New Eden: Live to Play, Play to Live



The forums had barely started raving about how to tie their guilds to a royal faction, that already another enormous piece of news broke out. Paragons shooting to the top of the guild leaderboards like this was not something so easily accomplished.

Especially since no one knew what the metrics were for the calculations on that specific leaderboard. But having them suddenly overtake two well-established guilds, as well as one that was rising meteorically, was astounding.

Knights of the Sun had been at the top position ever since it started, since their loose hiring policy made them the largest guild out there. Of course, they also filled the core of the guild with pro players, whose power level and skill level were a head above the rest.

This had shown that the number of players might be one of the metrics for calculations. But some other guilds had tried bolstering their numbers without reaching this high on the leaderboards. So it was hard to tell.

The guild, in second place, had been Sins of Sloth, who had been second before the update, with their location on the dark continent making for fast levelling and powerful players. Ever since the update, they had also been getting an influx of new players, who didn't want to play solo anymore, ever since walking outside of cities became so hazardous.

People had estimated that at their pace, Sins of Sloth might overtake the Knights of the Sun within a month of the update.

The guild in third place was one that rose so fast, it was strange. Especially since, right before the update, their base had been sieged by so many small guilds, people thought they would crumble.

But Azamus, leader of the Aces High guild, had bent all those guilds to their knees, and taken them over by force, suddenly gaining players by the dozens, bolstering his forces and climbing from eighth to third in a single day.

He had also recruited some Natives, a thing which many guild leaders were still trying to figure out how, which had helped him gain some of those ranks.

But Azamus, who was currently sitting outside a dungeon entrance, resting from his third dungeon grind of the day, heard the notifications and quickly opened the rankings. When he saw them change so abruptly, he flew off the handle.

"This motherfucker! Sinclair! Get over here!"

The man named Sinclair, one of his officers, rushed to Azamus' side.

"Yes, guild leader?"

"You mongrel! You are in charge of intelligence in this guild. How did you not know Killi was tying his guild to these dumb fucks Paragons?! Should I just replace you with someone smarter?"

As Azamus was popping his lid off, a rogue-like player rushed to Sinclair's side, whispering something in his ear. Sinclair's face dropped.

Azamus looked at him with deep-rooted anger.

"Spit it out!"

Sinclair nodded his head, his tone ghastly.

"I just got news from our moles inside the Knights of the Sun. The reason I didn't find out before, was that Killi had his guild convene in their base, and put it on lockdown. No message or player could get out. That was a few hours ago…"

Azamus looked at Sinclair, his skin tone going from the angry, dark red tone to a furious burgundy.

His voice became glacial as he responded to Sinclair.

"You get me the names of the incompetents, who didn't think it was important to tell us a meeting was being convened in the first place, and you put them on the bounty list. Every confirmed death on them, by video or screenshot, you will set at fifty gold. Understood?"

Sinclair lightly frowned.

"But, sir… That will be a massive drain on our funds, for just players who couldn't react at the time…"

Azamus jumped up, grabbing Sinclair's collar, and bringing him to his knees.

"One more word out of you, and you will be joining them on that list, priced at a thousand gold. Understand me, you dumb shit?"

Sinclair gulped loudly, nodding his head in response.

Azamus was not someone to be messed with. He was the type of man that only threatened once, before putting to execution.

And money was not an issue. His skills had brought him far enough in the gaming world that getting funds from his sponsors was as easy as breathing.

Especially since he was quite good at making that money multiply itself, most of the time. Their guild treasury was probably one of the most furnished, right now, with over ten million gold coins.

Sinclair bolted away from the dungeon entrance, making his way back to their guild base as fast as he could, to make the arrangements. They kept the names of his moles on paper over there since they weren't part of their guild officially.

And they kept all of it inside New Eden, where no one could access it unless they conquered their guild base, which they had proved was not a simple task. It took him thirty minutes to reach the base, where he mad-dashed upstairs to his small office.

Once he had done his business, the four players in question received silent notifications about landing a bounty on their heads, and fear overtook them. They didn't know what they had done wrong, but they knew they were in deep shit.

And they couldn't even go up to their immediate officers to confess, since this would land them out of the Knights of the Sun, and most likely on another bounty list. So they did the only thing they could do.

They immediately left Knights of the Sun's base, leaving the guild, and logged off. They couldn't play until this bounty was taken off their heads.

The officers to these four players saw them leave and didn't even wonder what it was, only grinning to themselves as they relayed the information up the chain of command. Once it made its way to the vice guild leader, Killi's best friend and long-time ally; Grimjaw, he chuckled in his office, proud that they had gotten rid of a few spies.

Grimjaw wasn't present with Killi at the Paragons base, since he was tasked with keeping the guild running while their leader was busy. He had learned with the others that Killi had tied their guild under Paragons, but was the only one that didn't panic.

'Killi doesn't take losing bets. Even if he got tricked, this will still pan out greatly for us, I'm sure,' he had thought.

But only time would tell.