As a youngster, Xan seemed to settle well into the role of village annoyance. He quickly developed the ability to remain out of sight of the untrained eye when it suited him the most. This ability to hide anywhere from the comfort of the shadows to near contortionism when slipping into the smallest crack in a stone wall gave Xan a freedom many of his fellow Elves and alike did not posses.
Under the cover of dusk, and to the amusement of most of his peers, Xan was renowned for silently scaling the town bakery, a multi storey building fashioned from stone and lumber. Sneaking past the town guards (who became increasingly enraged at being made the fool by a mere adolescent) with grappling hook and a length of quiet silken rope he would scale up to the second floor where the baked goods were laid to cool such that they could feed the hungry townspeople the following day.
Such innocent pranks did not go unnoticed, and Xan received a very clear ultimatum from the council of the elders of <townname>. Xan was presented with a choice: Use his skills to aid the town and do good, or be banished to a far away plane. Forever.
Xan spent the following few days as his usual self, sneaking around the town at night and generally irritating other townsfolk with his presence during the day. However in the back of his mind was the horrifying thought that at any moment the elders could, at the flick of a wrist and pinch of sand, banish him somewhere terrifying.
He came to the wise decision to put his talent to use, and was immediately thrust into the unwilling hands of Amdōur, a well weathered Rogue visiting from a neighbouring town.
After a few years of being handed mundane tasks by Amdōur, Xan, growing increasingly impatient, was rewarded with the beginning of his training into theifdom. Several years followed under close study with Amdōur, and Xan learnt many tricks and skills, far surpassing his adolescent troublemaking abilities.
On one mission assigned by Amdōur, Xan strayed off from his orders and decided to investigate a neighbouring ruin, just visible from the original objective of sneaking through a trader outpost unnoticed. Peering into the darkened ruins, Xan made his way around what appeared to be some sort of armoury, long forgotten. Just as he spun on his heel to exit, a glint caught his eye: the lock on a dusty chest, fortified with forged iron and corroding metalwork. Reaching for his backpack, he took out a set of ornate tools gifted to him by his master Amdōur. After successfully opening the chest, a rush of excitement was replaced with disappointment as Xan peered inside to find only a book.
Books were never on Xan’s list of interests, however an interesting design on the front of the tome convinced him to pick up the book and open it. A jet of blue purple light sprung from the book and pierced Xan’s eyes, showering his sight with strange characters. In the space of a few seconds, these characters took on meaning and sound, and words in strange languages began to form around him. Unable to pull away from the book, Xan knelt fixed in place for several minutes as what appeared to be a new language sprung fourth and entered his mind.
Just as Xan, was about to pass out with exhaustion, the characters stopped. A deep voice, like gravel rattling down a mind grumbled at him: “You have stumbled across the book of the ancients. You have proved to be of strong mind, and have been rewarded with the knowledge to communicate with beings on the brink of society. Use this gift wisely”. As soon as the oratory concluded, the book vanished into the winds, and Xan collapsed into a pile of exhaustion.
After being brought back to health by Amdōur, it was decided by the elders of <townsname> that Xan was ready to go out into the world and retrieve information and riches for the town. On his return to <townsname>, he met an interesting young monk, Sofir. The two became friends, and this made the journey back to <townsname> more pleasant for both of them.
After several successful missions at the hand of his master Berein, Xan was called to head across the territory of savages to retrieve an item stolen by a distant party of traders. It was a trap. Berein was under the influence of powerful magic from a Dragon with an agenda, <dragonname> and Xan was sheparded to <dragonname> lands into captivity as a new recruit.
As soon as Xan stepped into a distant library Berein described to him, he knew something was awry. A smug laugh punctuated his legs being bound to solid stone, and an iron band magically forming around his left ankle. A voice said in a strange language he had only heard before in a distant memory involving a book spoke: “You are now a servant to <dragonname>. Obey of be destroyed.”
In the following few years, Xan made not friend, but not foe with the dragon, and received far more freedoms than some of the other servants. On his last assignment, Xan was deployed to retrieve a type of mushroom that the Dragon enjoyed on occasion. It was here that he happened across the paths of Eximere, and Fury.
