Inkfinger
01-10-09, 10:45 PM
Clarifications, additions and amendments are in Slate Grey. Level 0 profile is here (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?t=16393). I reorganized the equipment sections, the only new things there are the naginata, the backpack and the book, the rest is just rearranged to fit my neurotic tendencies.
Name: Caelric Kjeld Strandssen, travels under the name Cael Inkfinger.
Age: 32
Race: Human
Hair Color: Pale blue
Eye Color: Strawberry blond
Height: Six feet, three inches tall; he currently stands with a perpetual slouch, though, so he tends to look somewhere between five-feet-nine-inches and six feet even at first glance.
Weight: One hundred and thirty-seven pounds; about thirty pounds underweight and well aware of it.
Occupation: Scribe-Inkmage-Scapegoat-Political Prisoner.
Personality: Cael is mostly amiable and easy-going, but with a tendency to cling to things he's done wrong, replaying them in his mind. He’s loyal to the point of death to people he cares about, but tends to not get worked up over other things: he’s asexual to the point of celibacy, agnostic in religion, and -until recently- he was moderate in politics, used to playing the a mediator between ideas, and giving very few opinions on things he wasn't directly involved in.The civil war in Salvar, however, stole his neutrality in politics, as he joined his brother in a very, very small resistance that lasted about a month before the Church caught up with him - his last few months have been spent in a cell, which has led to him acquiring a somewhat thick protective layer of paranoia and cynicism, as well as a healthy hatred (and fear) of the Church of the Ethereal Sway…
Appearance: Tall, lanky and unhealthily thin right now, with pale, almost translucent skin. His eyes are deep set, generally dark-rimmed and light blue, and his hair is blond, shaggy, matted and messy right now – as in, not-washed-for-a-month-and-a-half messy. His eyebrows and eyelashes are the same shade of blond, so sometimes it looks as though he has no eyebrows at all. He usually has a layer of stubble on his cheeks, but it never seems to materialize to a full beard.
He has old, deep scarring from his left ankle to left hip and walks with a rather noticeable limp from those scars. His back, shoulders, arms and legs have fresher scarring in a mishmash of recent wound ranging from whip slashes to burn marks that are just beginning to heal. His hands are stained with multiple colors of inks, to the extent that the faded ink almost looks like a part of his skin. His left hand has a strange, ink-like marking that extends from the webbing between his fingers all the way to his elbow, and his right hand has a sign branded across the back.
He tends to tilt his head to the side when he's listening closely to anything, looking rather like a confused, blond puppy. He dresses in layers of Whatever He Can Scrounge Up, so his wardrobe is variable and prone to being discarded as needed, so very little remains a constant, save for his inkmage robe. His clothes are currently in tatters and rags, and will be discarded as soon as he can possibly find anything better.
His voice is a hoarse tenor (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDVYSb6x5_E), and (while he is rather well-spoken in his native language) he has a thick accent -a strange mixture between a North-London accent and Russian accent in Earth terms- when speaking Tradespeak.
Weapons
Pen - A nib pen with four changeable, sharpened nibs. It, like the inkwell, is almost completely ordinary in appearance; only the sigils etched on the nibs give anything away. Cael has, on occasion, used it to stab people.
Naginata - Seven feet tall. The shaft is five-and-a-half feet of hardened oak, while the blade is a foot-and-a-half of steel. Includes a leather scabbard. [Acquired here (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?t=16592).]
Armor
Feet: Currently bare.
Legs: Loose linen trousers in tatters to his knees.
Torso:
Shirt: Long sleeved and made of gray linen. The left sleeve is in tatters up to the elbow, the other extends an inch past his fingertips, and the bottom hem reaches his mid-thighs.
Coat – A coat that is vaguely Asian in shape, belted at the waist, the skirt of which reaches his knees. It is made of quilted silk, midnight blue in color, lined with sky-blue. The coat was enchanted by his teacher to resist ink, a useful trait in his profession. Other than that, it is completely ordinary, and utterly useless against “real” weapons.
Hands: Fingerless knit-wool gloves, inkstained and fraying.
Head: Currently bare.
Unders: n.o.y.d.b. thank you very much!
Other Equipment:
Rucksack -oil-treated leather; waterproof with a zipper. The large sort with lots of cool pockets and pouches, quite capable of hauling all of Cael's assorted writing stuff around. [Acquired here (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?t=16592).]
Inkwell - an unassuming looking, translucent-blue cork-topped bottle that holds about 12 fluid ounces of ink. The cork is the only sign that there's anything odd about the inkwell. It has a symbol etched on the inside of the cork that isn't ever hidden, despite the fact that it's the same color of the ink inside.
Books - Notebook – A large notebook, bound in leather, with rough, off-white pages. The book is about 12inches tall, 12inches wide and, 3inches thick. There are pockets on the inside for small cut pieces of his origami paper. It is perfectly ordinary, but practically glued to his person at all times and thus worth mentioning.
The Regular Jag-off's Guide to Pole Arm Use. [Acquired here (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?t=16592).]
Skills:
Fighting: Until recently, had it been a class on earth, Cael would probably have got an F in fighting. He couldn't fight with anything but his magic. An anti-skill, if you will, hence its mention. However, since journeying to Scara Brae and beyond, his skills have risen a bit: Hand to Hand: from abysmal to below average
Polearms: from non-existent to below average
Penmenship: Cael's fifteen plus years as a scribe have resulted in him having nigh-perfect handwriting, and an eye for duplicating. He can write in a good dozen styles, is fairly decent at forgery, and can copy various pictogram-and-symbol based languages that he doesn't know if he's given a base to look at.
Ink Magic
Ink Magic is an art that is a combination of innate ability and the proper artifacts. Most of the spells require specific artifacts - a pen and an inkpot (which must be the set the Mage learned with unless said set is destroyed) - reagents - in the form of paper and blood-dosed-ink - and prior preparation.
An Inkmage first prepares the paper by writing a word, or drawing a symbol or picture symbolizing the action or reaction the mage wishes to cause in ink from their inkwell. The ink must contain blood (a single drop is sufficient for a whole inkwell worth of otherwise ordinary ink) - the mage's own blood works best, simply because another's blood in an Inkmage's inkwell pretty much reminds them of spitting in another's drink. It's just Not Done. The paper is then folded - much like origami - and either used instantly, or saved for later use.
The minimum time Cael has ever prepared a spell in is two minutes - Ink Magic is not the most practical form of magic to use in the heat of battle, and Cael is often the first to admit it, generally while running away. Ink Magic also doesn't keep well - a prepared spell must be used before the precise time it was prepared the previous day, or it reverts to plain paper and ink.
Spells
Wish of a Thousand Cranes - By drawing a sigil representing a crane, Cael can create effective first aid tools out of simple paper – these include small bandages, cold compresses and heated compresses. Useful for scrapes, small cuts, bruises and sprains, but not much else at this level.
Blade of the Two Thousand Wings - Requires a paper crane as a reagent. By drawing a sigil on a paper and using the paper to create a crane, Cael can create and control thin blades of blue energy that (currently) deliver cuts about the intensity of a paper cut. More of a deterrent and distraction than anything - these blades have a range of about twenty-to-twenty-five feet, and generally produce five blades per crane. Once the blades have been used, the crane disappears.
Circle of Ink Binding - This spell requires a lot of advanced preparation for what is, ultimately, a somewhat lackluster effect. Simply put, Cael draws a circle of sigils directly on the floor, with a species-specific symbol in the middle. Any being of that species within a level or so Cael's skill level that steps over the edge of the circle will find themselves trapped within the circle. The effect only lasts about four minutes, and the being trapped within is immune to any attacks Cael might throw at them. Therefore, it's best to slap it down and Run Away.
Inklife - Cael can bring up to seven paper constructs to life, sending them to scout ahead or steal small objects for him. Currently, he can only animate constructs of up to seven inches in length (only one) or seven (if only an inch long). If destroyed, they 'bleed' ink.
Portals Magic:
The magic ([U]usually innate) used to activate and navigate the Salvic Portals Network, generally mixing planes magic (such as teleportation and other forms of instantaneous travel) with enchantment. Cael's constant exposure and unintentional merging with an artifact with such an enchantment has granted him a small grasp on a trick or two in this branch of magic. (Obtained in Byzantine (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?t=17778). Will only be used for roleplay purposes.) Spells [U]Detection: Cael can detect portals within a one-mile radius of himself. He cannot, however, detect if there is anyone or anything between him and it. [Passive]
Activation: Cael can activate the portals without an amulet, or spells of any kind, but he must be able to touch the portal for at least six uninterrupted seconds. [Active]
Navigation: Cael can influence which portal he will emerge from once he’s actually started the process of traveling. He must concentrate, however, as tangents in thought can lead him places he really doesn't want to go. [Active]
Realization: Cael has a map of the portals relationships in his brain. He can't help but remember where they are. [Passive]
History: Cael Inkfinger was born Caelric Strandssen in the Salvar seaside fiefdom of Gjovik, son of a fish merchant and a fisherwoman, and the youngest of five children. As he grew older, he took more after his father’s side of the career, preferring the relative quiet of a study with a stack of forms to fill out over being outside with the cold and the stink and sea. Soon, however, he took to preferring free words over those of a set form, and begged and cajoled his father into letting him be trained as a scribe.
His father eventually gave in when he was about 15, carting his son off to Knife's Edge to be apprenticed. His apprenticeship passed quickly and without much noteworthy – it was after his apprenticeship ended and he had moved on further North to a small, inconsequential fiefdom called Aronia that the trouble started. He found himself looking for ways to make money and found the easiest way to make money (besides the small fees he could charge for writing letters and the such for people who couldn't write on their own) was to write things that people wanted to read – things like stories about their neighbors, painted in various shades of Untruth. For a while, he was merely a self-distributed community nuisance, a bit of a tale-telling, gossip-mongering, muckraker type but mostly harmless…
Until he wrote some Not Very Complimentary Things about the wrong man. This man, instead of merely threatening him, or bribing him to shut up, paid a couple of men to arrange for Cael to have an ‘accident’. He was ambushed in the dead of night, dragged out of Aronia and thrown off a cliff into a tributary to a river. The fall mangled his leg, and his time in the water resulted in a severe case of pneumonia. The current carried him downriver, leaving him battered and bloody in the shallows along a path.
He was conveniently found and nursed back to health by a traveling troupe of performers. It took him several months to completely recover – the pneumonia actually damaged his hearing to the point where he now cannot hear from his left ear, and he'll more than likely have a limp for the rest of his life. He continued to travel with the troupe after his recovery, traveling across the continent, writing advertisements and lettering posters for them.
It was in this that one of the performers, a tiny old man named Tan Li, saw something that most would not. Old Tan was an Inkmage, and he saw in Cael an – pardon the pun – inkling of that skill. He took the recovering young man under his wing, and began his training. It went somewhat slowly at first, as Cael preferred to write over studying. But over time (Close, he's reluctant to admit, to four years of traveling, though only a year and a half of those travel actually included training) he began to pick up more and more, adding his skills to Old Tan's paper creations and performances. The night of Cael's first solo performance (a near disaster involving six paper butterflies, a candle and an inconvenient stable), his teacher turned him loose. Inkmagic was relatively passive as far as magic styles go, and one of those things that can only be learned -past a certain point- on one’s own.
Cael has been wandering ever since, making his way towards Scara Brae and writing back to Old Tan about his adventures almost weekly. He started to weasel his way back into his old styles of writing, which proved to be a problem.
Level 0 to Level I History
Cael traveled to Corone, where he was approached about writing a (more than likely false) story about the local branch of the Corone Armed Forces. He wrote the piece, sent it off - and never received his fee. The story was printed by the man who had commissioned it, and circulated through the city with Cael's name on it. One of the men represented in the article, Captain Jui, tracked Cael down. He was planning on simply killing the hapless muckraker, but was distracted by his magic uses. Jui, not the type to waste a potentially profitable talent, hatched a plan instead.
He drugged Cael, and had him taken to the Citadel, where he was forced to fight without knowing that the Citadel was magic, and that the deaths wouldn't be permanent. Once he fought, died and was resurrected, Jui informed him that he was responsible for Cael's recovery, and that if Cael didn't swear his loyalty to Jui, Jui would have him executed for real. Cael, reluctantly, agreed. Jui then, to Cael's surprise, let him go... He was free to travel and increase his skills, learn to fight - but when Jui summoned him, he must drop everything and come, or risk having the soldier track him down and kill him.
Cael fled Corone quickly upon his release, traveling to Scara Brae, where he purchased a Naginata and (he hoped) instructions on how to use it. Later, he overheard the young man Ingwe speaking of a Dragon Sage. Eager to learn if this sage knew of Ink Magic, Cael followed him on his quest...but the quest didn't entirely go as planned. Instead, they wound up in an encounter with the refugees from a goblin attack. They helped defend the refugees and made their way to the Dragon Sage once the refugees were safe. The visit didn’t go as planned, but Cael and Ingwe parted ways on amiable terms.
Cael slowly made his way back to Salvar, where he met with his brother, who had some…interesting ideas about how the country was being run. Cael was drafted into his brother’s ragtag idea of humanitarian aid, and spent the subsequent month traveling the countryside in an ill-guided (if well meant) attempt to rally the nation’s morale and help the villages hit hardest by the famine, aided by a few friends and a man who gave him a talisman that let him activate Salvar’s portal network...
It didn’t go so well. The humanitarians were betrayed from within, many of its members killed, or captured and then killed. Cael – as a known relation to one of the so-called ringleaders – was left alive, but was imprisoned in the cells beneath the Cathedral of St. Denebriel. He has been imprisoned for an unknown (to him) amount of time, in hopes that he'll cave and turn in his brother, or that his brother will attempt to stage a rescue, or that he'll just…prove useful. Somehow. So far, he hasn't.
If it wasn’t for the food being delivered semi-regularly, and his unwanted visits from the guards, he would have thought they’d forgotten him, or decided to leave him to rot. He's spent his days – or possibly nights, it's hard to tell – drawing out the portal network on the floor, using the strange knowledge now floating on the edge of his brain to take his mind off the situation at hand.
Familiar: It - an animated origami creation that needs recreated daily. It varies in form between a crane, a dragona butterfly and a hare depending on what Cael feels like making.
It always feels like dry paper, no matter the form It's in. It speaks by words forming in ink in whatever space would serve as Its mouth, floating in midair for mere seconds, and It does not repeat itself when Cael misses what It has said. It is also, quite obviously, genderless. How would you ask a paper bunny if It's a boy or a girl anyways?
RP Logs For Easy Reference
It Felt Good To Get Out Of The Rain (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?t=16592) [Complete]
A Thousand Mirages (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?t=16830) [Incomplete, limbo]
When Mountains Cry (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?t=14869) [Incomplete, ongoing]
Vignette Contest: September. (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?p=131199#post131199)
Byzantine (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?t=17778) [Complete]
Name: Caelric Kjeld Strandssen, travels under the name Cael Inkfinger.
Age: 32
Race: Human
Hair Color: Pale blue
Eye Color: Strawberry blond
Height: Six feet, three inches tall; he currently stands with a perpetual slouch, though, so he tends to look somewhere between five-feet-nine-inches and six feet even at first glance.
Weight: One hundred and thirty-seven pounds; about thirty pounds underweight and well aware of it.
Occupation: Scribe-Inkmage-Scapegoat-Political Prisoner.
Personality: Cael is mostly amiable and easy-going, but with a tendency to cling to things he's done wrong, replaying them in his mind. He’s loyal to the point of death to people he cares about, but tends to not get worked up over other things: he’s asexual to the point of celibacy, agnostic in religion, and -until recently- he was moderate in politics, used to playing the a mediator between ideas, and giving very few opinions on things he wasn't directly involved in.The civil war in Salvar, however, stole his neutrality in politics, as he joined his brother in a very, very small resistance that lasted about a month before the Church caught up with him - his last few months have been spent in a cell, which has led to him acquiring a somewhat thick protective layer of paranoia and cynicism, as well as a healthy hatred (and fear) of the Church of the Ethereal Sway…
Appearance: Tall, lanky and unhealthily thin right now, with pale, almost translucent skin. His eyes are deep set, generally dark-rimmed and light blue, and his hair is blond, shaggy, matted and messy right now – as in, not-washed-for-a-month-and-a-half messy. His eyebrows and eyelashes are the same shade of blond, so sometimes it looks as though he has no eyebrows at all. He usually has a layer of stubble on his cheeks, but it never seems to materialize to a full beard.
He has old, deep scarring from his left ankle to left hip and walks with a rather noticeable limp from those scars. His back, shoulders, arms and legs have fresher scarring in a mishmash of recent wound ranging from whip slashes to burn marks that are just beginning to heal. His hands are stained with multiple colors of inks, to the extent that the faded ink almost looks like a part of his skin. His left hand has a strange, ink-like marking that extends from the webbing between his fingers all the way to his elbow, and his right hand has a sign branded across the back.
He tends to tilt his head to the side when he's listening closely to anything, looking rather like a confused, blond puppy. He dresses in layers of Whatever He Can Scrounge Up, so his wardrobe is variable and prone to being discarded as needed, so very little remains a constant, save for his inkmage robe. His clothes are currently in tatters and rags, and will be discarded as soon as he can possibly find anything better.
His voice is a hoarse tenor (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDVYSb6x5_E), and (while he is rather well-spoken in his native language) he has a thick accent -a strange mixture between a North-London accent and Russian accent in Earth terms- when speaking Tradespeak.
Weapons
Pen - A nib pen with four changeable, sharpened nibs. It, like the inkwell, is almost completely ordinary in appearance; only the sigils etched on the nibs give anything away. Cael has, on occasion, used it to stab people.
Naginata - Seven feet tall. The shaft is five-and-a-half feet of hardened oak, while the blade is a foot-and-a-half of steel. Includes a leather scabbard. [Acquired here (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?t=16592).]
Armor
Feet: Currently bare.
Legs: Loose linen trousers in tatters to his knees.
Torso:
Shirt: Long sleeved and made of gray linen. The left sleeve is in tatters up to the elbow, the other extends an inch past his fingertips, and the bottom hem reaches his mid-thighs.
Coat – A coat that is vaguely Asian in shape, belted at the waist, the skirt of which reaches his knees. It is made of quilted silk, midnight blue in color, lined with sky-blue. The coat was enchanted by his teacher to resist ink, a useful trait in his profession. Other than that, it is completely ordinary, and utterly useless against “real” weapons.
Hands: Fingerless knit-wool gloves, inkstained and fraying.
Head: Currently bare.
Unders: n.o.y.d.b. thank you very much!
Other Equipment:
Rucksack -oil-treated leather; waterproof with a zipper. The large sort with lots of cool pockets and pouches, quite capable of hauling all of Cael's assorted writing stuff around. [Acquired here (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?t=16592).]
Inkwell - an unassuming looking, translucent-blue cork-topped bottle that holds about 12 fluid ounces of ink. The cork is the only sign that there's anything odd about the inkwell. It has a symbol etched on the inside of the cork that isn't ever hidden, despite the fact that it's the same color of the ink inside.
Books - Notebook – A large notebook, bound in leather, with rough, off-white pages. The book is about 12inches tall, 12inches wide and, 3inches thick. There are pockets on the inside for small cut pieces of his origami paper. It is perfectly ordinary, but practically glued to his person at all times and thus worth mentioning.
The Regular Jag-off's Guide to Pole Arm Use. [Acquired here (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?t=16592).]
Skills:
Fighting: Until recently, had it been a class on earth, Cael would probably have got an F in fighting. He couldn't fight with anything but his magic. An anti-skill, if you will, hence its mention. However, since journeying to Scara Brae and beyond, his skills have risen a bit: Hand to Hand: from abysmal to below average
Polearms: from non-existent to below average
Penmenship: Cael's fifteen plus years as a scribe have resulted in him having nigh-perfect handwriting, and an eye for duplicating. He can write in a good dozen styles, is fairly decent at forgery, and can copy various pictogram-and-symbol based languages that he doesn't know if he's given a base to look at.
Ink Magic
Ink Magic is an art that is a combination of innate ability and the proper artifacts. Most of the spells require specific artifacts - a pen and an inkpot (which must be the set the Mage learned with unless said set is destroyed) - reagents - in the form of paper and blood-dosed-ink - and prior preparation.
An Inkmage first prepares the paper by writing a word, or drawing a symbol or picture symbolizing the action or reaction the mage wishes to cause in ink from their inkwell. The ink must contain blood (a single drop is sufficient for a whole inkwell worth of otherwise ordinary ink) - the mage's own blood works best, simply because another's blood in an Inkmage's inkwell pretty much reminds them of spitting in another's drink. It's just Not Done. The paper is then folded - much like origami - and either used instantly, or saved for later use.
The minimum time Cael has ever prepared a spell in is two minutes - Ink Magic is not the most practical form of magic to use in the heat of battle, and Cael is often the first to admit it, generally while running away. Ink Magic also doesn't keep well - a prepared spell must be used before the precise time it was prepared the previous day, or it reverts to plain paper and ink.
Spells
Wish of a Thousand Cranes - By drawing a sigil representing a crane, Cael can create effective first aid tools out of simple paper – these include small bandages, cold compresses and heated compresses. Useful for scrapes, small cuts, bruises and sprains, but not much else at this level.
Blade of the Two Thousand Wings - Requires a paper crane as a reagent. By drawing a sigil on a paper and using the paper to create a crane, Cael can create and control thin blades of blue energy that (currently) deliver cuts about the intensity of a paper cut. More of a deterrent and distraction than anything - these blades have a range of about twenty-to-twenty-five feet, and generally produce five blades per crane. Once the blades have been used, the crane disappears.
Circle of Ink Binding - This spell requires a lot of advanced preparation for what is, ultimately, a somewhat lackluster effect. Simply put, Cael draws a circle of sigils directly on the floor, with a species-specific symbol in the middle. Any being of that species within a level or so Cael's skill level that steps over the edge of the circle will find themselves trapped within the circle. The effect only lasts about four minutes, and the being trapped within is immune to any attacks Cael might throw at them. Therefore, it's best to slap it down and Run Away.
Inklife - Cael can bring up to seven paper constructs to life, sending them to scout ahead or steal small objects for him. Currently, he can only animate constructs of up to seven inches in length (only one) or seven (if only an inch long). If destroyed, they 'bleed' ink.
Portals Magic:
The magic ([U]usually innate) used to activate and navigate the Salvic Portals Network, generally mixing planes magic (such as teleportation and other forms of instantaneous travel) with enchantment. Cael's constant exposure and unintentional merging with an artifact with such an enchantment has granted him a small grasp on a trick or two in this branch of magic. (Obtained in Byzantine (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?t=17778). Will only be used for roleplay purposes.) Spells [U]Detection: Cael can detect portals within a one-mile radius of himself. He cannot, however, detect if there is anyone or anything between him and it. [Passive]
Activation: Cael can activate the portals without an amulet, or spells of any kind, but he must be able to touch the portal for at least six uninterrupted seconds. [Active]
Navigation: Cael can influence which portal he will emerge from once he’s actually started the process of traveling. He must concentrate, however, as tangents in thought can lead him places he really doesn't want to go. [Active]
Realization: Cael has a map of the portals relationships in his brain. He can't help but remember where they are. [Passive]
History: Cael Inkfinger was born Caelric Strandssen in the Salvar seaside fiefdom of Gjovik, son of a fish merchant and a fisherwoman, and the youngest of five children. As he grew older, he took more after his father’s side of the career, preferring the relative quiet of a study with a stack of forms to fill out over being outside with the cold and the stink and sea. Soon, however, he took to preferring free words over those of a set form, and begged and cajoled his father into letting him be trained as a scribe.
His father eventually gave in when he was about 15, carting his son off to Knife's Edge to be apprenticed. His apprenticeship passed quickly and without much noteworthy – it was after his apprenticeship ended and he had moved on further North to a small, inconsequential fiefdom called Aronia that the trouble started. He found himself looking for ways to make money and found the easiest way to make money (besides the small fees he could charge for writing letters and the such for people who couldn't write on their own) was to write things that people wanted to read – things like stories about their neighbors, painted in various shades of Untruth. For a while, he was merely a self-distributed community nuisance, a bit of a tale-telling, gossip-mongering, muckraker type but mostly harmless…
Until he wrote some Not Very Complimentary Things about the wrong man. This man, instead of merely threatening him, or bribing him to shut up, paid a couple of men to arrange for Cael to have an ‘accident’. He was ambushed in the dead of night, dragged out of Aronia and thrown off a cliff into a tributary to a river. The fall mangled his leg, and his time in the water resulted in a severe case of pneumonia. The current carried him downriver, leaving him battered and bloody in the shallows along a path.
He was conveniently found and nursed back to health by a traveling troupe of performers. It took him several months to completely recover – the pneumonia actually damaged his hearing to the point where he now cannot hear from his left ear, and he'll more than likely have a limp for the rest of his life. He continued to travel with the troupe after his recovery, traveling across the continent, writing advertisements and lettering posters for them.
It was in this that one of the performers, a tiny old man named Tan Li, saw something that most would not. Old Tan was an Inkmage, and he saw in Cael an – pardon the pun – inkling of that skill. He took the recovering young man under his wing, and began his training. It went somewhat slowly at first, as Cael preferred to write over studying. But over time (Close, he's reluctant to admit, to four years of traveling, though only a year and a half of those travel actually included training) he began to pick up more and more, adding his skills to Old Tan's paper creations and performances. The night of Cael's first solo performance (a near disaster involving six paper butterflies, a candle and an inconvenient stable), his teacher turned him loose. Inkmagic was relatively passive as far as magic styles go, and one of those things that can only be learned -past a certain point- on one’s own.
Cael has been wandering ever since, making his way towards Scara Brae and writing back to Old Tan about his adventures almost weekly. He started to weasel his way back into his old styles of writing, which proved to be a problem.
Level 0 to Level I History
Cael traveled to Corone, where he was approached about writing a (more than likely false) story about the local branch of the Corone Armed Forces. He wrote the piece, sent it off - and never received his fee. The story was printed by the man who had commissioned it, and circulated through the city with Cael's name on it. One of the men represented in the article, Captain Jui, tracked Cael down. He was planning on simply killing the hapless muckraker, but was distracted by his magic uses. Jui, not the type to waste a potentially profitable talent, hatched a plan instead.
He drugged Cael, and had him taken to the Citadel, where he was forced to fight without knowing that the Citadel was magic, and that the deaths wouldn't be permanent. Once he fought, died and was resurrected, Jui informed him that he was responsible for Cael's recovery, and that if Cael didn't swear his loyalty to Jui, Jui would have him executed for real. Cael, reluctantly, agreed. Jui then, to Cael's surprise, let him go... He was free to travel and increase his skills, learn to fight - but when Jui summoned him, he must drop everything and come, or risk having the soldier track him down and kill him.
Cael fled Corone quickly upon his release, traveling to Scara Brae, where he purchased a Naginata and (he hoped) instructions on how to use it. Later, he overheard the young man Ingwe speaking of a Dragon Sage. Eager to learn if this sage knew of Ink Magic, Cael followed him on his quest...but the quest didn't entirely go as planned. Instead, they wound up in an encounter with the refugees from a goblin attack. They helped defend the refugees and made their way to the Dragon Sage once the refugees were safe. The visit didn’t go as planned, but Cael and Ingwe parted ways on amiable terms.
Cael slowly made his way back to Salvar, where he met with his brother, who had some…interesting ideas about how the country was being run. Cael was drafted into his brother’s ragtag idea of humanitarian aid, and spent the subsequent month traveling the countryside in an ill-guided (if well meant) attempt to rally the nation’s morale and help the villages hit hardest by the famine, aided by a few friends and a man who gave him a talisman that let him activate Salvar’s portal network...
It didn’t go so well. The humanitarians were betrayed from within, many of its members killed, or captured and then killed. Cael – as a known relation to one of the so-called ringleaders – was left alive, but was imprisoned in the cells beneath the Cathedral of St. Denebriel. He has been imprisoned for an unknown (to him) amount of time, in hopes that he'll cave and turn in his brother, or that his brother will attempt to stage a rescue, or that he'll just…prove useful. Somehow. So far, he hasn't.
If it wasn’t for the food being delivered semi-regularly, and his unwanted visits from the guards, he would have thought they’d forgotten him, or decided to leave him to rot. He's spent his days – or possibly nights, it's hard to tell – drawing out the portal network on the floor, using the strange knowledge now floating on the edge of his brain to take his mind off the situation at hand.
Familiar: It - an animated origami creation that needs recreated daily. It varies in form between a crane, a dragona butterfly and a hare depending on what Cael feels like making.
It always feels like dry paper, no matter the form It's in. It speaks by words forming in ink in whatever space would serve as Its mouth, floating in midair for mere seconds, and It does not repeat itself when Cael misses what It has said. It is also, quite obviously, genderless. How would you ask a paper bunny if It's a boy or a girl anyways?
RP Logs For Easy Reference
It Felt Good To Get Out Of The Rain (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?t=16592) [Complete]
A Thousand Mirages (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?t=16830) [Incomplete, limbo]
When Mountains Cry (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?t=14869) [Incomplete, ongoing]
Vignette Contest: September. (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?p=131199#post131199)
Byzantine (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?t=17778) [Complete]