A man in red robes sits on a large ornate throne clearly meant to intimidate, he snarls at the people kneeling in front of him, they are not too close of course he does not want to breathe in their bad air. They were peasants who had come again probably to ask for more money, of course he didn’t let them release their dirty breath in his glorious chambers a butler would speak for them. The distinguished looking butler pulled out a written copy of what they were requesting and cleared his voice.

“General the peasants have requested that you march a small company east to defend their lands from the approaching Raiders”

The man on the throne sniffed.

“I’ve needed a break hmmmm make the preparations at once, we leave at dawn”

The man left the room excited for the slaughter ahead of him.

---

A knight captain of the red robed man frowned at his section of the battle field, there were many more raiders than the strategists predicted and his lords lack of strategy was not helping. His small company of knights and conscripted soldiers were cut off from the main force and retreating up the side of the gorge they tried to ambush the raiders in. The muddy slope was difficult to navigate and even though they had the high ground they were losing men faster than they could get away.

The knight captain decided to push towards the enemy to try and give his men some breathing room, he lunged thrusting his longsword straight into the chest of an unsuspecting raider. Helping the soldier he just saved up he parried a blade, caught it in his crossguard and slid along it to drive the blade into another raiders heart, he would have to act aggressively as possible to buy enough time for his men to escape.

Raiders were cleaved into pieces left and right as the knight captain activated his only mana skill, the blade glowed an angry red and the knight captain kept pushing. Only a few more seconds to get most of his men over the edge of the gorge. Suddenly his wild swing was blocked by a raider with a glowing sword of his own, the raider smiled with a bloodthirsty grin and the knight captain let out a stream of curses. They were almost equal in skill ‘this is impossible’ he thought ‘raiders don’t have men of this caliber’, before he could finish considering the strangely skilled raider he saw something out of the corner of his eye. It was a glowing charged arrow in an archers bow, his eyes widened and then everything went dark.

---

Three knights carried their superior officer as fast as they could away from the battlefield, they were rapidly arguing about their next course of action.

“We have no choice, we have to take him to the welded church”

“No, there must be an alternative”

“There are no other healers in the area”

“We can’t take him there, their god is insane”

“If he doesn’t like you when you get healed by his priests he replaces your soul with someone else's”

“You don’t understand, either we take him there and risk it or he dies”

Simultaneously they all look down at their renowned knight captain, his face is pale and despite the bandages he is losing blood quickly from a hole torn into his chest and a gash on his arm. They all sigh, they know what they have to do.

---

The welded church had buildings as fractured as their god, as if put together out of failed projects of apprentice blacksmiths. The whole building gave off an uncomfortable air that suffocated the knights as they rushed in, they were received quickly and the priests accepted them into the healing chambers. A crystal was set directly above the patients table and it glowed as it slowly charged up, they all chanted in unison their lopsided half-melted crowns glinted in the charging holy light, As soon as the beam touched the knight captain's chest he started screaming and when his knights tried to get him out from under the beam they were swiftly disposed of.

One of the priests smiled cupping his hands in prayer.

“It has been so long since our lord has welded a new soul into a body” he giggled “I’m so excited”