Douglas Dough's POV:
My name is Douglas Dough, a former paladin of the 3rd martial continents divine theocracy. Many decades ago, I was sent on a missionary trial of sorts to the 2nd martial continent. Had I succeeded, great honor and power would await me and my fellow paladins, but I was a fool. I had put my trust in another paladin of the same faith, and assumed him an ally, but he betrayed me.
He had given false information to trick me into diving headfirst into a trap. He had told me of a secret pathway just big enough to lead a small force of soldiers past the dark empires border without being detected. However, the road I had taken led me straight into the pathway of a marching army. My men and me had been pelted with poison arrows before we had the chance to retreat. The ones that did not die from the arrows were paralyzed by the poison and captured, eventually ending up in the frost palace.
If the words of the other prisoners are to be believed, the scoundrel responsible for the deaths and imprisonment of myself and my comrades, presumed me dead and used me as a martyr. High-paladin, Douglass Dough, sacrificed himself and his men to delay the enemy's reinforcement, so that Arthur A. Davis could lead a victorious siege on the black iron fortress, that is what they say about me now. I also heard he then managed to convince everyone he had inherited my will and soldiers to continue doing god's work in my place. Such slander kept flowing into my ears until I could not bear to listen any longer.
As the time passed, the exact method of execution I was to be sentenced to was decided. As an enemy of the dark empire, I was obviously sentenced to death, however, it takes a while for the judicial system to decide on the exact execution method for each prisoner. The prisoners get to spend the waiting period in the frost palace, often times seeing their execution date as more of a salvation than a punishment by the time it arrives. I was sentenced to death by starvation.
I had been thrown in a hole where I would be denied any food until I inevitably starved to death, and my only source of water would be the ice in my cell. My cultivation despite being crippled upon capture still allowed my body to survive the cold even without the qi, and what little divine energy I had left is what has kept me alive for the last few months, but it is about to run out. After I was captured I was forced to wear a demonic collar that prevents me from connecting to my god to ask for more energy, not that it even mattered at this point.
I have long since lost my faith in the gods. They could have stopped this, sent me a sign to warn me of that lying scoundrel's scheme, or admonished him for his vile act of deceit, but for years I never heard anything to suggest as much. I only heard the praise of the prisoners and the scorn of the empire soldiers regarding his glorious achievements until I ripped my own ears off in a fit of anger and frustration.
"Why hath god forsaken me?" I whispered as I could feel a tear run down my cheek.
'Because they are selfish!' A voice in my head spoke.
Wondering if perhaps I was losing my mind again, I ignored the voice as I closed my eyes. I don't have much longer now. My divine energy is more or less gone, and I am already but a wrinkly old skeleton.
*Sniff**Sniff*
Suddenly, I thought I smelled something divine. Then I felt something warm touching my lips. I opened my eyes as I tasted something delicious. I was in a world of darkness, and before me, pouring a bowl made of sunlight into my mouth, stood a masked angel with silver hair and sapphire eyes. Never before had I ever tasted something this good, and as it passed into my stomach, I could feel my strength returning as the golden light spread throughout my body.
I no longer looked like a skeleton with skin, rather, I had returned to my prime. My strong muscles glowed bright as my body was dyed in the power of the sun. As I finished drinking the sunlight, this angel, no! This goddess, spoke to me.
"I ** th* fl*v*r s*v*r!"
While I had torn off my ears, I was not completely deaf, however, I was rather hard of hearing, hence I could not quite make out her words. I tried to convey this by pointing at my missing ears. She grabbed the sides of my head, brushing over my missing ears, and suddenly her words became a bit clearer.
"I am the flavor sav*r!"
And soon after, she faded into the darkness, and I suddenly found myself standing inside the frozen hole I had been sentenced to die in. I almost thought it was just a hallucination, but the remaining aftertaste of the sun's ether told me otherwise, and so did my body when I looked down. My body lost its luster, and it had shriveled up quite a bit, but I was no longer a walking skeleton anymore. It was a far cry from my prime, but there is no denying that I had suddenly grown muscles that were not there before. Not only that, but when I reached up to where she touched last, I found that one of my ears had grown back.
"The flavor savior?" I muttered in reverence and as I did, for the first time in a long time I could feel something well up inside me once again.
This was the beginning of how I, Douglas Dough, former high-paladin of the greater god of justice, would come to find my new faith. For when the gods forsook me, only she was the one who brought me hope in this final hour.