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

by E. C. Godhand

  Keres kept her eye on the rogue while I joined Bri’jit, lighting up the wall with my cantrip. To my surprise, the wall absorbed every bit of light, creating the impression of impenetrable darkness. The blight had spread this deep after all. Last time I had to use fire to cleanse it, but I got a gut feeling Bri’jit wouldn’t like me burning the catacombs.

  The Wode wiped the mold off his back in disgust.

  “Tell me what you are doing here,” repeated Bri’jit.

  The Wode, or as Acuity named him, Tyler, stared at us in confusion. We had just saved him but became threats ourselves almost instantly.

  “We were out scouting, just trying to do a quest, when this place looked like it would have some good loot. Old graves always do,” he explained. He read Bri’jit’s face and scoffed. “Jeez, lady, calm down. Who doesn’t like loot?”

  Keres held up her chakrams and stepped forward. I intervened and held her back.

  “Chill, chill, okay?” I said, taking a breath to calm myself. “Let me handle this,” I offered. Keres frowned, but stepped back and joined Bri’jit in holding the rogue by his arms.

  I knelt next to Tyler and offered him my waterskin and some snacks we had found in the forest. Acuity told me he was hungry, thirsty, unwashed, and tired. I couldn’t do anything about being tired. What’s more, as I’d feared, they both had the same debuff:

  <<<>>>

  Curse of Serth-Rog (Level 3): An icy hand grips your heart. Health, Stamina, and Spirit Regeneration reduced by 75%; duration, 6 hours and 55 minutes remaining. Carry Capacity -100 lbs; duration, 4 hours.

  If not cured, your body will suffer Paralysis, Silence, and Blindness debuffs for 30 minutes, while your soul fights for life in its own personal dungeon. Victory results in the effect being dispelled. Defeat results in your soul being sent to the underworld, Morsheim, the land of Serth-Rog.

  Your grave beckons. Make your peace with the living world.

  <<<>>>

  Keres scoffed. “They’re obviously Rebellion. You saw what they’re like. Why are you helping them?”

  “We don’t know they’re Rebellion,” I said, handing Tyler another stack of rowanberries to munch on. “Besides, they might have something useful.”

  I looked them over. Their armor was different than that of the “rebels” we’d met on the road. I had doubted those brigands were truly with the Rebellion, but these two just might be. Their armor was less intricate, more dirtied, and certainly not worth as much. Merchant-Craft suggested perhaps they were real adventurers, and not hired thugs. Tyler as a Wode’s name? With his speech patterns? He was a Traveler. How would he know what the right side to be on was? I was with the Empire and hardly knew what the right side was half the time. And any gamer might think to play V.G.O. as a game without thinking of the repercussions.

  I started Tyler off with a neutral question to see how well he’d work with me.

  “What’s your name?” I asked, taking a knee beside him.

  “Tyler,” he answered, stuffing another berry into his mouth. Alright, that checked out.

  “How’re you feeling, Tyler?”

  “Like utter crap,” he answered, taking a swig from my waterskin. That also checked out, though it didn’t take a former doctor who had the disease to know that was true.

  “Tyler, my companions seem to think you’re with the Eldgard Rebellion. Is that true?”

  “Yeah, why not?”

  Dammit. It was going to be a lot harder to help them. “Are there any other scouts in the area?” I asked, hoping to catch him in a lie.

  “Okay, first off, we’re not scouts,” he said. “We really were just exploring. There were five of us this morning.”

  Bri’jit put a firm hand on my shoulder during the pause and squeezed. They didn’t need to say anything to tell me they’d jumped to the conclusion that the other three in their party were the bandits on the road. That didn’t sit right with me though. I touched Bri’jit’s hand to let her know I heard her but didn’t let up on my questioning.

  “Five? Where are your companions now?” I asked.

  “Well, they uh—” Tyler coughed and handed the water back, his voice a bit more somber. “They died. Just before you came in, in fact.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” I said. I ignored Keres’ cutting glance.

  “It’s fine. They’ll be back in about eight hours. We’ve been through this before.”

  “Did they have the blight, too?” I asked, twisting his wrist and pointing to the black, gnarled veins hidden in the soft part of his elbow.

  “Oh, this debuff?” he asked nonchalantly. “Yeah. Why?”

  “They won’t be back, Tyler,” I said. “I’ve dealt with this before. There’s no respawn once that timer is up. The plague spares neither child nor saint. You’ve been hit three times. If you’re hit again, it’s over.”

  Tyler stared at me. “Wait. What?”

  “I can cleanse this blight. Now, if you went to my temple, they’d charge you forty gold to do so. Per level. If you tell me the truth, I’ll cleanse one of you right now. That’s a hundred-and-twenty-gold deal.”

  I would’ve healed him for free, but why tell him that?

  “If we’re haggling, you want to sweeten the pot?” asked Tyler, touching the arm that inspected his veins.

  I clicked my tongue and pulled away. “I can cut the price in half, but it’s already free, man,” I said. “Listen to me. I’m trying to help you out. If you lie, Keres here will string your partner up by their entrails.”

  The Murk Elf, Rholle, tried to pull away from Keres in disgust. “You’re an Imperial,” he said, spitting on the floor in my direction when he couldn’t get free. “You can’t be trusted.”

  “You’re talking a lot of crap for someone who is flammable,” said Bri’jit, holding his arm in a lock tighter against his back.

  “You rebels fight for money and power, while we fight for Home and Honor,” said Keres.

  Rholle laughed. “They say one fights for what one lacks—”

  I held up a hand to quiet everyone before Keres put a hole in his head. “Okay, look. I feel like the rude fell out of you, but Gaia asks that we show mercy, so I’m going to give you all another chance. Maybe you don’t believe me.”

  I held up the waterskin and cast Veracity on it to make it Holy Water. To be honest, I wasn’t sure it’d work, but I was feeling lucky after how our spells blended earlier. I poured some in my hand and sprinkled some on the wall. The black mold hissed and squealed as it peeled away like flaking paint.

  I had Tyler’s full attention now. He peeled off his armored glove and inspected his hand, which was starting to look like a dried corpse itself, black as pitch and stiff. I remembered my hand looking similar just a day ago.

  “Now you can believe me that you won’t resurrect if you die with that on you. Just like your friends won’t be back. If you don’t take my deal, you have about, oh”—I inspected him again—“six hours and fifty-one minutes to come up with a hundred and twenty gold and get to my temple far to the north.”

  Tyler blinked and checked his status screen. His jaw dropped when he saw how accurate I was, and he exchanged glances with Rholle.

  “I’m telling you the truth, okay? We originally came here because we were hoping to find some loot to sell to cleanse this. We didn’t know how contagious it might be, and we didn’t want to bring it back to—”

  Rholle stomped his foot to silence his companion. “Don’t tell her where we are!”

  “I’m not interested in your rebel hideout,” I said. I could feel Keres’ eyes twitch as they bored into me, but I ignored her. I was only interested in the plague. Perhaps the man could be convinced to work with us. We needed the help, and they fought well.

  First, I had to clear his name, or the two En’Etaliar were going to feed him to the zombies as bait. It’d be suspicious if I just stared at him while composing a private message.

  “We met some rebels, like you, on the road here. Awf
ul people. Trapped folks like animals and shook down small children. There were three of them. You two, also rebels, recently lost three of your men. You wouldn’t happen to know anything about that, would you?”

  I didn’t tell him that the three rebels in question were in Inquisition care. And that none of them had the blight.

  Tyler’s face blanched. “That sounds... terrible. We’d never do that. The Rebellion doesn’t do stuff like that.”

  “Right, right,” I said. “I bet your leader didn’t even tell you about it. Why would some lowly graverobbers be in on these operations to undermine Citizens?”

  “Grim Jack would never authorize a plan like that!” he protested.

  So the leader’s name was Grim Jack. Neat.

  Bri’jit finally seemed to be picking up what I was putting down. There was a sparkle to her eyes I hadn’t seen in hours. She pulled Rholle a little closer, a little too tightly.

  “Maybe they’re responsible for the child we found outside with the bite marks. Threw him to the undead as a distraction while they snuck their way in,” she said.

  We didn’t have to tell him that the tanner’s boy was found yesterday.

  “That’s not what happened!” said Rholle.

  “Is the child okay?” asked Tyler.

  Keres shook her head. The men hung theirs.

  I touched Tyler’s chin to make him look at me.

  “So what did happen?” I asked.

  Tyler’s eyes wavered side to side as he scanned my face. I kept my jaw tight.

  “I swear we’ve never harmed a child, sister. We never saw any,” he confessed. “Rholle here got us in by setting off some flares to distract them, then we snuck our way in and picked the lock.” He kept his eyes on mine, finding his voice. “You have to believe me, though. We rebels want a democracy, not an empire. We’re not terrorists. Lady, I don’t know if you’re a Traveler too, or not, but back on Earth we believed in freedom and the right of people to govern themselves. That’s all. Haven’t you seen the chain gangs they got around New Viridia? You can’t seriously follow them if you do. What sort of person values life over free will?”

  “Don’t get into Hegelian dialectics with me.”

  “What?”

  I sighed. I remembered the chain gangs very well. They were branded with dark scars of the sideways ouroboros that marked debtors to the Temple of Areste. But the Empire, like with the Temple, was large enough my options felt like “take it or leave it.”

  I nodded. I got the feeling he was telling me the truth. In a way, it was an exchange. Information for healing. Truths were valuable. Lies were, too, if you already knew the truth.

  A notification popped up: my Merchant-Craft had hit level 2.

  “Alright, Tyler. Say I believe you. For now,” I said, standing and cleansing Rholle, who I assumed was his NPC. He’d have no chance to fight in the dungeon if he died, unlike Tyler. The Murk Elf checked himself over in disbelief and stuttered his thanks.

  I turned back to the Wode. “I’ll make you an offer. If you help us get this one,” I said, gesturing to Bri’jit, “to the center of the catacombs and stop this place from becoming a dungeon overrun with zombies—”

  “And we verify you didn’t take anything,” added Keres.

  “—and we verify you didn’t take anything,” I repeated, “then I’ll cleanse you, too.”

  “What if it’s good loot though?” asked Tyler, a grin on his face. “I think we deserve a little compensation for clearing a dungeon.”

  “I will cremate you alive if you take anything,” said Bri’jit, punctuating her threat by forming holy fire in her hand.

  “Okay. That’s fair,” said Tyler, the grin falling.

  “The loot here may be worth a couple gold, at most,” I said, standing and crossing my arms. “So you can take that, die, and not get to use it because the blight killed you, or you can get a hundred-and-twenty-gold discount and keep your life.”

  “You don’t really act like priestesses,” said Tyler, looking between the three of us.

  “Gaia doesn’t call upon actors,” I stated. “I AM a priestess.”

  “The gods don’t call the qualified. They qualify the called,” added Keres.

  I glanced over my shoulder at her, not sure if I should feel insulted or not. I shook the thought away. “Look, Tyler. Rholle. Gaia has directed her healing through me to give you a second chance at life after you screwed it up. It is your job now not to waste that chance. You can save yourselves and save a lot of lives. Are you with us, or not?”

  Tyler stood and held out his hand, and I shook it.

  Boss Fight

  We descended deeper into what we hoped wouldn’t eventually be a dungeon. To our surprise and disgust, the only things to fight were [Blighted Roaches]. Bri’jit expressed her concern over the lack of more risen dead. They had to have gone somewhere, and we feared that was ahead of us.

  And we were right.

  An eerie green light emanated from underneath the final door. We heard shouting on the other side, a guttural, inhuman voice reminiscent of Cian’s.

  “Morsheim came for me. When the rot seeping up from the depths hit my coffin, I knew Thanatos would never forsake me. Soon, my brethren, we will have a land of our own. For the Hvitalfar!”

  A chorus of dead snarls, dry and rattling, responded.

  We ducked into stealth and opened the door.

  Candles atop stacks of skulls lit an expansive cavern. At the center, atop a pile of literal bones, surrounded by a crowd of zombified Dawn Elves in various stages of decay, stood our target: Elder Castien Saurspring.

  My quest updated to simply add: “KILL HIM.”

  Bri’jit gasped and lowered her hand, having done her own inspection. “He’s a lich after all. True undead,” she whispered.

  “How are we supposed to fight someone who won against Death?” I asked.

  “All things come to an end,” said Bri’jit, touching the moon at the end of her staff.

  Saurspring hadn’t seen us yet. He cackled and held his hands out to his people. “Where Cernunnos forbade our rise to power, Serth-Rog saw our potential to rule these forests. Together, we will make a dungeon heart, and Cernunnos will have no say this time.”

  He lifted his hand. A sickly green light twirled through the air to a former Dawn Elf woman with stringy white hair, filling her chest and exiting her eyes and mouth. She stepped forward out of no will of her own, shuffling towards him with her arms outstretched, then threw herself at the base of the twenty-foot stack of bones.

  Bri’jit jumped to her feet before I could grab her.

  “Elder!” she cried. “You had your chance at life. Leave the dead to their rest.”

  Keres and I stood next to her to show support.

  Saurspring turned his head 180 degrees on creaking bones to look at us. To say he hadn’t aged gracefully was an understatement. The hunched old man would easily tower above us at full height, and flesh clung to his white bones like decayed, yellowed lace. His bones bore etched grotesque scars, along with lightning bolts of black mold like veins.

  “Ah, little sister,” he said, turning the rest of his body. “I know why you are here, and I do not fault you for your job. But you must understand why I call upon our armies again. I only want justice for our people. We will take back our city from the Wodes—"

  “Genocide and justice aren’t the same, Elder,” said Keres. “The Falling of the Leaves—”

  “Aren’t they?” he interrupted with a laugh. “It doesn’t matter. Whether you’ve come to join me or oppose me, I will add your bodies to the pile all the same.”

  Tyler left stealth and walked between me and Bri’jit, sword and shield at the ready. “Yeah, yeah. We gonna kill this guy or what?” he said, rolling his shoulders.

  I liked Tyler. I did. He seemed like a decent guy at heart. But by Gaia did the man not seem to realize the seriousness of the situation.

  Saurspring saw the bulky Wode and his blond beard and
grimaced as if a flaming pile of crap was thrown at his feet. He roared and flailed his arms, green fire erupting from his hands. “You’d DARE bring one not of our blood on this hallowed ground?”

  The zombies, about forty in all, turned as one to face us, their disjointed mouths grinning and dripping with the green light that invigorated them.

  I clapped Tyler on the back. “Way to go, hero. You pulled the boss. Go tank him.”

  We had the roster to do this. I’d heal. Rholle, wherever he was in stealth, would DPS down the lich. Tyler earned his fate, and I needed Bri’jit to figure out where the heart was and deal with it, so I shielded them both. Keres—

  “Keres, you’re the quickest,” I said, popping a shield on her as well. “Kite them around the bone pile and keep them chasing you until we figure out how to deal with them.”

  Tyler had charged Saurspring with his shield and met the lich halfway on the bone pile. I threw a HoT on him to top him off. Bri’jit had gone around back to the top of the bone pile and started to dig. She knew her task better than I did. I joined her and took a knee.

  “When Keres brings them to the twelve o’clock, do you have something to slow them and buy her more time?”

  Bri’jit didn’t pause for a second, tossing femur and skull and bits of rib behind her.

  “Repose,” she answered swiftly. “It should be off cooldown in time for her to do another lap.”

  “Any ideas?” I asked, tossing a HoT on Keres as she darted past us. She’d throw out her chained holy fire to keep their attention on her and not us. Bri’jit conjured her magic like a lullaby around the zombies as they passed us. Their scrambling sprints turned to a leisurely stroll, and if their eyes remained in their head at all, it made their lids heavy with sleep.

  She turned back to digging out the bones. “We don’t need to kill the re-dead. I’d rather us not, or I’ll never be able to face their families again. But we need to burn down that Elder. Without a lich’s power, they won’t have anything to animate them.”

  Her eyes sparkled as her hands hit something smooth that wasn’t bone for once. We stepped back as a pedestal bearing a black sphere rose from the pile. It wasn’t quite living, not yet, but there was the faintest glow of green throughout it that illuminated twisted, gnarled, chunky lines like coronary arteries. It was blighted, for sure. If a whole dungeon could be blighted...