World of Eternia: The Complete Collection (53 page)

Richard offers a faint
smile but remains silent.

The warlord slowly
approaches the breach at the end of the passage way. His trusty
halberd is resting on his right shoulder, its weight unknown as the
virtual reality equipment does not include shoulder pad sensors to
mimic the weight of the weapon. Heimdall’s eyes on locked in on the
enemy players slowly stepping through the breach in the lines of
abatis.

Although the bombs
managed to blow the wooden obstacles into pieces, the debris still
littered the field and the invaders have to carefully avoid stepping
on the sharp, jagged pieces on the ground. Otherwise, the movements
of the players will be hampered, and this may prove deadly especially
to melee fighters who rely on their feet for positioning.

Heimdall can hear the
sound of aerial combat above his head, but simply ignores it as a
mere distraction from his assignment. He sees fifteen enemies in all,
the majority of whom are fighters.

The Virtuans see the
approaching fighter, a lonely figure in the distance and look at each
other in amusement. “What happened to the rest of the defenders?”
one guy wonders aloud. Easy Money is going to have an easy win now!

“Quiet,” Virgil
growls as he eyes the approaching Eternian closely. “This is not
just any player. It’s the Decapitator,” he warns and groans
inwardly. The man is dressed in black full plate armor, with a
depiction of a skull on his torso. Only one Eternian in the game
customized his armor like that, and this man is a legend for his
preferred tactic to one shot opposing moba players by detaching the
enemy’s head from the neck.

In a player versus
player encounter, it doesn’t matter how much health and therefore
damage a player can withstand. Advanced moba fighters can use the
“Called Shot” ability to aim attacks at a specific body part.
While this ability reduces the chance of landing the blow to half the
normal rate, fighters at the maximum character level can reduce the
penalty down to a mere ten percent. The man before them is also
rumored to possess magic items that eliminate this penalty entirely,
allowing him to dispatch enemies, especially in group formations,
with ease.

Heimdall finally stops
his march, still a good distance from the location of the breach.
They will have to come to him, rather than the other way around.
Since the passage way is carved inside a mountain, the invaders
cannot climb over him; they have to defeat him if they wish to reach
the portal. He slaps the end of his halberd down on the paved ground.
“I greet you, fellow players. I am Heimdall, the toll keeper. The
cost of passage shall be your lives. Who dares to pay for passage?”
he asks aloud for the viewers at home to hear.

“I can take this
turkey single handedly,” Johnny the Brute says. Can’t this old
man see that he is outnumbered fifteen to one? He’s just stalling
for time. “Charge!” the berserker sudden yells out and rushes
toward the lonely defender!

“Charge!” cry out a
number of companions who think similarly, and decide to take the
plunge.

“NO!” Virgil yells
out, to no avail
. I was going to
toss a few bombs to kill Heimdall from a distance. Damn it! I’m
going to dock Johnny’s pay for his insubordination,
the
mercenary leader thinks angrily. With the decision hastily wrestled
out of Virgil’s hand, he starts to enter the passage way albeit at
a slower pace than his disobedient fighters. The eight remaining
players march slowly behind him.
The
road could be trapped
, Virgil thinks with annoyance.

Heimdall is quickly
surrounded by six fighters. The large man, some six feet six inches
tall with a powerful build befitting his hobby as a bodybuilder,
grins with delight. He slowly turns his head, peering at each fool
through the opening in his helmet. He senses the opponent directly
behind him start to move, and the experienced arena fighter moves
even faster than the six could believe possible for a man his size.

Lifting the halberd off
the ground, Heimdall immediately activates his master level pole arm
ability: “Whirling Spin.” Holding the double bladed halberd by
the lower end of the shaft and extending his massive arms, the
fighter spins his body around in a tight circle while moving his
feet. The fighter alternates between holding the blade at mid-chest
level and lifting it higher to the neck level.

Virgil and his
followers can only stare in horror as Heimdall cuts through the
circle of their comrades, tearing through flesh and armor like paper.
By the time the solo fighter stops his spin, every Virtuan fighter
surrounding him has been cut into pieces.

* * *

“And there it is!”
Evan yells with excitement! “The most feared melee fighter in World
of Eternia just took out six men! By himself! Let’s have a replay
please,” he requests. The screen immediately replays the activation
of the special pole arm skill, and the gory aftermath.

Charles balls his hands
into fists at the screen. What a disgrace!

Richard smirks at his
rival’s anger. “I am blessed to have so many talented players
willing to defend their game world,” he says with feint humbleness.
“The motivation from a desire to protect is a powerful force,
perhaps even more influential than money,” he lectures.

“The live counter now
shows thirty six Eternians to thirty Virtuans,” Antoinette notes
for the audience streaming the broadcast. She turns to face Charles.
“How will your players overcome such a disheartening loss?” she
asks.

“My players are
professionals,” the CEO of Virtuous Gaming replies with a calm
demeanor. “Now that they know what this defender is capable of,
they can formulate a winning strategy to take him out.”

“And we all look
forward to seeing how this will occur,” Evan adds before the screen
resumes showing the battle in the passage way.

As the flying snakes
draw closer to his position, Pablova Switchblades desperately fires a
few arrows at them. However, nothing hits.

Jaden Windmaster stares
the fliers. His lightning spells are not within range either and
therefore they are useless. He could cast a “Shooting Star,”
which brings an asteroid down to earth. However, the spell is more
effective against stationary targets on the ground, rather than
fliers which can dive to avoid the asteroid. Furthermore, the master
level spell would drain his mana bar, and therefore the spell is not
an option at this early juncture.

The fliers suddenly
break off into two groups, with two heading toward Jaden’s
position, and the other three heading toward the left side. Bolts of
lightning leap out of the snakes’ mouths and hit the two guard
stations on the ground! Crackle! Kaboom!

Raynor the Houndmaster
launches his Far-Distance arrows as quickly as he could and manages
to land several hits. One snake finally drops from the sky. He smiles
briefly as he successfully avenge the comrades inside the guard
stations.

“Meteor Swarm!”
Tildan the Spyro calls out. Half-dozen balls of fire suddenly rain
from the sky and hit the remaining two fliers above him.
Unfortunately, the ensuing explosions knock the two defenders off
their perch as well. “Darn,” the fire mage says as his avatar
falls to the ground below. The next second, the player view screen
turns black with a “Game Over” flashing in red.

“This is ridiculous,”
the now dead player grouses as he pulls his virtual reality visor off
his head. “Only thing I can do now is tune into the in-game stream,
and cheer my comrades as a spectator,” Tildan sighs with
disappointment. “And I hope Raynor won’t be too angry over his
avatar’s death by friendly fire.”

* * *

“Wow! We just had a
mishap there!” Evan says, as the replay of the Meteor Swarm and the
aftermath is shown on the screen.

“No, I think that
player decided to trade lives with the fliers,” Antoinette
disagrees. “The guy just saw these cloud runners take out two guard
stations, with the ten defenders inside along with these stations. So
rather than allow the snakes to run around and throw more bolts, this
player sacrificed himself and his partner to take them out of the
game,” she reasons.

“Exactly as you
said,” Richard agrees. “The fire mage made the smart play in that
situation. Also, the Meteor Swarm spell will drain the player’s
entire mana bar. So even if he manages to stay alive, a mage with no
mana is a sitting duck. The spell caster simply exited the stage with
a bow. I think he did a great job,” he compliments.

“I wouldn’t be too
sure about that,” Charles disagrees. “After all, we still have
two cloud runners remaining. I almost feel sorry for that spell
caster fellow on the ground in front of them. Almost,” he grins.

“With that, let’s
watch how the Eternian defender handles the two cloud runners by
himself,” Evan says.

* * *

Jaden Windmaster slowly
backs away from the gigantic snakes slithering in the sky above him.
If I can only get closer to the
lightning rod
, he thinks as the spell caster moves further
back. The rod is about twenty steps from the edge of the mountain
top.

“Get a load of this,”
Pietro the Tamer smirks at the backtracking spell caster. “I think
we need to take him out before he can turn tail and run away. Don’t
you agree, Carlos?” he asks.

“You can do the
honors,” the leader of the squadron replies. He peers down at the
ground and observes his comrades being decimated by a pole arm using
Eternian fighter. “You need to hurry up, though. Our guys are
getting killed down below,” he says with a frown on his face.

“What?” Pietro
blurts out while keeping his eyes on the receding Eternian. “Are
you serious? Someone managed to survive our bombs?”

“And he is killing
our fighters. The Eternian warrior just took out six of them by
himself. Looks like this man is the infamous Heimdall that Virgil
warned us about,” Carlos suddenly remembers. “You take out that
back peddling mage with your cloud runner’s lightning breath. I’m
going to fry Heimdall with my mount’s lightning attack,” he
orders. The squadron leader turns his mount around, and starts to
descend into the chasm.

Pietro sees the spell
caster casting a spell. “Uh-uh,” he says as the rider wills his
mount to fire a lightning bolt at the mage on the ground.

The bolt starts to fly
down toward the Eternian, but suddenly veers off course and hits the
long steel rod behind the intended target instead. “What the,”
Pietro starts with astonishment when his cloud runner smacks into
something solid in mid-air. Both rider and mount feel something heavy
press against them on all sides; the additional weight is beyond what
the gigantic snake can carry in the air and it starts to drop down.
The rider frantically pushes against the invisible wall; however the
duo is solidly encased inside the weighty prison. The force of
gravity pulls the two down the chasm and finally hits the ground with
a loud “SMACK!”

* * *

“What did you just
do?” Pablova asks when he finally reaches his partner. Tagging
along as reinforcements are Yang the White, a priest, and Orlen
Spellbinder, a non-specialist mage. Pablova had to pull the two from
their ten o’clock position on the mountain top.

Ian Drexler and Ringo
Starcaller, an archer and an air specialist, respectively, had to
move up from their eight o’clock position to maintain the detection
net on their side of the mountain.

Jaden salutes the
newcomers. “I created a Wall of Air, and enclosed it around both
the rider and mount. I guessed correctly that the snake cannot
support the additional weight of the enclosed wall, and that’s why
it fell to the ground,” he explains.

“Wow, that’s an
ingenuous use of a Wall of Air,” Orlen remarks. “But doesn’t
that spell drain mana for each second of duration?”

“Unfortunately, it
does,” Jaden admits. “I’m down to half my mana bar now.”

“And that will be
just enough to trap the remaining flier with another wall,” Pablova
notes. “We saw two of those snakes got hit by Tildan’s Meteor
Swarm. His partner took out another snake with arrows. So that leaves
one snake to deal with.”

“Where is the snake
now?” Jaden asks.

“It went down to
provide air support to the Virtuan troops entering the pathway,”
Yang answers while standing at the edge of the mountain top and
peering down the chasm.

“Don’t just gawk at
them! Cast something to hit the Virtuans!” Jaden admonishes the two
spell casters. The mage looks across the chasm, and sees that
reinforcements have arrived to reclaim the spot vacated by the
previous defenders. Jaden waves his arms in the air to get their
attention. Once he has it, the mage wiggles his fingers in the air to
imitate casting a spell. Then he points down into the chasm.

* * *

“What the heck is he
trying to say?” Brandon Ficklespell asks.
I
didn’t agree to enter this event to play a game of charades.
“You have any idea what he wants?” the mage asks his partner.

Vicky the Wise gives a
thumbs up and nods at her fellow defender on the other side of the
chasm. “He wants us to start blasting the Virtuans at the end of
the passage way, and support our guys blocking the path,” the
priestess replies. “Heimdall is doing a great job keeping the
invaders back so far,” she observes. “But once the Virtuan spell
casters enter the picture, all bets are off.”

“Good grief,”
Brandon rolls his eyes. “I don’t need him to tell me to blast
those guys on the ground. I’m not an idiot.” He peers down and
sees several spell casters looking up right at him. “Uh-oh! I think
we’re getting spells heading our way!” he warns. “I’ll cast
something quick. You back off. Now!” he orders. The generalist
tries to find a spell that can be cast quickly.
“Whirl-peet-neene-golda-quue-mirot-seize-kilow-jikow.”