“I need healing!”

“Murph, over here! I’m wounded!”

“Heal me!”

“I need healing!”

I aim my Initiate Chimes at Plun and cast Heal. The spell sends a circular golden orb crawling through the air. It misses my party by a wide margin and vanishes into the dungeon wall.

“I need healing!”

Chimes must be the silliest weapons ever invented: a combination Menora/Wind Chime, with candles on top and musical instrument on bottom. I dangle the Holy weapon away from my body, trying not to light my loose-fitting Initiate Robes on fire.

“I need healing!”

“Murph, top me up!”

A second golden orb leaves my Chimes. It grazes Plun’s buttock before connecting with an enemy Bandit, saving her from the brink of death.

“Whose side are you on, dipshit?!”

At first, the enemy tried to focus-fire me. They soon realized I can self-Heal, and furthermore that I can’t hit anyone else with this slow-moving skillshot.

That’s why I, LVL 3 Cleric Murphy, am standing in the center of the fight bodyblocking for our Mage Vant.

“I need healing!”

By divine providence I finally land a Heal on our Rogue Tess as she weaves around. Tess and I have … philosophical disagreements about the proper way to play Rogue. I’d rather she STAY IN ONE PLACE and shoot arrows. Instead she insists on running in dagger style.

“I need healing!”

“I JUST HEALED YOU!”

—

I met a few minor setbacks since last week.

Class Choice is an archaic name. Once upon a time, nobody picked Cleric. The Church complained. Now “The Goddess” chooses for you. Class Choice is permanent.

Clerics are members of the Church who specialize in Healing and Purity magic. Main stat FTH, secondary INT. Stats are determined by LVL and equipment, but also can be trained individually.

The basic Heal spell is a skill-shot single-target heal. The size and power of the orb scale off FTH, and the speed of the orb scales off INT.

XP sharing is out of whack in this world. XP for a kill is divided equally among all players who dealt damage to the enemy and all players who healed them. With my weak and impossible-to-aim Heal spell, this becomes an issue.

One might ask, “Why is your Heal so weak, Murphy? Have you been slacking off?”

To make a long story short:

—

INT is trained by reading the Training Books in the Library. The moment I got a free hour I went over to get some INT buffs. Here’s the first line of Training Book 1:

Yberz vcfhz qbybe fvg nzrg, pbafrpgrghe nqvcvfpvat ryvg, frq qb rvhfzbq grzcbe vapvqvqhag hg ynober rg qbyber zntan nyvdhn.

That’s right. The spoken language in this world is slightly accented modern English, but the written language is ROT13. Or rather, they use the character ‘N’ to refer to our letter ‘A,’ ‘O’ for ‘B,’ etc.

ROT13 English turns out to be way harder to learn than a random other language.

—

FTH is trained by daily prayer and … chastity.

The first words Father Penitence said to me: “Dear boy, the fingers of the Devil wrap around your heart. Deliver yourself from sin!”

The second morning, Father Humility casually passed me in the hall: “To sin with yourself is to tread roughshod on the gifts of the Goddess.”

At dinner, Father Temperance only serves me a half-portion of porridge: “Lust is a slow and insidious killer, my child.”

As I hurry into Mass, Father Generosity shook his greying head: “Every day, we stray further from the Goddess’s light.”

Even the mute old monk who sweeps the floors crosses himself every time I pass by.

I have a problem, ok?

These priests are like walking blacklights, and the stacking chastity penalties are no joke.

Only with my iron will do I barely manage to keep my FTH stat afloat.

—

For the perfectly understandable reasons outlined above, despite being forced to pray twice as much as the other Initiates, my current stats are:

NAME: Murphy

RACE: Human

CLASS: Cleric

LVL: 3

HP: 21/21

STR: 7

INT: 7

FTH: 4

AGI: 7

EQUIPPED: Initiate Chime, Initiate Robes.

Needless to say, I am not in the healthiest of mental states.

—

Plun and Vant, neither of whom I managed to heal, finish off the last two bandits.

Plun merrily loots the bandit’s corpses.

Vant chugs a blue potion.

A gold LVL UP! circle spirals up around Tess, making her the first of us to reach LVL 5.

And that was the last straw.

—

But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

The fighting spirit of our Founding Fathers still shines through these words. Dear reader, I hope you find the generosity in your heart to understand, if not to forgive, the crime I am about to commit. Know that I am compelled to this act by my duty as an American to right a long train of injustice, and by forces of nature beyond my control.

What act of defiance can right the abuses and usurpations delivered me in this inhospitable reality? There is no ocean into which I can dump tea. No redcoat I can tar and feather.

No, only one crime is equal to the task.

I tiptoe down the sleeping corridors towards the chapel, driven by the certainty that Fate herself is out to get me, animated by the will to take revenge against her.

Past the dorms, where my fellow Initiates sleep soundly.

Past the priests’ quarters, from which snores prayers emanate.

Past the silent monk, who crosses himself when he sees me.

Past the point of no return.