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

by E. C. Godhand

  That almost hurt. I wasn’t selfish.

  “Is that why you had them lock me away, Exarch? Afraid I’ll go public with your sins?”

  “That’d make you a public liar, then.”

  This time I hallucinated Cian himself. He placed his hands on my shoulders, and I glanced behind at him apprehensively.

  “Jericho made a deal with Serth-Rog,” whispered Cian into my ear. “He came up with the plague to weaken the Empire for invasion. Ask him. You’ll see.”

  Normally I wouldn’t believe Cian if he told me the sky looked blue or a bear crapped in the woods, but this felt right. And that pissed me off so much, that my gut had been right all along, that I calmed all the way down. Outwardly I looked back at Jericho and smiled, but inside I imagined gripping his top lip with one hand and his bottom lip with the other and peeling his face open.

  “I bet it’s been you all along,” I said.

  Jericho inspected the jeweled rings on his fingers and lifted an eyebrow at my accusation.

  “Veronika told me she caught it in Harrowick,” I continued. “Corvus and Hector noticed cases were concentrated in villages around the temple. You wanted people to have a chance to make it to the White City so they could pay—”

  Jericho reached through the bars and slapped me. Hard. I gasped and the room spun.

  Inquisitor Morton snatched his wrist and pinned the exarch to the bars with his elbow.

  “Even criminals have rights in the Empire,” intoned the man.

  When I gathered my bearings, I glanced at all the bindings holding me to the chair and the dead bind room around me. Theoretically, maybe.

  Jericho grunted and struggled until the Inquisitor thought him sufficiently scolded. He grabbed the bars and pressed his overly sculpted face into them. “You will destroy everything I’ve built with your lies,” he hissed.

  I gave him my best smile. “If it can be destroyed by the truth, it deserves to be.”

  “Does that include your secrets too, Liset? I can assure the Inquisition that not even the Dread Master would want you.”

  Any doubts I had about Cian’s words were washed away. I felt cold, like a fog rolled in. Only Cian and other Darklings had ever called Serth-Rog by that name. In jest, I had suggested the Inquisition called him here to confess, but maybe they were onto something.

  “Why did you say it like that?” I asked, loud enough that the Inquisitor perked up.

  “It gives me no pleasure to chain you here, daughter,” said Jericho, as if he were the one in charge, and not Inquisitor Morton or Ser Berrick. “As awful as you are, I would give anything to set you free. But perhaps there is a way to save your soul and life after all. You will be branded for your sins and work off your debt to society as a publicus servicus, healing for the empire, commission free, for seven years. Then, you can serve another seven to repent for your crime of permitting a good man like Hector to die. After fourteen years, you may keep your class, if you have seen the error of your ways.”

  “You just want free labor so you can pimp me out,” I protested.

  “I am trying to help you,” he repeated, exasperated. “I am the only one on your side right now. There’s no one else left.”

  “You expect me to believe that?” I said.

  “I don’t care what you believe, priest,” he answered. “I am telling you what will happen if you don’t accept my penance. I am trying to keep you alive. To offer you salvation. You’re already fraying at the seams. Your mind is coming apart in front of me. But I can reassure them you’re not a Darkling. But if you reject me, you will never heal again. No one will look to you as anything more than a traitor and a coward and your name will be cursed, if they remember you at all.”

  I bit my tongue until I tasted copper.

  “Do you hear what I am telling you, daughter? You will die,” he said.

  “I may,” I whispered. I swallowed the blood. “But as a priest. Not your slave.”

  Jericho opened his palms to the ceiling. “I’m just a vessel to enact the Aspect Areste’s will.” He smiled. “If you don’t accept my mercy and return to the flock, the Inquisition has assured me you shall be hanged by the neck until death. Given that you are a Traveler, they’ll leave you there until you respawn in this room, to do it all over again. A death watch, if you will, until you repent.”

  I remembered Lola’s words. I remembered the feeling of him dropping me on the temple stairs after humiliating me in front of the whole congregation. He would do anything to silence me, even send an unsuspecting team of OsTech’s cleaners to pull me out of my pod before I had fully synced to the game to kill me.

  Lola was right though. After a couple times of waking up and dying just to do it all over again, just like the other priests he had done this to, like Cian, how long would it be before I gave in and joined the Darklings to escape?

  If Rodion’s final words were any indication, the Darklings could choose to stay in Morsheim. They didn’t feel like death when they revived.

  Jericho touched his hand to his chest and gave me his cruelest smile, even if everyone watching thought he was friendly. “Somehow, I will find it in my heart to forgive you, Liset,” he said. “But not before you are hanged.”

  Cian’s ghost didn’t disappear. I was convinced at this point he wasn’t real, and this was all a manifestation of my mind rotting from the Affka use, but I didn’t care. Lola appeared on the other side of me and placed one hand on my shoulder as well. I heard Serth-Rog’s voice resonate in my chest where the veins of the plague once spread.

  Give in. Surrender. Your hope dies, as all things do. I will never abandon you. Unlike your friends. Unlike your so-called God. Tell me, who else will tend your grave when there is no one left?

  I nodded slowly at his words. Maybe the voices were all delusions, but they were the only ones answering my prayers now. Being abandoned by God was already a fate worse than death. Jericho was wrong about many things, but he was especially wrong that not even the Darklings wanted me. They always had. Unlike him. I had been a fool to think I would’ve just been excommunicated and could start a café. I was a loose end, and he wouldn’t ever leave me hanging unless it was on the gallows.

  If Jericho and the Inquisition were the “good” guys, and thought I was the bad guy, then maybe I should embrace the image like Cian had. A crowd of Darklings’ ghosts joined me now in my periphery. They put their hands on my arms and silently stared at Jericho. There were evils to be cured by evil. The things I wanted to do to Jericho, people would talk about in hushed voices.

  I did have allies and a way out, after all.

  “Well,” I said, clicking my tongue. “Then I guess we better get started on that, shouldn’t we? You don’t want to cheat the hangman, do you, Exarch? Man has a job to do and you’re keeping him from it.”

  Jericho scoffed. “If death is your choice, have it your way, then. My hands are washed clean of you.”

  Amicus Curiae

  “Wake up, priest.”

  I opened my eyes, but nothing changed. I still felt cold if I felt anything at all. Cian and the other Darklings were gone. My legs and arms were stiff from sitting in silent darkness.

  Commissar Cecilia had come to visit me on the other side of the iron gate. She dragged a chair behind her and sat, pulling out a notebook and quill.

  “Stop pouting. Relax. I’m here to get an official statement before we execute the sentence.”

  “How should I have known there wouldn’t be a trial?” I asked rhetorically.

  “Oh, there will,” she said, scribbling. She paused. “Normally the Inquisition prefers to handle things... quietly. A public trial like this is most unusual. But you’ve pretty much confessed to at least half the charges against you. Horse theft alone is worth hanging.”

  “I’d do it all again, too,” I said.

  Cecilia kept writing as she spoke.

  “See, I’m here to get the official statement, and you’re already making it worse for yourself.” S
he pointed the sharp end of the quill towards me. “I could sign your death certificate, you know.”

  “Give me the pen,” I said, turning my wrist as much as I could to ask for it. “I’ll sign it myself.”

  “Hah! You’d think after Rowanheath you’d learn not to play with fire,” said the Commissar, writing more of her notes.

  I frowned. “Why was Jericho allowed to talk to me first, then? Getting us together is like putting a match to tinder.”

  “Hmm, that is true,” she agreed, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. “And that’s about as much as we got from talking to you. But he’s as close to a lawyer as you’re going to get.”

  “I don’t get a barrister?” I asked.

  She scribbled.

  “A solicitor, maybe?”

  She kept writing.

  “I have to act as my own counsel?” I asked, incredulous. “If that’s the case, I’ll have a fool of a client and an ass of an attorney.”

  The Commissar didn’t look up as she dipped her quill in more ink. “It’s good that you’re being honest with us for once.”

  I sighed heavily. “Fine.”

  “Alright, let us begin,” said the Commissar. “Did you leave Carrera to die?”

  “No. He wasn’t dying when I left him.”

  The Commissar paused, sighed, and hung her head. She looked up at me and flung ink at my face with her quill as punishment. “Do you know what the penalty for perjury is?”

  “Much less than desertion,” I said, smiling.

  She shook her head and continued. “Did you conspire with the Crimson Alliance, who have inflicted violence upon our people?”

  “What, and the Imperials haven’t?” I said, going all in. “Hunger, poverty, homelessness, lack of access to healthcare, aren’t those also violence? The Imperials inflict that on their own people. Whether they die from neglect or the Crimson Alliance isn’t up to the gods, after all.”

  The Commissar chewed her lip and tapped her pen on her paper. “You need to think carefully about how you answer, Soror. This is the official statement after all.”

  “I know. That’s the idea,” I said, keeping my delirious grin up. I leaned forward as much as I could and tapped my finger against the armrest to get her attention. “Make sure you quote me word for word. I want Emperor Osmark to hear.”

  “You’re as sharp as a marble, aren’t you?” she asked. “You’ve already rejected any chance of an appeal—”

  “It doesn’t really matter how I answer, does it? You’re just trying to get some information out of me. No one gives a damn about me otherwise.”

  “You’re being a bit of a mentula, you know.”

  “Oh. Am I?”

  “Little bit,” said the Commissar, indicating how much with her fingers. She cleared her throat and crossed one leg over the other. “Okay, if you want to be like that: What were your plans for the refugees from Rowanheath after you saved them? Would you make sure they’re all set up with a nice home and food?”

  “Surely there’s somewhere we could’ve made do within the Empire,” I answered. “The Tanglewood is welcoming and plentiful with resources.” She kept scribbling, so I kept talking. “And I’ve become quite a decent cook...”

  “It’s true what they say about you then,” she said, finally setting down her pen. “You love other souls more than you love yourself.”

  I stared at her, shocked. For a moment, the defenses I had built around me broke. That was a statement, not a question, and intended as a compliment. I laughed a little even. Alright, Commissar. I appreciated that. Not that I’d let her see it.

  “That’s a terrible standard,” I said. “The bar is so low you could trip on it. Have you been inside my head?”

  “Hmm.” She clicked her tongue and looked me over thoughtfully. “Considering you’re about to write your own death certificate, no, I imagine not.”

  I glanced at my right arm. Jericho was gone and so were the Darklings. I thought for a second that they’d abandoned me, then dismissed the memories as just sleep deprivation. If that option was gone, then I truly had nothing.

  Unless...

  “Commissar, I don’t think you can make any charges stick to me,” I announced.

  She chuckled and kept writing. “You’re right. You do have a fool of a client. But I’ll humor you. Why is that?”

  “It’s simple. Liset died in Rowanheath. I was remade by Thanatos, and therefore I am not the same Liset who committed those crimes,” I said. “In my old world, we told the story of the Ship of Theseus. It was rebuilt over the years, such that no single board remained of the original. So, we asked, is it still the same ship? I’m not who I was, either. So, you can’t charge me with her crimes. Non sum qualis eram and all.”

  Commissar Cecilia frowned and rubbed the quill’s feathers on her cheek as she thought on this. She finally pushed her glasses up with the quill. “I thought you didn’t speak Imperial,” she said.

  I was confused. Why did that sound like I heard it a few days ago?

  “Anyway, it won’t work,” she stated. “While it’s true that there are some who still follow the Seven and the High Gods, religious doctrine does not dictate Imperial law.” She blew on the ink in her notepad to dry it and slammed the book shut. “Besides, to answer your question, if we changed your gear, are you not still Liset?”

  “Isn’t that how disguises work?” I asked.

  The Commissar ignored my comment. “Are you not the same Liset you were when you were a child? The same person you were ten minutes ago before I woke you up? Simply, there is no Liset as a concrete entity. You are an identity, a concept, and we name you Liset while the parts are related and play the role we expect,” she said as if she had given this much more thought than I ever had. She laced her fingers and leaned towards me. “But you bring up an excellent point: are you the same Liset?”

  I hung my head. I didn’t know how to answer. The Liset before Rowanheath wouldn’t, not for one second, have taken the Darkling’s offer. But here, I basically asked the Inquisition to do their worst and all they had to do was invite Jericho and I caved like a house built on sand to escape him. I hated to think I was right on the matter. That I had changed so much, so quickly.

  When I didn’t answer, Cecilia spoke for me.

  “There are far more people working for justice and peace than working against it. You must believe this is true because you made it so,” she said softly. “Let me ask this another way, then: Are you the same Liset who stole the holy book and robes to save strangers, and dove into battle without regard for her own safety to save the lives of others? Who was granted the Divine Spark by Gaia herself?”

  I looked up in alarm. “When did Kismet—”

  “Tell me truthfully,” she interrupted. “Are you the same Liset who saved Senator Albus’ son without knowing who he was, simply because she saw a soldier in pain? Who rejected Cian’s deal even if it would have saved her life, who rescued over thirty people from the Black Temple, and who cleansed a source of the plague inflicted upon the Empire’s citizens? Who helped the Inquisition by saving their informants? Who saved the Hvitalfar in the Tanglewood from a dungeon that would have overrun their defenses in a week? Who saved the lives of multiple Imperial citizens in Rowanheath at the cost of her own?”

  I was stunned to tears. If I had given up, called it quits because it was too hard, all those people would be dead. The little girl, and her kitten, wouldn’t have made it. I swallowed hard and hung my head.

  “Answer me,” commanded the Commissar, standing and clutching the iron bars. “Are you the same Liset who saved a young woman from the plague with your own money before you even knew its worth, when you were infected yourself?”

  This time, I didn’t respond like a trained dog. The command washed over me and fizzled into the ether. I wasn’t a collection of sins, like Jericho thought, I was a whole person, and for once, someone was seeing that in me. I wanted to wipe my cheeks, but I couldn’t, so I let the
tears fall. And for once, I truly saw Cecilia as she was as her spell failed. My arm ached with the memory of the plague, but I could still wiggle my fingers to cast Acuity.

  Commissar “Cecilia” was an Illusionist running spells called Charm and Mirror.

  <<<>>>

  Skill: Mirror

  Ever wish you were someone else? Now you can be. Mirror allows the Illusionist to mimic the appearance of another creature. At higher levels, equipment and even skills may be duplicated.

  Skill Type/Level: Vocal/Adept

  Cost: Variable (Concentration)

  Range: Line of Sight

  Cast Time: Instant

  Cooldown: None

  Effect 1: Assume the color, shape, and features of a similarly sized person. Cost varies with contrast.

  <<<>>>

  Her real name was Veronika, a name I hadn’t forgotten. The Mirror faded as I resisted the spell, and I once again saw the mousy-haired, scared Imperial woman who’d greeted me in V.G.O. what felt like so long ago. The scars of a cured plague ravaged her chest and neck like a burn victim, but she was cleansed.

  My NPC. The one ordained by the gods to help me in my journeys.

  Veronika, like me, was once wracked with guilt over being put in an impossible situation. I couldn’t reveal that I saw her and risk her life, so I let the way my smile bled through my hot tears do that for me.

  “I am that same woman,” I said, and it felt good to say it out loud. I chuckled. “I imagine that woman would be a little upset I couldn’t save her myself and turned her in to the Inquisition for her crimes though.”

  “She might be,” confirmed Veronika. “Given your current situation, I’d say you’re even. But you saved her life, so...” She trailed off, shrugging.

  I heard her voice finish the line in my head. “So she’s saving yours.”