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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Alton Baldirk" data-source="post: 355090" data-attributes="member: 7346">Alton BaldirkAlton was born to Dev and Thalia Baldirk in a small village within a day of the great city Suzail.  Both Thalia and Dev were the last children of huge extended farming families.  Neither wanted to stay on their farms as their kin had for so many generations, so they both decided upon the birth of their son to move to Suzail.  Dev, being young and inexperienced, found it a difficult task to support his young wife and child in the city.  The only job he was able to find was as a loader for a hauling company, who's business generally ran around gutter cleaning.  He worked at this job for 2 years, with the heavy labor and long hours slowly bending his back and his will.  Thalia did the best she could with the meager wages Dev brought home, but with the poor diet associated with the city's lower class, Alton grew sickly and weak.Surprisingly, this life did not last long, as Dev had a stroke of luck.  During one of the countless trips during the morning clearing of the roads, he came across an aged man in dusty robes lugging a wuite large amount of books down the throughfare.  Dev, always having a kind heart, and used to heavy loads, offered to help the man with his burden.  The man gratefully allowed Dev to assist, and after Dev told his driver that he would meet up with him in a bit they carried the load back to his shop.  On the way, the two men stuck up a conversation and Dev was introduced to Olath Tris, a not unsuccessful bookseller and rare item dealer.  Olath was surprised and pleased with Dev's wit, being unexpected from a manual laborer.  Once back at the shop, Olath regaled several stories to Dev, who found himself entraced with the booksellers wide array of knowledge.  Before either knew, the sun had passed it's peak.Around this point, the door to the shop banged open as the huling company's supervisor came in, looking for Dev.  Screaming about lack of responsibility, the man declared Dev fired and stomped out of the room.  As the man left, Dev fell to the floor, sobbing about how he would be unable to support his family.  At this, Olath told Dev that he could work here, seeing how he needed an assistant with a sharp mind anyway.The years rolled by, and the family Baldirk's life was simple and good.  Alton was educated at an early age by Olath, and had read all the store's books by the time he was 12.  He never did truly recover from his sickly childhood, and grew to be a thin and gangly boy, though tall.As Alton's life went on, he began to feel constrained the limited selection of tomes at the store, and wished to go learn from a greater bastion of knowledge.  And so, with a letter of introduction to the Headmaster of the Library of Waterdeep from Olath, and a loving goodbye to his parents, he set off as part of a large caravan two months after his 16th birthday.  The trip passed quite peacefully, and he found himself apprenticed to a Loremaster at the great Library of Waterdeep.The years passed, and Alton sated his hunger on thousands of tomes of knowledge spanning the whole of Faerun.  He was into his 31st year when a wizard, staying at the library for a research project, noted Alton's quiet devotion to knowledge and learning.  He made Alton an offer he could not refuse, and soon Alton was heading to the Arcane Guild of Waterdeep, as an apprentice to the mage Torgon Hasfar.  Being more than twice as old as the rest of his class did little to deter Alton, as he absorbed knowledge as fast as his fellow apprentices and was just as eager for it.As he approached his 36th year, Master Hasfar informed Alton that his time as a student at the guild was at an end, and he would have to continue his learning outside, in the wide world.  Many mages at the guild scoffed at this notion, but Torgon Hasfar had been an adventurer of much renown, and he knew well how powerful one can become with both knowledge in books, and knowledge from experience.  He imparted that wisdom to Alton before he left for Suzail, as he had decided that the first part of his journey should be to his homeland....</blockquote>

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