A Clinic in the Docks

[Poisonous]

The priestess is no new sight in the docks--for some time she has been making house visits, or simply making the rounds tending to refugees and the poor, in Sarshel's most busy but underserviced district. Her work in the area, it seems, is finally made a part of the city itself: for some time she has been in and out of a small building in the docks, preparing it with the aid of hired help--mostly, the past week, that of Anton.

Now the doors have been opened, and Ilmater's banner hung high over its walls. To her regular patients and those faces she passes in her work, she makes it known that her clinic is available for walk-in treatment of various ills.

The interior is made as much a place of comfort as it can be: it is kept warm and dry against the rain, and sweet-smelling herbs are hung up. A batch of kittens occasionally treat visitors to their presence, and the priestess always keeps a kettle of hot tea going on the fireplace. Some are invited upstairs, to her office, for private consultations or examinations. When Kelda is not in to aid those unlucky enough to seek a clinic, sometimes the help of Elijah Haller or Anton can be sought.

[Silver Snow]

When the time allows, Serace lends her own skills at Kelda's clinic. The priestess is rarely without armor, her gauntlets paired together hanging off her belt, hands tending the sick, the wounded. Those most grievously troubled she leaves to Kelda's more skilled attentions, though does what she can, now and then, to ease the burden.

[EventHorizon]

Those receiving treatment from Elijah Haller, an old, grey man of otherwise rather fit condition and a decent, if sometimes stony disposition, find that he utilizes exclusively mundane methods and implements, though with the expertise of a doctor.

When he is not practicing his medicine on patients, he is at work tinkering with medical tools, poultices, and herbs, seemingly devising way to combine and contain these supplies - or otherwise fiddling with something; it is not altogether clear what he's up to.

[Poisonous]

Kelda pins up a list of donors, including...

Simhan
Gwendolynn Highblade
Ornak
Westin Highbridge

//Let me know if I've forgotten you

[Obsidian Sea]

The effect of Sister Kelda's initiative is being felt with the passing of the tendays upon the docks. It has been a short space of time since it's conception, and the only tangible change upon the docks at present is a heightening of citizen morale, but in time the economic and spiritual fruit of the labour will be felt as well. Elijah Haller's methods are an invaluable resource, for mundane cures must be relied upon more often than not: a God does not deploy Their power within the world for use curing a common cold, after all. When prayer is required, Sister Kelda is well-exercised in body and mind to be the vessel of Ilmater's will.

Word arrives in a short space of time from The Temple of the Triad that the responsibility is entrusted to Sister Kelda to proselytise in Ilmater's name on the clinic's porch, to all gatherers and passersby who would heed the holy word. This comes as a reaction to the positive response her sermon on St. Shaleen at the temple, however more experienced preachers within the church will rotate upon the altar at The Temple of the Triad. The growing faith in Lathander among the merchant classes is somewhat beyond the remit of Ilmater's dogma to prevent: for this reason also, the church has chosen to concentrate Sister Kelda and their own efforts upon the docks, and give way for the Priests of Tyr and of Torm to try and reestablish their hold in the city square and the city's south quarter by playing upon nationalistic elements of economics.

Henceforth, in addition to the treatment of the needy and her duties as a figurehead for The Fellowship of the Tower, Sister Kelda shall be a permanent fixture among the clergy of Ilmater that operate and preach throughout the city of Sarshel's harbour.

//OOC: Feel free to post sermons at your own discretion at times that are suitable and convenient for you, Poisonous. Foremostly, make sure that you continue to enjoy your roleplay! Similarly to the city storyline surrounding The Heltharn Theatre, you are not being asked to meet deadlines or spend 'x' number of hours serverside standing around the clinic. Please take this opportunity at a pace that works for you.

[Poisonous]

Kelda pins up a list of donors, including...

Simhan
Gwendolynn Highblade
Ornak
Westin Highbridge
Bors
Perry

The list is updated every month or so, and two more contributors' names are added.

[EventHorizon]

It is said that one of the aides of the Clinic in the Docks, Elijah Haller, has been touring the country of Impiltur, treating people in towns and villages he passes, taking donations and generosity when it can be spared, roughing it when there is none to be had. As he traverses the land, he spreads word that anyone who suffers hopelessly from an illness incurable by his own methods or anyone else's will find merciful respite at the hands of an Ilmateri Priestess named Kelda, at the Docks Clinic of Sarshel.

Consequent to his subtle absence from the Clinic itself, his pay has probably been docked, the poor man.

[Ataraxia]

In the weeks following the death of the late child king of Impiltur, the clinic had found itself a new patient that had been transferred from the Temple to the clinic in order to keep him in a calm location for extensive care. Bedridden in the priestess' office, the bulk of his company was the cracking of the fire and the meowing of cats while the profound burns that clawed at his body prevented him any peace of mind necessary to rest. The stench of burnt flesh had seeped out of open windows within a few days, but discomfort and staggering loneliness still plagued the air with a heavy presence. There was practically no movement from the man who simply rotted in his cot of his benevolent prison, save from careful and weighed efforts to communicate with the rare visitors who came by to check on him.

After a tenday, he was beginning to move again, his disheveled beard having grown uneven and bushy while eyes seemed to sink deeper and deeper into his skull covered by a pale and sweating skin from a body that was fighting its own damnation. Anyone could see the disgusting scars that covered the left breast, shoulder and neck of the patient, and he shed layers of bandages in favor for the healed scars that would forever disfigure him. Training began once he was capable of standing on his weakened feet.

Rope had been tied around a steadfast support beam where the man occupied himself with the practice of various martial maneuvers, hitting the softened surface with bare knuckles, knees and other parts of his body to stimulate the energy that inhabited in order to help in his recovery. He also could not afford his muscles growing any weaker than they had thus far. The bucket of water he was given was used for balance and weight training, sliding a foot under the strap to lift it with the strength of a leg. After the several hours of meager training given the equipment he had access to, he was often found meditating by the open window of the second floor.

The people of the docks would have noticed him fixing a broken window of the ground floor one early morning, replacing broken glass with wooden planks and well placed nails to temporarily fix the shattered opening. Other mornings he jogged around the dockyards with his ghastly expression and poor health, retraining himself to climb over obstacles with strength and flexibility. It did not matter if the cold ocean breeze slashed through him or not, his discipline and determination to strengthen himself was unstoppable.