New Eden: Live to Play, Play to Live

"You are up! I thought you wouldn\'t wake up for a long time, still."

"Ugh… My head hurts…" Astaroth uttered.

"You should log out quickly. It must have been hours ago that your IV depleted," Violette said.

"Yeah. I see the notifications. Should you do the same?" Astaroth asked groggily.

"I already have. I left Genie to guard you while I went. It only took me a few minutes," she responded.

"Alright, alright. I\'m going," Astaroth yielded.

He rapidly pressed the command to log out. He opened his eyes to the pod cover, slowly blinking in red with warnings.

He tapped the open button, pushing the top upward, before getting up from the pod. His body felt weary and battered, like he had been fighting, not lying down in gel.

\'This is the second time I feel this way when exiting the pod. How weird,\' Alexander thought.

He quickly resupplied the pod with new IV bags and lay back in. It was still the middle of the night, so he could play a few more hours before he had to come back out.

He rapidly logged back in, reappearing inside the desolate village. Astaroth looked around a little, but couldn\'t spot traces of the prior massacre.

Violette could see his eyes trailing and answered his silent query.

"I cleaned up the village a bit while you were unconscious. The bodies strewn about were making me nauseous and sad," she said, twirling her hands.

"Don\'t worry, I gave them a proper send-off," she added.

He slowly nodded at her answer, proud of her, but his head was still pounding. Astaroth sat back down next to a burnt tree.

Holding his head between his hands, Astaroth remembered something he wanted to ask.

"I\'ve been meaning to ask this. Did my body disappear while I was logged out? Or did it just stand there?" he asked the girl.

"You disappeared. But…" Violette started, before her look turned weird.

"Hmm?" Astaroth said, tilting his head.

"Well… Your presence was still there. Also, I could feel your mana still lingering. It was almost like you teleported away, not disappeared," Violette said, her little forehead creasing.

Astaroth took a few moments to digest the information. Someone less attuned to mana might have missed this, but Violette was almost as good as him at detecting it.

\'What could this mean,\' he wondered.

Now was not the time to ponder this matter, though, as they still had much distance to traverse. Today had already been a massive loss of time.

Astaroth looked inside himself, to see if everything was still the same, and there were his two soul companions, slowly orbiting his own soul.

But something caught his mind\'s eye when he observed his soul. Where there was only pristine white, a dark spot was now present.

\'Does one of you know when that happened or what it is?\' he asked internally, to his two spirits.

Luna only whimpered in response, still too young to talk. But White was a little more informative.

\'Master, this darkness appeared when we lost contact with you. And it was spreading, fast,\' White said, a tinge of worry in his tone.

From that statement alone, Astaroth could guess what this was. The angry wisps that had amassed around him when he lost control had corrupted his soul.

\'When did it rescind?\' he asked.

\'It started receding when you awoke again. And during your rest, it grew smaller until only this spot remained. But this seems to be staying this size, for now,\' White replied.

\'Thank you, White. I\'m sorry if I worried you two. I will try to never let that happen again,\' Astaroth promised.

White and Luna both pulsed in reassurance as Astaroth reopened his eyes. He turned his head to Violette and smiled.

"We\'ve lingered enough. Time to hit the road," he said.

Violette looked at him and frowned.

"Are you sure you are okay to travel? You look exhausted," she said to him.

"I\'ll be fine, Violette. Thank you for worrying about me. But everything will be ok," Astaroth answered, smiling warmly.

He was being honest with her, or at least he firmly believed everything would go back to normal. But Violette was still anxious.

She no longer objected to travelling, though. Arguing had never been in her nature, and Astaroth had a tendency to do what he wanted, anyway.

The duo left the dead village behind as they resumed their road to the east. Astaroth still had the coordinates pinned in his map for Sunpeak, so they knew which direction to go.

Their travels resumed the pace it had previously, going fast at times, and slower at others. But they made progress over the next few days.

The fact that they needed to disconnect every day, and could only be back around the evening, severely hampered their speed, but it was to be expected.

They made the pods for extended play, not perpetual, after all. So Astaroth and Violette made do with what they could, and set times to come back so they had the least waiting time possible.

After leaving the village, they had been near the Ash Elf border, so after a day more of travel, they had left that behind, already feeling safer.

Having the possibility of a military patrol catching them, or even an ambush always looming over their head, was mentally draining. They were happy to leave that behind.

The territory they were in now was neutral territory. The Ash Elves had always been segregated from the rest of the races by choice, not by racism.

And now that they were out of that territory, they crossed multiple villages with different races living together. Violette was once again fascinated to see so many different-looking people.

She would almost rudely stare at any new race they encountered along the way, Astaroth having to apologize for her misbehaviour.

But they were also being looked at weirdly, since Ash Elves weren\'t common outside of their territory. But it didn\'t seem to bother the pair.