Heavy breathing as a little girl flees through the woods. Heavy metallic steps coming from behind and coming closer as she flees.

  A girl with beautiful golden blond hair and bright yellow eyes around 16 years old. She is wearing tattered white robes and is bleeding from injuries on her legs.

  Shouting can be heard from behind,

  “Find the Saintess!”

  The girl runs and runs with her lungs aching with pain she has never experienced before. She trips on a tree root and exhaustion bleeds into her veins, she knows she cannot outrun the paladins like this. But she pushes herself to her feet anyways refusing to be sacrificed. She notices some tracks from a monster marking its territory then notices a paladin behind her but it is too late. She is grabbed by a paladin who grabs her arm as he says,

  “Please Miss Saint come back to the church.”

  But Lina refuses to go back there now knowing of her fate, she takes a knife and stabs the kind hearted Paladin in the side then starts fleeing again. She has never hurt someone before but…

  she doesn’t want to die. She eventually makes it to a hollow log with the kind young paladin close by.

  “Miss Saint, it’s okay wounds like this heal in no time thanks to the blessing of Life. You won’t get in trouble so please come out.”

  The man starts walking gently towards the hollow tree with an arm outstretched when a monster shows up with brown fur, 8 foot tall, with a humanoid face.

  The Paladin is caught off guard as the beast lunges forward, Lina looks towards the dying paladin and simply runs away as she hears all around her,

  “A Monster! Quick men take it down!”

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  The girl stumbles as she flees through the dense woods and as she brushes past some vines…

  Lina suddenly wakes up with a headache, that happened 3 years ago yet it still makes her sick. Her hair now messy and filled with knots from her desperate escapes, falls in front of her now matured face.

  She gets up and gathers her adventurer’s license and simple gear. She makes her way towards the map on the wall showing her route over these years.

  A large mostly circular continent with human lands filling the center and west but also red lines dotting around all of their towns. She’s at the edge of the eastern villages, trapped between here and the wilds of monsters blocking the demons further east.

  She has been running all around the human lands but they still always find her. She looks down to her hands covered in blood before they revert to normal. Still haunted by those she has had to hurt to escape.

  She steels her resolve as she tears the map off the wall ready to run again, but she has tried adventuring alone but without an offensive blessing it’s a death sentence especially this far east.

  The Paladins have cornered her right at the edge of safety, they are probably expecting her to stay here avoiding the dangers of the wilds. But Lina is more scared of the paladins hot on her heels rather than risking death.

  Later she arrives at one of the taverns as a Priest of Life. She approaches one group of veteran adventurers and asks,

  “Does your party have room for a healer?” the leader pauses in his drink and shakes his head.*

  “Sorry lass we’ve already got one, this far east you won’t see any party that doesn’t already have a healer.”

  But Lina can’t let it end here, after 3 years of fleeing just to be stopped at the edge of the human lands?

  “Please there must be someone!” She exclaims desperately.

  The man hesitantly looks to the other groups who all look away before he sighs and says,

  “There is one group who doesn’t have a healer, but it’s best you wait until a new position opens up.”

  Lina is confused by his words but also determined, she doesn’t have time to wait.

  “I’ll decide that, where is this party?”

  The man sets his drink down then says. “It’s just one person, we call him the Sole Returner, because not a single person has ever returned alive from his parties, even rumors he’s a Priest of Death.”

  Lina is taken aback, traveling with such a man would undoubtedly put her in danger. A high likely hood she would die.

  But images of vast armies of Paladins appear in her mind bearing the flag of the rising sun, all to hunt her down. Better a sketchy companion than facing Hell alone.

  She leans forward and asks,

  “Where is this Sole Returner?”