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 lowers himself onto the cushion, but my posture is tight—coiled, like a predator waiting for the wrong move. Rain still clings to the edges of my cloak, darkening the fabric and making it heavy. The scent of brine and blood clings to me, masked poorly by the damp musk of the swamp outside.
“I didn’t plan to come here,” I says, voice low, gravel-slicked. “I planned to be halfway to the Eastern Reach by now, coin in hand, name clean, past buried.”
My eyes don’t leave the hag’s. “But plans don’t mean much when your last contract ends with fire, screaming, and a noble’s son bleeding out beneath your boots.”
He pauses, just long enough to let the weight of it settle in the tent.
“I ran. Not from guilt. From the noose. The port guards knew my face. Someone sold me out. Maybe the client. Maybe someone closer.”
A faint shift of my shoulders betrays the memory—the scramble to the docks, the stolen skiff, the sound of crossbow bolts slicing air.
“I came here because the map ended here. This town… this place… it's not on any route worth taking unless you're hiding, or hunting.”
my fingers tap once against the hilt at his knife. “I'm doing both.”
The hag only chuckles again, but this time, it sounds more like a warning bell than amusement.
I leans forward. “If you truly know who I am… then you know what happens next. No more lies. No more ghosts. Just the truth. And maybe a way out.”
