Inkfinger
05-10-10, 06:41 PM
Just realized I never updated for two or three, so...yeah. History and stuff got a little out of control, but other than that this is a tiny bit more streamlined. I also added some clarifications to his Inkmagic.
Name: Caelric Kjeld Strandssen
Aliases Inkfinger, Inkrat, Ricci.
Age: 33
Race: Human
Hair Color: Pale blue
Eye Color: Strawberry blond
Height: Six feet, three inches tall.
Weight: One hundred and forty-five pounds, still underweight, but gaining it back gradually.
Occupation: Scribe. Inkmage. Mailman.
Personality: Cael is generally amiable and easy-going, easy to make friends and get along with. He is loyal to a fault, moderately witty and generally also considered moderately intelligent. He could, in Earth terms, be considered a bi-romantic asexual. Translated into non-trendwords: Cael has had, and will always have, little-to-no interest in sexual intimacy. It does not give him pleasure. Period. However, he can develop (and has developed in the past) romantic feelings towards either gender. This is somewhat of a strength, really - he's not the type to zone off in the middle of a conversation staring at some woman three tables over, and you might as well try to seduce a brick wall.
On the flip side of the coin, he's impulsive and insecure, quick to jump into things and then cling to the mistakes he made while jumping. He's a Cynical Agnostic when it comes to religion. Sometimes he envies people who have faith, other times he pities, but he always hates Church of the Ethereal Sway. He also possesses a strong phobia of soldiers, guards, priests and men who are bigger than him in general. It does not matter whether they are the nicest guy on the face of the planet, if they fit the "big and strong" profile, he's ill at ease until he gets to know the man. He's more relaxed now that he is free, but he still absolutely hates being touched (bumped, brushed, patted, hugged, anything) unexpectedly, and will usually jerk away if he is. He'd try to laugh it off as him being jumpy, but the truth is being touched only makes him feel paranoid.
Appearance: Tall, lanky and thin, with a tan complexion for the first time in his life. His eyes are deep set and light blue, and his hair is fine, white-blond with traces of red at the roots, worn cropped short. His eyebrows and eyelashes are several shades lighter than the rest of his hair, so sometimes it appears that he has neither. 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 left leg is slightly shorter than his right. His back, shoulders, arms and legs have fresher scarring, ranging from whip slashes across his back and legs, to burn marks on the insides of his arms, to what look an awful lot like a set of human bite marks sunk into his right shoulder. His right hand has a scar around his thumbnail, and a sign branded across the back. He also has a thin scar across his right cheekbone, starting under his eye and continuing back, over his ear, to his hairline.
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. 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; very little remains a constant.
His voice is a hoarse tenor, 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.
Belongings
Weapons
Pen - A nib pen with four changeable, sharpened nibs. It, like his 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.
Clothing
Feet: Leather boots, reinforced with steel over the toes and heels. They’re about a size too big for him, so he needs to shove fabric in the toes and heels to keep his feet steady. Earned here. (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?p=157775#post157775)
Legs: Loose, grey denim trousers. Earned here. (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?p=157775#post157775)
Chest
Shirt: Sleeveless and made of white linen, the bottom hem reaches his mid-thighs. Earned here. (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?p=157775#post157775)
Coat: A high-collared, grey-blue wool long-coat stolen from Captain Lev Reznik in his escape. The coat cinches in the back at the waist, reaches his mid shins, and has button-up splits – on the back and sides, reaching seat-level - to allow for easy movement. The shoulder straps have holes through them for the Captain insignia to be affixed, but most of the time that insignia stays in the pocket. Earned here. (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?p=157775#post157775)
Hands: Fingerless, knit-wool gloves, inkstained and fraying.
Head: Currently bare.
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. It's become rather dog-eared and marked since he acquired it, but he's read it cover to cover at least four times.
My First Book of Ink Magic. A picture book of the basics of ink magic. Every spell must be mastered before the Compendium will hold it's words again, and there are three in it Cael doesn't know. Earned here (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?t=14869).
The Ultimate Compendium of Ink Magic. A medium sized book with directions for a few spells Cael already knows, and a myriad of spells he hasn’t even started on yet. None of the text or diagrams, however, will return until he's got the First Book mastered. Earned here (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?t=14869).
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.
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.
Captain’s Insignia: The medals and rank pins formerly worn on Reznik’s coat. They consist of three medals (one eight pointed double star, one bird-of-prey, one cross-and-swords) and the stars-and-stripes of a Captaincy. He’s taken them off, and they currently stay in the pockets – though he is not against using them in case of disaster, along with the captain’s papers (see below). Earned here. (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?p=157775#post157775)
Captain’s Papers: Cael has Reznik’s old leather wallet. It is mostly unremarkable, except for the travel papers and the parchment claiming he is a Captain of the Church and according him the privileges of his supposed rank. Cael only ever uses it in dire emergencies, in areas where the Church members haven’t yet heard that Reznik is dead. Earned here. (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?p=157775#post157775) [Will be destroyed in an upcoming thread.]
Lighter: a steel-and-flint Zippo-style lighter. Earned here. (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?p=157775#post157775)
Cigarettes: One and a half packs of hand-rolled cigarettes. Earned here. (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?p=157775#post157775)
Flask: a steel flat flask (empty). Earned here. (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?p=157775#post157775)
Keys: a backup keyring for the cells below the Cathedral. Earned here. (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?p=157775#post157775) [Will be destroyed in an upcoming thread.]
Map: An extremely up-to-date map of Salvar, blue ink on white goat-leather. Earned here (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?t=19873).
Ye Dockkes Rum: a bottle of rum. Tastes and smells like normal rum (in other words, paint stripper), but has a stale aftertaste and burns the tongue. For each quarter of the bottle drunk, the drinker will find himself inexplicably capable of understanding, and speaking, fluent pirate, and will understand the laws and reasoning and logic of such a scoundrel of the seas. The effects of this will last for roughly a thread, but will leave the drinker somewhat inebriated in doing so. Earned here ( http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?t=20089).
Convent Calling Card: a business card from the Sisters of Diligent Charity, a Salvic sisterhood sworn to poverty in the name of Good. No god or goddess, just Good. There's a sketch of the convent on the front, and the words "we owe you" in green ink on the back. Picked up here (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?p=131199#post131199).
Skills:
Seduction: Cael spent months in prison at the mercy of a complete sadist. He found...ways to keep the man from hurting him to a point where he couldn't recover. Though he's far from proud of those ways, he did get pretty good at them. In short: if, and only if, a male character is already of the inclination to find men attractive, Cael has attuned himself to pick up and act on the various non-verbal cues: he knows when and where to touch, when and where not to touch, how to look, how to breath, just all the right ways to act to leave whoever he's manipulating off-balance. Cael rarely ever utilizes this skill, and his personality generally changes towards the negative for anywhere from an hour to a day after using it. It leaves him feeling rather disgusted with himself, which is enough to make anyone snappish. [Will not be used against PCs without other player's consent]
Resilient Fool: Cael’s time in captivity has certainly helped improve his endurance. As a general rogue about town, his ability to endure harsh physical conditions has improved greatly, and he can now go longer without food or water than he could prior, and might even be getting the grasp of trying restraints for the purpose of ‘losing them’ when the moment is right. He thus has endurance at average level, and escape artist at below average, should he so wish to pursue these traits. Ability awarded here. (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?p=157775#post157775)
Combat: Cael's journeying has only continued to raise his skills, though he is still nothing even close to a mighty warrior. Hand to Hand: from below average to average.
Polearms: from below average to average.
Penmenship: Cael's sixteen 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. He can write fluently in Salvic and Common, passably in Alerar and Raiaera, and form the letters correctly for Fallien. Just don't ask him to read back what he's just written.
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 sixty seconds. Now that he has reached that speed, it is unlikely that he will become faster. 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 within twenty-four hours, 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 and splints. Useful for small-to-moderate cuts, moderate bruises, sprains and minor breaks. [Prep time: two minutes; cannot be prepared in advance]
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 deliver cuts about the intensity of a small knife (approximately five inch blade).These blades have a range of about thirty-to-thirty-five feet, and generally produce five blades per crane. At this time, the blades can only slice, not pierce. Once the blades have been used, the crane disappears. [Prep time: sixty seconds per crane; maximum of five prepared at a time.]
Circle of Ink Binding - This spell requires advanced preparation, unless he's already got a circle sketched out on paper. Simply put, Cael draws a circle of sigils with a species-specific symbol (elf, human, dwarf and demon are all he knows right now) in the middle. Any being of that species within two levels of Cael's level that steps over the edge of the circle will find themselves trapped within the circle, confined to a space about six feet wide, radiating from the circle's exact center. The circle only lasts about six minutes, and during that time, 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. [prep time: 5 minutes; maximum of two prepared at a time]
Inklife - Cael can bring up to eight paper constructs to life, sending them to scout ahead or steal small objects for him. Currently, he can animate constructs of up to eight inches in length (only one) or eight (if only an inch long). If destroyed, they 'bleed' ink. [Prep time: sixty seconds per construct; maximum of eight prepared at a time.]
Portals Magic:
The magic (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.
Spells
Detection: Cael can detect portals within a two-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 five 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]
Familiar: It - an animated origami creation that needs recreated daily. Cael has recently discovered that It is, in fact, a demon bound to paper form every time he writes the correct symbol. So far, however, it seems that nothing has changed. It still won’t tell him It’s true name.
It varies in form between a bear, a dragonfly, a crane, a dragon, a 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, though Cael suspects It has the personality of a female.
History
Pre-Game
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 fifteen, 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 wandered after he was sent out, making his way towards Scara Brae and writing back to Old Tan about his adventures almost weekly. He also 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.
Level I to Level III History
Cael's prison time was bizarre, spent in a limbo of pain and humiliation. The guards working in the name of a greater good had no qualms against using every method available to them to break his spirit. A few weeks into his prison time, he used this to his advantage. Lev Rezník, the Captain of the Guard, had a certain twisted affection for the man, and Cael, much to his shame, let him act on it; but once Rezník had...had his way with the ink mage, he fell asleep, believing Cael wasn't a threat. It was true, mostly - Cael wasn't a threat, but getting the keys and running isn't threatening, is it? That's what he did, stealing his gear back from one of the storerooms and legging it for an unused portal. He was spotted by guards and chased to the room, but once he'd locked the door it was clear sailing out. Or so he thought.
The moment he stepped into the portal, it seems, he began living a moment inside a moment, a very vivid compressed hallucination or dream where he met his fellow Althanians Aeraul Smythe and Yuka Kanamai (though he never learned her last name), and was forced to fight in a couple battles. Both battles ended strangely: the first in a surreal shimmer of rearranging scenery, the second in a premature explosion of light and color that...Well. Whatever it did, it made Cael reappear in the portals room, mere seconds after he had left. He tried to reactivate the portal, but his pursuers were in the room before he could, and he was dragged back out to face Rezník's nonexistent mercy.
And he was running out of time. The guards noticed the change in his demeanor quite easily. Most of the defiance was gone. He could barely stand...and after months, he still hadn't given them the name the Church needed. They decided he was a drain on their valuable resources - it was time for his execution, and if he did escape, it was going to be by the skin of his teeth...
Someone was sent to rescue him, the young assassin Skyler Mansfield. They became close friends over the time spent in the cells and once they actually escaped Cael slowly realized he was falling in love with the girl. Despite this, he and his rescuer parted ways, though Cael promised her he would try to meet up with her in Fallien. Instead, he wound up dragged into a harebrained scheme to steal Fallien thoroughbreds. Following this, he joined the il'Jhain mail service, and ran a grand total of one mission before his not-so ancient past came back to haunt him in the form of Areesha Gallowsgate, a strange bear-like woman. Areesha has inarguable evidence of his...involvement with Rezník's mercy, and has used it to blackmail the inkmage into returning to his home country. He returned to Salvar by way of Corone and a series of strange battles, had some interesting encounters while in Salvar, and eventually returned to Fallien yet again.
Which is where this update finds him.
Threads
Pre-Arc
Profile (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?t=16393)
It Felt Good To Get Out Of The Rain (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?t=16592) A simple shopping trip to the Bazaar of Corone, following the realization that a pen really isn't (literally) going to cut it. [+50EXP, Naginata, Book and Pack. -150GP]
Begin Arc: Cathedral Wall
When Mountains Cry (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?t=14869) - Cael meets a young scholar-warrior-mage on a quest for Answers, and, while he doesn't quite get them, he does gain a friend. [+3,000 EXP, 430 GP, books.]
Vignette I: Unnamed (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?p=131199#post131199) - Cael rescues three children from a deceptive predator, and gets a trip down memory lane for his troubles. He also gains the well-wishing of a small convent - who knows when that may turn out to be helpful? [+100EXP, 100GP, Sisters of Diligent Charity’s Calling Card]
Byzantine (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?t=17778) - Cael helps his brother with an ill-advised underground over Salvar’s Long Winter, smuggling food and papers to the starving, desperate Salvic citizens. Unfortunately, there seems to be a traitor in his group…[+2400EXP, 425GP. –All His Stuff and Freedom]
Vignette II: Die With Boots On (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?p=156106#post156106) - An experiment in second-person point of view in which Cael loses a friend and gains an …admirer, one week into his months-long imprisonment. Dark. [Finished, pending judgment]
Interlude: Tournament of Champions*
Profile (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?t=17816) - Cael, Level Five Style.
Team Qualifier: Napalm Artisans (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?t=17895) - An Unlikely Duo
The Garden of Secrets: Bridge (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?t=18184) - Cael meets Yuka, a fellow resident of Althanas, and a strange mecha. [Ongoing; Limbo]
Battle I: Napalm Artisana vs. The Outriders (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?t=18131) - [Win]
Battle II: Napalm Artisana vs. Body and Mind (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?t=18606) - [Win, default]
*Since the ToC is of dubious canonicity, Cael himself believes these to have been dreams or hallucinations. They may or may not have actually happened to him, but since he lost that is a moot point anyways.
Timeline Restored: Cathedral Wall
Vignette III: [almost] tea and sympathy (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?p=149103#post149103) - Cael hallucinates a meeting with his creator. [+150EXP, 50GP]
By The Skin Of Our Teeth (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?t=19017) - Cael is surprised by a young assassin who sneaks into his cell one week before his execution date...Dark. [+2788 EXP, 300GP, old stuff, new clothes, Reznik’s gear. –Inkproof Coat]
End Arc: Cathedral Wall
*
Begin Arc: Before First Light
Stealing Thunder (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?t=19763) - Thanks to Ludvik, Cael winds up helping Vespasian and company steal a herd of horses from Fallien. [Ongoing]
Threshold I: Afraid of Sunlight - [solo; pending. The reason Cael heads back to Salvar.]
Magus Cup Battle I: Cael vs. Bottlebrush (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?t=19588). Cael is blackmailed into heading back towards Salvar. At the very beginning of his journey, he’s attacked by a shapeshifting cat bartender. [Win; + 860 EXP, 150 GP]
Magus Cup Battle II: Cael vs. Alcyone (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?t=19759) - Would have been a bar fight via storytelling. Sadly did not come to fruition. [Win by forfeit]
Magus Cup Battle III: Cael vs. Vespasian (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?t=19873) - Steps towards Salvar, taken this time by…helping to rob a museum. [Win; + 900 EXP, 200 GP, map of Salvar]
Magus Cup Battle IV: Cael vs. Yuka (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?t=20008) - Six degrees of separation, Althanas style. [Loss; +300EXP]
Magus Cup Battle V: Cael vs. Sumner ( http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?t=20089) Another step towards Salvar, interrupted by pirates. [Win; +1250 EXP, 250GP, Ye Dockkes Rum]
Threshold II: No Man’s Land (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?t=20097) Cael and Ruby La Roux have to protect a train. [Ongoing; limbo]
Threshold III: Chasing the Clouds Home – [solo; pending. Cael finally takes control of his life again and makes his own decisions, thank you very much.]
End Arc: Before First Light
*
Begin Arc: Waiting to Happen
I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles) (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?t=20237) - Cael and Skyler, reunited after six months! Things are wonder-oh, wait they’re not. Oops…[Ongoing]
Name: Caelric Kjeld Strandssen
Aliases Inkfinger, Inkrat, Ricci.
Age: 33
Race: Human
Hair Color: Pale blue
Eye Color: Strawberry blond
Height: Six feet, three inches tall.
Weight: One hundred and forty-five pounds, still underweight, but gaining it back gradually.
Occupation: Scribe. Inkmage. Mailman.
Personality: Cael is generally amiable and easy-going, easy to make friends and get along with. He is loyal to a fault, moderately witty and generally also considered moderately intelligent. He could, in Earth terms, be considered a bi-romantic asexual. Translated into non-trendwords: Cael has had, and will always have, little-to-no interest in sexual intimacy. It does not give him pleasure. Period. However, he can develop (and has developed in the past) romantic feelings towards either gender. This is somewhat of a strength, really - he's not the type to zone off in the middle of a conversation staring at some woman three tables over, and you might as well try to seduce a brick wall.
On the flip side of the coin, he's impulsive and insecure, quick to jump into things and then cling to the mistakes he made while jumping. He's a Cynical Agnostic when it comes to religion. Sometimes he envies people who have faith, other times he pities, but he always hates Church of the Ethereal Sway. He also possesses a strong phobia of soldiers, guards, priests and men who are bigger than him in general. It does not matter whether they are the nicest guy on the face of the planet, if they fit the "big and strong" profile, he's ill at ease until he gets to know the man. He's more relaxed now that he is free, but he still absolutely hates being touched (bumped, brushed, patted, hugged, anything) unexpectedly, and will usually jerk away if he is. He'd try to laugh it off as him being jumpy, but the truth is being touched only makes him feel paranoid.
Appearance: Tall, lanky and thin, with a tan complexion for the first time in his life. His eyes are deep set and light blue, and his hair is fine, white-blond with traces of red at the roots, worn cropped short. His eyebrows and eyelashes are several shades lighter than the rest of his hair, so sometimes it appears that he has neither. 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 left leg is slightly shorter than his right. His back, shoulders, arms and legs have fresher scarring, ranging from whip slashes across his back and legs, to burn marks on the insides of his arms, to what look an awful lot like a set of human bite marks sunk into his right shoulder. His right hand has a scar around his thumbnail, and a sign branded across the back. He also has a thin scar across his right cheekbone, starting under his eye and continuing back, over his ear, to his hairline.
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. 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; very little remains a constant.
His voice is a hoarse tenor, 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.
Belongings
Weapons
Pen - A nib pen with four changeable, sharpened nibs. It, like his 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.
Clothing
Feet: Leather boots, reinforced with steel over the toes and heels. They’re about a size too big for him, so he needs to shove fabric in the toes and heels to keep his feet steady. Earned here. (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?p=157775#post157775)
Legs: Loose, grey denim trousers. Earned here. (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?p=157775#post157775)
Chest
Shirt: Sleeveless and made of white linen, the bottom hem reaches his mid-thighs. Earned here. (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?p=157775#post157775)
Coat: A high-collared, grey-blue wool long-coat stolen from Captain Lev Reznik in his escape. The coat cinches in the back at the waist, reaches his mid shins, and has button-up splits – on the back and sides, reaching seat-level - to allow for easy movement. The shoulder straps have holes through them for the Captain insignia to be affixed, but most of the time that insignia stays in the pocket. Earned here. (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?p=157775#post157775)
Hands: Fingerless, knit-wool gloves, inkstained and fraying.
Head: Currently bare.
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. It's become rather dog-eared and marked since he acquired it, but he's read it cover to cover at least four times.
My First Book of Ink Magic. A picture book of the basics of ink magic. Every spell must be mastered before the Compendium will hold it's words again, and there are three in it Cael doesn't know. Earned here (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?t=14869).
The Ultimate Compendium of Ink Magic. A medium sized book with directions for a few spells Cael already knows, and a myriad of spells he hasn’t even started on yet. None of the text or diagrams, however, will return until he's got the First Book mastered. Earned here (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?t=14869).
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.
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.
Captain’s Insignia: The medals and rank pins formerly worn on Reznik’s coat. They consist of three medals (one eight pointed double star, one bird-of-prey, one cross-and-swords) and the stars-and-stripes of a Captaincy. He’s taken them off, and they currently stay in the pockets – though he is not against using them in case of disaster, along with the captain’s papers (see below). Earned here. (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?p=157775#post157775)
Captain’s Papers: Cael has Reznik’s old leather wallet. It is mostly unremarkable, except for the travel papers and the parchment claiming he is a Captain of the Church and according him the privileges of his supposed rank. Cael only ever uses it in dire emergencies, in areas where the Church members haven’t yet heard that Reznik is dead. Earned here. (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?p=157775#post157775) [Will be destroyed in an upcoming thread.]
Lighter: a steel-and-flint Zippo-style lighter. Earned here. (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?p=157775#post157775)
Cigarettes: One and a half packs of hand-rolled cigarettes. Earned here. (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?p=157775#post157775)
Flask: a steel flat flask (empty). Earned here. (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?p=157775#post157775)
Keys: a backup keyring for the cells below the Cathedral. Earned here. (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?p=157775#post157775) [Will be destroyed in an upcoming thread.]
Map: An extremely up-to-date map of Salvar, blue ink on white goat-leather. Earned here (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?t=19873).
Ye Dockkes Rum: a bottle of rum. Tastes and smells like normal rum (in other words, paint stripper), but has a stale aftertaste and burns the tongue. For each quarter of the bottle drunk, the drinker will find himself inexplicably capable of understanding, and speaking, fluent pirate, and will understand the laws and reasoning and logic of such a scoundrel of the seas. The effects of this will last for roughly a thread, but will leave the drinker somewhat inebriated in doing so. Earned here ( http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?t=20089).
Convent Calling Card: a business card from the Sisters of Diligent Charity, a Salvic sisterhood sworn to poverty in the name of Good. No god or goddess, just Good. There's a sketch of the convent on the front, and the words "we owe you" in green ink on the back. Picked up here (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?p=131199#post131199).
Skills:
Seduction: Cael spent months in prison at the mercy of a complete sadist. He found...ways to keep the man from hurting him to a point where he couldn't recover. Though he's far from proud of those ways, he did get pretty good at them. In short: if, and only if, a male character is already of the inclination to find men attractive, Cael has attuned himself to pick up and act on the various non-verbal cues: he knows when and where to touch, when and where not to touch, how to look, how to breath, just all the right ways to act to leave whoever he's manipulating off-balance. Cael rarely ever utilizes this skill, and his personality generally changes towards the negative for anywhere from an hour to a day after using it. It leaves him feeling rather disgusted with himself, which is enough to make anyone snappish. [Will not be used against PCs without other player's consent]
Resilient Fool: Cael’s time in captivity has certainly helped improve his endurance. As a general rogue about town, his ability to endure harsh physical conditions has improved greatly, and he can now go longer without food or water than he could prior, and might even be getting the grasp of trying restraints for the purpose of ‘losing them’ when the moment is right. He thus has endurance at average level, and escape artist at below average, should he so wish to pursue these traits. Ability awarded here. (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?p=157775#post157775)
Combat: Cael's journeying has only continued to raise his skills, though he is still nothing even close to a mighty warrior. Hand to Hand: from below average to average.
Polearms: from below average to average.
Penmenship: Cael's sixteen 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. He can write fluently in Salvic and Common, passably in Alerar and Raiaera, and form the letters correctly for Fallien. Just don't ask him to read back what he's just written.
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 sixty seconds. Now that he has reached that speed, it is unlikely that he will become faster. 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 within twenty-four hours, 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 and splints. Useful for small-to-moderate cuts, moderate bruises, sprains and minor breaks. [Prep time: two minutes; cannot be prepared in advance]
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 deliver cuts about the intensity of a small knife (approximately five inch blade).These blades have a range of about thirty-to-thirty-five feet, and generally produce five blades per crane. At this time, the blades can only slice, not pierce. Once the blades have been used, the crane disappears. [Prep time: sixty seconds per crane; maximum of five prepared at a time.]
Circle of Ink Binding - This spell requires advanced preparation, unless he's already got a circle sketched out on paper. Simply put, Cael draws a circle of sigils with a species-specific symbol (elf, human, dwarf and demon are all he knows right now) in the middle. Any being of that species within two levels of Cael's level that steps over the edge of the circle will find themselves trapped within the circle, confined to a space about six feet wide, radiating from the circle's exact center. The circle only lasts about six minutes, and during that time, 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. [prep time: 5 minutes; maximum of two prepared at a time]
Inklife - Cael can bring up to eight paper constructs to life, sending them to scout ahead or steal small objects for him. Currently, he can animate constructs of up to eight inches in length (only one) or eight (if only an inch long). If destroyed, they 'bleed' ink. [Prep time: sixty seconds per construct; maximum of eight prepared at a time.]
Portals Magic:
The magic (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.
Spells
Detection: Cael can detect portals within a two-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 five 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]
Familiar: It - an animated origami creation that needs recreated daily. Cael has recently discovered that It is, in fact, a demon bound to paper form every time he writes the correct symbol. So far, however, it seems that nothing has changed. It still won’t tell him It’s true name.
It varies in form between a bear, a dragonfly, a crane, a dragon, a 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, though Cael suspects It has the personality of a female.
History
Pre-Game
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 fifteen, 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 wandered after he was sent out, making his way towards Scara Brae and writing back to Old Tan about his adventures almost weekly. He also 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.
Level I to Level III History
Cael's prison time was bizarre, spent in a limbo of pain and humiliation. The guards working in the name of a greater good had no qualms against using every method available to them to break his spirit. A few weeks into his prison time, he used this to his advantage. Lev Rezník, the Captain of the Guard, had a certain twisted affection for the man, and Cael, much to his shame, let him act on it; but once Rezník had...had his way with the ink mage, he fell asleep, believing Cael wasn't a threat. It was true, mostly - Cael wasn't a threat, but getting the keys and running isn't threatening, is it? That's what he did, stealing his gear back from one of the storerooms and legging it for an unused portal. He was spotted by guards and chased to the room, but once he'd locked the door it was clear sailing out. Or so he thought.
The moment he stepped into the portal, it seems, he began living a moment inside a moment, a very vivid compressed hallucination or dream where he met his fellow Althanians Aeraul Smythe and Yuka Kanamai (though he never learned her last name), and was forced to fight in a couple battles. Both battles ended strangely: the first in a surreal shimmer of rearranging scenery, the second in a premature explosion of light and color that...Well. Whatever it did, it made Cael reappear in the portals room, mere seconds after he had left. He tried to reactivate the portal, but his pursuers were in the room before he could, and he was dragged back out to face Rezník's nonexistent mercy.
And he was running out of time. The guards noticed the change in his demeanor quite easily. Most of the defiance was gone. He could barely stand...and after months, he still hadn't given them the name the Church needed. They decided he was a drain on their valuable resources - it was time for his execution, and if he did escape, it was going to be by the skin of his teeth...
Someone was sent to rescue him, the young assassin Skyler Mansfield. They became close friends over the time spent in the cells and once they actually escaped Cael slowly realized he was falling in love with the girl. Despite this, he and his rescuer parted ways, though Cael promised her he would try to meet up with her in Fallien. Instead, he wound up dragged into a harebrained scheme to steal Fallien thoroughbreds. Following this, he joined the il'Jhain mail service, and ran a grand total of one mission before his not-so ancient past came back to haunt him in the form of Areesha Gallowsgate, a strange bear-like woman. Areesha has inarguable evidence of his...involvement with Rezník's mercy, and has used it to blackmail the inkmage into returning to his home country. He returned to Salvar by way of Corone and a series of strange battles, had some interesting encounters while in Salvar, and eventually returned to Fallien yet again.
Which is where this update finds him.
Threads
Pre-Arc
Profile (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?t=16393)
It Felt Good To Get Out Of The Rain (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?t=16592) A simple shopping trip to the Bazaar of Corone, following the realization that a pen really isn't (literally) going to cut it. [+50EXP, Naginata, Book and Pack. -150GP]
Begin Arc: Cathedral Wall
When Mountains Cry (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?t=14869) - Cael meets a young scholar-warrior-mage on a quest for Answers, and, while he doesn't quite get them, he does gain a friend. [+3,000 EXP, 430 GP, books.]
Vignette I: Unnamed (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?p=131199#post131199) - Cael rescues three children from a deceptive predator, and gets a trip down memory lane for his troubles. He also gains the well-wishing of a small convent - who knows when that may turn out to be helpful? [+100EXP, 100GP, Sisters of Diligent Charity’s Calling Card]
Byzantine (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?t=17778) - Cael helps his brother with an ill-advised underground over Salvar’s Long Winter, smuggling food and papers to the starving, desperate Salvic citizens. Unfortunately, there seems to be a traitor in his group…[+2400EXP, 425GP. –All His Stuff and Freedom]
Vignette II: Die With Boots On (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?p=156106#post156106) - An experiment in second-person point of view in which Cael loses a friend and gains an …admirer, one week into his months-long imprisonment. Dark. [Finished, pending judgment]
Interlude: Tournament of Champions*
Profile (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?t=17816) - Cael, Level Five Style.
Team Qualifier: Napalm Artisans (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?t=17895) - An Unlikely Duo
The Garden of Secrets: Bridge (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?t=18184) - Cael meets Yuka, a fellow resident of Althanas, and a strange mecha. [Ongoing; Limbo]
Battle I: Napalm Artisana vs. The Outriders (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?t=18131) - [Win]
Battle II: Napalm Artisana vs. Body and Mind (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?t=18606) - [Win, default]
*Since the ToC is of dubious canonicity, Cael himself believes these to have been dreams or hallucinations. They may or may not have actually happened to him, but since he lost that is a moot point anyways.
Timeline Restored: Cathedral Wall
Vignette III: [almost] tea and sympathy (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?p=149103#post149103) - Cael hallucinates a meeting with his creator. [+150EXP, 50GP]
By The Skin Of Our Teeth (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?t=19017) - Cael is surprised by a young assassin who sneaks into his cell one week before his execution date...Dark. [+2788 EXP, 300GP, old stuff, new clothes, Reznik’s gear. –Inkproof Coat]
End Arc: Cathedral Wall
*
Begin Arc: Before First Light
Stealing Thunder (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?t=19763) - Thanks to Ludvik, Cael winds up helping Vespasian and company steal a herd of horses from Fallien. [Ongoing]
Threshold I: Afraid of Sunlight - [solo; pending. The reason Cael heads back to Salvar.]
Magus Cup Battle I: Cael vs. Bottlebrush (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?t=19588). Cael is blackmailed into heading back towards Salvar. At the very beginning of his journey, he’s attacked by a shapeshifting cat bartender. [Win; + 860 EXP, 150 GP]
Magus Cup Battle II: Cael vs. Alcyone (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?t=19759) - Would have been a bar fight via storytelling. Sadly did not come to fruition. [Win by forfeit]
Magus Cup Battle III: Cael vs. Vespasian (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?t=19873) - Steps towards Salvar, taken this time by…helping to rob a museum. [Win; + 900 EXP, 200 GP, map of Salvar]
Magus Cup Battle IV: Cael vs. Yuka (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?t=20008) - Six degrees of separation, Althanas style. [Loss; +300EXP]
Magus Cup Battle V: Cael vs. Sumner ( http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?t=20089) Another step towards Salvar, interrupted by pirates. [Win; +1250 EXP, 250GP, Ye Dockkes Rum]
Threshold II: No Man’s Land (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?t=20097) Cael and Ruby La Roux have to protect a train. [Ongoing; limbo]
Threshold III: Chasing the Clouds Home – [solo; pending. Cael finally takes control of his life again and makes his own decisions, thank you very much.]
End Arc: Before First Light
*
Begin Arc: Waiting to Happen
I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles) (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?t=20237) - Cael and Skyler, reunited after six months! Things are wonder-oh, wait they’re not. Oops…[Ongoing]