#random roll

Jacint would tell you he had the perfect childhood. Jacint had no preference, he loved hearing the grumblings of the local miners about iron deposits and how ‘steel isn’t worth the anvil it’s made on these days’, just as much as the rip roaring adventures from the former rogue who’d made their retirement in the clean mountain air. As long as it was about ‘elsewhere’, Jacint wanted to know. He’d only really known the comfort of his tavern home, his parents being too busy running the place to take him elsewhere or really spend any quality time with the little one.  The patrons had some idea of their conundrum and seemed to all have agreed, without really discussing it, that the boy would not struggle for company or care while the taverns doors were open. There was rarely a time when the boy was not learning to play cards or discovering how dwarves could communicate by colour choices in their jewellery or very quietly, and out of view of the bar, learning from the rogue how to properly charm and pick a pocket. (Jacint didn’t do very well at this last one, he always felt too bad and rushed to return the item, his big earnest amber eyes smoothing over any complaints. The rogue decided to teach him to forge signatures instead.)  But as much care as his parents and their patrons could give him, Jacint grew up not knowing what he wanted to do, his life at 17 was at a loose end. He had learned pieces of trades but non grabbed him and he had no interest as a publican, besides helping as waiting staff and the odd bar work at rush hour. He had seen his parents life for himself, no time for themselves, no life outside of their tavern, no time to learn anything else or to want anything else. Yes, that was one thing Jacint knew, that he wanted to want to learn more, to lose that need would hurt his heart more than anything.  So his parents turned to the knowledge of their patrons, asking each new and old face to add their opinions as what should be done of the Tavern’s collective son. The eventual decision, after many heartfelt pleas and compassionate arguments against such an act, was that Jacint should be sent to the closest monastary. It’s far away, yes, but you will learn so many useful things there! and so many more books than we could provide, said his parents, trying their best to look hopeful as they helped load a cart of his few belongings. Perhaps, you will find the path you were looking for, added one of the patrons, a great scarred orc who was trying not to sniffle into their ale And consider, interrupted the rogue who perhaps knew the forlorn Jacint’s heart best ; all the new stories you’ll hear as you go. It was the last that helped Jacint, sat on the back of a mining cart that would take him part of the way there, waving goodbye to the only family and home he had known. That there was more, elsewhere.   The monastery was a small crumbling place, dug into a valley, and very different from the warm tavern. But there were books, as promised and new people, even if they were only interested in training and Ki and keeping themselves warm in the draft halls. But Jacint was a warm person and did his best to make friends with his fellow students, even if his rather larger form was a little clumsier than them in training. What he looked forward to most was the outings though.  Despite the monastery being quite isolated from the world, the Monks put it upon themselves to visit the surrounding villages, dispensing wisdom, medicine and sometimes the odd chore. It was their duty to keep the people around them safe and secure and Jacint was always the first to volunteer. Despite his size initially being, perhaps a little surprising to the halfing villages nearby, he quickly became quite popular amongst the people. He was kind, eager to help and to learn their ways and even happier to lend an ear as he worked. For some people, his help was physical, heaving logs or just keeping the children out from underfoot for an hour or so. (No one made a finer pony than Jacint, the children all agreed.) And for others it was his kindly nature and open heart that helped. Making a pot of tea and listening to the story of a life well lived or a heart broken or a loved one lost. He even helped the less popular of the people, the drunkards (a state he knew well and knew well how to help) and the pick pockets and the cruel, as it was his duty to do.One such being was Agata Flainfoot, an old bedridden widow who had driven all that wanted to help away, and now was only visited by the Minotaur. She had spat and sniped and said words that Jacint had only heard muffled under hands as a child as he cleaned and gently wiped her face and heated casseroles sent with him by kind neighbours. She had done so for months and he had stuck it through. It was his duty, even if it was hard, he reminded himself as he tended to the scratches she had left on his arm on his last visit. Even if other people repaid his kindness with food or flowers or a simple kind word. It was his duty and his promise.  He would still try to make conversation as he worked, talk about the day or question where an item on her mantle came from. Mostly there would be sniping, sometimes silence but as time went by, she would reply. More often than not to tell him to be careful with her things and when he once replied that; he would be careful, he was not a bull in a china shop it surprised him to hear her laugh. He would not hear it again from her, in the months he knew her, but it was something he held in his heart. The rusty ill used laugh from a sad, lonely woman. So, when she passed, he was not fully surprised when he got a letter sent from what remained of her family. What surprised him was that she had left him something. As he opened the sealed envelope, he had remembered some of her belongings being different from the rest of the village, as if they were foreign, though she had never answered his questions on the matter. She had never told him and now, never would. But she had left him something.   Inside the enveloped was a map, hand drawn and severely noted, of a forest, beautiful and vast with great stone pillars, lain in broken patterns. Scrawled on it, with fresh ink was; Go find them It was possibly, the last scrawling of a crazed and lonely person, a joke from someone who had enjoyed cruelty. Possibly. But researching possible places for this forest gave very few answers but there was enough there to make Jacint believe that there could be something in it. Something real. Go find them. Them. Them. ‘ Them’ was a tempting word. ‘It’ was a fine word and would probably convince others far better but ‘Them’ meant people, and people meant stories and perhaps Agata had listened to his heart more than he had known. Jacint had gone to his elders and shown them his discovery, told them this story but they had turned it down, as they had duties and of course, Jacint had acquiesced. Duties would always come first. So of course, when asked to deliver a document to a sister monastery across the country, being one of the strongest and most reliable of them, Jacint had eagerly agreed. It was his duty, of course he would. And the old map, well, if it happened to have been in his bag as he was packing, that was no-ones fault and if nothing else, the country was big and there were plenty of stories to hear on the way.  

Discover the fate of a missing NPC.