SmolBudgieLord

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?))
 

"A story.." Dunsmir ponders, scratching the beard on his chin thoughtfully. Mud still cakes his boots, and though he cringes at the thought of ruining this old woman's tent, he settles down onto the cushion anyway. His gaze returns to the crone, a smile on his lips as he slips into pleasantries. "Fine lady, you do intrigue me. I'm not even sure why I wandered into your tent, and yet you seem to have expected me and also want to hear of my past."

Ever fond of the dramatics he pauses, before slowly taking out a notebook from the satchel placed by his hip. It's full of his old designs of mechanisms and machinery, small studies of magic and the arcane, to-do lists and small pieces of poetry he would never show anyone else. He took out what he's been using as an bookmark, a small sketched drawing by his mother of what he looked like when he was young. He showed it to the old woman.

"I grew up only in lantern light." Dunsmir explains, offering the small paper to be taken. It is rather dimly lit in the tent afterall, and he found himself trusting it'd be returned afterward.

"An underground library, with hoards and hoards of knowledge kept secret and hidden away.. That, an' ale, because gods forbid us dark dwarves go without drink for all that work. I've an respect for our great librarians. The dusting is never ending, sorting is a chore, and if anyone damages those books, there'd be blood!" He says with a barking laugh, proudly. Wiping a tear from his eye he continues, tale not quite done yet.

"All of my family lived down there, our lineage made for guarding and tending to those books. Our greed made to knowledge. But I always yearned for more, forever more, more, more. So I left when I was around twenty or so to pursue life above ground. To learn more. Drink more. Live more, more, more..."

His voice grows softer, quieter now as memories of home fills his thoughts. "Aye, but I miss them every day no matter how much I try not to. It t'was my mother who made me that tiny portrait. It saddens me to know that I no longer look like that. Used to be quite a little charmer, apparently."