Masithia, my island homeland, haunts my thoughts more with each passing century. From the terraces of Zelyr, my birth-city, one could look down from the mountain slopes across unbroken forests, the canopy rolling like a green sea to the distant cliffs and glittering coves. Our masons carved the city from the living stone, each arch and balcony a testament to patient craft and quiet pride.
 I was the one who volunteered to take up the mantle when the old mage’s life neared it’s end, trading the certainty of a long life for the perilous rite that would bind vharin to my will. I do not regret the choice, as it resulted in more life for me to live. Though, I sometimes wish that the duties I assumed for my people, and the promises I made beyond our shores, had not kept me so far from home for so long.
— from the research notes of Zyr’Magi Tes’Lothen, “Magi the Blade”, high-aelv scholar, mage, and swordsman
