Altaire

Altaire Zenshrike
Status	Active
Race	Dwarf
Gender	Male
Guild	Warrior Mage
Instance	Prime

Appearance

You see Altaire Zenshrike, a Dwarf.
He has silver-flecked blue-green eyes. His snow-white-streaked red hair is shoulder length and thick, and is worn in a simple, pulled-back style held in place by a thin bloodlace ribbon adorned with tiny teardrop-shaped bloodmist garnet charms. He has tanned skin.
He is tall for a Dwarf.
He is mature.
Clinched with an orichalcum beard band inset with a brilliantly cut stormfire topaz, his mustache and beard form a bristly and bushy mess of statically charged whiskers.
He has a tattoo of a golden hawk with its wings spread wide on his chest.

Key Events

ca. 349 AV: Arrived in the Crossing, joining the Warrior Mage Guild after a brief survey of the city and surrounding environs.
364 AV: Married to Larilliana Lychis.
350-380 AV: Fought in every major conflict faced by Zoluren.
380 AV: Departed Zoluren to search for those who had wronged his family. Vanished without a trace after entering Dwarven lands.
438 AV: Returned to the Crossing.

Origin

Altaire was born 310 years after the Victory, his life beginning on a small homestead at the outskirts of Axe Clan land. His father, Anzarn, was a smith of some distinction among nearby militias. His mother, Ralla, was an herbalist and seamstress, among other talents. Altaire's early years were blessed by peace, with his father hoping to turn him toward the forge and his mother teaching him to survive nature's general indifference to life. This much, at least, is fairly well known. The rest of this tale is pieced together from anecdotes relayed by those who've come to know Altaire over the years...

In the fall of his 17th year, after a particularly unremarkable day's work in the fields, Altaire arrived home to find his father in animated discussion with a leather-clad Human and his retinue of gruff-looking Dwarves and men. The conversation rapidly devolved into angry shouting, and Anzarn dismissed the men from his home with a scowl and a muttered curse. Anzarn then tucked a glinting disc with silvered edges under a floorboard of the home, a look of concern creasing his brow. Altaire asked, "What'd they want anyway, pop? Didn't anyone tell them that you make good on all your contracts? I don't remember ever seeing a customer leave like that..." Anzarn answered, somewhat cryptically, "I hope you never come to know those men. They're not customers. They want somethin' we don't sell and can't give." Anzarn trailed off, then, and retired to a stump behind the house, puffing on an heirloom pipe and shaking his head occasionally.

Several weeks later, with the odd visit of that day and his father's distress nearly forgotten, Altaire returned home from the village market to find a scene conjured from his own nightmares. He heard it before he saw it: the sounds of cracking and splintering wood were joined by muffled cries, and carried easily through the still afternoon air. As Altaire padded past the gate at the edge of the property and looked toward the house, it became apparent that the walls of his family's home had been crushed inward in several places, as if the air itself had set about reclaiming the space for its own purposes. Altaire raced toward the sound, his heart thumping in his chest as his nerves arced warnings to parts of his mind that were no longer capable of responding. Arriving finally at the clearing where the remnants of his home stood, he saw that his father and mother were impaled on short-hafted spears, their blood staining the earth just outside the front door. He realized that the sounds he'd heard were their quiet farewells, and that his opportunity to say his own had likely already passed. As he surveyed the carnage and struggled to contain his desperate fury, Altaire heard the voice of one of the 'customers' from that fateful day echoing within the house: "Burn it. Burn the whole damn thing. Burn the garden, the forge, and that stupid Dwarf and his wife. It'll give the rest of these smallfolk something to think about."

Light and sound receded as Altaire's vision swam with mottled black shapes. The world shrank and his perspective warped, as if he were watching his own life through a perversely fashioned looking-glass. A howling wind exploded in his mind, joined shortly by coils of fire and lightning. At first, the elements seemed to fight with the material of space itself, and then later with one another. After a long moment, they fused into a coherent mass that whirled and danced, roaring forth with a single word: "No." It repeated, again and again, each time louder than the last, until the sound was a torment all its own. This went on for what felt like minutes: the voice reverberated like the beating of war drums inside Altaire's mind, uncontrolled and accompanied by nearly blinding pain. Finally, the shrieking maelstrom abated, and Altaire's battered consciousness emerged once more. He stumbled to one knee as if struck, and took several measured breaths before attempting to right himself.

Altaire looked up to discover that the men in his home, the home itself, and the ground around it were almost entirely ablaze. Coated in pristine white fire that flowed like oil, the surrounding environment was unmade wholly, seemingly eaten by the voracious flames rather than burnt. The man who'd been tasked with torching the house was, himself, nearly gone already; his still-unlit torch lay beside him, partially disintegrated by a turbulent pool of rippling white flames. Bizarrely, an island of untouched earth lay around Altaire's mother and father, their flesh as yet untouched by the elements. His father, still clinging to life and with eyes as wide as moons, stared out over the chaos surrounding him before focusing on his son.

Altaire walked to his father's side and knelt down, the flames receding wherever he stepped. Anzarn summoned his remaining energy and spoke, quietly: "Don't stay. Don't... let them find you here. If you can learn to use whatever that power was, you can... well, maybe you can... stop them. From doing this to anyone else. To the ones they buy and sell..."

Altaire paused, puzzled, and said, "Power? Tawr... just stop talking already. I might be able to get a surgeon or Empath here in time. They know you in the village, so mayb--"

"Yes, 'power'." Anzarn cut in, his voice nearly breaking as he continued, "I was dead ten minutes ago, boy, I'm just too stubborn to quit breathing yet. This fire ain't natural. I've never seen its like before. When these men came out of the house, you somehow..." he faltered, now, struggling to describe the scene. "You used forge-fire like cannon shot. You just stood there screamin'... it tore through these two and what was left of our house, and I haven't a clue how. These ones won't be yer problem, though. The one they work for is somethin' else. That tall fella who visited us before is a monster worse than anything in the deepest caves. You have to... you have to let the fire take us. Let it cover this place, end to end, gate to stream. If there's nothin' to go on, they can't find you. They'll eventually stop lookin'."

Altaire's eyes blurred with tears as he began to grasp what his father had said. He stood after what felt like hours, and spared a last glance at his family as his father nodded his head. At last, Altaire stared into the fire and, bending his mind intuitively to the task, fused the flames to the shape of the land. The white fire spread in all directions, blanketing the earth, as quiet descended on the clearing.