New Eden: Live to Play, Play to Live



This had all started a decade prior, when Constantine was still a pro gamer. She had a vision of a golden being, promising her riches and power beyond her imagination, if she followed his instructions.

The younger Constantine had been charmed right away by the promises, whether they be true or not, and had immediately sworn fealty to this being of gold. But over the years, as he made her do things increasingly questionable, her adoration had waned little by little.

That was until he finally realized one of his promises, that of riches. Constantine's budding gaming company took off the ground, with a game called Tower of Babel, and money started flowing into her accounts in amounts she would have never dreamed of.

When she had met the golden being once more, though, he had revealed things to her that made her almost fall into despair.

"Your world will soon face an event that will put it on the brink of extinction. Your actions up till now were to make the world stronger as a whole, so it might survive. But you are far from done. There is one more step you need to do to ensure the survival of your species."

Constantine had begged the golden being to reveal what that was to her. It was at that moment that he had brought her through the veil and into New Eden.

Constantine couldn't believe her eyes. A world of magic and strength beyond compare. Beings of power rivalling the gods of legends in her home world.

But the golden being hadn't brought her here, simply to show her. He built her a new body, explaining to her that she would need to make as much of her kind traverse into this world as well, so they could become strong enough to resist the upcoming catastrophe.

Constantine never once doubted the benevolence of this golden being, who later revealed his name as Gaius, when he made her renew her vows of fealty. She vowed to bring humanity up to this world so they could survive; and he had only nodded his head.

Years passed before she could eventually create a technology with the highest experts in connectivity and VR in the world that she could use to bring her race to this new world.

Gaius had called this new world their salvation, their new beginning. New Eden.

And thus, once the technology was prototyped, and she was able to bring proof of her success to Gaius, the god had shown much pleasure in her success.

"With this, your kind will stand a chance against the coming times. Good work, Paladina. Keep on working this well for me, and you will have a place at the top of the new world order, once your kind tides through its harder times."

The promise of power over her kin had made her resolve even stronger to succeed, and only a few years after this, New Eden was finally ready to launch. All her efforts were finally going to bear fruit.

Gaius was on her side, trying to make humanity survive. He was a benevolent god in her mind, although prone to pangs of anger.

She had learned to walk around his mood swings with deftness and always managed to make sure he was pleased. Constantine didn't want the only god that hoped for their survival to suddenly abandon them.

He had told her that the other gods had already abandoned all hope for humankind and that he was the only one that still believed in their chances at survival. With this revelation, Constantine shunned the other gods and their lack of faith in them.

But as time went by, and they finally released New Eden, Constantine's mind started thinking about certain things. She would never admit to Gaius this, but she had started thinking he might not just be in this for their survival.

When attacks started happening around the world, with beasts that resembled things she had seen on the other side, she wondered why he had still not shown himself to the rest of humankind.

Constantine sighed loudly as she re-opened her eyes in her gaming pod.

"When will he tell the rest of the world that he is here to help us? If he did, so much more people would get into New Eden, to build up their strength. We could all survive this together."

Constantine couldn't help but want to make the announcement herself, but she couldn't, for two reasons.

The first one, very obvious, was that she would sound like a crazy person if she suddenly came out to the world, revealing she was having meetings with a god, and that she was trying to save humanity.

The second reason was that Gaius had forbidden her from doing so, saying he would take care of it in due time.

As she lifted herself out of her pod, she went back to her office, undoing the lockdown, and called her assistant back inside.

Once the assistant was at her side, Constantine thought of ways to find out which player had done something to make Gaius unhappy, but could only think of one man that might be capable of such.

"How are the preparations for David Magnus' capture going?"

Her assistant pulled out a tablet from her bag and turned it over to Constantine.

"We are almost done. But something came up that might throw a wrench into our plans, Ma'am."

Constantine frowned as she opened up the tablet.

They had found, not so long ago, David's whereabouts, and knew he was in the middle of building something. Constantine felt like this strangely resembled an end-of-the-world bunker and wondered what the man knew.

But now, the images she was scrolling through brought a scowl on her face.

"What is Jack Boudreau doing associating with this nobody? Why is he suddenly sending so much workforce to this construction?"

The assistant looked uneasy.

"We haven't been able to find out why, Ma'am. But we think that Mr. Magnus might have told something to Mr. Boudreau that convinced him to back the man completely."

"God damned old busybody," Constantine muttered under her breath.

"Set up a meeting with Jack. I want to know what his long game is, here."

"Yes, Ma'am. Right away, Ma'am."

Her assistant walked off, already putting her phone to her ear, and making calls.

'What do you know, David Magnus? Why do you act like you know more than me?' Constantine thought.

Her eyes turned to slits as she focused her gaze on the man's figure in the photos. He looked much paler than before, to an almost worrying degree.

'I will find out everything you know. Whether by hook or by crook. You don't deserve to keep this knowledge for yourself, you meddlesome child.'