New Eden: Live to Play, Play to Live

Near the gate, inside the walls, Khalor was making his way back to the battlefield. But before he could cross over the walls, he noticed hundreds of players swarming the stone bowl they had made.

Astaroth was nowhere in sight, and since he was the one that was tasked to defend this zone on his own, no one was stopping the players from trying to climb out.

“Tch! He should be here. I bet he assumed he could steal my spot since I died.”

He quickly sent a private message to the dissident.

‘Get your ass back in your zone! Players are climbing out of the bowl as we speak.’

After a moment, a reply came.

‘Take care of it, ghosty! I’m busy doing your job, which I wouldn’t have to do if you stayed alive.’

Getting his nose rubbed in this again hurt Khalor’s pride and made him sour. But he still had to follow the order, even if it displeased him.

He vowed to himself to talk with him later, and maybe even beat him around a bit. But, for now, he dropped in the middle of the bowl, sending his undead after everyone in sight.

“Seems you’re back to dealing with me, scrubs! Time to get a bit of payback!”

The resounding shrill voice of the Necromancer suddenly behind them made many players pale.

Many of them had the same thought.

‘What is wrong with this guild? Why are the players so damn strong?!’

This siege should have been a walk in the park, with how many players they brought here. But this small guild was pushing them back at every turn, like a certain small village against the Romans, in a cartoon.

Khalor went full throttle, even fighting himself, to vent out some of his frustration.

***

On the eastern part of the Bastion, a small group of players was standing guard in front of a hole in the wall. This group was Declan and his previous guild members.

When Phoenix had left, the zone was filled with lava, and Declan and his men had to fight outside of it, so they didn’t take constant damage.

But now, the lava had cooled down, and they could stand on it. Some defenders up on the crest of the wall had died, and Declan had used their platforms.

The hole in the wall was now well-defended behind two rows of wooden barricades. One player in Declan’s group used to be a battlefield engineer for the army, and he had jury-rigged some barricades out of the platforms.

The seven ranged attackers they had were well lodged behind the row closest to the hole, while the ones with melee weapons with a modicum of range were behind the other, attacking at maximum range, pushing back the attackers.

Meanwhile, the four other players who were better suited to close combat fighting, were outside that circle, swaying in and out of combat, taking every opportunity they could to down players.

Declan was one of them, and with his massive Claymore sword, he was bisecting enemies left and right. Enough so that most enemies had tried to stay away from him.

The four players outside, including Declan, had such uncanny reflexes, always reacting to attacks as they happened, making them practically untouchable. And what minor damage they took, Silent Light had arrived to take care of.

When the priest had arrived, he expected to see a cluster of twenty players fending off wave after wave of enemies. But the organized defence he came to see almost broke him out of character.

He had wanted to exclaim, ‘How freaking cool is this?!’ so bad.

ƥαṇdαηθνε|

He didn’t miss the opportunity to look at the fighting, though. Declan was quite impressive, swinging his monstrously big sword around, cleaving enemies like a hot knife through butter.

But he wasn’t the only one that was remarkable. The three other ones fighting in the clusterfuck of enemies were no slouches.

One of them was a barbarian Demonoid, taking hits left and right that barely left scratches on him, fully attributed to the barbarian’s natural resistance to any physical damage.

Another was a gnome, who was wielding in one hand a pistol, and in the other, a tactical knife. This one was shooting as he ran past players, and on every occasion he had, he would strike his knife in exposed weak points, like throats, ribcages, behind knees, and such places.

On every strike of his knife, a player dropped to their knees, getting promptly executed, or died on the spot. His precision was frightening.

The last one, the only human in this group of twenty players, was something akin to a monk. He was in constant movement, striking out with hands, elbows, feet, knees, and occasionally even his forehead.

Watching him waltz through enemy forces, smacking the shit out of them, like some kind of Chuck Norris incarnate, was simply beautiful. Silent was watching them, fanboying at every move they pulled, almost wanting to join them in the fray.

But the only time he almost let his impulses win, one of the semi-long-range melee players held him back.

“Are you out of your mind, son?! You stay on this side of the barricade unless you want to die. And if you act stupid, I will kill you myself and fuck your corpse!”

The threat made Silent Light gulp in fear. He wasn’t sure it was even a possibility, since their bodies disintegrated into pixels on death.

But he would rather not try it.

‘This man is crazy…’

But even though he was now mildly terrified, Silent kept up his healing. Phoenix had assigned him to where he thought was the most important, and he thought this was the place.

The two monsters in their guild handled the front gate, while Gulnur insisted on handling the west side, and Phoenix and Violette were handling the palace breach. As for the south part, Morticia and Gale were currently there, supporting the newer members holding that side.

They already had healers there, so his place was here.

‘I wonder how long they will keep sieging us. They should have already run out of players. How are they coming back so fast?’