Battlefield Reclaimer, Ch 44: Priestess (Patreon)

On the way back to the cavern, Ayala’s gaze was fixed ahead of them. It looked like she was more relaxed than before, but the determination had become a permanent fixture. It was just a little quieter now, running beneath all of her actions.

“You didn’t want to be a priestess?” he asked after a minute. He’d never known a priestess before, and he was becoming more curious about her. It sounded like her life hadn’t been easy, even with all of the advantages she had.

“I dreamed of a life where I didn’t have to fight,” she answered, her voice walking the line between sadness and fact. “It was childish, but it was my hope.”

“I understand,” Sam said. In that way, she wasn’t so different from him. It made him like her a bit more. She’d made a difficult choice because she had to, just like he had made a choice to help the Guardian and the World Law.

For him, the other option was prison and death. For her, perhaps it wasn’t as severe, but it sounded like she’d had to give up something important to her. Dreams were sometimes more important than anything else.

As he studied her, he broached a subject that had been on his mind for a while. It didn’t seem like he had to hide all of his secrets anymore. She was able to see what needed to be done.

“Have you ever seen this symbol before?” he asked, as he showed Ayala the nine-pointed star on his hand.

Ayala looked at it, frowning as if she were seeing it for the first time, and then she blinked. “The Guardian Star? It’s a symbol of the Church, but usually you only see it on official documents. It’s a sign of authority in Aster Fall. Some bishops use it as their personal seal, and...well, nevermind the other use for now. Why is it on your hand?”

It was as if she were seeing it for the first time, even though he’d never tried to cover it up. Her reaction suggested that it had been invisible or unnoticeable until he pointed it out.

It made him frown as he looked down at it. It had always just been there on his hand and he’d thought people could see it. Apparently, they couldn’t unless he showed it to them.

It took him a moment to figure out what to say. He wasn’t going to tell her everything, but some was fine.

“After I transformed, the World Law wasn’t happy with me,” he replied, keeping it simple. “You know it doesn’t like Outsiders. After a little while, it got worse and a voice told me I had to make a choice, to either be against the World Law or with it. When I chose to be with it, this star appeared.”

Ayala stopped walking and turned towards him, studying him. Then, she reached out and took his hand in hers. There was a significant difference between his black claws and her white hands. After all of the Charisma, his body was well shaped, even his hands, but the claws were clearly for one purpose.

“I’ve never seen this on your hand before. It only appeared now....” Ayala said slowly. “To some people, it would be blasphemy to see it on the hand of someone who is cursed like you, to look like an Outsider. They might attack in an attempt to take it back, so it’s good that they can’t see it.” She paused as she thought, her eyes studying the symbol. Eventually, she reached out and touched it.

“I think that you are blessed, but it is a sad blessing. The other use of this symbol.... The Guardian Star is a symbol of those who sacrifice everything for Aster Fall. It is placed on tombstones.” Her voice took on a gentler quality that was more refined, something that he would expect of a priestess.

He was silent as he struggled with the meaning, and then he gave out a helpless laugh, a single soft hah.

“Well, that’s appropriate,” he said when he could speak again. “Is there any point in showing it to the Church, to make them not hate me on sight?”

Ayala shook her head slowly as she looked at him and then at the star. “Only as a last resort, I think. You would need enough time to show it to them, which means they will have already attacked. Even then, they might not believe the reason.”

Her words confirmed his own thoughts on the subject. It wasn’t something that was going to instantly make the Church like him. If it had been, the Guardian probably would have said something. Maybe it would still help in a pinch, if someone were on the fence, but by that point, they’d already be having a reasonable conversation with him.

“However...,” Ayala said slowly. “I think I know what to do with this right now. It might help. Let’s go back.”

---

When they returned to the cavern, his father and Krana had taken the guards inside, and Jeric was keeping watch by the deadfall, waiting for them. There was a sense of relief in his features when he saw Sam, but he didn’t look worried. The World Law had notified him when the flaw closed.

Now, they just needed to close nine more flaws to get rid of Defiant. Sam had to wonder how long that would take. If what Ayala had said were true, they could find more flaws out in the wilderness, and not so many in the city. Perhaps there would be some on the way to Osera? How common were they, exactly?

Before all of that, he needed to work on the illusion amulet. It shouldn’t take that long to copy what he could from the design..., a few days at most. The question was if it would work.

“Let me help the guards,” Ayala spoke up as she walked into the cavern. There was a new authority to her movements, as if she had grown up a bit. She had lost some of the hesitation that was part of her before.

Everyone turned to watch as she knelt next to Lesat. Both of the guards were unconscious, but his missing leg was the bigger problem on the trip back. With enough Constitution, missing limbs could be slowly regrown, but Sam wasn’t sure how much was required.

Apparently, Ayala had something else in mind. He watched carefully, since it was the first time he’d ever seen magical healing. He wanted to know how it worked.

A brilliant white light surrounded her, radiating out from her hands and towards Lesat. The energy was completely different from the tunnels, but there was a hint of the earth’s stability about it.

Ever since his transformation, and even more now after absorbing the essence from the spiders, Sam’s senses were incredible, especially for different types of energy. Everything came to him with a sense impression, like a smell or taste. He’d noticed it first with auras, but other energies had it too. He had the feeling that the more he understood about each type, the better he would be able to use it with enchantments and spell scrolls.

The energy coming from Ayala was flavored like the sun and woods of Aster Fall, a nurturing force that brought life. He could see it in the air, twisting as it left her hands in a torrent that was a waterfall surrounded with sparkling rain.

The structure of it wasn’t like anything he’d seen before, but he could tell the energy was twisted together from separate concepts. Just on the edge of his awareness, there was a unique sound, a note in a particular tune, that was similar in some ways to the Song of the Earth, but in a different scale.

He did his best to search for the natural runes in the spell, but it only went on long enough for him to tell that they were there and not to understand them as the healing energy flowed out of Ayala’s hands and poured into Lesat’s leg.

As soon as it touched him, the swelling and bruising around the stump began to subside. The clotted blood faded away, disappearing into nothing, and the leg began to reform. It took several minutes, but by the time Ayala’s spell finished, the stump was about two inches longer than it had been before, and the edge of it was smooth.

“It will take a few days to regenerate it completely,” Ayala said, as she stood up slowly and moved to Yeres. She wobbled slightly on her feet and Sam moved forward to catch her, only to stop at the last moment when it was clear that she was fine. “That will have to do for now. I used more than half of my mana already.”

She bent down next to Yeres and placed her hands over his stomach where the spider had torn it open. Once again, she was surrounded by the white cascade of her healing spell and Sam focused his attention on it.

The bandages fell away from Yeres’s stomach, leaving it visible under her hands as the energy brushed across it. As the energy flowed over it, the swelling subsided, the blood disappeared, and the wound began to close. A lot of what was going on was internal, but Sam could see the pattern of the energy sweeping through the guard’s body.

Eventually, the spell ended and Ayala wavered in place. Sam was already there this time, holding her shoulder until she caught her balance. At his feet, Yeres was slowly waking up. The guard blinked as he looked around, and then up at Sam.

“Demon!” he shouted as he tried to leap to his feet, scrambling for his sword. He was trying to draw it as he rose to his feet.

Without even thinking about it, Sam reflexively punched him in the face.

There was a very satisfying crunch.

Yeres had a higher Strength and Constitution than him, which meant the hit didn’t hurt the guard very much, but leverage was on Sam’s side and it was enough to send him sprawling across the floor.

Loops of crystal flame began to flow down Sam’s arms as he started a spell to subdue the guard. He wasn’t that upset and he didn’t plan to kill him, but he wasn’t going to let the guard keep acting like an idiot.

Whether it was fair or not, he didn’t have any real sympathy for him.

The guard had ignored Krana’s vision, Ayala’s commands, his father’s explanation, a day of seeing things with his own eyes, and now...he was still acting like a fool. Perhaps it was hard to change someone’s basic nature.

By that point, Jeric was already there, ready to knock the guard back down, Krana was staring at the cavern roof as she shook her head, and Ayala was surprised as she started to become angry.

“Stop!” Ayala shouted, her voice resounding through the cave.

It made the guard freeze.

When he did, Sam shrugged and let his flames die down as well, as he kept an eye on Yeres and waited to see if the guard would try anything else.

His Wisdom might have increased, which meant that he understood Yeres’s perspective, to an extent, and his Charisma was higher now as well, which meant it was a lot easier to clearly express his stance to others in a positive way, but neither of those things changed Sam’s basic nature.

He’d never liked idiots and his patience right now was extremely thin. He probably should have refrained from punching him, and from summoning the flames, since it only made him look more demonic, but it had been very satisfying. He’d wanted to do it for a while now, every time the guard talked about killing him or called him a demon.

The first one Ayala yelled at wasn’t Yeres, but Sam.

“Sam!” She glared at him, her eyes intense as the lines in her face became hard. “Stop making my job harder!”

“Sorry,” he muttered, as he looked between her and Yeres. He had to admit it was a fair point. She had just healed the guard. “He’s fine though. He can’t keep babbling about stupid things like that. At some point, it’s going to cause trouble.”

“You’re a demon!” Yeres shouted back, taking the moment to try and turn the blame on Sam. He didn’t seem to realize that he was healed and moving easily now. “Ismela was a martyr!”

His voice was filled with hatred.

“You are a demon! She did right to try and kill you before you can bring destruction to the world. These spiders were yours! This is all your fault! We wouldn’t have been attacked if you hadn’t called them here!”

Apparently, he was aware enough of what happened to make up a reason for it all, and to try and blame it on Sam.

“Be silent at once!” Ayala’s voice hit the guard this time. He saw her hands clenched into fists, shaking with real anger this time. “Sam is not a demon!”

There was a new aura surrounding her as she spoke, a sort of white-silver light that reminded him of his father’s Persuade ability, and it hit the guard with the weight of a loaded wagon. Yeres sagged on his feet, nearly falling backwards.

“You have a contract with me!” Ayala continued, her shout turning into an icy cold blade as the force of her will hit Yeres. “I have told you again and again that Sam is not an enemy. Now, as a Priestess, will you finally listen to me?!”

The aura of white-silver light around her rose out of her body, swirling into the air as it outlined her with power. Whatever ability she was using, it had to be something like Persuade, and it radiated out across the room.

When the edge of the light touched Sam, it felt like sparkling lightning against the edge of his skin and it fizzled out, unable to push through. Either his Charisma or his Aura of Crystal Flame was more than enough to deflect whatever she was doing.

He was tempted to reach out his finger and poke at it where it was touching him, because it was kind of ticklish, but his common sense suggested it would only make Ayala more angry. Instead, he focused his attention on trying to analyze it with Crystal Focus, letting the ability speed up his thoughts. The energy was well within his aura, so it was just a matter of time and understanding.

“But..., he’s an...Outsider...,” Yeres’s face was pale as he struggled to speak. He had slumped against the far wall and was sitting down as he looked up toward Ayala. His voice was shaken. The glow of her ability was reflecting from his eyes.

He looked at her, his eyes traveling to the aura all around her as his voice became a bit more stable, almost reverent. “Lady..., you became a priestess?”

At the same time, Lesat was blinking his eyes as he came to awareness and slowly sat up. He looked around the room, taking in what was going on, and sighed as he shook his head. What was happening was already clear to him. He’d expected it to happen before.

“Yeres, knock it off!” he growled. They were not the first words he’d expected to say after escaping from near death. “I know you grew up as a ward of the Church and you’ve always followed their teachings with near insanity, but look at her! The lady is telling you it’s fine!”

“But...,” Yeres mumbled as he looked between Ayala, Sam, and his comrade. “It’s a...demon...and it killed Ismela.”

“Ismela killed herself,” Lesat growled back at him. “True, she did what she thought was best, but she was foolish to attack without looking at what was going on and she ended up attacking a normal person who just looks weird. Now, drop it! The Arestes Guild doesn’t care about us enough to push this matter, especially against a Priestess when she’s telling you to stop it. You know that.”

“But...,” Yeres mumbled to himself, as he looked at Sam again. There was a crazed light in his eyes, and even Ayala’s ability wasn’t forcing it down yet. He wasn’t able to accept the change that easily.

“Sam is not a demon,” Ayala spoke up, her voice echoing with even more persuasiveness than before. “His appearance is a curse from a demon to try and kill him.”

She turned to Sam and her voice changed back to normal.

“Sam, show him your hand.”

Sam glanced at her, wondering what she meant for a moment, but then it was obvious. He held up his right hand, turning the back of it toward Yeres as he showed the nine-pointed star on it to everyone.

It instantly caught the guards’ attention, and even Krana blinked at it, as if seeing it for the first time. Her forehead furrowed as if she were puzzled by something, and then cleared.

“The Guardian Star....” Yeres muttered softly as he stared at it. “How does a....”

He stopped him himself, correcting what he was about to say as Ayala glared at him.

“How does a cursed individual have the Guardian Star on his hand? That...”

“It’s a blessing,” Ayala interrupted, her voice falling into a soothing cadence. “Sam is blessed by the Church, but because the Outsiders don’t want him to survive, he is suffering from a curse. They are trying to kill him. You have to help him and protect him, or the Outsiders will break through into the world.”

Sam had to agree. Even if she was making it a bit more dramatic, it was close enough. The Guardian had told him to fix the seal if he wanted to save his family. Ayala had probably taken the idea from Krana’s vision, but she wasn’t wrong.

“But...,” Yeres’s resistance was waning as Ayala’s ability washed over him. For a moment, Sam had to wonder exactly what the ability was and why it was given to Priests. Was this the World Law’s way of persuading people to help it?

The World Law might not like him, but it was convenient that for once it would end up helping him out, if this worked.

Lesat looked over toward Yeres and just shook his head, and then lay back down on the stone, closing his eyes as he left the other guard to his own devices.

Yeres’s eyes grew wider as he stared at Ayala, filled with the silver-white light, and then he finally lowered his head.

“Yes, ...Lady,” he answered slowly, his words taking on some of the same quality as he echoed Ayala. “Sam is not a demon. He is just cursed and I need to help him.”

Sam held back a nod as he watched, trying not to interfere. Most of his attention was on the ability, which was very interesting. He had to wonder how often Priests abused this ability against those with weak wills or low Charisma.

It looked like the ability was similar to Persuade, and it probably relied on some version of Ayala’s Charisma and Wisdom, using those two attributes to target someone else’s will. As a Guard, which was a common class, it was unlikely that Yeres had more than 8 or 10 points in either attribute.

After Sam had increased his Wisdom, he could tell that it was related to mana regeneration, as well as perception and insight, but he hadn’t quite figured out the details yet.

“You have a contract with me to keep this mission secret, which means you cannot tell anyone about Sam. That would only bring him trouble. You are also part of my contract to protect him, which means you have to do your best for him. Do you understand?”

By mentioning the contract, Ayala was referring to the Sacred Trade they had all made. Even the guards had joined in on it, albeit under duress. If Yeres had actually attacked Sam, he might have ended up breaking it and losing five levels.

Fortunately for Sam, protecting the guards was not part of his side. He just had to help Ayala get home.

“Yes..., Lady,” Yeres mumbled slowly. There was a new light dawning in his eyes as he looked towards Sam. “He’s...important to the world, but cursed to look like that. I have to protect him and I can’t let anyone hurt him. The church understands him...and is helping him....”

“Exactly,” Ayala agreed, as the light began to fade from around her. “Now, please, stop stressing your wound. I need to make sure it’s healed, so we’ll be staying here for a day or two. I need to finish healing Lesat’s leg too.”

The light faded from Yeres’ eyes at the same time, and he looked toward Sam, blinking, as his posture changed.

“Sorry, I was confused before....” he muttered, half looking at him and half staring at Ayala with wide eyes. It wasn’t clear what he saw when he looked at her, but there was adoration there.

On the ground, Lesat just sighed and didn’t even bother to open his eyes. He couldn’t imagine how Yeres had thought this would go any other way. He didn’t want to get Preached at himself, so he was staying out of it. Life wasn’t fair, and the church had an enormous amount of power, not to mention the abilities to back it up. Ayala’s family was even worse. Her father was not someone to cross.

When Sam looked at Lesat, checking to see how he was taking all of this, the guard just looked resigned to everything. His eyes were closed and he was pretending to nap, but there was a furrowed line across his forehead.

The cavern fell back into silence as everyone looked toward Ayala and then toward Sam. The star on the back of his hand was the center of Krana’s attention.

“I knew there had to be some mark,” the dwarf grumbled as she looked at him. Her expression was intent, and it was clear she was thinking hard about something.

“Why don’t we stick to that curse explanation, if it ever comes up again.” she suggested. “It might keep people from killing you if we shout it out fast enough and you show that star.”