New Eden: Live to Play, Play to Live



Stepping inside the room, Astaroth and Phoenix saw four people. Rising from the table, Prince Nalafein and Killi both bent into a curt bow, while, behind them, Gelum'vire and Killi's vice guild leader bowed their heads.

Astaroth and Phoenix could have walked over to their throne, where they would normally hold this little meeting. But Astaroth clapped his hands together loudly.

*Clap!*

"Alright! We have already wasted enough of your time waiting. Instead of all the theatrics and explaining, how about we walk to where I will send you away from, and save us all some time?"

Killi smiled widely, agreeing that they had wasted a lot of time. When you were a pro player, every minute counted, after all.

He couldn't fathom how bad Phoenix must feel with all that wasted time managing this place. It kind of made him happy his guild wasn't yet as expansive.

The abruptness of it took Nalafein aback. The little prince wasn't used to plans changing spontaneously before him.

He was about to protest, and insist that explanations were in due here, first. But Gelum'vire put his hand on his shoulder, shaking his head lightly.

Killi turned his head to the prince, whom he now served under, and awaited his decision. But the prince quickly nodded his head before backing away from the table and walking toward Astaroth and Phoenix.

"Then we shall follow your lead, King Astaroth, Queen Phoenix."

Killi immediately joined their impromptu delegation, and Astaroth turned on his heels, immediately walking out of the throne room. He took a left, heading toward the portrait that hid the staircase down under the throne room.

It didn't take very long, and when he stopped before it, he turned to look at Killi.

"If this location ever gets public, I will know it came from you, and New Eden, or Earth, for that matter, won't be big enough to hide you from me."

The blatant threat only elicited a chuckle from Killi, who shook his head.

"I would never divulge secrets of my allies. How untrustworthy do you think I am?"

Astaroth smiled at his response, his threatening gaze gone in a flash.

"I trust you. I just wanted to remind you, that's all."

Saying this, he turned around, sliding the portrait aside, revealing the passage and staircase. Nalafein's eyes widened.

He knew every castle had secret passages, as it was common practice to build them into the structure, in case the royals needed a quick escape. But this passage seemed much too big to be used as an escape tunnel.

As they went down into it, Phoenix lit their way down with a small fireball she held aloft over her head by willpower alone. The vice guild leader of Knights of the Sun tried to one-up her.

A large globe of pure white light lit up behind them, making her small fireball utterly useless as she glanced over her shoulder. The vice guild leader looked at her with a smile, not saying anything as his globe of light flew above their heads.

Phoenix wanted to show him what it was like to 'Shed some light', by turning herself into a miniature sun, but Astaroth put his hand on her arm, a whisper coming from his lips.

"Don't bother. He knows you are stronger. He only wants to taunt you."

Phoenix side-eyed Astaroth, wondering when he became the voice of reason for her. But she knew her man was right, so she extinguished her fireball, turning her head forward, chin raised.

The vice guild leader, seeing her ignore his attempt, he pouted lightly. Killi laughed internally at the exchange, making nothing of it.

They descended for a short while, until they reached a large open room, with walls of compacted dirt and stone, exposed roots webbing the ceiling. In the center of the room, a large upraised dais stood, the sole occupant of the otherwise empty room.

On this dais, the previously built portal, a large empty loop covered in runes of a language unknown, lay dormant. Killi found its construction reminisce of an old TV show he had seen as a kid, and he huffed lightly.

Astaroth climbed the steps to the dais, stopping next to the ring. On the right part of it, a square-shaped protrusion, about two inches thick, adorned the ring.

When Astaroth stepped in front of it, the protrusion lit up in a light purple, with strange symbols dancing on the screen for a while, until they translated to English, and he could read them.

*Please enter the destination's coordinates. The Portal will take a minute to lock onto position and activate and will stay open for only a minute. Aether cost: fifty Aether points.*

He hadn't looked at this the last time, and he sucked in a breath, the price surprising him. Fifty Aether points was a massive cost for something that only stayed open for a minute.

But then again, it was a portal that could go anywhere without causing too much of a disturbance. And it wouldn't be activatable by just anyone, given Aether wasn't so easy to use as he made it seem.

Focusing on the panel, Astaroth started circulating his mana internally, converting it to Aether and slowly pushing it into the ring. After pouring ten points of Aether into it, it started humming with energy.

Gelum'vire was looking at him intensely, his eyes barely believing what he was seeing.

'This brat has learned how to use Aether?! Aberon couldn't have taught him that. It's not something you just learn. I thought he was just a meathead… Who knew he had an exceptional talent in magic, as well…'

It took Astaroth about a minute to push out enough Aether from his body to fully activate the portal. Once he did, he was already sweating profusely, using much more than his maximum amount of mana.

He had to use Mana Siphon twice, and that was considering his high mana regen, as well. But his mana was already climbing back to an acceptable level.

While he panted, the portal pulsed in a purple light twice, before a blue matter came from the inside of the ring, rushing toward the center, before collapsing on itself and pushing outward, and settling back into a flat surface.

It was like a basin of water had suddenly filled from all sides, and the water crashed on itself in the middle, before resting back into the basin.

Once the blue matter settled down, a notification rang in his ear.

*Portal locking on to coordinates, please wait.*

He turned over to the waiting delegation.

"While we wait, let us discuss something."