------------- Nate’s Crew – The Professor

Most adventurers, it seems, start young, relatively speaking. It’s a constant mystery why Elves dillydally for centuries before leaving home and setting out on the path to greatness. It’s equally strange that Houlifar would wait till they’re in their 30’s. It’s a wonder that Dwarves would ever leave home, not that their homes are such glowing and cheery places. They just don’t seem the type to wander. And then, there are humans. Many leave home around 18 to 20 years of age and either immediately enter a profession and stay there the rest of their lives, or strike out to become famous. About 5% of all humans become truly extraordinary; soldiers, priests, mages and the like,… people with power and skill beyond the norm. And only about 5% of those become adventurers. And of all of those, you can probably count the number of adventuring Sages on one hand. Professor Marcus Reynolds was such a man, though it took many years before adventure found him.

Marcus didn’t fit the stereotype of a befuddled scholar. He never got lost in his own library. He rarely yammered on about arcane histories that nobody cared about. And he absolutely never backed down from danger,… at least not until he left Westhaven and set out on a world spanning expedition.

As a Sage at the Royal Anderson Academy, he had taught Archaeology and Arcanology for nearly twenty years. He had some field work under his belt, but there was little of archeological interest in Sonntaglia. After travelling north to Prussak to investigate some ancient vampire tombs, he heard about a scholar at the Convent in Umberlee who had proof of Atlantean ruins still to be found on the surface. If this was true, it would answer a plethora of questions about the world before the Planet Shift, questions that could not be answered without reaching the Atlantean peoples at the bottom of the ocean, an as yet, unattainable goal. The documents she showed him were an Arcanologists dream come true. It might just work.

He managed to convince his board to finance an expedition. However, the monies were as scant as their interest. There would be barely enough to pay for himself and the young nun from Our Lady of Avalon to gain passage west on a ship crossing the Atlantean Ocean. They would have to barter from there to get to the islands marked on the church’s maps. Along the way, he discovered his new assistant was quite capable, imminently practical as an ordained Mystic, and spoke nearly as many languages as he. With he in his early 40’s and she barely 22, most thought she was his daughter, though there was little resemblance. By the end of their voyage west, their shipwreck off Tyco Reef, their rescue and eventually ending up aboard the SGS Lady Jezebel out of Mauritius, they might have well been father and daughter, so close was their bond. The future of their expedition was unclear, but one thing was for sure. Professor Reynolds wasn’t at all keen on the way that Captain Scott kept looking at his assistant.

------------- Credits

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