[IC] Powerless Priestess

[Thebastardbrasta]

You're in church, holding a new years' sermon and painfully exhausted. You've been standing and reading from the Chronicle for most of the day, as you're supposed to read it to completion once a year and you've been slacking lately. Anyway, you're talking to a massive cathedral filled with people from all across the city, and your voice is being amplified by the powers of Lopre, so that you at least don't lose your voice. You're reading through the very last sentences of the Chronicle, before holding a new years' prayer. The new year is marked as mustical fireworks fill the cathedral, together with beautful music, created by divine powers.

Now, the celebration has ended and you're in the first few hours of the new year. Although everyone but one or two very pious people have left, you still have to wait a bit longer, because you have to read a lot each day to get through the Codex. Now, it's the middle of the night, and you collapse as you finish your reading of the Codex.

[Ninjaplushie]

You try your best to stay awake and rub your thrumming head. While most people celebrate holidays, you have no reason to. Every bit of the preparation for them is so intense and stressful, it leaves you tired after your work is done. You sit and wonder why such a workload always gets put on you on important holidays and not to the older and more skilled priestesses. Of course, its because all the important holidays are festive holidays, where men drink, parade about, and the only faces of women they want to see is a pretty young one. Its a shame things are that way. You truly admire and respect the older priestesses and their devotion to their god.
Your brain starts to tell your eyes that this is a good place to rest. Eventually, all thoughts melt into haziness as you get heavy lidded and yawn.

[Thebastardbrasta]

After a few sleeping minutes, you wake up, realizing that you've just collapsed in the church, and you finally start going home. You're obviously exhausted, but a pious follower helps you on your way home, all the way across the city. Now, you're outside your fron door and say goodbye to the kind man who helped you on your way home. Being a priestess has quite a few advantages!

Now, you've managed to climb your way into bed, shambling through your house, and you start falling asleep in your big and soft bed with warm blankets and fluffy pillows, fading away into the best sleep you'll probably have all year...

[Ninjaplushie]

You are woken up later on at dawn by early morning commotion going on outside your door. Figuring that someone was coming to wake you up soon anyway, you get up and get dressed. From outside the door, you hear a sense of urgency in everyone's muffled voice usually associated with holiday preparation. Hoping at the bottom of your heart that you are overthinking things, you cautiously open the door and keep your head low. "Good morning sisters. Is everything okay out here?"

[Thebastardbrasta]

They answer: "No, you're following a forbidden god! The city guard discovered it while you were in church, and you've got until the end of the day to leave this city, or face death! Following heathen beliefs is an incredibly great offense when you're a high priestess, and We would kill you here if we could! Leave this city now!"

The closest settlement is hundreds of miles away, through merciless wilderness, and you're very poorly equipped for a trek there, lacking skills and gear. However, you've got a lot of money, so you could easily buy a lot of important supplies for your journey, but still...

[Ninjaplushie]

For a brief moment, you consider trying to persuade them out of exhaltment, but you know any promises you could make with them at this point would be empty. You consider this a sign or your first embankment down the path fate has paved for you. With that you decide to comply with as much grace as you can muster. " I understand your concerns. I am sorry have disappointed you. May your days be blessed evermore." With that you grab as many of your belongings that you can put in a rucksack and head out.'

Out to the market area of the city, you can see the city gates and freeze upon realization of something.

You have no idea what in the world you are doing. Perhaps you could persuade someone to join you on your journey? Young adventurers don't really pay too much attention to religion anyway.

[Thebastardbrasta]

You've got next to nothing in your rucksack; you've got a bit of food, a few books and of course the dragon-shaped talisman of Taeshiu, as well as your significant personal fortune, and you try to become better prepared for the journey ahead. You get a sleeping roll, some supplies, a tent and a dagger, while keeping a large part of your fortune for later. You've tried to consult a few adventurers and ask if they want to join your journey, but nobody is interested; they all say that they've got more interesting things to do with their time.

Now it's dusk, and you understand that the city guard will be on your head in a moment, so you've decided to leave the gates. You have virtually no skill with survival, and you're really worried about the night to come.

[Ninjaplushie]

Looking into your bag, you pull out the talisman and string some thread around it to wear it as a necklace. With silent but unyielding faith, you walk along the path ahead of you, never looking back to that city. Despite the growing fear bubbling inside, you feel at peace with the course of events. There was always this subtle feeling that the town and people around you was stunning you from growing to your fullest potential. You walk and when your feet grow tired, you walk some more. You would like to avoid spending your first night outside of town in the middle of nowhere. It would be more comforting to find a city to rest near. Eventually, you find that the odds of that occurring are not too high.

[Thebastardbrasta]

Now, it's just about midnight and you really have to start falling asleep. You try to set your tent,, failing a few times before finally giving up. Instead, you just take out your bedroll and lie down on it, trying to sleep. It's nothing like the luxurious bed with warm blankets you've gotten so used to, quit the opposite; bare, cold and uncomfortable. Even so, you're desperate for sleep, and you persevere for about 15 minutes before waking up again. You try a few more times. Then it starts raining.

You're absolutely soaking wet and looking for shelter under a tree or anything else, but it almost seems like you'll be forced to wake up wetter than water. You manage to get a few hours of sleep, but you mostly stay awake to get a bit warmer. It's barely the start of a new day, and you're exhausted, soaking wet, and quite sleepy. Being able to see things a bit better, you can barely discern a figure in the distance through a few trees.

[Ninjaplushie]

Pulling the knife from your bag and slipping it into your sleeve, you struggle to find your balance as you rise. Your voice is sore and you are too dazed to come up with something to say anyway. Hardly understanding the situation at hand, your only focus is to not look like an easy target. You decide to pack up your things in case you need to run, constantly keeping an eye on the trees. Once you have everything together, a wave of uneasiness hits you. Squeezing your talisman for reassurance, you turn to the trees to let whoever, or whatever it is know that you know its there.

[Thebastardbrasta]

You find out that it's a person, probably a hunter, holding a bow at the ready. He seems to be very well-trained and wears a big backpack; what do you do?

[Ninjaplushie]

You decide to bet it all on the "slim" chance that 1. He is not a cannibal and 2. He isn't looking for a fight coming from a weak and tired young lady. Putting your hand up to signify surrender, the other one squeezing your talisman tightly, you decide to approach him.

[Thebastardbrasta]

The man quickly turns around, ready to fire at you. However, after a few minutes of thinking, he calms down and asks you what your name is. He also talks a bit about himself, saying that he's a hunter who lives in Neero City and that his name is Tom. He seems like a nice guy and is very respectful towards you as he can see that you're a priestess.

[Ninjaplushie]

You appreciate his kindness and give him your name and a quick blessing for his compassion (and a few coins in his purse for good measure). Preferring not to explicitly state why you are out here, you try not to ask to many questions outside the essential information that could help you. "Neero City...is it up ahead? Are their doors open to outsiders?"

[Thebastardbrasta]

Tom greedily accepts your money, rudely taking it out of your hands and quickly slipping them into a small pocket in his backpack. He thanks you for it and starts calming down.

"Sadly, no. It's quite an elaborate process to be able to move in there; I own a house just outside the city, so you can stay there if you really want to. I'd really love to find out why a lady of the faith such as yourself would leave your home." Tom suddenly notices your talisman, before quickly asking what it is. "It doesn't look like any other talisman I've ever seen; but at the same time, I'm not very religious."

[Ninjaplushie]

You sigh a bit with relief that the talisman didn't immediately tick him off and start to think about keeping it hidden from view. " I do not have a home right now in many ways. I'm hoping that this talisman will change that." Or else, all your efforts to protect it will be for naught. "Thank you for your hospitality. I will not take it for granted." You only plan to stay long enough to warm up and learn about the area so you won't be walking impossible distances again.

[Thebastardbrasta]

Tom seems to be a bit more anxious than before, but he's still supportive. He leads you towards his cabin in the huts, and as you walk through the night, you can actually see it. However, you're still forced to camp for the night, and Tom takes the opportunity to teach you a bit about nature and survival in the wilderness.

Suddenly, you're attacked by a bear! Tom runs away in fear, and all you have is your tiny knife!

[Ninjaplushie]

You want to laugh at Tom's patheticness, but there are more serious things at hand right now. Like the angry bear in front of you. Its already aggressive and trying to attack you, there is no hope of scaring it away. You don't believe you can outrun it, but if you look for higher ground and swipe at it with your pathetic knife, you might put up a fight that the bear is not willing to deal with. Then again, if it weren't specifically looking for a fight with you, it would have went after Tom, who was an easy target right now. You just hope Tom is running to a safe place to shoot his arrows from.
All while you was thinking this, you kept as strong as a glare on the bear you could with your blade drawn. As a child, they teach you how to handle bear attacks on travel, as they are as common as being robbed during a trip. Its a bear's instincts to intimidate before attacking an opponent it thinks will put up a fight. As long as you don't show a hint of intimidation, it should keep bluffing. All the while your feet are shuffling over to a nearby large rock...

[Thebastardbrasta]

The bear hesitates just enough for Tom to fire his bow into its side, causing it to bleed profusely and focus on getting Tom. It jumps at him, smashingnhil nto the ground, before it really bleeds out. You take the chance to stab the bear and it collapses from its bleeding, although it barely manages to swipe in the leg you with a claw before finally dying. You can see that Tom is covered in blood, mostly from the bear, but he's still injured and in a lot of pain. Pain suddenly rushes through your body as your adrenaline rush dies down, and you fall to your knees right above Tom.

[Ninjaplushie]

You feel a rush of emotions run over you, but you remind yourself to stay calm. Scrambling through your bag frantically and ready to fall over, you look for the emergency kit that came with the travel supplies. You struggle to put together a plan with your growing nerves as you see more blood and loose more balance, but start to get coordinated. There is a sticky aloe salve that is supposed to slow the draining of blood and help the wound scar faster, but you can tell when messily applying it to Tom that is painful to use.
You use a lot of gauge and medical tape and splints for a broken arm, probably more than you need to, patching up Tom to get over the guilt of ever doubting him.
Now, looking at your own leg pathetically, you don't know if you have the strength to put the salve on it. You generally try to avoid painful situations, and you are so shaken up that the pain might make you fall unconscious. You hesitantly dab some on the deeper of the rakes through your flesh to test the waters.