Alik Thriss
Abernathy Thriss was a tax collector in the city of Alik’s birth, and Cerine Thriss taught literacy privately. Alik was the third oldest of seven siblings, two brothers and five sisters, with one older brother and sister and a younger sister who perished from the Scarlet Rage at the age of three.
During his youth, Alik worked as an assistant in the literary repository known as Darfin Halls Chapterhouse. He signed on for the rather studious task at a relatively young age and primarily due to the presence of an attractive Halfling named Cedrine Berrydew. The maternal nomenclature similarities were lost upon no one, save Alik. Enamored with the diminutive woman, the aspiring academic took the position to spend more time near the considerably older bookkeeper.
After developing a taste for research and being carefully observed for years, Alik was recruited by Preserver Holfrum Athelon into the protected ranks of the Vaeraesi. He received his initial training amidst the seclusion of a remote monastic order which housed a sect of the Vaeraesi, before being transferred to a more common facility.
The Vaeraesi edict was quite simple, serve to protect and preserve knowledge and items of potent or historical bent, at all costs. Vaeraesi spell casters were very careful with the use of destructive magic, and often times bypassed such incantations altogether, opting for more appropriate dweomers to wield.
Alik had always been skittish with matters undead, and after the horrific account with the dread spectre which felled his familiar, the orderly, educated man became radically phobic around anything tainted with un-life. He vowed to not summon another familiar until he could assure himself that the creature would not be put into harm’s way.
The stout man fancied drinking his ale warm, his wine thin and had no real stomach for stronger spirits, and Alik was content to allow the winds of fortune to choose his path on most occasions, but he was equally difficult to deter once his mind was set upon a particular objective.