Things were terrible, and several goblins were dead. Their corpses were rotting at an accelerated pace, probably due to some undead curse or plague that was being transmitted by the zombies. I used my Authority and made a light descend on every undead creature close to us.
As a repetition of before, they started to burn, and the same purifying flame from before was halting their movements. The goblin female gave up on the undead that she was fighting and started to run in my direction.
"Did you cast all of these spells?" She asked me while holding the goblin infant. Then, I was sure, she did not have any skills regarding divine or arcane spellcasting, as even I, who started a month ago, knew that there is a remarkable difference between a divine spell and an Authority cast.
"Yes, I cast all of these." I made a white lie here because I didn't need to tell her that this was not technically a spell but rather a manifestation of an Authority. This is a very minute detail to tell her, and I guess that she is not interested in that now.
She was nervous, then requested me, "Please, clergyman, help me village."
The divine shackles that were binding me to my earlier spell vanished when she made this request. Therefore, my clause was considered valid and turned void my former promise. Less of an issue, but I must engrave it in my mind to avoid doing that again. I escaped almost free this time.
"I will, but I can't feel many people here." Actually, that was odd. I feel all the undead, but I miss any response to wounded or hurt people. The village was small—maybe ten or eleven buildings—so I was sure that my Authority was covering all of it. Especially as I felt that all the undead were being purified.
"There is nobody here. My tribesman ran away. Just this little one was left behind. She probably got lost in the confusion." She was looking with relief at me, and I was speechless at her cold heart. There were several goblins dead here, but she seemed unfazed by them.
Dealing with the undead was very anticlimactic. My authority was totally overpowering to deal with them, and I didn't spend much of my divinity to do that. I imagine that if Asclepius descended, all the undead might burn from his mere presence. The thought gave me goosebumps as I started to feel how bottomless this pit of power called Authority was.
My Authority did not pick any more undead in the vicinity, then I said, "I think that all they were gone."
The goblin female looked at me with some uncertainty, then she looked around to be sure that I was telling her the truth.
"You are a mighty cleric. I have never seen someone do this before." She said.
"Asclepius has just lent his powers to me. And this little one, is she hurt?" I asked because I felt that something was wrong, but I guess it was more mental damage than a physical one.
"I think she passed out. She was running from the zombies, and I caught her midway." She said it so eloquently that I thought it was a funny situation. I heard all the grunting communication that she was doing to talk, but my Authority of Language translated it directly into my mind. The feeling was strange.
"And your fellow tribesman? Did they escape?" She got on guard when I asked her about the tribe situation.
"I don't know. I can see some of our people here and there. But some of these goblins were not from here." She told me with worry in her face.
As soon as the purifying flames were extinguished, I walked over one of the zombie bodies to take a closer look. They did not have any characteristic marks, and some of them were damaged, probably from the fight before our arrival. The dead goblins had some parts of their bodies smashed. My Authority only prevented them from being transformed into undead, but it does not have the power to reverse the damage to their bodies.
The skeletons became ashes when the flames were put out, and something was not adding up here. These creatures are usually armed with clubs, swords, or maces, but none of them carried anything at all. I did not inspect all the goblins' corpses, but they did not have lacerations due to being hurt by bones.
I gave it some thought, and then I noticed that the goblin was staring at me. She was probably waiting for me to say something.
"I don't understand. These skeletons did not hurt anybody here."
"Undead attacks us from time to time. When that happens, we usually run for the other side of the forest." She explained it to me.
"So, your fellow goblins are elsewhere." I asked.
Then, the infant goblin in her arm started to scream. She was agitated and was trying to free herself from the goblin's embrace.
I went towards them, and I cast a soothing divine spell over the child. An emerald aura appeared around her small body, and she went back to sleep.
"I think this time she was not mentally prepared for the situation." I said with a mournful voice. As soon as I got my eyes on her, I imagined that she was suffering from PTSD. When my mind got cleared from the undead, I could feel that she was holding a lot of trauma.
Unfortunately, once again, I am not equipped with sufficient skills to deal with mental traumas. I know there are divine spells that could lighten the situation and higher-level ones that would free her from that. I was imagining that they must solve everything here with divine and arcane spells in this realm.
"Thank you, sir cleric. My name is Jel. I am a goblin huntress of the Kiklin Tribe," she presented herself while holding dearly the small goblin. "Her name is Matila, and she is my youngest cousin." She added.
"Nice to meet you, lady huntress Jel. My name is Rufus Costa, and as you have heard before in my vow, I am a cleric of Hermes, Athena, and Asclepius." I made a small gesture of reverence toward her. This kind of knowledge was what I most loved about this Authority of Language.
She was a little taken aback. "No, please, the pleasure... is mine." She was worried when she spoke, and I believe that I addressed her too formally, as she got tense about the situation.
"Err… I think we need to look for your tribe. And if you are uncomfortable with my presence, I can leave." I said without giving much thought, but she was most likely baffled by my proactivity in dealing with the undead and following her.
"No, please. I prefer if you could accompany us. I can't protect her alone. There are too many of these monsters out there," she hurriedly said. It was a reasonable argument, and having a cleric in the team would be better than going alone.
However, our journey would need to wait, as the sky was getting a red tone due to the sunsetting. I said, "I think we would need to stay here, or are you confident about traveling at night?"
I already knew her answer, as she was clearly exhausted. Two big fights in a brief moment, and all of this while running away hurt. "I would rather not sleep beside the dead..." she said while trailing off.
My bad. I think everything was so unreal for me that I felt a little disconnected from it. Hercules engraved me with experiences that I should not forget so soon, which made this open graveyard so natural. Fighting a horde of zombies using only fists is an experience that I should avoid for my whole life (and the next one, the kind of sadistic training).
"We should bury them, to avoid that they become ghosts." she said.
"Ghosts, not zombies?" I asked.
"Yes, you, sir, burned them. So they can't become monsters anymore. But their souls were not protected," she told me.
I think that she didn't notice that they were not burned. The flames were not actual flames, as they cleaned the body and soul. But, again, I prefer not to correct her, but leaving the bodies could attract animals or other vulture-like creatures here.
"Yes, I agree with you." So I went ahead and visualized a great hole in the ground being moved. I felt all the mana in the space moving all that earth to create the space that I was imagining for a communal grave.
"Are you a mage, sir cleric?" she asked with a bewildered face.
"Yes, I am. How did you know?" I did not feel any mana or divine power within her.
"I have never seen shamans nor clerics opening graves like that," she said. I was ashamed of myself. Of course, the reason is that she simply experienced it. She might not comprehend what arcane, divine, and Authorities are, but she has seen them.
"You are a very clever woman." I said it absentmindedly because I was embarrassed by my pretentiousness. So I continued my job, moving the goblins to one grave and the undead to another one. I think she would get offended if I mixed them up as if they were garbage.
When I finished my task, I noticed that she was embarrassed too. "Is something wrong, Ms. Jel?" I tried to ask her.
She was distracted in her thoughts, I guess because she was startled by me calling her name. "No, I was… just… sorry. No one has ever called clever before."
I suspect that she got the wrong message from my reply…