Faithless Seeker Renatus

Some people are born with silver spoons in their mouths. Renatus was born with a holy emblem—not literally, of course, but he was up to his ears in religious teachings all his life. Most children of the time would have been pleased with his upper-middle station in life, but daily chants and a strictly regulated lifestyle only served to chafe at his roguish heart. Why dedicate yourself to a lifetime of self-imposed suffering when there were opportunities out there for much, much more? When he was a lad of fifteen, Renatus decided enough was enough, and set off toward the small abandoned cave at the back of the boarding school he attended. Several careful forays into the dark later, he stumbled across a shining object in the furthest corner of the cave. By then, the headmistress of the school had acted on her suspicions of the misbehaving miscreant, but when they extracted Renatus, he was clutching a small box of ancient coins. They were later found to be remnants of an earlier era commemorating an obscure saint, one thought lost to the mists of time forever. Renatus' discovery kindled a countrywide interest in lost relics, and it turned out that the young man had a knack for recovering holy artifacts in even the most desolate tombs. To his highly pious family, he was seen as a sign that the Divine wished their favors found in the mortal realm, but the seeker cared little for their ideals. Those tombs held the promise of something much more than musty scripts—the promise of adventure, and a material reward to match. Thumbing the gold coin, Renatus smirked. Leave conjecturing to old fools; he had the bounty of a lifetime to find.