Rejoice not, for victory will yet be mine!

With lofty flames from heaven,

Evildoers will be scourged from Verden

—Lines from The Epic of Hjalmar, author unknown

Asteria

It was like the smell of months-old garbage. It was like nails on a chalkboard. It was like bugs crawling under my skin.

I had expected Seraphiel to be alone, but he was with the other EL Commanders. The sensory experience of being close to three carriers of the active Iah virus was too much for me. I instinctively started to run away then vomited my half-digested lunch.

Once I was calmer, we finally came to an agreement that I would heal Uriel first. My dyr was quite fast, so it wasn’t long before Uriel and I were far enough from the others that I could think more rationally. I remembered that there was a little dyr farm an hour from Kraej City. That was a save point in the game, but here it must only be a room for rent.

I asked Uriel to go back and tell the others, who must be waiting anxiously for news, that I would heal them one at a time at the dyr farm. The farm owner seemed strangely reluctant to rent the room to me, but he agreed when Uriel joined me.

Once inside, I sat down cross-legged on the bed and gestured to a spot within arms-reach.

“Please stand there. I’ll do my best to heal you,” I said.

Uriel was a big and burly giant of a man. He was good-looking in a square-jawed, steely-eyed way. His brown hair was cut down to a few millimeters in a classic military buzz cut, and his eyes were a glowing grey. Regular Kraej soldiers had to wear mass-produced military uniforms, but officers were expected to have their own uniforms tailor-made. Commanders could wear whatever they wanted. Uriel was wearing the standard olive green field uniform but his double-breasted greatcoat, jacket, shirt, trousers, and boots were of a much better quality and fit than the regular uniform.

“Alright,” said Uriel. He looked sick and depressed, but I was sure he was going to be in better spirits soon.

I closed my eyes and placed my hands on my knees, palms up. Slowing my breathing, I entered a meditative state.

“Heal,” I said out loud. My eyes were still closed, but I knew that a soft green light was enveloping Uriel. A heal spell like this was, of course, totally ineffective against the Iah virus, but Uriel would be expecting me to try it first.

“That doesn’t work,” said Uriel.

I made no reply as I was busy examining his body with my spiritual senses. The Iah virus looked like tiny pulsing black spots to my spiritual vision. The virus was in his blood and internal organs like a cancer that had spread. Thankfully, it hadn’t reached his brain.

“Cure,” I said. Cure was the standard spell used to treat abnormal status in people. However, only the abnormal states known to the ancient Vinleaf could be fixed by a cure artifact.

There was no actual need to speak aloud to cast spells, but I did it to let Uriel know what was happening as golden sparks fountained from my hands and fell on him. This was the special skill the goddess had granted me, the Rite of Cleansing. Normal cure spells were green.

The black spots I saw with my spiritual senses faded to grey and grew smaller when the golden light covered them, but they didn’t disappear. The Iah virus was now weak enough that Uriel’s wound healed instantly.

I opened my eyes. Uriel had taken his shirt off and looked uncertain as he touched his chest where the oozing, infected cut had been. It had healed cleanly without scarring.

“It’s done. Could you please tell Sariel that it’s his turn?” I said.

“Alright,” said Uriel. He left without another word.

Not even a “thank you” from Uriel? Ugh, people were so ungrateful! I flopped down on the bed, tired out from using the goddess’ power. It should be okay since I could tell that Sariel wasn’t as sick as Uriel.

…No way, I forgot the candy!

After a few minutes, there was a knock on the door. Sariel pushed the door open as soon as I turned the knob and tried to walk inside immediately, but I noticed that his boots were dirty.

“Hey, take your boots off first!” I said. I didn’t want to have to mop the floor. Sariel practically tore his boots off in his haste then pushed me inside the room.

Sariel was tall, but not a giant like Uriel. He was famous for his eccentric style, and today was no exception. His stylishly messy hair changed colors often. Today, it was a dark green with grey highlights, and he was wearing ice grey contact lenses. His clothes were a colorful hodgepodge of leather, buckles, silver chains, metal studs, and what looked like non-functional, decorative pockets. Sariel had sly, slightly ferret-like features and an intense, dangerous air about him, as though he was always a hair’s breadth away from exploding.

I remembered his character from “Tales of Vesterland.” The fight with Sariel in the game was awesome! I didn’t have time to grind my way to the proper level to fight him so I just used a cheat to restore my team's health every time they were hit. Even with the cheat, Sariel made me work for the win. He had crazy attacks that were a one-hit kill if you couldn’t dodge it. What’s worse was that he could heal himself by stealing his enemy’s health. When he was at one-tenth health, A-class ELs would spawn endlessly until he died. It took me forever to defeat him.

Then, just when the team (and the player) thought they had won, the real boss fight started. The “Sariel” the heroes had been fighting was nothing but a dead body that had been reanimated and controlled by Seraphiel, who was the real last boss.

The real Sariel was a lot less cartoony than he had been in the game. I should really stop thinking of him as a video game boss.

“What’s wrong with Uriel? Did you cure him?” asked Sariel.

“He should be fine now. He had a bad reaction to the EL treatments,” I said. “I need to cure you, too.”

“Me? I don’t feel unwell,” said Sariel. He frowned and looked at me suspiciously.

I squirmed a little under his intense scrutiny. “Um, please just stand there. I need to concentrate.”

Sariel didn’t look happy, but he nodded his head in acquiescence. I sat on the bed and took the same meditative position I had used earlier.

“Cure.” This time I didn’t bother with the heal spell.

Sariel looked almost the same as Uriel to my spiritual senses. Sariel must have a greater natural resistance to the virus to be able to fight off the symptoms better than Uriel.

“What the hell?!” Sariel exclaimed when the golden sparkles of the Rite of Cleansing showered down on him. “This isn’t a cure spell!”

Sariel grabbed me by the shoulder, but it didn’t matter. I had already cured him as much as I could.

“Ow!” I complained. It didn’t actually hurt, but I wanted him to let go.

“What did you do?” said Sariel.

“It’s just the same cure spell I used on Uriel. Why don’t you go and see how he’s doing? And please tell Seraphiel that it’s his turn now,” I said.

Sariel's eyes narrowed as he gazed at me assessingly. “Why don’t you explain what you’re doing?”

“Well, there’s three of you, and I don’t want to explain it three times. I’d rather finish my work with Seraphiel then meet up with everyone to explain what’s happening.”

“When?” asked Sariel.

“Not today because I need to rest,” I said.

Sariel was silent for a moment, brows knitting together. I’m guessing that he was inwardly debating whether to interrogate me some more.

“Fine. I need to check on Uriel anyway,” said Sariel. “And Seraph…”

His voice trailed off, and I wondered what he hadn’t said. Was Seraphiel sick, too? Sariel turned around to leave.

“Tell Seraphiel that Uriel forgot to give me the candy!” I said.

Sariel laughed.