Neil's Story

Neil takes a deep breath and sighs. "Well, sailing in is probably the only way we can do this safely. We really have no idea what to expect. Hopefully we can just find a port city to dock at and all will be well, but we might need to take off some components if we want to make the ship look a bit more like a sailing ship." He props up his head with his hands, thinking out loud with his eyes closed. "If life has taught us anything, the easiest way to get some basic information is just chatting up random drunk people in a bar." He stops for a second and his eyes light up as an idea crosses his mind.

"Wait....we have two bards. The easiest cover story is have them do the talking and say that they are just collecting people's versions of stories from across the land. Everyone tells a story differently, so we can say that we are traveling around to learn about the land as each province sees it. Then we can just say that we are traveling companions that you two hired as protection." He gestures to Shade and Rivers.

"But we have a couple more issues on top of that. One is a bit more....general than the other. Going by English names is probably the easiest way to raise suspicion, so we should probably change them to some Common name. The other one just has to do with me. I am the only one who isn't pure human, and on top of that I'm a mage. There are probably some settlements which hold...less welcoming tendencies to those like me. Being a mage, a fae, or even just a half-breed might end up causing us some hassle down the road. So just as a precaution, we should probably have someone scope out any major settlement we plan enter. I just want to make sure that I don't receive the same welcome that I did last time I went near Shengan." As he finishes his sentence, there is a very obvious resentment behind his words. "While we're here, if anyone asks, I'm part elf."

"Aside from that, I think we should just try to get as much information as we can about Renji, the gods, and if possible, people that Renji managed to anger. We know that there is going to be an invasion happening at some point....probably by Renji's followers, so if we are going to do anything about that, we will need help" He then looks directly at Rivers and with a slightly aggressive tone he says, "...unless there is some reason we shouldn't intervene."

Neil cocks his eyebrow at Shade's comment, but decides to ignore it for now. He sits and just listens to the conversation, smirking a little at the little jab at Rain. As Rivers turns and speaks to him, he sighs and averts his eyes. Solemnly he says, "You say that, but you weren't the one who spent a large part of your childhood in an antimagic zone to protect people from your own existence..." He remains silent for the rest of Rivers' explanation, not making eye contact with anyone in the party.

Rain's jab back at Rivers seems to break him out of his little down time, putting that little smirk back on his face. He looks at Rain and gives her a small nod, then says in a heavily accented Elven "you have a point." He sits there and looks at Rivers, curious to see how much Rivers managed to get out of the library...or at least as much as he'd care to admit.

Neil cocks his eyebrow again, this time at Rivers. As he continues with his pretty princess routine, face-meets-palm. He just sits there and lets the banter continue, but gives Rivers a look mixed with sympathy and irritation at his snide remark. "Now probably isn't the time for us to get into a 'who's life has sucked more' contest, especially considering right now its pretty safe to say that all our lives suck." He scoffs a little and watches the exchange between between Rain and Lalo, managing a small chuckle at Lalo's comment.

"I think I will go with Avander. That name sits well with me for now." He gets up and stretches. "While a band might work as a cover story, I think we need to try appealing to a wider audience than those who share your musical taste, Shade." He strokes his chin briefly, thinking. "I think that while we need to gather information, we should also try to get some sort of following of our own. I don't doubt that Renji made some enemies, and it would probably be best if we leveraged them as much as we can. Ideally we would be able to have a peaceful meeting with some of the gods that are running around and get their support, but that is just being extremely hopeful." Neil sighs a bit. "I need some fresh air." He casually walks out of the bar and sits near the bow of the ship.

Neil looks over at Rain as she comes over to the railing. He looks at her with a heavy hearted look in his eyes, but the princess comment brings a small smile to his face. "Nah...I'll leave that up to you. I would wait until we weren't so high up, just in case Rivers decides to retaliate in his usual way." The half-Nymph looks out over the bow, just staring at the horizon for a moment. "I guess its ok to tell you, but I would appreciate it if this stayed between us," he said with a brief, yet serious glance. He gazed back over the horizon and began his tale:

"It all started when I was about 6 months old. One night my parents were woken by my caretaker, screaming about how my room was on fire. Dad managed to pull me out and put out the room with his magic, but we lost a decent chunk of our home in the blaze. At the time, they didn't know what started it. The caretaker had no idea, and there weren't any candles in the room, so they thought someone tried to assassinate me. There was a frivolous hunt for a little while, until one day I was playing outside with some sticks when they suddenly ignited. Dad saw it this time and figured out what was going on. Mom and Dad were both confused as to how I was doing this.

You see, nymphs have fairly strong Fae magic within them from birth, but usually it doesn't manifest itself until they learn how to control it. That usually starts when they are a couple years old. Even then, its usually something small like having nearby plants grow a little faster. Dad knew that I was somehow magically causing the fire, but they just didn't understand how it was possible. That's when we went to Lor Keep and he took me to a mage that specialized in researching magical creatures. I don't know all the details of what happened when I was there, but apparently I am a perfect storm.

The fire came from a combination of the Fae magic, my mom's druid magic, and dad's arcane magic. The thing is, Fae magic is a little bit on the wild side, and that didn't interact so well with my dad's brand of arcane magic. I am not sure if you've noticed, but my dad's arrows are as strong as they are because he imbues them with a strong swath of enchantments when he touches them, and he can do that all day without breaking a sweat. So for lack of a better term, he is just oozing arcane magic constantly. This effect, combined with the wild nature of the Fae magic, was causing the fires to start, and the druid nature magic was just enhancing the effect. They still weren't too sure about why it happened to manifest as fire, but the guess was that it was just a side effect of mixing the three flavors together."

Neil rests his elbows against the railing of the ship and runs his fingers through his smooth and silky hair. He then rests his chin on his hand as the wind blows over him while the sun sets in the background, leaving the moment very picturesque. "When we got back home, dad set up an anti-magic zone in my room, and I wasn't allowed to leave the room without him nearby so he could put out any fires that started. When I was 4 or 5 I started sneaking out, but I still had trouble controlling the fires. All the time in the anti-magic zone wasn't exactly giving me time to practice. So I accidentally started a few fires here and there, and that is when dad really started hovering. For the next 3 years he was with me almost every moment of every day, just making sure I didn't start any fires. He tried to pass the time by teaching me some archery, but it just wasn't my style. I kept lighting up the bow strings anyway." He pauses again and looks back at Rain. "So I was sleeping in an antimagic zone until I was 8, and then dad and mom took shifts watching me to make sure I didn't burn down the house again. It took several months after that, but I finally learned how to keep the fire contained so I could be around others without burning them badly. That's why you didn't see me often until I was 9." With that, he leaves the bow of the ship and retires to his room, not giving Rain even a second glance.

Neil is startled awake by the abrupt knocking at the door - sitting up quickly with fire sheathing his hand, then relaxing and putting it out. He rubs at his eyes and mumbles to himself, "Ugh.....I hate mornings." The shirtless half-Nymph gets up to get some water from a flask, but it was all dried up. He sighs and just walks out of his room to get some water from the bar. As he walks down the hallway he senses some magic coming from outside, so he goes off to investigate. He soon gets out onto the deck and looks up at Rivers doing his little wind dance. It is surprisingly tranquil. "Well...looks like he can actually do something that won't get him beat up....didn't see that coming."

Neil smirks a bit at the fairy princess comment. "Breakfast sounds like a good idea. I'm parched." His expression then became a mildly annoyed stare at Shade's comment, but he decided to not honor it with a response. It is then shifted to Rivers at his cryptic comment. "Just make sure 'fun' doesn't involve death and pain," he said with a slightly more annoyed glare. Neil rolls his eyes at Shade and then turn around to go back inside. He gets some water from behind the bar, then goes back into his room to throw a shirt on. After a couple minutes he returns to the bar only to walk in on "Arch."

"I have never played an instrument before. I was an ok singer when I had to be, but it was never something I was interested in. Not quite sure what I can sing about. I vaguely remember some song about a purple dog, but its not clear in my mind," he said with a wry smile.

Neil sits down and leans back against the wall, just listening to Rain's song. He ignores Shade's comments and just closes his eyes as the memories of sitting around a certain camp fire come pouring back....

He was perhaps 10 at the time. Jim and Yee left Neil and Zee to play together on some plains while they went to go ride wild dinosaurs. Neil and Zee had done some of their own riding, but Zee "accidentally" ran the triceratops into a velociraptor den. Oops. So they all got together, and had a great time getting to know one another until they ran out of velociraptors. At least, that is what Neil was telling the satyr who walked in on the campsite that night. The satyr had wandered in with his latest pickup, and the two young adventurers let them stick around. They recanted stories to each other for a little while, and then the satyr took out some odd looking instrument and started singing.

Down in a yonder green field,
Down a down, hey down.....

Neil hums along with the tune, remembering the end of one of his first nights on an adventure away from his father. As the song finishes, he stops humming and looks up at Rain. He finds this quite relaxing, reminding him that sometimes you have to appreciate the little things in life. Within him, the chaotic magic concoction seems to calm down a bit, but it also feels like it is coming more to the surface, leaving him rather warm.

The fire mage takes a deep breath and starts gathering a small flame over his palms, slowly shaping them into a small bird. With a smooth motion, he lets the fire bird fly into the middle of the room before disappearing in a small puff of smoke. He looks up when he is addressed, but is quickly cut off. "The dru----....."

There are some mixed feelings about the sudden change of topic - both relieved and mildly disheartened from getting back to the task at hand. "Just remember, the band is a cover. Don't lose sight at what's at stake here."

He continues listening to the talk about the band, seemingly lost in thought. The flashback from Rain's song brought back a few other childhood memories that weren't that bad. Maybe he was a little too cold at the end of his story to Rain? His small period of self reflection is quickly broken by the mention of his new name. He does his best to not roll his eyes at Shade, then says: "I think with all the comments you've been making, I am clearly man enough for the both of us," he said as he looked over to Shade with a slightly smug look.

"Anyway, we should probably think about what we are going to do with the airship once we get there. We don't exactly want any locals getting their hands on it. What is your plan Hawk?"

Neil listens to the exchange between Hawk and Rain, hiding his awe as Hawk told everyone that the ship was alive. He almost didn't believe it, but he felt that Hawk was actually telling the truth. He mutters to himself, "I guess I'll add that to my list of things I never thought I would see." He stands up and walks over to Hawk. "Well, that was unexpected. I guess that's why its the best airship. Its the only one with soul," he said with a smile.

He cocks an eyebrow at the name "Lavender Asters," but chooses to not comment on it just yet. "I suppose I should find some different clothes too, and no Arch, different does not mean none." He takes a small detour to the main deck and just says, "thanks for the ride," then he heads over to his room. As he gets to the hall with all the rooms, he remembers that he should probably apologize to Rain for what happened earlier before the start of their adventure.

Its not the first time he had to do this...even though he was able to get his powers under control since he was 9 doesn't mean that there weren't accidents later. He goes over to Rain's door and knocks.

"Don't know where who wen.....oh. Wait what?" Neil just blinks at her, completely confused until he sees Rivers' stuff sitting on the other side of the room. He stands there for a moment, trying to process the rushed rant. As she changes the subject to Arch, he stops her and puts his hand on her shoulder. "Wait....calm down and let's start from the beginning, ok? What exactly is going on?"

Neil sits down next to Rain and listens calmly to her story. "Ok, look. If Rivers left that book here, that probably means he felt it would be safer to keep it here than to take it with him...or he just didn't want it getting wet." He sighs a little at the death comment. "Just think about why we are here, and where you think we would be now, and five months from now if we didn't run into Rivers in the first place. Would we really be on the other side of the world? If anything, our parents would have stuck us in the City of Flower or Altrica or something to..."

His eyes suddenly go wide. "In five months, something big is going to happen. Altrica or the City will fall..." He puts his own head into his hands. "Or it might be the invasion arriving from this continent. No matter what, I think it is going to be big." He lets out a long sigh.

"You know, I think we were meant to come here, just like I think we were meant to be there to save Lance. We have an important job to do, and we can't sit around worrying about what unknown circumstances might get us killed." He takes his head out of his hands and looks directly at Rain.

"We are in this together, Rain, and all we can do is make the best decisions we can with the information we have. What will happen will happen, and you can't blame yourself for what the future holds for all of us." He leans over and gives Rain a hug.

"We will see Rivers again, and my guess is sooner rather than later. We will meet up with him when we meet up with him, and he probably already knows when its a good time for him to return. So stop worrying about it...he knows what he is doing." Neil stands up.

"Come on. We need to prepare for our arrival."

As Rain gets up, Neil walks over to the door and sees Lalo. He nods at Lalo, then stops as Rain speaks up again. Turning back to her he says, "Yeah...I originally came to apologize for just walking off on you yesterday. I'm sorry about that."

At this point, apologies from Neil feel like a routine since he gives them so often. Not being able to control one's abilities has lead to quite a large number of accidents over the years. Even though they've been frequent, they have never lost their sincerity.

"So I am not really sure how I should dress for this. Its completely different from anything I've had to dress for before. Any advice? I would rather not ask Shade...for obvious reasons."

Neil walks into his room, closing and locking his door behind him. He takes out his portable hole and opens it on the floor. "Hmm.....black....I think I have something." He climbs down into it and starts shuffling through his clothes.

"No....no......no.......where is it? Here's something....no.....ah! Here it is!" He pulls out a rather plain looking pure black shirt and matching pants out of the pile. "Well dad, looks like I will actually use this thing, just not the same type of stealth you were thinking of." He smirks as he quickly swaps clothing and climbs out of the hole. "And now to get hit on by Shade again..." he mumbles as he walks out to the helm.

"Well, this is the only black I have. Its not exactly 'band' looking material though." He shrugs and waits for the inevitable wardrobe alterations and comments from Shade.

Neil shrugs at the comment. "Yeah, that pretty much sums it up." As Shade approaches Neil gives him a mildly annoyed stare, and eyes the knife cautiously. When the knife is brought close, everyone can see Neil's skin start to glow a little and it becomes noticeably warmer in the area. "I don't think I have to tell you what will happen if you cut me," he said sternly.

Neil just stands there and watches Shade cut off large pieces of his clothes with that sharp knife. As Shade finishes, the half-Nymph takes the cuffs back and puts them on his wrists. "I think I have a sword belt laying around somewhere, and I am pretty sure it has a decent buckle on it. So why chains?" he said as he looked over himself, not exaclty fond of the new look.

At the mention of the book he chimes in. "If he doesn't just know where he is going to run into us again, then he is probably scrying on us. Does anyone have a personal item that went missing recently?"

Neil shrugs a bit at the mention of the coat. "Doesn't matter to me which coat I have. I don't exactly have experience in this sort of thing. Let's just get this over with so we can figure out what we are going to do once we get on land."

Neil looks over as he hears the scream and sees the pack surrounding the pair. He starts an incantation as he runs over towards them while a bright orange-red flame gathers over his hands. As he gets a little closer his hands flare up. He yells, "DON'T MOVE!" then finishes the incantation as he brings his hands together into a fist and hits the ground. A pillar of flame erupts from the ground in front of him, then quickly travels to the fight in a narrow line which leaves a trail of charred ground in its wake.

The pillar appears to go through one displacer beast, but it wasn't really in that spot. It continues and then changes direction, encircling the pair in a 10 foot tall wall of flames - putting a barrier between them and the displacer beasts. As the wall finishes forming it flares up, burning a few of the closer beasts but leaving the pair unharmed.

The fire on Neil's hands condenses over his skin and glows brightly as he quickly begins his next motion. He puts his arms across his chest and touches his elbows with the opposite hands. Using his fingertips, he draws a circle of concentrated flame in the air. Once the circle is complete he brings his fingertips together in the center of the circle and pushes through, causing a wide cone of flame to erupt from the circle and engulf those hungry beasts.

The fire starts engulfing the two beasts the illusion fades from Shade's spell. As the true place of the beasts becomes apparent, Neil pulls back through the circle and collapses the wide cone into a much more concentrated blast. The potent flame sears off the flesh of the beasts' faces and chars the rest of their bodies to a dark crisp as they fall at his feet.

He turns to Hawk quickly and says "Thanks," before stepping forward as his body becomes completely sheathed in a small inferno. Flames shoot off wildly around him, singeing Hawk a little in the process. For those who were there, they recognize this as the windup to the same type of beam attack Neil used on Renji. He calls out to Rain in his Sylvan-accented Elven to avoid having the two unknown people react to the shout, "ON YOUR LEFT!" as he started concentrating his inferno into a smaller, more destructive mass.

(OOC notes: did some dice rolls and math, frying the tentacle dogs is legit)

The living pillar of flame catches the attention of some of the beasts surrounding Rain as the inferno collapses into a dense beam and shoots from the Half-Nymph's palms. It leaves a trail of scorched ground in its wake as it barely misses Lalo, but makes contact with the three monstrosities on her left side. The closest one to Neil was able to react a bit better and dodge most of the beam, only catching its tentacles. The two behind it didn't have a clear view to the fire mage, and weren't as lucky. The middle beast lost its left foreleg and a tentacle, while the one in the back took the full force of the blast, turning its core to ash and leaving the remaining halves to crumple to the ground.

Neil falls onto one knee and breathes heavily while clutching his head with his left hand. That blast took a lot out of him, but he still has enough reserves to make a couple more attacks. The rest would be mostly left to Shade and Rain. He just hoped that Rain would last.

(OOC Notes: New Aspect: I got you covered?? http://i236.photobucket.com/albums/ff97/Algroth/diceroll_2012-10-11_00-23-04_645.jpg wut?)

As the last beast falls to Shade's blade Neil relaxes a little. He takes several deep breaths before removing his hand from his head. He still had the headache, but it wasn't as sharp as it was immediately after his last blast. Using his hand for support, he stands up slowly as the two strangers seem to be making a fuss. "Ugh...now let's see what their story is," muttering to himself.

He starts making his way over to the group as the dust cloud overtakes him. He stops in his tracks and his eyes go wide as he feels the arcane block take effect. This causes an imbalance to start forming within him.

The Half-Nymph's magic has been a balance between the fey, druid, and arcane since his birth. Even when he was in the antimagic fields when he was younger, all three were suppressed and the balance was maintained. This was different. Now that the arcane is being suppressed, the fae and druid magic are fighting to fill the void. This isn't helped by the trait he inherited from his father...constantly leaking magical energy. He clenches his eyes and fists as he tries to stabilize himself. He ended up missing Shade's bits of the conversation. He seems to temporarily get it under control and proceeds to the group as his eyes dilate.

He gets over to everyone without further incident, but his concentration is put towards keeping his inner vortex from growing any further. The voices register as just passing sounds, not really being processed. As the conversation carries on, Neil starts looking a little pale and gets woozy, swaying a bit. He goes to speak after he hears something about bandages when his inner vortex destabilizes and the fey magic cascades.

Neil groans and falls onto his hands and knees as his internal power struggle makes itself very well known. Luckily, since he is a half-breed, the radiant aura that would normally blind any onlooker only manages to stagger everyone around as it activates. No one outside his household has seen this ability activate before, since its almost always suppressed and blocked by the balance of his three brands of magic. The wild nature of the fey magic also forces the druid magic to manifest itself for the first time in his life. As he digs his fingers into the ground, all the nearby plants start visibly growing, even in the fire scars left by his previous attacks.

As Lara turned off Neil's magical faucet, he snapped back into reality. He groans and then looks up at her. "Ughhhhh...I think I will pass on the Keeper, but thanks for the cut off." He stands and sighs. Looking around to everyone else he says, "Its been years since I had an incident as bad as this. Sorry guys." Then he looks back to Lara. "So Lara, out of curiosity, does this magical lock you put on me wear off after a while or do I have to ask you to remove it?"