Fenerio Ó Onnghaile’

Fenerio was born in the Anarian Empire and he grew up near Dhalinar, his father, a map maker and part time tax collector, his mother was caring and gave him what he wanted. This meant that his house was full of books, maps and enough food to meet the needs of a growing human in the lands Arkrath.
Fenerio was particularly connected to the maps his father had which included lands far away and would pour over them for hours, making up stories of these distant barbaric lands, and land filled with monsters, myths and tales of old.
Doing so, he developed a love of knowledge, a disdain for boredom and a wandering heart. When his mother suddenly went missing, during a routine walk to town, it threw his once idyllic world of monsters, maps and myths into chaos.
It wasn’t long after that, that his father started to fall apart, turning to drink and women over work, maps and family. As Fenerio came into manhood, he grabbed his father’s maps and left to explore the world he had only just heard and read about in books, maps and stories.
But.. life is hard outside of books and he quickly realized that he was not equipped for the world. And after escaping with just his life, returned to the life he knew best.. which was menial clerical work.
He did so.. with happiness though, but with regret. As he longed to be involved in the dashing exciting world that he had fantasied about. But his job was safe and his work valuable.
It was early in the spring, when the weather was warming and the world is waking again, when Fenerio’s employer asked him if he wanted to make a little extra money. Fenerio was of course interested as he was hopeful of getting a place of his own and move out of the basement of the shop, where he worked..
His employer said that a customer with a full coin purse was interested in buying copies of a few select rare books, and that the scribes were almost done coping them. They were to be moved across the land from Dhalinar and be delivered to his buyer’s agent in the far city of Pellor, and that though he has promised payment for the hire of guards on route, there needed to be someone who knew how to care for scrolls and books on the journey to make sure the items survived the trek through the rainy mornings and cool nights, but Fenerio was not to read them as they were not to be damaged in anyway.

Fenerio was excited to once again get a chance to hit the road and with hired guards with him, he had nothing to fear. In two weeks’ time, they hit the road, Fenerio was to take care of the books and the guards to keep the monsters and bandits at bay. About 4 days journey from the start, camp was set up and Fenerio ate his late dinner, tired from moving all day and turned in for the night. It was late when he was awoken suddenly. The camp was being attacked. Fenerio, though he barely knew his way around a sword, was no fighter and often used his words to get out of trouble, was in over his head. The guards, though skilled were quickly falling to the mere ruffians. Bandits were swarming the camp and though the guards were fighting with all they had, Fenerio saw one by one that guards were falling and there was little he could do..

So he ran..

He was about 50 yards from the main battle, when he ran straight into a group of men that were tasked to catch stragglers running. Mostly by surprise Fenerio critically hit the one in front and dropped him, but these ruffians were extraordinary skilled and Fenerio was soon disarmed of his sword, his feet swept out from underneath landing on his back. The men quickly and deftly struck him with their various weapons even and though he fended off a few strikes he was losing blood and things started to fade to black… but as they did.. a calm came over him and his head became filled with songs and poetry and tales of daring all competing for each other to the point where he felt like he was dying and going mad at the same time… but he was happy and calm and felt the comfort that you feel when you hear a song you know. He strained to hear the words through all the music.. and he heard… “If my words did glow with the gold of sunshine And my tunes were played on the harp unstrung Would you hear my voice come through the music Would you hold it near as it were your own Reach out your hand if your cup be empty If your cup is full may it be again Let it be known there is a fountain That was not made by the hands of men

Let my songs fill the air”

Fenerio reached out his hand touched the song .. and his vision faded to black..

Fenerio awoke, the men were gone and he lay amongst the dead…but no harm had come to him. He had remembered being stabbed over and over again but there were no wounds on him. Instead, he felt invigorated and a connection to something bigger than him…

He called out to it again. but nothing. it too was gone. He felt as if he could faintly hear it in the background.. and he vowed to understand it and hear that sweet song clearly again.

He returned to the cart and he saw all the guards dead… and strangely most of the gold and weapons were still there. The crate of books was opened. Inside nothing. The books were gone. He looked at the scene of destruction and saw that next to one of the guards hands was a torn paper that looked as if it came from a book… Fenerio picked it up, but it was in a language he had never seen and a language by the look of it lost to time.

He rolled it up and decided that he would not return to his previous job but rather seek out the power, that Muse that saved him. He would dedicate his life to trying to play its song and to making sure others know of it. After all he was saved for a reason.

When he finally and safely returned to Dhalinar to tell his boss of what happened and to quit, he was shocked to find that the shop had burned down, and all the workers were killed.

He felt that it was such a strange occurrence and decided to never mention it again, for he feared he would wind up dead. He also thought, it would be wise to learn what language was on the scrap and what was worth killing for. He left in search of this and in search of his Muse and devoted himself to connecting to it again. When he heard of Sheildhaven, he decided that was a great place to lay low for a bit, so he packed up his stuff and headed for the newly established town