The problems I faced as a child can be directly traced back to this long history. Over time, my family had become set in its ways. My House and family trained its own and the training programs were long and tedious, designed to bring out the best in each trainee without pushing them too hard. The programs were designed to avoid danger and burnout while finding the best path for each member of the family. As a child I found the programs to be boring and inflexible.

I excelled in my training, but my father would tell me I was only doing what was expected of me as a member of the Darslayn family. When I complained about the pace of the training he would simply tell me that I was not a savant and did not warrant modified training. I was not even allowed to start along the path of a guild yet, and I was impatient to be free of the boundaries that my father set.

My older brother had already completed his House training and had joined the Moon Mage guild, as was expected of him. When he came home to visit, I could not wait until dinnertime when he would tell us stories of his adventures. If only I could move faster in my training, I knew that I would soon be among the Moon Mages, training for glory myself.

I again approached my Father, but this time he was not as understanding. He grew enraged and told me I was ungrateful and lacked the discipline that an Elothean requires to stand out. When he calmed, he tried to explain that Elotheans live long lives and I had plenty of time to find my path, but his explanations fell on deaf ears. His earlier words still stung my heart and I turned away bitter, feeling that he held me back.

Because of his words and my bitterness, I began to try to learn the basics of magic on my own whenever I had the chance. First I tried to figure out how to harness mana and perceive the power that I knew surrounded me. On my own, my efforts were clumsy and haphazard, and it was months before I had any progress at all.

Progress turned out to be not what I expected at all however.

One night, alone, I was attempting to harness the mana that I could barely tell was there. Suddenly, I made a discovery with my technique that allowed the sweet mana to fill me. At first I rejoiced as the power filled me, but soon I realized that I did not know what to do with that new power within me. I began to panic as the mana burned within me and my nervous system seemed to scream in pain. The figurative screams turned into literal screams as I called for help. Finally the mana slipped away to disperse back into the area around me, but the damage was done. My Father, having heard my screams, ran into the area and found me unable to move on my own, my entire body paralyzed from mana burn.

My Father was livid and felt I needed to learn a lesson from this, as if my paralysis had not taught me the error of my ways already. He suspended my studies and banished me to an outlying farm, and all the work that went with it, for an entire year. I could not believe what he was doing. An entire year of labor with no training allowed! In my anger and pain, I found a way to get away from the farm, and within a week of my incident, I was running away from Shard and my family to find my own way.

Somehow I made it to the Crossing. With the danger that I now know exists along the Southern Trade Route, I am not sure how I managed to avoid trouble, but manage I did. Upon arriving at the Crossing, my first thought was to rebel against everything my family stood for and find my way on the streets and in the shadows. Despite this, it did not take long for me to begin thinking back to the stories my brother told of his adventures in the Moon Mage guild. My heart still yearned to harness the power of the moons and manipulate the magic that I saw my family harness as I was growing up.

Once I had found the Moon Mage tower, it did not take me long to figure out how to make it to the third level, but my first encounter with Kssarh was quite a shock. I had thought my Father was one to yell, but his voice had in no way prepared me for the verbal lashings I was to receive in my training at the Crossing's Moon Mage tower.

Thus began my life as a true Moon Mage, and I soon learned that my Father had not been so wrong in attempting to teach me patience. Through many trials and tribulations, I managed to work my way up the ladder of the guild, but many lessons were learned the hard way, and not all of them were painless. The very first day of my guild training, I learned the first of these hard lessons. I found out the hard way that you must check cambrinth rings for the type of mana they possess.

A well-intentioned friend had given me a cambrinth ring, but when I tried to practice filling it with mana the first time, it exploded in my face because it already had elemental mana in it. The explosion left my hands mangled, and to this day I thank the Gods for the skilled Empaths that reside within the Crossing.

During my time as a Moon Mage, I have had many happy stories as well as the hard times though. Finding Lilithshade Baldad attempting to get on the ferry north of Leth Deriel and helping her get to the Crossing where she could become a Ranger was one such time. She flourished in the guild and we became friends and, with my lack of family at the time and her being far from her own family, embraced each other as brother and sister. Her marriage to Gyar, also of the Ranger guild, was a happy time for all of us who call ourselves family.

Also, during the "Time of Troubles" that the Moon Mage guild went through, I left the guild and my training for a time to return home and settle earlier matters with my family. After over two years of absence, I return much happier in having the support and love of my birth family.