New Eden: Live to Play, Play to Live

As soon as the shield had lifted, Khalor had jumped into action. He knew their objective was to throw the enemy off as much as possible, so he thought of a way to help with that.

He sent both his drake and two-headed raven to fly over the trap zone. As long as they never passed over the same spot at the same time, this would keep the enemies on their toes, in a constant state of fear.

That, added to the confusion spell Morticia had thrown over the Bastion, would lead to the enemies constantly looking over their shoulders. If this didn’t make them lose themselves, nothing would.

As for him, he kept with him his death knight, as well as a few high-level ghouls. This would allow him to move quickly and perform precise and deadly strikes.

As soon as Athena started pinning coordinates on the map, he took the closest group to him there was, and lunged in that direction. In a matter of minutes, he was onto them.

Khalor started combat by throwing in his bident like a lance, as his death knight lunged into the small party. Surprisingly enough, the disorienting effect was forcing the guilds to fragment as they entered the artificial jungle they grew.

This made it so that no large group ever stayed large for long. Players would wander off on their own, suddenly unable to find their allies anymore.

This played in Paragon’s, as with smaller groups to confront, any melee fighter on their side could do proper hit-and-run tactics without getting outright slain. Of course, this didn’t apply to Khalor and Astaroth.

The small party Khalor had honed on was composed of five players. One of which was killed in a single blow from the charging death knight.

The other four were suddenly assaulted by a group of ten ghouls and one fierce necromancer. Combat lasted a little under thirty seconds; the ghouls tearing each player into shreds so rapidly; the players didn’t even know how to react.

After clearing this first party, Khalor looked at the map again. He noticed many new pings had already disappeared, with many new ones replacing them.

Athena was being as precise as she could, writing the group sizes when possible, or specifying group or single target next to her pins.

This made Khalor’s and Astaroth’s jobs much easier.

Spotting his next target, Khalor smiled.

‘This is going to be fun.’

He dashed toward his next group, sending the coordinates to his flying undead, so they could harass the single players walking around on their own.

This way, they would accrue mental stress, and would be easier targets for the weaker ambushers in their guild. Although Khalor didn’t care about them particularly, he still could be a team player when necessary.

***

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But there wasn’t much they could do. Every time they sent someone on the wall to get a better visual, they got shot at or killed before they could get a good look.

This wasn’t going as planned anymore, and even the medium guilds were thinking of backing out now. The top ten guilds were slowly losing grip over them, and it wouldn’t be long before they were left alone to siege the place.

Killi was standing outside the walls, one hand on his hip, the other under his chin, trying to figure out a way to get around this.

‘Whoever is casting the disorienting spell can’t hold it forever, I think. But even then, they are picking us out like small game.’

The idea of getting his members hunted like rabbits left a sour taste in his mouth. Killi did not want to give up on this fortress, but the way things were going, he wouldn’t have much of a choice.

‘If only there was a way of countering the spell. Running a straight line from here to the center of the fortress wouldn’t be as hard, then.’

But wrack his brain as he may, he wasn’t finding anything that could help. A guild thought about digging under the fortress, but as soon as they reached the zone affected by the spell, their guild leader and officers started seeing their ping on the map move weirdly.

They were no longer digging straight, and it almost seemed like they were sometimes trying to run from something. To prevent any accident from happening, they had their members pull back out, and abandoned that idea.

This was going to go from a constant pressure siege to a battle of attrition siege. And right now, the attackers were losing.

***

Inside this same forest, Astaroth was having a field day. His high mobility and high damage allowed him to run across the whole jungle, slaying enemies like swatting flies.

Not that the larger parties he crossed were defenceless. But even then, he would shred through them like nothing, because of their confusion and slow reaction time.

The spell Morticia was casting was making this guerilla tactic a charm. Players that were disoriented were so easily surprised that, with Astaroth’s speed, he would have a few seconds of inaction every time, without fail.

After killing his fourth group, he decided to take a slight break and check on Leon.

‘I wonder why he is still sleeping. His help would clear this siege much faster.’

Going back toward the palace, Astaroth crossed paths with Khalor. He stopped for a moment, wanting to ask him something.

“Hey! Wait up!”

Khalor skidded to a stop, wondering why Astaroth would suddenly interrupt him.

“What?”

“I was thinking about something. I wondered if you had any idea where I could find a legacy that would suit me.”

Khalor looked at him with annoyance.

“Find your own legacy! Do I look like I know everything?!”

Without giving time to Astaroth to respond, Khalor darted back into chase.

“Sheesh. Calm down, you grumpy bag of bones…”

Astaroth brushed off his impatience and resumed his path to the palace.