New Eden: Live to Play, Play to Live

"I don't know how long I have been here, but when I went into hiding, it had already been going on for years. Why?"

"Do you remember what year it was?"

"Yes. It was the year 286 after the final demon wave."

"And the Elves kept you as war slaves for so long before our people rebelled?"

"Did the elders teach you nothing? Why are you asking all these questions?"

Kela'ra was getting antsy. Almost like he thought Astaroth was a spy or something like that.

Astaroth sighed loudly.

"I'm just trying to establish your timeline, Kela'ra. I think I know what is happening to you."

"I know what's happening to me! I'm hiding from the Elven assassins."

"No, Kela'ra. This is all a memory, that you are reliving in a loop."

"What nonsense are you saying? You aren't making sense!"

The surrounding bodies started vanishing again, and Astaroth pointed at them.

"Look, Kela'ra. The bodies are disappearing. And soon you'll start picking up the sound of people running in this direction."

Right on cue, the Ash Elf heard some footsteps slowly getting closer.

"Get back, they are coming again!"

"Kela'ra, listen to me! This isn't real!"

"I said stand back, unless you wanna get killed! These are trained assassins!"

The man refused to listen to Astaroth. The latter was wondering if he could even get him to understand.

But if he couldn't get him to listen, then how would he complete whatever task he had to do to attune to Ad Astra? He needed Kela'ra to tell him, of that Astaroth was sure.

Astaroth examined how the assassins came into the cavern. It was the exact same way as the time before.

'Maybe I need to help him?'

Astaroth pulled out his shortbow, nocking an arrow. When he aimed at the assassins, not one of them reacted to his presence.

He loosed his arrow, letting it fly to the assassin nearest him. But where he expected a perfect hit, something else happened.

The arrow flew through the assassin, unimpeded, like he wasn't there at all. It hit the wall behind him, breaking on impact with the stone.

'They really aren't there. Then how did Kela'ra land a hit on me earlier?'

While he thought of this, he noticed Kela'ra was doing the same moves as last time, his attacks a perfect copy of the last fight.

'This really is a loop. But how do I get him out of it?'

He had an idea, but it required getting into harm's way. If Astaroth could show Kela'ra that the assassins were not real, only a figment of his memories, then he might be able to snap him out of it.

'Here goes nothing!'

Astaroth dove forward, pulling out his shield again, and blocking the incoming slash from Kela'ra's weapon. As he did, it launched him through one assassin, passing right through him.

As he passed through, the assassin puffed out of existence like it was just a cloud of mist. Astaroth impacted the cavern wall with a dull thud, and his lungs emptied of all their air.

By the time he was back on his feet, Kela'ra was done killing the remaining assassins. But he seemed angry about something.

As he stomped his way to Astaroth, weapon still drawn, Astaroth had a bad feeling.

"You protected one of them! You must be a spy!"

"What? No! Kela'ra, I'm trying to show you the truth!"

"Stop lying to me, traitor! How could you align yourself to the elves that kept our people enslaved for centuries?!"

Kela'ra slashed his weapon forward, the whip sword flying at Astaroth's face. Astaroth swiftly deflected the blades with his shield before pulling his falcata.

"Kela'ra, listen to me! Count the bodies, you'll notice one is missing!"

"Shut up! That only means you helped one escape!"

The man slashed out at Astaroth again. This time, the blade arced around in a circular motion.

Astaroth knew he couldn't block it, so he dove to the side instead, barely dodging the blow.

Astaroth could have melded with any of his spirit companions by now, but since he was trying to convince the man, and not fight him, he was holding back. But that was playing against him.

Even though he could follow Kela'ra and react to his attacks, anytime he blocked one or got hit, he took damage. And the damage numbers were not small.

His health bar was rapidly depleting, and Astaroth eventually had no choice but to get serious. He melded with White.

"Enough!" he yelled, as his hair changed colours.

"If you don't want to listen to me, then I'll beat you into submission until you do!"

Astaroth darted forward, the stone under his feet exploding with the force of the dash. His sudden increase in power surprised Kela'ra, but the latter was a trained soldier.

He rapidly readjusted his fighting tactic, falling on the defensive. Astaroth attacked relentlessly, but couldn't land a decent hit.

The man was constantly parrying, deflecting, and blocking his blows. It was easy to see this wasn't the Ash Elf's first fight against a stronger opponent.

The calmness on Kela'ra's face also showed Astaroth that he wasn't scared of losing. And it was clear as day why.

Even though Astaroth was overpowering him, after five minutes of fighting, his meld going on cooldown for White, he still hadn't taken him down.

Astaroth immediately melded with Morpheus next, trying to go for the debuff tactic. But it didn't seem to be any more efficient.

Astaroth was using hypnosis every time he could, but the effect just didn't activate. As for the dissonance effect, even though Astaroth could see the token under Kela'ra's name when he scanned him, it didn't seem to affect him at all.

Of course, it wasn't that there was no effect. Kela'ra had already noticed the difference in strike locations from where he saw Astaroth, and where the attacks hit.

But his highly trained battle instincts had already corrected the issue for him, using prediction instead of his eyes. And since his weapon had such a wide reach, he could keep Astaroth at bay.

After another five minutes of combat, the situation was still at a stalemate.

'Guess I'll have to go all in.'