World of Eternia: The Complete Collection (9 page)

“So you prefer the
alternative then,” the young man replies.

The barbarian raises
his eyebrows, imploring the mage to continue.

Lucious rolls his eyes.
Do I have to spell out
everything for our very own Conan
, he thinks to himself.
He sighs and tries to leave his irritation out of his voice. “I
meant the way this gate crashed down is like a knock on the door of
every remaining denizen in this castle or dungeon, telling them that
'We're here,'” he explains, as if he's talking to a child.

“It doesn't matter if
they know we're here,” Diana jumps in with a rebuttal. “We're not
silent, stealthy thief type of characters, anyway. With the way we
toss those big, flashy spells around during our encounters with
monsters, and knocking down the castle’s front door, we are already
announcing our presence inside this castle or dungeon or whatever
else you wanna call it. The question is how much hospitality we can
expect from our forthcoming encounters. So far, the answer is
'none,'” she shrugs.

“Guys, we need to put
some distance between us and the gate. There's a slight chance that
the skeletons could work in unison and raise the gate. And
considering the degree of intelligence that these monsters seem to be
possess, I wouldn't put it past them to do exactly that,” Wesley
says. “Even if they can’t, their crossbowmen could shoot at us
through the gates. Follow me!” He turns and walks through the small
entrance way out of the waiting room.

The rest of the party
obeys his order and follows him in single file, with the customary
order of cavalier, mage, priestess, and barbarian.

Lucious raises his
staff and barks out a command word: “tiwack!” The orb on his
staff starts to glow. The radius of illumination covers the three
feet wide corridor from wall to wall. Lucious quickly turns his head
inside his physical headset in the real world, and notes that his
avatar's mana pool is still only half full.
Man,
these encounters inside the castle have really drained me
,
he complains to himself.
Hopefully,
we won't encounter monsters until my mana pool is filled completely
,
he hopes. Thankfully, his high player intelligence attribute doubles
the normal character mana regeneration rate of two points per second.
If the party can avoid monster encounters for another two minutes or
so, he'll be completely recharged!

Conrad turns around for
every half dozen steps taken forward, his magical tower shield held
in front of his torso. Holding his torch in his right hand, he raises
the torch above his head to avoid shining the torchlight in his face.
His eyes roaming from wall to wall, the rear guard sees no indication
of any monsters sneaking up from behind.

The cavalier leads the
party's march down the twisting corridor at a brisk pace. The
corridor remains constant in dimension: three feet wide and ten feet
high. However, the corridor descends and ascends, and turns left and
right in a most unpredictable, or even whimsical, manner. Wesley
keeps his eyes moving along the walls of the corridor, wary of traps
and tripwires.
If we trigger a
trap inside this tunnel, we have no way to escape
, he
reminds himself. Suddenly, he notices something on the ground
reflecting off the light from the staff’s orb. “HALT!” he yells
and immediately stops moving.

“Uoff!” the mage
blurts out as he bangs his nose into the cavalier's armored back.
“What's going on?” he asks as he scratches his itchy nose in real
life. He sees Wesley down on all four limbs on the ground, looking
closely at something on the floor.

“Tripwire!” Wesley
announces as he slowly backs away. He rises to his feet, and turns to
look at Lucious. “I need chalk,” he requests.

The mage unties his Bag
of Holding from his belt, and digs his left arm through the bag's
small opening for the requested item. After a moment he pulls out his
arm, and shows the cavalier the small piece of chalk held between his
thumb and forefinger. “Good enough?” he asks.

The cavalier holds out
his right hand, and the chalk is promptly placed in his palm. “Thank
you,” Wesley says. He lowers himself to the ground again, and
lowers his head until his chin is merely an inch off the ground. He
slowly crawls forward on the floor until his eyes see the thin wire
in front of his face. He backs away two steps, and draws a line on
the ground with his borrowed chalk. “Guys, I'm marking the location
of the tripwire. You HAVE TO make sure that you step over it. Who
knows how far this corridor extends. If we trigger this trap, we will
not be able to escape,” he says while drawing a thick, visible
white line on the ground, and using ample chalk to accomplish this.
After a few seconds, the cavalier finally gets up. He turns to
Lucious. “I expect there will be more traps ahead. Can you use your
trap detection spell on this corridor?” he asks.

The mage extends his
staff forward, to further illuminate the space in front of them. He
looks at the long passageway, following its path with his eyes until
it is beyond the range of his soft, glowing light. He sighs and
shakes his head. “There's too much real estate to cover. I could
spot check here and there if you make a call for a check. You want to
extend the magnitude of the spell and cover the entire length of the
tunnel in front of us? Sorry, the spell isn't designed to work like
that. A thief character could automatically check for physical traps
like the tripwire you found. Trap detection is an innate skill for a
thief, with success of detection depending on his class level. I
can't make my spell automatically check for traps continuously,
unfortunately,” he shakes his head again.

Wesley listens
carefully to the young man's respond. He already knows it is unlikely
that a spell would work, but asked anyway to confirm his hunch. “In
that case, I hope that our luck holds until we exit this tunnel. In
the meantime, please get me more chalk. I expect I will need lots
more sooner or later,” he says.

“That I can do,”
the mage grins, and sticks his hand inside his Bag of Holding for
more pieces of chalk. He quickly hands over two more pieces to the
cavalier.

Wesley holds the chalk
in his left hand. He cautiously approaches the big white line on the
floor. He raises his left leg one foot up in the high, and takes a
big step forward, while his right leg remains on the ground. Once his
left foot is firmly planted on the ground beyond the tripwire, he
carefully raises his hind leg high in the air. The armored knight
turns his hips until his right leg is also in front of the tripwire.
Finally he lowers his right leg until his feet are together on the
ground. Looking closely at the ground in front of him, he sees no
further tripwires nearby. He takes two steps forward, and turns
around. “I can't move forward any further without light,” he
reminds the battle mage.

“Coming!” Lucious
grins. Pulling his golden robe up to his knees, the mage imitates the
knight's awkward steps over the discovered tripwire. Once beyond the
line, he takes a few small steps until he is standing shoulder to
shoulder with his leader.

“Don't take another
step forward!” Wesley scolds the young man. “I haven't checked
the area in front of us for more booby traps.”

“Yes, I know,” the
mage replies nonchalantly. “I made sure to stand right next to you,
so that you could cover more ground. I'll stick close to you, that
is, until you find more traps.
Then
you're on your own,” he
grins. He looks back, and sees that the priestess has hiked up her
robe in a similar fashion as him. “Nice legs!” he whistles as he
stares at them in appreciation.

Still looking intently
at the white chalk on the ground, Diana pulls her hind leg over the
tripwire. Once safely beyond the line, she lowers her robe until they
hover above her ankles again. She pulls her steel mace off the hook
on her belt, and holds it menacingly as she stares at the lewd mage.
“Care to repeat your comment sir?” she dares him.

Lucious holds his palms
out in front of his chest, and tries hard to keep his facial
expression blank lest she makes good on her threat to whack him with
her mace.

“Save this banter for
later,” Conrad says as he puts a hand on the priestess' left
shoulder.

“Right,” Wesley
joins in. “I need light, Lucious,” he requests.

“Roger that,” the
mage replies, and holds up his glowing staff above the knight's head.

The party moves forward
in silence for another fifty feet, until Lucious speaks up suddenly
and breaks the silence. “Um . . . guys, my staff just snagged on
something,” he says.

Conrad raises his
torchlight, and the light reveals that the staff's orb is pressing
against another thin, almost invisible tripwire.

Wesley stares intently
at the wire, and swears silently to himself.
I
should have caught that
, he thinks dejectedly, refusing to
blame the spell caster for getting caught in the tripwire. He speaks
up, “It's possible that the trap has not been triggered yet.
Lucious, on my signal I want you to pull back your staff. The rest of
you should face outward and warn us of any trap,” he orders.

Conrad faces forward,
while Diana faces backward.

Wesley pauses for a
moment. He nods to Lucious. “Now!” he commands.

The mage slowly pulls
back the staff and off the tripwire.

Despite Lucious' best
attempt, the tripwire quivers slightly, causing a man-sized ax to
swing down from the ceiling. Swish!

The barbarian feels the
sudden rush of air in front of him. “Down!” he yells as he
instinctively pushes back and knocks the two men behind him to the
ground, while holding up his massive tower shield to block whatever
is heading his way.

Kreeeek! The sharp edge
of the swinging ax buries itself into the tower shield.

“Are you alright?”
Diana yells as she kneels down next to the pile of men on the ground.

“No worries, my
dear,” the big man grins. “I think I did more damage to our party
that this big ol' ax,” he chuckles. “You guys okay?” he asks.
He is still on the ground, and unable to get up until the other guys
clear out first.

“That was a good
hit,” Wesley replies grudgingly once he recovers his breath.

“Yeah,” Lucious
adds weakly as he crawls away from the two before getting back to his
feet. He fussily slaps at the dust on his oddly-matched robe and
cloak.

The cavalier pulls
himself from under the barbarian, and rises to his feet. He looks at
the big ax embedded into Conrad's shield. “You need some help
there, big fella?” he offers with amusement at their role reversal.

“Yup,” the man
still on the ground replies. “I need you to pull back the ax blade
so that I could free the shield.” He tries to lift his shield up to
feel the heaviness of the ax. “You may require help to accomplish
this,” he adds.

“Probably,” Wesley
replies as he stares at the descended blade and estimates the weight
of the ax.
If this was real
life, the ax would weigh a thousand pounds easily
, he
notes. He turns to the priestess. “Can I get an Enhance Strength
prayer?” he requests.

Diana puts a hand on
the knight's shoulder and obliges him. “Oh great Gods of Eternia!
May you share Strength with your blessed servant, to accomplish
glorious deeds in your names! Amen.” Her left hand starts to glow
in response to the prayer.

Wesley feels a soothing
aura surround him, and energy begins to course through his veins.
Infused with tremendously enhanced strength, he walks up to the ax,
and pushes on the thick handle. The edge of the ax slowly back away
from the shield. The cavalier continues to push until the blade is
set perpendicular to the ground.

“Thanks,” Conrad
says as he gets off the ground. He removes his tower shield, turns
the shield around, and runs his fingertips along the cut on the face
of the shield.

“Likewise,” the
cavalier replies. “If you didn't shield us, either Lucious or I
would have been cut in half,” he explains when he sees the
barbarian's eyebrows shoot up in confusion.

“Hey, we're a team,
right? This is what teammates do,” the barbarian answers
graciously. He slaps the armored knight's back heartily. Conrad turns
to the battle mage. “Lucious, can you cast a magic missile on my
shield? I need to know whether the magic reflection effect is still
on my tower shield or not,” he explains his request.

The spell caster
casually walks over and stands in front of the shield. He examines
the surface and sees that the arcane runes have not been cut by the
blade. “It looks like the inscription for the reflection effect
remains intact,” he shares his observation after inspection all the
runes on the face of the shield. “Let me cast a one point damage
mini-missile on it to double check.” He flicks his forefinger and a
small burst of purple magical energy the size of a dime hits the
shield. Ping! The mini-missile bounces off the shield and hits him in
the hand. “Yup, it works,” he pronounces wryly while shaking off
the feel of a mosquito bite on the back of his hand.
Man,
the one thing I hate in this game is the pain feedback when we take
hits
, he notes to himself.
There
has to be another way to simulate characters sustaining damage,
especially deaths, instead of various levels of shocks and pain
delivered through the virtual reality gloves.

Conrad breathes a sigh
of relief upon hearing the good news. “Fantastic!” he remarks as
he quickly straps the massive shield back on his left forearm. He
stretches down and grabs the torchlight, which he had dropped on the
ground to free his right hand to support his shield and block the
advancing blade.