“Of course not,” he bristles at the comment.
“Good,” Ellen nods. “Try to be nicer to the interns. That’s all I’m asking from you. Jennifer and the other kids will be gone before you know it,” she adds, reminding him that the college internship program will end in a few weeks.
“Yes, ma’am,” he salutes. Lucious puts his thin, silver framed glasses back on, and turns his head back to the computer screen; he starts to work on his report again.
Thusly dismissed, Ellen quietly walks away from the financial analyst’s desk.
Chapter 4 – Long
Distance Relationship
"Hey honey," the long, luscious raven haired woman flashes her dazzling smile in the computer screen.
"Hi Diana," Lucious replies while staring back at the screen. A small webcam is strategically placed above his computer monitor, allowing the two to continue their long distance relationship through nightly chats over the internet.
Diana Lombardi picks up on her boyfriend's glum mood right away, even though they are thousands of miles apart, with her in Seattle, Washington and him in New York City. "What's wrong, honey?" she asks gently, hoping that he won't get too annoyed with her prying.
The handsome man frowns slightly. "Is it that obvious?" he asks quietly, deftly avoiding giving an answer to her question.
The psychology doctoral student folds her arms and leans back on her chair, while maintaining her stare straight into her webcam. "Hey buster, you're not getting off that easily," she quips.
He stares back at her.
After a few seconds, Diana shrugs her shoulders. "Well mister, if we're just going to stare at each other, I'd much rather work on my doctoral thesis instead," she says. The woman starts to reach for the mouse on her desk to close off the chat program, when Lucious interrupts. "Wait!"
Keeping a straight face, she coyly looks back at the screen, and waits for an answer.
The young man grinds his teeth for a moment, and finally spits out an answer, "Work."
"What about your job?" she presses him, not at all satisfied with his succinct answer.
"Supposedly I made an intern cry today," he admits.
Diana's eyes widen and blink several times as she processes the answer in her mind. I thought he got chewed out by his boss, she thinks to herself. Quickly regaining her composure, she tries to imagine the scene. "What did you do to her?" she asks, suspecting that the college intern is female.
"Nothing!" Lucious quickly throws up his hands to proclaim his innocence. "I was typing out a report for my boss when the intern dropped a heavy stack of reports on my desk. I forgot what I said to her then, and she just ran off."
Her suspicion of the intern's gender confirmed, Diana moves her face closer to her webcam. "The girl has a crush on you!" the psychology student exclaimed loudly as she gives him an evil eye. Diana could easily understand what happened: Lucious didn't pay the love struck kid any attention, and the intern misinterpreted his cold attitude as total dislike towards the girl. In reality, his mind was still stuck on the computer screen, and he could not register the college intern's physical presence in a meaningful way, at least not enough to interact with her as a normal human being. Thus, the misunderstanding led to the poor girl crying. "Did you apologize to her?" Diana asks while her face is still close to the webcam.
"For what?" Lucious stares blankly.
"Men!" she swears. Rolling her eyes, Diana slowly leans back into her chair and shakes her head. For all his intelligence, her boyfriend can be incredibly dense and socially inept at times. Thankfully, her background in psychology, along with the hundreds of hours that she had spent with him in-game in World of Eternia, has helped Diana understand Lucious just about as well as anyone on the planet. Avoiding the temptation to slap herself on the forehead, Diana exhales slowly to calm herself down. With an even tone of voice, she says, "Lucious, I want you to take the intern out to lunch tomorrow."
"Huh?" he replies with another blank stare.
"Just do it!" she replies forcefully. "And during lunch, please explain that you were too engrossed with your report to appreciate her presence mentally."
Lucious looks back at Diana, and lowers his eyes. He quietly nods his head.
"Good," she nods back, trying to avoid gloating at her little victory over the stubborn man.
Her boyfriend looks up at Diana. "Do you have time to hang out online tonight?" he asks, hoping the two spell casters and WoE veteran players could do a little dungeon crawling even though both players have already hit the current level sixty player cap in World of Eternia.
Diana shakes her head sadly. "Sorry, honey. I need to work on my thesis. You could go in by yourself if you want," she adds quickly, knowing that he hates to go in solo.
Lucious makes a face at the suggestion. "Nah, I'd rather not deal with the weird groupies in Starter Town by myself. I've dragged the reputation of The Strangers down a few notches already due to my social ineptitude in handling all the join party requests from other players," he shrugs.
Lucious makes a face when he recalls the mini flame war that erupted on the forums when someone made a post about his rudeness in rejecting the join party requests, and other players started posting similar experiences. His girlfriend had to devote a lot of time and energy putting out the fires. Eventually, this led to some heated debate over the proper etiquette in offering and declining join party request.
"Well in that case, I think I'll read an ebook tonight and enjoy a quiet evening instead," Lucious decides firmly. He is keenly aware that members of The Strangers are now on the radars of every other player in the game, especially after EDE created a newsletter glorifying their deed and sent the newsletter to every player's account mailbox. Lucious in particular has a big red bull’s eye on his back, with rumors of a huge bounty for a successful assassination of his character by a player killer. Hence there is no point for him to go in by himself, unless he wants to start a new character from scratch and pretend to be a newbie to the game. Of course, he has no interest in doing that, not after committing thousands of hours building up his Elementalist mage character.
Diana smiles warmly at the suggestion, because she just dodged a potential headache of her boyfriend logging into WoE by himself. "Sounds like a plan. Have fun!" she teases him.
"Love you," Lucious says.
"Love you back," she replies and logs off the internet chat program.
Chapter 5 – Sister
Knock-knock!
Diana swivels her head to the door, and sees a young woman with remarkably similar features as the occupant of the room. However, the woman at the door has shoulder length, platinum blonde hair. Diana used to have the same hair color, but decided to change her looks just to differentiate herself from her sister.
"What is it, Priscilla?" Diana groans silently to herself, wondering just how much of the conversation has been overheard. I need to remember to close the door and lock it, Diana reminds herself.
The twin sister smiles mischievously. "Having a lover's quarrel?"
Diana shoots daggers at her twin while wincing at the explicit confirmation that Priscilla had overheard much of the conversation between Diana and her boyfriend! "How long were you eavesdropping outside my room?" she growls menacingly.
"Oh not long at all," Priscilla replies innocently, purposely making the remark vague while knowing that it would only add fuel to the flame. "I came to remind you to go to the supermarket tomorrow to grab some groceries; I made a list of stuff to buy and posted it on the fridge downstairs. Even though tomorrow is Saturday, I have to go into the office," Priscilla tries to make a face to elicit sympathy from her twin sister.
Diana frowns. "That's just great," she shakes her head. A hiss of frustration escapes from her lips as she tries to recall the last trip to the supermarket; it was almost three weeks ago. "Are you sure you're not trying to dodge going to the supermarket with by volunteering for something at work?" her eyebrows narrow in suspicion. That is the e
xact sort of thing that Priscilla would do!
Her twin sticks out her tongue. "Yeah, right! Even though I work for a game developer, the floor I work on is full of smelly, balding old guys!" She tilts her head. "I admit that there are also some cute guys around, but they seem to be in relationships right now. Anyway, if I don't show up to help out with media relations duties, I would be blamed if the CEO says something ridiculous while going off script," she huffs in annoyance.
Diana chuckles at the remark. "Well, your bachelor's in political science helped you land your job, right?"
"True," the twin admits. "I was hoping to be a speech writer for some big shot politician, and instead I'm writing speeches and PR material for an entertainment company. Both do play out to particular audiences, though; the position is not a total waste of my college degree." Priscilla shrugs at the way her career has developed differently than how she originally envisioned while she was attending college. She tries to change the topic. "Anyway, I should leave you alone now. You said you need to work on your thesis, right?"
"Yes, you damn eavesdropper!" Diana throws a pen at her twin sister.
Priscilla quickly closes the door, and hears a soft "bang" on the other side. She quietly goes back to her room, to shoot a quick email to her boss.
Chapter 6 – Players
Versus Players
Conrad squint his eyes as the pointer on his virtual reality visor slowly shifts across the changing landscape in the background. He is currently playing WoE with a secret, alternate character, an archer specialist, and participating in a Players-Versus-Players (“PvP”) match in the new moba that the EDE released earlier this month. His task is to defend the flag, and prevent the opposing team players from capturing his team’s red flag.
A few weeks ago, Wesley mentioned something about play testing a new PvP option in WoE, and apparently this moba is the result. The retired marine is the obvious choice for the game developers to approach for assistance, as the old man has the time to spend in the game. Diana is busy polishing up her doctoral thesis paper, and Lucious is busy with his Wall Street job. Conrad pulled his hamstring during a minor league game, and he is currently on rehab, which means more playing time for him.
Conrad has been keeping a close eye on the differences between Player Versus Environment (“PvE”) and PvP options in World of Eternia, along with new classes that have been released specifically for PvP. The archer specialist (or “sniper” as gamers call the class) in particular requires a different style of play compared to his normal Barbarian class.
Normally, the player screen view is expansive; this allows the player to see what a normal person sees and certainly this makes sense since the game seeks to emulate a real life environment. Whenever Conrad shifts his player screen over to “kill shot mode,” available only to the archer class, a semi-transparent white cross appears on his screen. In addition, his screen view shrinks significantly, to just twenty-five percent of the normal screen view.
The tradeoff is worth it, though, because a successful hit with his bow and arrow will allow Conrad’s avatar to do four times the normal damage. Additionally, in the event that the target has enough health points to survive the hit, the opposing player has a high chance of sustaining a status condition such as blindness, stunned, or dizziness. Conrad could then add a second hit to finish off the target player.
The current PvP match is a three-on-three format, and composed of randomly matched players. The other two player classes on his team are a berserker and a defender, another newly introduced class for moba. The Berserker class is well known to Conrad, as his normal Berserker avatar has already hit the current level sixty cap. The berserker has extra strength and health, could do additional damage when equipped with an axe or a club, plus an ability to enter berserker rage once daily for every ten levels in the berserker class. The major tradeoff is an inability to wear metal armor, and a deficit in the character’s intelligence attribute, rendering the berserker to greater susceptibility to mental based spells and abilities such as charm and vertigo.
The Defender class is a specialized warrior class with greater utilization of a shield. The class is basically your typical tank, present to soak up damage from monsters. He has the specialized skills involving his shield, such as shield bash and impenetrable shield, which blocks all incoming attacks for a short duration and, even more importantly, negates their damage. The defender is not as mobile though due to his heavy armor, and he gets a penalty in using two-handed weapons.
Normally, the Defender would be the one protecting the flag. But it so happens that the flag is located on a small hill and Conrad’s bow could pick off any opposing players long before they could get near the flag. Therefore, the trio decided to keep Conrad as the flag defender, while the Defender tries to flush out the other team and the Berserker sneaks in and goes after the blue flag.
Suddenly, a warrior comes into Conrad's vision. The archer smiles as he pulls back the string on his longbow. With a "thwack" he releases the special, steel tipped arrow and nods in satisfaction when the arrow connects with the opposing player's head a moment later. The other player goes down immediately. Conrad immediately scans the surrounding area to see if anyone else is nearby. He is not concerned at all about the player on the ground, because the arrow he used is laced with a poison that paralyzes the player for up to an hour; even if the player survives the hit, he will be out of commission for the rest of this PvP match. "I wonder if the other team decided to split up," Conrad ponders aloud as he finds no sign of the other players on his screen.
"We did," a female voice unexpectedly answers his question.
Conrad quickly turns around and tries to lunge toward the person standing behind him. He manages to get a glimpse of a woman wearing a black colored robe before his avatar is wrapped in hot, searing flames. The spell quickly burns his character's health down to zero. "Damn!" Conrad swears in anger as his screen turns to shades of gray, denoting that his low level character, with much fewer health points than his normal barbarian avatar, has died.
Normally, when a player character dies in WoE, his avatar is transported back to the church in Starter Town. However, for PvP matches, the deceased character stays in the game as a ghost until the match is over. This was instituted by EDE because some players purposely threw matches by getting themselves killed quickly, so that they could turn around and join another match. By making deceased characters stay for the entire length of the PvP match, players cannot flip matches as easily and therefore has less incentive to throw the match.
In addition, the game developer started keeping win-loss records in PvP for each participant, and players with less stellar records are less likely to be chosen by other players for PvP matches. Instead, these unwanted players are matched by the computer to other players with similarly poor records. WoE also gives players the option to be randomly matched into teams. These options ensure that all players who desire to play PvP matches are able to do so.
The victor smiles broadly. She has curly, auburn hair, with fair complexion and freckles on her face. "My name is Laura," she introduces herself with a slight, foreign accent as she dips down in a slight curtsy. "I hope the feedback loop wasn't too lengthy," she notes with a slight frown, as she remembers that WoE's feedback for receiving damage feature is also present for PvP matches.
The lady stares at Conrad's deceased avatar on the ground. "Hmm . . . your name is Conrad, but with a gold status in the name," she notes. "Players' name tags are in black, while WoE Game Masters' tags are in white. I've never come across gold before. What does that mean?" she wonders aloud. After a long moment of silence, Laura snaps her fingers. “Oh right! I forgot that you can't communicate with me since you're already dead! Let me fix that up in a jiffy!"
Conrad folds his arms. "Why can't she just grab the damn flag and end this match already!" he huffs aloud, knowing that this strange woman cannot hear him. Deceased characters are prevented from communicating with their conquerors because ED
E has been bombarded with complaints of cursing from the defeated players, and making the dead characters silent was the simplest solution in the eyes of the game developers.
Laura reaches inside her robe, and pulls out an animal bone. She closes her eyes and starts an incantation: "Uzul-mezu-paip-mezu-uzul." She opens her eyes. "Are you still here, Conrad?" she asks.
"What do you think?" the ghost replies in a snarky manner.
"What do I think?" Laura repeats the question sans the snarky tone from the dead player.
"Yeah," Conrad starts to quip. Then realization hits him suddenly. "Wait! You can hear me?" he asks incredulously.
"Yup," Conrad's killer smiles mischievously.
"But how?" he asks flabbergasted.
"There is a specialty class ability called 'Communicate with the dead,'" Laura replies.
"Huh?" he remarks. "What class has this ability?" he asks.
"A Necromancer," she grins, showing her pearly white teeth. The necromancer is another newly released class for moba. It has full access to death magic, and minor access to the elemental spheres.
"You burn your opponents to death, and then raise them from the dead to create undead minions," he observes. “And you sneak around with an invisibility spell,” he adds.
"That's right," Laura replies and claps her hands lightly as the defeated opponent neatly summarizes her style of play in WoE. "And you are avoiding my question," she pouts.
"I don't want to talk about it," Conrad replies. He doesn't want word to reach the other members of The Strangers that Conrad has been playing WoE with a side character. He has been playing this archer avatar exclusively in PvP, in order to avoid the other three members of the party. None of the others have shown an interest or inclination to play PvP matches as a group. Wesley’s beta testing is probably under a side deal with EDE and subject to some sort of a confidentiality clause; the ex-Marine has been rather mum about his gaming experience in WoE’s moba. Conrad wants to keep the archer character a secret, or else they may ask him to use the archer during The Strangers’ PvE campaigns instead of the barbarian.
World of Eternia: The Complete Collection Page 18
