Mira is a young woman from a remote farming village far from the kingdom’s major roads and wealthy cities. Her people live almost entirely from what they can grow themselves, and every harvest is a matter of survival. For years, goblins have raided the surrounding farms, destroying crops, stealing livestock, and occasionally attacking villagers. Each lost harvest leaves the village with fewer resources to survive the next winter.

This year has become desperate.

The villagers pooled what little money they had left to hire an adventurer capable of driving the goblins away. They counted every coin, sold what possessions they could spare, and scraped together enough for what they thought would be a reasonable contract.

It wasn’t.

Adventurer after adventurer rejected them.

Their village is too remote. The reward is too small. The goblins aren’t considered dangerous enough to justify the journey, yet they are devastating enough to threaten the villagers’ survival. Every rejection leaves the village with fewer options and less time before the next raid.

Mira has watched the desperation grow firsthand. Farmers are arguing over dwindling supplies. Families are calculating how much grain they can afford to lose. Everyone knows that if another large portion of the crop is destroyed, some villagers may not survive the winter.

So Mira volunteers to find someone willing to help.

She travels beyond the village herself, carrying the villagers’ pooled payment and the enormous responsibility of returning with an adventurer. She has no heroic training, no wealth, and no influential family to call upon. What she does have is determination, a strong understanding of farming and the surrounding countryside, and an increasingly desperate willingness to negotiate.

Mira is not accustomed to asking strangers for anything.

Now she has been forced to ask again and again.

And every rejection brings her closer to the terrifying possibility that she will return home empty-handed.

She knows the village cannot afford another failed crop cycle.

She knows the people waiting for her are counting on her.

And she knows she may have to offer far more than the small purse of coins in her possession if she wants anyone powerful enough to help to take her request seriously.