World of Eternia: The Complete Collection (19 page)

The priestess
instinctively spins her body to the left, and avoids the finger poke!

The steed collapses to
the ground as it is jabbed in the ribcage by the unholy Finger of
Death.

“Yah!” Diana cries
out as she grasps her mace with both hands, and swings her steel mace
like a baseball bat. The blow knocks the death knight's head right
off, sending the head far down the cemetery.

The suddenly headless
body lands on its knees, and starts to disintegrate into ash along
with the collapsed horse. Soon the wind blows across the cemetery
again, dispersing the ashes throughout the field of death.

The victorious
priestess humbly kneels on the ground, and puts her hands together in
prayer. “Oh Most Glorious Gods of Eternia, your servant humbly
dedicate this triumph to you. May you continue to guide me to more
victories in your name. Amen.”

A green light starts to
appear in thin air behind the priestess. Moving clockwise, the light
traces the outline of a doorway. Soon, the rectangular doorway is
complete, and suddenly glows brightly, forcing Diana to turn away. A
moment later, the flash of light is dissipated, and a green portal
hangs in the air.

Diana pulls herself
from the ground, and pats her robe to knock some of the dirt and sand
loose. She walks over to retrieve her dropped slingshot and secures
it back in place in her backpack. Standing before the magical portal,
she boldly enters.

Wesley finds himself in
a grand room, with white marble columns along the walls, fine, lush
carpet with a blood red color, and grand tapestries on the wall
depicting heroes and heroines fighting fearsome monsters. On the
ceiling are beautifully decorative chandeliers with scintillating,
multicolor glass crystals that enhance the overall opulence of the
room. At the far end of the room, on the opposite side, is a throne .
. . made of skulls! The cavalier frowns at the throne, and wonders if
the seat belongs to the Regent who had cast a curse over Castle
Eternia.

Confirming that there
is nothing else of interest, aside from the throne of bones, on the
far side of the room, the player turns around to check the area
behind him. Wesley notes that he is standing at the other end of the
room. The wall behind him is a sharp contrast to the grand opulence
in rest of the room; the wall is blank with no doors as one would
expect since there are no visible exits on the other three walls of
the room. However, hovering in the air in front of this naked wall
are three portals, in the colors of yellow, red, and green from left
to right.

Why
isn't my blue portal here as well
, the cavalier ponders
for a moment, seeing that the room is empty but for himself.
The
portals are probably set for one time use only
, he
theorizes
. In other words, if I
enter one of these portals, the door will shut and leave me trapped
with another party member in the pocket server on the other side
,
he realizes.

Seeing that the mission
cannot progress further until all four members of The Strangers
arrive in this room, Wesley decides to use to the time to sharpen his
long sword. He takes out a whetstone from his small belt pouch, and
starts to work on his fine blade.

* * *

Conrad strolls through
his red portal and enters the room. The portal slowly winks out of
existence as its purpose has been served. He sees his leader sitting
on the floor behind him, leaning against the wall and sharpening the
edge of the knight's blade. “Well met, Stranger,” he booms in a
loud voice, startling the older man.

Wesley looks up from
his blade, and sees that Conrad has arrived. The ex-Marine quickly
notices that the solo trials have taken their toll on the big man, as
the man has a number of big, ugly bruises on his chest and arms. The
knight also notices that the reflective shield is missing, but the
barbarian has somehow replaced the shield with a dangerous looking,
double-edged war axe. Setting down his sword and whetstone on the
ground, the cavalier gets up. As the armored man approaches the
unarmored man, the knight raises his right fist.

Conrad adroitly raises
his own right fist while approaching the former military man, and
their knuckles touch with a light tap. “Glad you made it, old man,”
the younger man says with a broad smile.

“I have no doubt
whatsoever that all four of us will gather in this room,” the
leader answers confidently. "We are the best player team in all
of Eternia!" he declares boldly for the audio capture.

“Yes we are the
best!” the athletic man responds with equal boldness, as he catches
on Wesley's intent quickly and backs up the old man.
I
hope you realize that we just painted a big red target on our backs,
he thinks with amusement. But confidence is a big part of our makeup
as players on this team, and we are not going to change the way we
play this game.

Wesley nods in
appreciation.

Conrad decides to talk
about the solo portion of this campaign to pass the time. “What did
the dungeon designers make you fight?" he asks. "I had a
good ol' brawl with some lizardmen, in an inn of all places,” he
shakes his head with a chuckle. “One of those guys was a real
brawler, strong and big as an ox, and gave me a bunch of nasty
bruises,” he looks down at his chest. “The dude even broke my
shield with his axe. So I took this mean looking fella as a
replacement for my shield. Can't wait for Lucious to show up, and
cast his Identify spell to unveil the magical properties of this
axe,” he adds while holding up the axe. "It better be
something sweet, because I essentially traded my reflective shield
for it."

Wesley nods. “Yeah,
Lucious is sharp, cunning, and ruthless. He's going to walk right
through the yellow portal any second now," he says. "I
almost feel sorry for whatever monsters have to deal with him,
because the spell caster will quickly sniff out the weakness of the
monsters he faces, and use the best spell available to take
advantage. Sometimes, I feel like he's holding himself back because
he's afraid to toss some big Area of Effect ('AoE') spell and hit us
along with the monsters,” he notes.

“Indeed,” Conrad
agrees. “It's like our little man gets a big kick out of his spells
— the bigger, the splashier, the better. I think Lucious will be
popping right through his yellow portal soon. I'm only worried about
Diana,” he admits, bringing up the big elephant in the room.

“Me too,” the
leader agrees. “Don't get me wrong. Diana can fight with her mace,
her slingshot, and even that kinky whip she leaves in her hidden
backpack. She has two problems though, as a fighter. First, she
doesn't wear any armor, even though she could easily do so as a
cleric instead of a priestess. Yeah, the priestess gets faster access
to spells, and a slight bonus in the mana pool. But the armor
restriction really kills her class for soloing. If you ask me, I
think Diana just didn't like the way the armor looks on her; she
cares deeply about her looks and is a bit vain in that way. Second,
her weapons, by design, don't pierce the foe and draw blood.
Consequently, her weapons do about half the damage of my long sword,”
he observes.

“Yeah, but I'm also
using a club that doesn't draw blood either,” the barbarian argues.
“Well, at least I was before I picked up this war axe,”he amends
his statement while patting his new weapon's handle with tenderness.

“While that is
technically true, you're ignoring two factors in your ability to
cause damage. First, the barbarian player class has enhanced
strength, allowing more damage to be dealt per blow. Second, your
class has better odds of making a successful hit and penetration with
clubs, since that is the favored weapon for your barbarian class. So
compared to a priestess, a barbarian will land more blows
successfully, and inflict greater damage from each blow.
Additionally, you have a ton of health, especially since your player
class gets bonus health points. Basically, you have triple the health
points of a similar level spell caster, and fifty percent more health
than other melee fighter classes, myself included. For this reason,
you can shake off blows that other classes can't take,” Wesley
concludes.

“On the other hand,
as a priestess Diana can heal herself an unlimited number of times.
Whatever damage she takes, she can refill her health bar once the
fight is over, or even while fighting if she needs a quick heal,”
Conrad counters.

“Ah, but that's
assuming she's the one
left
standing
after the fighting
is concluded, or gets a break in between melees,” the military man
points out. "An opponent is not going to wait politely while
Diana uses a healing prayer," he notes. “Pass me your axe,
man. I want to sharpen it up for you while we wait for the rest of
the gang to arrive,” he offers.

Conrad passes the
double-edged axe to the knight with the handle facing up, holding out
the weapon with one hand.

Wesley grabs the axe
with his left hand, and nearly drops it! He quickly sets the heavy
weapon on the ground.

The owner smirks. “It's
real heavy, isn't it? Good thing I'm strong enough to swing this baby
with one hand. Anyway, I will do some stretching while we wait,” he
says. Taking the unoccupied spot to the right of the remaining
portals, he raises his arms up to initiate his familiar warm up
routine.

* * *

“Well met,
Strangers!” Lucious greets the two men once he notices them on
either side of his golden portal. He sees Wesley leaning against a
wall, sharpening a heavy war axe with a whetstone. He also notes that
Conrad is doing push-ups, of all things!
This
dude must be bored out of his mind waiting
, the mage
thinks to himself.
Either that
or he's really a health nut. I guess I'll be nice and not remind
Conrad that we're in a virtual reality, and he's not really breaking
a sweat behind the computer at home.

Both men rise from the
ground simultaneously.

“So who got here
first?” Lucious asks.

The two exchange looks.
Finally, the professional athlete points a finger at the knight.

The battle mage folds
his arms. “So we're waiting for Diana in order to proceed to the
next stage?” he realizes and inadvertently speaks his thought
aloud.

“Yup,” Wesley
replies.

“No worries, old
man,” Lucious says. “Although Diana usually leaves the heavy
fighting to you gentlemen, when she's in a pickle she can work
miracles with her mace and whip. She will definitely show,” he adds
with confidence. “That being said,” he pauses, “I can't wait to
make fun of her for being the last one to arrive,” he grins
wickedly.

The other two men
exchange looks again and shake their heads.

The old knight takes
his spot along the wall, and resumes sharpening Conrad's axe.

The mage sees the axe
for the first time and stares at it. “You picked up a new toy?”
he asks.

Wesley looks up at
Lucious. He nods in Conrad's direction. “His,” he replies
succinctly.

The big man looks down
for a moment, and scratches the back of his neck in embarrassment.
“My shield split into two while taking a blow from that axe. I
think it's magical. If you could cast an Identify and figure out its
properties, I would greatly appreciate it,” he requests humbly.

The mage kneels down in
front of the cavalier, and sits cross-legged on the floor. He pulls
out his Bag of Holding, and searches for a pinch of crushed diamond.
Grabbing it between his right thumb and forefinger, Lucious reaches
out with his left hand, and grabs hold of the war axe's handle.
Closing his eyes, he chants the arcane words of the Identify spell:
“loit-pooh-dert-gjin.” Opening his eyes in the real world, the
player sees the name and properties of the weapon in his visor, and
reads the words aloud: “Cursed War-Axe of the Berserker. +25%
Damage, +25% Health, -50% Armor Class.”

Conrad whistles.
“That's an interesting weapon,” he remarks. “No wonder the
previous owner was able to go toe-to-toe with me. The extra health
allowed him to take whatever damage I was dishing out. And the damage
inflicted was obviously more than my shield could take,” he notes
while going over the battle with the barkeeper in his mind.

“It's the perfect
style of play to go against low to mid level monsters,” Wesley
comments after a moment of thought. “They won't do enough damage to
take you down; the defense penalty wouldn't matter for that reason.
On the flip side, if you're facing an extremely skilled melee
fighter, the lower AC would make you more vulnerable to taking
critical hits.”

“So I'll make sure I
won't use the war axe against assassins,” the barbarian retorts
nonchalantly as he stares at the dangerous axe in the knight's arms.

* * *

Diana takes small steps
through the green portal. She is holding her mace, ready to fight
again if necessary. After all, her health, mana, and stamina bars are
all full again. When she sees the other three Strangers waiting in
the room, she breathes a sigh of relief.

“What took you so
long?” Lucious asks while doing a Tai Chi routine. His left leg is
planted forward in front of his body and his thigh is parallel to the
ground, while his right leg is planted behind his torso for support.
He pushes both hands gently outward, away from his chest.

“Oh give her a
break!” Conrad replies while hopping two steps back. He is doing
some shadow boxing. He feints a left jab, and pounds his imaginary
opponent with a hard right to the gut.

“These boys were just
worried about you,” Wesley says with a smile.

Lucious throws a scowl
at the old man, and continues with his routine.