Your character has just arrived in a swampy, dim town. As they look around, their gaze is met with shacks and cabins. It smells of rotted wood and wet moss. They duck and step into a tattered tent, illuminated by a series of candles suspended in the air. At the back of the tent, an old hag raises her head, “What brings you to this dingy town? She begins, then pauses to study your face—”Ah, it’s you. I’ve been expecting you. Sit,” she gestures at a cushion, “Tell me your story.”
((How do you respond?))
“I am Honma Ritsuko,” she said quietly, her voice steady but low. “A surveyor. A Sohei apprentice. Nothing more grand than that.”
Her hands settled neatly in her lap, though her posture remained alert.
“My clan comes from the rice valleys of Ihon, where yokai tore apart our villages long before I wads being lost, and the smell of burning sakura. We fled, then rebuilt, then fled again. When we migrated to Azruas and founded Sakuragakure, I joined the Survey Corps—because someone had to watch the borders. Someone had to see what crawled out of the Cursed Forests before they reached our homes.”
Her eyes drifted toward the floating candles, their soft glow reflecting in the amber of her gaze.
“In the First Yokai War, I carried messages, found wounded civilians in the mud, and learned how fear tastes in the air. I did not slay demons. I did not strike down cultists. I only survived—and helped others do the same.”
Ritsuko pressed her thumb gently against the calloused pad of her forefinger, grounding herself.
“I came to this swamp because the paths of the land felt… wrong.”
She hesitated, searching for the right word.
“Heavy. As though something here has been waiting to be found.”
Her attention returned fully to the hag.
“But you say you were expecting me.”
A subtle furrow formed between her brows.
“I do not know why that is. I am no hero. No chosen warrior. Just a woman who follows trails and warnings.”
She bowed her head once more, respectful yet steady.
“So, honored elder… if you expect my story, I have told it truthfully.”
A breath.
“Now tell me—why am I here?”
Ritsuko remained still, the flickering candles dancing across her robes waiting for whatever answer the swamp—or its strange keeper—would give.
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