“Let's keep moving,” Wesley the ex-Marine says, and starts walking.
The rest of the party follows their de facto leader.
Chapter 2 – Moat
“Welcome to Eternia Castle,” Lucious says quietly as the party takes in the scenery before the team.
The castle lies in a desolated area, surrounded by rotted and dying trees. Fortunately, the virtual reality game has not advanced enough to affect a player's sense of smell, or else the party will be gagging on the nauseating stench of rot from the trees. The castle has long fallen into a state of disrepair, with major cracks running along the lengths of the massive stone walls. The castle is situated on top of a moat surrounded by murky, foul looking water. An occasional splash hints at the presence of something lurking inside the water.
“How are we getting across?” Diana asks while staring at the blackish water. She does not relish the idea of walking or swimming across, and ruin her white robes. “You can fly us across, right Lucious?” she suggests while batting her long eyelashes at the mage hopefully.
The battle mage rolls his eyes at her attempt to butter him up. “I can't fly all four of us across,” he shakes his head, after checking his mana pool and quickly calculating how much mana is required to fly every member over the moat.
“How about just one person at a time?” Diana persists. She absolutely won’t swim through these treacherous water!
“Nope,” he declines, and holds up a hand to forestall her reply. “The flight spell drains my mana pool on a per second basis. This is why we don't have aerial combat among player characters in this game. Theoretically, you could fly; but once you run out of mana, your character will drop from the sky. However, if you have a Druid class character, you could change shape into an avian creature and fly for as long as you want. Air mages, or spell casters specializing in air magic, are able to cast flight spells at half the cost. But they still have a limit on their flight time. I'm not an air mage, and I can't maintain the spell long enough to take the four of us over the water,” the mage explains.
“That's just great,” Diana sulks as her hope of avoiding a swim in the foul water is deflated. “Are we going to swim across, then? I can't imagine how much damage the contaminated water would do to our health points while we swim across. We could even get poison status from the water,” she blanches at the prospect of ruining her clothes, especially her boots.
“We could try cutting down some trees to build a bridge,” Conrad suggests as he eyes the trees in the vicinity.
Wesley walks over to a tree and grabs hold of a branch in his right gauntlet. With a sharp twist, he snaps off the branch. “Possible, if the trees aren't rotted to the core,” Wesley notes while holding up the branch to show the empty space at the core of the wood to his party. “I don't know if a makeshift bridge from these trees will hold up while we cross it.”
“What if we go across one person at a time?” Conrad proposes.
Wesley looks at the barbarian with a doubtful expression on the knight’s face. “I suppose it's possible that Diana could make it across, since she's the lightest person in our party,” he says while eying her from head to toe. “She's not wearing heavy armor either,” he notes. “But you and I may have to swim across. I don't know if I will make it with my suit of steel plate armor,” he says while looking down at his attire. The knight is wearing a full suit of armor, missing the helmet which Wesley loathes to wear, a large shield that is flat at the top and curved at the bottom strapped to his left arm, and a long sword in a simple black scabbard at his waist.
Lucious walks over to stand in front of Wesley, and holds out his hand. “Can I borrow that branch for a moment?” he asks.
“Sure. Be my guest,” Wesley answers pleasantly but with surprise as he hands the long tree branch over to his companion. I wonder what he has in mind.
The rest of the group watches the mage walk to the edge of the foul water, bends down, and jabs the branch straight into the water. The end of the branch is a fraction of an inch above the water.
“The water is not that deep,” Lucious announces without looking back at the party. “It looks to be around waist deep,” he adds. “We could walk through it.”
“I'm still not walking through the water,” Diana replies with a frown. “Gods of Eternia know what's swimming in it.”
Lucious looks at Diana and rolls his eyes again. “My dear, delicate priestess, I am calculating how much earth needs to be moved in order to create a bridge just above the foul water,” he reveals with exasperation.
The other party members perk up their ears at the phrase, “to create a bridge.”
“You can do that?” Conrad looks at the mage in befuddlement. He has seen the battle mage cast fireballs and lightning bolts often, but nothing earth related. Heck, he doubts Lucious knows any earth based spells that could help them get across the moat.
“Earth magic has a spell called 'Move Earth,'” Lucious replies with a nod and a grin; he knows exactly what Conrad is thinking. It is true that the battle mage has not used any fancy earth spells lately. But this reflects the lack of opportunity, rather than the battle mage’s inability to do so. Time to correct this misconception, he thinks. “I am not an Earth mage, but occasionally I find it useful to change the terrain in an environment. I was trying to calculate the length of a bridge that I could create with the Move Earth spell,” he explains. I should add a disclaimer just in case I can’t make the bridge connect to the land on the other side of the moat, Lucious reminds himself. “I am that confident that I have enough mana to create a bridge that will cross most of the moat. We might have to jump across the end of the bridge, though, to get back on land,” he warns.
“So what's the hold up?” the barbarian asks with an askew eyebrow. He hates how the mage likes to exaggerate the difficulty of accomplishing this. If Lucious can’t pull this off, he wouldn’t have bothered to mention it in the first place.
“With one notable exception, the party members wear no armor, and therefore would have no problem jumping across,” the battle mage replies while staring at the cavalier's heavy steel plate armor.
Wesley finds himself under intense scrutiny from the rest of the party. “I could take off my armor before I jump across,” he suggests.
“But that would take forever,” Diana groans. “And we are in a race to finish this mission first, remember?” she reminds him. “We already wasted too much time just standing here gawking at the moat,” she complains.
“I could toss you across,” Conrad suggest while flexing his humongous biceps. Gotta show off my build to my adoring fans, he thinks while taking a furtive glance at the overhead cameras capturing in-game video.
“What about damage from impact?” the cavalier replies while visualizing the toss in his mind.
“I'll patch you right back up. Now stop being a baby!” Diana flicks her fingers in the air to dismiss his complaint. I am not swimming across, she determines. If I have to waste some healing prayers on Wesley to avoid the water, I’ll do it!
Wesley looks at the barbarian and the mage, and sees that they both agree with her. Seeing no room to argue the matter, the former soldier finally waves the white flag. “Fine,” he exhales loudly in surrender.
“Very good, oh fearless leader,” the mage jumps in before Wesley changes his mind and backs out. “Now please be quiet. I need to concentrate while I cast this complex spell,” Lucious replies. He kneels on the ground, and places his palms flat on the ground. He leans forward until his head touches the ground as well. He closes his player character's eyes to increase his concentration, and starts chanting the arcane language of the powerful spell: “heth-voke-putu-masu-move-heth-voke-putu-masu-taal!”
After a lengthy passage of time stretching pass several minutes, the foul water starts stirring as the earth begins to shift under the mage's command. Lucious switches his player's normal view to magical screen view, and directs the reshaping of the environment. At the top of the screen is th
e mana pool remaining to accomplish the task. With his virtual reality gloves, the player carefully draws a bridge an inch above the surface of the water, and makes it two feet wide. Lucious extends the bridge straight across the moat, but to his dismay the bridge ends a good three feet before reaching land again. Looking at the upper right corner of the screen, he sees that the mana pool for this task will draw the pool down to zero. Seeing no alternative, the player sighs as he clicks the “Enter” icon to confirm the spell.
Finally Lucious re-enters the regular player screen view again and opens his character's eyes. The mage stands up and walks over to examine his magically created bridge. As he had directed, the bridge is two feet wide, and rises just an inch above the water. The bridge extends straight across the moat, and it ends just before reaching solid ground on the other side, leaving a two foot gap to jump across.
“Nice work,” Wesley congratulates the mage with a pat on the back. He was skeptical that the bridge would work or hold up a player character’s weight. But seeing Lucious actually stand on the bridge alleviates his concern.
“Indeed,” Conrad agrees. “The gap looks small enough for even our valorous knight to jump across. Too bad I won't get a chance to toss him over,” he frowns at the missed opportunity as he flexes his right bicep for the in-game camera.
Lucious' knees buckle from the enormous mana drain of the spell as his mana is now reduced to zero, and abruptly falls down to one knee. Being a virtual reality game, WoE tries to mimic the effects of dizziness by shining beams of light directly into the player’s eyes via his visor equipment and induce player discomfort. Not used to draining his mana pool in one shot like this, Lucious is caught off guard by the game’s biofeedback loop. The screen turns blurry and switches the axis back and forth like a kaleidoscope, making it impossible for the player to see the in-game world clearly. He has no choice but to take a knee until his avatar’s vision returns to normal.
“Here.” Soft, delicate hands touch the mage's face, and a wave of energy washes over him, as one hundred points of mana are added back into his mana pool instantly. The biofeedback loop abruptly dissipates, and Lucious can see the in-game world clearly again. He opens his avatar’s eyes, and sees Diana kneeling before him, her hands still on his face. “Thanks,” he smiles.
The priestess blushes and looks down. As a healer, she went through the dizzy spells often when she started out in this game, and emptied her mana pool on healing spells for the party. Unlike Lucious, though, Diana’s tolerance for the biofeedback loop is apparently a lot higher, and the effects are as annoying as mosquito bites to her. However, she has read about different tolerances for mana drains in the public forum boards, and as a spell caster she alone understood how much mana the Move Earth spell would require. Thus, she had her “Mana Link” prayer ready in case the mage needed a little bit of a pick me up. She quickly gets up, and pats the dirt off her legs. Diana looks at him again, and holds out her hand.
Lucious accepts her hand, and gets back to his feet.
“I'm sorry to break up this precious moment, but we need to hurry across the bridge,” Wesley reminds the two gently.
“Right. I will take the lead. Diana follows me. You're third. And Conrad takes the rear,” Lucious replies. The mage looks at the cavalier silently, daring Wesley to argue against the mage's proposed party order across the bridge. The idea is to have the unarmored spell casters get across the bridge quickly, and then see if the knight could make it across.
“Fine with me,” the cavalier nods in agreement, as he quickly understands what Lucious wants to accomplish. Normally he would take the lead; however, in this case if he somehow falls off the bridge, Conrad can fish him out. Furthermore, the spell casters would be safely across first. The battle mage takes the lead across the bridge in case something comes out of the water and blocks the bridge.
With a slight nod, the mage enters the bridge. Lucious holds out his staff and taps it on the solid bridge lightly every other step he takes. The mage ignores the people behind him, focusing solely on the path in front of him. While maintaining his head straight ahead, his eyes move from side to side, keeping an alert eye on the murky water next to the bridge and checking for unnatural movement in the water.
As the battle mage reaches the middle of the bridge, he hears a “flik” sound coming from the right. Lucious turns his head and sees a disturbance in the murky water, but he is unable to make out the cause of the break in the calm water. “Guys, stay alert. Whatever is in the water knows we are here. Go across the bridge as fast as you can,” he says aloud while returning his eyes to the clear path straight ahead.
“Roger that,” Wesley replies.
“'Kay,” Diana says, with some anxiety creeping into her light voice.
“Time for some boom-boom,” Conrad says menacingly as he slaps his ivory club against his open, left palm. Lucious has been hogging all the lime light with his fancy spells. It is time for the big boys to shine!
Ignoring the remarks, Lucious starts jogging across the bridge. Thankfully, nothing jumps out of the water to challenge him. So far so good, he thinks as he glances at his mana pool on the upper right corner of his player screen. With the amount donated by the priestess along with his fast mana regeneration due to his exemplary intelligence player attribute, the battle mage’s mana pool is already half full. He has enough points to cast both offensive and defensive spells now.
At the end of the magical bridge, Lucious jumps over the three foot wide gap between the bridge and the ground. He lands safely on solid ground with a “pupf.” He quickly turns around, gripping his staff tightly with both hands, anxious to see the progress of his comrades across the bridge.
Diana is just a half dozen steps behind him, almost reaching the end of the bridge.
Swirrrr. Suddenly a small fish with rows of sharp teeth jump out of the water, and latch its jaws onto her robe.
The priestess draws the steel mace from her belt loop, and smashes the fish on the head. Whack!
Stunned by the blow, the fish loosens its jaws and drops onto the bridge. Pit-pit-pit. Lying on one side, the fish flips its tail, and struggles to leave the ground and get back into the water.
Lucious stares at the fish for a moment, and suddenly identifies the animal. “PIRANHA!” he shouts at his party. “Get off the bridge as fast as you can!”
Heeding his warning, Diana quickly hops off the bridge.
The two melee fighters look at each other, and start to run across the bridge. Since the barbarian is unarmored and therefore much less encumbered, Conrad quickly widens his lead over the knight. Realizing the growing gap between himself and the knight, and reluctant to abandon his leader to save his own hide, the barbarian starts to slow down his pace.
“No! Keep going!” Wesley shouts at Conrad, understanding why the barbarian is slowing down on the bridge. “I’m wearing armor, you’re not! I’ll be safe!” the knight points out. As if to prove his point, a pair of piranhas jumps out of the water and try to bite his legs. Bing! Bong! He feels the impacts on his legs, and sees the piranhas lying on the bridge. Their jaws are unable to penetrate through the cavalier's thick, steel plate armor.
Splash! The water on both sides of the bridge stir violently as piranhas start jumping out of the water, this time in much greater numbers.
“Yahg!” Conrad blurts out in pain as a piranha latches its sharp teeth onto his bare right thigh. The barbarian slams his ivory club onto the piranha, and it falls lifelessly onto the floor.
“Run!” Lucious yells again. I can’t blow these piranhas away with a fireball if the two of them are still on the bridge, he thinks with frustration. What mass effect offensive spell can I cast? Think, mage, think!
The barbarian decides to heed the mage's advice, and makes a quick dash for the end of the bridge. “Yecqk!” he blurts out in pain as more piranhas latch onto his body. The biofeedback loop delivers small jolts of electricity into the player’s hands through his virtual reality gloves. Grin
ding his teeth, Conrad ignores the pain and the fish, and concentrates on making it across the bridge. The piranhas continue biting him, causing him to bleed out his health points rapidly: 10%, 12%, 14%. . .
Finally, Conrad stops at the end of the bridge. With a big exhale of his lungs, the barbarian jumps across the gap above the piranha water, and lands on both feet. Thud! Another piranha tries to nip at his heel during the jump, but misses.
Diana pounces on the barbarian right away, smashing her mace at the piranhas still latched onto Conrad's body.
Conrad takes out his club, and the two of them forcibly remove all the attached piranhas in short order. As the piranhas release him, drips of blood begin to run down his legs.
Diana attaches her mace back on her belt loop. She places a hand on the wounded warrior’s chest, and starts a low level Heal Simple Wounds prayer: “Oh Merciful Gods of Eternia, Please grant my request to Heal this mighty warrior, To continue his valorous deeds in your names. Amen.”
In the meantime, Lucious keeps his eyes on the bridge, and sees that the piranhas have formed a living wall of teeth blocking Wesley's path on the bridge. An idea begins to form in his mind. Raising his voice, Lucious asks without looking at the pair standing with him, “Approximately how much damage does each piranha take?”
Diana looks back at the mage with a slight frown. “One or two hits from my mace,” she replies, worrying over what the unpredictable mage has in store.
“One hit from my club,” Conrad adds.
Satisfied with their answers, Lucious raises his staff in the air and starts casting a spell: “lite-augh-lite-ghal-lite-tuuu-lite-jolt.” Switching over to magic screen view, the player directs the Chain Lightning bolt to target the wall of piranhas blocking the bridge. Dark clouds begin to form over the bridge, and thunder rumble within the fast growing dark clouds.
World of Eternia: The Complete Collection Page 2
