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.”
“My story?” she echoed, her voice soft, uncertain for a moment. “It’s not one I tell often.”
She hesitated, fingers tracing the edge of a small rune pendant at her neck. “I come from the Veilspire Glades—where the trees hum at night and the light never truly fades. My people… we guard what’s left of the old flame. A spark of something ancient. But lately, the flame’s been dimming. The rivers turned black. The skies don’t sing anymore.”
Alexis’s eyes, a strange kind of green that almost glowed in the candlelight, lifted to meet the hag’s. “I followed the trail of that decay. Every whisper led me here.”
The hag tilted her head, studying Alexis the way a crow might study a jewel. “And what is it you think you’ll find in this pit?” she asked.
“Answers,” Alexis said simply. “Or a piece of the flame itself, if the stories are true.”
The hag laughed—dry, sharp, like cracking bark. “You think the flame would survive here, in this muck?”
Alexis smiled faintly. “I’ve learned that light hides best in dark places.”
Something shifted in the tent. The candles flared as if catching their breath. The hag’s grin returned, smaller this time, but laced with something almost like respect.
“Well then,” she murmured, voice rasping. “Maybe you’re not as lost as you look.”
Alexis let out a quiet breath, unsure if that was a comfort or a warning.
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