For most of his (admittedly short) life, Nehyril had no intention of leaving his home. It was not that Korvosa was perfect, far from it. His mixed heritage marked him as an oddity from birth, and childhood had often been constant barrages of taunts and jeers from his peers and disdainful looks from his elders. Home life had not been much better; his elven mother had never deigned to tell either a young Nehyril or his father what matter called her back to the Mierani Forest and the two broken-hearted males had been forced to continue on as best they could. But Korvosa was still a home for Nehyril, and after decades of roaming its streets and soaking in its culture the young half-elf could imagine being nowhere else.
But that was before the troubles started. Before succession gave way to a plague that saw his father die unceremoniously in his shop. Before a chaotic miasma of fear and despair nearly tore Korvosa apart. Yet Nehyril endured, and as his home was brought to the brink he watched it and learned. To this day explicit reports of what occurred remain vague and contradictory, with rumors and hearsay vastly outnumbering honest accounts. It doesn’t matter to Nehyril. A few missing details here and there could not take away from the base truth: that some magics best left buried had almost consumed his home, and that such things could do the same again.
And so Nehyril sold his and his father’s meager belongings and finally set out from Korvosa, not as a refugee but as a man who had found a purpose. Bartering for training from archers and woodsman as he made his way across Avistan, Nehyril slowly made his way to the fabled city of Absalom and presented himself as a recruit to the Pathfinder Organization. For if lost knowledge and artifactsa cannot be destroyerd then they must be contained, and every weapon or charm deposited in Absalom's vaults becomes a tool not out there to threaten another unsuspecting community.
