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

by E. C. Godhand

  I drank while I thought.

  I could run. I could throw a bunch of cabbage carts behind me on my way out, but we were in the middle of the city and my Constitution was so low I’d just be caught tired. There wasn’t any way out that I could figure, but bless Corvus for recognizing I didn’t want to do this sober.

  I checked my inventory for another drink. My Orb of Antishade was missing...?

  “PUT. THAT. DOWN!” shrieked a woman’s voice near us.

  I obeyed immediately, placing the bottle gently on the ground. I don’t know why I did that. I wanted to keep drinking. I spun around and saw Commissar Cecilia storming over to us with several heavily armored, armed Inquisition soldiers beside her.

  “Arrest this woman,” she commanded, pointing to me.

  I glanced to Kismet, who watched helplessly, confused, as her comrades grasped my arms and wrists to keep me from casting.

  The Commissar grabbed me by the chin and made me look at her. “I saw you pickpocket from the doctor. Empty your inventory of your pilfered goods, or you will pay in blood.”

  I blinked. I knew better than to protest. Isn’t this what I wanted, technically?

  The soldiers patted me down and pulled items out of my inventory: the gold I had made today, my remaining ingredients, and the PvP set Keres had gifted me.

  “Tch. I knew it,” said the Commissar. “Grand larceny. Give these items back to the doctor at once.”

  The soldiers obeyed, handing the bundles to Corvus.

  “Commissar, I think there’s been a misunderstanding,” intervened Kismet.

  The fuss hadn’t gone unnoticed on the common. A crowd was forming and gossiping amongst themselves. One of the ears the whispers landed on was Prioress Vita, who parted the crowd and hailed the Commissar.

  “I think I can clear this up,” she said, her voice sweet and gentle. “Those are my items. I gifted them to my sister, but she forgot the rest.” Prioress Vita reached into her coin pouch and pulled out a few coins. “You’re a Traveler, too, aren’t you? You forgot to account for your own portion.”

  The Commissar glared at her in annoyance. Though my arms were held at chin height by the soldiers, I waved my hand across my neck, mouthing for her to stop helping.

  “Is this true?” asked the Commissar.

  “Yes.”

  The Commissar let out a huff and looked me over, her lips pursed and her brow furrowed. She settled on the holy book bound to my wrist.

  “Tsk, tsk,” she muttered. “Even her holy book is stolen.” She shook her head in disgust. “Who steals a holy book?”

  “Liset would never steal anything but a kiss,” protested Yvonne.

  The Commissar turned to Kismet. “Did Liset steal this holy book?”

  I slowly turned my head and stared at Kismet.

  Kismet sighed. “Yes, Commissar, she did. Four days ago.”

  “That settles it, then.”

  Olivia stepped forward. “If I could interject—”

  “You may not,” said the Commissar.

  “This is nonsense. Those are obviously earnings from the quest I sent her on, and therefore rightful tithes to the temple,” protested Olivia.

  “Shut your mouth,” said the Commissar.

  Olivia blinked oddly, then shook her head and rubbed her temple. “Okay, maybe she did steal it. His Holiness was right about her. But she should be tried for her crimes against the temple first. Then we will return her for your justice.”

  “You will do no such thing. The Temple of Areste has no jurisdiction over the Empire.”

  “Do I need to escalate this to the High Commander?” said Olivia.

  “Go home,” said the Commissar.

  Without another word, Olivia unfurled a scroll and walked through a portal.

  I wanted whatever charisma Commissar Cecilia had.

  I took it back when the Commissar slapped me across the cheek, hard.

  “You priests annoy me,” she muttered. “Lock her up. We’ll deal with her later.”

  Except for God

  I reeled from the slap and fell. Inquisition boots, not Kismet’s, came into vision in the dirt in front of the embers of the bonfire. I felt a sharp prick in my arm, then the world faded away.

  I woke up, drowsy, sometime later that night with my hands bound in front of me. When I tried to stand, I found my ankles were bound with chains, and tripped. They had stripped me of my vestments and my holy book and placed me in the starting gear: a burlap sack with a rope. I inched my way in the dark to the door and felt iron bars.

  I was in prison. So I had that going for me.

  At least I wasn’t branded and sent to a workcamp. I was surprised. If they were willing to do that to someone over a forty-gold medical debt, surely a fifty-gold holy book would’ve earned it. I wasn’t about to complain though. Not yet. They could always decide what to do with me after a trial.

  I leaned against the stone wall and looked up. A beam of weak moonlight shone through a high window. I had to be at the Inquisitor’s Hall. I sighed in relief. At least it wasn’t the temple. I checked my status effects:

  <<<>>>

  Debuffs Added

  Affka Withdrawal: The dose makes the poison, and you had a bit too much. Taking another dose will remove the effect, but at risk of addiction.

  Attack damage -25%, Stamina Regeneration reduced by 10%; duration, 3 hours

  <<<>>>

  Great.

  Shortly, a Jailer showed up. I couldn’t see their face in the shadows. They commanded me to come near the bars. When I didn’t comply, they called a second Jailer to help dose me again. I didn’t think I was such a threat that they’d keep me from casting to this degree, but perhaps it was standard. As I passed out on the cold stone floor, I envied the Affka addicts in their den for their dirty mattress and freedom.

  I woke up some time later, perhaps morning. No light shone through the window this time. I figured I was on the western side of the Keep. I checked my status effects again and my heart sank:

  <<<>>>

  Prisoner’s Affka: Reduces your ability to perceive pain and slows down HP loss by 25% by lowering your heart rate. Can produce hallucinations and an inability to focus, drowsiness and stupor in higher doses.

  Int and Spirit -25%. Produces withdrawal effects; duration, 6 hours

  <<<>>>

  You are now addicted to Affka.

  <<<>>>

  I see. It was a chemical restraint like we’d use for unruly patients who were a danger to themselves or others. They forced me to my knees but didn’t want me to pray. I pulled at the shackles around my wrists and looked at the damage mitigation. They didn’t want me to hurt myself trying to break out, either. It wasn’t quite the dead bind room that Kismet said Cian would be kept in, whatever that meant, but they wanted to make sure I didn’t act like Rodion had and use the death mechanic to teleport. I wondered how they might’ve learned they needed to do that with us Travelers.

  Part of me wished the Prioress Vita would visit me in prison. Isn’t that what minister types were supposed to do?

  I had gotten myself here, so I’d have to get myself out somehow. I had bought time, but who knew how long I had or how the trial would go? I didn’t know how to pick locks. I didn’t have a lockpick even if I did. In my panic to get away from the Justiciar, I hadn’t anticipated what I’d do once I got here. I felt like such a screwup.

  Well, no, that wasn’t completely true. At least, that’s not what I’d tell a patient if they came to me. I’d tell them extreme independence was a trauma response. Feeling like you always had to do it yourself and never depending on anyone else, that was a learned behavior so no one let you down. By not putting yourself in a position to be vulnerable, by always finding a way out alone, you protected yourself from being disappointed in their inadequacies.

  And maybe you thought caring for others might endear them to you, might make them indebted to not let you down again. But in the end, they’d leave against medical advice wi
thout paying their bill, so to speak, and you’d have to clean up the bloody mess of reviving them yourself. And then you’d tend to yourself and the mess they made of you, this wounded, brokenhearted fool who thought giving a damn mattered and you might be worth more than your usefulness to them. And you’d go cry in the chapel, alone.

  The good news about the chapel was that, as a priestess, I could take it anywhere I was.

  What was it my mother always said when I’d get anxious?

  “Muddy water clears when it’s left alone,” she’d murmur, shaking her head and fixing my hair for me. I missed her. I thought I had prepared myself for losing her, and Earth, but I don’t think awareness of the fact itself was sufficient. No matter how old I got or how much of an adult I became, with every year that passed, I still wanted my mother. I thought I had to be independent like she was after Ba-Ba died, but I bet she missed him, too. The heart just healed around the space where they were.

  Maybe I lost the mother I had on Earth, the one person I could depend on who truly gave a damn about me. But I hadn’t lost the Mother of Creation here on Eldgard.

  I pushed myself to my knees to get comfortable and rested my bound hands in my lap with my eyes closed. I just sat with the feelings, letting them be, until the turbulence stilled.

  The thing my chaplain friend Retta said about prayer was that you should never lie when you pray; Providence knows you better. You also don’t sugarcoat things or try to justify what you want or need. You just lay it out there as plainly and honestly as possible and feel whatever is true without focusing on what you “should” feel. You pray with all of your being and concentrate. You don’t stop halfway through and wonder what better things you could be doing, or what tasks lie ahead of you afterwards. Your focus is on your prayer, as if it’s the most important, most true thing you’ll ever say. Then things become remarkably simple.

  “I feel I don’t know what I’m supposed to do, and I’m scared. Please, help me,” I whispered to the ether.

  When the words left my lips, I realized I never once actually asked Gaia for help. Even babies knew how to cry for help. It was their first instinct to get their needs met. It showed they were healthy and strong. How else would the mother know they were needed?

  That’s how I spent the day: sleeping, waking, praying. Occasionally an Inquisitor would stop by with gruel and Affka. I’d sleep again until it wore off, and then I’d pray through the withdrawals until the next meal and dose of Affka. The drug appeared to have diminishing returns with each subsequent dose.

  After supper’s dose, I didn’t sleep at all. Instead, I resumed my prayer.

  Anyone could slay a dragon with enough levels and the right gear. But waking up every morning in a world like the one we left behind, a world like the one we lived in now, with all of its cruelty and pain and fear and death, it was hard to love it and its people all the same. If we were truly created in God’s image there, and if we created the gods here, then I imagined it was just as hard for Gaia to love the world and its inhabitants as it was for us.

  All the same, I didn’t know where else to turn.

  Throughout the day, a woman had mopped the jail cells of the Inquisition Hall. I hadn’t paid her much mind, figuring she was doing her job, but the fact that she was still there hours later, still mopping the same spots over and over, seemed odd.

  I couldn’t cast any healing spells, but Acuity only required a simple wave of my hand. I saw a name over her head: Bella Jourdain.

  Bella was average height, much taller than me, and slender but not delicate like my elven frame. She sported neck-length black hair, fair skin, and sky-blue eyes similar in color and shape to mine. I tried to tune out the sloshing of her mop and resume my prayers.

  “Gaia, please, I need guidance. I need your aid. I don’t know what to do. You know my past, present, and future possibilities. Nothing is unknown to you. When I worry about what is ahead of me, please calm my fears with the knowledge that you go before me. I will never be alone because you will always be with me,” I prayed.

  Slosh, slosh. The cleaning woman seemed like she was getting aggravated, and I couldn’t focus with her incessant sloshing. Occasionally she’d scrape the metal bucket across the stone floor with an ear-piercing screech, and resume cleaning the same spots over and over. Maybe it was the withdrawal of the Affka making my skin itch. Maybe it was the fact it was now evening, judging by how low the sun had sunk beyond the high window, leaving warm traces of orange light lingering in the rafters of the prison, and me in shadows.

  Maybe it was the fact that Prioress Vita still hadn’t visited me. No one had. It’s like I had been forgotten and left to rot once my usefulness was over.

  No answer still from the All-Mother. I sighed and whispered, “Look, Gaia, I just wanna talk...”

  Bella let out a heavy sigh and slammed her mop in the bucket. “And what would you talk about?” she said finally, putting a hand on her hip.

  I kept my eyes shut. “That’s between me and Gaia, isn’t it?”

  Bella chuckled and stepped closer to the bars. “Oh, is it now? Because I have been listening to you all day. My only reprieve from your incessant prayers is when you’re drugged.”

  “Well, what else am I supposed to do?” I asked, holding up my shackles. “If I wanted to get screwed so hard I couldn’t walk for a week, I’d just ask Kismet.”

  She didn’t laugh.

  “It’s not fair,” I said. “Gaia’s sent me to help other people, but she’s not going to send anyone for me?”

  Bella scoffed. “You think you’re funny, don’t you?”

  “You wanna hear a joke?”

  Bella sighed as if she had a choice.

  “When Gaia made me, she made me funny. And I said, ‘Thank you. Will that make me happy, too?’ And Gaia said—”

  “Wow. You are funny,” said Bella.

  I frowned. She stole my punch line.

  Bella stepped closer to the iron bars, and so did I. My knees were reddened, and my legs ached, so I hobbled, but I met her face-to-face.

  “What do you think is going to happen, dear?” asked Bella. “Do you think Gaia’s going to just show up and pinch your cheeks like this?” she asked, painfully pinching my cheeks through the grille. “And do you think she’ll go, ‘Oh, my sweet baby. My poor child. Mama loves you. Let me take care of this for you’?” she asked, cupping my cheeks.

  I blushed and felt tears sting my eyes. “I mean,” I said, my voice cracking. I swallowed hard. “That’d be nice to hear for once.”

  Bella laughed. When she saw my expression, she stepped back and concern clouded her face. “What, has no one ever said they loved you before?”

  “Does my mother count?” I asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Then no.”

  She let out a whistle and clicked her tongue. “Oh. That’s rough.”

  I hung my head. I don’t know why I felt so embarrassed, but it was hard to admit that to a stranger. Yet I felt like I knew this woman. Maybe it was the odd fact that she stayed to mop around my cell and would go over the same spots without moving on, like she was listening. It felt as natural to tell her as it did to pray to Gaia, but even that didn’t come easily.

  I peered closer. Merchant-Craft told me this was no ordinary cleaning woman; her boots were of a fine leather and her lip color was like the pocket rouge Kismet carried. And yet, the skill also told me she wasn’t lying to me and that she didn’t have any ill intent.

  “Anyway,” said Bella, “what are you worried about? Who taught you to be so fearful?”

  I looked up. “What?”

  Bella grinned and chuckled. “I am sick of hearing you muttering to yourself about ‘oh woe is me this’ and ‘Gaia, please help me that.’ You feel abandoned, and I get that. But did Gaia abandon you, dear?” she asked, leaning closer to the bars. “So who taught you to fear?”

  I bit my lip and thought about it. Jericho and Cian for sure. That there were men like that in this wor
ld, too, scared the crap out of me. It scared me that my new elven friends were so casually picky about whose lives they valued. The plague that turned people into Darklings scared the crap out of me, and more so that if I got infected again, I might become a Darkling myself. Especially if I couldn’t cleanse anymore after I got excommunicated. Serth-Rog’s prediction that on my third death I’d lose my mind and my will and become his willing slave, that scared me.

  And I feared Jericho was right. Maybe Gaia and the rest of the Seven were ultimately AI controllers. If humanity was so awful to each other, how could we program something that made better decisions?

  But all of those were reasons to be afraid. Rather, Gaia had taught me that I could do something about them. I hung my head and gripped the jail bars.

  “In the end, I taught myself, I guess.”

  “That’s right,” said Bella, chuckling. “And here I thought priests were immune to fear effects. Ask yourself, child, what would you do if you weren’t afraid?”

  “But I am afraid,” I insisted in a whisper, my grip tightening on the bars. “I’m afraid I’ll lose my priest abilities, and I won’t be able to do a damn thing to help anyone, even myself.”

  “Are you so helpless?” asked Bella, placing her hands over mine on the bars. Her hands were surprisingly soft and tender for a cleaning woman, and I welcomed the human touch.

  “Not yet.”

  “Then what do you have to be afraid of?” she said with a grin. “If you really can’t help it, then do it scared.”

  I scoffed. “What’s the worst that could happen, right?”

  “There’s the spirit, dear,” said Bella. She let me go and picked up her mop. “So, how’s about you let a woman clean up messes in peace? This place is filthy.”