New Eden: Live to Play, Play to Live

Athena, from high in the tree, had partied up with all the ranged players, forming a raid party. Since she had a way of seeing without using her eyes, she was currently acting as the group’s detection device.

Using her necklace of echolocation, Athena could see the enemy players without needing visual contact. Using this, she would relay their location into the group minimap.

This allowed the ranged players on Paragon’s side to launch some clustered attack, or ‘Tactical nukes’ in some sense. The attacks were far from precise, but overload a small zone full of arrows, bullets, and spells, and you were bound to hit something.

Athena also pinned the locations of the spotted enemies into the guild chat, allowing the melee players to coordinate their guerilla assaults.

It took virtually no time for Khalor and Astaroth to start clearing out packs of invading players. It was like a game of cat and mouse for them.

Morticia’s disorientation spell was stretched as far as she could, barely scraping the insides of the outer walls. But she didn’t know how long she could hold on to it.

But Phoenix assured her it didn’t matter. Only disorienting them in the early stages mattered.

Because then they would already be lost.

It made sense to the woman, but she still intended to keep her spell up as long as she could. And right now, that was taking all her brain cells to figure out how.

The spell she was casting required a lot of concentration, and she could not drink a mana potion while holding it. But she had no other way of regaining mana yet.

She knew that most of the core members in the guild, the ones that had been partying together for a while, had a way to regain mana as they fought.

She also knew that some other players had talked about methods to gain mana regen online. But there was never any concrete evidence or clear details.

It made learning this on her own a close to impossible task. And she could hardly break focus now, just to try something.

She was already pushing herself just to maintain her spell while it was spread this wide. Normally, she would only affect a radius of a few meters, or a few specific targets.

But this went beyond what she was used to. Morticia was sweating profusely, her mind in a constant state of overexertion.

She knew the basis behind the functioning of this spell. This was why she could start from a single target spell to an AoE one.

And now, she was basically using it like a massive zone spell. This was thanks to hours of practice, and her attention to detail.

As a psychologist, she appreciated the way the spell played with the psyche of players, leading them astray through a sense of confusion and self-doubt.

This allowed her to better control its effects and area of effect, and why she could manipulate it at all.

But as she felt close to losing control of her spell, she felt something click in her mind. The pressure from the spell suddenly disappeared as a notification resounded in her ears.

She opened her eyes, feeling like the spell wasn’t draining her at all. She opened her notifications, curious about what it was.

*Dazed and Confused spell has reached mastery level one. Congratulations, your efforts have led you to better understand the nature of this spell.*

She swiftly opened her spell list.

Dazed and Confused (Level 5) (Mastery level 0/5 -> 1/5): casting this spell throws a veil of confusion and doubt over the target’s mind. This will put the target under the disoriented effect, making them unable to think rationally and direct themselves normally. Mana cost: 20MP/second -> 1MP/second/100-meter radius.

Mastery level 1 effect: Taste of the fey wild.

The mastery you have gained over this spell has led you closer to its source. The targets caught in your spell now get a taste of the fey wilderness, where it originated from. 10% chance of causing hallucinations to the targets.

The added effect was quite the addition, but for her, it was more about the now definite MP cost per range. That explained the sudden decrease in strain she felt.

Calculating that from the center of the Bastion, all the way to the outer wall, there was about a kilometre, the mana cost went from twenty per second to ten per second.

Looking at her mana bar, which was now about at a quarter full, Morticia smirked. The decrease in strain also had another effect.

She was now no longer having trouble holding the spell, which allowed her to think about other things. Like drinking a mana potion.

She rapidly messaged Phoenix, telling her there was no longer a time limit on her spell. Phoenix asked her how she managed that, but Morticia stayed secretive about it.

She would tell her later, but, for now, it was better to just focus on the battle at hand.

Screams of terror started resounding all around the Bastion, mixed in with the sounds of battle. Morticia smiled at this, knowing it resulted from her improved spell.

Although Phoenix was frustrated at the woman for keeping this type of info to herself, the screams of terror that now came from their trap zone assuaged her.

As long as it helped the battle in the long run, she would allow her to keep her secrets, if only for now. Any trick to make players stronger would benefit the entire guild, so keeping them to herself was out of the question.

But now was not the time for them to argue. Phoenix looked back down at the trap zone from up above in the main tree.

She wanted to blast the zones marked for enemy sightings so badly. But if she did, she would burn the forest to the ground.

ƥαṇdα- ηθνε|·ƈθm

But she still wondered how she could do that, with fire in a forest.

‘Should I just go down there in my armoured form, and fight like Gale?’