Tio'nel of the Seekers

Tio'nel

Overview: Once a Knight of Loriea, he has fallen into disgrace and drunkeness. Wanders from mercenary band to mercenary band, city to city, looking for easy jobs to pay for his excessive drinking habits. Got into a drunken brawl in the Mercenaries Quarter and was thrown into the holding cells. Once a skilled member of the Clerical Chapter of the knights, his skills have weakened from disuse.

Physical Attributes:
Height = 5' 10"
Weight = 220 lbs.
hair: dark brown, with reddish highlights, worn long, tied back
eyes: brown
distinguishing features: strangely enough, there are none. He is so perfectly ordinary, he is almost extraordinary. {I think we all know people like this!} He is, however, extremely vain about his hair. Used to be very, very short, but over the past decade has grown to be a little longer than shoulder-length and he definitely prefers it this way. Despite his age, he still has all his hair and not yet is it going gray. His moustache and goatee, both carefully trimmed, are mostly red in color, giving him a rather off-balance, almost "Dennis the Menace" look, though he prefers to keep his thoughts to himself.

Skills/Abilities: Tio'nel is a cleric, which means he is a healer. He was taught from a very young age the ins and outs (such as are known) of the body and how to heal all manner of ills and injuries. He must keep up with all his studies in order to be, at the least, a competent healer. Healing takes a lot out of the healer, but not in this case does the healer take on the injury or illness of the one being healed. In Tio'nel's case, when he heals, he is drained of energy, requiring vast amounts of food and rest depending on the type and number of healing being done. He must "see" the injury being healed or the illness leaving in order for it to happen. This is why experienced healers are so sought after (the more they've seen, the more they'll know how to heal) as well as learned healers who have the knowledge to heal what they have not seen before.
         Tio'nel is also a knight, which means he is skilled in a number of different weapons. Long ago, he gave up on the bow (and consequently anything thrown), because his aim is atrocious. In hand-to-hand combat, however, Tio'nel is a master of both short and long-swords, shields, maces (which he dislikes, as they require too much effort), and unarmed fighting. Tio'nel prefers to kill quickly, with as little pain and suffering as possible. Whenever he is close to someone in pain, be it injury or illness, he is compelled to help, be it an enemy or ally, and it requires great concentration to keep from doing so. When healing, he is incapable of paying attention to anything else, incredibly dangerous on the battlefield.

BackGround: Tio'nel was born to a well-to-do family and given up to the clerical order of The Lady of Loriea at the age of five. Consequently, Tio'nel has little memory of his family and no feeling of family ties except to his temple. He is Tio'nel of Loriea.
         The lady he was apprenticed to, Aleese of Loriea and the Lady, was at the time a senior priestess of the temple, but also a member of the Clerical Chapter of the Knights of Loriea, so Tio'nel had a unique viewpoint on his healing: that of his own skills, and that with the aid of his goddess. When called to battle, Aleese went, taking young Tio'nel with her. He excelled in the training, so much so that the Knights enlisted him into their ranks at the completion of his apprenticeship, at the age of nineteen.
         At twenty-five, Tio'nel met Ra'siel, another Knight-Cleric, newly transfered into his 9-person squad. Her might in battle at once attracted him to her, but at first she refused all attempts at friendship. Every year, Tio'nel would make a pilgrimage to his home temple for the six weeks of fasting, training, and meditation required of the priests and priestesses there. It was here that Ra'siel and Tio'nel found that they belonged to the same temple and their training together made them close friends.
         The next five years saw Tio'nel and Ra'siel's friendship broaden into love. They even talked about retiring from the Knights and returning to their temple. Unfortunately, their commander was killed in battle and the man who took his place took an immediate dislike to Tio'nel. To this day, Tio'nel has no idea why. The squad was split up, parceled out to other battalions of Knights, and Tio'nel and Ra'siel were separated. It was at this time that Ra'siel realized she was ill, seriously so. Without Tio'nel's knowing, she left the Knights and returned to the temple.
         In what was supposed to be his last mission before his pilgrimage, Tio'nel's Knight-Cleric squad, and the Knights they accompanied, were wiped out, almost to a man. Tio'nel barely escaped with his life, hiding out until he could safely return.
         Returning to the army, Tio'nel found himself an outcast, the only one to return from the mission. The Knights were suspicious of him, wanting to try him for cowardice and treason, but they were getting geared up for what would ever-after be known as the Battle of the High Plains, and had not the time. So Tio'nel again had a very narrow escape, reassigned to another Knight-Cleric squad who were currently a cleric short. During the resupply, Tio'nel had word from Aleese (retired many years before and now head priestess). Whereas other messages had not gotten through, this one had. In it, she summoned him back to the temple, on an urgent matter: Ra'siel was dying.
         Tio'nel went immediately to his commander, and from him on up the ranks, but he kept being told, "No," they were going to a very important battle and needed every Knight. Tio'nel believed they denied him because they believed he was a coward and/or traitor and didn't want to let him out of their sight. As much as he pleaded, they refused him, until, frustrated, his desire to go to Ra'siel so powerful, Tio'nel decided to desert.
         Despite his years of faithful, outstanding service, Tio'nel was giving it all up, abandoning fighting for his own pride and respect, in order to return home. He ran his mount almost to its breaking point before finally arriving at the temple. Aleese took him directly to Ra'siel, asking no questions at his unkempt and sudden appearance.
         Tio'nel spent several hours with Ra'siel, not talking, just holding her hand as she went in and out of consciousnes. He left for a brief, few minutes in which Aleese told him that everything possible had been done, to no effect. They did not know why Ra'siel ailed. All their research had revealed nothing and even past the point she'd collapsed, Ra'siel herself had tried and failed, to cure herself. It was then that Aleese had sent her first message to Tio'nel, and that had been weeks ago.
         Weary, hungry, and sore from his hectic journey, Tio'nel was in no condition for a healing, but he tried. With all his heart, he poured all his energy into the healing, but with no effect. He knelt by her side, tears flowing down his cheeks as they spoke their last words.
         Knights, sent by the army to track him down, dragged Tio'nel away shortly after. Aleese had delayed them as long as she could, but she could no longer protect him. Tio'nel was taken back to the army, and reprimanded for his behavior. Scouts had by this time confirmed Tio'nel's story, so he recieved no further punishment. They sent him back home for R&R, but though he'd at first intended to, Tio'nel did not return.
         Tio'nel had now fallen into a deep depression. Though he prayed and meditated, and prayed some more, he recieved no response. Finally, despairing and filled with anger and pain, he rejected his entire life, went to a bar, and ordered a drink. He woke up the next day and found himself in the company of a band of mercenaries with whom he'd somehow joined. And no regrets.
         Not long after, the news of the battle caught up with Tio'nel. When his mercenary group disbanded, he found himself alone, with no purpose in his life. He had a desire to die and hired himself out to various mercenary parties. As his drinking habits increased and his actions became even more reckless, Tio'nel found himself ranging further to find work. One day he found himself at Keep Illium.
         Tio'nel first drank to escape the pain, later drinking to forget. When he could no longer remember why he was drinking, he could not stop; the need to drink was a power he had not the will to overcome. The next decade faded away into a fog, each day running into the next until he could no longer tell what day it was, or even who he really was, and nor did he care. The only thing he did have was his healing. He could not escape that, though he tried. He refused to heal anymore, refused to admit that he was, or had ever been, a cleric. To do so, might bring back all that he'd been trying to forget.
         Nevertheless, the skills remained, and Tio'nel stayed alive, despite his reckless behavior and the damage he did to both mind and body. Each time he was on the brink of death, something would pull him back until he was almost mad with the desire to die-need to live.

And yet, there remained a spark of the man he had once been . . . .