World of Eternia: The Complete Collection (5 page)

The priestess holds the
cross necklace hanging around her neck with her left hand. She
reaches with her right hand to touch Conrad's shoulder and closes her
eyes in prayer: “Oh most glorious Gods of Eternia, Let your awe
inspiring Might flow freely within your Servant, To perform worthy
deeds in your names. Amen.” A light starts emanating from her hand.
Abruptly the light envelopes Conrad, causing his already muscular
body to thicken and increase even further in muscle mass.

“Oh yeah!” the
barbarian whoops as he feels the tremendous surge of energy coursing
through his veins, demanding release. Pulling out his trusty club, he
stands before the great door. Striking his familiar hitter's pose at
the plate, he unleashes a powerful swing at the door.

BOOM! The blow
reverberates throughout the entire castle, to the very ground the
party stands on.

“Great! We just
announced ourselves as uninvited house guests,” Lucious quips to no
one in particular. He knows The Strangers have no alternative but to
smash the door down since no one in the party can pick the locks, but
nonetheless he doesn’t have to like it.

“Only because your
magic won't work on the door,” Diana replies without missing a
beat, relishing the opportunity to pour salt on his wound.

The battle mage scowls
at her retort, and says nothing in return.

Ignoring the banter
behind his back, the barbarian resets himself for a second strike
with his ivory club. BOOM! He pauses for a moment to check his
weapon, and confirms that it is undamaged by the contact with the
door.
I love my club
,
he grins.

“I see a crack on the
door!” Wesley notes. Despite his age, he retains his sharp
eyesight, and has been keeping his eyes on the door, particularly the
area of the door under assault. “Keep going before the spell runs
out!” he urges.

Conrad tightens his
grip on his club, and strikes at the imposing door repeatedly. BOOM!
BOOM! BOOM!
With one
last exhale of air from his lungs, the barbarian slams the door with
all his might. CRASH! The door is finally knocked off its hinges, and
strikes the ground with a loud “thud!” Physically exhausted, the
barbarian goes down on one knee, holding himself up by leaning on the
club. Each attack sucks a portion of his stamina. When the stamina
bar is reduced to zero, like now, the melee player gets a biofeedback
loop similar to that of the spell caster emptying out his mana pool.
Like Lucious when he drained his mana pool to create a bridge across
the moat, Conrad is also feeling dizzy as blinding light shines into
his eyes.

“Here.” Diana
touches the barbarian's forehead with her left palm, and casts a
“Recover Stamina” prayer: “Oh Great Gods of Eternia, Please
provide Succor to your Servant, To perform further Deeds in your
names. Amen.”

As Conrad listens to
the lyrical prayer being offered by the priestess, the barbarian
feels his dizziness slowly drained out of his body, and rises back to
his feet. “Thanks,” he says.

Wesley looks at him.
“You ready to go?”

Conrad raises his club,
and taps it lightly against the right side of his thick neck. “Let's
rock.” Without looking back, he steps through the doorway, and
enters the castle.

The intrepid party
enters the castle in single file, with the usual order of cavalier,
mage, priestess, and barbarian.

Seeing the unlit, stale
foyer full of dust and cobwebs, the mage enacts the Light spell
effect on his staff: “Tiwack!” The glowing orb at the top end of
the staff illuminates the room in a five foot radius, casting eerie
shadows across the room. He looks around and does not see any monster
in the large room, which is lined with stone columns from floor to
ceiling.
Looks empty to me
,
the spell caster thinks as he eyes the columns more intently and sees
no signs of monsters hiding behind them.

The barbarian takes out
a torch and lights it with a match. Holding the torch in his left
hand, Conrad turns around to guard the rear of the party. His eyes
dart from side to side as the flickering flame of his torch cast
moving shadows in the peripheral of his vision.
Now
what sort of monster would pop out in this setting
, he
ponders with anticipation as he holds his torch tightly.
This
smells like a set up from the game designers.

The knight uses his
large shield to sweep aside the thick strands of cobwebs in his path.
Wesley holds his great, magical long sword in his right hand, in case
a giant spider appears to defend its lair. Suddenly, Wesley senses
movement from above, and instinctively raises his shield. “Heads
up!” he cries out in warning to his party. He staggers to one knee
under the weight of a giant spider dropping onto his shield. His hips
and left elbow working in unison, the cavalier pushes the shield
forward, knocking the spider off his shield and into a nearby stone
column.

More giant spiders
appear and quickly surround the party.

Wesley glances from
side to side, and counts at least twenty giant spiders present. He
senses the party members behind him change their party formation,
from a straight line to a diamond formation. In this party formation,
the melee fighters take the north and south positions while the spell
casters take the east and west positions. Out of the four members of
The Strangers, Diana the priestess has the least offensive
capabilities, meaning that her melee encounters will last longer and
the possibility of receiving lethal damage greater. Having the melee
fighters to her left and right would allow the two fighters to lend
her a hand against a monster as needed to finish the mob off.

One particularly big,
black spider, the size of a horse, leaves the tight circle. It
approaches Wesley in apparent challenge, and jabs at the human with a
leg.

The cavalier sees the
oncoming blow, times his swing perfectly, and slices off part of the
spider’s leg. The detached limb twitches involuntarily on the
ground in front of the fighter for a brief moment before falling
silent forever.

The attacker screeches
in pain, and takes two steps back.

The rest of the giant
spiders slowly advance, tightening their circle around the
adventurers. The rays of light from the orb and torch gleam off their
big, wide red eyes. The jaws of these horse sized mobs open and close
with anticipation. Poisonous venom drips from the mouths of these
giant spiders; the venom drip onto the floor, searing the otherwise
smooth stone.

Lucious makes a mental
inventory of his spell book, trying to locate the best spell to use
for this situation. The battle mage looks up at the ceiling, and sees
that the wall is made of stone.
I
don't think I can make the ceiling cave down on the spiders without
hitting us too
, he thinks as he rejects the idea. Another
possibility comes to mind: “Circle of Whirling Blades.” The spell
will only hit the front line, and the circle of mobs is easily three
rows deep. The battle mage shakes his head as he rejects that spell
too.
This spell will hit maybe a
handful of them, but the rest will smarten up and stay back. I need
something to hit them all at once.

“Now is a good time,”
Diana taps the battle mage on the shoulder with her steel mace, to
prod him to engage in battle.

Lucious turns around to
face the priestess, and bends at the waist for an elaborate bow to
the priestess. “Your wish is my command,” he grins.

Diana rolls her eyes.

Holding his staff out,
the battle mage closes his eyes and casts a “Wall of Fire” spell:
“fuuu-lazi-poju-razi-toju-cuuu.” Switching over to his magic
screen view, the player draws a circle over the location of the giant
spiders. He adds a delayed effect to expand the circumference of the
circle when a trigger word is entered. Lucious switches back to
regular screen view. “Fire!” he shouts, and watches his offensive
spell takes effect.

The temperature of the
foyer abruptly jumps as a wall of dancing flames surround the party,
burning the front line of giant spiders to ashes. The remaining
spiders try to back away from the overwhelming heat.

Seeing the fleeing
spiders, Lucious slams the bottom of his staff on the ground and
yells, “BURN!” The circle of fire suddenly widens and extends
outward, and the flames greedily devour the retreating spiders until
all of them are turned to ashes.

“And that's that,”
the battle mage says as he taps his staff once on the ground to end
the spell. Basking in the glow of another easy victory, Lucious takes
several steps forward to examine his handiwork.

“Wait until I give
the clearance,” Wesley says with annoyance when he notices the mage
standing in front of the knight.
This
kid should know better than to get ahead of the party,
he
thinks to himself as Wesley steps toward the unarmored man to pull
the mage back.

Lucious turns around
and rolls his eyes at Wesley. “Relax, dude. Stop being such a worry
wart. My spell burned out all the mobs in the room,” the battle
mage replies with a smug expression on his face.

Suddenly, a giant wolf
spider drops down in front of Lucious. The two stare at each other
for a brief moment before the long, gray haired spider lunges at the
mage with its jaws open.

The mage instinctively
jumps back, but the spider manages to bite him on the left arm.
"Augh!" Lucious yelps in pain as he backs away with the
spider’s jaws still attached to his limb.

The cavalier reacts a
split second later. With a powerful swing of his sword, Wesley slices
the spider in half.
Damn it!
Curse my luck that the spider dropped right between the mage and me.

Lucious drops to the
ground, his hand over the wound. The avatar starts sweating profusely
and his face turns pale, as the poisonous venom enters his
bloodstream. The player experiences continuous shock through the
biofeedback loop, and grinds his teeth in pain.

“Lucious!” the
priestess cries out as she rushes over, and kneels beside him. She
pulls a vial out of her worn, brown leather satchel, and uncorks the
bottle. She props the poisoned mage up with a hand behind his back.
“Drink this,” she says as she holds the pungent smelling vial in
front of his lips, and slowly pours the content into his mouth.

Lucious obediently
gulps down the liquid, and his fever starts to go down as color
slowly returns to his face.

“What did you give
him?” Conrad asks as he stands guard, keeping an eye out for more
spiders possibly lurking nearby.

“A potion of cure
poison,” Diana replies.

“We will rest here
briefly while Lucious recovers. But after that we have to keep
moving. We need to move faster from this point forward, in order to
make up for this delay,” Wesley says gruffly while looking outward
at the seemingly empty foyer.
It
is my fault for not keeping this idiot in check
, he fumes
silently.

“I just need a
minute,” the mage sputters weakly as he tries to fight off the
numbness in his real life arm. Lucious continuously flexes his hand
inside his virtual reality glove to get feeling back in his limb.
I
don’t know if I can cast a spell like this
, he worries.

“You need to remember
your place, mister!” Diana scolds him as she pokes a hard finger
into his ribs. “Your spells may make you feel all mighty and
powerful. But a lowly spider almost killed you! Let our cavalier
check the room first and flush out all the hidden mobs before you go
wander off by yourself. Or next time, I won't give you a cure;
instead, I'll just sit and watch you die!”

“But you are a
priestess,” Lucious protests while wincing at her admonishment and
jab to his ribs. "Of course you'll cure me!"

“A fool can't be
cured,” she retorts with a snort.

The rebuked man slowly
rises to his feet. Lucious unceremoniously pats his rear to knock off
the dust and spider web clinging to his fine robe.

A look of annoyance
flashes across Diana's face. She slowly shakes her head in response
to his ill mannered behavior. However, she manages to bite back
another acerbic comment in time.

After adjusting his
crooked cloak, the mage bends down to retrieve his magical staff. He
takes a moment to admire the yellow-white sparkle off the orb at the
end of his staff; the orb is reflecting the flickering light from the
barbarian's torch. He turns to face Wesley. “Let's continue,” he
says with bravado to hide the lingering numbness in his hand.

Wesley nods in
agreement.

Seeking to draw the
party's focus away from his near character death experience, Lucious
asks, “So which way?”

Wesley looks around the
foyer. The game designers had decorated the room with thick, massive
strands of cobwebs, casting a veil over the room and covering over
possible doors and exits. Even with the fire spell, only a small
portion of the room has been cleared of spider webs.
We
will have to split up and clear the room in order to locate the exit,
he realizes and decides to verbalize his intent to the party. He
looks at the rest of the party, which is waiting patiently to hear
his plan. “Since the room is filled with spider webs covering the
exits, we need to clear out the cobwebs first. And to do it quicker,
we should split into two groups of two, with each group consisting of
one fighter and one spell caster. I will go with Lucious, because he
has a light source. Diana should hold the torch while Conrad clears
the cobwebs with his club. Our objective is to locate possible doors
and exits along the walls. But don't leave this room. Once we uncover
all the possible exits, we'll methodically explore each one together.
If you encounter monsters, just holler and vice versa,” he proposes
in great depth.