New Eden: Live to Play, Play to Live

*Bang* *Rumble* *Whack*

"Oof!"

A certain gnome flew out of the forest part of the map, and into the middle part, a good way away from the pyramid.

He hit a piece of a broken wall after crashing into the ground. The impact had emptied his lungs of any remaining air that he hadn't yelled on the way there already.

After a few moments of gasping for air and getting up, Azamus clenched his fists.

"FUUUUUUCK!!!!!" Azamus screamed.

Anger permeated his little body as he thought back to what had just happened. He was trying to humiliate a no-name player, and instead, he ended up getting thrown away like a rag doll.

The humiliation was unbearable. No one could do this to him.

If he made it to the next stage. Azamus bode his time until the next round, for now.

Since someone threw him near the pyramid, he would make the most of it. His gamer instincts kicked back in, forcing him to cool his head and take advantage of the situation.

Azamus started trotting towards the pyramid with his small stumpy legs, cursing the height of this race. He only picked it because it was the only one with guns.

Had he known humans also have access to the technology, albeit later, he would have made a different choice. It was pointless thinking about it now.

As Azamus made it closer to the pyramid, He started perceiving other players in the zone. His perception stat had unlocked when he hit level ten as a gunner.

That stat provided him with excellent eyesight and an extended view range. He could focus on a distant point and his eyes would zoom in like he had binoculars.

Seeing many players fight in the area around the pyramid, Azamus profited from it. He looked around and found a good hideout.

There were ruins around the pyramid, like the remains of a dead civilization, and he picked the highest he could find. He ran to the construction and climbed to the highest part.

It was a half-crumbled third floor, in a stone-cut building. The third floor had a tiny space to move in, but a nice vantage point and slight concealment.

It would make the perfect sniping spot. He equipped a long-barreled rifle that looked like a mix between an old flintlock rifle and a recent sniper.

The rifle worked like an old flintlock but with a cartridge-loaded system and scope, resembling more a sailor's Longview than an actual scope.

Azamus had made this weapon himself, using the technology of gnomes and the advanced knowledge he had. The weapon had fascinated the gunsmith that had been watching over him during its creation.

He had even requested Azamus make more for him so he could sell them. But Azamus had turned him down, not wanting to waste time crafting.

He instead contracted a scribe and had him draw out a blueprint for the rifle, and sold it to the gunsmith for an exorbitant sum of gold coins. That had flushed his cash reserves for the foreseeable future and helped him grow fast.

The rifle wasn't a recent model, with black powder-packed bullet casings, so he had to make the chamber slightly different. Since he wanted to use this as a long ranged weapon, he added some rifling to the barrel.

And then, to maximize bullet velocity, he changed the firing mechanism. Since he couldn't use self-propelled bullets, and muzzle loading wouldn't give him the thrust he needed, Azamus improvised.

This world had one advantage that his did not; magic.

He had dug into magic use through technology and found some interesting things. Some gunsmiths used magic-propelled bullets, with wind elements or highly condensed fire magic, to limit noise emission.

He brought the concept a step further and had his bullets engraved with special magic. The bullet itself would be fire-magic propelled, as the inside of the barrel produced wind magic.

His concept was that the bullet would use fire propulsion and the wind gust from the barrel would both push the bullet out of the cannon, but also fuel the fire on the bullet, making it reach an even higher velocity.

When he had the bullets engraved and the detonation system enchanted into the flintlock rifle, the gunsmith supervising him almost went crazy.

The gnomes never thought about this, since this was science at a higher level, from the human civilization out of the game. Since magitech was something that already existed in the game, he used his knowledge to make some.

Azamus grasped his creation, feeling a slight sense of pride, as he lay down in a shooting position. The bonus damage from his racial trait helped him a lot with sniping with this beauty.

But then there were also his personal skills that helped, Eagle's Eye and Head Shot. The first, stacked over his perception stat, making him able to see incredibly far away, with much detail.

The second was an attack skill. It gave him 250% extra damage on headshots, aside from the bonus of a critical hit.

So if he hit his mark, which he often did, being a brilliant marksman in real life already, he would do at least 350% of his damage. Double that if he crits.

As he lay there, motionless, Azamus was setting his sights on his first target.

It was a human warrior, wielding two axes, like a berserker of old. He wore thin armor on his torso and also wore leg pads and boots.

Azamus activated Eagles Eye, augmenting his vision with many details. The details, in this case, were wind velocity, humidity levels, wind direction, and total distance to his target.

He rapidly calculated in his head, before taking a large breath and blowing out half of it. He held the rest of his breath in, as his hand became steadier than rocks.

Azamus pressed his trigger, and he heard a clicking sound. A sharp whistling sound of wind and a sonic clap immediately followed it as the bullet left the barrel.

As much as Azamus had tried making the gun silent, the laws of physics were not something he could ignore, and the sound barrier was still something that existed.

The bullet left the barrel of his rifle with a bang, but that was just the beginning. The engraved fire spell on the butt of the bullet lit up.

The wind spell from the barrel propelled the bullet out and left the form of a wind tunnel in front of the barrel, in which the fire spell took all the air and shot forward like a rocket.

That was an application of magitech: the gnomes had not yet perfected, but that was because of a simple fact.

Guns in this world did not yet incorporate rifling in the barrel. That was a concept from the real world's advanced gun science.

The grooves of the rifling caused the wind spell to focus in a line instead of dispersing. So when it left the barrel, it continued on a bit, before spreading.

That was what the wind tunnel was. Focused wind power in a turbine motion.

This oxygen fueled the fire from the bullet and burned brightly as it launched its projectile even faster.

That was the sonic clap. His bullet left the barrel and gained momentum quasi-instantly.

The people around the pyramid, fighting, only heard the sonic clap and looked around. The only one that knew what that had been was the woman fighting the human warrior.

The reason being, the man in front of her was immobile, a hole through his head. He stood there, unmoving, as he turned to particles and dispersed to the winds.

Azamus grinned devilishly, as he used the bolt action to empty the bullet chamber.

"One down, many more to go." He said.

The woman that witnessed the aftereffect of the shot suddenly screamed.

"Sniper! Take cover!"

But it was too late. Another bang resounded as she stood there, her vision already blurring.

She vanished into particles soon after. Azamus would keep reaping lives in this fashion for a while, not even bothering to get the potion.

The potion was his bait, and he was the hunter.

In the forest part of the map, Astaroth was still trudging along, trying to see if there were some hidden secrets to the map. He heard the shot coming from the direction he had thrown the gnome.

"Sorry." He said, pulling a pitiful smile.

He knew full well what he had done, but he really couldn't focus on that. He went back to his trekking, moving that thought away from his mind.

Astaroth was determined to explore since he thought there was more to this giant map than met the eye. So he kept venturing deeper into the tropical forest they had dumped him in.

He hoped to find an underground cave, or something of the sort, with hidden treasures or advantages he could use.

"If there are treasures, I will find them!" He said enthusiastically.