Let me ask you this question: what does an exiled king, a thief with morals, a young sorcerer off on his own, a high elven wizard with secrets, an unlucky sell-sword, a somewhat clueless child, a man with gambling issues and a sewer needing cleaning have in common? The answer is: not a whole lot. But when the king is a three-meter-tall polar bear man, the thief one of the capital's most wanted, the sorcerer unlucky, the wizard too prideful, the sell-sword cursed with the body of a snailman, the child eons old and made from rock, the gambler a blessed priest and the sewers filled with monsters, then things start getting interesting. Now five hundred years after the defeat of Molthos the Enslaver, demon emperor and thousand years tyrant of the Almira continent, civilisation has flourished, and the annual Purge Festival is just around the corner in the human capital, Kivar. Follow a group of less-than-compatible people as their chanced meeting and later enforced companionship get them caught in a deadly popularity contest in which they are forced to participate under the threat of prison. Follow our...not heroes...but champions brought together by circumstance as they battle slavers, oozes, giant insects, blood mages, living plants, nightmarish terrors and more. Follow along in this book the opening act of an epic tale, depicting the story of those who go from strangers to comrades, to friends and to champions.