World of Eternia: The Complete Collection (4 page)

Lucious looks at Diana,
and notes the lack of anger on her face. “There was no other
choice,” he replies softly. “Either we abandon Wesley on the
bridge, or we clear out the piranhas blocking the path AND deal with
whatever else is still in the water. I chose not to abandon him. And
with one mid level offensive spell, I took out one hundred piranhas,
both on the bridge and in the water. The lightning bolt electrified
the moat, and killed off the rest of the piranhas that hadn't joined
the party on the bridge. The experience points we just received
brought us a lot closer to the next level. I firmly believe I made
the right decision,” he crosses his arms across his chest, waiting
for her to argue otherwise.

Diana gives him a sour
look, and decides to bite back a reply on her lips. She checks her
player journal log, and confirms the hundred kills, giving each party
member a hefty amount of experience points for this encounter.

Seeing no retort
forthcoming, Lucious continues. “If you ask me though, I think the
game designers are sick puppies. How the heck are players supposed to
hack-and-slash their way across the moat? This encounter with
piranhas guarding the moat is impossible to advance without magic. If
you try to swim through the water, the piranhas will detect your
presence in the water and quickly surround you. If you use the rotted
wood to make a bridge, the bridge won't last long enough for all
party members to cross. Even if you use a spell like water walking,
you still have to contend with the piranhas; once the spell caster is
bitten, he will lose his focus and the spell will be dissipated.”
The mage rubs the day old whiskers on his chin. “I guess you could
try fishing the piranhas out, if you knew they were there in the
first place. But it could take a few days to get them all out of the
water. And that would put the party far behind the others teams
competing to finish the campaign first.” There are player teams
that comprise entirely of non-magic users. Lucious can’t see them
getting across the moat without, say, an engineer pumping all the
water out of the moat and then sweeping all the landlocked fishes
aside to clear a path.

“Lucious, Wesley is
not getting up. Let's go back on the bridge and see what's going on,”
Diana interrupts the mage's monologue. She has been watching the duo
on the bridge, and seeing the knight still on his hands and knees is
worrisome.

The mage smacks his
forehead to bring himself back to the present; he has a bad tendency
to day dream at the worst possible moments. “Sorry. Let's go over
there.” He hops onto the bridge after the priestess, and starts
making his way to the center of the bridge, where the knight is still
down on all four. “What's going on?” he asks.

Conrad is kneeling in
front of the fallen knight. He looks up at Lucious. “The joints on
his armor hardened a bit, and he's stuck in that position right now.”
He points at the blackened section of the right shoulder joint in the
armor emphasis.

“Gahahah,” the mage
guffaws, and quickly covers his mouth. The joints got burned by his
lightning bolt and locked in place!

Wesley raises his head,
and throws the battle mage a dirty look.

“So what are YOU
going to do about it?” Diana asks while shooting daggers at
Lucious' back.
He put Wesley
into this predicament; he will get the knight out of it. Or else.

“Oh, let me see,”
the mage ponders aloud nonchalantly. “Ol' tin man here just needs a
lil' oil. Let me find some.” He unties the tiny pouch from his
belt, and sticks his left arm into the Bag of Holding. The enchanted
bag had cost Lucious a ton of money to purchase from the Mage Guild,
but it’s a godsend for mages and enchanters who rely on spell
components to cast spells. The Bag of Holding allows the player to
pull up a special screen on his visor, tap on the desired item, and
pull the item quickly from the bag. The only problem with a Bag of
Holding is that the user can only pull one type of item at a time,
rather than multiple different items. After a moment the battle mage
pulls out a lump of butter. “Ta-dah! Anyone got a match?” Lucious
asks with a flourish. However, he sees that no one is impressed with
his antics.

Conrad reaches inside
his left leather boot, and pulls a small box of matches out of a
hidden compartment inside his foot wear. Tchik! He expertly strikes a
match and lights it.

“Thanks,” Lucious
says as he takes the stick of match and puts it near the lump of
butter to melt the butter. The heat from the open fire starts to
soften the lump. “Once the butter is melted, I will smear it over
the joints of the armor. It'll take only a minute.”

“Why would you carry
a lump of butter anyway?” Diana asks.

“It's a spell
component for the entry level grease spell,” the battle mage
replies.

“To make the floor
slippery?” the priestess inquires, trying to imagine what else a
lump of butter would be go for.

“Yup. Works great on
staircases, especially when big, dumb monsters are chasing you up the
stairs,” Lucious winks his eye at her as he pantomimes smearing the
lump of butter all over the steps.

Diana rolls her eyes.

“It looks soft
enough,” Conrad interrupts the banter. He takes the butter roughly
out of Lucious' hand, and starts smearing it over the joints in
Wesley's armor. He wants to free Wesley from his metal cage as soon
as possible. Conrad knows that the position is not comfortable, even
though the old marine would not voice his complaint over it.

“You're welcome,”
the mage mouths the words softly, not willing to argue with the big
man over the mage’s rough treatment.

The barbarian hears the
softly spoken words, but pointedly ignores the mage.

Diana shakes her head
at Lucious. She doesn't want Lucious to antagonize the barbarian any
further. She will admit that the lightning strike was necessary to
kill off all the piranhas, and she couldn’t offer an alternative to
achieve the same goal. However, she could also understand why Conrad
is still mad at the mage for pulling this dangerous stunt. In
essence, the barbarian is questioning the young mage’s sense of
loyalty to his team mates. If Lucious is willing to sacrifice a
member of the team so early in the campaign, what will he give up
when the success of the mission is on the line? She does not want to
find out.

“Can you move your
elbow?” Conrad asks.

Creak
.
The knight pulls his right hand off the ground. “Yeah, it's
working,” Wesley says, trying to keep the annoyance out of his
voice. His old body is sore from staying stuck in that position for
several minutes.

The barbarian
assiduously continues to rub the lump of melted butter over the
joints in the armor, all the while trying to maintain an
expressionless demeanor.

Wesley speaks up
suddenly. “You can laugh if you want.”

Conrad grins, not
surprised at all that his leader could see right through Conrad and
read his hidden emotional state. “I would if those two kids aren't
watching. Someone has to play adult here,” he replies. “Are you
angry at Lucious?” he asks, curious as to the military’s take on
the young man’s actions.

“Am I angry at
Lucious for hitting me with his offensive spell along with the
piranhas on the bridge?” Wesley infers.

“Yeah,” the
barbarian replies as he continues oiling the joints in the armor.

Wesley raises his head,
and looks Conrad in the eyes. “Not really. Back when I was a
Marine, countless people made the ultimate sacrifice and I was a
beneficiary a number of times. Yeah, I shouldn't be comparing real
life to an online game; but the principle is the same.” Wesley
turns his head to look over at Lucious. “Our battle mage is a sharp
kid. He considered the amount of damage that the spell would inflict
if I got caught in the crossfire, and figured that I would survive.
However, my equipment is another story,” he smiles wryly. He holds
up a hand to stop Conrad from rubbing the almost depleted lump of
oil. “I should be good to go now.” Creak, creak, creak.
The knight finally gets off the ground. “Thanks, man.
Now go wash your hand. You wouldn't want your club to slip from your
grasp during combat,” he jokes.

Conrad pictures the
scenario in his mind, and makes a face. He walks over to the edge of
the water, and sticks his right hand into the foul water. “Here,
catch,” a voice calls out from behind. The barbarian turns around,
and catches something tossed to him. Holding it in his left hand, he
sees that it is a bar of soap. Using the soap, he gets the oil off
his hand, and wipes his wet hands on his dark brown short leather
trunks.

“Are you alright?”
Diana asks as she approaches the knight.

Wesley smiles kindly at
her.
She means to ask if I need
any healing from her
. He draws his sword at raises it high
above his head. He ignores the squeaky sounds from his joints. “I
can still fight. Save you mana.”

“Good,” the mage
interrupts the two. “Let's go find the entrance to that castle,”
Lucious sticks a thumb in the direction of Castle Eternia.

“Roger that,”
Wesley replies as he slides his long sword back in his scabbard.

“So this is the
entrance,” Lucious says while staring at the doorway in front of
the party. The double doors are solid metal, and stands approximately
twenty feet tall and eight feet wide. The doors curve upwards until
the left and right sides meet at a pointed spire. The archway is
lined with indecipherable words of a long forgotten language.

“Yup,” Conrad
replies. He had circled around the perimeters of the castle to see if
there is another way to get inside. Despite the eroding exterior, the
scout had found no other doors, or obvious entrance. If there is
another way in, it is well hidden by magic.

Wesley pulls on the
large door handle with his gauntlet-covered hand, and it would not
budge. He looks at the mage expectantly.

“Let me try an Open
Lock spell,” Lucious says as he elbows the knight aside. He touches
the keyhole under the handle with a fingertip, and uses a command
word: “cadabra!” The mage's extended finger starts to glow with
magical energy. The purple light radiates with power as the battle
mage feeds his mana into the spell. Abruptly the light is
extinguished. Sllluuurppp!

The surprised party
looks at the battle mage with bewilderment, wondering if this is the
proper effect of a spell that they have seen him cast countless times
before.

The mage narrows his
eyes in frustration and frowns, as a nagging suspicion begins to
develop in his mind.
Let's try
the spell again
, he thinks to himself, and casts the Open
Lock spell a second time. “Cadabra!” Sllluuurppp. Lucious pulls
the hood of his cloak a bit lower over his face as he grinds his
molars. “Unbelievable,” he mutters under his breath as he stares
at the keyhole.

The party continues to
stare at him, awaiting an explanation for the apparent failure of the
spell.

Lucious stares at the
lock as he rakes his mind for a way to remove the spell absorption
effect on the door. His mind a thousand miles away, the mage remains
silent and oblivious to the rest of his party.

Seeing no explanation
forthcoming, Diana exhales loudly and speaks up.
I
might as well get this over with
, she thinks sourly. The
priestess asks Lucious bluntly, “What happened with the lock?”

The battle mage grinds
his teeth again, and turns to face her. “The game designers at EDE
really went all out with this challenge to us players. They put an
anti-magic effect on the door,” he reveals.

“Anti-magic effect?"
the priestess echoes him. "Is that the sucking sound we heard?”
Diana follows up, beginning to understand her companion's obvious
frustration with the door.

“Yes,” the spell
caster confirms. “Apparently the designers want us to open the door
the old fashioned way. Anyone proficient in picking locks?” the
mage looks at the melee fighters hopefully.
Perhaps
one of these fellas developed a sub-class in thievery
, he
thinks.

“Knights don't pick
locks,” Wesley replies frostily, offended by the notion of a proud
knight stooping so low as to learn thievery skills. As a cavalier, he
strives to lead by example, and perform feats of bravery and
swordsmanship. The game does not provide enough skill points at
character level advancement for him to experiment on other skill
sets, particularly outside his class professional, and pay double
skill points for them.

“Me neither,”
Conrad shakes his head in bemusement, as the image of his brawny
barbarian character fiddling with tiny lock picks pops inside his
head. “So it has to be physical means to open the door?” he asks.

“Yes sir,” Lucious
replies sheepishly with a shrug. “We could either pick open the
lock on the door, or try to break the door down. But I don't know if
even you would have the strength to accomplish that feat,” the mage
answers as he eyes the barbarian's muscular physique with envy. "The
game designers probably made the door resistant to physical attacks
as well," he speculates.

"You never know
until you try," Conrad admonishes the young man with a grin.

“I could cast an
Enhance Strength prayer on Conrad,” Diana offers. “The spell will
raise his player strength attribute by fifty percent for sixty
seconds.”

“I'm also wearing a
Ring of Giant Strength,” the barbarian adds, while pointing at the
earring hanging below his left ear lobe. "I don't know how the
game will recalculate my strength attribute, but I am sure the door
is not meant to withstand that kind of physical trauma."

“Let's do it,”
Wesley nods in agreement.