New Eden: Live to Play, Play to Live

All around New Eden, events started happening that harkened to an upcoming event that would change the map of the world. Small cracks appeared in the fabric of reality in many places.

Some areas remote and recluse, others more populated. These cracks all had one thing in common.

All of them spewed the same red miasma that coiled and crawled on the ground, looking for something to attach to. This day would someday come to be called the Day of the Shattering.

But for now, all the attention of the players in New Eden was on another event entirely. They were all riveted to what little stream they could find that still broadcasted the siege on the Paragon’s base.

Never in the history of gaming had the ten largest guilds in any game worked together for anything. And yet, here they were, all ten of them cooperating to take down a single base belonging to one guild.

What was even more captivating was their inability to do so. The siege had been ongoing for a little over an hour now, and yet, not a single player had made it remotely close to the base core.

For many small-time players, and innumerable unknown guilds, this was paramount to one message. The large guilds can be stood up to!

Many of these players yearned for the feeling of standing up to the big guy. Some were players that had been rejected when applying to one of these guilds.

Others were small-time guilds that had to bow down to the power of the bigger guilds and yield land, resources, and sometimes even dungeons.

But now, all these people had one thing in common. A newfound respect for a starting guild, and a fire burning in their hearts, to rise to the occasion and fight back the oppression.

Across the three continents of New Eden, small guilds banded together, reaching massive member counts, and started doing what they had wanted to do ever since the guilds started forming.

They fought back.

***

At the Bastion, on the southern battlefield, where the mobile graveyard had been installed, two battles still raged on, while Phoenix had finally broken into the mausoleum.

She looked at the priest player, who was still eyes closed, chanting and channelling mana into the cross, and grinned.

She walked up to him; the heat brushing off her, forcing him to open his eyes.

“Sorry pal. You’ll have to stop what you are doing and die for me. Okay?”

After saying that, the priest’s eyes widened, before a flare of blue disintegrated him instantly.

Phoenix smiled as she slid her hand across the large cross. An interface appeared in her eyes.

*Portable Graveyard*

Use requires a priest to keep active. Do you wish to cancel activation and revert this to item mode?

*Yes/No*

Phoenix tapped yes, and soon the cross at the center of the mausoleum shrunk, until it turned into a small crucifix necklace. She rapidly grabbed the item, stowing it inside her inventory.

The mausoleum started turning to dust as soon as she grabbed the item, and the graves were doing the same. Suddenly, any player that died to Khalor’s undead and Genie stopped being able to respawn there.

It suddenly redirected the players freshly dying in the trap zone to the nearest graveyard, which was in an Elven city many miles away. In a matter of moments, the pressure started lessening on Khalor.

Seeing as most of his undead could now deal with the last remaining players, a grin formed on his ghostly lips. Seeing this grin, Azamus felt a surge in anger. 𝗻𝗼𝐯𝗹．𝐨𝗿𝗴

Genie could help Astaroth deal with the Puma, and Phoenix did the same. In minutes, they took the monster down, leaving only one enemy remaining.

Seeing his chances flying out the window, Azamus did something he hated doing, with every fibre of his body. He fled.

Khalor was about to leave after him when Phoenix stepped in front of him.

“Please, let me finish him.”

“What? Why?”

Phoenix turned her face to a pout.

“C’mon. You guys have both killed him once. I want in on that, too.”

Khalor was astonished. He didn’t know how to respond, so he turned to look at Astaroth.

The latter only shrugged at him, his face stuck in contained laughter.

“Fine! But hurry, he’ll get away.”

Phoenix’s face beamed a bright smile.

“Thank you!”

She blasted off in a gout of flame, strong enough that Khalor had to shield his face from the residual heat. He walked over to Astaroth.

“I can’t understand her. Or how you tolerate her antics, for that matter.”

Astaroth looked at him and laughed.

“I guess I just quickly got used to it. I just let her have her way. It makes it easier to bear.”

“Anyway. We should head back. The rest of the ten guilds are probably still trying to pierce through our defences.”

Astaroth agreed with Khalor, and they launched toward the Bastion. Khalor remounted his drake, taking the air, while the former, who was now melded with White, just ran like hell toward their base.

As they arrived, the sight that greeted them made them stop in place.

In front of them, on the southern battlefield, Aces High, along with the two other guilds besieging this side, were beating a retreat. They were hastily grabbing their combat resources and running toward the north.

Khalor, who was high in the air, could see that most of the battlefronts were performing similar actions.

‘What the fuck is happening?’

Astaroth quickly climbed the wall before jumping into the trap zone and heading toward the palace. He opened up his guild chat.

‘Can someone explain to me what the hell is happening?’

Silent Light was the one to respond.

‘Open up the forums. Something big is happening!’

Astaroth did so, as he kept running toward the palace. But once the forums were opened, he skidded to a stop.

His mouth dropped, and his eyes widened.

The trending post that jumped out at his face was titled ‘Rise of a New Era’

He tapped it, and in the first lines, he rapidly understood why all the guilds were suddenly retreating. All of their bases were under attack.

And since most of their members were here, the situation was turning sour for them quite fast.

‘What the hell is happening to everyone?’