New Eden: Live to Play, Play to Live

Far away from Bastion City, in the lands of the Ash Elves, another portal opened. This one led into the top floor of the tree that stood in Prince Nalafein's new territory.

Out from it stepped an elegant-looking older human woman, with pitch-black hair which was only sullied by a single strand of white hair, on her left bang.

Nemus watched as the portal opened, curious who was powerful enough to step into her newly hidden domain, aside from another god.

When the human woman walked out of the portal, the brightness of the room took aback her. But she rapidly saw where it came from.

"A goddess? I am honoured you have decided to make my old tower your domain, your grace. But I am perplexed as to why it is so heavily warded. If I hadn't established my teleportation circle centuries ago, I doubt I would have been able to enter at all."

Nemus looked at the woman up and down, but couldn't recognize her.

Seeing the goddess wasn't responding to her question, the mage woman bowed down.

"My apologies, your grace. I forgot to introduce myself. I am Edith of Themisca, Sorceress of a Thousand Spells, and founder of the kingdom of magic, Themiscus. At your service."

She did a low curtsy and smiled warmly at the goddess still sitting on her dais.

Nemus raised an eyebrow at the woman. She may not physically recognize her, but she had gathered information on the world ever since she was set free.

And the name Edith of Themisca was not an unfamiliar one to her. She finally opened her mouth to respond.

"The great sorceress, in the flesh. You don't look a day older than forty, Edith. Which is quite the achievement, for someone who recently crossed into her twentieth millennia of life."

Edith blushed lightly.

"You flatter me, your grace. You look quite ravishing yourself, if I may say. But I would like to know why a goddess has elected to make this old tree her domain, especially in the mortal realm, if you don't mind answering my question."

Nemus smiled warmly at her.

"My reasons are my own, and cannot be discussed lightly. But know that I cannot make my way elsewhere. So if you come to reclaim your home, I will have to inform you that you will need to co-habit with its current residents."

Edith raised an eyebrow.

"Residents? Plural?"

"Yes. And not just a few," Nemus responded.

"Ah… That is quite unfortunate. I would have preferred to be alone. Cohabiting with a goddess would not have bothered me. But other people… That is less ideal."

Nemus maintained her smile.

"Well. If they are already established and have your blessing, then I guess I will have to tolerate their presence," Edith said, brushing the matter aside.

She didn't have time to care more about this.

"If you don't mind, I will be making a hidden floor right under yours for my privacy. I will try to be as discreet as I can with my projects."

Nemus nodded her head.

"Thank you, your grace," Edith said, doing another curtsy.

After which, she drew sigils in the air before her, at an incredible speed, and formed an arcane circle with a complexity that would baffle any caster in this world.

Once the circle was complete, with hundreds upon hundreds of sigils composing it, a flash of blue light exploded outwards, and she disappeared from Nemus' floor.

She reappeared in an enclosed area, with no light to it. She had just created a subspace within the tree, and no one could access it except her.

"This will do just fine," Edith said to herself as she started conjuring out furniture.

Nemus, who was right above this subspace, frowned lightly.

"Why is one of the seven founders of the mage's guild coming back to their old mage tower? Don't they have a new seat of power?" she mumbled to herself.

But she had no way of finding out this information, without doing a larger sweep of the continent, and that would assuredly attract the attention of another god. And she wanted all but that, at the moment.

***

Around the world of New Eden, on both continents and even on an island stranded in the middle of the ocean between them, five more portals like those opened, with mages of different races walking out of them. All of which appeared in a large tree like the one in Bastion City.

These were the seven founders of the mage's guild, also known as the seven progenitors of magic.

These mages were believed to be so old, the world had forgotten when they had seen the light of day first. Their powers were unrivalled in the ways of magic, and could only be compared to minor deities.

Very few mages ever got to meet these seven mages, which were the last echelon in the mage's guild. Aberon had been one of these lucky few, but only because one of them had taken a liking to him.

It was also this one that had made sure he stayed out of trouble when he left the guild. He was lucky to be alive and free, given that most mages that did the same as him ended up dead, or imprisoned for life, which could be considered worst, given the life span of powerful magic users.

And right now, these seven figures of great power were on the move, for the first time since the demon war, that had happened over two thousand years ago. But very few people would know about it until they made their moves out in the open.

Aberon knew he couldn't just talk about this openly, as he risked death. And the only other that had seen one of them, Argos, already had his memory altered.

In his mind, one of the other arch mages had come and settled the issue with Aberon, and they had castigated him. So he would never talk about what really transpired that day.

Only time would dictate this event and its repercussions.