Free World of Eternia: The Complete Collection by Antony W. F. Chow Page A

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entrance way out of the waiting room.
    The rest of the party
obeys his order and follows him in single file, with the customary
order of cavalier, mage, priestess, and barbarian.
    Lucious raises his
staff and barks out a command word: “tiwack!” The orb on his
staff starts to glow. The radius of illumination covers the three
feet wide corridor from wall to wall. Lucious quickly turns his head
inside his physical headset in the real world, and notes that his
avatar's mana pool is still only half full. Man,
these encounters inside the castle have really drained me ,
he complains to himself. Hopefully,
we won't encounter monsters until my mana pool is filled completely ,
he hopes. Thankfully, his high player intelligence attribute doubles
the normal character mana regeneration rate of two points per second.
If the party can avoid monster encounters for another two minutes or
so, he'll be completely recharged!
    Conrad turns around for
every half dozen steps taken forward, his magical tower shield held
in front of his torso. Holding his torch in his right hand, he raises
the torch above his head to avoid shining the torchlight in his face.
His eyes roaming from wall to wall, the rear guard sees no indication
of any monsters sneaking up from behind.
    The cavalier leads the
party's march down the twisting corridor at a brisk pace. The
corridor remains constant in dimension: three feet wide and ten feet
high. However, the corridor descends and ascends, and turns left and
right in a most unpredictable, or even whimsical, manner. Wesley
keeps his eyes moving along the walls of the corridor, wary of traps
and tripwires. If we trigger a
trap inside this tunnel, we have no way to escape , he
reminds himself. Suddenly, he notices something on the ground
reflecting off the light from the staff’s orb. “HALT!” he yells
and immediately stops moving.
    “Uoff!” the mage
blurts out as he bangs his nose into the cavalier's armored back.
“What's going on?” he asks as he scratches his itchy nose in real
life. He sees Wesley down on all four limbs on the ground, looking
closely at something on the floor.
    “Tripwire!” Wesley
announces as he slowly backs away. He rises to his feet, and turns to
look at Lucious. “I need chalk,” he requests.
    The mage unties his Bag
of Holding from his belt, and digs his left arm through the bag's
small opening for the requested item. After a moment he pulls out his
arm, and shows the cavalier the small piece of chalk held between his
thumb and forefinger. “Good enough?” he asks.
    The cavalier holds out
his right hand, and the chalk is promptly placed in his palm. “Thank
you,” Wesley says. He lowers himself to the ground again, and
lowers his head until his chin is merely an inch off the ground. He
slowly crawls forward on the floor until his eyes see the thin wire
in front of his face. He backs away two steps, and draws a line on
the ground with his borrowed chalk. “Guys, I'm marking the location
of the tripwire. You HAVE TO make sure that you step over it. Who
knows how far this corridor extends. If we trigger this trap, we will
not be able to escape,” he says while drawing a thick, visible
white line on the ground, and using ample chalk to accomplish this.
After a few seconds, the cavalier finally gets up. He turns to
Lucious. “I expect there will be more traps ahead. Can you use your
trap detection spell on this corridor?” he asks.
    The mage extends his
staff forward, to further illuminate the space in front of them. He
looks at the long passageway, following its path with his eyes until
it is beyond the range of his soft, glowing light. He sighs and
shakes his head. “There's too much real estate to cover. I could
spot check here and there if you make a call for a check. You want to
extend the magnitude of the spell and cover the entire length of the
tunnel in front of us? Sorry, the spell isn't designed to work like
that. A thief character could automatically check for