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?))
"Expectin' me, eh?" Baeldys pauses, casting a sidelong glance at the interior of the tent.
After a moment's pause with no response, he continues with a resigned sigh. "Can't say I understand, but... aye, I'll take whatever help the Forgefather sends. Thank ye for the hospitality." Baeldys grunts as he wrenches his overpacked rucksack off his shoulder. Setting his axe down, too, he rests his hands on the haft and straddles the short stool in front of him. A moment passes before he exhales through his beard.
"I'm certain ye can see clear as day that I am an Agnarum Dwedmar -- a mountain-born. I'm far from home." Baeldys hesitates a moment, still acclimating to the taste and smell of the worn tent. "The musty air of the lowlands disagrees with me, and the lowland folks hardly fancy me better. But I've nowhere else to go. My people - they cast me out."
Leaning in and looking intently into the hag's eyes, Baeldys lowers his voice, sounding sure and resolute. "My name, Firemane, it ain't just fer my hair. I've been tending to the Central Forge on my mountain for near my whole life. But aye, the Forgefather must have laid out one of his teachings fer me..." Baeldys spits to the side, fighting back a rising swell of emotions teetering between anger and regret. "The flame of the Forge went out, while I was there - alone. No warning, no reason. I've never lost the flame like that before, and I tried all I could to save her, but in a spark's breath the flame was dead. One heartbeat she blazed, and the next - ash. I couldn't revive her."
Baeldys curls his hands into tight fists. "I swear on the Forgefather's peak, it weren't my doin' that killed the flame. Something happened. I tried to plead my case to my people, but to keep the gods' favor and maybe revive the Forge, they banished me." He scoffs. "Said I failed. Said I was cursed."
Reaching into his sack, Baeldys pulls free a linen-wrapped bundle. He lays it on the table and rolls it open, revealing a finely made smithing hammer gleaming in the dim candlelight. Planted deliberately in the center of the table, there is a short inscription on the handle written in Dwarven runes - "ASH MAY FADE, BUT FLAME REMEMBERS."
"This is the smithing hammer that the forgers of my home use." Baeldys fixes his eyes on the hag once more, voice hard but pleading. "I need to find somethin' to get me back there. Whether that's evidence of a culprit, or some magic trinket in yer back pocket that'll wake the mountain again."
Rereading the inscription one more time, Baeldys resolves himself. "I'll pay any cost to get her back. Fer even if the Forge lie in fading ash, the flame of the Firemane will always remember."
