World of Eternia: The Complete Collection (22 page)

The citizens cheer more
loudly this time. An expansion means a greater inflow of players, and
more business for everyone.

The noble raises his
hand, and the gathered townspeople quickly quiet down.

“And last but not
least, the developers behind the World of Eternia is pleased to offer
small ownership stakes in the privately owned company, Eternia
Development & Entertainment, Inc., in exchange for consultancy
work to further develop WoE as a leader in virtual reality based
gaming.”

“Wait, you're
offering us jobs?” Wesley blurts out in astonishment, verbalizing
the surprise of his teammates.

The King's eyes light
up at the players' flustered reactions, as the true purpose behind
the campaign is finally unveiled. “Yes,” he grins like a devil.

King Richard continues.
“I understand that you will have questions for me, and you will
also require time to discuss this wonderful opportunity amongst
yourselves. I will return within an hour.” He turns back to the
gathered common folk. “Thank you all for coming. May the blessings
of the Gods of Eternia be with you.”

Snap. The King snaps
his fingers, and the entire landscape changes suddenly. The players
find themselves sitting around a conference table. The NPCs are gone,
along with Starter Town. The four are no longer decked in party
costumes; instead they have been refitted with conservative business
suits, ties and shirts for the men, and jacket, blouse, skirt, and
stockings for Diana.

King Richard is sitting
at the head of the table, dressed in a charcoal gray suit. “Now
that we can speak privately, please allow me introduce myself again.
My name is Richard T. Gibson, the founder and CEO of Eternia
Development & Entertainment, Inc. I'm sure you have a lot of
questions for me. I will answer to the extent that I can if I know
the answer, or else I can follow up with you via a private message to
your WoE player account. So let's get the ball rolling,” he smiles
and folds his hands on the conference table.

Wesley raises his hand
and speaks up. “I think I speak for the four of us when I ask what
you expect us to do? After all, you have a successful product with a
million players world wide. How can we help your company?”

The CEO smiles again.
“There are several ways to answer that question. First, let me talk
about your presumption of success. Take for example the game with the
greatest commercial success in terms of online paid subscribers—World
of Warcraft ('WoW'). At its height of popularity, WoW had twelve
million subscribers in 2010, and declined every year since then to
roughly six million subscribers now, in the year 2016. Compared to
that subscription base, WoE's five hundred thousand subscribers base
isn't a lot in the grand scheme of things. EDE is always searching
for ways to improve the player experience with our product, and we
believe you are well qualified to help us improve the game that you
all love to play. Our game designers are really anxious to pick your
brains, and we think a consulting contract is the best way to go,”
he answers.

“But what are the
ethical and practical implications?” Wesley replies. “If we agree
to help you, we will no longer be just players who can quit at any
time. We will be on the hook and committed, as employees, for the
length of the contract, for however long the duration,” he notes.

“Yeah, I'm busy
enough with my day job on Wall Street. I joined WoE looking to
unwind, not to take on more work,” Lucious chimes in.

Diana and Conrad nods
in agreement.

Richard's face is still
smiling, but the smile has lost some luster as he senses the tides
moving away from acceptance of the offer. “My friends, I think you
have some misconceptions regarding the work involved. We know that
you have busy lives, families, and careers.
No
one
here
is asking you to drop what is important to you, that you worked so
hard for, in order to assist us,” he shakes his head. “I know I
wouldn't accept that kind of offer. We want you as
consultants
,
meaning that we want to ask for your opinions on certain aspects of
the game or missions that you have undergone. You will be serving
primarily as a private focus group, where our researchers will
solicit your opinions as players. We are not going to have you sit at
a desk in our office forty hours a week. We're going to send you
surveys and emails soliciting your opinion. We may set up a private
server to discuss things, just like what we're doing right now. We
are respectful of your other commitments, and appreciate the time
that you can devote to interact with people from my company.”

“So how long and how
much?” Conrad asks, moving straight to the important points.

Richard's eyes light up
at the question. “We're asking for a one year commitment, and will
ask that you sign non-disclosure agreements. As for compensation,
we're offering each of you one-tenth of one percent interest in the
company.”

“Isn't that kind of
low?” Lucious complains.

The CEO smiles again.
This kid has balls to try to
negotiate for a better deal.
“On the contrary, the offer
is quite generous. My company will eventually go public, and when
that happens your ownership stakes will be quite valuable,” he
explains.

“But the reverse
could be true too,” the Wall Street trader retorts with skepticism.
He is starting to dislike this guy, whose smile resembles a shark
.
If the company goes bankrupt, then our stake in the company will be
worthless. They are not really shelling out anything monetary on this
contract.

“Nonetheless, you
will be in position to prevent that from happening. Your assistance
with our game developers will ensure that our products, particularly
the upcoming expansions, will lead to increased sales and
subscriptions, and thereby increase the value of the company and
therefore your own shares,” Richard replies.

“Would you give us
time to discuss this amongst ourselves?” Wesley requests politely.

The company executive
nods. He stands up and leaves the room.

The Strangers watch as
the CEO closes the door behind him.

“You know they are
still listening in on this room right?” Diana says.

“Of course! Our
avatars are still inside EDE servers. Only an idiot would believe
that EDE is not monitoring our in-game activities,” Lucious scowls.
“And why do I get the feeling that the whole 'Lift the Curse' thing
was nothing more than one big interview for this job?” he adds.

“You mean you're not
happy with the bonus of one million experience points?” Conrad
teases the younger man. “You were complaining about how unfair EDE
was for limiting mages to level fifty before. Now you can keep on
power leveling you character.”

“Yeah, I think EDE
changed its rule specifically to accommodate you, Lucious,” Diana
agrees. None of the other players on the team have bothered to grind
and level up his or her character to hit the previous level fifty
cap. However, the experience bonus have probably put each of them
over the cap as well. The game tallies up experience points only
after the mission is completed and the players have logged out of the
game server. Otherwise, players will have an incentive to camp out at
respawn points for monsters on the outskirts of Starter Town and
other villages, solely for the purpose of grinding for experience.

“So are we in or
out?” Wesley asks, seeking to turn the group's attention back to
the issue at hand. “I assume that the company wants a package deal
with us, an all or nothing proposition. In other words, if one of us
declines, then we'll all decline.”

“I'm in,” Conrad
says suddenly. He's already twenty seven years of age, and still
haven't reached the Major Leagues yet. It's time to widen his career
options with a Plan B.

“Me too,” Wesley
says. He's retired, and not interested in playing another FPS again
to kill time until his teammates could show up online.

“I'm also accepting,”
Diana speaks up. “With insider access to WoE, I could conduct a
case study on player behavior for my doctoral thesis in psychology,”
she explains.

The three turn as one
to look at Lucious, who is shaking his head.

He sighs and starts to
speak. “I have the most to lose if this consulting gig eats up time
from my regular day job. And quite frankly, I don't trust the CEO. I
feel like there's something important that he's holding back,
something that would significantly impact this job.”

Diana puts her hand
over his on the table. “I understand your concern regarding the
consultancy work's demand for your time. But I don't see how this job
would interfere with your Wall Street job. You log into WoE during
evenings and weekends, anyway. I would think that would also be the
time when you will perform your consulting tasks as well. If
anything, this job could negatively impact how much time we have to
play the game. So I think your fears are a bit misplaced,” she
explains.

Lucious squeezes her
hand in return. He looks around the room, and sees that everyone else
really wants in on this opportunity. He sighs and says weakly,
“Fine.”

The video stream ends
on the laptops, and the lights are turned back on a moment later.
There are half dozen laptops on the oval shaped, fine mahogany
conference table. Sitting in front of the computers are five men and
one woman, all dressed in conservative business attire.

“Thoughts?” asks a
pale but youthful looking man, who is seated at the head of the
table.

“EDE is desperate,”
remarks the platinum blonde sitting to his left.

The other men around
the table nods in agreement.

“My source told me
that the offer has been accepted,” the pale man reveals.

“No matter,” says
the middle-aged man with a dark complexion at the other end of the
table. “We're going to continue with our plans for a hostile
takeover of EDE.”

by Antony W.F. Chow

Whoosh! The warrior
sees the staff coming down on his head, and instinctively raises his
shield. Clang! The blow is surprisingly heavy and the defender starts
feeling an uncomfortable buzz in his left hand. The warrior tries to
jab at the now wide open opponent in the midsection with a sword
thrust. The tip of his blade goes off course when a Tonfa suddenly
knocks his blade downward, hitting nothing but air.

The staff wielder
twirls her feet like a ballerina to her right, yielding the fight to
her comrade.

The newcomer to the
battle twirls the Tonfas in both hands, demonstrating a high degree
of proficiency with these Okinawan martial arts weapons.

The defender steps back
as he examines the Tonfa more closely. Made of red oak wood, the
length of the long arm is some twenty inches long, with the short
handle about a third of the way down. It is the first time he has
fought against a Tonfa fighter; thus the warrior is tentative in his
approach against the newcomer, a petite girl with a slender build who
is bouncing slightly up and down on her toes like Bruce Lee.
Let’s
test her
, the warrior thinks as he swings his long sword
at her midsection.

The Asian looking girl
holding the sticks suddenly stops twirling them, and she easily hops
away from the path of the sword slash. The new opponent turns the
Tonfa stick in her right hand outward, so that her reach is extended
by half her arm’s length. She quickly counterattacks with a jab of
the Tonfa at the warrior’s face.

The defender sees the
counter and quickly raises his shield to block the jab. Suddenly, the
warrior’s shield is jerked to his right, badly exposing his left
side. Before he can react, the warrior feels a light tap against his
left kidney. Ping! The Tonfa stick smacks against his steel plate
armor, and does minimal damage. However, the knight immediately
realizes that a full powered thrust would crush his armor into his
flesh and cause a massive reduction in his avatar’s health bar.

“Yield?” a girlish
voice asks.

The warrior drops his
long sword. “Yield,” he sighs. Peering down over his left
shoulder, the warrior sees that a Tonfa has been flipped around, so
that the handle has gripped the edge of his shield.
That’s
how I got exposed like that
, he thinks ruefully.

Clap-clap-clap! “Well
done, Alice!” a female voice says, praising the Tonfa fighter.

“I just got lucky,
Trish,” the Tonfa fighter replies modestly while looking at her
sister, the staff wielding monk.

“Not luck. It took
some skill to pull that trick on my shield,” Wesley notes as he
bends down to grab his sword from the ground. “You jabbed at my
face to lure my shield up. While I lost sight of you for a split
second, you flipped your other Tonfa stick to grab it by the shaft.
And then you used the stick handler to grapple with my shield and
pull it into my sword arm. Your tactic left my arms tied up and I
became vulnerable to a strike at my side or back,” the ex-Marine
verbalizes the replay in his mind.

The petite fighter bows
in acknowledgment.

Wesley bows back just
as deeply. He turns to face the Eternia Development &
Entertainment, Inc. (“EDE”) representative, who has been watching
the fight from the sideline.

The EDE employee is
wearing a long sleeve, navy blue shirt, blue shorts, and black
tights, along with a blood red cape that denotes his in-game status
as a representative of the King. Only officials of the Kingdom are
allowed to wear this cape; the penalty for violating this edict is
death and permanent ban from the online game, World of Eternia
(“WoE”). "Any noticeable lag in your reaction time?"
the game representative asks the beta tester regarding the new
Virtual Reality equipment.