Alarich_

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.”

Cambyses looked about himself, inspecting the inside of the weathered little tent he had just stumbled into. "By Saint Daniel..." he mumbled under his breath, trying to get used to the foul smell and cold air that sifted through some of the slits and tatters in the tent's thin cloth. *This had better be worth it.* He thought to himself as he sat down upon one of the cushions. His attention wandered from levitating candle to candle, and he couldn't help but think that they made for quite the fire hazard. When he did acclimate to the crone's abode, he set his gaze upon her, and spoke.

"Thank you very much for having me", a warm smile forming on his face. "It's high time I had my fortune told."
A short silence set in.

"Ahem, of course. My story." he let out a little awkward cough, and continued: "Well, first and foremost, my name is Cambyses Cöllwitz d'Aumerie. A mouthful, I know. I don't know how well word spreads to... villages like these, but you may have heard the name a little while back." A certain sense of superiority could be discerned in the way Cambyses spoke of the poor old woman's hamlet, a sense that was palpable even to arrogant young lads such as himself. Too proud to apologise, he did his best to rationalise the insulting tone. "Not that there's anything wrong with villages like these, mind you. As a matter of fact, they do have their... charm, do they not?" he let out a curt laugh, adding: "I'm from the Commonwealth, madame. This just happens to be quite different to what I'm used to."

"You don't mind if I smoke, do you?" the boy asked, his hand fiddling around in his coat. He unsheathed his pipe, as well as a small tin locket filled with tobacco and a wooden box filled with matches, before the crone could even answer, a small heap of dark leaves had already found their way into the pipe's bowl. "My father..." Cambyses began, lighting the pipe and giving it some small puffs to properly ignite the tobacco, "bankrupted our family a little over five years ago, so there was some gossip here or there."
He looked up from the tobacco in his pipe to the old woman, trying to gauge her reaction. "Not to worry, you'll still get your fee." he said, exhaling a cloud of smoke. "Where was I? Oh, yes. You see, we were very comfortable before then. Our family, house Cöllwitz d'Aumerie, had been a respected clan among the Vallagne burgher class. Sine nobilitas, yes, but blood does not make the world go round; money does. And we happened to have plenty of it."

"Had. That is."

He took a long drag of his pipe, thinking about what to say next.

"Now, enough lamenting the past. I've been travelling around, trying to restore my family's good name. Our dreadfully empty coffers are on the verge of running completely dry, so I'm hoping to find work in the capital. My father always said the shining pearl of the Commonwealth provides for her sons, but I just hope she provides me with a means of providing for whatever family I have left."

A quick glance at the pipe's bowl revealed that there was hardly any tobacco left, and so the boy's pulls became more conservative and subdued. 

"I should hope an artisan might take me under his wing as an apprentice. I would jump at the possibility of working in the civil service or bartering for goods as a merchant, but most of all I wish I could study. Reading law and studying the seven liberal arts would be a dream come true, if I'm honest. Alas, I've no scholarship, and certainly no financial means to get in. I dare say we're so penniless that I've no choice but to do whatever labour pays us enough to survive.

He sighed, his eyes set upon the miserable pile of ash that lied where there had once been fresh tobacco.

"Tell me, madame." he said, shifting his gaze to the woman. "Has fortune forgotten me yet?"