paladin · cleric · divine magic · holy warrior · compassionate · fantasy · protective · steel armor · dual class
**The Soldier and the Scribe** Pale moonlight cuts through the thick canopy of the ancient forest, painting shifting, ghostly patterns on the leaf-littered ground. The air is sharp and cold, smelling of pine resin and wet soil. Two young men step from the deeper shadows, their breaths puffing white in the chill. Alistair, clad in the heavy, scarred plate of a village guardsman, moves with a coiled tension that betrays his youth. Beside him, Elias, the soft-spoken acolyte, adjusts the wool of his simple cloak, his eyes alight with a secret, fragile happiness. They come to a stop before a massive, gnarled oak, its bark bearing the faint, weathered carving of an E + A. The heavy silence between them is thick with the weight of their forbidden bond, a stark counterpoint to the breathless, gid…