>>6034658Your first steps are cautious and with great trepidation, you wonder if he even recognizes you after all this time. What has it been? More than half a decade? And he still lives in a shack in the middle of the woods? Or the Inquisition went back on its word and you were never informed, not like you would be anyway. The wooden steps leading up to the glass door creak under your weight as you press down any lingering anxiety. Maybe it would be better to remain in ignorance than to know to go back to the Hopefuls instead of to a piece of your past, but you don’t think you’d be satisfied with that outcome.
You’re taken off guard as you hear chittering off your side on the porch. Grasping the Throngler’s hilt you look over to see a spider demihuman, a very small spider demihuman. “Can I drink that?” She asks as she points to your blood-covered shirt and bares her fangs. It isn’t very threatening.
“Uh,” You find yourself speechless.
“_____! What’d I say about- Wait who are you?” Cries a much larger, but similar-looking, demihuman as she skitters from behind the cabin. “Why are you covered in blood?” Is the next thing she asks.
“Wha-”
“Hey, what’s going on out here…” A familiar voice trails out as a blonde man wearing a very strange shirt opens the glass door. He looks at the same time shocked and fearful as he sees you, “Asher?” He says almost a whisper.
“Hey, Johan. How’s it going?” You say while attempting an awkward smile.
“W-what are you doing here? Is something wrong? Is the Inquisition-” He says rapidly, his face paler by the second.
“No! I, um,” This is very uncomfortable with the addition of four, eight, sixteen? Extra eyes on you, “I killed a couple of drakes over there,” Is what you end up on.
“Oh, I think I heard them rummaging around my trash the other night,” Johan says, “Was it for the Adventurer’s Guild.”
“Yeah, it was for the Adventurer’s Guild.”
The conversation lulls for a second, “...Do you want to use my shower?”
“I’d appreciate it.”
“C’mon sweetie, let’s go play by the water,” Johan’s wife(?) says as she scoops up what you can only presume is her daughter in her arachnid hands.
“But I want-”
“Shh, I’ll help you swim out to the island,”
“Yay!”
A short shower and a gifted, bit too short, change of clothes later you find yourself facing an old contact. The first ever Stranger you hunted on your own. The man that you had to argue be left alone, A man lost in a strange world with no real ambitions and on the verge of dying. He would have if you didn’t help, but that’s a different story than the one you’re living with now. With a wave of his hand, the Stranger materializes two cups of coffee, one for each of you, “So, you’re a father now?”
“Yeah, best decision I ever made,” He says with conviction that you’ve never seen in him before, “You’re still an inquisitor?”
