Quest One - Humble Beginnings
As renowned as the hero would one day be, he began his journey in obscurity, an orphan raised by his aunt and uncle who treated him like little more than a slave. It was a difficult childhood, but Potter was luckier than many. Ferelden was recovering from the last Blight, and while some men prospered on the work of others, the poor and the unfortunate were forgotten, left to lives of crime and desperation just to survive. Despite the suffering of some, there was peace between the nations of Thedas for the first twenty years of Potter’s life.
But that peace was about to come to an end, and Potter was destined to have a place in the war that was to come-whether he liked it or not.
Quest One
Humble Beginnings
It was a bright midsummer’s day, the sun shining down over the clay-rich cliffs for which the village was named. As the people of Redcliffe went about their business, a soot-streaked young man with messy black hair and bright green eyes emerged from the blacksmith’s store.
“And don’t you come back until you’re cleaned off, boy!” a man’s voice bellowed. “I won’t have a filthy urchin disgusting my customers and ruining my business!”
The young man rolled his eyes but called back, “Yes, uncle!”
Harry made his way to the docks, cupped some water in his hands and began scrubbing his face. After a few seconds of vigorous scouring, Harry paused to check his reflection in the water. He was about as clean as he would ever get, he supposed. His hair would always refuse to be smoothed down, no matter what he did, and he would always have that strange black birthmark on his forehead shaped like a lightning bolt. Harry kind of liked that mark, but it did look a bit like his cousin Dudley had taken a quill to his forehead while he slept as a prank.
Harry took a moment to sit down on the dock and listen to the gentle thunk-thunk of the waves splashing against the underside of the wooden planks. He wondered how long he could stay here until his uncle got angry and sent someone after him. He leaned back on his hands and looked up at the sky, watching the clouds.
Something suddenly shot past Harry’s eye-line, startling him out of his reverie. Harry turned to see a small white bird fluttering madly over the village before it disappeared through the roof of one of the buildings. From the looks of it, Harry guessed the bird had just flown into his uncle’s smithy. Poor thing probably wouldn’t last long in there. Either the smoke would suffocate it, or, more likely, his uncle would have Harry kill it. He hoped the bird would leave on its own before his uncle realized it was there.
Harry looked out at Lake Calenhad, which seemed like an ocean that stretched on forever from his vantage point. When he was a child, Harry used to imagine that it really was the ocean. He used to pretend that adventurers would come into port long enough for Harry to stow away on their ship, and then they would take him away to see the world and he’d never have to come back to Redcliffe again.
But Harry wasn’t a kid anymore. Lake Calenhad was as landlocked as he was.
“There you are!” a woman’s shrill voice demanded. Harry tensed. The break had been nice while it lasted, he supposed.
Harry’s aunt Petunia was a skinny blonde woman with a long neck and an angular face. She stormed down the dock towards Harry, grimacing at the water below as if she thought it might jump up and dirty her dress if she didn’t keep an eye on it.
“Get up!” she snapped. “If you have enough time to laze around, then you can come help me in the house!”
“Uncle Vernon expects me back in the shop,” Harry said.
“Then you’ll be heading there just as soon as you’re done,” Petunia said. “You might as well do something useful while you keep your uncle waiting, instead of sitting here daydreaming away.”
“I just cleaned this morning,” Harry protested. “How did it get dirty already?”
“I don’t need you to clean, I need…” She paused, lips twisting as if she had just tasted something very sour. She glanced around. “I’m not going to talk about it outside, come to the house.”
Harry followed his aunt as she walked to the family home. Uncle Vernon’s business allowed the family to live in comparably affluent conditions compared to most of the other villagers. That wasn’t saying a whole lot, but aunt Petunia loved to lord it over her neighbors.
Petunia stopped in the small kitchen, an apprehensive expression on her face. “You can’t breathe a word of this to anyone, do you hear me? Not a word, or so help me, we’ll have you working in the mines for the rest of your miserable life.”
Harry resisted the urge to talk back. As much as he hated being his family’s servant, at least he got some occasional sunlight and fresh air, which was more than he’d get in those blasted tunnels. “Fine, I won’t tell anyone. Now what’s going on?”
“There’s…” Petunia stopped, as if unable to force herself to say the rest.
“If you won’t tell me, I’m going back to the shop,” Harry said.
“It’s rats!” Petunia shrieked. She stamped her foot. “Horrible, filthy, disgusting rats! And they’re in our pantry!”
Harry laughed. “Rats? Really?”
“Yes! If the neighbors find out-why did they have to come here? You’d think those cats Arabella from next door keeps around would scare the vermin away, but they’re not even good for that! Of all the pantries in Redcliffe, why did the rats have to go after the only quality food in the village?”
“I’m guessing it’s probably all that quality food, Aunt Petunia,” Harry said with a smirk. “At least the rats are impressed.”
“Don’t get smart, boy, just go in there and kill those filthy things!” Petunia said, shuddering with disgust.
“Why not do it yourself?”
“Ugh! I’m not going to touch them!” Petunia sneered. “Besides, I know you’ve been teaching yourself how to use a blade. Get those knives you stole from the shop. What, you thought I wouldn’t find them hidden under your bed? Kill those rats and maybe I won’t tell your poor uncle that the boy we’ve charitably raised from infancy is nothing more than a petty thief.”
“Maybe I wouldn’t have stolen weapons if you’d let me learn how to fight in the first place,” Harry said, brows furrowing.
“And what good would that do?” Petunia asked. “You’d never be worthy of the guard like my Ickle Diddykins. You don’t need to learn how to fight.”
“I don’t know,” Harry said airily. “Maybe I’d have been a good exterminator.”
“I thought we’d beaten that cheek out of you by now,” Petunia said. She turned away and started scrubbing the nearest counter, signaling the end of their conversation. Harry went to the cupboard under the stairs where he’d slept for the past nineteen years of his life. It was dark and his bed consisted mostly of a lumpy straw-stuffed canvas “mattress”. There were also a lot of spiders hanging from their gossamer webs, though Harry was quite used to his various eight-legged roommates after all these years.
Harry paused, looking down at the narrow bed, the stooped ceiling, the small shelf of books that he’d managed to rescue from his cousin’s lack of interest, and reflected not for the first time that it had all looked bigger when he was a child.
Shaking it off, Harry recovered his daggers and made his way to the pantry. He opened the door, expecting to find a few normal rats.
He found nine giant rats roughly the size of your average household feline, with lots of nasty sharp pointy teeth and an apparent taste for human flesh.
Harry began stabbing left and right as Petunia let out a scream and climbed onto the dinner table. It was hardly a battle worthy of epic poetry, but Harry came out victorious (albeit with a few more bite-marks on his ankles than he had before). He attempted to wipe the blood from one of his blades on his trouser-leg, but that only seemed to make it worse. Harry was surprised to discover that he was covered head-to-toe in rat blood. He must have hit a vein or something; there had been veritable fountains of gore.
Petunia nearly gagged at the sight of him. “You! Out, out, out of my house this instant, before you drip on any of the furniture! And take these-ugh- retched things with you! But don’t let the neighbors see them!”
Harry dutifully picked up the dead rats, hid them in his pack, and left the house as Petunia began to scrub the floors, muttering anxiously to herself as she attempted to erase all evidence of the rats’ presence and demise.
Glancing down at his blood-covered clothes as he stepped outside, Harry couldn’t help but chuckle. If his uncle had thought a little soot would scare away customers, this would send them screaming out the door in a blind terror.
-QUEST COMPLETE-
INVENTORY
Armor
Hand-Me-Downs: These trousers, shirt, and leather jerkin used to belong to someone much bigger. And sweatier. (Equipped)
Weapons
Dursley Daggers: Potter stole these daggers because they wouldn’t be missed-at least they’re pointy. (Equipped)
Miscellaneous
Rat Corpse [9]: Why would anyone carry something so unhygienic around in their pack?