World of Eternia: The Complete Collection (50 page)

* * *

Marcus Stanberry walks
up to the five horsemen. “Okay, you’re up first. Remember, your
job is simply to scout the road ahead, and ensure that our main body
of players won’t be marching into a trap. You are NOT to engage
with Eternians,” he says sternly. “If you run into trouble, you
are to head back to us and report your encounter. Now go!”

The riders reply in
unison, “Yes sir!” They head out immediately, all going their
separate ways.

The leader of The
Returned looks at the nineteen remaining players under his command.
“Let’s march!” he barks. The column begins to move in two
lines, with Marcus at the head of one; Bergen Lightstaff, his second
in command, is leading the other line of marchers.

Virgil Santos looks at
the moving ex-Eternian players and smirks.
Classic
textbook tactics will not win this fight,
my
friend
. The mercenary shakes his head in disappointment at
the former Eternian’s lack of imagination. He looks at the
mercenaries under his command and awaiting his orders. “Okay, we’ll
let these turkeys turn into cannon fodder for the Eternians. Let’s
show the viewers at home what the new player classes in this oriental
expansion can do. Carlos, you take the cloud runners and lead the
invasion from above. But stay hidden in the cloud until you hear
fireworks go off; that’s your cue to attack. Priscilla, you take
the ninja corps to scale up the cliff and approach the Eternians from
behind. Again, wait for the signal to attack. I will take the
fighters to shadow The Returned guys, and set off the fireworks when
we reach the mountain. We’re going to do a three prong attack on
the defenders. Any questions?” he asks. Seeing none he barks,
“Let’s move!”

“Any sign of the
Virtuous players?” Kassender asks via the communication link.

“Not yet,”
Dimitrius the diviner replies. “Our cavalry group is roughly half
way to the entry point for the attackers. It’s possible that our
opponents went on a more circuitous route, and we missed them
altogether.”

“If the attackers
start showing up at the base, your riders will return immediately,”
the High Priestess orders. “But until then, please continue riding
toward the entry point to confirm that the Virtuous players have
departed already,” she continues. “With the blessing of the Gods
of Eternia, you may encounter stragglers to be picked off.”

“Yes ma’am,” the
diviner replies before cutting off the communication link to conserve
his precious mana.

Kassender turns to face
Heimdall and Wesley. “My diviner just reported in. The cavalry
group has reached the half distance mark between the two starting
points for players. They have not encountered any Virtuous players
yet,” she says.

The warlord nods. “This
was within the scenarios that we discussed in the players’ council
meeting. The cavalry attack is a shot in the dark, and we missed,”
Heimdall says ruefully.

“Not much we can do
about it except to ensure our lookouts up on the mountain stay
alert,” Wesley replies. “We’ve done the best we can, given the
circumstances, with a total lack of information. We have very limited
means to penetrate the fog of war. With that said I am going to take
my position on the mountain top now. Please excuse me.”

The cavalier walks
straight to the edge of the perimeter in front of the path. A basic
unit of three fighters, an elementalist, and a priest notes his
approach to the unit, and they salute to the senior officer. They all
see the blood red cape Wesley is wearing behind his suit of plate
mail armor, and immediately realize the identity of the fighter
approaching them.

Wesley returns the
salute and says, “At ease, gentlemen.” He shakes the abatis in
front of him to confirm that is holding firmly in place. Rather than
in a straight line, the abatis has been placed in an elliptical curve
with the two guard stations serving as the end points. Since the
stations were built in front of steep cliffs, there is no need to use
the stations as the center points for the reinforcements on the
ground. Instead, the council hopes the guard stations will act as
lures for numerous invaders and turn into fiery death traps. Although
each station is manned by only five Eternians, they are all willing
to serve as sacrificial lambs if each Eternian death will result in
two or even three more Virtuous deaths.

Wesley walks in front
of the left guard station and returns the salute to another unit
inside the building. He looks up above the cliff, some twenty feet
above ground, and salutes another unit of five defenders overlooking
the station. These men have direct line of sight over the guard
station, and their ranged weapons will reach any invaders who choose
to attack the station.

With ten men on each
side of the pathway towards the portal, plus another five directly in
front of the path, the council is putting half the Eternia forces to
defend against a direct, head-on assault from the other side. This
deployment reflects the consensus opinion of the Players Council that
Virtuous players will offer a direct assault and try to take the
portal by force on the ground.

The remaining fifteen
Eternians, seven fighters and eight spell casters in all, are placed
on the mountain top with most defenders looking outward and a handful
overlooking the pathway. The defenders stationed on the mountain top
are prepared to engage in extensive ranged combat, and they were
specifically chosen for their skills and experiences in such
encounters.

“Hello up there!”
the cavalier calls out. “Please lower a rope for me to climb up!”
he requests.

“Yes sir!” a
lookout replies and quickly tosses a rope down.

Wesley grabs hold of
the thick rope, gives it a good tug to confirm that it will hold, and
starts climbing up the cliff.

“Pull!” someone up
above yells. The rope slowly gets dragged up, and the climber with
it.

“Thanks!” Wesley
yells out.

“Halt!” Marcus
calls out, and the column of players immediately obeys his command.
The leader strains his eyes looking into his virtual reality visor;
something in the distance catches his attention. Finally, he could
make out several horses on the horizon of his vision. “Riders! Drop
to the ground! NOW” he yells out quickly.

All twenty players
quickly flatten their avatars against the ground.

“Air mages, please
cast an illusion to blend us into our surroundings,” Marcus barks
out.

“Ituk-noto-itto-ween-reen-yack-kiln-weer,”
two spell casters chant in unison and quickly throw a camouflage
spell over the column. Due to the enormous amount of space the spell
has to cover, the spell drains five percent mana from each air mage.

The leader of The
Returned is pleased with how quickly the players obey his commands.
“Gentlemen, these riders are clearly heading towards our starting
point, perhaps to make a suicide attack on us. Their objective is to
make us waste our lives here putting these riders down, so that fewer
of us will reach their base at the mountain,” Marcus explains
quietly while waiting for the riders to pass by. “By avoiding them
here, these players will head towards the wrong direction, in a
fruitless search for us. Meanwhile, we will be able to hit the
Eternian base at full strength.”

“What if these riders
double back and hit us from behind?” Garmu, a young player and new
recruit for the alliance, asks.

“We’ll hear their
horses long before the Eternians can reach us. Remember, they lose
the element of surprise by riding on horseback,” the leader
answers. “If they approach us, we can throw up another camouflage
spell before the Eternians can detect our presence. Even if the
Eternian riders manage to find us and decide to use their entire ten
mounts allotment on this group, we still outnumber their contingent
by two to one. So at worst, we’ll engage them and put them down at
the cost of some of our lives. The more likely scenario, though, is
us hitting the mountain at full strength.”

“Just have a little
faith in our leader,” JP interjects. “Marcus is a brilliant
strategist who will lead The Returned to victory.”

“Thank you,” the
leader says while inwardly breathing a sigh of relief. “We’re
going to wait just a little bit longer to allow the Eternian riders
to put more distance between us, and then back head out again.”

“Wow, looks like
we’re getting close to the first encounter between the two sides!”
says Evan the color commentator as the screen is split into two parts
to show both the Eternian cavalry group and the hidden Virtuous
column side by side. He checks the clock and notes that over half an
hour of game time has passed. Undoubtedly many casual viewers have
closed the live stream of the tournament already, due to the lack of
action so far. He turns to Charles Winter. “Sir, what do you think
your players should do in this situation?”

The CEO of Virtuous
Gaming Co. smiles for the camera, but keeps silent.

The co-host immediate
fills the silence. “Any opinion, sir?” Antoinette asks Richard T.
Gibson, the CEO of Eternia Entertainment & Development, Inc.

“Personally, I would
ambush those riders,” Richard answers. “The Virtuous players have
both the element of surprise, plus a heavy man advantage that looks
like a two to one swing in their favor. If the hidden column plays
this right, the encounter would turn into a rout in their favor,”
Richard points his chin in Charles’ direction.

Suddenly fireworks
explode directly above the location of the hidden column!

“What the heck is
going on?” Antoinette asks with a shocked expression on her face.
Why would Virtuous players
forfeit their advantage?

The riders notice the
fireworks and immediate change course, heading directly towards the
now discovered column!

The camera immediately
shows a shot of Virgil Santos lobbing more fireworks over The
Returned’s location. The traitor notices he is now the focus of the
camera shot. He smiles and flashes a victory sign with his fingers.
He starts running away to catch up with other members of Easy Money,
which had gone ahead already.

“Damn you Virgil!”
Marcus curses under his breath. Eternians don’t have access to
gunpowder, and no one from his company discharged any fireworks
either. Thus, the culprit is either the mercenary or someone acting
or Virgil’s orders. “We’ve been discovered! Archers, let it
fly!” he orders.

Half-dozen archers pull
out their bows. Each man notches five arrows onto his bowstring and
pulls back. The archers aim their bows up at the sky, and use the
special class skill, “Hail of Arrows.” A deadly barrage of arrows
cut across the sky in an arch and start coming down on the charging
riders like rain drops. The arrows immediately decimate one-third of
the cavalry group.

In retaliation, Loquist
the Eternian air mage directs a master level “Chain Lightning”
spell at the archers. Crackle! BOOM! A powerful bolt of lightning
strikes a Virtuous archer, and the bolt jumps from one archer to the
next until all six men are knocked out of the game.

* * *

“And there we have
it, ladies and gentlemen!” Evan yells out excitedly with his arms
raised as the lives counter drop from fifty blue to forty-four on the
right side of the screen, while the red counter on the left is now
showing forty-seven. “Can we get a video replay of the first
encounter please?” the host requests.

The screen replays the
hail of arrows raining down on the Eternian chargers, followed by a
retaliatory lightning bolt hitting the archers. “Fantastic!” Evan
exclaims with excitement.

* * *

“Just what the hell
happened?” Marcus yells out in frustration as he pulls his dual
scimitars out of their sheaths. At this rate of loss, his company
will not even reach the mountain! The fighter bravely stands his
ground and gets ready to repel the lancer’s charge.

Maximus sees the man
waiting for his attack and obliges; the rider aims the sharp tip of
his long lance right at the defender’s chest. “Yah!” the rider
kicks his mount on the side to urge the horse to run harder. But a
split second before the tip reaches the dual wielder, the target dive
rolls to his left and the lance hits only air.

Nonetheless, the rider
continues to charge forward and pierces another Virtuous player right
in the heart. Maximus urges the horse onward, and the steed tramples
on another surprised opponent. Maximus strongly flings the tip of the
lance in a downward motion; the momentum causes the impaled avatar to
finally slide off the lance. The lancer sneaks a quick peek at the
life counter on the corner of his player screen, and smiles briefly
as he sees the number has dropped by two.

“Neeeiighh!” the
horse suddenly cries out in pain as its flank is cut by a blade.

Maximus quickly drops
his lance, swings his left leg over to the right side and dismounts
as the horse is cut again. The owner smacks the horse on the rear and
yells, “Go!”

The obedient horse
gallops away from the battle field.

Maximus pulls out his
bastard sword from the sheath behind his back, and barely blocks a
scimitar aimed straight for his neck.

“Glad you decided to
drop in,” Marcus taunts his opponent as he feints a jab with his
left scimitar immediately followed by a thrust to the gut with the
other blade.

Maximus jabs at the
first blade and sidesteps the second. He counters with a feint of his
own towards the dual wielder’s face and force the opponent to step
back. “I wouldn’t miss this party for the world,” the Eternian
player replies nonchalantly. He uses the brief respite from the sword
fight to quickly assess the field behind his opponent. The cavalry
leader sees two Eternian fighters protecting the air mage; the trio
is surrounded by eight Virtuous opponents.
I
gotta dispatch this guy quickly to even the odds,
the
leader thinks.