Plebtastic

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 is it that you expect me woman when you could not know me? I am a man lost, with family and wife turned to ash while I was away selling my lumber in town and not a hint as to who had cut and burned my world into nothing. If you have any knowledge of this attack then tell me or shut your mouth and let me continue my search. I don't have time or interest in your silly games. I am a simple man who has lived a simple life, hewing the woods of this land. Now I have nothing and I am nothing, there is nothing for you to take from me. Begone."

Freydyr realised he had been caught off guard by this crone and spoken too much as the final words left his lips. Idiot, he thought. I will need to be more careful from here, if this woman does indeed know my quarry she may now be plotting to make me her next victim. There was something about her eyes though. Even through Freydyrs instincts of self preservation they seemed to push him onward, almost to drag open his lips of their own accord.

"I am not a man driven by the burning desire for revenge, no flame ignites me. I am filled with an emptiness, a void of nothing. Food turns to ash in my mouth, no happiness enters my heart and I know no light of laughter. I seek only to fill this silence in my soul with the hunt for those who destroyed my world. Not because it would mean anything at all, I know this world cares nothing for my journey nor its conclusion. Yet still here I am, for no reason other than because it is better than laying down and dying."

With these final words he sat back, his stony glare daring the old crone to respond. Despite his countenance Freydyrs heart beat fast within his chest, still unable to understand why he had spoken more words than had in the past year with this woman and so he waited with baited breath....