“There is a story of a man, traveling through the untamed wilds to the west; in his travels he came upon a great and wild field of golden wheat. There, in the middle, a Devil sat across the path. Withering and corrupting the stalks around it.
The Traveler was not afraid, and he approached the Devil; “You don’t belong here Devil, leave this path” He said. The Devil laughed as he stood to face the traveler, grinning a horrific visage, “I am here because you are here, Traveler, as judgement and punishment for your sins” It responded.
But the Traveler had been looking for The Devil, and had been prepared. The Traveler drew a magic sword, created by the devil’s own magic, and as they fought the wheat around them ran red with their blood. The Devil laughed as the Traveler lay cut after cut onto it, its wounds healing as fast as they were given. “I live inside you, dear Traveler, all your strength and power comes from me” the Devil called as the Traveler struggled against it. “You cannot kill me any more than you could pull out your own heart”.
Hearing this, with grim determination in his eyes, the traveler reached into the blood and magic within him, and he called forth a great scythe of black fire. With it he cut down the Devil just as another one of the stalks of wheat around them.
The Devil did not lie, though, in his curses to the Traveler. And, as it bled out, the Traveler’s life left him as well.
A Priestess of Vandria, then, came upon the battlefield. And, upon laying eyes on The Traveler, she knew it was not his time to part. The Priestess beseeched her goddess to bring him back. In an act of mercy, The Goddess pulled the spilled blood and life from the field like a cloak and wrapped the Traveler in red, returning him to life in service to her. Thus the Traveler wreathed in red became the Red Saint.
It is said he still roams the wilds to this day, vanquishing Devils, eradicating cults, and protecting the weak from their machinations.”
-One of many renditions of the folk tale of “The Red Saint and The Devil”
Epilogue design for Rudolf!
