New Eden: Live to Play, Play to Live

Phoenix was taking the time she couldn’t move to read all the reports coming from every battlefield. It seemed that, for now, they were still keeping things under control.

But how long would this last? She had no way of knowing.

An issue would soon arise, since Astaroth warned her he had used Royal Protection too. That meant that in a few minutes, he would enter exhausted status, just like her, and be unable to move for five minutes.

She didn’t know if Khalor could hold the north gate on his own, and she wasn’t ready to risk that either. Another problem was the message Gulnur had sent her.

If this info about a portable graveyard was true, then as long as they didn’t get rid of it, they would never win. It wouldn’t matter how many players they could kill, if the numbers advantage never disappeared.

But she couldn’t send anyone to look for it. They were under-manned and overworked, as it was already.

Even though Astaroth had greatly diminished the player force at the gate, if they just kept coming back, the battle would only end in their defeat. And Khalor could no longer summon his full army, for at least another day.

All these factors pointed to a gloomy possibility. Were they going to lose the Bastion already?

After just conquering it? Had they bitten off more than they could chew?

Phoenix shook her head, washing away these negative thoughts. Her resolve hardened.

‘We won’t lose. I refuse to lose!’

She sent a message to Astaroth.

‘Get back inside the walls before the exhaustion status hits. You will be unable to move for five minutes.’

It took a moment before Astaroth’s response came.

‘What about outside the wall? If you send Khalor back outside, there will be no one to empty out the stone bowl.’

‘I have a way to buy us time. You just need to get back inside. So will everyone on the outer part of the wall.’

Phoenix promptly sent the order for everyone to retreat inside the wall. She was already opening her guild interface.

As soon as messages started pouring in that their members were huddling inside, Phoenix tapped the option on the interface to activate the rune barrier.

She promptly received a notification.

*Caution! You have no mana reserves in the Bastion to fuel this option. Please provide the mana through other means swiftly, or the barrier activation will cancel.*

She rapidly messaged Astaroth again.

‘Astaroth, we need your insane mana pool. Touch the interior wall and pour all the mana you can into it!’

The man did as told, taking the last few seconds he had on his Royal Protection to dump almost all his mana into the walls. As he did, the runes engraved into the stony surface lit up in a bright golden colour.

As they did, they detached from the wall, suddenly rising over them, as energy expanded from every rune to connect them, and expanded into a bright golden bubble.

The bubble rapidly formed over the Bastion, going from the walls to the highest branch of the tree at its center. It was hovering just outside the walls, and seemed to go into the ground, as it had made a gouge into the ground where it had stopped.

Astaroth looked at it in awe, as his exhaustion status kicked in. Unfortunately for him, the status, combined with his close-to-depleted mana bar, drained him completely of his energy, and he dropped unconscious.

Phoenix, who was still laying on her back, on the tree’s lowest branch, could still see the golden sheen through the tree’s foliage. It almost appeared as though the entire base was basking in a heavenly glow.

The dwarf who had made this possible, Malador, was currently jumping in joy as he looked at the powerful barrier surrounding the base.

“Yes! It worked, hahaha! I’m a genius!”

He hollered happily, as the people in the building around looked at him through the windows. All the crafters were new to the guild, and barely interacted with each other, so they didn’t know him personally.

But seeing him react like this to the completion of the barrier, they could guess it was his handy work. That left a good impression on their minds of the dwarf, who had previously seemed hostile and perpetually grumpy.

Khalor, after killing every player that remained in the stone bowl, mounted his drake. As he flew out of the enclosure, he saw the sprawled ash elf on the side of the tunnel leading out.

He clicked his tongue, disappointed in him a bit, but he still went to pick him up. Once the drake had him in its claws, Khalor messaged Phoenix, asking her where she was.

She asked why he wanted to know, and he told her he had a fleshy package for her. Wondering what he was talking about, she gave him her location.

When the drake flew up to the branch and flung Astaroth’s unconscious form at Phoenix, she yelped in surprise.

“What the hell were you thinking?! If I hadn’t caught him, he could have fallen to his death, you idiot!”

Khalor chuckled.

“I knew you would catch him. I wouldn’t have thrown him otherwise. Also, it isn’t my fault he was unconscious near the gate. That’s his fault.”

Phoenix was half tempted to turn Khalor into cinders right there, for his lack of empathy. But from what Astaroth had told her about him, she still understood his predisposition to be a dick.

But she still felt like he should have at least some modicum of respect for Astaroth, since he was the guild leader. But she doubted he cared about that at all.

“So. How long does this thing last?”

As Khalor asked this, a small whip made of water latched to the branch near Phoenix. Violette hauled herself up there with them, still smiling like a child after Christmas.

“Did you see Phoenix?! Did you see how I killed them all?! I was feeling so powerful!”

Phoenix laughed a bit.

“Yes, I saw. You did great, Violette. As for your question, this lasts thirty minutes. We better hope Astaroth is back on his feet by then.”

“Hmm. Okay. I only wonder about one thing.”

“And what is that?”

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Phoenix looked at him in shock. Gulnur had sent her that info in private.

And she had told no one. And she hadn’t told anyone.

Khalor wasn’t supposed to know.

“How do you know about that?” she asked, warily.

“I have my ways.”

Phoenix hated how Khalor always seemed to know everything before everyone. But it at least made him dependable in some fashion.

She just hoped he would always stay on their side. Making an enemy out of someone that has an uncanny way of knowing everything would be terrible.