The next time I opened my eyes, I lay in a comfortable bed. A thick duvet gently pressing down on me. Clearly, I’d been moved. Feeling surprisingly calm, all things considered, I surveyed the room. It was still in keeping with the medieval theme, modestly decorated with a mirror and a table and chairs. A few decorative drapes hung from the wall. A tv would have been better, but this was clearly not a Travelodge.

Somehow, the last thing I noticed was the young black-haired woman sitting in a wooden chair right by my bed. I was crap with ages, but she looked around fifteen, maybe a little older but not by much. My heart jumped from surprise, when I saw her there, but to my mild amusement, she was asleep.

Acolyte of Devotion, Meria Sandwood, level 12: Human.

I was a little worried by the lack of my friends, but reason promptly told me that they’d all been healed and were considered neutral. The last I’d seen them, things had been peaceful enough and my situation certainly hadn’t gotten worse.

As I thought on that, I realized that I seemed to be healed, too. Checking my chest out, my ruined hoodie had been removed, and the flesh was fully healed. I still had a bald patch of hair there, making it look like I was going for some kind of perverted super hero look.

My whole body seemed to be fine, other than the cursed arm. The wound itself had been bandaged, but the spreading blackness in my veins continued to thicken and spread and the whole area sang in pain. I decided to take the quiet moment to inspect my Internal energy, and attempt to slow it down again.

I didn’t even make an attempt on calming my core energy down. That was a waste of time.

Instead, I delved along the tendril that travelled to my left arm. On reaching the curse, I focused on calming the much smaller amount of energy, and attempting once more to pull it away from the curse.

With a clearer mind, the whole process happened much faster than before and while I was unable to remove the connection of my energy to the curse, I did manage to tease the tendril far thinner.

Now all I had to figure out, was how to keep the tendril narrower like this without my constant attention. The moment I stopped, it began to slowly thicken once again. I repeated the process, this time counting how long before my energy returned to its normal rate of flow. I had about five minutes before it resumed normality.

Fed up with that and wanting to talk to my friends, I shifted into a sitting position on the bed. The movement woke the woman beside me. She jolted upright, as though she was about to get a bollocking for sleeping on the job.

“I’m sorry sir,” She said, desperation clear in her voice. I frowned at her.

“Who the hell do you think I am? The queen of bloody England?” I asked before smiling.

“Sit your arse back down and take a moment. Then you can tell me what the fuck is going on. And excuse my French.”

“French?” She asked, slowly lowering herself back down on the seat.

“Not important. What’s going on here is important. Start with yourself and why you’re watching over me.” I already knew her name, but I thought it polite to ask. I couldn’t actually tell if these people could see our tags, and that made me cautious.

“My… er my name is Meria. I’m an acolyte in the Temple of Devotion.”

“Same as Priestess… er, Esbeth Des… the woman who came to see us in the holding cell.”

“Yes, yes. Priestess Descar is one of the most prominent members of our temple. That you were lucky enough to have her attend your arrival was fortuitous indeed.”

“Huh?”

“You were lucky she was close by and able to offer assistance. A man in your… situation,” she said, eying my arm carefully. “Would most likely have been ejected from the city if one of us acolytes had been sent to assess you. We wouldn’t have had the skill to detect the nuances of your injury, nor would we have been able to offer the same degree of healing.”

“Well, there’s a first time for everything I suppose” I muttered more to myself.

“What do you mean?” She asked curiously.

“Being lucky. My dad always used to say, Clive, if it wasn’t for bad luck, you’d have no luck at all. I’d have to agree with him, even though he was an absolute tit.”

She looked at me like I’d lost my mind, but I never let that stop me. “So. Here’s a list of what I want to know in no particular order: Where are my friends and can I see them? Why am I in a nice bed, instead of a holding cell? Why were you sleeping in a chair next to my bed? Can you fix this goddamn arm? Because it’s hurting, a lot.”

She looked flustered, but managed to answer. “Your friends are in nearby rooms. I must call the priestess first up on your awaking. Then you may see them.

“You are in the Temple of Devotion. Your good alignment means we’re obliged to offer you assistance. Whether the curse can be lifted, isn’t in my remit to answer. I’m here to keep an eye on you. And, I wasn’t asleep, I was meditating.”

I burst into laughter, which caused her to look offended. I would have laughed even harder, but the shuddering movement caused to much pain.

“Well, Meria, I’ve never seen someone drool and snore while they meditated. You all must do it different in this part of the world.” The attempt at offence fell from her face and she now blushed.

“Come on. It’s not important and I won’ tell if you don’t. All I need to know is what the plan here is.”

“If you don’t need anything immediately, I will go and fetch the priestess. She is quite keen to see you awake and she’ll be much better placed to give you the answers you’re looking for.”

“Okay then. You go and do that.” I wanted to get things moving. Once these guys had healed my arm, we could get to work on heading home. I hoped they would be able to help with that, too. Perhaps my luck really was improving.

Meria still hadn’t left. She looked torn. “Are you sure there is nothing I can do for you before I leave?”

I saw a pitcher and jug of water on the side, and I could definitely do with a drink, but I could sort that out myself. I didn’t need to lord it over Meria. I waved her away, telling her I was fine. Once she was gone, I made my way over to the table and poured the much needed drink. My thirst seemed to increase once the water touched my throat, my body suddenly begging for more. I drained the full pitcher before taking a seat. I didn’t want to be lying down like I was bed ridden when the priestess arrived and I actually felt pretty good, apart from the pain from the arm.

As I sat, I lost myself in one of the tapestries on the wall. I assumed it was the Goddess of Devotion, helping an injured mother and her child. It sent me down a hole of thoughts, on religion and gods. I didn’t believe in anything back in our own world, but I’d never made the effort to believe in anything either. I was always dashing around focusing on the things in front of me. Trying to make a living, trying to get ahead. I’d help people if I could, but it had never been a driving factor for me.

“It’s good to see you awake and well Clive.” Came a female voice distracting me from my thoughts. The priestess had arrived.

“Oh, hey!” I replied. “Thanks for healing me. The arm might still be fucked, but everything else feels awesome.”

“You’re welcome. Whatever that curse is in your arm did not react well with my healing spell. The wound itself is healing on its own accord, which is promising.”

“So what do I do about this damn thing, then. We’re not from around here, and creepy ass magical curses are not common where we come from,”

“Others of my order have inspected you while you slept. I am afraid we have no way to help you directly. The powers we receive from the Goddess of Devotion are to heal and cleanse. This curse does not fall under either of those areas.

The curse is from the God of Destruction, a dark God. I think it is safe to assume her minions are unlikely to heal you. The only others we believe could aid, would be the followers of the Goddess of Justice. They actively battle the minions of Destruction and can call upon a holy fire that specifically harms demon kind.”

I watched her carefully as she spoke, she clearly wasn’t happy about this recommendation either and I had a feeling I knew why.

“Let me guess.” I said. “The followers of the Goddess of Justice are a bunch of self-righteous arseholes, who don’t like helping the great unwashed.”

“The great unwashed?”

“Just the normal people. The masses. The plebs. Me.”

“Ah, right. Yes and no. They do consider anyone not a follower of Justice lesser. So if you were a peasant worshiping Justice, they would look fondly upon you. They are battle crazed maniacs for the most part, dedicating their lives, to eradicating the Dark aligned beings of the world.”

“Well, the dark aligned do sound pretty shady to be honest. I mean you even call the Dark God followers, minions, yet the Light Gods just get followers. But that’s not really important. When we arrived here, we saw a level 90 woman appear out of thin air near the portal we’d come through. She shot some silvery red shit at the demon and chased him off. Then the cheeky bitch spat at us and disappeared!” I said, growing more outraged as I relived the insult.

“The red and silver fire is the cleansing flames of justice. If you seek them out, prepare for that same attitude from all among them. There is a good chance they would merely purge you from the land as soon as they saw your ailment.”

“When you say purge from the land, you mean they’ll just kill me, right?”

“That is the most likely scenario in all honesty. As for dark aligned beings, do not be too hasty to judge. Not all Dark gods are evil, nor are their followers. Grumash, the actual God of Darkness, is known to be caring and compassionate. He is worshipped by nearly all dwarves. His only real mantra is to explore the darkness.”

“Ah, that’s interesting. So would the followers of the Goddess of Justice kill a dwarf if they saw one?”

“Yes, sadly they would. They no longer actively hunt Dwarves after the pantheon of Light intervened on Grumash’s behalf, but they do still openly kill them if they come across any.”

“Shit. Why doesn’t justice just step in and sort his followers out? Stop them being mega dicks?”

She smirked, “You don’t fully understand how involved the gods are here. It is their power that we followers channel. The followers of Justice behave exactly how he wishes them to behave.”

“Ah, right.” I said resting my head in my hand. “Doesn’t sound like I’ll be getting bugger all help from those arseholes then. Any other ideas?”

“Two actually,” She smiled grimly. “Remove the arm above the cursed infection.”

“Nope,” I interrupted firmly.

“Or get you to a Neuma Master.”

“Neuma Master it is then. Is Neuma a God?”

“Certainly not.” She laughed. “Neuma is your internal life force. A Neuma master is someone who has dedicated their lives to the fine tuning of their Internal control.”

“Which is what I’ve been trying to do myself!” I said feeling positive about this development. “You think one of these dudes or Dudettes can heal me? Why didn’t you start with this?”

“Because they cannot heal you, and you are sorely limited in time. The only reason I considered it is because you indicated using your Internal Connection to slow the progression of the curse. A Neuma master will be able to assist you in strengthening your control. This may allow you eject the curse from your body, it may not.

“Going back to your alignments Clive. To be all three… it shouldn’t be possible. My sisters and the mother agree. We could understand, Neutral with dark. But not Light Neutral and Dark combined. Have you any idea why this might be?”

“None at all. I’m just flying by the seat of my pants here,” I sighed.

She looked at me for a long minute. Most likely looking for signs of deception. She must have been satisfied with what she saw and continued.

“There are two Neuma Masters of an average level, here in Laurel. I suggest you meet with them to see if they can help you. Spend a day or two training with them and if you need further guidance, you can travel to the Kingdom of Knuntang. There is a master there who is friendly with our temple if we can locate him. But also please consider the option of having it removed before it is too late.”

It was my turn to sit thoughtfully. “I will,” I said finally. “If it comes to it. I will have the arm removed.”

She smiled gently. “I am happy that you will. Your life is precious.”

I felt a strange little shiver at her words.