Galain

I am an elf of few words. My story is hard to share so what I read to you today is the result of an interview with Adiara the Bard, who took what I told her and wrote this account.

I had never known magic as a child. My father, Riadrac Din'Yancey, was a noble-born elf, of the Forest Elves, descended from Kiernion, it is said. He was a wealthy man, noble and a trader by profession. We held many lands near to Leth Deriel and my father traded in gold and silk. My mother, Najla, was also of the Forest Elves. Her lineage is less known to me as she disappeared when I was but a young child, barely out of swaddling clothes. My father refused to speak of her.

He was a proud elf, wounded by the loss of my mother. She was a truly beautiful woman from the paintings my father allowed me to see. My mother was a warrior mage, and had disappeared while testing out a strange spell she had found on a scroll.

He blamed her loss on magic and for this reason any use or mention of magic was strictly forbidden in the household. We had no moon mage seer, as was often the custom of noble Elven households at the time. No empaths were allowed into our home to heal our wounds. No clerics were permitted to bless our grounds, to commune on our lands. Not even the discussion of magic was allowed.

This made my father an eccentric man to his family and friends. This made me an ignorant child-unaware of magic and how it lived and thrived in Elanthia. While I understand my father's choice, I still feel anger towards him for how it affected me and kept my mother from me.

This changed when I was a young boy. One morning, while my father had ridden out to tend to some wild boar attacks on the outer edges of our lands, I had decided to walk the halls of our home.

I wandered aimlessly that morning, paying little heed to where I was going. Before I realized it I had walked into an area of my home that had long been kept from me. I saw, at the end of this dark hall, the door that led to my mother's old workshop. It had remained locked up since the day of her death.

A fierce-looking lock was affixed to the door and dust and cobwebs covered the doorway.

Fear of my father's reaction to my even being in this part of the Hall could not overcome my own curiosity, both to know my mother and to see what lay beyond that locked door. I had been gifted with good skill at lockpicking. This was one of the skills my father had allowed me to learn, for it showed no relation to the magical arts. I slid a lockpick out of my boots and knelt before the forbiddingly locked door.

With a careful flick of my wrist, along with a measured turn of the pick, the lock came undone. I loosened it and pulled its hold off from the door.

I opened the door and crept through. Before me lay quite a sight, something I shall never forget. Faded papers, dust-covered ancient books, vials of strange-smelling potions, unusually shaped objects-all lay on desks, tables, and chairs in front of me. It all lay about, left there by someone who seemed in the midst of an intense, distracted study intending to return to it in a moment.

I walked towards the nearest desk, the one which appeared the most orderly, which did not say much for the desk really. On it lay an opened book, dust now covering its pages. I leaned forward to read, brushing the dust away. It was tidy handwriting, though it showed signs of someone in a rush.

Today I have found what I think is the key to the scroll! Fredric was right to tell me to read the Book of Remembrance. It is old and the archaic use of Gamgweth is tedious at best, but so help me, Meraud, I think I've found the answer. Tomorrow I test it out. Little Galain lays sleeping beside me.. tomorrow he will see first hand what a mad mage his mother is!

I remember looking up from that, wondering what a warrior mage was. This place was so dark, so fascinating. I knew it would anger my father if he knew I was here, but I knew that from that day forward I could not stay away.

I hid away in my mother's workshop every day that I could, reading, learning, practicing. I learned what elemental magic was, and what a warrior mage does. I even found the ilmenite-tipped wand that my mother used to use to practice the art of using the magical device. I still carry it to this day. I became fascinated with the learning and practice of spells that she had written down in her spellbook. I knew what my path was.

One fateful day, I was in my mother's workshop.. deep in thought as I read a passage from The Use of Aether in Combat. I did not even hear the footsteps of my father as he sought me out. I did not hear his voice calling my name.. growing ever more insistent, ever angrier as he approached the doorway to the workshop. He stormed into the workshop grabbed the book from my hands and stared down at me with fury in his eyes.

"What are you doing?!," he demanded. As I tried to explain I found it was pointless. My father did not care. His anger at the magic, what he felt had stolen my mother from him was unrelenting.

The last thing my father ever said to me was the following: "Leave this place. So long as you choose to sully yourself with this vile magic I know you not."

Anger, grief, fear, sorrow.. all these emotions filled me that day. How could my father act this way around something my mother loved so much, around something I had come to love. I resolved to leave that day, taking my magic as my only companion. I gathered some of my mother's books and magical devices with me: the ilmenite tipped wand and the aging spellbook, which was hers also.

I made my way to Crossing and joined the guild here, learning what I could from Gauthus. I became an extremely focused student, learning as much as I could, shocking even Gauthus with my zealousness as I studied. (This zealousness has proven to be a source of frustration to my adopted family, even my wife.) I suppose I found that burying myself in my magical arts was a comfort to me as I had lost all of my family. After time the habit stuck.

My desire to figure out what spell my mother had tried to test (all records of the spell were lost from the workshop) has consumed me also. I long to learn what happened to her.. to find her if I can.. and what the spell was. So I continue my studies.. and perhaps one day I will solve the mystery.

To this day I have not spoken with my father. But whenever I pass through Leth and can see, in the distance, the lands that I roamed as a child, I wish I could visit him and show him who I have become and hope that perhaps he can learn to accept me.