>>5888136>>5888152>>5888244>>5888338>>5888566>Attempt to go fetch ‘Bertie’ yourself.>Look around for our masterYou do a brief scan around the kitchen–halflings, one and all, short and freckly and hairy–but your master does not seem to number among them. You would recognize her keen glare and heavy eyebags out of any crowd of half-feet. You decide to instead try your hand around the rest of the hovel.
You creep away from the kitchen, down a few round tunnels and into a hallway–this one in particular is a real mess, a far cry from the relative cleanliness of the rest of the house. The floor is rife with balls and books and wax crayons, spatters of paint on the wall and plates along the ground. The hall is lined with doors, each embossed with a small aluminum plaque–you recognize some of these names from the kitchen.
You read the plates as you pass–Maybell, Pippinack, Marleberry, Applewink, Billicup, Brandibuck.. and at the very end of the hall, above a dim and dusty door, is a nameplate that reads “Bertilak.” You glance it up and down–the door slightly askew–before slowly peering in through the crack.
The room is a right mess–books piled high in every corner atop every piece of furniture from bed to shelf, strange wooden stick effigies hanging by twine from the ceiling, and all manner of odd trinkets and baubles decorating the floor. The room is dark and kind of creepy, distinct from the warm homeliness of the rest of the home.
And in the center of the room, elbow deep in a small toy chest, is a young halfling–eyes heavy and dark, brown hair tangled and knotted over her eyes. The girl’s got a sharper look in her eyes than the others you saw at the dining table–more bitter, a little red. She glances over her shoulder back at you as the door creaks.
“Snuff, there you–..” The halfling begins, before realizing the situation. “Snuff?! What the hell are you doing inside my head!?”
“Leshy brought me in, Lady.. Sigrid..? Is that.. you?” You squint in shock. “You–you’ve gotten smaller! Your condition seems to be getting worse..”
“I’m not getting smaller. I’m just young again. I’m–we’re–in a memory.” Your master rubs her eyes. “And it’s not a ‘condition.’ I’m just a halfling.”
>Ask to know what’s going on and what she’s doing.>Pinch her cheeks.>Try calling her Bertie.>[Write-In.] 