(As told to Windy and Kavros by Elias in the inn at Lindendale)

I am Named Elias Numair, son of Josua Stormrider and Alaia Kerrin and this my tale. Twenty and one summers ago, I was born in the village of Lelldorn on the eastern bank of the Byrose River near the great city of Travar. My father, known then simply as Josua Numair, was an air sailor of no small repute in the service of Travar. Of my mother I have heard many tales, but had not the joy of knowing her smiles or her touch for she died within a week of my birth. I have been told that she was as fair as flowers in the field with golden hair and eyes the color of the sky.

I knew little of my father in my younger years as he was oft gone from Travar and I was too young to accompany him on his skyborne travels across Barsaive. My mother's kin were farmers who's crops went to feed the people of Travar. They raised me in the traditions of their Klek forebears, to value and respect the power of words...spoken and written. Those years were joyous ones, filled with happy moments by the waters of the Byrose.

In my eighth year, my father visited Lelldorn often, seeking to learn of his son. He traveled little that year, for he was healing from injuries earned in the storms that earned him his Name, but cost him his ship and many of his crew. In many ways, it was a sad year for my father had never allowed himself to morn for my mother. Now he mourned surrounded by people and places dear to her for my mother and his lost friends. In the fall of that year, he returned to the service of the Magistrates of the city to captain a newly built air ship, the Jewell of Travar.

When the time for departure for Travar came close, my father spoke with my mother's kin and made them aware of his intentions to take me with him when he left. It was time, he had decided, that I have an opportunity to see the world and learn of other trades which I might learn beyond that of a farmer. It was time, he also said, that I should spend time with my father, that he might not loose all of my childhood or harm the trust my mother placed in him. After hearing the last, my mother's kin released their claim on me, that my father might have a chance to be my father.

With great joy and much sorrow, I left my mother's kin that fall. I was excited to be with my father and see all the things he had told me of over years of occasional visits. Images of far away cities, distant peoples and lands, and even thoughts of Travar itself circled before my eyes for I had never left Lelldorn before now. I was sad as well, for I knew I would rarely have chance to visit the friends and caring family I left behind in Lelldorn. I miss them still, for it has been several years since last I have seen the white walled houses of Lelldorn.

The years that followed blur into one another as often as not. I traveled with my father from city to city, one journey after another. When not traveling we lived not in Lelldorn, but in a great house in Travar, a gift to him from a group of merchants whom he had done a great deed for. Strange places, battles, exotic faces, storms and times of calm all melded into one long, endless tale of growth and motion.

As time passed, I learned much of the way of the Air Sailor, my father's beloved discipline. And though I learned great respect for their arts and beliefs, I found myself wanting for something else. I felt a desire for a way of life that gave me more choice, more opportunity, a chance to be known for more than who my father was or for the skills of my hands and eyes alone. As this restlessness grew in me, I found myself more and more drawn to the swordmasters who served beside my father in Travar's fleet. They possessed a grace, a skill and speed of both hand and tongue and it was among them that finally found my discipline.

I was fifteen when my mentor, a swordmaster Named Rothan Swiftblade, threw down the gauntlet and challenged me to take up the way of the swordmaster. So surprised was I when he did it, that I nearly forgot the meaning of his actions. "Pick up the damn gauntlet lad," he said to me, "How can you be surprised...you spend so much time with us I swear you soon would be a swordmaster with or without a mentor." I was so stunned by his words that for once in my lifetime, I could think of nothing to say.

My father was not so pleased as I with the choice I had made, but with time he has come to at least accept it, if not to understand. Little would I be surprised if he were to confess a secret desire that I might yet turn from the swordmaster's way and follow him in the Air Sailor's path through the skies. And though I do not regret my choice or the path my life has followed, I cannot say that I will never learn my father's discipline, for I have too long lived within the clouds to be completely immune to the call of that art.

Since that day I have traveled a fair many miles to reach this place. I completed my training in the three blades during my eigtheenth year, earning my sword in the year's end tournament at Travar. Directly following my training, I served a year as a soldier in Travar's air fleet, in the interest of making my father happy and to gain the experience of real combat.

While in the service of the Fleet, I met and befriended a warrior of the T'Skrang Named Kavin T'Shon. Kavin had joined the air fleet a mere half year before I for much the same reasons as mine. Soon after meeting, we began a friendship which lasts to this very day. A better friend a man could not have than Kavin T'Shon. It is from him that I learned the talents not common to most swordmasters and from me he learned a great deal of knowledge ... of the world and of air sailing. And together, we caused more fun and got out of more scrapes than I ever thought possible to two Name-Givers.

When the time came that I had appointed to leave the fleet of Travar, Kavin chose to join me that he might see more of the world away from the Great Serpent River before returning to his niall. We traveled many months together before parting ways. Together we attended the swordmaster's tournament at Kratas and defended the riverboats of the T'kambrians while journing south to Kavin's home on the Great Serpent River. Once there, to our great sorrow, the time had come for our paths to part ways.

I took service with a river merchant traveling to Urupa while Kavin remained behind to take up his duties within his niall. Last I have heard from him, his life goes well. He tells me he is close to earning his g'doinya, serving House V'strimon as a warrior defending the river boats of his people.

The journey down the Coil River to Urupa was quiet and boring with little in the way of exitement beyond the seeing of new shores. Urupa itself proved to be a fascinating city, situated on the shores of a great sea of water, not fire. So many were the wonderful sights that I soon found myself lacking coin, though I had horded much of earnings of the past year.

Thus it was that I sought employment and was hired to defend an Thoalic merchantmen airship on its return voyage to the Kingdom of Throal. Misfortune not unlike that which introduced our troll friend to a mountainside struck but half way through the journey and the ship was forced to return to ground for repairs. Soon after, a ship of the Throalic Navy arrived to lend aid in the repair of the ship and to defend it for the remainder of it's voyage.

I and several others were told that the merchant's partners in Throal had become greatly distressed at the absense of the ship and had appealed to the Navy for aid. Their request was granted for the ship carried both supplies intended for the Navy and shipments commisioned by several high ranking individuals in the Throalic government and society. So it was that the Captain released myself and others hired in Urupa from his service, since he no longer felt at risk, thanks to the friendly escort of his nation's navy. At least he gave us a sizable parting bonus, to soften the blow I suppose.

And that is how I came to be looking for work in the hinterlands of Barsaive, with no certain knowledge of my location means of return to parts better known. It could only be the blessings of the Passions which brought me to the inn two weeks past at which the good dwarf Doran hired myself and several others to guard him on his way to meet his kin. I only wish I had better seen through the blackhearted Krell's facade sooner, shustal, what is done is done.

The rest of the tale you know already, for you have been a part of it and the future has not yet been written. I am Elias of Lelldorn, swordmaster, T'skrang friend and sailor raised. Thus do I end the telling of my tale, not in an ending, but a beginning as is the way of all such tales.