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Rai, a traveling merchant and unlicensed surgeon who makes a living by selling various wares procured from his travels or that he crafted himself: trinkets and curiosities, home remedies from cough syrup to poison pellets that only work on small pests, and, if you are in for some adventure, the occasional bone setting for a sprained ankle, provided that you bring your own clean towel to bite down on to relieve the pain because he is too financially challenged to offer such hospitalities to his patients.[break][break]

Lodging has been a perpetual problem for Rai since ‘cheap’ and ‘safe’ don’t always go hand in hand, but he has found a temporary respite in Altair by sneaking into the Academy’s unoccupied dorms at night and making camp there. Sometimes he’s even mistaken for a student during a day stroll around the Academy’s premise due to his under-developed features; not that he minds, and he makes sure to take full advantage of that. As a result, he leeched quite a few classes there and was even on a nickname basis with a few students and staff, even though he had no idea what the professors were talking about most of the time. But hey, he did end up learning quite a few important sounding terminologies, which proved to be incredibly helpful at persuading potential buyers at his market stall.[break][break]

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Overall, Rai could be described as easygoing, but due to years of traveling alone without another human companion to joke and jest with, he is a lot less talkative than when he was still a kid, and when he does talk, he can be extremely straight to the point of being a little tactless, despite not harboring any ill will. Good thing he isn’t too self-conscious about it and will still try his best to converse with people, otherwise he’d run himself out of business![break][break]

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All medicine is more or less toxic as long as it’s used to treat an illness or condition. Being born into the family of a chemist and surgeon, Rai has been watching his parents work and learning what he could since a young age, breathing the same toxic air that inadvertently stunted his growth, much to his chagrin after he reached adulthood. Needless to say, Rai is rather short for his age. However, he is heavier than he looks, boasting a well trained body under layers of loose-fitting clothes, a bonus from the years he spent traveling and surviving the more dangerous parts of the land.[break][break]

Rai’s mutation isn’t innate. Rather, he invoked it when he was escaping from a wounded baby wind drake and its mother while desperately trying to heal himself with what remained of his stock of potions. It’s a rather embarrassing encounter that he’d take to his grave than share with anyone.[break][break]

Rai isn’t a magic user despite having enough affinity for it. His weapons of choice are street smarts and his own two fists and, if the situation calls for it, a dagger imbued with a simple homing charm he exchanged with a hangover cure at a bar in Ordan. Unfortunately, he is still in the process of learning how to catch it hilt-first...[break][break]

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A merchant by day, a fugitive by night. Becoming a drifter wasn't a choice but a necessity. Even his name, Raimell Windsor, was lifted from a dying adventurer at the foot of the Zonia Mountains who thought he was tough enough to take on two wind drakes at once. He gave the man a proper burial afterwards in the enshrouding forest to make sure that his body would never be found.[break][break]

Rai could have had the perfect life: his family ran a private clinic in what used to be an inconspicuous little town before it was assimilated into Eos' grand cityscape. They were fairly well-off, having gained the favors of the nobles through their diligence and craft and shot through the ranks. Rai's parents were competent magic users on top of being a seasoned surgeon and chemist, and they weren't shy about combining the best of both worlds through medical innovations that pushed the human body to its limits and beyond.[break][break]

A proud child that Rai was, living in his happy little bubble under the care of two loving parents who worked towards Eos' vision of a dazzling future, there was no way he could begin to fathom just why anyone would wish ill of his family. So when he awoke to the sounds of swords clashing one night, with his father drenched in blood and telling him to dress and leave in a hurry, the first thought he had was that his parents were playing a prank on him![break][break]

He was barely 15 at the time; now he is edging closer to 27 and not so naive.[break][break]