Meanwhile, behind a cathedral in the City of Sea Fallen stood a teenage girl who was fiddling around with a strange object.
She had eyes that were as gray as the sea fog, hair the color of gold, with a fair skin tone that matched with her long white priestess dress that complemented her rather short build.
The object the girl held was a small black key whose blade was shaped like a human skull with strange markings on the eye holes.
What's this shape? It doesn't match any of the sea marks, but it looks like one of them…
She looked at the key before putting it in her dress pocket.
The girl walked back towards the cathedral, entering the central prayer hall.
At the altar, she began to recite a prayer to the God of the Depths, asking for his divine protection when she examined the strange key later.
For her entire life, she had believed that the God of the Depths would return from his confinement below the Sea of Ancients and awaken, blessing his believers with prosperous lives and riches beyond compare.
As she finished praying at the altar, she went towards a small door to the side, which led to the cathedral's living quarters.
In the Southern districts of Sea Fallen, the poor and elderly resided, leading to a weak economic situation with severe famines and disease spreading throughout the neighborhoods.
As a priestess, it was her duty to constantly be vigilant and ready to perform last rites or to bless the sick.
This allows them to recover enough strength to prevent them from losing the jobs that were already hard to come by, and without a job, it leads them to homelessness and eventual starvation.
…
After walking through the halls of the cathedral, she came to a door that led to her room.
Opening the door and stepping inside, she looked around, afraid someone would see her with the strange key.
Her bedroom was decorated with vibrant purples that seemed to exude a divine presence, with a large bed pushed up against the farthest wall of the room.
Shoved in the corner of the room was a portrait of herself; however, she detested it because it was forced upon her by the regional Saint as a commencement gift.
Walking past the unwanted painting, she placed the key onto the soft bed and went into the bathroom. The key emitted a faint turquoise light, which seemed to distort the air around it.
The glow faded as fast as it appeared, preventing the golden-haired priestess from seeing the anomaly.
After washing up, she walked from the bathroom to her bed, gently falling face-first onto the bed due to fatigue.
After lying on the bed for a few minutes, she sat up and began to study the key with her Divine Light.
She was a prodigy when it came to holy magic, second only to the 'Angels' from the East, who all had decades more experience than her.
She would've been made Saintess of the South; however, since she was so young, many older bishops argued that it should be given to a more experienced candidate.
Of course, the candidate they suggested was a man since they had an obvious bias against women that they didn't force into their beds every night…
Resuming her task, she closed her eyes and attempted to infuse the black key with magic.
Without warning, she felt an intense stabbing sensation in her hands, but when she opened her eyes, she saw nothing except the key in her palms.
Hm? That's strange… I couldn't have been imagining that, could I?
Gently trying again, she infused the mysterious object with her magic.
To her surprise, the feeling of pain in her palms increased dramatically, causing her to drop the key in shock.
Looking at the strange key, she noticed the bow was glowing a faint blue color with hints of purple.
Could it be cursed?
She pondered over the idea, deciding that the object wasn't safe to continue studying, leaving it on her desk to look at later.
Moving towards the door of her room, she grabbed a sack of bread on the way out, hurrying into the central hall of the cathedral.
She noticed a priest from another district sitting on a bench facing the altar, silently praying. Observing him, she recognized him and began walking towards him.
She waited for him to finish his prayer, silently staring at him.
The man finally relaxed, and before he could even open his eyes, she asked him a question.
"Father Godrick, why are you here?"
He opened his eyes and looked at the young lady in front of him.
"Ah, Eleanor. No need to be so formal when talking to me. I practically raised you, didn't I?"
Sighing, he stood up before she could respond, beginning to speak again.
"I only wish to inform you of a development in the area. Multiple women have been kidnapped by traffickers who wish to sell them in Svall. Please be careful on your little Adventures throughout the city."
Without a word from Eleanor, he turned away and walked towards the cathedral door.
She watched him exit before letting out a sigh of her own.
"If only he weren't so empty-headed, he would've remembered that to have a conversation, two people have to speak…"
Carrying the sack of bread towards the exit, Eleanor glanced back at the cathedral with an unreadable expression.
Walking outside the building, she made her way through the backroads of the Southern district, carefully avoiding the crime-filled zones.
Ever since she was a child, she had wondered why people committed crimes and even wished that she could one day have the power to prevent them.
A foolish wish.
…
After handing out the entire sack of bread to the impoverished children, she continued on her way to the only accessible port on the island, which lay in the Southwest.
The eastern side of the island was dominated by the Great Sea Wall, which towered over the island, preventing monster attacks and invasions from pirates.
The construction of such a structure would normally be impossible due to limitations in the available technology; however, after severe damage from a sea terror attack during construction, a mysterious gentleman appeared, claiming to be a magician.
He used magic beyond the capabilities of even the Sea Kings to instantly repair the wall, then reinforced it with a magical barrier that he said could only be shattered by a monster from deep within the Abyss.
The magician was never seen again after that, leading many to doubt that he ever existed and instead believe that it was built with the corpse of an apex-level sea terror that was spoken of in myth.
Eleanor tended to believe in the magician since she thought that there was nobody in the world other than the First King who could kill something of the magnitude of an apex-level creature.
Continuing her march towards the markets by the port, she felt a piercing stare that drilled deep into the back of her head; however, after checking behind her, she came to the conclusion it was just her imagination.
Entering the dense market, hundreds of smells entered her nose at once, drowning out the scent of salt water that was less than 100 meters from her.
She quickly made her way through the shopping list that the nuns in the cathedral had prepared while carefully conserving money.
As she purchased the goods with the money that the nuns had given her, she slowly withdrew from the sprawling market and began her walk back.
As she reached Rutherford St., which was a simple half-kilometer walk from her location, she had the feeling of penetrating stares at the back of her head again.
She turned suddenly and was met with a hard kick to the jaw.
Eleanor collapsed, and a dark bag was shoved over her head, filled with a powder of some kind.
The odorless powder was slowly releasing her from consciousness, dulling her senses, and preventing the use of magic.
On the verge of passing out, she heard a single sentence that reverberated in her mind.
"She'll sell for a pretty penny at auction, I bet…"
Auction? Don't tell me… The kidnappers Godrick warned me of actually attacked me? Why do I always get roped into these kinds of things…
As she thought this, her vision blurred before completely fading to black as she passed out.