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?))
Brynnan eyes the suspended candles with a bit of wonder as she settles into the cushion. She straightens her spine, ready to untangle the vines of her journey into some sort of coherent story. She begins, of course, with the blight. She makes steady eye contact as she describes the ruin, the fallen birds and floating fish that has begun at the edges of the forest. Her breath catches in her throat as she begins to rehash the morning she had left her home. "I was the first up, in charge of my younger brother," she pauses, the memory of his smile stabbing into her chest, "He was sleeping heavily, so I went out to the hives... They were silent. I didn't notice at the time, but the whole forest seemed silent. I opened the first hive to.. to piles of them, to crushed incubating combs..." Brynnan collects herself, clearing her throat. "I'm sorry. It was supposed to be all of us here, looking for a new start, but my mother and father refused to leave the land, and I couldn't convince them to let my brother come with me, so, I'm alone." I'm alone, she thought again, shaking her head. The rest of the story is unremarkable. Travel by foot, by boat, on the back of horses. There was a spark she was looking for, a hum and buzz that she hadn't been able to find thus far. But she knew it would come. She would regain her connection with the soil and bees, she knew it. However, she felt a little wary of arcane practitioners, especially since there was a less than zero chance that the blight had been the doings of a person, rather than a god. Thus, she kept her ambitions to herself.
