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.”
-Balthier stood tall, defying the orderly invitation given to him by the old crone- "How peculiar, for someone I've never met, and will probably never again meet, to have been 'expecting me'. As if I am the hero in a fairy tale. But, so be it. Here's my story...." -With saying this, he finally sat down, and faced the hag-
"I've lived most of my life in the village where I was born - to loving parents and many siblings. My father was a blacksmith who worked for our local baron. It was him who proposed that I become his retainer, and he agreed. So there I went. I became his retainer - at first a simple bodyguard, but soon - a trusted advisor as well. That was until after a relatively minor, but destructive enough local war caused by Feudal bickering, that the roads became infested with bandits - formerly levied men, who'd lost their homes and families to the war, and had nothing to turn to, or did so out of pure spite against the world that had destroyed their livelihoods. They ambushed us on the road, killed my liege lord and most of the retinue. It was then that I decided to return to my village - only to find out it had long been pillaged, my home destroyed, my family - slaughtered. At the end I had nowhere to go - true, I could return to my liege's fief, swear my fealty to whomever his successor would be, and serve them, but that would've meant spending the rest of my life confined by the needs of duty and protocol - something I only first signed up for because of my father, and had no need to follow now that he was gone. I have decided to follow my own way, and this little town is but the first stop..."
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