World of Eternia: The Complete Collection (56 page)

Let’s
tighten the defense around Laura,
Wesley decides.
“Everyone, abandon your post and form a circle around Laura!” he
orders. “And if you can, pass mana to her so that her wall
enclosing the portal can be maintained,” he adds.

The remaining defenders
take a peek down the chasm; they are either surprised or aghast at
the presence of the Wall of Bones, since none of them were aware that
a Necromancer was joining their group.

“I’ll explain
later,” Wesley says as he sees the question forming on their faces.

Diana and Lucious
stands to the left of Wesley, while Westrom Lightseeker and Urdon
take the right side. Diana and Westrom both use the Succor spell to
pass along a quarter of their mana to Laura.

“Thank you,” the
necromancer says softly. Laura knows that it’s taboo for the two
members of the clergy to assist a necromancer and they may face
repercussion from the Church as a result. “I have enough mana to
maintain the wall for the remainder of this tournament,” she
announces.

“Good,” Wesley nods
simply. “Conrad, give us a heads up if any spell casters try to
cast an area of effect spell to disrupt your partner. Also, warn us
if the Eternians manage to find the ropes and climb up the mountain,”
he orders.

“Can’t we send a
runner to cut the ropes?” Lucious asks.

“Not a good idea,”
the knight shakes his head, “because that would mean breaking
formation. There are still some missing Virtuan players on the field,
and we don’t know what their capabilities are.”

Suddenly, a throwing
star flies toward Wesley’s face. The cavalier quickly raises his
shield to intercept its path.

In front of them are
five players dressed as ninjas, with black clothing, blue belts to
mark their faction as Virtuan, and masks covering their faces. The
thrower of the star steps forward. “Are we late to the party?” a
female voice asks in amusement.

“Wait!” Diana
interrupts. “That voice sounds familiar. Who are you?” she asks.

“I can’t fool you,
can I?” The ninja pulls her mask from her head, revealing a
beautiful platinum blonde underneath. “Hello sis,” she grins.

“Priscilla!” Diana
exclaims.

Lucious’ jaws drop at
the name. He has never met Diana’s sister in person, although his
girlfriend complains about her all the time.

“Why are you here?”
Diana demands. “And representing the enemy?” she glowers.

“Why? There are many
reasons. I work for Virtuous Gaming,” Priscilla begins.

“I thought you were a
public relations person,” Diana interjects.

“Oh, I wear many hats
in the company,” the newcomer replies without missing a beat. “I
started as a PR staffer, but caught the attention of the CEO, and
became executive Secretary as his right hand person. Once we got to
know each other, we started going out.”

Lucious shakes his head
in disapproval of the fact that an employer is dating his direct
subordinate.

Priscilla catches the
shake, and grins. “Charles Winter trusts me enough to put me in
charge of finding the fifty players to represent Virtuous Gaming Co.
for this event. I figured why not put myself in the group and manage
things from the field?” Priscilla explains.

“You traitor!”
Diana’s eyes lit up in flames. She pulls the mace from her belt and
points the steel ball end at her sister. “She is mine,” the angry
priestess growls.

“You want a
one-on-one duel with me?” Priscilla smirks. “Sure, why not,”
she agrees and starts to back up for more space to fight her sister.

“Yagh!” a voice
cries out as Conrad punches an arrow into a Virtuan’s skull. The
player had climbed up a rope on the left side, and tried to sneak
closer. Alas, Conrad does not fall for Priscilla’s attempt to
distract the defenders.

Priscilla frowns for a
moment as she continues to back into her companions.

The four employees of
VG allow Diana to pass through and start to take their fighting
stances as they face the remaining defenders on the mountain top.

* * *

“Wow, we have another
change in momentum!” Evan says. “Just when it looks like the
Virtuans were going to enter the portal and win the tournament, they
get backstabbed by a different faction within the group. And the
Eternians used the opportunity to padlock the portal to prevent
entry,” he summarizes the action as the video replay rolls on
screen.

“Indeed,”
Antoinette nods in agreement. “It is clear to us in the audience
that this tournament has turned into a triple sided fight. Sir, if
your side ends up losing what will you do?” she asks Charles.

“We’re not going to
lose,” the CEO of Virtuous Gaming replies confidently. “We still
have more players on the field. The defenders up on the mountain top
are primarily spell casters, and they passed along a lot of mana to
the owner of that wall of bones in order to help her maintain it.
Give me a fight between melee players and mana-exhausted spell
casters, and I will bet on the melee guys every time,” he remarks.

“While it’s true
that melee fighters have an advantage in that situation, you are
forgetting something important here,” Charles chides his rival.
“Right now I have The Strangers as the core of the remaining
defenders. I’m more than willing to bet my ownership stake in my
company on these four.”

“And there we have
it! It’s the final showdown for all the marbles! Will the Eternians
manage to hold on until the end? Or will the Virtuans pause in their
in-fighting long enough to find a way to break through The Strangers’
defense? Keep watching to find out!” Evan says, and the screen
returns to the mountain top.

PING!

Suddenly a small screen
appears in front of Charles. The following words appear in the
screen: “Activate Speed Hack? Yes or No.”

Charles quickly hits
“Yes” and the screen disappears.

At the same time, a
small screen also appears in front of Richard. The following words
appear in the screen: “Activate Damage Hack? Yes or No.”

Richard hits “Yes”
and the screen disappears.

The two men take a
brief glance at each other, and look away.

The Digital Bandit has
finally made his move.

The Virtuan riders from
The Returned alliance run through the path with reckless abandon,
trampling on other players without regard. Their only goal is to get
through the portal. However, the wall of bones appears from thin air,
and encloses the portal. The scouts cannot avoid crashing into the
wall!

The last rider manage
to rein in his horse in time to avoid the same fate as his
comrades-concussed with a steep drain on their health bars, and their
steeds dead from the violent collisions with the wall. Burton coaxes
his horse to kick at the wall with its hind legs, but the wall of
bones remains intact with no visible damage.

“Up there!” someone
shouts.

The Virtuan player
looks up, and sees a female player dressed in black sitting cross
legged on a perch overlooking the portal. Unfortunately, the spell
caster is at least one hundred feet above him, and beyond the range
of his arrows.

“For Easy Money!” a
warrior cries out as he rushes up to the rider. Burton nonchalantly
commands his horse to rear kick the would-be attacker; the horse
sends the swordsman flying through the air.

The warrior lands on
his back with a loud “THUD!” but does not get up.

PING!

Suddenly an arrow
bounces off the scout’s leather armor, doing only one point of
damage.

“What the heck?”
the player asks as he looks around. Easy Money and his The Returned
alliance are still fighting each other, but now the blows between the
combatants are resulting in ping-ping-ping-ping-ping!

“HOLD IT!” Divine
John booms in a loud voice. “STOP FIGHTING! NOW!”

Geoffrey Bladelust
points his bastard sword at the direction of the priest. “Why
should we listen to you? You’re a stinking merc!”

Seeing that everyone in
the vicinity has stopped fighting, John replies in a calm and normal
voice. “There are two reasons. First, there is a glitch that seems
to reduce our attacks to one point of damage each. Thus, there is no
realistic way for us to kill each other before time expires,” he
explains.

The priest points a
finger at the Wall of Bones enclosing the portal. “Second, if we
don’t work together, we’re going to lose this tournament. So we
have two options: either we continue fighting amongst ourselves until
time expires and lose to the Eternians by default, or we work
together to figure out a way to break that wall. As the second in
command for Easy Money, I am ordering my members to cooperate with
The Returned. Now what will you do?”

Gentatsu approaches the
man. “I am the current leader for The Returned,” the fighter
says. He looks back at his members with a frown.
I
hope Marcus will understand,
he thinks. “We will form a
truce with Easy Money.”

Heimdall catches a
glimpse of the Wall of Bones and smiles to himself.
It
was the right choice to allow Wesley to finalize the list of
defenders for this Hundred Man Tournament,
the warlord
admits. Heimdall has a bad tendency to micro-manage things, and it
took a lot to concede such managerial power to someone else. Heck,
even in the Players Council, Heimdall was the one sitting at the head
of the table and calling the shots!

If Heimdall was the
person making the final call, he would never allow a necromancer to
join the tournament. Think of all the flak from the Church of
Eternia! Yet, it is clear as day to everyone, both on the field and
off, that the necromancer has saved the Eternians. Without the wall,
their enemies would have entered the portal by now, and won the
match.

Heimdall jabs at his
enemy’s face again, forcing the man to hop back. When was the last
time a single opponent stood toe-to-toe with Heimdall for so long?
Was it months ago, half a year ago, or even longer? To a veteran
player like Heimdall, it is still these unexpected surprises that
make the World of Eternia so appealing to play on a daily basis.
“Let’s end this,” Heimdall says aloud.

“If you can,”
Virgil snaps back and starts his rush toward the man. Suddenly, the
ranger finds himself moving at a much faster pace! Before he knew it,
Virgil is standing right in front of his enemy. The ranger sees the
Decapitator take a swing for his neck, but the movement is in slow
motion! The mercenary ducks and leans forward in one fluid motion,
and quickly thrust his left scimitar at his opponent’s heart.

PING! The blade, which
should have punched through the armor, barely scratches it . . . for
one point of damage!

“What the tiny
kitty,” Virgil says as he aims his right scimitar at his opponent’s
throat. The blade nicks the halberd welder in the neck for one point
of damage again! "That should have been a decapitation,"
the ranger mutters to himself as his fury starts to rise.

Heimdall continues his
attack with a sweep at the dual welder’s legs.

Virgil avoids the sweep
by jumping, and sends both feet into the armored man’s chest,
knocking Heimdall back a few steps but doing limited damage again.
“What the heck is going on?” the ranger blurts out in frustration
at the three consecutive hits for one point of damage each. Is there
a bug in the game?

Heimdall plants the
flat end of his pole arm on the ground. “Apparently we’re
experiencing bugs of some sort. Even if you can move faster than me,
you still can’t do any damage to me. If these bugs persist through
the end of the tournament, there is no way for you to win this duel.
So this means it is pointless for me to fight you anymore,”
Heimdall says and turns his back on Virgil.

“Don’t you dare
turn your back on me!” Virgil roars in anger at the obvious show of
disrespect on camera, and jumps on the armored man’s back. Wrapping
his legs around Heimdall’s waist and hooking his left arm around
the neck, Virgil stabs at his opponent’s neck several times for
limited damage.

“That tickles,”
Heimdall remarks as he drops the halberd and grabs Virgil left arm
with both hands. Suddenly the warlord bends his upper torso downward,
using solely the waist, and pulls the arm forward. The surprise Judo
throw flips the ranger through the air and he lands on the ground
with a loud “THUD!”

The hard impact with
the ground, coupled with such tremendous force, knocks Virgil’s
health bar down to five percent. Even worse, his avatar has received
the Concussion status. Unable to see anything aside from stars on his
visor, Virgil hears the words, “Good game, man.” His view screen
immediately turns to black with the dreaded “Game Over” flashing
on it. The defeated player rips his virtual reality gear off his head
and slams it against the wall in his room. BANG!

* * *

“Wow! There we have
it! The duel finally ended with Heimdall emerging as the victor!”
Evan says. “Who knew a martial arts move would be the way to end
this duel?”

“It appears there are
some bugs manifesting during the last moments of the duel though,”
Charles approaches the topic gently. He doesn’t want to reveal the
speed hack that the Digital Bandit had enacted on Charles’ behalf.

“That’s the rant of
a sore loser,” Richard taunts his rival. “Your mercenary lost in
a fair fight. The two fought non-stop for nearly an hour. Fatigue
becomes a factor at that point. And your player simply couldn’t
muster up the energy to continue the fight,” Richard offers his
theory on the matter.

“We will bring this
to the attention of the mediator,” Charles replies, unconvinced.

“Yes, you do that,”
Richard agrees. “We have a lot of matters that came up so far in
this tournament that could use a third party review.”