Nessa Kerr Pennant

Abilities

Nessa was born in the days before winter to a rather mundane family in a secluded village in the far reaches of Domhan Tir. The village itself was situated around a natural clearing, the buildings woven between the thick trees surrounding the agricultural area. The central farmland functioned as a communal source of food and prosperity, yielding enough sustenance to supplement the other forest farmed crops and the hunter’s game. The village itself had a strong sense of community and each family dedicated at least a small portion of time to the harvest, planting, and upkeep of the farm. It just happened that Nessa’s family was the primary benefactor.

Both Nessa and her single, older brother were taught the intricacies of agriculture from a young age and, just like their parents, were expected to work exhaustive days out in the fields for the good of the village. The task was surprisingly enjoyable for Nessa and, considering its importance, it was gratifying. While the majority of Nessa’s youth was spent working with crops, any free time she could find was spent among the villagers. The community nourished her curiosity and she swiftly picked up a myriad of interesting, although mostly ultimately useless, skills from identifying various species of crickets to an old ritual dance from centuries past.

On Nessa’s fifteenth birthday, just days before winter, calamity struck. Amidst the celebrations and revelries appropriate for the occasion, the storehouse was set accidently set alight. Fortunately, the raging fire was contained and extinguished; the damage, however, was horrific and irreversible. Months of stored food were left charred and inedible, the structural collapse of the storehouse crushing any inner sections that might’ve been spared by the licking flames. Frantic to make up the lost food, the village overplanted extremely late into the cycle, praying that winter would arrive late. Unfortunately they would have no such luck. An early frost decimated any chance at a reasonable harvest, sealing the village’s fate as the onslaught of winter rapidly approached.

Overhunting became a problem as the village turned to alternative means of sustenance. Game became exceedingly scarce as the creatures were either killed or entered hibernation for the winter, forcing the hunters to travel farther away from their homes. Nessa was no different. With their father stricken with illness, she and her brother had no choice but to venture into the wilds to gather food. During their final trip, Nessa encountered the first blizzard of the season in a blinding hail of sleet and snow. Lost and confused amidst the white storm, she was separated from her brother as she blindly stumbled into the relative safety of a tree’s arching roots where she managed to take refuge. When the blizzard finally subsided, Nessa realized she was completely and utterly lost. Her surroundings were completely alien, obscured by the deep layers of snow, and her footprints had all but disappeared.

A hermit discovered Nessa collapsed at the end of a set of meandering footprints, dehydrated and near death. The reclusive man carefully nursed her back to health, though he could offer no help in terms of navigation or direction. During the first month of winter, Nessa attempted to return to her village through the harsh winter landscape on five separate occasions. On each occasion the hermit retrieved her as she neared death. The winter months crawled by at a depressing pace and thoughts of home plagued Nessa’s mind. To distract her, the hermit entertained his guest with tales of an empire, gods, and the fantastical lands that lay beyond Domhan Tir’s borders; stories that even the most naïve babe should know. Nessa, however, was entranced. So miniscule was the scope of her world that she hadn’t even considered the staggering possibilities beyond her isolated existence. Ultimately, Nessa remained in the hermit’s care for the entire season. It was her first winter, though certainly not her last, away from home.

As soon as the snow began to melt, Nessa departed the hermit’s remote sanctuary in search of her home. She flitted between various villages, searching for anyone who could give her any form of direction. This was her first foray into the outside world; her isolated village had no exports for traders or any neighboring towns. It was the village’s isolation, in fact, that made it almost impossible to locate. Following the cold trails of an urban myth surprisingly lead Nessa past a tree she felt she knew.

It was half a month before Nessa set foot in familiar territory. In her season long absence, the village had been abandoned as the villagers succumbed to the harsh winter environment. Those that had managed to scrape by were nowhere to be found, leaving behind only remnants of her once prosperous home. The communal farm had been replaced by morbid rows of wooden stakes with the names of the fallen inscribed upon their faces. The dozens of houses that were once filled with life now lay eerily silent, and the earliest signs of nature staking out its reclamation were easily apparent. Nessa managed to locate the names of her family among the fallen as she searched her now empty village. Before her disappearance, the village had already progressed to dire straits; she’d already accepted the possibility of the village’s demise before even arriving. Still, the destruction of her very childhood was rather disconcerting, regardless of how emotionally prepared she thought she was. Confused and lost in deep introspection, Nessa spent a few days floating between her old haunts, slowly coming to grips with her new reality.

Without a home or a real goal, it didn’t take too long for Nessa to decide on her plan of action. While it was a definite fact that some of her village had survived the catastrophic winter, there was no indication of their whereabouts or destination. Instead of constantly chasing the elusive ghost of her past, she decided to look forward. She decided to explore the world. From the tiniest of hamlet to the bustling cities, Nessa slowly extended her tendrils into the daunting realm that had before been beyond the scope of her imagination.

The pure fundamentals of basic survival necessities she’d previously learned through spoken lessons were slowly improved under the tutelage of working professionals or just earnest enthusiasts. Nessa learned the basics of field medication from a fledgling herbalist, practiced tracking with a rather stoic hunter, and even learned to read weather patterns from a seasoned farmer. Her payment for these experiences, and the room and board they generally provided, was general a month or so of related work, though she continued to practice the skills after her short stints. Her amateurish, makeshift traps were slowly replaced by more proven methods, their placement and, uncoincidentally, their success rate skyrocketing with both guidance and experience. Her step became more assured and her eyes more perceptive.

Nessa spent her second winter away from home trekking through the blistering cold in the hospitable company of an experienced hunter and his family. Every week or so, weather permitting, they would set out on a single day trip to hunt anything they could, returning back to the comfort of a warm hearth and plush beds before the mind-numbing nights overtook the forests. Attempting to track camouflaged animals through a fresh layer of snow was about as common as breaking into the dens of the hibernating. Unlike her first experience, there were fortunately no near death experiences caused by the harsh winter climate, likely a product of her company rather than any personal expertise. The same, however, could not be said of the wildlife. Nessa had never been a particularly aggressive hunter, preferring to snare conies in the backwoods rather than pursue wild boar through the trees. The feral creatures her party stalked reinforced her respect, and perhaps instilled a bit of fear, of the wilds.

As she became increasingly confident in her ability to sustain herself, she began to branch out to other professions. She took on any job she could find, regardless of her qualifications, not out of necessity, but out of interest. She spent some time at a woodshop whittling statues, a few days baking bread, and even a couple hours as a smith before her employer realized her incompetence. Her failures rarely managed to break her interests, causing Nessa to ruin a surprisingly large number of welded shears in a rather absurd number of villages. She practiced fletching her own arrows and even dabbled in a little weaving whenever she had downtime on the road. There was no end to the various mundane tasks that people were willing to pay her to do, nor subjects that interested her. During her travels between towns, the land around Nessa often proved more abundant than the dingy taverns and inns she could afford.

Winters were tough but survivable and the longer she spent in the freezing cold the more comfortable she felt. While she still weathered the worst of the terrifying season in the relative comfort of a friendly stranger’s house or by the flickering hearth of the local hostile, Nessa began to spend more and more time outside during the winter months. The snow-covered landscape was as beautiful as it was inhospitable and more bountiful than most people gave it credit for, though elongated exposure was still as unpleasant as ever. Nessa spent five years in this manner, rarely staying in a given place for longer than a month, before deciding to venture beyond the boundaries of Domhan Tir.

Bartering a ride on a caravan bound for Hryst was a surprisingly simple matter, earning Nessa a rather comfortable trip to her next destination alongside a casual lesson on the basics of the cross-country economy. The transition in landscape from one nation to the next was not as stark as the stories had led her to believe. The forests gradually shifted to open plains as the part moved further into the new land. The magnitude of culture shock was barely manageable. It was difficult for Nessa to reign in, or even begin to conceal, her amazement at the metal carts and the smoking engines that powered them. She split from the caravan and made an excited beeline for the capitol, hitching rides on boats, trains, or whatever means on transportation would take her. She stopped briefly at the towns she passed to relearn skills from the perspective of the locals, though her breaks shorted to spans of under a week.

Nessa spent a long time futzing around Aster, entranced by the plethora of new sights and sounds. The clang of industry echoed throughout the packed streets and vendors hawked wares she’d never even imagined. At first the pure sensory overload overwhelmed her, though Nessa soon returned to her old ways. Many of the basic professions still existed, though their method and practice were much different. The massive fishing boats that trolled the coasts of the city dwarfed the efforts of any village fisherman and the leagues of miners produced more ore than she thought possible, the fruits of their labor hauled from the caves via a complex network carts and pulleys.

After a brief fiasco with a rather absurd amount of caulk, a misinformed shipwright, and a rather unfortunate ship, Nessa found herself piled beneath a rather sizable debt. Without a stable means of income and unwilling to flee the city, she was forced to turn to more desperate methods. Combat became a necessity rather than an interesting skill to learn as she delved into the realm of competitive fighting. Turns out some of the exercises she’d practiced in Domhan Tir did a little more than simply burn calories. Nessa wasn’t particularly strong, though she was certainly exceptionally swift, but she was determined. Her persistence and rapid improvement was enough to be noticed, though her win-loss record certainly left something to be desired. Fortunately they paid by the fight, not by the victory. She quickly found herself working a few unsavory, though not degrading, jobs in the underbelly of the thriving city. Once her debt was paid and her scores settled roughly four years later, Nessa decided it was time to move on. She bargained her way onto a boat headed for Aquavia.

The transition from Domhan Tir to Hryst had already prepared Nessa for Aquavia and, through the dozens of stories she’d heard, she somewhat knew what to expect. Unlike her trips to other nations, Nessa’s stay in Aquavia was entirely spent in a single city, Baem, mostly due to the short duration. While her initial days were filled with wonder and awe, she quickly fell into a rather boring routine. Nessa spent the vast majority of her waking hours in two very different locations: the local library and the gym. While she’d riffled through stacks of dusty tomes in the archives of Hryst before, the ease of availability of information that came with technology was just too great for her to resist. Nessa was often pouring over historical and fictional works alike as long as the public facility remained open, well after even most of the workers had retired to their homes. Other times, she continued to hone her physical capabilities, training with the local athletes and partaking in the weekly mix martial arts spars and variety of small competitions. She found it much easier to connect with the plant workers and militia members rather than the higher echelons due to mainly proximity and fiscal means, though she certainly tried to poke around. Nessa also tried her hand at virtual forms of recreation, though she mostly found them disorienting rather than entertaining.

After a mere year in the technological city, Nessa chose to return to her own nation. After such a long time away, she couldn’t help but feel a tad homesick. Despite her uneventful return to Domhan Tir, her adventures were nowhere close to over.

OOC