MrFendy

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?)) Tired from the journey, the young man seats himself at the edge of the inviting cushion and begins, "I'm a traveler by necessity, and blacksmith by heart. My parents, both presumably dead, taught me literature, Mathematics, and the Beauty of the Forge." A sigh escapes his weary face, "Although I have never actually forged anything, I desperately yearned to do so! My last memory of my late father and mother was in the forge was many cycles ago.... Father drumming his hammer across the anvil; beating the finest iron that ever graced our forge. I questioned my late father to where he could have gotten such pure iron. But all I would get is my father's booming laugh and torrents of boasting about his skill in our great family name. Yet father continued nonetheless, finding his rhythm hammering the molten metal. Mother burst into the forge anxious and worried. Many would say, she was scared." He ran his hand across his face, anxious to recall what happened afterward. "But of course, she wasn't alone. It was all a blur, as father took off with his yet finished creation fighting off whatever followed mother. I froze and before everything went dark, mother broke, her screams lashed at my ears and father collapsed. My vision darkening, my fears took hold as I could see crimson red staining the smooth stones of the previously clean floor. Everything fell apart: including me. The floor grew closer and before I knew it, I was out like a candle in the wind." He looks up at the old hag. Sorrow dancing across his brow, the traveler takes a moment of respite from the horrid memory. With a deep rasping gasp, he continues, "I only understood later that I was taken as compensation for the iron, that damned iron. The men could only do one thing to repay for the allegedly stolen mineral: I would be sold. I tumbled through what should have been the happiest years of my life. From city to city; cage to cage; beating after beating, I didn't let up. They tried to change me, yet I wouldn't allow it. I, Vincent Gamble, wouldn't let my father down. No matter the cost I didn't let them break me. Weeks turned to months and months to years; I learned what I could. The basics of forging one of such blessed things. I wasn't allowed to touch a hammer, yet I could watch. Although I was sure if I spoke out of turn, I would most definitely be in for a beating. The molten metal, and crashing claps of hammer connecting to iron, helped to remember my father. My mother less so, yet their memory kept me alive and sane. I grew, and the travels stopped." Without missing a beat, the young man stood up, and defiantly asked the old hag. "Is that all?"