CHRONICLES of a PC Gamer Stuck Inside an RPG (Book One: Duelist)

Chapter 60 - A Bloody Mess

Before my body landed on the ground, Lady Musa used her power to make me hover a few inches above the floor. With a withering glance at her lover, the goddess held out her hand and said, "Restore." My body glowed blue for a moment. Musa forced my left palm to turn and face toward her as if she was my puppeteer. She watched as the cut healed itself until the wound was completely gone. When the danger of my imminent death evaporated, she directed my unconscious body to sit in an empty chair at Enab's desk. Slowly, the angry goddess turned her attention back to the two co-conspirators. "Please tell me why you forced Lord Mulligan to swear fealty to Order," she demanded in a low voice. Her blue aura slowly spread out until it covered the entire room.

Lord Bane looked around the room, unconcerned for his personal safety. While the power of the goddess had indeed taken control of the small room, the demon lord was confident that Musa wouldn't cause the room to explode, bring a black hole to erase the contents of the room or perform myriad other horrific acts on the occupants of the room. The goddess was certainly angry but her tenets and beliefs as a Lawful god prevented her from committing outright murder against himself or the hapless mortal caught in his scheme. If the roles were reversed, however, the demi-god of Chaos would not hesitate to exact punishment on the offenders. In other words, this was a heads-I-win-tails-you-lose situation. Ah, the benefits of being a Chaotic god! Bane looked at his lackey and winked. The demi-god was feeling very giddy but had to hold it inside, or else Musa will be tempted to really let loose! Despite her cool exterior, the goddess did have a nasty temper and only Bane's divine nature allowed him to survive her "punishments."

Bishop Canterbury exhaled deeply and wiped perspiration from his forehead. The human cleric was afraid that the blame for this debacle would be passed over to him. Fortunately, Bane appeared to be in a rather generous mood today and he was willing to shoulder the burden for both of them. To be fair, the bishop could have talked Bane out of this idea but he, too, was eager to have the player character commit to the Church and to Law and Order since the nobleman would be a tremendous asset against Chaos.

"Well?" Musa asked again as she put her hands on her hips.

"It was entirely my idea, my love," the demon lord answered as he took full responsibility. Directing a thumb at the bishop Bane said, "I convinced my good friend here that it would be best to determine this player character's allegiance as early as possible. As you know, the Lion of the East has some . . . personality traits that lend itself to Chaos. If it turns out that Larry also intends to become a child of Chaos, then the gamemaster will have a problem on his hand because his preference is to have a Champion of Order and a Champion of Chaos to emerge at the same time and then have them fight for control of Britannia. Since we are servants of the gamemaster, we must act faithfully in accordance with his wishes. Otherwise, we gods would not be able to justify our very existence inside his game."

Musa sighed loudly. While the demi-god's methods were crude if not outright cruel, Bane had acted well within his divine portfolio as the god of mischief, lies, and deception. Cooking up conspiracies to ensnare mortals was practically a hobby for Baneny. Given his portfolio, Musa was forced to recognize that Bane was furthering an objective of the gamemaster and therefore, she was powerless to stop him or punish him for endangering the life of the player character. "While your concern is appreciated, Baneny, there are other ways to convince this PC to follow the path of Order. What you just did was coercion, and I predict that Lord Mulligan will harbor deep resentment for us and the Church. A dark seed has entered his heart and I fear that it will only grow as his love for this gaming world eventually turns into bitterness at his imprisonment."

"Bah!" Bane waved his hand dismissively. "We did something similar to Merlin when he was stuck in Britannia. Larry will get eventually get over it, just like Merlin did."