"You must have faith and remember the teachings of the Lord. Believe in the existence- The holiness- God the Father, Jesus the Son, and the miraculous Holy Spirit! Learn the teachings of the faith, which shall save you from despair and strife! Keep to the Ten Commandments, but not only those, the spiritual wisdom of Scripture! And you must prepare! Gather tools and build a community- One that can thrive when all falls down! Learn to grow food and protect yourself!"

"...Leaving aside the teachings, since I don't have time to come to an informed opinion on those right now: Grow food in what fertile soil, exactly?"  She seems rather baffled.  "There isn't any around here!  Are you proposing that some will appear as if by miracle or magic?  Do you have a specific date on when, if so, or a backup plan if the intended miracle does not materialize?"

"And on the matter of self-defense - how are you proposing that the common person procure the weaponry necessary to defend themself from even the shattered remnants of what produced this," she waves at the City, "the convoys of a million tons of metal and more of that in product, the shotguns, RPGs, and APCs that only industry can make - how do you propose a village sustain themself against what would readily take all they have from them?"

"This is not to say that self-reliance is not a useful skill to have!  But it is to say that your pastoral idyll is no longer possible, and I may be bold enough to say it never truly was - we must live in the world we have, and struggle, not to be prepared for what can only come in dreams, but to make what we can realize a reality!  Let the stars fall; we cannot concern ourselves with the shifting heavens if nothing is right on the earth, and it is not!  Look at the palatial bounty you are denied by the corporate kings!  See what monuments to vanity they raise, at your own cost, extracted by the boot upon your face!  See what cruelties they demand of your brothers and sisters, your mothers and fathers, your cousins, your friends - for merely a chance to eat their scraps!  But they are merely men, not gods!  If the city turned its back to them tomorrow and said 'NO', all together in one voice - where would they be?  What could they do?

"Their powers are finite!  Every round they shoot is a dollar they spend, and they can and will go bankrupt!"

This reminds her all too much of the rabble-rousing she did in the Bastard City, she really has to say.  (Or, well, think.  She's not going to say it out loud, that would be stupid.)

"I see a sister in spirit before me, if not one in blood! Your words have power! And  yet we must all be concerned with Heaven and Hell, and our eternal fates! Not just this life you must prepare for, but the next- And for that, your spiritual health is worth more than gold! The corporate lords shall have their time when the Rapture comes and the Earth weeps blood- It is harder for a rich man to pass into Heaven than for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle. And yet you speak truth! For did Jesus not in his day come to the temple where merchants and money-changers were deceiving and hoarding, and beat them with whips and overturn the tables and drive them out? So too shall the corporations which corrupt our land for their own gain be driven out! Already righteousness rises in the hearts of many. And yet fear, too, arises- This is where we must have faith! Must have strength, the strength of the soul to hold to your conviction and rise up to act when the time is right! Just as Moses led his people through the desert for forty years, and they made many sacrifices before returning to Israel, so it must be with Ohio. Enduring and keeping the faith will be rewarded, here or in the ever-after! And those who plunder and steal? Those who murder and cheat and lie, the fraudsters, the cheats, the liars! When death comes for them they shall know the keenest despair! They shall surely receive all the suffering they have inflicted a hundred-fold at Lucifer's cruel designs!"

(The audience is growing. They seem to be enjoying the show- And treating it as a show, not a serious debate.)

"But the Earth already weeps!  The corporate lords spill the blood of her children daily!  And to profess the keenest belief in something means nothing if your actions do not hold thereto!"

Oh, a show it is, in a sense.

The best works make you think about them, after all.

"This is why I call those who have faith to work together! To tithe what they can spare- One-in-ten of what they make- To charitable causes, or to donate what they can to the Mercy Crew up on the hill. Oh, what worn, sorry angels they are! Suffering the slings and arrows of exhaustion and thankless toil because they simply believe it is right! Truly, paragons beyond one such as I. And truly, great works must start from inspiration, from the well of belief and charity in the human heart. Alas, I have little to give this cause except my voice! Look at me! Do you see fine vestments and shining chrome implants? Fat flesh and clean teeth? Alas, alas! I know I am not destined for greatness, that all I can do is carry the call. All I can do is show the signs, and call the people to do what they can, what they must! Some may think so little of me for this, but I care not for their derisions. Do not give to me friends, if anything said here today stirs your heart- Help your friends! Feed the beggars! Be there for your family! Forgive the sins of those who have wronged you, and love thy neighbor as thy self. The joy of kindness and mercy is there for you to grasp."

"Ohhh, yes indeed you do speak truth, and when, when, enough of us have grasped kindness and mercy, we can wield them, the one single weapon those greedy fucks cannot comprehend, and send their gilded thrones to the depths ourselves; I do not believe that you are my brother in spirit, for the spirit I follow arose from a different scripture - but I would name you my brother in battle against the grasping hand, and if I may address the audience -"

She puts on her serious proclamation voice.

"There will be signs to come.  The walls of Cinci will fall in a single stroke, and with them the Tower; on that day and no sooner - but no later - do I ask you to seize what the corporations hoard, and give it to the people in the measure of their need."

"Thank you for your time."

And she will be vanishing into the crowd again, now, though she does still try to stay in earshot of the - ...priest? - to see if anything has changed, except insofar as that interferes with breaking the inevitable tails she's expecting to follow her.  (She really does expect it will interfere, unfortunately.)

The 'priest' begins listing the Ten Commandments.

Someone tries to pickpocket the fake Ophelia.

Whoops their hand slipped right into her (very painful!) grip.  "It's very rude to steal from those who haven't got enough themselves, you know."

(...Wow, she doesn't like those commandments very much.)

He notices her start to move to catch him, but doesn't quite react fast enough. So he curses and shoulder-checks her, doing his best to wrench free and bolt.

"You didn't need to be that emphatic about wanting to leave."

Sure, he can go; she's vaguely annoyed that the check landed at all but she rolled with it enough to not get knocked over and trampled and that's the important bit.

Next stop, 'up on the hill'.

All eyes went to them in the brief confrontation- Wary and trying to decide which direction to bolt, or how to intervene. Everyone around automatically checked for any accomplishes the pair may have had too.

When the guy in the muscle top bolts into an alley, everyone relaxes. Just a failed pickpocketing, see one every day. Not a dangerous shooting.

The Mercy Crew has a cordon on the far side of the gate from where the marketplace is. North. It is indeed on a big hill, a dozen formerly-white tents with the blue 'healing' sigil on them, and a wide field.

What she sees here is misery. Tired paramedics in scrubs lining people up and triaging them. Several hundred prospective patients for only a couple dozen healers. Anxious heads with shotguns and blue-sigil armbands marking them out as guards, eyeing the more unstable looking individuals. Standing around and being a threat. And the patients... All manner of untreated injury and disease. Nasty broken bones, compound fractures. All the consequences on display, of not having access to healthcare, and living in the harsh sand or letting wounds... Fester. Someone with a metal jaw, his whole face inflamed and blood slowly seeping from a cheek. A blackening scar where a metal prosthetic meets someone's wrist. A white, cloudy eye standing out on an otherwise pretty face. A row of bags near the back that are very obviously the correct size and shape for bodies.

The guards eye her suspiciously. The paramedics completely ignore her, focusing on their tools and patients.

"...I'm not exactly trained to the standards you're looking for in medicae, but I can do helpful things," she says to a guard.  "And I'd like to.  Especially if it nets me a bed for the night; I'm still - picking myself up from a sudden change of employment status."

Sigil of Life, don't fail her now.

"We don't like to turn away volunteers but we have enough unskilled labor. You know any first aid? Got a gun?"

"I can splint broken limbs and bandage wounds; I know how to sew which I've heard is useful in some situations - though I've never needed to do it to a live human and I wouldn't say I'm particularly skilled in the field to begin with - if you have directions for how to make what you need, raw materials, and glassware, I'm pretty good at brewing - and I can definitely handle myself in a fight, though I hope I don't need to.  I have weapons, but I don't actually have a gun.  For reasons that I don't want to get into.  I'm also good at making things stop becoming fights in the first place; you look like you're pretty worried about that.  I'm also very good at organizing, though it looks like you already have a system and I wouldn't want to just poke it without knowing what it does."

"I'm not in charge. If you wait for a lull you can talk with one of the medics and maybe help with triage or something. And I won't stop you from walking around and talking to folks if you think it helps. -It does, probably, for some. A bit of comfort and reassurance can even actually lower stress and reduce the strain on the body!" He says the last part like a Cool Fact that was recently learned.

"General 'you'.  Really, why don't we have a word for that...  Anyway.  Who is in charge, here?"  And perhaps she shall walk the line a bit, if they're busy right now.  (They're absolutely busy right now; if she doesn't get told they're available to speak to her, she'll go walking.)

"Today it's Nurse Anno. If you want to talk to a medical you'll have to wait for one to take their break."

The line contains sick and injured people, and their friends and family keeping them company, for some at least.

She'll go down the line, then, greeting people, asking what they're there for and taking notes, thumbing spells of Vigor to bolster those who are sick, and occasionally Life - that sigil is...not actually very good at diseases - upon someone who's injured in a way that could plausibly have been much less bad than it looked.

This line moves pretty fast- There's a man in a blue hat triaging people as they arrive, spending maybe 30 seconds with each person.

Some of those waiting will indulge her, with some confusion. Got in a fight. Tripped while setting up barbed wire. Set off a booby trap. Caught by flying debris during the dust storm. Just got sick, maybe some bad food. Nobody's exactly having a good time, but attitudes range from patient to despondent to frantic. A few of the people in line tell her to fuck off, more or less. Accusing her of being Up To Something by being so nosy. Some of these will sneer and show off their maladies- Do you like to see that shit, huh? Is it fun, looking at the sick and injured? Looking down on them? Like the defiance and show of will is the point, almost.

When she gets to the front, the line for triage is much shorter. Blue Hat keeps working through them, glancing warily at Ophelia.

She is a very calm presence, and the people she stands near feel better.  Not, precisely, well - but like they can stand more than they have felt before.  Some of them feel like their wounds are less deep.

At the first - outburst, she replies - in a voice that carries deceptively well, for how quiet it is.  "It's not fun, to see this.  It's horrifying.  It's necessary.  If I'm going to be helping out here, and I hope to do so, with what small skills I have - I need to know what sort of things I might be asked to treat."

And then, there is Blue Hat.  "I can treat things like broken bones, though generally not diseases.  I would like to do so here, if you'll have me."