New Eden: Live to Play, Play to Live

Chapter 551 Reaching The Second Stage

As the entire party stepped through the portal, one by one, what greeted their eyes perplexed them. Not for the oddity of it, but more for its familiarity.

The town they had been in, on the previous stage of the dungeon, with the well in its center, was back in view. But it looked bigger.

The buildings looked like they had more age to them, for those who weren't entirely new, and they had a few more floors to them.

Astaroth looked around before he decided he wanted to check on something.

"Wait here a moment," he said to the party.

Then he jumped up the side of one building, bounding to another nearby, and finally launching himself upward one last time to land on the rooftops. Looking around himself, and in the distance, his stomach dropped.

In his view, far in the distance, something he didn't want to see towered. A massive tree whose height overshadowed every other structure in its vicinity.

To his right, a ways away, a large dark grey wall, made of interlocking monoliths of stone. This was Bastion Cities' spitting image…

But something was different. The buildings, their construction, and the methods were older and cruder.

This wasn't the Bastion City he knew and had helped reform. But the strangeness of it only grew, when he couldn't see any living person, for miles around him.

Dropping back to the ground, Astaroth went straight to SharpTusk.

"What monsters did you fight in the first part of the dungeon?"

Tusk frowned at the question. Not because it was irrelevant, but because they would cross more of them now.

So why ask?

"Forest animals, mainly. Wolves, bears, wildcats, things like that. I thought it strange for a cityscape dungeon to have so much wildlife, instead of undead or infestation monsters. But I made nothing of it."

Astaroth frowned.

'There was no destruction in the town of the first part. Neither were there signs of nature taking over. This makes no sense.'

"Let us proceed with caution. I'm not sure what we'll see in this part, but I have a feeling it won't be animals."

Most of the party nodded, taking a lower stance, moving slower and making sure they didn't make more noise than necessary. Only one person frowned at the orders.

Jaxx, the Human Warrior, still butt-hurt from Violette's severe whiplash at him, for mere words, and the humiliation of biting the dust in front of so many people, was now wondering how a guild with such a cautious leader could have made it to the top of the rankings.

'Was there a deal done in the shadows where he bought Knights of the Sun?'

Jaxx had seen a part of the tournament when it had aired, but not enough to judge Astaroth's power from. On the opposite, he figured every opponent Astaroth had gone against had been weaklings.

He figured that with his skills, he would have made chump-change of the same foes, his pride not letting him think he could be weaker than any of them. His eyes trailed on the party list, wondering how the three officers had reached level fifty when most of the player base was still trudging the latter half of level forty.

'I guess I'll show him how strong I am when the fighting begins. He'll have to recognize my strength then, and promote me to an officer.'

Astaroth could feel the back of his head itching, feeling the burning gaze of Jaxx drill into his head.

'What's his problem?' he wondered.

But whatever it was, it wasn't important at this moment. Some issues were much more pressing, like finding out what this dungeon truly was.

But the party didn't have to travel far before they found their first enemies.

Turning a corner, a few streets away from the well they had come from, Astaroth came face to face with immobile people, facing away from him, and toward the massive tree in the distance.

Phoenix recognized the tree, as she pulled Astaroth back, and lightly frowned.

"Is that what I think it is?" she whispered to Astaroth.

"I'm not sure. But I think it is. But something's different. It looks smaller. The trunk isn't as thick as the one in Bastion City. Yet I have the feeling it's the same tree…"

Phoenix agreed with him. It might be smaller, but the air about it was the same.

It was like looking at a person you knew but had physically changed over the years. The feeling of recognition was there, even if it was light.

Astaroth peeked around the corner, looking at the people he had almost bumped into. All of them had light-coloured skin and pointy ears, from what he could see.

"They look like Elves. But something looks wrong. Why aren't they moving?"

SharpTusk tried peeking around the wall, discretion not being his best quality. He leaned in, trying to peek only his head, but miscalculated the weight on his back of the massive axe, and lost balance.

Astaroth's eyes widened as he saw the lumbering Orc falling forward. He tried catching him, so Tusk wouldn't crash into the ground, but in doing so, only pivoted the man's weight around, making him turn and slam his back into the corner of the building, axe first, making a cacophonous clang of metal against stone.

Astaroth winced at the noise, slowly turning his head toward the Elves, who were staring away from them. But he wasn't the only one turning his head.

Slowly, the half dozen Elves started turning their heads, reaching an angle that shouldn't be possible, and Astaroth understood why they were unmoving.

Looking at them, with eyes covered in cataracts, but burning in a vivid red colour underneath the white cover, the Elves grunted in unison.

'Shit. Undead,' Astaroth cursed to himself.

"No more sneaking it is! In formation, now!" Astaroth shouted.

He yanked on SharpTusk's arm, getting the Orc up, before making Ad Astra appear in his hand. There was no more going around with the problem.

It was fight or flight, now.

And Astaroth was a flightless bird.