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?))
I enter the tent, and the candles begin to flicker, their flames reaching out to me as if they sense something.
I sit down and still not taking my eyes away.
"My father taught swordsmanship. My mother forged shields. At sixteen, I fought border wars. I believed that I knew fear." I close my mouth tightly. "But it was when I was twelve that it started. In the Adunian cliffside strongholds, children are not brought up, children are made. Steel before letters. Wind and rock as tutors. At sixteen, I was actually thinking that I was invincible."
I rest my forearms on my thighs.
"Then suddenly, there was something. No flags. No footsteps. Only silence. The first the hunters vanished. Then the children. We went after it into the ravine, and by the time night fell... it was like smoke among us. At dawn, half the dead were my kin." After a pause.
"I survived." The candles begin to flicker again. "I was guided by the whispers here. Disappearing people. People who are like shadows. And three nights ago, there was a vision of this tent in my dream. You." I slightly recline, my stare still penetrating yours.
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