#aimless archer

Celica felt she had reason to trust in Jedah’s promises - surely the Duma Faithful would not want Duma to lose himself in madness and cause the ruin of the land. They followed Duma as she followed Mila, and wanted him to prosper, surely? So why wouldn’t she take action to try and calm the god? Neither party would benefit, in her mind, if Duma went mad and Mila remained sealed away.

In hindsight, this trust had been a mistake... it could have ended in the death of the thousands Celica had only wanted to protect. But at the time, she had been desperate. Whether his promises were false or not didn’t matter - she was taking action on her wishes, at least. Accepting that offer, sacrificing herself in the hope of saving her people, was the only option presented to her at the time. If she refused, she would have been truly powerless, and might have blamed herself for the rest of her short life after that.

As for the promise of protecting Alm... that was a sore subject. Despite their last meetings being only a horrible argument, and then a hurried apology thanks to Halcyon’s magic... Celica couldn’t and wouldn’t forgive herself if she didn’t do something to help him. If he could be safe and wouldn’t have to fight anymore, even in a world where she was no longer there... that would be infinitely better. She was too much of a coward to take her birthright, after all. Being crowned at the Temple meant little to her, if she couldn’t face the responsibility of the throne - at least she could trust Alm to lead Zofia safely.

So yes, she had been gullible, but also backed into a corner, with the two most important things to her being promised safety. Overestimating Jedah’s goodwill had been a huge mistake, and one that she regretted greatly but... still, the nagging feeling in her heart was that she was presented with no other choice, if she wanted to achieve her goals. She couldn’t risk her companions, nor Valentia. To her, at that time, her only solution was to give her everything, and pray her sacrifice would be enough.

“...I only wanted everyone to be safe, and for the war to stop. At the time... Jedah’s offer was the best solution I had. I did what I could, and I’m not ashamed of that... Whether that makes me gullible or not, I truly don’t know.”

So I worked at a day camp downtown, and because it was downtown we had to rent our space. So we did our training in a shitty decrepit church in the middle of town.

One day we had our first aid training. This ran until 6pm. And apparently the church closed at 6pm the day we were there. We did not know this. So after the training my friend and I went to the bathroom because we were going to meet her mom and get dinner downtown (our moms were work friends, so I vaguely knew her mom as well) and we wanted to get changed/use the bathroom like normal people.

Walk out the bathroom. Place is fucking deserted. Okay, whatever. We go to leave and the door is locked. Can’t get out the way we came in. Go to the door at the other side of the building. Locked. Okay, we think. We’ll go through where they hold mass and go out the front door.

Door to the actual church hall is locked. Can’t get out that way.

OKAY we think. We’re starting to panic now. This place is broken and gross and had a mold problem. But there’s emergency exits! We’ll just go out them and be golden.

This church is in the middle of downtown, and I lived in the city. While it offered help to homeless people, it also had a problem with them coming in and stealing shit. Fucking EMERGENCY FIRE ESCAPE DOORS? Locked.

There’s no contact info we can see for the guy who’s in charge of locking up. So my friend calls the cops because what else can we do. Now begins the big wait.

Remember how I mentioned this place was old? At some point, we hear the sound of dripping coming from upstairs. Not what you want to hear late at evening in a creepy church. Dark scary basement area? Groaning sounds from the pipes. We’re living a horror movie and I want to die.

Eventually my friend calls the cops back because we’ve been waiting forever and there’s no one there. TURNS OUT there’s another church way down the other side of downtown with the exact same name. Guess where the cops went.

A very distinct memory of this event is me grabbing the plastic chain we used to rope the stairs off from the kids and going “I could do it. I could take myself out of this situation before the ghosts do. I can win against the ghosts.” My friend hit me for that.

Eventually the cops show up. First thing we get asked is “what we were doing inside the building.” and my very exasperated “WE CALLED YOU TO GET US OUT WE DON’T WANNA BE IN HERE.”