Viridian Gate Online: Schism: A litRPG Adventure (The Heartfire Healer Series Book 2)

by E. C. Godhand

  To my surprise, the bees would disappear in a poof and reappear as a normal bee that paused in midair. One started dancing, then the others. I finished cleansing the bees, and all of them danced as one unit. I collected some honey from an apiary and compared its golden, sticky hue to that of the corrupted honey in the little girl’s jar. Still, the bees danced. I studied their moves, then joined them out of a curious impulse.

  I mimicked the way they sashayed forward three steps, waggling their bodies, then turned to the left, about-faced, and returned to their starting point with a flourish. It felt like a sort of waltz, and I counted out loud to keep in time.

  One, two, three. Step, two, three. Spin, two, three...

  After a bit, I had the hang of it, and even had fun rocking my hips and dipping my shoulders. When I glanced down to make sure I wasn’t stepping over my own feet, I noticed a map of sorts had appeared in the grass where my sandals had worn the blades to the dirt.

  “Whatcha doing, Lil’ Sis?” asked an unfamiliar woman’s voice.

  I froze, my arms still in the air, and turned on a dime. The little girl had returned, accompanied by two grown women. Sun-Setters, En’Etailar, the priests of the Dawn Elves, I presumed by their garb.

  “Uh... dancing with the bees?”

  The woman on the right, tall and thin, but muscular, appeared about twenty weeks pregnant, judging by the white bandage wrapped around her chest that also supported her bulging belly. Her orange robes mimicked the pleated pants and open jacket of the elves I saw earlier. In a way, she reminded me of a monk, though I had never seen a monk carry two round chakrams at their hip. Her skin glowed a healthy bronze, and her cropped fiery orange hair reminded me of my chaplain friend Retta’s hair.

  The woman on the left looked her total opposite. Delicately framed and shorter, she had paler skin with long white hair in which purple flowers were braided. She wore a white top with a pleated navy skirt, overlaid by a gauzy white fabric embroidered with stars. It was all wrapped together by a thick cloth belt pinned in place with braided trinkets, and a long black robe hung loose off her arms.

  I couldn’t quite place what influenced the different clothing styles worn by these elves, but this woman’s holy robes reminded me of the beautiful traditional hanfu my mother would watch in her ancient Chinese dramas.

  She leaned on an ebony staff and inspected me, then the bees. Multiple rings dangled from the staff, and it curved in a moon shape at the top. She held out her staff and twirled it around until incense dispersed from a burning censer inside the metal-moon. The bees calmed at the smoke and went back to their hives.

  I brought my feet together and crossed my arms to hug myself. Embarrassing myself in front of the new clerics, who had much cooler gear than me, was not the ideal way of introducing myself.

  “Thank you,” she said to the little girl. “Run along and play now.”

  The first woman in orange stepped forward with large strides and inspected the traced path underneath my feet. “And what did the bees tell you?” she asked.

  “Well, it’s a map. I think,” I said.

  She nodded in affirmation as if this were a very natural and common occurrence, then whistled and put her hands on her hips. “Here I thought the Commissar wouldn’t bother,” she muttered.

  “I’m Keres, Intercessor of the Ardent Dawn, Disciple of Zar’yi,” she said with a deep bow. “You must be Liset, the troublemaker who can help us.”

  I laughed. “I see my reputation precedes me.”

  The other woman stepped forward and held her hand out as if she were inspecting me. “As all reputations should,” she said. “I’m Bri’jit. I’m also a Sun-Setter, or En’Etaila in our tongue. We’re the spiritual leaders of the Hvitalfar here in the Avilynn woods.”

  “I assume you follow the Aspect Zar’ya?” I asked.

  Bri’jit nodded. “Of the Halcyon Dusk. We work together to set the sun in the sky.”

  “And on lives who threaten our people,” added Keres.

  “Huh. Neat.” I clicked my tongue. “I haven’t met a lot of priests who weren’t all told to be clones of one another. Can you tell me a bit more about what you do?”

  Bri’jit paused as if thinking. “You’re a Traveler like me, right? Did you ever play any games before this?”

  “All the time.”

  “Okay, so, imagine Keres went Smite-Spec. She focuses on unleashing devastating damage. Her job is to protect the lives of us Dawn Elves. But don’t be fooled. She may be the resident gynecologist, but she’ll punish anyone who threatens our people.”

  Keres emphasized this by pulling out her chakrams in both hands in one fluid motion. “We may only be able to use blunt weapons, but our enemies will wish they were lethal.”

  I nodded, slightly intimidated and intrigued by her.

  “Think of me as going, like, Grave-Spec,” said Bri’jit. “We share a few abilities since we’re the same class, but I do some CC, er, crowd control, and I have a healing spell or two to protect my partner.”

  Keres rubbed her belly and smiled at me. “Every Dawn Elf life is sacred and to be treasured. We live a long time, little sister.”

  Bri’jit hooked arms with Keres. “What about you?”

  I wasn’t sure how to answer that. I knew my class, I played it well, better than any of the others who followed Jericho’s strict rules to maximize the number of heals cast over survivability or utility. But with all his rules, such as the one against taking Duality at level 15 that let me do damage, I wasn’t sure how to describe the complexity of—

  “I’m a healer,” I said. “I was a doctor back on Earth, so it made sense.”

  Bri’jit’s eyes sparkled. “I was a mortician back on Earth,” she said. “Here, my job is to tend to the dead in the nearby crypt, the Heroes’ Rest.”

  I laughed. “Oh, so you’re the last person to let anyone down? I like you already.”

  Bri’jit giggled. “I always kind of wanted to be cremated myself. Last chance for a smokin’ hot bod,” she said, nudging Keres with her hip.

  Keres grabbed her about the waist and planted a kiss on her cheek as if to emphasize she already had one.

  I missed Kismet.

  Bri’jit blushed and pushed her lover off with a giggle. “Anyway, this map you made,” she said, looking it over thoughtfully, “it kind of looks like the path to the mausoleum.

  “Dawn Elves live so long, we kind of forget how to die. Every so often we must perform rituals to appease the spirits of our ancestors, to keep them at rest, or they start to wander again. We Dawn Elves hate death so much we cannot stay dead. Originally, the tales say it was so that they could help us, but that um... that isn’t usually the case. Dead people don’t come back to life happy. You know?”

  I nodded. I did understand how that would usually be the case, even if I were overjoyed to die the night before.

  “Because of the blight,” said Bri’jit, gesturing to the bees resting around us, “we can’t safely get there. Reports from the scouts are that the dead are consuming any flesh they find, and we cannot possibly compete for resources with all our ancestors. Besides, it’s just not the natural order of things.”

  I didn’t want to tell her the bad news then that Travelers allegedly resurrected after eight hours. At least according to Gigi, the Darkling priest I had met out in Ankara, who was totally not a hallucination I had in a drunken stupor. Therion seemed to confirm the rumors though.

  I explained my quest, The Birds and the Zombees, to them, and how I had the spell they were looking for that would cleanse the blight. I left out the part where I was gathering as much money as I could so I could involuntarily retire early.

  Bri’jit laughed. “Is that what Cernunnos is calling it?”

  “Well, I mean, I got the quest from Gaia,” I corrected.

  “Sure. Sure, you believe that,” said Bri’jit. “It’s hard to know what Aspect serves what god, or what god grants us which quests, so of course you’d think everything cam
e from the one you believed in.”

  “You’re from the Temple of Areste, right?” asked Keres.

  I nodded.

  “Is Areste an aspect of Gaia?” she asked.

  “I don’t actually know,” I said. “Are your aspects of Cernunnos?”

  Keres scoffed. “That’s what the ancestors say, so surely—”

  I shook my head. “Look, forget I said it. That doesn’t matter. So, you’re saying we have to deal with undead now?”

  Bri’jit stiffened. “They are not undead. They are re-dead. There’s a difference.”

  “That’s a dumb name, but what’s the difference?” I said.

  “It has to do with sentience, and awareness of the death, and having a strong will—look, never mind,” said Bri’jit. “Call them undead if you want. You’ll just be wrong.”

  She took a deep breath to calm herself, and I took the matter as settled. But the grave cleric wasn’t done.

  “See, the REAL difference is—” she said.

  Keres groaned. “Oh Gaia, this again!”

  She turned to me. “Look, what the pretty lady is trying to tell you is that years and years ago, we used to live in Ravenkirk. We tended to the catacombs underground as was proper. But when the Wodes attacked us, thinking to drive us back to Alaunhylles, we had to expand the crypts. Now, again, we live hundreds of years. To have so many graves that we cannot attend to them properly, was only because—”

  Keres clenched her fists and stared off into the distance. “It was a massacre,” she whispered with the haunting timbre of a memory.

  Bri’jit rubbed her lover’s arms to soothe her. “The Wodes eventually took the city. They walled off our ancestors into a crypt and called it the Catacombs of the Forsaken.”

  Keres scoffed bitterly. “As if they were mocking us! Now it’s a dungeon, and our honored dead, my parents and grandparents, are murdered over and over as if for sport.”

  Bri’jit wrapped her arms around Keres’ neck and shushed her. Keres stared ahead with murderous intent.

  I crossed my arms as I listened. These two seemed like they needed a moment.

  Eventually, Bri’jit looked back at me. “The tanner’s boy went missing two days ago. Off to search for Laceflowers to wed Esvy.”

  I nodded. I had that quest.

  “They found his body yesterday, but with those bite marks on him, I almost wish they hadn’t,” said Bri’jit.

  The blood drained from my face as my quest updated.

  “I’m worried that if we don’t handle this situation, and fast, that’s going to happen to everyone here before the winter starves us out. And even if we manage to fight them off night after night, with what little supplies we have, Cernunnos might decide to make the mausoleum a dungeon as well to spare us.”

  “Neither of which are good options,” I said.

  “Neither of which are good options,” she confirmed. “Will you help us? I need to collect some grave flowers first to perform my ritual, but we need to put the dead to rest.”

  “Of course I will,” I said, uncrossing my arms. “Can you share that quest with me?”

  <<<>>>

  Quest Update: Birds and the Zombees

  <<<>>>

  Quest Alert: Ain’t No Grave

  It is not enough to just find and cleanse the source of the blight. The infection has become systemic. The forest itself will become septic if you don’t act quickly. Help the Sun-Setters get to the mausoleum, the Heroes’ Rest, put to rest any risen dead, and prevent it from becoming a dungeon before another civilization is destroyed.

  As they say, always go to people’s funerals, or they’ll go to yours.

  Quest Class: Rare; Race-specific; Class-specific

  Quest Difficulty: Hard

  Success: Get to the Heroes’ Rest, cleanse the Blighted Gardens, and prevent the dungeon from forming within 8 hours. Bri’jit must survive.

  Optional: Collect (5) Bonedust, (5) Fear-Me-Nots, (10) Sour Poppies, (2) Funeral Bark, (10) Corrupted Grave Dirt

  Failure: Allow the mausoleum to become a dungeon; Bri’jit dies.

  Reward: 15,000 XP; 100 renown; Increased Reputation with the Whispering Grove; 5 gold plus costs of healing.

  Accept: Yes/No?

  <<<>>>

  I studied the quest. As good a cause as it was, I hoped the city had the money to pay me, or I’d be better off working back at Aesop’s Tables. We didn’t have long. It was already past noon, and putting the bees’ directions up to my map, the trek to the mausoleum was more like a pilgrimage.

  “Is it really that far?” I asked. “Not that this isn’t important, but I’m kind of in a rush.”

  “Why is that?” asked Bri’jit.

  I paused and thought of something truthful, but not fully honest. “My friend Hector’s funeral is tomorrow.”

  “I’m truly sorry for your loss,” said Bri’jit. “We’ll go as quickly as we can.”

  “Yeah, well. I hope it’s in the afternoon. I was never a mourning person.”

  She stifled a laugh out of professional courtesy.

  The Hidden Hand

  The trek was exhausting, and we had barely started. I saw now why Robby had donated Skyla the horse to my cause. I was already sweating and catching my breath and we had barely left a few minutes before. Not that I wanted the mausoleum to be nearby, especially if there was a risk that the dead would rise. No one wanted Grandma peeking through the window at dinner, let alone her walking corpse.

  “Do you really have to walk this every day?” I asked breathlessly.

  Keres laughed and picked up a spring to her step, obviously unencumbered by her condition. “You’re tired because your constitution is so low,” she scolded.

  That was true. My Health was about 400 HP, and my Spirit almost 600 SP, but I hadn’t put a single point into Constitution. My Stamina was pitiful.

  “What is it your kind say? ‘Find faith in the gods, and you will run and not grow weary’?” Keres stopped ahead to wait for me, then pushed her hand against my back to keep me walking. “Come on now, pick up the pace.”

  Bri’jit defended me. “Leave her be. Her temple has a strict code regarding distributing stat points. She can’t help it,” she said. She swatted Keres’ hand away and hooked arms with me like I was a frail aging grandmother. “When there’s no blight, it’s normally a peaceful walk. Meditative, even,” she said.

  “Except when we find trespassers,” said Keres.

  “Yeah,” I said. “The Commissar mentioned that only Dawn Elves were allowed?”

  “It’s nothing personal against the other races,” said Bri’jit. “It’s not like we’ll shoot them on sight or anything. We’re all Viridians now, after all. But this is the holy ground of our ancestors’ home. You wouldn’t let just anyone into your elderly mother’s home, would you?”

  I remembered sending my mother off on a plane to China with every dollar I had, hoping it would save her from the asteroid headed towards Earth. I shut my eyes and didn’t want to think about whether it worked or not.

  “And if any rebels happen to be in the territory, then we shoot them on sight,” said Keres.

  “That uh... happen often?” I asked.

  “Enough that they know better now.”

  I side-eyed her wide grin. Keres was a little intense, to say the least, but as a native, maybe she couldn’t help it.

  “I’ve had some experience fighting. I can’t say I like it, but I think I do alright. Better than the other Hieromancers. The temple may call me selfish for focusing on survivability of everyone in the party, including myself, but they’re mostly mad I won’t earn more money by maximizing the number of heals I cast.”

  “It’s hard to earn money if you’re dead,” added Bri’jit.

  “Do you have Duality yet?” asked Keres.

  “I’m only level eleven. I don’t get Duality until fifteen. But it doesn’t matter, all damaging spells, any DPS at all, is banned. In fact, hah,” I said, thinking I might as well
come clean for once, “the truth is, I’m going to be excommunicated tomorrow. Because I couldn’t heal Hector fast enough.” I didn’t expect there to be a knot in my chest, but suddenly... there was.

  Bri’jit rubbed my shoulder. “Your friend who died?”

  “Yeah.”

  They exchanged worried looks. Like when I confessed to my mother and father that a classmate was stealing my backpack and hiding it in the locker room.

  Bri’jit spoke first. “Liset, we heard the stories from the Black Temple. Now, I’m the first to admit I don’t know how many of them are true, or what exactly happened, but one is that the exarch sent you and the other priests after Cian hoping to get you killed. Is that true?”

  I nodded and swallowed hard. It was the truth. But why was it so hard to say, suddenly?

  “So he sent you all on a suicide mission and then blames you for someone dying?”

  “I think more so he blames me for not dying, but that’s part of it, yeah,” I said.

  Keres spun on her heels and walked backwards with fire in her eyes. “And he’s supposed to be the Empire’s ‘spiritual father’? What, does he make a baby cry then have the audacity to scream at them for doing so?” She cracked her knuckles as if she were ready to march north to the mountains and beat Jericho herself. “What sort of disrespectful scab of an exarch is this man? What a mo’hui piz kaz’kin—”

  Bri’jit gasped. “Language!”

  I didn’t fully grasp the insult, but I picked up it meant someone with a short life who was shortsighted enough to not realize what trouble they were causing. That was an insult on non-elves, and a thinly veiled threat, all at the same time. The implications were that he was unworthy of living for long.

  Keres sucked in air to steel herself. “I apolo—no, no I don’t. To Morsheim with your temple, Liset, if they treat you so poorly.” She paused in her tracks and grabbed me by the shoulders. “Look at me, little sister. Hear my words and try to understand me as best you can. A priest is holy and to be protected. You are to be held sacred. Your life matters. Your thoughts and feelings matter. You matter. What do you think your shield is? It’s a boundary you put up that tells others ‘You will not harm me. I am of the divine.’ Why shouldn’t you protect yourself? Why shouldn’t that look like smiting those that refuse to respect what the gods have claimed holy?”