The courtyard had been transformed. All the comfortable clutter had been removed and replaced by two long tables. One had benches for seating. The other began to fill with food. Joe got his fingers whacked a couple of times, trying to peek at the source of some fantastic scents wafting off the gathering dishes.

Joe shook so many hands in greeting he finally got over his embarrassment with his feral-looking hands. Also, once word spread that he did not mind healing people, he ended up performing numerous small heals while folks waited for the arrival of the Mercy.

At some signal that Joe must have missed, the gathering transformed from preparation into celebration. People wandered with plates of food, and conversations and gossip filled the air. Someone with a keen eye brought Joe a plate filled with all the items his nose had been directing him towards. The cocoa-skinned dwarf also handed him a tall glass of tea, which Joe thanked her for profusely. Even though the vines provided a welcome shade, with so many people in the atrium, it was getting fairly hot and stuffy.

Even though he was kept fairly busy, Joe could tell the moment the healer arrived. Having spent the day with her, Joe found he could sense the presence of her as she entered the courtyard. Seeing her through the crowd, Joe decided to see what a gentle assessment would tell him.

Suku Orzuca: Lizardfolk: Cleric/Divine Servant of Myrrhcee/Saint 102

Joe was floored. So far the highest level he had ever assessed had been Count Randeau, and Valloc had been a rockstar at 46. Mercy Suku’s level was twice that. He didn’t even know levels could get that high. Joe assumed that they capped somewhere in the 70’s given how the Count was treated. Joe stopped to think for a moment and realized that most of the nobleman's infamy sprung from his deeds and the tales they garnered. Valloc's fame might have far less to do with his stats and much more to do with his heroics.

As for Mercy Suku, it explained why she radiated power. He had to assume that 100+ individuals were truly rare. It must be why the twin Mairrhee was willing to make an exception for her, allowing her to have her own small shrine.

The priestess of Myrrhcee gently stepped her way over to where Joe was performing his small clinic and sat beside him.

“Thank you for coming, Mercy Suku,” he greeted in a voice steeped with even more reverence than he had the day before. Yesterday she was a generous and lovely old woman. Today he knew she was an actual saint.

“Oh not you too,” she huffed kindly. “I get enough of the full title from those in need. It is nice to have a peer address me just by name.”

“I don't think I can be called a peer,” Joe replied sheepishly, “but okay. Thank you, Suku.”

“You are more a peer to me than Master Daneskigh,” She stated. Seeing a blank look on Joe’s face, she continued. “Oh. I had assumed you two would have met. He is the most prominent physician in Midtown. If you are going to be offering healing in this neighborhood, then I would suggest you go and speak with him, for courtesy’s sake.”

“Oh okay. I will.” Joe suddenly had a variation of the same question he had been wrestling with for the last few days. The Mercy was over level one hundred. Surely she could keep the whole city in good health. Why were so many still suffering then?

The answer came to Joe even as he considered it. It was not just a simple one either. He had been putting the pieces of it together for a while now.

First, healing for all would be asking an awful lot of one person. Suku might be a saint but she deserved time and peace to be herself. It was unfair to ask her to become a heal-bot for Fort Coral. Joe knew that for himself, he was happy to offer healing sessions, but he would probably not devote more than an hour a day or a few hours a week to it. He had things he wanted to do with his life beyond healing and, if he took on every case, he’d never have the time to do them.

Mercy had also been suggesting that Joe meet with the healers around town. He now saw that she wanted more than for him to just develop a relationship with his peers. She had been hinting that he was not seeing the matters from their perspective. Joe was planning on using his adventuring to earn a living. Healing for the other practitioners in the city was their livelihood. They would have expenses, families to care for, and such. They could not afford to give away their magic. If magic had a cost, whether it was enchanting, warding, or healing, then they should be allowed to charge what the market allowed. Joe might balk at that truth as it left others in pain but it would take more than his wishes to change the way the world worked.

While he was ruminating on these massive questions and problems, the tide of lesser pains relented and the hunchback man was bought before the priestess.

“Greetings, ma’am. I am honored you would have the time for an old nu with a bad back.”

“Oh, I remember you. You helped with the building of the Swift Water Shrine,” The saurian woman's eyes lifted as she traveled through her memories. “Oh my. That was many many years ago. You are still just as handsome.”

“Why thank ye for saying so but you’re a terrible fibber, Mercy,” Runk chuckled back at her. “I will admit I had an awful big crush on you back in those days.”

“I remember. I recall you finding dozens of little jobs to do long after the project was finished,” she chided merrily, laying a hand on his wrist. “The mural you painted is still there.”

“Really?” the striped man asked in disbelief. “I only had cheap paints. Someone must have enchanted it.”

“Not exactly. It has been touched up enough that it is unlikely any of the original paint still shows but the pattern and images remain to this day.”

“Well, I’ll be. I’ll have to come see it once I can get around better.”

“I would very much like that. So let’s see what we can do to get you up and about.” The Mercy stood and looked around at the small crowd. In a voice loud enough to fill the courtyard yet still soft in its timber, she spoke to everyone in attendance.

“I welcome you all to join me in this prayer. If you have any ties to the gods that would present difficulties, no offense will be taken if you do not participate. Please note that I do have Mairrhee’s blessings but if you worry about offending the Reveller then please feel free to stand back but you need not leave unless you wish to.”

She walked a circle around Runkbadok, gently pushing folks back a few steps to create an open area around the patient. She left Joe in the ring with her and Runk.

When she turned back to them, Joe quickly spoke up. “You know I have no idea how this works, right? Are you sure you want me here?” he stated, pointing a waggling finger at his feet.

“You are right where you are supposed to be Joe. You don't need to do anything. Now shush,” she hissed teasingly.

Taking out sand and chalk, the Mercy encircled the three of them with a circle made up of looping green chalk lines. She filled in the negative spaces with the tan sand. Joe knew that tan was Myrrhcee’s color. The chalk made the ring look a lot like Runk’s skin, which was also striped in green and brown.

Green was a good healing color, so it might just be a coincidence.

As she worked, the mercy prayed. She began by speaking the many names of her god. Myrrhcee, the Gentle One, the Compassionate, the Bringer of Solace, and several more. She then began a prayer. To Joe’s surprise, even though the town did not follow the goddess of mercy, most of those around the circle murmured the words with her.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

May this day bring you comfort

Hurt abated and sorrow consoled

Give joy to the joyless

Succor to the mournful

And balm to the infirmed

Let us be joined, healed, and kind

Bless us, Myrrhcee

As we bless each other

Three times the prayer was spoken. Yet Joe only heard the first words of the third iteration. In that moment the world dissolved around him and Joe found his mind floating in a warm sea of soft colors. He was a tiny speck in an endless expanse, yet he did not feel afraid or diminished. It was just that everything around him was so utterly massive and majestic.

It took his mind a few seconds to adjust and look through the greater scale to see the colors gave a vague shape to a colossal being. He knew exactly who it was. Love and gentleness radiated from the entity. Joe wanted to think of her as ‘she’ but she was so much more than just that one gender. Gender failed to have meaning yet there was something so motherly about the god that ‘she’ was the best pronoun he could find.

When she greeted him it was not with words but it was a feeling. A great, complex, overwhelming feeling of welcoming and love and joy. He sensed that Myrrhcee was simplifying her thoughts to these sensations for Joe’s benefit. Her actual words would overload his brain and pop his sanity.

He had been thinking of the gods like the beings he knew from mythology or even Hawking, who seemed omnipotent but was still comprehensible. If Myrrhcee was typical of the gods, then these beings functioned on a completely different level of existence. It was no wonder that their blessings were sporadic. It was like the human and ant example. Mortals were so infinitesimal to the gods that they only noticed people on rare occasions.

The emotion shifted to a question ... or more like a request. Joe felt wanted and in that devotion was the wonder if he wanted her back. He realized she was asking him to pledge himself to her. There were layers to that desire. At the very least, would he be a follower of hers but beyond that was the question of if he would choose to make her his patron; to become one of her clerics.

Joe was immediately torn. Myrrhcee was wondrous on almost every conceivable level for Joe. She was all about caring for others and being good to one another. She had healed him when Sougath had poisoned his body with his curse. She was said to be the penultimate healer in the whole of Illuminaria. Of all the churches he had heard of, the only one he had been drawn to so far had been Myrrhcee.

On the other hand, he had just started to find his own way in this new world. He was not sure he was ready to start walking down someone else’s path before he truly had a solid sense of who he really wanted to be. Also, he had a somewhat selfish thought of what he would be giving up. He instinctively knew his base class would change from healer to cleric. That would likely mean a few skill changes.

It also might mean the way he healed would change too. Would his accelerated healing become divine healing? Was that a bad thing? Suku’s divine healing seemed to be able to do what he could do but far better. Then again she had seven times his level. That probably had a lot to do with just how good she was.

As he had these thoughts, a sensation awoke on his right arm. The Mark of Death flared making itself visible under the shaggy hair that concealed it ever since the Vyhne’s tower. The symbol of change grew warm then rapidly started to cool. As it did so the bright motes of light in the blackness began to wink out. One by one they started to vanish even as the ebon-colored ink faded. The mark did not disappear but it was clearly letting him know he would be choosing between it and her.

Again Joe was not sure that was a bad thing. He did not want to be some figure of prophecy. This was one of the reasons he had not even told any of his new companions in Fort Copral about the mark. He had been able to keep it concealed behind the long gloves he typically wore. Even without them, the thick hair on his arms made the symbol hard to spot. At times Joe almost felt the mark seemed to hide in scruff, enjoying being a secret.

The mark did suggest that he could do good things with it if the conditions were right. Everything he had read of the marks made it clear that they did not denote any sort of ‘chosen one’. They merely suggested potential. Joe liked the idea that the mark may one day help him change this world for the better

But isn't that what Myrrhcee was offering as well; the power to help Illuminaria?

Joe’s mind floated in this out-of-body state, churning these ideas over and over in his head. The goddess truly appealed to him and he would have no problem becoming one of her followers. It was the devoting himself to her that he balked at. He just was not sure he was ready yet to rework the person he was starting to become and switch from the freedom of healer to the commitment of cleric.

A response washed over Joe. It was the comforting feeling of being held, driving away his worries. It was made of patience and caring. It told him he was not on the spot. The way he saw time was a fraction of how she did. If he was not ready to make the choice yet he should not distress himself over it. She would be here if one day he was ready. It filled him with the love she felt for his choice of simply joining her congregation.

And then Joe was back in the courtyard. The circle was gone and the gathering had grown loud and merry. He was holding the hand of the Mercy and she was looking at him with a warm smile.

“I thought that is what she had planned,” Suku’s sibilant voice hissed jovially. “I even told her you were not ready but I think she just wanted to meet you. It is hard for the great ones to interact with us without ceremony or rituals. Even for me. I can invoke her to work my spells but directly communing with her is no easy feat.”

The priestess dipped her head into his eyeline and added, “So what did you think of her?”

“I … I … I don’t know if I have words for it,” Joe stammered, still trying to bring the atrium into focus. It was as if he had been standing in the middle of a huge open plain, only to be teleported into a small room. Everything seemed so small and his eyes could not find the middle distance.

Suku’s voice aimed at someone nearby. ‘We need to get this poor boy some food and likely a strong drink.”

“Be happy to, my lady,” Runk’s deep voice rumbled. As the figure walked to the food table, Joe focused enough to see him standing up tall. The mass on his back was completely gone and his spine was straight. He looked like a new man. The green and brown zebra-like stripes joyfully undulated across his skin.

“It worked,” Joe crooned. “That is so awesome. I could never have …”

“Not never but yes your healing was not well suited for his racial nature,” she replied patting his arm. “I’m so glad you came and found me to help him. He was always such a good young man. I missed his visits when life took him from Fort Coral for so many years. I did not even know he was back. I think he did not want me to see his infirmity though that was foolish of him. Myrrhcee was happy to repay the kindness he had shown me and the love he had put into our shrine.”

They sat in silence while Joe tried to regain his internal equilibrium. He was still spinning inside. He had thought meeting Hawking was what he could expect from interactions with the gods. Boy, was he wrong.

The afternoon waxed into evening. At some point, Suku left him. He was never alone, even though he was only partially aware of them. As the neighbors started to depart, the fog that had been his thoughts finally cleared. He looked over to see it was Mahq sitting next to him. Somehow he knew that the boy had been there with him for quite a while.

“Joe is back,” Mahq announced, though it seemed to no one in particular. He then just stood and walked away before Joe could work out that he wanted to thank the young druid for looking out for him.

He grabbed some of the leftovers and joined a few lingering conversations but he was still having a bit of a hard time following the discussion. He was both too exhilarated and exhausted in a way [Efferous Endurance] would be unable to fix. He dismissed himself a little while later and walked towards the beach. He needed to be out in the night air.

‘You really are totally different from the gods aren’t you, Hawking?’

Correct. We each serve very different functions in Illuminaria.

‘Sorry, I haven’t spoken to you in a while. How’ve you been?’

Your question indicates that your addled condition is consistent with someone who has had a transcendent experience. I am. There is no other state for me. Conversely, you have undergone some considerable changes since we last spoke. Your newfound sense of surety suits you, Joe.

‘Thanks but I’m not feeling too sure about anything at the moment. Meeting Myrrhcee was not at all what I expected.’

Would it help if I told you that the sun will rise at virtually the exact same time tomorrow as it did today?

Joe stopped cold, standing still on the beach near the lapping waves. The crazy churning in his head settled as he focused on that simple thought; that the world was just the same as it always had been. It was just his perspective that had been knocked out of whack.

‘You know what, Bud? It really does. Thanks.’