Wesley blocks the strike from his opponent with his shield, and quickly slashes at the Regent's leg. His opponent jumps back in time, and avoids the sword. The ex-Marine notes the man's fast reaction to his counter strike, and decides to adopt another tactic. He slashes wildly with his long sword, trying to steer the man back.
The second Regent tries to jab the top of his staff, which ends in a human skull, at Conrad's gut. The barbarian knocks down the staff with his ivory club, pushing the staff all the way to the ground, and slashes at his opponent's mid section with his deadly double war axe.
Conrad's opponent tries to jump back to avoid the axe blade, but inadvertently backs into the first Regent instead. He is unable to move out of the path of the swing, and takes a cut from the double-edged weapon that rips the noble's fine tunic, leaving a large gash that starts to bleed.
The two melee fighters press their momentum, forcing the two Regents to stand their ground back-to-back.
“Time to play the bully!” the knight yells out, his eyes meeting those of his comrade for a brief moment. He suddenly bull rushes with his shield, knocking it into his opponent's torso.
Overpowered by this shield bash, the Regent, in turn, bumps his companion towards the barbarian.
Conrad slams his ivory club down, aiming squarely at his opponent's head.
The second Regent reacts in time, blocking the strike with his skeleton staff. However, the tremendous strength behind the blow forces the Regent's hands down, below his chin.
The barbarian times his swing of the axe just right and decapitates the Regent, sending the head flying across the room!
The knight pushes again with his shield, forcing his opponent to trip over the fallen Regent's body. As the copy Regent is disoriented on the ground, Wesley thrusts his long sword straight through the man's heart.
The other two Regents prove to be even matched melee fighters with the spell casters. But keenly aware that their number is now halved, the two Regents quickly lean back-to-back, as all four members of the party quickly surround the duo, ready to put a quick end to this fight.
“Gagagah!” a voice laughs suddenly.
The four adventurers take a quick glance in the direction of the laughter, and sees that the decapitated head is still active!
“Let me take care of him!” Diana shouts as she leaves the circle. Before she could approach the head, the headless body reaches out with an outstretched hand. She sees the head flying across the room, as if the detached head is a yoyo on a string, and suddenly lands on the Regent's hand!
The headless body takes the head by both hands, and puts it back on his neck. The head facing backwards, the hands rotate the head until it is facing the correct direction.
The other Regent lying on the ground slowly rises, the gaping hole in his chest visible with blood still seeping out.
Conrad narrows his eyes at the re-risen Regents. “What the hell are they? Are they zombies?” he asks gruffly. "Why won't they stay dead?" he fumes as he stares at the Regent who just reattached his head back on his neck.
“Worse,” Lucious replies. “These guys might be liches.”
“What!” the barbarian exclaims. “And we're facing four of them?” he notes incredulously.
“Who knows?” the battle mage shrugs. “It could be one lich and a few illusions. Or it could three dopplegangers, or shadows, or simulacrums. Or it could be four authentic liches sharing mana and health equally. We won't know for sure until they start tossing spells around," he speculates and shrugs helplessly. "Oh, and speaking of spells, I need you to keep them busy while I cast an anti-magic barrier in this room,” he requests. "I can't handle four high level monsters, each capable of blowing the party to kingdom come. If we can keep this encounter strictly as a melee battle with four spell casters, we will have a much greater chance of winning," Lucious explains.
“You mean interrupt any obvious spell casting?” Wesley asks.
“Yup!” the young man cheerfully replies. He backs away from the Regents, running towards the throne on the other side of the room. The throne may be the lich's focus, he speculates as he stares at it. There is nothing else in the room that would qualify as a focus item, not the chandeliers on the ceiling nor the tapestries on the walls. Additionally, it would be far too risky for a lich to use his skeleton staff as his focus item; if the staff breaks during combat, the lich will die a final death. No, Lucious concludes, it has to be the skull throne.
The battle mage sits down cross-legged in the middle of the room, and lays his staff on his thighs. Even though the odds of success in casting the spell is only 50%, Lucious has to make the gamble to prevent the lich from using his magic to summon anything else, or cast some sort of instant death spell on a party member. Drawing on his mana pool, the battle mage starts chanting the lengthy words of the Anti-Magic Barrier spell: “zzez-ssao-lopt-toto-ment-paty-vixe-kuje-lopt-toto-qked-cobj-wgik-plto-bagj-czol-pied-ghor-safg-xzac-look-tuon-ardt-fweu-moon-tyar-wint.”
“I'll tie them up,” Diana tells the remaining Strangers as she leaves the circle too. Taking a few steps away from the standing men, she quickly unties the bull whip from her waist. She cracks the whip forward, and grabs the formerly headless Regent. She yanks the whip back, and knocks her captive to the ground.
The other risen Regent tries to intervene and free her captive. He swings his staff at Diana's head.
Timing herself perfectly, the priestess ducks under the swing. With her opponent's back facing her on the follow through, Diana pulls out her steel mace and slams it down on the back of the Regent's skull. Crack!
The man collapses in a lifeless heap on the ground.
Diana quickly ties the whip around the other Regent, immobilizing his arms. She rips the staff from his grasp and breaks it over her left knee. Seeing the copy Regent still here, she says with disappointment as she tosses the halves on the ground. “Nope, the staff is not the focus.” She raises her mace in the air, and slams the weapon down on the tied up Regent's head, knocking him unconscious. Turning her attention to the other Regent who had attacked her, Diana uses her bolas to hog tie his wrists and ankles together, laying him on his belly.
Suddenly, the original Regent, still facing Wesley and Conrad on the other side of the room, yells out, “Go!”
The last copy Regent knocks into Conrad, and grabs the big man. The copy purposely falls back onto the ground, pulling the barbarian down with him. The captor pivots his body on the ground, kicking out with his legs and flipping the helpless barbarian into the knight.
Taking advantage of the sudden chaos, the real Regent moves toward the vulnerable mage, intending to interrupt the spell. Suddenly, an idea pops into his head, and the Regent changes his mind. Instead, the lich decides to cast his own spell, Polymorph, confident that he can sneak it in before the anti-magic barrier can take effect. Even if he interrupts the spell, it would still leave four adventurers against him and his summoned minion. In a handful of heartbeats, the authentic Regent finishes his spell casting and starts to dramatically increase in mass and size. His spine increases in length, his ribcage expands, his neck and skull become elongated. Soon, a snort begins to form, as his skin become covered with red and yellow scales. The spine continues to lengthen as a tail begins to appear. The limbs thicken and the fingers turn into sharp, blackened claws.
The newly formed Fire Drake takes a deep breath and exhales, noticing the sweet smell of sulfur in its breath. The Regent would have preferred morphing into a Red Dragon; alas the room is far too small to accommodate the vastly more powerful creature. Nonetheless, the smaller drake will easily turn his unruly guests into ashes, as the drake's fire breath attack is not dependent on magic and therefore not affected by the anti-magic barrier. The foolish mage will soon regret casting the barrier when he will be the one unable to stop the Regent from tearing his friends apart!
Lucious is fully aware of his environment, but he cannot stop his spell casting in the middle, or else the backlash could knock h
im of the game! With his magical sight, he sets the dimensions of the anti-magic barrier to cover almost the entire room. However, the mage sets a small pocket of space behind the skull throne for exclusion from the invisible barrier. Finally, he lets go of his mana pool, which is down to one-third now. He turns around to see what the lich as polymorphed into. He sees the fire drake and blurts out, “Oh crap!” He quickly backs away from the creature, heading for safety behind the throne as the mage goes through his mental rolodex of spells effects that may overcome the existing anti-magic barrier.
The fire drake stares at the mage cowering behind his skull throne, and turns away in disgust. Without his magic, this coward is no threat to me, the Regent thinks to himself. Seeing the melee fighters still battling his last Nether doppelganger, the fire drake starts pumping its powerful legs across the room!
Diana sees the rampaging creature heading right for her, and dives out of the way, crashing against the left wall. “Oof!” she blurts out as the player takes a 1% hit to her health bar.
The massive fire drake tramples over the two tied up copies, crushing their bodies without a second thought. The creature's eyes are squarely on the three fighters at the end of the room.
Unable to draw magical energy from the Nether Realms to regenerate their wounds due to the presence of the anti-magic barrier, the two crushed Nether doppelgangers start to disintegrate. Within seconds, they disappear from the room.
The fire drake stomps to a halt, takes a deep breath, and unleashes a breath of fire at the melee fighters!
“Dive!” Conrad blurts out as he dives forward and tries to roll under the breath of fire.
Wesley takes heed of the warning, and rolls to his left.
The remaining copy Regent is caught by the fire breath and incinerated by the fiery blast instantly!
The barbarian continues his forward roll until he is standing next to the drake's head. He springs back to his feet, and slams his ivory club on the monster's snout!
The fire drake is taken by surprise. The force of the blow causes its upper jaw to close down on its lower jaw, thus ending the fiery breath attack.
Diana looks to the end of the room, and sees the mage kneeling behind the skull throne, with his palms and head resting on the ground. He's casting a spell, she realizes, and quickly runs over to join him. I can't heal unless I'm outside the anti-magic barrier, and I can't fight melee against the drake, she thinks to herself. The best course of action is to defend the mage by blocking him from the drake's view. If the Regent realizes that part of the room is not covered by the anti-magic barrier, Lucious can get one good spell in before the drake could react.
Lucious tries to block out all the distractions in the room. He feels Diana approaching his position, and smiles to himself at her quick realization that the mage had left a small pocket in the room not covered by the anti-magic barrier. He continues to chant the arcane words of his Summon Lesser Elemental spell: “eart-blik-tutt-jeth-qoup-jinn." Too bad I don't have the mana to cast a bigger elemental, but this guy is more than enough for what I have in mind, he grins.
Switching his normal screen view over to his magical sight, the naturalist delays hitting "Enter" to summon his earth elemental. The spell caster waits until Diana has joined him behind the throne, and then summons the elemental to appear. The summoner commands the elemental lift the skull throne off the ground.
Diana crouches on the ground next to the mage. She takes off her Cloak of Fire Resistance and covers it over his body. Just in case the fire drake tries to breath fire to interrupt Lucious.
On the other side of the room, Conrad jumps on the fire drake's neck, wrapping his legs around the thick neck. He puts his ivory club under the massive creature's lower jaw and pulls the weapon up, to keep the jaws shut and prevent the drake from unleashing its breath attack again.
The Regent thrashes his neck about, trying to toss the big human off. He feels sharp stings on his hide as the armored cavalier slashes his long sword repeatedly at the fire drake vulnerable underbelly. The Regent swipes at the annoying knight with his right paw.
Wesley blocks the blow with his buckler shield, but the powerful swing knocks him off his feet, siphoning 5% off his health bar.
On the far side of the room, the earth elemental grabs hold of skull throne, and starts slamming it on the ground! Crack! Bash! Black sparks of energy dance out of the throne as skulls are crushed and broken off the throne.
The polymorphed lich shudders in pain as its focus is being damaged. The Regent starts to run to protect his precious focus item, when he feels something pulling on his tail. Turning its neck, the Regent sees that the knight has grabbed his tail.
Using all the strength that his avatar can muster, Conrad pushes his barbarian character's body down, wedging the fire drake's head between his chest and the cold, hard ground of the grand throne room.
The earth elemental continues to smash the skull throne like a ragged doll, causing more skulls to break off. Finally, the elemental drops the throne on the ground. Forming a giant, granite like fist, the elemental pounds on the remains of the throne, utterly pulverizing it.
The Regent shudders one last time, and finally turns into ash.
The black dancing balls slowly increase in size, as each ball turns into a ghost.
Lucious releases the earth elemental, as his mana pool is totally drained by the summoning. He takes a moment to allow the biofeedback loop to take its course, and wait for his dizziness to pass. The player finally switches back to normal vision, and lifts his avatar's head off the ground. He sees the slowly gathering ghostly army, but feels no enmity from them. Using his staff, the weary mage lifts himself back to his feet. He gently pushes aside Diana, who is standing protectively in front of him.
The priestess shoots him a worried look, knowing full well that the battle mage is out of mana and unable to assist in this next battle.
The two melee fighters finally reach their side of the room, with weapons drawn and ready for another fight. They go around the gathering of ghosts, and stand on either side of the spell casters.
Finally, a ghostly knight appears in front the Strangers. A weary looking man with shortly cropped brown hair, steely blue eyes, and an aura of strength about him, the knight speaks. “I am Raynor, the Captain of the guard at Castle Eternia. The Regent had become mad and turned against us, slewing the guards down to the last man with his foul magic. He captured our souls, and used our eternal essence to make his focus item and become a lich. By destroying his focus, you have freed us, and lifted the Curse!” The man turns to look at his fellow guardsmen. He turns back to the victorious party and lifts up his sword in their honor, “Long live The Strangers!”
The gathered ghosts hail in response. “Long live The Strangers!”
One by one, the freed spirits slowly fade away.
Chapter 17 – Prize
“Yahoo! We're home free!” Conrad raises his arms in jubilation when he finally comprehends what the NPC has said. “We did it! We lifted the curse!” He jumps up and down like a little child.
“You said it, partner,” Wesley holds out his right fist for a congratulatory fist bump, which Conrad eagerly obliges.
The two spell casters look at each other uncomfortably.
Diana takes a small step towards the battle mage, with her arms extended as if asking for permission to hug him.
Lucious scowls for a moment, before a goofy grin breaks out on his face. He steps into her reluctant embrace, crooks his left arm around her waist, and pats her back gently with his right hand. He throws the borrowed Cloak of Fire Resistance around her, and gently ties the strings around her neck.
Diana looks up into the mage's eyes, and tilts her chin up for a kiss.
“You guys should wait 'til you log out!” Conrad reminds the couple that the tournament is live, and viewed by an online audience.
The couple look at him with deer-in-headlight expressions frozen on their faces, and stare at the ground in unison, t
heir faces turning crimson.
The barbarian crosses his arms and grins. “Diana and Lucious. Who would have thought?” he muses aloud.
“Oh, I saw it coming from a mile away,” Wesley replies absently, remembering all the bickering the two had done in the past, or lovers' quarrels as he affectionately called the endless back-and-forth.
“Really?” Conrad looks at the elder man with skepticism. “Was it that obvious, or was I just clueless?”
The retired military man shakes his head. “It's more like personal experience.”
“I see,” the minor league player replies quietly. He stares at the white portal hovering in the middle of the room. “You ready to go head back?” he asks.
“You're asking the wrong person,” Wesley laughs.
“Yes, you're right,” Conrad agrees and joins the laughter. He turns to the two younger party members. “Are you ready to go through the portal?”
Lucious looks at Conrad. Without a word, he takes Diana's hand and the couple slowly walk through the portal.
Conrad looks at Wesley and shrugs. He walks through the portal.
Wesley looks around the quiet chamber, and savors the memory of his adrenaline rush from all the trials that the game designers have put The Strangers through. He puffs out a breath of air, and hops through the magical portal.
* * *
The small screens inside the four players' virtual reality headset suddenly turn black, with the word “Loading. . .” blinking in white on their screens. The party's apprehension at the possibility of a sudden disconnection from the WoE server, after all that they had gone through, slowly dissipate when the members find themselves back in Starter Town, standing on a stage in the town square.
The Strangers are still dressed in their regular party outfit, but with one major difference—all the rips and tears on their clothes and gear have been completely restored, along with their three vital bars of health, stamina, and mana.
World of Eternia: The Complete Collection Page 15
