[Immanuel]

Please excuse the length.
Full Name: Minyon Zhan Age: 32 Class(es): Monk Race: Half-elf Subrace: Alignment: Lawful Neutral Deity: Shindaleria Domains (if cleric): Short Bio/Description:
Up a tree in The Blackwood of Calishan
(Two people share a tree: it becomes readily apparent why when the large bear takes a few swipes at their dangling legs before rummaging through all their belongings looking for morsels of food)
Zhan: I bet he’s going to eat all my provisions and the fort is a full day's journey (clearly not too happy about the situation)
Qawls: (pulling an apple and a knife from his tunic) Have no fear friend for providence has alighted you atop the same tree as a well prepared traveler.
Zhan: Thanks friend, and what name shall I call my benefactor?
Qawls: Thomas Qawls at your service (flourishes his hands) and yours?
Zhan: Minyon Zhan, in your debt good sir (attempting a bow from the waist and almost falling out of the tree – Qawls catches him by the collar)
Qawls: Before my furry friend down below took a liking to your fare perhaps you could repay my largesse with your story, as that is what I collect!
Zhan: It’s a long tale, my friend Thomas
Qawls: (arching his eyebrows towards the bear) I believe our friend will keep us here for some time
Zhan: (leaning back against the trunk of the tree) Well it starts on the sea, with my Ba and a Seaelf…
Qawls: Ba?
Zhan: My father
Qawls: That would explain the indigo hair now wouldn’t it.
Zhan: (running his hand through his hair) That led to this (sweeping his hand to cover the tree and the bear) my destiny up a tree.
Qawls: I don’t follow you friend; I thought we were both hiding from the bear?
Zhan: Well as I said this is going to take some time; I was born in Ran here in Clamishan. When I was born my Mu, er...I mean my mother died and the people of the fine town of Ran didn’t much like it that my Ba had brought her there to have her half-breed child. See there had been troubles between the elves and Ran because of the humans over fishing the shelf off of coast there. Anyway my Ba decided it wasn’t a great place to bring me up and he was out of job on top of the “troubles” as he called it, It was out right prejudice it was if you ask me.
Qawls: What did the “good” citizens of Ran do to you?
Zhan: Oh, you know calling me and my Ba names, I’ve heard them all; ice sickle head, half-breed …
Qawls: How about blue-haired bingo lady?…sorry, go on.
Zhan: (Glaring) Well anyway, we moved to Talimar..
Qawls: Providence, my family is from Talimar
Zhan: Which town?
Qawls: Hish I think, it was my grandfather that moved us all to Calishan way before the wisdom of Aragen gave my mother or Mu? a grand baby boy…(points to his chest)
Zhan: Er, well we moved to Silden, not far from Hish
Qawls: Small world…
Zhan: We lived in the community house there.
Qawls: I’ve heard of such things, all the people live in one big house? What is it like, I mean with everyone living and sharing and things?
Zhan: Right, there is not much privacy if that is what you mean, but you get used to it, mostly I stayed by the docks, I remember growing up and wanting nothing more to be in the Roldem Navy
Qawls: The navy? Not for this wanderer too isolated from the fairer gender for me.
Zhan: (continues as if not interrupted) I even built my own boat by the time I was twelve and was bringing a good catch back to the long house when I was fifteen or so.
Qawls: You didn’t sell your catch?
Zhan: That I could not do for we all made a pledge that whatever we had belonged to the community, mostly the fish was dried and bartered for other supplies. Anyway I was pretty handy with a sail and net and was making a name for myself with the girls as a good provider, if you know what I mean.
Qawls: I guess with that hair you would have to, eh?
Zhan: Can we cease with the talk of the hair?
Qawls: So sorry…go on
Zhan: I suppose I was pretty full of myself then because I would go further out than most fishermen would go and especially one day, I found myself out when everyone else stayed in port.
Zhan: They spoke of bad portents and signs in the heavens, but I was master of the sea. No little wind would scare me, besides I had my eye on this girl and her Ba was already talking with mine. Anyway I went out as far as I dared, to get back before evening song. I went to a secret spot I knew and all the sudden it was like Mist herself decided to turn the sea upside down.
Qawls: Bad eh?
Zhan: (excitedly) there were waves taller than the roof of the long house! Only with all my strength and knowledge of my boat was I able to stay aright.
Qawls: So you made it through?
Zhan: I didn’t, I was swamped and washed overboard.
Qawls: What then? You obviously survived lest I speak to your ghost.
Zhan: With certainly I cannot say as I woke in the bed of a shanty outside of Natal.
Qawls: You swam?
Zhan: Of that I truly have no knowledge though I remember before waking up that I dreamed of the Seaelves.
Qawls: You think you were rescued by Seaelves?
Zhan: (Points to his head)
Qawls: (Laughing) I guess that blue hair was good for something…and yes, I know speak no more of the hair (now belly laughing)
Zhan: I woke up to the most weather beaten face I’ve ever laid eyes upon, glaring at me
Qawls: I take it this was his shanty?
Zhan: Aye, his name was Gard McGee. He found me on the beach that morning, thought I was an elf and saw I was alive. He trades with them a bit you see and thought he might get a reward for saving me or something. As it turns out not only was there no reward but I had a broken leg that had to be set and he had to pay a healer to come out to his shanty.
Qawls: (Smirking) so fairly you were a lame blue-haired bingo lady right?
Zhan: (Laughing) Yes I supposed that is fair to say, I felt like an old lady for quite some time. Gard didn’t like me because I cost him money from the very beginning. He told me I’d have to work it off. Which I did. It took me three years but I finally paid him back the money.
Qawls: What did you do?
Zhan: I mended nets and sails, sails and nets. I got to say, if I ever see a torn net or sail in this lifetime, it will be too soon. But to paint such a poor portrait of him; he did take me to Loriel every year for the rogue trials.
Qawls: Yes a grand spectacle that, though I doubt if everything I hear that goes on there does.
Zhan: You’re probably right but I saw this man there that I have never seen anything the likes of. he moved without making a sound and could move through a throng like they were not even there and he touched no one. I asked Gard who he was and he told me he was a *%# monk from over by the lake. I asked him what lake, “the lake of *%# dreams that’s what” he said.
Qawls: Your benefactor had quite a mouth on him, eh?
Zhan: I didn’t even understand the half of what he said most of the time but I knew when he didn’t care to talk about a subject and this was one of those times. As providence would have it, I later saw the same monk and approached him.
Qawls: What did you ask of him?
Zhan: You have to understand, I had never been interested in anything to do with the land, all I cared for was the sea, that’s why I just knew I was destined for the Navy. After I spoke with Master Tan that day, my destiny has changed or perhaps it had never been written that I would enter the Navy.
Qawls: So you profess a belief in predestination philosophy, eh?
Zhan: (putting his chin in his hand, elbow on his knee) I believe we are given choices in life but where we end up is pre-written, but we should get some sleep as it looks as if our furry friend has departed.
Qawls: (with excitement) Oh, please finish your tale; I fear I cannot sleep tonight before its finish
Zhan: After speaking with Master Tan, I left Gard’s “employ” yesterday to find the path to the Order of Dreams.
Qawls and Zhan: (in unison) which leads you to this tree…
Qawls and Zhan made their way to Fort Darkmoor, where to both of their surprises, Qawls enlisted, he to this day blames it on the mead. Zhan bade farewell to his new found friend and journeyed on to the Lake of Dreams. There he spent three months before a monk finally appeared seemingly out of nowhere; it was Master Tan, the monk he had met in Loriel.
Zhan made it known to the good monk that he wished to train at the monastery. Tan told him usually boys of a much younger age than Zhan entered the monastery to train and to live the quiet life. Tan told Zhan, he did not believe that he was destined for the quiet life. These sorts of talks continued for another three months, when finally Zhan wouldn’t let Master Tan leave him until he told him how he could become a monk of the Order of Dreams.
Tan told him first he had to decipher the inscription over the temple to enter the monastery for training. Zhan was so depressed the next time Master Tan visited him by the shore of the lake. Zhan told Master Tan that he could not read much less decipher an ancient inscription.
The next time Tan visited, he carried a book and began to teach Zhan how to read; soon he was reading everything as if it were bread to a starving man. During the twelfth month of his sojourn by the lake, Zhan deciphered the inscription and was sponsored in to the order by Master Tan.
Zhan quickly proved to be as avid a learner of the martial arts as he had in learning to read. Master Tan, a master at the hardening of the body told the Grandmaster, Zhan was the most adept he had seen for a monk of his young age. For his part, Zhan just knew he was destined for the quiet life of the monastery.
As it happens the monastery had an extensive library where Zhan spent all the time not spent practicing his katas or doing his tasks, so that his knowledge of the world contained in those books became a weapon of his intellect as much as his body became a real weapon. It was during the twelfth year of Zhan’s training that the followers of Milara launched a raid near the Grey Tower.
The call for help came to the Grandmaster from the commander of Fort Darkmoor for the Order of Dreams to help the contingent of soldiers repel the invaders. Zhan was chosen to accompany Master Tan as he led the group of monks to aid the soldiers who were losing the battle to hold back the Milaran’s beachhead.
Rushing into the fray the monks turned the tide of battle in a very ferocious fight decimating to the invaders and to the soldiers and monks as well. Master Tan, Zhan’s mentor was found with more than thirty arrows in his body where he fell and more than 100 dead followers of Milara around him. Zhan had become separated from his master early on in the fighting and while holding his own, had not seriously been in danger, while his master had been surrounded and isolated.
This would prey on Zhan’s mind for the rest of his life. He had not been there to protect his master. But with the evils of this world comes the good, who should he spy on the battleground alive and well but his traveling partner, Thomas Qwals, who has risen to the rank of sergeant.
Qwals: My friend, Minyon are you well?
Zhan: Aye Thomas I am well though I fear I have failed my master.
Qwals: (reviewing the carnage around the dead monk) I grieve for your loss my friend and I shall write an epic song about this day and your master for truly he was the difference in this battle. He gave his life so others may live free but I do not believe you are at fault my friend. The fortunes of war favor no one.
Zhan: Thomas what shall I do? I surely cannot now return to the monastery, I will only be reminded of my failure.
Qwals: Well as providence has it I am in need of a messenger to King Shun-Han to enlighten him of the outcome of the battle. Feel up to the challenge? You would have to journey to Tibum.
Zhan: I do not see my destiny in this.
Qwals: (paying no heed to Zhan's protest) I will inform the Grandmaster you were needed for this assignment. It will do you some good to get some time in the real world outside those walls.
Minyon Zhan is destined never to reach Tibum, but once again he awakens from dreams:
In front of a large dragon, apparently no longer in the place where he last closed his eyes to go to sleep. Is it real, a hallucination, or just a dream? He is not sure, but the dragon seems real enough, watching Zhan watching it, the dragon opens his mouth…