Walking down the street, having just won enough money in a game of chance to pay for medicine for his sick grandmother / girlfriend / cousin Meg, he's run over by a madman on a horse who is fleeing the town guard. The gambling money goes everywhere and before he can collect it, he finds a strange golden idol that fell out of the horseman's saddlebag / hand / belt when he clipped the youth. The guards mistake him for someone who stole said idol, or an accomplice of the horseman (whom they claim deliberately passed it off to him) and he is beaten and dragged away (losing the coin as well, at this point, as other people on the street gather it up) to the jail, while the idol is returned to the temple it was stolen from. The priesthood of said temple tells him that they would argue for him to be hanged for defiling their sacred altar, and that his 'associate' murdered two temple guards getting into there breaking into the sanctum to loot their holy relics, and set a fire to cover his tracks, but they aren't going to bother, because the idol is protected by a powerful curse that inflicts doom upon any non-believer who touches it. They pray for his soul, because they say, the curse is particularly vicious, from an earlier time, and warn the guards in the jail that anyone who has touched him should come to the temple to be cleansed with holy water and ritually blessed, 'just to be sure.' The character soon begins to suffer a Sickened condition, as the painful effects of the curse begin to manifest.
Even with the priests not pressing for death for sacrilege, the sherrif says hanging is his fate for being an accomplice in murder and theft, and says that the priests told him the curse will take seven days and seven nights to kill him, so he's got time to set up the gallows and round up some witnesses for a 'trial.'
The prisoners in the nearby cells huddle away from him, only spitting at him occasionally and warding against the evil eye, since they don't want to 'get any curse' on them.
Hours later, the captain of the guard comes in carrying the unconscious body of the rider, and flings him into the cell, saying that there has been a terribly mixup and that the rider, under interrogation by the temples truthsayers, didn't seem to have the slightest idea who the boy was, and he's free to go. The priests look kind of sheepish and admit that any ancient lore that they had on breaking the curse, or even it's exact effects (they know he'll suffer increasing pain over seven days and die, unless he does something specific, but they don't know what that is...) went up in the fire with the rest of their holy books! So sorry! We'll do what we can, but it was an ancient and powerful curse, said to have been sent down by a powerful outsider in service to the god himself, and none of them have anywhere near the power necessary to break it!
Stumbling home, bruised and battered, stinking of captivity in the foul jails, and suffering from an agonizing curse, he finds the house empty, and the bed where he left his sick (whomever) empty, and her belongings packed up on the bed in a crate. His family is nowhere in sight. Just then a strange man bursts in and slams him around, demanding to know where Emirkol is being held and what is going on! Turns out the horseman *did* have an accomplice, and the accomplice thinks he has something to do with the capture of his ally! The rogue roughs him up a bit, and threatens him. Finding out that he knows nothing, the rogue ties him up and leaves him in the cottage, tossing down a flask of alchemist's fire to 'get rid of the evidence,' just as his ally did back at the temple!
Just then, strange words tore free from his throat, and the rope slithered off of him like a snake, tripping the rogue as the door slammed in his face! The rogue tried to get free, but the rope kept wrapping around him like a constrictor, and as the youth stood up, it seemed like a wave of grief and rage and frustration poured out of him in a dazzling display, striking the rogue into a stunned blinded stupor, and allowing the rope to get a firm grip on him.
Dragging the rogue out of his burning home, he is confronted by guards and priests, who had belatedly discovered magical evidence of the riders true accomplice. Too late to save the family home, they still regard the young man as a hero for capturing the true criminal, and his family shows up with a cart at that point, having hauled their sick (whomever) to a local apothecary and guilting him into giving them some medicine!
At this point, he also notes that the pain is gone, and the high priest, who had been incapicitated by the rider, tells him that he had read the ancient scrolls and remembers that the curse can be broken by an act of justice and heroism, at great risk to oneself. Apparently the desperate struggle with the true criminal, and handing him over to the authorities, broke the curse!
So, grampa/love of his life/annoying little brother is alive and recovering, the character is cleared of all crimes, the temple offers healing services not only to the character, but to his sickly relative (and the sheriff, apologizing for his rough treatment earlier, gives him a few coins to pay off the apothecary as well!). Oh, and he's apparently got magical powers, although they are in flux and random at the moment, so he may not actually ever be able to Open/Close doors, Animate Ropes or throw Color Spray in the future, but who knows, maybe he'll be able to do even cooler things!
For extra wonkiness, have animals act weird around him. During his time in jail, rats gather in his cell and sniff at him, as if waiting for him to die. Once out of jail and heading home, he notices that crows are circling overhead, and landing on the houses he walks past, staring at him as he passes them. His family cat hiss at him when he arrives and flees the house. (All familiar related stuff. Animals that could become familiars sense something odd about him, and some are curious about it, while others, like the family cat, want nothing to do with being some spellcasters short-lived flunky.)
