Quick note: I'm sorry for the unplanned five-day hiatus. To make up for it, I'll have a chapter up tomorrrow as well. Thank you for waiting!
CHAPTER SEVEN
Heresy
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JOB PROMOTION QUEST: Mark of a Marksman! QUEST DETAILS: Your unique way of channeling magic through a staff to deal damage to enemies from range has inspired the formation of a new path, one you alone can walk. Use a staff’s enchantment to slay [300] enemies from afar. For a kill to count, the range of the attack must be no less than seventy yards while under cover, and all damage dealt must be made to the enemy’s vitals to ensure a critical blow.
“Seriously,” Nike frowned, “I’ve only managed twenty to thirty yards distance so far…but you’re asking for more than double the range?”
Meanwhile, Bram, who was hiding in Rowan’s fog, was nodding his head.
“Yes, it should be at least this difficult to achieve something this big.”
Bram should be happy for Nike; he knew that in his head. But he couldn’t quite stomach the Loom’s obvious bias for her. Perhaps it was even treating the other players similarly. Meanwhile, he’d spent years without being given an ounce of aid by the system that had been born inside him.
QUEST REWARDS: [Title: Sniper], [Increased Fame with Bastille], [3rd Tier Job Promotion: Marksman will become available].
One of Bram’s eyebrows hitched upward.
“It’s a third-tier job promotion?”
That didn’t make sense.
She’d barely started.
“Haven’t I been saying it often — the Loom is an ingenious thing. It recognizes talent and gives opportunities for talent to grow,” Rowan weighed in.
ALERT! The job promotion quest requires that the player achieve a 2nd Tier Job as a requirement…
“Good.”
Bram was glad there was at least a restriction to ensure Nike wouldn’t grow stronger than other players so quickly.
…However, earning points toward the job’s conditions will be counted regardless of the player’s job and tier.
“Well, it’s not like she’ll get a hundred kills quickly. At least not in the way the system wants.”
Unlike Bram, Nike didn’t look as pessimistic.
“Fine, I’ll work toward this.”
She grinned.
“I was planning on becoming a squire, but maybe I should choose arcane novice instead.”
Strangely, the opportunity to be bestowed a beginner job hadn’t been given to her. Perhaps the system thought it was too soon for the players and was giving them more time to decide their path. In this, at least, Bram agreed with Rowan’s assessment of the Loom’s intuitiveness.
Whichever the case, the Loom wasn’t done showering Nike with the kind of favor Bram had only lately received.
ALERT! A new quest has arrived!
TUTORIAL QUEST: Harvest Spoils from the Red Grizzly’s Corpse!
While reading Nike’s quest, Bram, who was back to being an observer instead of an interloper, frowned.
“That’s a hard one…”
Beside him, Rowan stifled a giggle.
“Only you would think so, My Prince.”
It was true that the farming of materials taken from slain foes was a side of the adventure Bram wanted no part in. He wasn’t a squeamish man, but there were just some tasks a prince ought not to do.
“It doesn’t have to be just the red grizzly’s corpse.” His gaze drifted toward the cave entrance. “There might be buried treasure in there too.”
“Shall we take a look?” Rowan offered.
Loathe as he was to steal someone else’s spoils, he did spend enough time supporting Nike from afar. It was only fair that they got something from this quest too. Besides…
Bram’s gaze drifted back to the player still checking her notifications.
“She’s been given enough rewards…” Satisfied with his justification, the prince who couldn’t help but feel jealous grinned at his partner-in-crime. “Let’s go raid the grizzly’s cave.”
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CONGRATULATIONS! [100] New users have arrived on Aarde. The system update is now completed.
Finally, some good news.
On his way back down from Sundermount, Bram had received reports from other observers detailing the successes of the players they observed, and he’d begun to think he was the only one that the system didn’t favor.
“Tell me what we’ve won.”
Current resource rate: 1.38%
“Not bad.” Bram’s gaze drifted to the back of the player haggling with the shopkeeper she was trying to sell her spoils to. “Not bad at all.”
This was the first time they’d ever gained a point-one percent increase. Considering how slow the increase usually was, that point one was practically a giant leap of progress.
“I see that even buying and selling can be a battle,” Rowan commented.
She and Bram watched from behind another stall as Nike and the shopkeeper battled over the extra silver Nike demanded for the red grizzly’s testicles which the Loom’s item system informed her was a highly sought-after ingredient for a potent aphrodisiac. Because of this knowledge, the shopkeeper was failing in trying to lower the item’s price.
“She’ll win in the end,” Bram mused aloud.
He glanced down.
“We didn’t do so bad either.”
Around his neck was a loose silver chord. Fastened to it was a trinket; a fang, three inches long and thicker than normal, with its surface coated in an array that marked its enchantment.
If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.
ITEM: Maneater’s Fang QUALITY: Rare TYPE: Necklace DESCRIPTION: A necklace worn by a beast hunter known for slaying beasts that have tasted man’s flesh. It was crafted with sorcery using a man-eating grizzly’s fang as the focus for its enchantment. BOONS: Strength +2, Constitution +2, improves [Blood Drinking] to allow quicker absorption and increased healing.
Bram thought it was ironic that a hunter who slew fel beasts that attacked people would fall to a maneater in the end, but at least that hunter had been avenged now.
“Not bad at all.”
There were other spoils, a merchant’s pouch of gold griffins, a bag of jewels, mismatched pieces of armor, and even a pair of enchanted daggers. Bram planned to sell most of it in an auction since neither he nor Rowan needed them.
“That beast was a hoarder,” Rowan agreed. “Quite unusual.”
“The whole mountain’s unusual,” Bram pointed out.
He didn’t dare mention that he thought Rowan’s cave was the reason for the many strange things that happened on Sundermount.
“Can you hear that?” Rowan asked.
He could.
It was hard to ignore the sound of chanting from not far off.
“Sounds like nothing good…”
Going over to see what the commotion was, Bram and Rowan arrived at the town square and found Hajime hanging back at the other end of the street from where a crowd was gathered.
The Japanese man was too distracted by the scene to greet his friends.
“It’s like a scene from a history book…the bad part of history,” he whispered.
It was late evening now, nearly time for storefronts to close, and yet the Temple of Phoebus was alight with activity. Many of the town’s faithful were gathered around the temple’s front yard, drawn there by the spectacle made by the clerics who served the Lord of Light.
“Shame!” someone chanted.
“Shame!” another continued.
“Shame!” cried a third.
Not all the faithful joined in on the chanting, with many sharing the same troubled expressions as Hajime. There were enough zealots among this crowd though for the chanting to grow so loud that Bram could barely hear the pleading of the young woman whose neck and wrists were trapped beneath the wooden stockade that Bram himself had noticed months before.
“P-Please!” she cried. “I didn’t do nothing wrong!”
She looked young, too young to be put on display like this. Her straw-blonde hair was caked in sweat, strands clinging to a child-like face with big doe eyes stained in tears.
“I didn’t do it!” she repeated, adding, “I couldn’t…my magic’s not strong enough!”
The clerics who chided her weren’t listening to her pleas, and, though many in the crowd were appalled with the young woman’s treatment, none had come to her defense. At least not yet.
“This is fucking barbaric,” someone growled.
Bram’s gaze turned left.
Ashe
The green tag marked him as a player.
Bram recognized him too.
It was the old man Rowan had helped to register.
Grandpa Jonno, rather, the player Ashe, wasn’t far from where Bram stood. Beside him was his granddaughter, Nore, and though she didn’t curse in outrage like he had, her narrowed gaze suggested she thought the same as him.
They weren’t the only ones either.
With the help of the Loom’s ‘All-Seeing Eye,’ Bram discovered several people with green tags mixed in with the crowd.
Even Hajime who stood to Bram’s right seemed like he was trying hard not to pull out his wand.
“Shame!” cried the cleric standing next to the stockade.
He was a large man, round and obese enough to stretch the fabric of his pristine yellow robe. He had a balding, pudgy face, tiny, half-moon eyes, and a big mouth set in a shameless grin that reminded Bram of the northern nobles who’d harried him at court before they showed their true colors and he bested them in battle.
It’s a face that makes you want to punch it, he thought. Aloud, he asked the nearest bystander, “What’s happening over there, Bruv?”
The man—a burly-looking mercenary wearing shabby gray armor and an aged, scarred face—glanced sideways at Bram, gave him the once-over, and, possibly deciding a fellow soldier wasn’t one of the faithful, answered, “Girl’s been convicted o’ heresy.”
Well, that was obvious. Heresy was the only crime the gods’ temples were allowed to prosecute underneath the Imperium’s authority, although the term itself was ambiguous and could mean a whole slew of crimes ranging from simple thievery to outright rebellion.
“What sort of heresy?” Bram pressed.
“Cleric says she’s done and cursed the lawn,” the mercenary answered.
Bram cast a furtive glance at Rowan. It was only the second time he witnessed her frown.
It was good to know she didn’t enjoy seeing someone else take the blame for her mischief.
Bram’s gaze drifted to the temple’s front lawn next, though it could no longer be called a lawn for it had become a wide patch of dead earth that even the clerics who tended it couldn’t seem to uncurse.
“Do they have proof of her heresy?”
The mercenary shrugged.
“Clerics claim eyewitnesses saw her dabbling in dark magic a couple of moons back. Says that’s what made their lawn go bad…or so they say.”
Bram raised an eyebrow. “You don’t seem convinced.”
“The thing is,” the mercenary scratched the top of his mangy blonde hair, “that girl’s a receptionist at the Mercenary Guild, right, and they’ve been busy every night for months now with all the mercenaries flocking in from the south…even this guild branch in a tiny town’s got their hands full with business.”
As if to prove the mercenary’s words true, the prince noticed quite a few armed people gathered among the faithful who didn’t have green tags over their heads, with many of them looking like they shared the old mercenary’s opinion on the matter.
“…And I seen Leni myself helping out at the guild throughout the nights I’ve been here, so I don’t see how she’d have time to dabble in dark magic,” the mercenary explained, adding, “And how’s a bloody receptionist supposed to know dark magic anyway… She doesn’t have time for shit like that when she’s too busy helping a rough crowd like ours get sorted.”
“Dark magic,” Bram repeated.
About three months ago, Rowan had explained magic to Chris, Bridget, and Hajime. She’d told them that all magic was born from nature. This was mostly true, though one branch of sorcery followed a different path. Dark magic was fueled by death and decay, the very opposite of nature which symbolized life. Such magic was the source of most curses, though not like the one Rowan had cast on the temple’s front lawn.
Having witnessed Rowan curse the lawn himself, Bram was certain she hadn’t used dark magic to do it. No, Rowan’s power lay in the blood, and blood magic, despite its reputation, was still part of nature.
At this point, more of the faithful were gathering, and the chant of “Shame!” was growing louder. Loud enough that Bram nearly missed the old mercenary’s deductions of the girl’s real crime.
“You ask me, the Fat Friar’s just getting back at Leni for not letting him into her breeches,” he whispered conspiratorially to Bram.
According to the mercenary, himself a trueborn son of Reise, it was well-known throughout the town that Cleric Mathias, known among locals as the Fat Friar, had an appetite for young women, preferably ones nearing the cusp of adulthood. Many of Reise’s girls had been defiled by this lecherous cleric to the point that some in Reise called him a rite of passage. Something to endure lest one suffered the wrath of the sun god’s temple.
“Leni’s never been one to follow for following’s sake, and she gave it to him plain when she kicked him in the nuts the last time he’d touched her arse,” the mercenary explained further.
“You saw this yourself?” Bram confirmed.
“Aye.” The mercenary pointed toward the guild’s front door. “I and a bunch ‘o hard hats were celebrating our new employment that night at the Respite when she hit the Fat Friar who’d been going too hard on his cup.”
That was all Bram needed—a reason to intervene.
In truth, with the way Rowan and Hajime were glaring daggers at the Fat Friar who was blatantly taunting the girl in the stockade, Bram would’ve made a move even without a justification. Still, it helped to have one in case the sun god’s temple sent a complaint to him later.
However, Bram didn’t get the chance to cause a ruckus first. That right belonged to another.
“Hey, assholes!” roared a now-familiar voice.
Nike crossed the cursed lawn as if she didn’t mind stepping on cursed land. Not that she knew it was cursed. This allowed her to reach the temple’s front steps without obstruction, but only until she arrived at the bottom step.
‘Swoosh.’
Two spears barred her way up to the temple’s front steps. These spears were held by knights in silver armor underneath pale yellow tabards. The symbol of Phoebus lay over their chests.
“You cannot pass,” said the knight on the left.
He was blonde, tall, fierce-looking, and had an accent Bram recognized. It was the speech of those who came from the Imperium’s capital.
“Away with you now, Woman,” said the knight on the right.
He was a brunette, tall, fierce-looking, and he also carried that same haughty tone as the first knight.
Despite their different hair colors, both men looked alike. They even shared the same conceited expressions.
“Fuck you,” Nike replied.
She truly was a feisty one.
The two knights’ spears forced Nike to step back, and that’s when her hand flew to the staff strapped to her back.
The knights’ faces hardened.
They might have attacked Nike right then—claiming she was a threat to the temple’s peace—if not for the arrival of more players. One by one they gathered on that cursed lawn, more than twenty in all, with all of them looking like they were ready to rumble.
The brunette knight scoffed. “It seems these country bumpkins don’t know what they’re doing, Brother.”
“What can you expect of commoners, Brother,” replied the blonde knight.
He glared at Nike who stood closest.
“To draw your weapon against the temple is an act of heresy,” the blonde knight warned.
The brunette knight added, “Do so now, and we’ll be forced to cut you down…no matter how many of you there are.”
Just by their expressions, it seemed these two knights were also spoiling for a fight, and Bram, who remained an observer, didn’t doubt they had the skill for it. The temple knights of the sun god were notorious for being skillful warriors. They were particularly well-versed in the subjugation of heretics.
To add oil to the fire, the Fat Friar roared, “What do you think you’re doing?!”
He sent one burdened boot down the steps.
“You stand in front of the house of God and dare to show hostility to Phoebus’ chosen?!”
Not knowing who Phoebus was, and believing this was all still part of the game, the players seemed unfazed by the Fat Friar’s raving.
“Guards!” he commanded, “seize these—”
“Enough!” came an even louder voice.
The guards who served the temple arrived on its middle step just in time as a young man moved swiftly through the crowd, and they, noticing who he was, couldn’t help but part for him.
With his disguise undone, Bram walked casually toward the temple’s front steps. Beside him was the now-famous Knight of Scarlet Blossoms.
Hajime was there too, though the locals could be forgiven for not noticing him since the two people walking ahead were such larger-than-life figures in Bastille Shire.
Soon enough, Bram arrived at the bottom step where the two knights barred his way. He wasn’t the one to address them though.
“Move aside,” Rowan flashed them an impish grin, “or you will be moved.”