New Eden: Live to Play, Play to Live

When the shockwave reached him, the force emptied Astaroth’s lungs, pushing him away like a meteor. He flew backward, crashing into a solid obstacle, before losing consciousness.

Opening his eyes, Astaroth was in a dark place. All around him were specks of light in the distance.

“Where the hell am I this time?”

Turning on himself, he noticed there was something underfoot that acted like a floor. He couldn’t see anything supporting his weight, but he could feel gravity and his feet on a solid surface.

Doing a full three-sixty, he noticed something near him. There was what looked like a pond on a raised platform made of some kind of black rock.

Astaroth got closer to it, trying to peer inside. What he saw made him frown.

The water in the pond gave no reflection. Instead, it looked like the pond acted like a window to some place.

The place in question was an expanse of deep space, with spots of white that dotted the night sky. The spots were too small to see anything, and the bright light they emanated didn’t allow him to see if there was something in them.

But the other thing that made him frown was the silhouette of a woman floating next to one spot of light. The silhouette seemed familiar.

The woman in the pond suddenly turned around, looking straight toward him. Her hair flared up in a cloud of purple and blue, and she disappeared from the image.

The pond rippled, suddenly going blank, and Astaroth backed away. When his back hit something, he almost jumped out of his skin, spinning around and pulling out Ad Astra.

But when he saw what he had bumped into, he breathed a sigh of relief.

“Lady Anulo. My apologies for backing into you. I had not seen you there.”

The minor deity looked at him with a piercing gaze. Her eyes were trying to discern something, what was anyone’s guess.

“Lady Anulo? Are you okay?”

“Who are you? How did you get here? How do you know my name? And how did you get your hands on that weapon?”

While she asked these questions, her hair flared up, giving off waves of purple, red, and green. The sudden pressure she exerted almost pushed Astaroth away.

“L… Lady Anulo! It’s me! Astaroth!”

ƥαṇdαηθνε|

Astaroth was confused about why. He backed away slowly, his foot hitting the rock base of the pond. When his head turned to look at it, he understood why.

The water had stopped rippling and was now reflecting the surroundings. In the reflection, he could see his face.

He currently looked like his human self, his long ears gone, and his skin its normal peachy tint. His confusion levels rose, matching the woman’s.

“What the? How am I in human form? I’m still in the game, no?”

“Young man. What game are you talking about?”

Astaroth turned his head back to Alantha Anulo, noticing her hair had returned to its original colour and shape.

“New Eden. If I’m here with you, that means I should still be inside the game.”

Her face contorted into a mask of confusion again. She was trying to understand what the man was saying, but his talk of the game was confusing her.

Had her world ever been a game? He made no sense.

But then again, he was standing in front of her, in deep space, as a human. And she could see the resemblance with Astaroth after observing him for a while.

Scanning his soul, she recognized the energy within it, and she could tell it was him, but his appearance didn’t match. There had to be an explanation.

‘I’ll have to go talk with the other gods. Find out the truth.’

“How did you get here, young Astaroth?”

“I would like to know as much as you, my lady. A blast of Aether knocked me unconscious, and I ended up here.”

Lady Anulo thought about it for a few minutes, letting Astaroth stand there awkwardly. Her reasoning came down to two factors.

The blast of Aether had knocked a part of his soul out, and the tethers to her had snapped it to her domain. It couldn’t have happened if he had only one anchor with her, but the fact that he had pulled out the Ad Astra confirmed he had more. 

She kept thinking over it for a moment, as Astaroth observed her domain. He could see a small bed-like object a little further, but doubted it was an actual bed.

After all, did gods even need to rest? He doubted that.

He was thinking about how to get back to his body. There was no way to know how time differed from here to where he was.

The sooner he went back, the better it was.

“Umm… Excuse me, Lady Anulo.”

The woman left her torpor, focusing herself back on him.

“Yes?”

“I would like to know if there is a way back to my body. I don’t think staying here is any good for me.”

“Hm. Yes, there is a way. But it might be quite unpleasant.”

“Anything to go back to my body. I need to get back to my friends and we are also on a tight schedule for something.”

“Alright then. I’m a little saddened that you don’t want to stay with me a little longer, though.”

“Ahh… I’m sorry. I promise next time I will keep you company. But now is not a great moment.”

“Very well. But I warn you. This will be very unpleasant.”

“What could it poss—”

As he was asking, Lady Anulo appeared before him, grabbing him by the neck. Her face was a mask of calmness, adorned by a smile, but Astaroth wasn’t buying it.

Her hand was clutching his throat, and the air was no longer reaching his lungs. She raised him off the ground, sauntering towards the fountain.

“I need you to think about your friends and where you were before here. Shut out any other thought.”

Saying this, she pushed him under the water, holding him in place with a smile.

‘Is she trying to kill me?!’

“Think of your friends, young Astaroth. The faster you do, the less you suffer.”

Although he wanted to believe her, he was about to be unable to hold his breath any longer. He knew the second he tried sucking in air, he would start drowning.

‘I never thought she would be so ruthless. I guess this is what I get for thinking gods care about us.’

His body finally flinched, trying to take that vital gasp of air, and all it found was water. His mind meandered to his friends as he felt his body go limp.

When his brain envisioned Phoenix’s face, he felt his body become warmer, before a suction force drew him away.

‘Well. This is how I die…’