Tales from the Tavern

Reldo writes:
The Lumbridge Guide greets the outlanders at the castle. This note came to me sealed, with a request that I read it twice. I have read it more than twice.

The Old Man Who Knows Your Name - by the Lumbridge Guide

I tell every new outlander the same three things. Keep your coins in the bank. Do not trust the man selling the vault. And if a strange old man in a robe walks up and says your name, answer him.

They call him the Mysterious Old Man. He is a different man from the Wise Old Man of Draynor, though I have never seen them in the same room. He appears beside an outlander who has stood still a long time, at a rock, at a tree, at a fishing spot. He says their name. He waits.

If they answer, he gives them a gift, a lamp or a coin or a strange box, and goes. If they do not answer, he takes them somewhere else. The taverns say it is a wizard testing a spell on the feeble-minded. The outlanders who come back do not say much.

I have watched him for years. He only comes to the ones who stand too still for too long. He only asks one thing: whether they know who they are.

Most of them do. Some of them take a moment longer than they should. I have started to wonder why.