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.”
"O-oh! Hello! Yes, uh...well..." Beau, obviously caught off guard and exhausted from his travels, takes a moment to collect his thoughts, nervously eying his surroundings. "Sorry, you've been expecting me? How do you know who I am?" Beau waits a moment for a response; sensing he won't receive a clear answer any time soon, he rubs his temples, letting out a sigh. "Well alrighty then, since you asked...and since I have no where else to go..." Beau sits cross-legged on the cushion, letting the heavy rucksack slung over his shoulders fall to the floor with a satisfying thump. "My family's from up north. Always has been, and probably always will be. It's a simple life, not unlike yours. We live off the land, hunt our own food, and mostly keep to ourselves." Beau pauses for a moment, lost in thought. "My grandma, Maggie, was always proud. Proud of who we our, proud of history, proud to be Adunians." Beau chuckles, the exhaustion leaving his eyes for just a moment, replaced by a sad sort of happy, the sort that can only come from remembering something long past. "She used to tell us these stories about who we used to be before we were banished and left to wander, going on and on about the good ol' days. I think that's why she's kept our family in the mountains all this time. Even though all that's left are ruins and a few dingy old building, uh...no offence, it's like she sees something in them that we don't." Beau clears his throat, wiping some wetness from his eyes. "Anyways, she uh...she got real sick a while back. She's tough, she managed to fight it off, but I think something about that changed her. Maybe scared her a bit? I think it really put some things in perspective. She raised my parents with her same pride, but I think this sickness helped her realize that she sort of trapped us in our own history, never allowing us to move forward. She tried to tell this to my parents but they just wouldn't hear it. But she talked to me, and...and she told me that I needed to get out, to explore, to see the world, to help bring our people together." Beau pauses again, looking at the hag with an unreadable expression, watching the firelight dance and flicker off the far wall. Beau speaks again in a small, quiet voice. "...that seems like such a long time ago, even though I know it's only been a few weeks. She passed not long after telling me that, and I'm not sure what I'm doing now." This hangs in the air for a moment, heavy. "So I left home not long after. Left a note and all the money I could spare and headed out on the road. As you can see," Beau gestures at his dirty clothes and several sizable bruises, "the road hasn't exactly been kind to me. I don't have a plan from here, I've just sort of been...walking. Walking and thinking. Which is what brings me here so late at night with the hope that you might show me some kindness. Maybe a place to sleep and some food? I don't need anything fancy, and I'm happy to work for it. Just enough to make it to the next town, where maybe...maybe I'll be able to figure out what I'm actually doing out here." Beau flashes a crooked smile, all he can muster. "That's my story and I'm stickin' to it!"
