chooncey

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?))

"First, let me tell you a story." Vagne sits on the cushion, adjusting his dusty silver glasses up on his face.

"The window flashed a brilliant white, illuminating a man sitting at a small desk in a dusty room. The man was hastily writing, his normally excellent penmanship reduced to shaky scribbles on a vellum page. The boom that followed startled the man, causing him to drop his pen. Ink scattered over the page. The man laughed to himself,
 He spoke to himself, “I’m being stupid, I’m safe." He got up and walked across the dark room over to a small cabinet, which he opened and grabbed a new page out of. In the split second as he grabbed the page, there was a creak from the door. The man looked up, his face hidden by the dark. Then, another flash of light illuminated the room. In the light, there stood a figure in the doorway. It was clothed in a deep red robe, and it’s face, a collection of rough edges and shapes that was almost hard to look at, was wreathed in a shadow unbefitting of the temporary light in the room. This time when the boom of thunder came, the creature moved. In a flash it was holding the man by his throat and lifting him into the air. Then, with another flash of lightning, he was thrown to the ground, and the creature was gone.
    There is a break in the story as Vagne's voice momentarily begins to shake. Then he pauses, and continues. "I crawled out from my hiding place underneath the writing table, obscured by a stack of papers. I called out, "father?" I crawled to him, my hands shaking. Once I was within a few feet, I felt something warm on my hands, and with a flash of lightning illuminating the room, I saw a dark red substance covering the floor in a pool around my father. I heard him groan. I stood and crossed the rest of the distance to him, kneeling by his side. He took my hand and placed it on his chest, he tried to say something, but it was lost in the crash of thunder. I felt a bulge in his coat pocket. I reached in and found a sealed note. With the note firmly in my hand, he looked at me, and gave me one last smile.

     Vagne pauses for a moment then. Looking up at the old hag he says "Within that note contains the only lead I have on whatever it was that killed my father, however it is sealed by magic to only be opened with the fingerprints of both me and my brother. I am traveling to find him, that is what brings me here."