
non-members take place in nearby taverns.

Lucious turns to face
the lion on the right and looks directly into its eyes, which are red
gemstones. "Lucious Trevis," the member identifies himself.

The sentinel's eyes
light up for a second as it cross references the most recently
updated record of members of the Magic Guild in good standing. On
occasion, members lose standing for violation of the Magic Code, or
conduct that result in temporary or permanent suspension from the
guild itself. The right guardian’s eyes are imbued with the "True
Sight" magic effect, which provides the ability to see in the
dark, and to dispel illusions that hide the character's true
identity. The guardian instantly confirms the player's identity, and
that he is a member of the Magic Guild in good standing. "You
may enter, Member Lucious."

The elementalist nods
and walks through the opening. While the guardian on the right is
imbued with True Sight, the one on the left has the ability to
trigger a Wall of Force to prevent intrusion into the Tower itself.
Additionally, there is at least one set of guards inside, near the
entrance, armed with spells and magic items to repel intruders. The
exact schedule of these guards is kept a secret.

In the past, the
previously unknown Assassin's Guild decided to publicize its
existence as an organization of hardcore player killers by putting a
bounty on each member of the Magic Guild who was killed. This guild
is made up of rogues and thieves specializing in the art of
delivering instant kill blows. A group of assassins managed to
overcome the lion guardians and killed several junior members of the
Magic Guild on the lower floors before the assassins were defeated.

The episode exposed a
weakness in reliance on magical devices. Henceforth, the leadership
council decided to supplement the guardians with human player guards.
Thus, all members of the Magic Guild are required to serve a rotation
every year. Additionally, the guards are supplemented with players on
loan from the Fighter's Guild, as part of an exchange of services
between the two player guilds. The fighters are elevated to temporary
members of the guild, in order to bypass the restrictions placed on
the lion statues.

“Well met,
Elementalist,” a mage calls out. He is wearing a set of leather
bracers on his forearms that have been dyed red, and a matching blood
red colored cloak. The bracers are worn by guildsmen on guard duty,
while the color red signifies the mage’s membership in the Fire
Faction.

“Well met, Tulin,”
Lucious replies. He recognizes the younger player, who possesses a
set of cool green eyes that contrasts with his pale white skin, jet
black hair, and mostly importantly to Lucious, a shorter height than
even the vertically challenged Lucious. “I see you’re stuck with
guard duty today,” he grins.

“Don’t laugh too
hard, my friend,” Tulin replies while offering his right fist for a
fist bump, which Lucious obliges. “As I recall, your rotation will
be coming up next week.”

Lucious makes a face at
the unwelcome reminder. Each faction within the Magic Guild is
responsible for putting their members into the rotation, and the
faction responsible for each day of the month is decided in advance
by the High Council of the Magic Guild. There is one faction for each
element of fire, water, air, and earth, and there is also a faction
for the unaffiliated group of mages, to which Lucious belongs.

The four elemental
factions keep close track of the ranks of the unaffiliated faction,
because once a mage decides to specialize in one elemental sphere of
magic it becomes rather difficult to switch out of the specialty. As
one of the most powerful members of the unaffiliated faction, the
elemental factions want Lucious to join their ranks. His membership
would increase the faction’s power and prestige in one fell swoop.