The barbarian whistles in appreciation as he eyes the shields greedily.
The mage notices the big man's stare at the magic shields and says, “Yes, once we defeat these guys, you could take one of these reflecting shields as booty, if we manage to beat them somehow. Any suggestions?” Lucious crosses his arms with a scowl on his face hidden by his purple hood.
Wesley peers over Conrad's shoulder and tries to judge the distance between their position and the approaching undead. “We have to figure something out before that last row of archers get in range to use their bows,” he says. He narrows his eyes and stares hard at one of the bows. “It looks like the last row is carrying crossbows. That means shorter range, but greater damage from the bolts,” he observes. “So the set up for the lines of skeletons are to defend, attack, and support. It is going to be difficult going toe-to-toe with them. It seems like these lines were programmed to work in unison. We will be shot full of bolts before we could even get in range with our melee weapons,” he assesses with admiration for the designers' apparent tactics. The cavalier turns to look at the spell casters. “It's your show.”
Diana speaks up. “Those crossbowmen are present to prevent clergy characters like myself from using my Turn Undead ability on them. The range of effect for a turn undead is fairly short, approximately at the range of a thrown weapon like a knife. Like you said Wesley, I'll be shot full of bolts before I could get in range to use my clerical ability,” she shrugs helplessly in response.
The party members turn their attention to the battle mage, who is lost in thought.
“You got any ideas?” Wesley tries to draw the young man's attention.
“About?” Lucious blurts out in reply instinctively. He blinks his eyes, and remembers the current situation of the party. “Oh! Sorry, I was mentally going through my spell book to figure out what spell or magical effect could bypass those reflective shields,” he quickly adds. He looks at Wesley. “Tell me what you think of this idea. I could cast a Wall of Ice spell to surround the monsters, and trap the skeletal army within the ice. The spell will affect the environment, rather than the shield bearers. The Reflective shields will not work on the spell unless I directly entrap the carriers in ice, which I obviously won't do. The spell will not last too long, though. But the spell should give us enough time for our party to go around the ice, and leave this pit,” he proposes.
Conrad rubs the back of his neck with his club. “But if you encase them in ice, how would we grab their shields? I want one!” he declares.
“Seriously?” the mage looks askance at the barbarian. “I thought you were kidding about that,” he shakes his head.
Conrad stares at him silently.
Lucious stares back defiantly at the big man for a moment, and then looks down. If this big boy don't get his shiny new toy, he will whine about it for the rest of this mission, the mage thinks to himself. “Fine,” he sighs. Hopefully I won’t regret this. He tilts his head back up and looks at Wesley to offer a slight alteration to the previous proposal. “I could modify the contours of the wall of ice and leave an opening right in front of a shield bearer. If you manage to defeat one of these warriors quickly and grab his shield, I could immediately create another wall of ice to block the opening,” he suggests. Lucious pauses for a moment to calculate the mana required to create two walls, and nods to himself once he confirms that it is doable. “Yeah, I should have enough mana to create two walls. The first one will be the big drain on my reserves, though. This means I won't be able to help if you wind up engaging these skeletons in melee,” he cautions.
“Thank you,” Conrad replies softly. “I'll make sure this is a two partner dance,” he adds as he pulls his magical ivory club off his belt's loop.
“Thank me after you grab the shield, you damn pirate!” the mage retorts. I wouldn’t be surprised if something goes wrong with this plan.
“If the wall of ice is high enough to block the bolts fired from the archers' crossbows, then I could stand next to the wall, and use my Turn Undead ability and focus on the shield bearer standing in front of the gap in the wall. My power should disintegrate at least a few of those skeletons,” Diana speaks up, and glances at the battle mage. She is unsure of how many her clerical ability will take down, because their monster class level is unknown. The higher the monster level, the fewer monsters Diana’s Turn Undead ability will affect.
Lucious notices the glance, and nods in understanding. Due to the way the game designers arranged this encounter, the battle mage is forced to take a supportive role rather than his customary direct role as a damage dealer. She just wants to assure him that the plan will work.
“Let's do it, Strangers!” Wesley says with finality, to end the discussion.
The other members of The Strangers nod in acknowledgment of his order. Looking back at the approaching army, the party sees that the skeletal warriors have reached more than halfway across the pit.
Lucious grabs his staff in both hands, and holds it horizontally in front of him. He slowly repeats the arcane words of the spell: “qawt-cako-yako-pure-gkit-upre.” The spell caster switches from the player's normal view to magic screen view, and draws the dimensions and contours of the wall of ice on the screen with his virtual reality gloves. His magic screen view reveals purple tendrils of power emanating from his glowing staff, flickering to and fro as the shadowy tendrils slowly surround and envelop the undead skeletal platoon. The tendrils give way to water vapor, which then crystallize and harden into cold ice at an exponential rate.
The front line of shield bearers is halted dead in its tracks, as the wall of ice quickly thicken and block the front line, and then envelop the entire group of undead and capture the entire group within the ice. Thuk! Thuk! The skeletal crossbowmen release their powerful bolts into the wall of ice, but the bolts cannot break through the thick ice.
“You see the opening?” the mage yells out as he returns to normal view.
“On it!” Conrad answers as he starts running towards the narrow, foot and a half gap of space in the wall of ice. He sees a shield bearer trying to use its shield to chip away at the edge of the gap in the wall, and widen the gap.
“Me too!” Diana yells as she gamely tries to match the professional athlete's pace, and fails. I can't be that out of shape, she sulks to herself as the gap between her and the barbarian steadily increases.
Wesley also tries to keep up with the two. However, he is encumbered by his steel plate armor and soon lags far behind the two unarmored party members.
“Lalalalalala!” the barbarian yells out as he nears the wall. Too bad these monsters are already dead, or else my battle cry will sap at their will to fight, he laments to himself. Finally standing in front of the gap, he sees that the skeletal warrior in front of the gap in the wall of ice is bigger than the other warriors. The skeletons have been bunched together so tightly inside the ice that the spearmen lack the room to raise their spears to jab at him. Nor could the crossbowmen raise their bows to take aim at him. “Give me that!” Conrad says as he grabs the valuable, rectangular shield by the top and bottom edge, and tries to wrestle the magical shield away from the skeletal warrior.
However, the massive shield is strapped to the skeletal warrior's left forearm, and the owner tries to pull the shield back inside the gap. Other skeletons adjacent to the shield bearer join in and pull their comrade inward, dragging the living human being along like fish on a hook.
“Why you!” Conrad grits his teeth, and suddenly jumps in the air. He adroitly turns and maneuvers his body, kicking out his legs so that both feet are on the wall on either side of the gap. Using the wall of ice as additional leverage, the big warrior pulls on the shield until it is wedged at the gap again.
“May the Gods of Eternia take pity on these lost souls! May the Gods of Eternia return them to their Eternal Rest!” Diana shouts as her hands clutch the cross hanging from a silver chain around her neck. A white glow of light emanates from the priestess’ body. The pure,
holy light instantaneously expands in a blinding flash. All undead creatures touched by the holy light immediately crumble into small piles of dust.
Seeing that the middle-third of the skeletons have turned into dust, the barbarian hops down onto solid ground, and quickly pushes the massive shield inward. Manipulating the shield and turning it sideways, Conrad successfully pulls the heavy shield through the gap. Still standing in front of the gap, he holds the reflective shield in the air, and admires the glimmering, archaic runes that adorn the face of the shield.
Suddenly Conrad feels a rush of air heading straight for his head, and instinctively turns his body to block with his shield. Ping! Ping! Moving backwards while still holding up the hard won tower shield along the edge, the barbarian slowly backs away from the open gap in the wall of ice.
Wesley turns back to look at the mage. “Now!” he cries out.
Lucious holds out his staff horizontally, and repeats his wall of ice spell. He had been slowly abiding his time, while his mana pool slowly regenerates itself. Pouring a much smaller amount of energy into the spell this time, the battle mage coaxes the water vapors to congregate in front of the gap in the wall of ice. The vapors quickly harden into solid ice, sealing the remaining skeletal warriors inside. The spell caster sags to his knees as his mana pool is drained again, sending a biofeedback loop of dizziness back to the real life player behind his computer.
Conrad straps his hard won prize onto his left forearm. When he looks up again, he sees that all eyes are on the magical shield. He ignores the attention, and raises his arm to get accustomed to the weight of the tower shield on his arm. He looks to face Wesley, and asks, “Why don't you get one of these for yourself?”
The cavalier looks at the steel buckler shield strapped to his arm, and notes that it is approximately half the size of the tower shield on Conrad’s forearm. The military man faces the big athlete and shakes his head. “Those towers shields are too heavy for me. I am already encumbered by my heavy suit of steel plate armor. I won't be able to move if I carry a massive tower shield as well,” he answers.
The spell casters start to walk around the encasement of ice, leaving the melee warriors behind.
Diana turns back, and yells with exasperation. “Guys! Let's get out of here before the wall of ice melts!”
The two melee fighters look at each other, and turn as one to face the spell casters. “Coming!” they reply in unison.
Chapter 7 – Safe Passage
The Strangers gather around in front of the steel wheel, which is the the size of a large Frisbee and attached vertically to the wall next to the archway. A handle, long enough for a two hands grip, juts out of the wheel, which could apparently be rotated clockwise or counterclockwise. Attached to the wheel is a set of thick, steel chains that connect to the cross-barred gate, currently pulled up and embedded within the wall above the great archway.
Lucious eyes his wall of ice for a moment and his gaze lowers to the growing puddle of water on the floor beyond the archway. “My wall of ice is starting to melt. You guys better set down the gate before our dear friends break out of their entombment,” the spell caster notes with urgency. The player checks his mana pool on the upper right corner of his player screen, and sees that it is approximately one-third full now. I still don’t have enough in my mana pool to cast Wall of Ice, he notes with frustration.
“Right,” Wesley agrees after his own eyes linger on the growing puddle of ice on the ground. The knight starts to draw his great long sword out of its scabbard. He suddenly pauses when the sword is half-drawn. He looks back at his party members, and realizes that they are standing too close to him. He releases his weapon, and it slides back into the scabbard. “I need some space,” he shoos them away with a motion of his gauntlet-covered hand.
“Oops,” Conrad remarks to his chagrin, as he puts each hand on a spell caster's shoulder, and gently pulls the two a few steps back away from the chains and the knight.
Satisfied with the additional space he now has to work with, the cavalier frees his sword from the scabbard with an ease born of long practice with the player's real life gloves. He winds his sword back like a golf club, and unleashes a vicious hack at the thick chain.
Ting! The chain rattles like rolling dice, but holds firm.
Wesley furrows his eyebrows as he looks intently at the spot where his sword had just hit the link in the chain. Barely a dent, he observes. The cavalier puts his sword down, leaning it against the wheel. He proceeds to pull his shield off his left forearm.
“Whoa, a two hand job!” the barbarian cat calls as he watches with amusement from a short distance away. Too bad I don't have an ax or else I'll join in the fun, he notes sadly to himself. Maybe I should offer to take a few hacks with his sword on the chain? I will make the offer if the old man can’t cut it.
Wesley ignores the rude comment, his focus solely on the task of cutting the links. He holds the sword with a two-hand grip, winds the weapon back again, and swings repeatedly with all his might.
Tching! Tching! Tching! Tchuk! The chain finally breaks, causing the heavy gate to come crashing down! BOOM! The impact reverberates on the floor, and the ensuing shock wave nearly knocks the party members to the ground.
The cavalier is the first to recover from the shock wave, and pauses for a moment to admire his handiwork. Before the other members notice his gawking, he quickly grabs his buckler shield and starts strapping it back to his left forearm.
“Maybe we should have just used the wheel to wind down the gate,” Lucious remarks once he recovers from the unexpected shock wave.
“I disagree,” Conrad replies immediately. “If we left the chain intact, the undead warriors might have summoned a minion, like a ghost, to wind up the gate again. We can't afford for these remaining skeletons to attack us from behind, especially if we're dealing with the next surprise left by the game designers from the front. We lack the manpower to defend two fronts like that,” he explains his rationale.
“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. Tha
nkfully, 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.
World of Eternia: The Complete Collection Page 6