Your character has just arrived in a swampy, dim town. As they look around, their gaze is met with shacks and cabins. It smells of rotted wood and wet moss. They 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?))
Example:
Aelric hesitates only a moment before lowering himself onto the cushion. It exhales damp air when his weight settles, like something alive beneath the cloth.
He studies the floating candles first—an old habit. Then his purple eyes return to the hag.
“…I doubt you’ve been expecting the truth,” he says quietly. “But you asked for my story.”
He draws a slow breath.
“My name is Aelric Thornvale. Or it was, once.”
“I was sworn to a border house in the north—small, forgettable, and meant to stay that way. We guarded a forest road no one cared about anymore. Merchants stopped using it. Patrols were cut. And then… people began to vanish.”
He rubs his thumb across the inside of his glove, where a seam has nearly split.
“At first it was travelers. A cart found half-buried in leaves. A mule wandering back alone. Then it was our own men. Two on watch. One from the kitchens. A captain who’d survived three wars and knew better than to walk off into the dark.”
His jaw tightens.
“They told us it was beasts. Bandits. Superstition. Anything that let the lord keep sleeping comfortably.”
Aelric lifts his eyes to her again.
“I didn’t believe that. Not after I followed the tracks.”
“They didn’t walk away.”
“They were taken.”
The candles flicker faintly.
“There was something in the deep wood. Old tunnels under the roots. Older than the road. Older than the stones in our walls. And something living in them that knew how to move without sound… and how to wear a man’s voice.”
He swallows once.
“We found one of the missing guards three days later. He came back to the gate by himself.”
“…And smiled at us.”
Silence hangs between the words.
“I drew first. The others hesitated.”
His voice lowers.
“I was right.”
Aelric leans back slightly, as if the memory still pushes at his chest.
“When it was over, there wasn’t enough left of him to burn properly.”
The faint scar through his eyebrow pulls as his expression tightens.
“The lord didn’t thank me. He had a problem that frightened his people. I became a more convenient one.”
“So I left.”
He glances around the sagging tent, the dripping canvas, the hovering lights.
“I’ve spent the last two years following rumors. Half-heard names. Dead villages. Roads that vanish from maps.”
At last, he meets her gaze fully.
“And every trail bends south.”
“…Every trail bends here.”
His voice drops to almost a whisper.
“Whatever I killed in the forest was not alone.”
He opens his hand, slowly, and reveals the small silver thorn clasp.
“This belonged to my sister.”
“She disappeared six months ago. On a caravan bound for this town.”
Aelric closes his fingers around the metal.
“So that is my story, hag.”
A quiet, steady challenge settles into his eyes.
“And since you say you were expecting me…”
“…tell me what you know.”
"Oh, I just, uh…" you stutter, tensing up. You eye the crone, then back outside the tent. For a moment, the air thickens with anticipation, until…
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