World of Eternia: The Complete Collection

by Antony W. F. Chow

  The mage extends his staff forward, to further illuminate the space in front of them. He looks at the long passageway, following its path with his eyes until it is beyond the range of his soft, glowing light. He sighs and shakes his head. “There's too much real estate to cover. I could spot check here and there if you make a call for a check. You want to extend the magnitude of the spell and cover the entire length of the tunnel in front of us? Sorry, the spell isn't designed to work like that. A thief character could automatically check for physical traps like the tripwire you found. Trap detection is an innate skill for a thief, with success of detection depending on his class level. I can't make my spell automatically check for traps continuously, unfortunately,” he shakes his head again.

  Wesley listens carefully to the young man's respond. He already knows it is unlikely that a spell would work, but asked anyway to confirm his hunch. “In that case, I hope that our luck holds until we exit this tunnel. In the meantime, please get me more chalk. I expect I will need lots more sooner or later,” he says.

  “That I can do,” the mage grins, and sticks his hand inside his Bag of Holding for more pieces of chalk. He quickly hands over two more pieces to the cavalier.

  Wesley holds the chalk in his left hand. He cautiously approaches the big white line on the floor. He raises his left leg one foot up in the high, and takes a big step forward, while his right leg remains on the ground. Once his left foot is firmly planted on the ground beyond the tripwire, he carefully raises his hind leg high in the air. The armored knight turns his hips until his right leg is also in front of the tripwire. Finally he lowers his right leg until his feet are together on the ground. Looking closely at the ground in front of him, he sees no further tripwires nearby. He takes two steps forward, and turns around. “I can't move forward any further without light,” he reminds the battle mage.

  “Coming!” Lucious grins. Pulling his golden robe up to his knees, the mage imitates the knight's awkward steps over the discovered tripwire. Once beyond the line, he takes a few small steps until he is standing shoulder to shoulder with his leader.

  “Don't take another step forward!” Wesley scolds the young man. “I haven't checked the area in front of us for more booby traps.”

  “Yes, I know,” the mage replies nonchalantly. “I made sure to stand right next to you, so that you could cover more ground. I'll stick close to you, that is, until you find more traps. Then you're on your own,” he grins. He looks back, and sees that the priestess has hiked up her robe in a similar fashion as him. “Nice legs!” he whistles as he stares at them in appreciation.

  Still looking intently at the white chalk on the ground, Diana pulls her hind leg over the tripwire. Once safely beyond the line, she lowers her robe until they hover above her ankles again. She pulls her steel mace off the hook on her belt, and holds it menacingly as she stares at the lewd mage. “Care to repeat your comment sir?” she dares him.

  Lucious holds his palms out in front of his chest, and tries hard to keep his facial expression blank lest she makes good on her threat to whack him with her mace.

  “Save this banter for later,” Conrad says as he puts a hand on the priestess' left shoulder.

  “Right,” Wesley joins in. “I need light, Lucious,” he requests.

  “Roger that,” the mage replies, and holds up his glowing staff above the knight's head.

  The party moves forward in silence for another fifty feet, until Lucious speaks up suddenly and breaks the silence. “Um . . . guys, my staff just snagged on something,” he says.

  Conrad raises his torchlight, and the light reveals that the staff's orb is pressing against another thin, almost invisible tripwire.

  Wesley stares intently at the wire, and swears silently to himself. I should have caught that, he thinks dejectedly, refusing to blame the spell caster for getting caught in the tripwire. He speaks up, “It's possible that the trap has not been triggered yet. Lucious, on my signal I want you to pull back your staff. The rest of you should face outward and warn us of any trap,” he orders.

  Conrad faces forward, while Diana faces backward.

  Wesley pauses for a moment. He nods to Lucious. “Now!” he commands.

  The mage slowly pulls back the staff and off the tripwire.

  Despite Lucious' best attempt, the tripwire quivers slightly, causing a man-sized ax to swing down from the ceiling. Swish!

  The barbarian feels the sudden rush of air in front of him. “Down!” he yells as he instinctively pushes back and knocks the two men behind him to the ground, while holding up his massive tower shield to block whatever is heading his way.

  Kreeeek! The sharp edge of the swinging ax buries itself into the tower shield.

  “Are you alright?” Diana yells as she kneels down next to the pile of men on the ground.

  “No worries, my dear,” the big man grins. “I think I did more damage to our party that this big ol' ax,” he chuckles. “You guys okay?” he asks. He is still on the ground, and unable to get up until the other guys clear out first.

  “That was a good hit,” Wesley replies grudgingly once he recovers his breath.

  “Yeah,” Lucious adds weakly as he crawls away from the two before getting back to his feet. He fussily slaps at the dust on his oddly-matched robe and cloak.

  The cavalier pulls himself from under the barbarian, and rises to his feet. He looks at the big ax embedded into Conrad's shield. “You need some help there, big fella?” he offers with amusement at their role reversal.

  “Yup,” the man still on the ground replies. “I need you to pull back the ax blade so that I could free the shield.” He tries to lift his shield up to feel the heaviness of the ax. “You may require help to accomplish this,” he adds.

  “Probably,” Wesley replies as he stares at the descended blade and estimates the weight of the ax. If this was real life, the ax would weigh a thousand pounds easily, he notes. He turns to the priestess. “Can I get an Enhance Strength prayer?” he requests.

  Diana puts a hand on the knight's shoulder and obliges him. “Oh great Gods of Eternia! May you share Strength with your blessed servant, to accomplish glorious deeds in your names! Amen.” Her left hand starts to glow in response to the prayer.

  Wesley feels a soothing aura surround him, and energy begins to course through his veins. Infused with tremendously enhanced strength, he walks up to the ax, and pushes on the thick handle. The edge of the ax slowly back away from the shield. The cavalier continues to push until the blade is set perpendicular to the ground.

  “Thanks,” Conrad says as he gets off the ground. He removes his tower shield, turns the shield around, and runs his fingertips along the cut on the face of the shield.

  “Likewise,” the cavalier replies. “If you didn't shield us, either Lucious or I would have been cut in half,” he explains when he sees the barbarian's eyebrows shoot up in confusion.

  “Hey, we're a team, right? This is what teammates do,” the barbarian answers graciously. He slaps the armored knight's back heartily. Conrad turns to the battle mage. “Lucious, can you cast a magic missile on my shield? I need to know whether the magic reflection effect is still on my tower shield or not,” he explains his request.

  The spell caster casually walks over and stands in front of the shield. He examines the surface and sees that the arcane runes have not been cut by the blade. “It looks like the inscription for the reflection effect remains intact,” he shares his observation after inspection all the runes on the face of the shield. “Let me cast a one point damage mini-missile on it to double check.” He flicks his forefinger and a small burst of purple magical energy the size of a dime hits the shield. Ping! The mini-missile bounces off the shield and hits him in the hand. “Yup, it works,” he pronounces wryly while shaking off the feel of a mosquito bite on the back of his hand. Man, the one thing I hate in this game is the pain feedback when we take hits, he notes to himself. There has to be another way to simulate characters sustaining damage, especia
lly deaths, instead of various levels of shocks and pain delivered through the virtual reality gloves.

  Conrad breathes a sigh of relief upon hearing the good news. “Fantastic!” he remarks as he quickly straps the massive shield back on his left forearm. He stretches down and grabs the torchlight, which he had dropped on the ground to free his right hand to support his shield and block the advancing blade.

  “Let's keep moving,” Wesley orders.

  The mage quickly steps behind the leader, and raises his staff in the air to illuminate the grounds in front of the cavalier.

  Chapter 8 – Whack-a-Mole

  “Hey! You see that?” Lucious asks while pointing the glowing orb at the end of the long passageway.

  “Yeah, I see the wall ahead,” Wesley confirms. The damn place is like a labyrinth! The player expected nothing less from the game designers, and sure enough the fine folks at WoE managed to squeeze a maze into a castle. The cavalier continues his march forward until he finally reaches the wall at the end of the corridor.

  “So this is it?” Diana asks with a mix of disappointment and relief. After the tripwire encounter, the healer expected to be busy casting healing prayers. “Did we miss a turn somewhere?” she eyes the wall in puzzlement.

  “There must be a hidden trigger nearby. Let's split into two groups, and search the walls,” Conrad suggests. If there is nothing here, then we will need to back track along the passageway until we find whatever the dungeon designers wanted us to discover in the first place.

  “I'm with ya,” the priestess replies, quickly grouping with Conrad and starting to search along the left wall. She seems to get along great with the fine stud of a man, for whatever reason. But something in Lucious also draws her interest as well, and she can’t discount him either.

  “Let's check the wall in front of us,” Wesley tells Lucious.

  In response, the mage raises his orb to illuminate the very top of the wall. “Let's start from the top of this wall,” he suggests. The spell caster would have preferred to search with Diana, because she seems to respect his personal privacy a bit more than Wesley. The old man seems to see Lucious as a surrogate son, and treating Lucious that way. However, it appears that Diana likes Conrad the most out of the three men present, much to the spell caster’s chagrin.

  The cavalier starts from the upper left corner of the wall and his gaze slows scans the smooth, stone surface of the wall. About a foot down and from the left, he notices a concealed button, painted to look like a part of the wall from a distance away. “I think I got something,” Wesley says aloud to alert the others.

  The other search team abandons its search along the adjacent wall, and draws closer to Wesley.

  “What did you find?” Lucious asks with annoyance. Is this guy just lucky or what? That’s twice today that I lost out, he sulks as the battle mage stands besides Wesley. Even though the two men are on the same team, he feels like he has fallen behind.

  Wesley points at the tiny button, the size of a dollar coin, on the wall in front of Lucious. “You see that?” he asks the spell caster.

  Lucious squint his eyes and shakes his head. “No, I can't see it. Should I get closer?” he asks.

  “Me neither,” Diana adds.

  “Yes, I see it,” Conrad replies after a brief moment to focus his superior 20/10 vision on the upper left portion of the wall where the leader is pointing at.

  Wesley shakes his head at the young man. “I think you should remain behind me, Lucious,” he replies. He turns to look at the other two. “This is obviously the trigger to move the wall somehow. But we don't know what's on the other side, or how the wall will move – the wall panel could slide to the side, rise up, or drop down. Regardless, I think it would be best if I am the one to press that button,” he proposes.

  The barbarian nods in agreement. “It would be awkward, even for me, to press that button, and protect myself with my shield at the same time. I'll defer to your judgment,” he says.

  The cavalier turns to the battle mage. “Can I ask for a favor?” Wesley asks.

  Lucious narrows his eyes in suspicion. “What kind of favor?” The old man doesn’t ask the mage for favors usually.

  Wesley points at the long staff, which Lucious is holding in the spell caster’s left hand. “I want to borrow that staff of yours to press the button on the wall. I don't want to stand right next to the wall when I hit the trigger,” he explains.

  The battle mage shakes his head. “I'm not sure about that,” he starts to decline the unexpected request.

  “Oh come on!” Diana interrupts. “It's not like Wesley will take your precious staff and never give it back to you. He's not a mage. He's a knight who specializes in the block-and-slash fighting technique. Your staff is practically useless in his hands. There is no reason for him not to return the staff to you once he uses it to press the trigger on the wall. That is ALL he will use the staff for. You will be watching him handle your staff the entire time. Now if you prefer to blow your mana reserve on another Move Earth spell to create a hole in this wall, go right ahead. Otherwise, stop being a big baby and let him borrow your staff!” she yells at him.

  “She's got a point there, man,” Conrad joins in, keeping the pressure on the reluctant mage. “It would be extremely foolish for Wesley to press the trigger button with his hand, and take whatever punishment that the sadistic dungeon designers will mete out. Besides, the mate's not tall enough to reach that button. He needs to borrow your staff,” Conrad tries to reason with the young man.

  “Why not use his long sword instead?” the battle mage points out stubbornly.

  “Because your staff is a lot longer than his sword,” the priestess answers quickly, fully anticipating the response. “He will use the bottom end of your staff to press the button, and he won't even scratch your precious orb,” she adds with reassurance.

  Lucious turns his head slowly and looks at all three. It’s totally unfair for them to gang up on me like this, he thinks. The staff owner turns away from them, and holds out his staff. “Here,” he offers gruffly.

  “Thank you,” the cavalier says. “I'll give it right back. I promise.” Wesley turns to the other two party members. “You guys should stand back a bit, just in case there's a monster on the other side. Keep your eyes peeled for me,” he orders.

  “Will do,” the priestess replies as she back tracks until she is standing next to the mage.

  Wesley holds the smooth but unfamiliar staff in his right hand, and turns it upside down. “Here I go,” he says as he uses the flat portion of the borrowed staff to press on the trigger button.

  Click! Without warning, the wall blocking the passageway drops! Boom! A split second later, the ground underneath the armored knight gives way as well! Crash!

  “Whoooah!” Wesley starts to yell as he feels his body being pulled down by the unforgiving force of gravity. Purely out of desperation, he thrusts the staff forward, just beyond the space where the wall stood a moment ago. Clang! The metallic staff hits the ground on both sides of the sudden gap, and the cavalier hangs on with just his right hand.

  The other Strangers are paralyzed with surprise for a moment before they spring into action!

  Moving forward with the grace of a gazelle, Conrad reaches the gap first, and peers down with his torch. From the slight howling sound that he hears, the barbarian realizes that the bottom of the pit is far beyond the range of his torchlight. There's no telling how far down the bottom is, he thinks. We need to pull Wesley back up before he loses his grip on the staff. “Hold on, mack. We'll get you up in a jiffy,” he reassures Wesley.

  The cavalier stays perfectly still, to prevent the staff from inadvertently shifting off the edge of the ground. “Check to make sure there are no monsters coming down the pipe first. Rescue me afterward,” he orders.

  Conrad looks up, and sees nothing coming through the passageway beyond the gap. He stands ready to jump over to the gap to defend his leader if necessary. After the passage of a fe
w tense seconds, the barbarian looks down at his leader. “I don't see a welcoming party waiting on the other side. This seems to be just a continuation of the long tunnel,” he reports. He turns back to look at the mage. “Can you make him fly or something?” he asks Lucious. “I’m not expecting a miracle from ya, but surely you could make pull Wesley back up somehow,” he adds. “Otherwise, I could try to pull him back up. However, there is nothing here for me to hold onto,” Conrad notes.

  The battle mage stands on the edge of the solid ground. “I don't think there's enough air current in this tunnel for a Flight spell,” he answers the barbarian as the spell caster shakes his head. He holds out his hand as the big man opens his mouth for a retort. “I have a better spell in mind: Levitation,” he suggests.

  “Let's get him out of there already!” Diana prods the mage, and pokes him in the rib.

  “Yes, yes, milady,” Lucious turns and bows with a flourish before the priestess, who rolls her eyes. He closes his eyes, and utters the arcane words of the Levitation spell: “biro-lurt-qipe-tode.” As he pronounces each word of power, his hands move in a free flowing manner similar to the ancient Chinese art of Tai Chi. His arms slowly rise in the air with his palms facing down, then move in unison until they are horizontal to his body with his palms still facing down, then slowly come together in front of his torso, then the hands gently move up and down for a few repetitions, and finally the hands meet in a loud “CLAP!”