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.”
Synndis eyes the woman with suspicion, tilting his head slightly to the side. “Promise me a drink for my time?”
Strange old women weren’t his ideal drinking partner, but at this point, he would rather share an ale with a hag than have no drink at all. It had been far too long since he had the warm comfort of alcohol in his stomach.
Her yes was all it took to bring Synndis down onto that cushion, comfortable as if the two were old friends.
”My story, then? Let’s see…. my parents were never much of an issue; always treated me right with whatever I wanted. I lived there a while, before they died. ” He scratched the stubble of his chin, a chuckle finishing off his sentence. The woman before him pried at his position. Why come all the way out here, she asked him, if you lived comfortably back home?
Synndis tensed at this. Laughed it off with a tight smile.
“I live humbly nowadays, at no fault of my own. Yes, I grew up comfortably, though that life is behind me. My pockets are empty, my family long gone. May as well be a beggar, like you.” He gestured to the woman with a sly smile, though felt his chest tighten with annoyance. He missed the lush life he had before he gambled it all away. Now, the only thing he has to his name are the clothes on his back.
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