Curiouscat62

You’ve just arrived in a swampy, dim town. As you look around, your gaze is met with shacks and cabins. It smells of rotted wood and wet moss. You 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?))

Ducking his head, the grim-faced man wearily rested on the cushion, slow to answer the stranger's question. He would never spit out his life story to strangers, nor should any person be like such for that matter, but as he looked upon her frail old eyes he saw something beyond her dirty veil, a longing for adventure plagued by tragedy. Feeling motivated to give this woman some much needed interaction, he told her about his happenings in the swampy, smelly town," I come to do what is just, what is right and what is peaceful; I've come to help your people, after being so brutally molested by the wicked King's faceless war."

Of course, Conrad felt no need to explain exactly why he came to this town, while there are so many others to settle in. Simply put, he was a lost soul looking for a purpose, for someone, or, someplace that could use his services. This place just happened to be closest along the road from his tragic past.

He grew up on a simple farm beyond the walls of any castle or Lords, and as the eldest son he inherited the farm upon his father's passing only at the age of sixteen. And although he was just a boy, and it was just a simple farm, it ran better than it had ever ran for the past twenty years, at least, that's what his mother used to say.

Sitting only a few hundred meters from the road where Kings would travel and the merchants would bustle back and forth, it was only about a month ago when barbarians, carrying the wicked King's sigil arrived at their doorstep. Eager to protect his farm, he ordered the dozen men off, who demanded housing and food, but was quickly overwhelmed when they drew their swords against his lowly pitchfork. As punishment for refusing hospitality, they let him live. They let him live as he watched them burn his crops, slaughter his younger siblings, and abuse his mother and sister before slitting their throats. In a day, he lost everything, and he nearly hung a noose for himself before he realized that all of his rope had been stolen as well. 

Now, as the hunched old woman stared deep into his soul, he couldn't decide on what to ask her for first: Food, or the rope?