The only one in his village born without magic, Vance grew up relentlessly teased and bullied. Life didn't get easier when his parents died, leaving his older sister to raise him. Even with her loom-magic and talent for weaving, money was tight. When a stranger showed up and started courting her, threatening to take away the last bit of family he had left, Vance decided he had enough. He cut his hair and ran away in the middle of the night, assuming a new identity.

Over the next decade, Vance slowly made his west to the Lowlands. In the begininng, he stole out of desperation. Then he discovered that he enjoyed the thrill of it and started stealing just because he could, always on the lookout for the next shiny bauble to snatch. Vance started developing a reputation, one that he deliberately encouraged, spreading rumors and tall tales of himself wherever he could. This caught the attention of a local gang leader, who recruited him for a theft. The job went very bad, very fast, and Vance ran again.

He took refuge in a nearby cathedral and quickly found more than he bargained for. While trying to steal from the cathedral (old habits die hard), Vance was stopped and arrested by a mysterious woman. He managed to escape and flee to the upper level, only to find out the hard way that the cathedral was haunted and murderous when he was attacked by an enchanted loom. He was rescued by the woman and promptly passed out.

Vance woke up in prison, where he was given a choice: serve out a life-sentence, or help rehabilitate the cathedral to have his crimes pardoned. He reluctantly took the second option. Neither him or the cathedral's caretaker, a former paladin in the king's army with a haunted past by the name of Mildren, were very happy about this. The cathedral is warped by the residual energy of a great evil, and restoring it won't be easy. Compounding the matter is the bird-masked necromancer skulking around the cathedral, trying to ressurect said source of evil. Oh, and...Vance might also be falling for Milly. That definitely spells trouble.