Cromwell sighs heavily.
"My youth? I honestly don't remember a whole lot of it. My memory's been kinda f^&%ed since I discovered portal gems. I think it's all the dimension hopping, your mind can't keep up. Weird that this stuff isn't common knowledge to you people, but whatever."
Cromwell scanned the horizon, or at least, what he could see of it.
"There have been a couple of places that I tended to stick to, though. There was this one town that I kept going back to, can't remember the name, though. I have some... friends, if you could call them that, back there. That's actually where I found..."
Cromwell pointed his thumb over to his reindeer.
"That thing. Found it when I was helping on an attack on..."
Cromwell glanced over at Thyra.
"...An attack on an Elven War Post."
He glanced back for a second.
"And then that reindeer followed me back out after we were done. Still don't know why, but it's been the most persistent companion I've had. Crazy thing.
Course, things started getting a bit less consistent after that f&^%ing moron of a so-called-wizard blew up a d&^$ portal gem, and a fragment of it lodged itself in my f%*#ing gut."
Cromwell tapped lightly on his side, under his ribcage.
"And ever since, I've been having trouble staying in one place without warping all over the d^&% cosmos. Still got to find a new gem so I can find my way back to get this thing out of me, you can't just pull it out like an arrowhead, because it melds to you. And I really doubt that you guys would have any professionals for that s&^% here, seeing as how you aren't even familiar with 'em."
He rubbed his nose and sniffed.
"How 'bout you? You seem to have excitement follow you like a starving dog."