A New World, an immersive game experience

Moving closer to the rocket-like thrusters Eldrian was attaching to the corners, Elizabeth frowned. They were actually only cylinders with some engravings. "Eldrian?"

"Truthfully, I\'ve yet to test if things will work. Didn\'t have the time. So just hold tight to the handrails."

"What handrails?" Elizabeth asked. Other than the \'thrusters\' and the hook at the front, there was nothing else attached to the black platform. Not to mention how hard it was to see where it started and where it ended. Especially when no one wanted to cast a light spell, wary of drawing attention.

"Oh, right." Nodding, Eldrian explained how it was supposed to work. "Just step on here, and you should feel that the floor is a mana conduit."

It took a few minutes, but soon everyone was in their place and guiding the flow of their mana into the dark slime. When they did, the dark slime platform morphed to give them a handhold, to hold on to. Though everyone was still dubious about how this was going to work.

"Why not make it form chairs?" someone asked.

"There\'s a limit to how much it can change." Eldrian explained, confirming everything was in order. He then asked Ceph to start running, pulling the \'sleigh\' along. Once they were fast enough, they took flight. Or rather, Ceph pulled it along as he took flight.

Naturally, this caused a commotion, but nothing a few spells couldn\'t hide. Once they were in the sky, it was near impossible to see them. The only indication that they were there was that stars would flicker out of sight.

"Right, seems to have worked." Eldrian smiled. While it wasn\'t the most practical, it was a way to allow others the ability of flight. Though this flight wasn\'t quite what most would have in mind when hearing the idea.

After looking around, he confirmed that no one else was nearby, so he followed after Ceph. His wings were faintly visible, his green feathers not completely visible.

\'Mmm, seems Ceph is quite a bit slower than normal,\' Eldrian noted. But, of course, that was to be expected. After all, Ceph was hauling 14 people behind him. \'And it\'s... deforming a little.\'

That was certainly not the most notable thing. But Eldrian decided to ignore how everyone was holding off for dear life. Luckily, they didn\'t need to fly for long.

After clearing the wall, they searched for somewhere to land. Eldrian went ahead to clear any straggling undead from finding them.

Climbing off, or rather walking/falling off, everyone hugged the ground. Once they made sure that noise wouldn\'t carry, the complaints flew in.

"What the heck!" Vivian shouted. "Nothing worked!"

"I thought I was going to die."

"That was terrifying."

Eldrian tuned most of the complaints out, only focusing on the things he considered actual problems. Which was everything. Everything but the dark slime had failed.

None of his stabilizers had activated, and what was supposed to measure the tilt of the platform had done no such thing.

Luckily, when the dark slime lost its form, everyone just needed to push more mana into it to make it rigid again. That, however, left everyone tired. Though it was more emotional than anything else. Ceph had supplied 90% of the mana to keep things from falling apart. Which was part of the plan. After all, Ceph had over 10k mana to work with.

"How was it?" Eldrian asked Ceph, the one who had carried all the burden.

"I don\'t recommend it. Had to feed it about two thousand mana to stop it from falling apart."

"I see." Nodding, Eldrian concluded it had been a success, but also a failure. "Right, guess we can\'t skip right to flight. Need to test things first."

"Of course." Ceph nodded. "But we didn\'t have time, so I get why."

"Thanks."

At this point, however, Judith had to ask. "Hey, Eldrian. Why the heck didn\'t we just teleport into the city?"

"Well, I wanted to test a few things. Also wanted to see how everyone faired against the undead."

"And?"

"I mean, everyone was capable enough. Also managed to figure out how the undead reacted. So our plans should be possible. Once everyone has recovered, we should move to join the defense."

—

"Thank you for coming to our aid!" a portly centaur shouted, having rushed over upon hearing the news of reinforcements being at the gate. Of course, proper checks had been done to ensure they weren\'t devils in disguise.

He certainly made an impression. It was Eldrian\'s first time seeing an overweight centaur, and it reminded him of way back when he first played the game. Though, Eldrian felt it was even stranger for a centaur to gain weight than an elf.

"Are you the mayor?" Eldrian asked as a courtesy, having already inspected everyone\'s stats and affiliation. A habit of his to reduce the chances of being caught off guard.

"Indeed. Admien, at your service."

"I thought you would have evacuated by now."

"Nonsense! How can I leave my people?"

\'He seems the indulgent type, but I guess he\'s a good guy—centaur?\' Eldrian thought, introducing himself and those with him next. He also explained the plans that Pelaros and the duke had decided on.

"For now, we will train people on how to use the cannons safely. Their quite user-friendly, but that also means we cannot allow them to fall into enemy hands. Every user must know how to destroy the cannons when the time comes."

A few hours later, things had settled down. There was the occasional cannon barrage, and the occasional rock or corpse being flung at and over the district walls. But there was no outright attack.

Granted, once the cannons had appeared on the walls, the undead had rushed in for an attack. Only to be blown to smithereens. The cannons were now aiming at the siege weapons within range. Judith was leading a small group to make them mobile, spreading some chaos among the enemy ranks.

"I must say, these cannons are far more accurate than the ones I managed to buy in the capital." Admien said. "Sadly, we always run out of ammunition within the hour."

"How so?" Eldrian asked, and upon listening, he could do nothing but frown.

The defenders would overly rely on the cannons when they had ammo. Sending volley after volley to keep the undead at bay. Hoping to do damage and buy themselves some time to rest. Sadly, this meant they quickly ran out of ammo.

And since the old cannons were so mana inefficient, it also lowered the amount of mana crystals they had on hand. Not to mention, there had only been six cannons.

For the most part, their defense was covered by the magic towers and their elites. The city itself had been overrun, but the inner districts had stood fast.

\'Its sad, but that is the problem about only having a few capable warriors,\' Eldrian thought with a sigh. It was the same problem that occurred when he was the strongest on the battlefield (on his side). Where he was, things were relatively okay, where he wasn\'t...

Everyone could only be in one place at a time. They could only cover, and thus protect, so much ground.