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?))
"And you are?" I eyed her with suspicion, my hand prepared to go for my blade to cut the crone down where she sat. Her lack of response led to me preparing to draw my blade but her unwavering and unnerving stare caused me to slide my blade back into it's scabbard and sat down in the offered cushion still eyeing her suspiciously.
"Why do you want to hear my story? Not like there's anything interesting about it." I shrugged as I said it, but looking at her, I decided in my head, it is better to comply than fight or argue with whoever this is. Safer in fact.
"Very well. I shall tell you my story."
"It all started 25 years ago when I was brought in front of my liege lord, who he decided the path of the warrior was for me. The moment I could walk, he threw me into the pit with the Men-At-Arms. I fought them everyday, I remember being beaten sorely till I couldn't stand with my legs bleeding and my skin torn. Of course, I grew pissed, annoyed, frustrated, frustrated with the life I had to live. To serve a man who had only laid his eyes on me once, to fight and die for his petty wars and feuds. So then came the day where I beat 2 Men-At-Arms to death and crippled another all through the use of a wooden blade. I was brought in front of him a second time, he stared at me pensively and I stared at him with fury burning in my mind. 'This one...he's dangerous, yet he would be a waste to kill. Send him to be a squire or whatever. Just get him out of here before I change my mind.' That was all I could remember after being beaten brutally by the rest of the guards within his useless hall. At 15, I had already fought, killed, murdered and plundered whoever and whatever I was sent to destroy, my fate planned out for me. But for the first time, my fate was left in the hands of whoever came to pick me. To take me away, wherever they went I was to follow and whoever they fought I fought. I waited for 4 months, yet no one came. He decided I had waited long enough and decided to have me killed. I was beaten, and dragged to the gallows, in front of a crowd where they were asked who would take arms in my defence. Of course, no one would. Who would? When I was about to be hanged, a man, bearing an interesting heraldry came forward, his blade chipped and bloodied, his armour dented yet he slaughtered that lord. He cut down the rest of the guards before knocking me unconscious and dragging me out of the town. When I came to, I was in a camp, with a single fire and the man who fought and killed them sitting by the fire. His name was, Tyrion Bloodworth. He trained me, in the use of 2 handed, 1 handed weapons, mounted combat and plate armour. He tried to knight me twice before succeeding. Of course, we were exiled from there before long. We went to battle alongside each other, he rarely spoke, communicating more with his eyes. When he spoke, his voice was harsh, rough and sounded like coarse dirt. The day he died, was the day I lost it. I went back to the town they banished me from, storming into the useless keep of whoever ruled the town. I cut them down, I beat them like they had done to me, I laughed like they had and whoever challenged me, they died. I was only 20 at that time I believe. After that, I ran. I ran to whatever land we are in now. Spending my days as a mercenary, fighting for coin but barely making any. Just enough to get by. A disgraced man I was, with no purpose, wandering and fighting for whoever paid me the most. I finally came here, after 5 years of wandering, to perhaps rest for a while or offer my services to whoever wanted it. Now does this satisfy you?"
The crone's silence was enough. I got up, turned around on my heel and walked out of the tent to look for whatever was out there to perhaps find my purpose in this land.
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