The Light's Keen Senses

The two of them made their way through the crowd and down to the basement. The priest led Jess to an empty corner and held out her hand. A spot of golden light appeared above her palm, right before his eyes.

As the light touched him, Jess felt his heart suddenly tighten. White light blinded him. He stumbled back against the wall and kept gasping for air. Even after the glow faded, it took him a long time to recover.

"Those are indeed early signs of undead rot poison, sir. What's your name?"

"Jess Seso."

"Mr. Seso," the priest said, "I'm going to cleanse you now. It may be very painful. You'll feel as if your body is burning, but it's necessary to remove the corpse poison. You've come a little late. If things don't go well, you may need several rounds of cleansing..."

"Let's try one first," Jess said.

The priest nodded. "Take off your shirt."

Jess took it off and hung it to one side. The priest put a hand on his chest and slowly closed her eyes. Jess suddenly asked, "It's free, right?"

"All I ask is that you keep hope in your heart and trust us throughout the process, sir."

"Would it help the Holy Light work on me if I thought more positively?"

"Of course." The priest slowly opened her eyes. "Many people don't believe in the Holy Light. They don't think warmth and a positive attitude can draw a stronger response from it. Yet those same people believe that dark thoughts, depression, fear, and despair can awaken shadow and feed dark power. Isn't that a contradiction?"

Even after all his years in Azeroth, Jess had no idea how the Holy Light healed injuries. He had plenty of doubts about what the priest was about to do.

But experience from his previous life also told him to listen to professionals. Since what she said sounded reasonable enough, he might as well try.

Besides, he had nowhere near enough money to buy Elemental Earth, even if he could find someone selling it. The Restorative Potion was out of the question. Asking the Church of the Holy Light for help was now the fastest, most effective, and cheapest treatment available.

And he really did have hope.

After all, he wasn't praying to the Light alone this time. There was a priest right in front of him, helping him. The Light couldn't possibly refuse to answer.

With that thought, he shut his eyes. Gradually, his chest began to feel warm, then hot.

The priest murmured a prayer. "Merciful Holy Light, I ask you to free this brave young man from the suffering that has come upon him. Release him from the grip of the dead. I will stand with him through this trial. Thank you, Holy Light, for allowing me to overcome his fear and pain. Thank you for allowing him to overcome his own fear and pain. You have seen him come to your sanctuary seeking help. Does that not mean he has already set foot on the right path? I trust him. I know he will see the Light, bear witness..."

Jess had no idea how long she went on. Eventually, she began repeating the prayer from the start. His pain steadily grew worse.

He knew priests and paladins could heal poisons caused by the undead, so he didn't doubt her or resist. But as time passed, the burning in his chest began to feel wrong. It was like the heat kept climbing, with no end in sight.

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It spread through his whole body and out to his arms and legs. He began to feel as if he were being tortured and punished, tied to a chair or a board and subjected to endless cruelty. The Holy Light was the whip, the hot tongs, the spikes.

"It hurts..." he pleaded without thinking, half out of his senses. "I don't think I can take it, Priest."

"I will stand with you through this trial." The priest opened her eyes. From the corner of his vision, Jess caught the fierce determination in them.

A burst of fire seemed to explode from his chest and shoot straight into his head. Jess cried out and practically leaped to his feet, slamming into the wall as he gulped air.

The wall and the air suddenly felt cold and damp, so cold that he shivered. He grabbed the shirt he'd just taken off and wrapped himself in it, but that barely helped.

Then he realized his surroundings no longer felt so overwhelming. The haze in his head and the dizziness were gone.

He looked at his skin. The veins that had turned black and purple were much lighter now.

"I feel a lot better."

But in the middle of his relief, Jess noticed that the priest looked more serious than before.

Had the treatment not worked as well as he'd thought?

"Is something wrong?"

The priest looked sad. "It worked far better than I expected. That means you've received the Holy Light's favor... But while the Light is willing to heal your sickness, it struggles to light the road ahead of you, Mr. Seso."

"I don't quite understand."

Jess wasn't sure what she meant, but from those two statements, he could make a guess.

Maybe he hadn't touched warlock magic yet, hadn't used shadow or fel energy, but the Holy Light had already sensed the direction he was leaning.

If that was true, the Holy Light really was something.

The priest warned him softly, "My abilities are limited. I can't fully understand what the Light has shown me. But I want to try to put its wish into words. Whatever choices you make in the future, always remember who you are. Don't lose sight of why you started."

"I'll remember," Jess promised, though he didn't really take it to heart.

He'd heard that kind of advice countless times before. All through his previous life, teachers, parents, and bosses had told him the same thing. But he didn't know who he really was or what he'd started out wanting, so he had little desire to think hard about what they meant.

He thanked the priest and left the building. A light rain had started outside.

The king's procession had gone. The nobles and guards had left Cathedral Square, and people could come and go again. Some were sheltering from the rain under the archway in the city wall leading into the square, chatting as they waited.

On his way back, Jess watched the canal split in front of him. One branch ran toward Stormwind Harbor past Stormwind Keep; the other rushed toward the sewers leading out of the city. For some reason, he remembered what the priest had said.

The different kinds of power in World of Warcraft—Holy Light, shadow, fel, arcane, death, and nature—all affected their users' minds, and sometimes even their personalities, to some degree.

Shadow and fel had the strongest effects. Those who used them inevitably became more stubborn, quick-tempered, and suspicious. They began to doubt everything around them, hate everything around them, and eventually drag themselves and the people closest to them into a pit of suffering.

Yet how many people had started learning those powers because they wanted to save others? Because they wanted to defeat evils they couldn't otherwise overcome and make the world a better place?

That included him. He'd wanted to learn dark magic to prove what he could do, to gain more power, to survive in this city and build a better life.

But wasn't that how the story of every tragic character in World of Warcraft began?

He'd never thought about what it would mean to control such powers. How would he keep hold of himself after gaining them? And if he ended up somewhere he never expected, how would he find his way back?

Jess looked back at the small building beside Cathedral Square. Its shape was blurred by the rain. The priest had just stepped outside with a group of other priests. She noticed him standing there and stopped to look back.

The air was cool. Autumn seemed close. Jess pulled his worn shirt tighter around himself.

Maybe worrying about being changed by power was getting ahead of himself. He couldn't even cast a single spell yet.

Still, it was better to see a problem waiting for him now than to lose control of everything and only understand when it was far too late to undo the damage.

With that thought, Jess nodded to the priest. She nodded back and left with her colleagues.