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'm sorry i can't think of anything at the time please don't hate me
"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...
liam hesitates at the tent’s low entrance, the damp air clinging to their cloak like a second skin. They step inside, boots squelching faintly on the moss-slicked boards, and the circle of floating candles flickers as though breathing in time with their own uneven pulse. Shadows twist across the hag’s face—deep furrows carved by decades of damp and disappointment—yet her eyes gleam with something unnervingly sharp, almost hungry. The cushion she indicated is threadbare velvet the color of old bruises; it sighs under their weight as they lower themselves, knees protesting from the long trek through sucking mud and black-water channels. The smell inside is thicker: candle wax, bitter herbs, and the faint metallic tang of old blood long since scrubbed away. For a moment the only sound is the soft pop of wax dripping into iron pans below.
“I didn’t come looking for fortune or prophecy,” the character begins, voice low, testing the words as though they might still turn back. “I came because every road I took bent toward this place—toward you—like a river finding the sea. Three winters ago my sister walked into the fens and never walked out. No body, no sign, only her ribbon caught on a cypress knee, pale as bone. Since then the dreams started: her voice calling from under black water, asking why I hadn’t followed. I ignored them until the silence between the words grew louder than any scream.” They meet the hag’s gaze, unflinching now. “If you’ve been expecting me, then you already know the rest. Tell me what price buys the truth… or at least the chance to drown the dreams for good.
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