DnD: Look out the window.
From Create Your Own Story
Deciding that you'd rather not know last night's story after all, you head over to the window and ease it open, squinting in the sudden brightness of daylight. Below you, the streets bustled with what looked like unusually more than the normal afternoon traffic. It seemed that you'd slept right through the morning and into midafternoon--the woman who sold flowers in front of the bunkers only came out around two, and she'd already sold more than half her stock.
Familiar concern tightened your midsection, the feeling you usually got when you were about to get in trouble. There was something you were forgetting about this afternoon in particular. Something incredibly important. Something...
"Unholy hells!" You exclaimed, jerking upright in realization. Behind you, you heard the sound of a grunt and a thump, and you could only assume that your outburst had surprised Grudge into falling over. You hardly cared at that point, however. You were late for the tournament.
You'd been waiting months, no years, for this kind of an opportunity. An orphan like yourself could hardly afford an old dagger, let alone a set of equipment, so your dream of adventuring had been nothing more than a distant fantasy for the course of your otherwise dull life. You had a pair of offhand daggers and practiced with them constantly, as well as always training yourself physically and mentally in faint hopes of finding an opportunity.
But you did find one. Three months ago, the lord of your region had announced that there would be a tournament hosted by him for the fighters on the east half of his lands. Normally, you would dismiss it with mumbles of expenses and travel, but it was happening right here in your own town, and most of the equipment would be provided (it seemed that the lord had grown tired of watching the same knights casually fight for nothing in particular and wanted more common folk participating).
Hit by a sudden fervor of excitement, you rush to your bedside, accidentally snuffing out one of the candles in your haste, and pried open the floorboard where you stashed all your things, hardly caring if Grudge saw. You could always find a new hiding space, but things like this were too miraculous to pass by. You pull on your tunic, which was a little worse for wear, and fastened your leather belt around your hips, equipping your daggers by sliding them into the scabbards on each side. You grabbed your boots and hopped on one leg towards the door while pulling on each one, banging through the door and rushing down the stairs once they'd been pulled on completely. The ground floor of the bunkers was crowded with tables that were usually full of thirsty workers by the end of the work day, but was now virtually empty, meaning nobody cared much about the flustered young woman who sprinted through the room and out into the street.
The bustle of the market worsened your headache, which you had forgotten about before. You paused and considered the situation. What was the use of going to fight with a raging headache? But if you did go out of your way to get rid of it, you could miss the admission time and lose the opportunity all together.
