Level Up Saintess

So I get what healing and curing are, that’s pretty standard fare for any type of healer, but um… What the hell is [One who redeems] supposed to mean? I can formulate all kinds of snarky jokes about it, but now’s probably not the time since this is far too important. Maybe if I take a look at the skill tree it’ll tell me something about it? Let’s see…

 

The skill tree pops up as a long, scrollable list that’s divided by levels, it seems. At level 1 I actually started with every skill I could get except for [Appraisal], oddly enough. That seemed like a pretty standard skill in most RPG settings, especially if I already had [Greater Heal], but what do I know? Maybe if I get that [Appraisal] skill I could see those stat points on myself that I couldn’t see before? Who knows. Could be that it doesn’t work that way.

 

A lot of the skills had arrows leading away from them that connected to other skills at higher levels. Like, for instance, that [Appraisal] skill could become a [Greater Appraisal] skill at level 30. Or, if I’m getting extreme, my [Cure] skill could become [Immunity] if I followed the [Cure]-> [Cleanse] -> [Greater Cure] -> [Preventative Cure] -> [Immunity] path. But [Immunity] was level 80, and I can’t even fathom what it would take to give a person total immunity against something. That sounds like it’d be something only a god or something could do! Was that how powerful a level 80 Saintess was?!

 

Needless to say, there was a bunch of crazy sounding stuff up there, but I’d rather get to know the things I actually have access to better. Like for instance, how much would a [Heal] actually heal for compared to a [Greater Heal]? Or, idunno, what the heck is [One who redeems]? I was able to tap on the quests before and learn what they were, so maybe it’s not too crazy if I…

 

Yeah, tapping on it was the key. A small panel popped up to tell me more about it.

 

{[One who redeems]: This skill has been sealed until the conditions have been met.}

 

Oh. Well. How helpful. ...Fine then. I bet you can’t hide the more obvious ones from me at least, right?

 

{[Heal]: Heal basic wounds, such as cuts, bruises, sprains and fractures. (5 energy)}

 

{[Greater Heal]: Heal greater wounds and broken bones that the average healing could not. (30 energy)}

 

{[Cure]: Remove basic debuffs and lesser afflictions. (10 energy)}

 

Yeah yeah, that’s all as I expected. It’s interesting that it directly tells me how much energy each of them costs to use though; From how it’s been so far I would have just thought it would’ve made me test each of them out on my own to figure out the values. Maybe I’ve been too harsh on this, it’s actually been very supportive so far… In most areas, anyway. 

 

I’m worried about how far [Cure]’s ‘lesser afflictions’ will be able to handle. It seems like I’m in some kind of olden times, and those were usually rife with disease. I have absolutely NO plans to die early from some stupid plague or some basic dysentery type of deal. Luckily the skill tree lets me both see and click on my future possible skills, so I can look into this early and plan things out. Let’s see, it says I can get [Greater Cure] at level 20, which it just lists off as curing greater debuffs and more deadly afflictions. Vague once again, but I guess I’ll take it. First, though, I’d have to spec into [Cleanse] along the way it seems, since I don’t think they’re kind enough to just let me skip over something in the skill chain. But uh, I’m not really able to guess what it would be cleansing at all, you know? I already have [Cure], so what could it possibly do?

 

{[Cleanse]: Satisfactorily clean the target of any dirt or grime. (Cost based on area)}

 

…Okay there’s actually a lot I’d like to say about that one, but I guess I’ll just stick to ‘Exactly how clean is satisfactorily?’ and ‘wow this one’s cost is much more vague, huh?’. I mean, I get it, it probably wouldn’t make sense for the cost of cleaning an entire room to equal as much as cleaning an entire person or something, right? The differences in size would be much too big. …Wait, could I wash a person? If I could clean anything at all, then I’d hope that it’d let me clean myself off. I’d be absolutely shocked if this ancient looking place had, like, soaps and scrubs and stuff available. Oh, or maybe if I ever had to clean a toilet, that’d also be a good candidate for that spell.

 

Let me stop being stupid, I’m sure the skill’s intention was for me to clean out wounds or sick beds or surgery tools or stuff like that so that infections won’t spread, but come on. If I’m gonna make being here tolerable then there’s just certain things that I know will bug the crap out of me on a daily basis if I don’t find a good alternative for. Or maybe I’m just being pessimistic, I mean this is a fantasy world with magic and animal people and all that kind of junk, so maybe I should just try out my new daily routine before I just start assuming how life is going to be.

 

Or, you know, not life, but whatever this is supposed to be…

...Now I’m just depressing myself.

 

I can hear Chella snoring away across the room, and seeing as how she was already in bed when I first got here, the mornings are probably horribly early in this church. I shouldn’t screw myself over like this. I wonder if staring at this bright blue notification screen has the same effect as staring at a phone with blue light? I’m not even really feeling all that tired. Maybe it’s because my mind has been racing trying to figure out this weird new situation. Let me just move this screen away and close my eyes.

 

Mmm… This pillow has absolutely no support or softness.

And this bed is pretty hard actually, it’s almost completely wood with a bit of cloth covering it.

And honestly, this blanket is pretty thin for how chilly this stone room is…

 

Maybe it’ll help distract myself from the uncomfortableness if I count sheep? Or maybe thinking about a song? Or maybe quietly breathing along to a slow song? Or maybe-

 

Nah, I think I’m just not going to get very much sleep tonight. At least my new body is younger than my older one. Maybe I’ll be alright by the morning.

 

~~~

 

I was very much not alright by the morning.

It’s okay though, it’s not like this was my first experience not getting enough sleep, so I’ll be fine.

 

Chella was the one to wake me up. She wasn’t very nice about it either. I could laugh about it afterwards, once I woke up a little bit more, but when she first grabbed me by the collar and hauled me up, I was ready to start throwing punches. She handed me some water and an odd looking twig and dragged me to a nearby bathroom, and it wasn’t until I saw her using it to scrape at her teeth that I realized that it was for cleaning them. Even the water, which I’d been sipping at until then, was supposed to be used as part of the cleaning process, as well as for getting rid of any crusty drool left over from sleeping.

 

Thankfully, the bathroom had a few mirrors in it. I’m sure mirrors were quite important for making sure you brushed your teeth well enough with these primitive looking stick-things. I’m also sure that people respected the priests and the like better when they took care of themselves a little bit instead of looking sloppy. Makes you look holier when you don’t look homeless, I guess. The mirrors were rather on the dull and not so well made side though, so they kind of made my eyes hurt a little bit to look into. They worked well enough, I shouldn’t be so judgy about them, I’m just used to the nice and clear ones from my previous life still, is all.

 

Anyways, what’s more important is the fact that I didn’t see myself in my reflection. I mean, I know that this body isn’t my original one, I already had that realization yesterday, but like… It’s different when I can see the whole picture, you know? It was just so clearly not the reflection that I was used to. For starters, my eyes were a strange pale yellow with small white flecks. My skin was very pale, my face was completely different, and my hair… My hair was a long, tangled, straw-like mess. Really, it was just so dry and unhappy looking. I’m going to have to figure out something with this, because I doubt anyone will believe I’m a Saintess if they see me looking like this.

 

After a little while of me fondling my new face and desperately fiddling with my hair, Chella smacked my back to make me snap out of it. Seems I wasted a ton of time, so I had to really rush trying to brush with that weird tooth stick thing so I could catch up. And don’t let the fact that it was basically like brushing with a toothbrush fool you, because I definitely took longer at it than I should have. I was new to it, sue me.

 

By the time I made it back to our room, Chella had pulled out a robe for me to wear and had put it on my bed. I thanked her for it, but all I got was a noncommittal grunt back, which I couldn’t really fault her for with how much I’d been dragging her down today. When I put it on, the robe was clearly a little bit too big for me, but uh, I wasn’t going to be annoying Chella even more than I already had to today, so let’s just think that it’s big like this so that I can grow into it. I’m still young in this body, I have plenty of room for expansion. Yup. Thanks for thinking ahead, Chella.

 

For the record, the robe itself was quite… bland. It’s not like we were one of the higher ranking clergy, so there’s no way it was going to be, like, highly decorated or anything. In fact, I don’t know if Chella or I are actually considered ‘priests’ or anything here yet. Maybe we’re considered like priests in training or something? Interns? Well either way, our clothes were basically just two long simple cloths tied together to make an outfit. Think of it like togas maybe, only much less luxurious looking and much more thrown together. They weren’t bad, I shouldn’t say that. They’re better than the burlap sack looking monk clothes that I’d seen on tv and stuff, for sure. But like… I won’t lie, if I’m so far down on the ladder, I expect that they’re going to make me clean, and if I have to do vigorous movements in this thing then I think something’s going to slip free. I’ll have to find some cloth to make a little tube-top or something to put under this sometime, if it’s not breaking the dress code. For now I suppose I just have to be very careful not to flash anybody. Maybe if I watch Chella well enough I’ll figure out the secret to not flashing everyone from her.

 

After dressing, Chella took me to the main chapel, where we met with the priest from last night as well as a handful of others. Overall it looked like there were only about 6 of us; The man whom I met last night that looked to be the Head Priest from how much more decorated his outfit was, 2 men and a woman who were dressed similarly to him but lacked the fancy jewelry he was wearing, and then Chella and I in our simple togas. It seemed it was time for the morning prayer, and that’s why we’d all been gathered here. I was desperately hungry since I didn’t eat anything last night and still hadn’t eaten anything yet this morning, but it’s not like I can go ‘Hey, priests, I know you all want to pray but can we eat first?’. So yeah, I just had to suck it up and let Chella drag me to the right spot.

 

Apparently, when it was time to pray, the Head Priest stood at the top of the steps in front of the altar. Next, the priests lined themselves up to kneel at the bottom of the steps, and then last but not least, Chella and I kneeled way back, close to where the pews began. I say pews, but they were more like rows of long cushions embedded into the floor. Really wish we were kneeling on those instead of the hard stone walkway. Too bad I’m sure I’m not allowed to complain about it.

 

“Our Goddess Israthel, who watches over us all, grant us another day so that we might yet persevere into the next. Shine your light down unto us, so that we ourselves may learn to shine back. Give us-”

 

Everyone else, even Chella was reciting the words along with the Head Priest. I figured that meant that I was supposed to too, and since I really need to not get kicked out of here, I quickly tried to follow along with their words. Sure, I said it a word after them since I was following along, and I sounded really awkward, but no one can blame me for not just automatically knowing the words!

 

…Or maybe they can. This seems to be the main religion here, so maybe I actually am supposed to just know them? …Let’s try and speak a bit more quietly so they can’t tell if I’m saying the right thing or not.

 

I peeked at my notifications screen to see if it had anything to say about this, but the only thing it said was that I had a quest called [Daily Quest: Attend morning prayer!], and that only said that I needed to go to the chapel and attend the morning prayer. Super unhelpful. Were the words important? Were they not? No, that’s a stupid question, of course they were important if I didn’t want everyone to look at me weird, quest or no.

 

After the way too lengthy prayer, everyone stood up and gave a fancy little salute to the statue, which I of course followed along with a half second later. When I looked back up, a small blue ‘+30 xp!’ floated up from the altar and my quest in my notifications screen completed, so I guess this is pretty important after all. It’s especially amazing if it’s a daily quest that just hands out experience every day just for saying a bunch of words. I guess I’m gonna have to learn that long-ass prayer then, huh?

 

What a pain.