In the Shadow of a Halfling

Chapter 1 : Great Grandfather

Ever since before I was born I have been compared to someone I have never, and will never meet. I have (I have been told) been given the ultimate honor to be named after The Great Guntram Farric. They tell the story every year on my namingday about how I was born at the exact second that he passed on. They tell me I am destined to be just like him. Its tradition they say. I only want to be one person, ME.

I have been told that Great Grandfather Farrich was impulsive, arrogant and brilliant. But I have also heard sneaky, underhanded and that he would do anything for a gold piece from people who are not in my family.

On my fourteenth namingday I was given a fortune telling as a gift. I have never been one to believe in mystics and other charlatans of those professions, but I thought what the hell I might as well have a laugh.

I made my way to the creepiest home in the village. All during young studies we all dared each other to knock on the door and run. We were all too scared to even go down the same road. Now here I was walking toward it of my own accord. There's no way this old woman is a witch or a sorceress or whatever. There is no such thing.

I found myself as I kept getting closer, as the sky seemed to get darker, repeating that phrase with every step. "There's no such thing... There's no such thing..." As soon as I realized it I stopped and looked around to see if anyone noticed. No one was paying attention to me so stood up straighter and marched towards Old Lady Hornbougher's house. I had stopped chanting out loud but could not stop chanting it in my head...
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As I knocked on the door my brain told my legs to run and I almost did before I caught myself. "I'm not a child anymore." I reminded myself. I grabbed the fear and jammed it down deep with my feelings of inadequacy and resentment towards my family, stood at the door and waited.

I heard from the interior a voice, barely loud enough for me to hear, say "Ah yes Guntram, please come in. I have been expecting you it's been a long, long time..."

I frowned at this but figured I heard her wrong and left the creepy porch, though the creepy door and entered the creepy house.

As I close the door I heard, from the deep recesses of the house, an old crackly voice call "Well come in, come in Guntram. You were never shy before what's got a hold of you now?" It sounded like if the leaves you walk on the the autumn had a voice. I followed it and found a room near the back of the house. This room was... well its CREEPY. There was all kinds of weird stuff everywhere. I didn't know where to look first! Shrunken heads, animals that had been stuffed, jars of all sizes with who knows what in them and books, not only on the shelves but in all of the chairs and even piled just on the floor. Some stacks were held up by the ceiling alone... In the middle of it all stood a women who was bent over almost double from age and was wearing drab robes that looked to have been quite fancy at one time but long ago. She looked up at me and at once I knew she could not see me in the traditional sense but somehow she knew I was there.

"I.." I croak. I cleared my throat and started again. "I'm here for a reading."

She cocked her head to the side and frowned. "By the stars... it's not possible." She hobbled over to me and put her rough hands on my face, one on each cheek. I flinched but she held me strongly in place, more with her white milky eyes than with her hands. She peered intently into my eyes, my very soul. "Ah yes... the transfer did not get completed. The soul moved but the mind did not..."

"Well no matter the mind. The soul has a task to accomplish. Best get to it."

My feet could take it no longer. They turned my body around and ran.

"Hehehe..." The old halfling cackled. "So there is some of the mind there after all. Guntram never did stay in one place for long." She mused.