Born just outside the edges of the Meiriani forest to a small village of mixed humans and elves, Narnel always was an outcast in one way or another. To his parents and the few other elven residents of the town, he was getting too much human influence which they thought would only hurt him in the future, short lived distractions that drew him away from his studies. To the humans in a border town, him and his kind were the problem and elven warnings not to trespass on their lands served to fuel generations old feuds and hatreds, passed down memories of families forced off their lands by claims of elven 'sovereignty'.
Feeling always an outcast, Narnel spent most of his time reading, the impressive library kept by his parents one of the few things he did appreciate about them. Eventually however, a human girl in the village caught his attention and he hers. She was captured by his impressive knowledge and amused even by his dry humor and he was taken in by the way she dove into life so fully, trying her best to experience every moment, something the long lived elves often missed.
The elf's parents were quite dismayed by this event and decided that it must be stopped at all costs. It was decided that he was to return to the elven homeland with them, a place he had never been before. He was given the excuse that he would never be able to achieve his potential among the non-magical humans. Narnel refused to go with them and leave the girl, and in a heated argument he was disowned and shortly after his parents left without him.
Now an outcast in the elven society of the small village, and nursing a small grudge against his own kind for his parents refusal to accept his wishes, Narnel was none the less happy with his life. In what seemed an instant to him he was married and never grew tired of his life, running a bookstore with the rare tombs left by his father and those he could trade with adventurers who passed through the town, his shop soon became known enough that he was able to manage a fair living.
Unfortunately, his heart didn't understand what his mind and his parents did. The days passed as moments to him in his happiness and the years as hours. The passage of time holds such a slow effect on his people that it wasn't until his wife grew more often ill in her age that he accepted what was happening, and when she passed it was a crushing blow that forever changed him.
The elves of the town were snide to him, knowing this would happen one day and while the humans tried to comfort him, they were not the people he knew of his childhood. The town had moved on and changed without him even realizing it, the only ones remaining as he saw them were the other elves he had sworn against.
He set out the day after the funeral, simply walking away from the town with little idea of where he was heading, knowing only that he didn't belong there any longer. He didn't really belong anywhere. He felt a strange kinship with the half-breeds and outcasts of the world through his grief, he understood the pain of not belonging and the loss that comes from trying to be something you are not fully capable of.
After months of aimless travel he was settled in a tavern one evening when a barmaid dropped a mug of ale beside him, dipping down to help her clean it, he saw an old beat up book resting beneath one of the legs of the table to even it. Still holding some love for books, Narnel drew it out from the table to ensure it didn't get wet from the spill. The cover simply held an odd symbol, so curiously he opened it. Within it appeared to be a journal, a pathfinders notes of ruins he had uncovered on his journey.
The idea hit the elf so firmly he realized why his people believe in the brightness, it truly was as if a light to guide his way had turned on before his eyes. This was his chance, if he could uncover great information and power with one of these ruins, he could prove what a great wizard he could become among humans. He could raise his wife's memory and show what humans had to offer his people. That devoting himself to the timeless ruins would mean that he was the one to age before them and never the other way around was something he wouldn't dare admit.
Flipping carefully through the journal until a name caught his interest, a smile touched his lips for the first time in months. The cypher-gate. That sounded like a code which he should be the one to crack.
Narnel set off the next morning for Riddleport.
