“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.
Chapter 4 – Welcome Party
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 continuou
sly 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.
Chapter 5 – Exploration
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.
“Sounds good to me,” the barbarian replies as he passes his torch over to the priestess. The plan is as any good as any that Conrad can come up with by himself. “I'll start with the left side,” he offers.
“Fine, we'll take right,” the mage readily agrees and starts walking to the opposite side of the room. It is conceivable that there are multiple exits out of this room, and therefore one side is as good as the other.
“Wait for me,” the cavalier reminds the young man. Will this kid ever learn, he sighs.
Lucious stops walking suddenly, and grinds his molars. Tap-tap-tap-tap. He taps the end of his staff on the stone floor impatiently, waiting for the old veteran to catch up.
Wesley walks at a leisurely pace, disregarding the clearly annoyed spell caster, and finally stands in front of the impatient mage. As Wesley swipes at the cobwebs with his shield and moves forward into the cleared space, he notices that the radius of illumination from the staff has not moved. “Please keep up with me, Lucious,” he calls out over his shoulders.
Chastened a second time now, the mage slowly walks forward, his circle of light keeping pace with the cavalier. This is just like walking a dog, Lucious muses to himself.
* * *
Diana alertly turns her head from side to side, while holding the torch in her left hand and her mace with her right hand. She does not want to be caught off guard by a leaping giant spider like Lucious was a moment ago. The torch illuminates only a three feet radius, requiring her to stand close to the barbarian while Conrad swings his ivory club to clear out the cobwebs. Fortunately, they are in sync with one another, and Diana easily matches his forward advancement in the room.
Klunk! The club unexpectedly hits a wall, and the reverberation of the blow causes Conrad's hand and wrist to go numb for a moment as the biofeedback loop sends the pain being experienced by the avatar back to the player. Stoically ignoring the pain and not giving any outward sign of distress, the barbarian sets his club on the ground and uses his bare hands to wipe away the remaining dirt and web on the wall.
I am not going to touch that with my hands, Diana thinks as she makes a face. I don't care if this is just virtual reality rather than my real body, she thinks as an image of her real life, physical self sitting at home in front of her powerful workstation computer pops into her mind. She is dressed casually in blue jeans and a red tank top, her hair bunched up in a bun, and wearing WoE's special virtual reality head gear and gloves connecting to her powerful octa-core desktop computer.
What's this, Conrad wonders as his fingertips come across a gap along the wall. Tracing his fingers along the gap, he works quickly to reveal the contours of a large doorway.
“Great! We found a door!” Diana exclaims in relief as she realizes what her partner has found.
The barbarian turns back to face her, with a wide grin on his face and his right hand posed in front of his chest with a “thumbs up” gesture. I hope the in-game video capture took my good side, he thinks to himself. “Let's check for more hidden doors along the wall,” he replies as he steps just beyond the range of illumination under the torch’s light.
* * *
Thwack! Wesley swipes at another veil of cobweb with his shield. Man, the game designers overdid this cobweb shtick, he complains silently. And our young man is giving me the silent treatment. Wesley decides to do something about it. “You're awfully quiet,” he says aloud to break the uncomfortable monotony between the two men. “Not into male bonding, I take it?” he jokes.
“Sorry man, I don't swing that way,” Lucious replies with a sour expression on his face.
Wesley raises his eyebrows in surprise at the response. He is taking my joke way too seriously, he thinks. “Didn't mean it like that,” the retired military man chuckles. “Just for the record, I'm straight too,” he adds. “Heck, I've got a wife and two grown children, a son and a daughter. My son is probably around your age, give or take a few years,” he continues as he takes down more cobwebs in his path.
“Look, could we leave out the social chitchat?” the mage rudely cuts off the older man. “I'm here to win, not make friends.”
Wesley offers a faint smile at the remark. Since his avatar's body is positioned in front of the mage, the smile is hidden and unnoticed by his partner. The cavalier takes another swing at a thick cobweb with his shield. “We are winning, if you haven't noticed,” he gently reminds his younger teammate with an innocuous retort. “The four of us have been doing a lot of that over the past year in this game. However, we rarely have the down time to really socialize in this game, with everyone having their own busy schedules in real life. So why not take advantage now, when the opportunity is present?” he asks in a friendly manner.
“Sorry old man, but my time is precious. A retiree like you wouldn't understand it,” Lucious replies in an arrogant tone. “No offense,” he adds after a moment. He knows that Wesley means well, and Lucious does not want to offend the old man if possible.
Was I like that when I was young like him, Wesley ponders. What an arrogant prick, he smiles as he thinks of himself back in basic training with the Marines. “Oh? And you don't think I appreciate the value of time? On a battlefield, time is always a factor. Plans are executed based on timing, for example. Look at the way game plans are executed in a football game. Timing is everything. Everyone can relate to that, not just people working on Wall Street,” he adds pointedly.
Lucious flinches slightly at the rebuke. You're giving as good as you're taking, he thinks as he stares at the cavalier's back with admiration. I'll be generous and concede the point this time, he thinks. “So what do you wanna talk about, old man?” he tries to hide his concession behind his arrogant tone of voice.
The cavalier stops swinging his shield, and stands up straight. He looks back at the younger man. “Since you're too shy to talk about your family life, let's talk about gaming. What other games have you played online, and why did you choose World of Eternia?” He turns back to the cobwebs in front of him, and continues clearing them out.
The mage has a blank expression on his face as he tries to recall his gaming history. Why does this feel like an interview, he wonders as he gathers his thoughts into a concise answer to humor the old man. “Since I'm into MMORPGs, I have the typical gaming history with games like World of Warcraft, Runescape, Guild Wars, Everquest, Dark Age of Camelot, Neverwinter, Star Wars: The Old Republic, and even Star Trek briefly. I switched over to WoE because they are the first game to combine traditional RPGs with a virtual reality ('VR') environment. I am definitely not thrilled with the headset-helmet equipment that World of Eternia requires me to wear, because it makes me feel claustrophobic when I wear it. Even though it weighs less than two pounds, the headset feels heavy after a few hours of hardcore gaming online. But I understand the need to utilize the headset's embedded face capture sensors to give the game a more VR-like experience when players interact with one another in-game,” Lucious explains in depth. “Otherwise, all the avatars are stuck with the preset facial expressions as programmed by EDE. And like everyone else who plays this game, I absolutely hate the biofeedback loop concept in this game,” he adds.
World of Eternia: The Complete Collection Page 4