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.” ((How do you respond?)) "My story?!", Aanav scoffed with a slight laugh. "Well, there's hardly anything to tell you at all."
Aanav picks up a small wooden box sitting on a wooden table to his right and looks down at it in his hands, turning it left and right, barely looking at it before putting it back down on the table.
" I just travel from settlement to settlement, buying, selling, or trading for whatever anyone needs. I wouldn't call myself an adventurer, per se. I'm not really one for going on little journeys to pick up trinkets for promise of a reward. I'm just into the sensible types of things. If you need a type of material; wood, linen, maybe even a type of spice that I may come across by someone else, then I may be able to help you, but otherwise, you may be expecting somebody else to walk into your tent."
The old woman looked up at him, a frown on her face.
"Perhaps you're right. Perhaps, I am mistaken..."
"Oh, you certainly are!", Aanov agreed, "but on that note, are you in need of anything else? I do have several different types of linen; a rug, perhaps," he stated, looking down at the dirt floor of the tent. "I do have a few a few common spices if you are in ne....."
Aanov stopped dead upon hearing the heavy hoof-falls of a large horse just outside the tent. The old hag also, slightly startled, looked up in the direction of the noise. Aanov looked out of the mouth of the tent to see a massive stallion standing just a couple of yards away, and a terrifyingly large dark rider, descending down off his horse.
"Ah....well now", stated Aanov looking from the dark rider (who was now walking toward him and the mouth of the tent) to the old hag, "THIS", he gestured with an opened left hand toward an unseen entity outside of the tent, "is probably who you were expecting. I'll take my leave. Good night!"
With that, Aanov stepped out of the mouth of the tent. The sound of heavy foot-falls coming nearer and nearer to the tent caused the old hag to stir slightly as a moment later, a very tall man, covered in black armor from head to foot stooped down and stepped into the tent. He was considerably larger than Aanov. Very broad-shouldered, and his helmet, which covered his face, spouted a cloud of vapor, as he exhaled in the brisk morning air.
The old woman looked up at the dark form of a man that stood before her. She studied him from head to foot, and then looked back up at his dark helmet.
"Ah", she exclaimed, "It's you. I've been expecting you. Please, " She gestures to a cushion to her left, aside a long wooden table, "take a seat. Tell me your story."
The dark rider looks back outside the tent and momentarily watches the back of Aanov disappear into the drizzley fog down the road. Then he looks back inside the tent and steps forward.
