***Year 20, 1st era, day twenty-five of the First Quarter (approximately three thousand years ago)***

-Hamlet of Castel-

*Speaker Gorn*

Gorn had just finished his impassioned sermon to these folks and he stepped down from the pulpit. He would never admit this, but his back and feet ached from standing for so long. He guessed he was getting old… However, a young man from the hamlet had come to greet him. Old or not, he had his duties to fulfill.

“Greetings my son,” Gorn smiled gently at the nervous youth. “No need to be nervous, I don’t bite.”

Gorn had been praying in the chapel of a village around this size twenty years ago, praying that he could have a chance to redeem himself for the life he had led. Then he had found himself in this world, where the Words of the Gods have not been heard and where monsters were clawing at the borders of humanity. He may have aged since then, he had not even been young at the time, but his life still belonged to the Gods and not to him. That was the price he paid for redemption.

“Speaker,” the youth was anxious and had a guilty look about him, but Gorn was not judgemental. He had no right to be, after all. “Can any sin really be forgiven?”

“Yes and no child,” Gorn smiled gently. “Forgiveness is the province of the victim, redemption is the province of the sinner. A person may never be forgiven, but they can always be redeemed.”

“How?”

Gorn thought for a moment, a young man of his age probably had a sin that really was not important… Stealing from his parents, lying, or something like that… But then he paused, he heard the whispers from the Gods. Gorn looked back at the young man and felt sorrow, this was no small sin, and the Gods had already chosen his path for redemption.

“Speaker?” The young man shifted uncomfortably under Gorn’s gaze.

“On behalf of the Gods,” these words were ritualistic in his world, a mark of a High Priest, and to his shame he could never suppress a swell of pride when he spoke them. “I speak, you are to accompany me and follow the path of a Paladin.”

These words, spoken with the consent of the Gods, were undeniable. A glow suffused those who channeled their will, and the young man had fallen on hit butt and scrambled away scared, his eyes nearly falling out of his face.

At the pronouncement, the Paladins who accompanied Gorn came to take the young man away. This was the will of the Gods, and with the victories against the demons brought about by Their will, the word of the Gods was law.

“Wait!” A woman yelled out and pushed through the crowd of gawkers, nearly falling over as she finally broke through. “Please, don’t take my son!”

“The Gods have spoken,” Gorn would not reveal the man’s sin if he did not have to, the hamlet did not know the youth was involved, and he did not need forgiveness from them. “Your son is destined for a great duty, a glorious duty.”

“You mean destined to die on the front lines against the demons!” She fell to her knees and clutched at Gorn’s robes, he waved away the Paladins who had come to remove her and instead knelt down to her level.

Putting a hand on her shoulder, he spoke quietly so as not to be overheard, “Your son approached me asking about forgiveness from sin and the Gods spoke. Your husband… I know about what he did to you and your son, and he felt that he had to stand up to protect you, but he hates himself for it. By coming with me, he can earn his redemption and take pride in his actions.”

The woman gaped at him as he stood and smiled down, “Do not worry, I will make certain he comes back to see you as he can in his training.”

They left the hamlet on horses, Gorn felt stiff and aching when he rode, but he did not complain. He would be damned before he rode in a carriage, and the Gods can hold him to that. The young man rode on the horse behind him as he did not know how to ride himself.

“Do… Do you actually know?” He whispered to Gorn.

“Hmmm,” Gorn thought for a moment. “The real question is if you know, or if you even understand the nature of sin?”

“Of course I know.” The young man snarled, “you cannot fool me into telling you… You don’t really know, do you?”

“Steven,” Gorn sighed. “Do you really think defending your mother and sister was a sin?”

“Well…” The anger disappeared from his voice, replaced with sadness, uncertainty, and shame. “My father is… He is…”

“Dead, yes.” Gorn twisted in the saddle to look at Steven, “And you are responsible for that, but not for the reasons you think. Your journey to become a Paladin will provide you the answer and give you relief from the shame and sadness. You will live a life with dignity, nobility, and justice and be proud of doing so.”

“I don’t think I ever could…”

“The Gods believe in you Steven,” Gorn laughed. “Who are you then, to not believe in yourself?”

“Wait…” Steven paused, “How do you know my name?”

“Is knowing your name really more surprising than knowing the sin you came to talk about?”

“No… I guess not.” Steven sighed, looking back towards the hamlet.

“You will go back there one day,” Gorn knew what the young man was thinking. “Do not think that you are leaving forever, it may have seemed unbearable to be there with those around you unaware, but when you come to understand sin, you will be able to go back with pride.”

“Then… Can you help me now?” Steven was near to tears, “I feel… So terrible, I hate myself so much, and I feel that I should not even be alive.”

“I can,” Gorn smiled. “And I will personally oversee your training myself later, but for now listen well.”

Steven leaned forward and focused all his attention on the old man before him as he began to speak.

“Sin is not a single moment, nor is sin necessarily the action we feel it is.” Gorn spoke one of the basic teachings of the Paladins, “when faced with a situation where there is no good solution, the sin happened before the choice. It is not a sin to have be backed into a corner and to choose the better of many bad ends, but what landed you in the corner was a sin.”

“This was a punishment for something I did?” Steven choked out.

“No, no.” Gorn shook his head, “Sin is not what you think it is, and right now you only know part of it. You were not punished for your actions, nor was it the will of the Gods that any of this occured. As you go through training you will understand this truth, you lived in sin but committed none. Know that everything I have said now are parts of a future epiphany that will bring your soul to the light of the Words. Rejoice and feel relief, because I have the answers you seek, and I will teach them to you.”

Steven had been his mother’s first child, he had grown up under a surly and abusive father who would beat them at a moments notice. His father had been a soldier on the front line, a lone survivor of his troop, and it had broken him. He had grown to hate all of those who did not understand, who lived in peace bought for them with the oceans of blood spilled to the north. But Steven did not know that, nor did he know that his father had been abandoned by his Lord when he was injured. Relieved from duty and made to fend for himself, alone and angry, until he made his way to this village and tried to start his life over. Steven did not know that the ghosts of old battles never left his father, and haunted him for Steven’s entire life and long before that.

Steven had poisoned his father’s ale two years ago, six years after Steven’s sister was born. Steven had no longer been a small child, and he could not bare letting his sister go through the same fear and pain that he had gone through. He killed his father and the town put it down to alcohol poisoning, he saved his mother, his sister, and himself and hated himself for it. He loved and hated his father, and so felt both relief and shame for what he had done.

To murder is a sin, but this was self-defense. Abuse was a sin, but the man was sick and haunted by memories that were as real to him as the ground around him. To abandon those in need was a sin, but what Lord would understand how to help a man in that situation?

A chain of sin and shame and pain, and to assign full blame to any party would be lacking understanding of the nature of man. All of these men were victims and sinners, and Steven would be the God’s tool to cleanse this sin and to hold back its darkness in the future.