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A lithe, hooded man only a couple inches under six feet walked into his room for the night, after another long day of combating the encroaching darkness.  Thankfully, he was close enough to the city that the inn had magi-torches there to light up the room.  Once through the threshold, he immediately shut and locked the door, before he set down his belongings and reached over to grab a nearby chair to prop under the handle.

The world was a dark and hard place.  Much harder than he had ever realized as a sheltered child living the posh life as the eldest son of House Kaelyris.  But it was a lesson that was learned over the years since he had lost everything and everyone he held dear.  So now, he took precautions.  He had come to viscerally understand that the smallest hindrance and the scantest of moments could change the outcome of any fight.  This was especially pertinent to him, for though he was frequently engaged in life-threatening battle, he was no melee warrior.

Shrugging off his hooded cloak revealed the chamoisee skin of his angular face.  His half-elf lineage visible in the high cheekbones, slight point to the tips of his ears, and the slightly luminous quality to his hazel eyes.  The scant goatee that had cropped up during his travels belying that Elven heritage.  As he kicked off his boots, he managed to take off his jerkin and undershirt.  Underneath was a mildly toned but thin frame, just shy of being sinewy like a cat.  The young half-elf then made his way over to the wash basin.

With the curtains already drawn, he completely disrobed, ready to get the filth of the day off of him.  Sadly, even though it appeared that there was running water; apparently, there wasn't heated water to go with it.  Splashing cold water over his face, just for the sensation, he made peace with it.  It wasn't the first time he hadn't had warm water or running water, for that matter.  Besides, the sorcerer had other ways to get himself cleaned up.

While he used one of his lesser incantations to clean every inch of his body, he gazed into the mirror not really seeing himself.  What he did see was the faint specter of lights that began to form as he cast.  Normally, with the lesser incantations, he could restrain all superfluous arcane effects.  But alone in the room with curtains drawn closed, there was no need to hide.  Anyways, it wasn't until he tried using his rotes that the mark of power from beyond this universe would truly make itself known.

Motes of light, not of this reality, would propagate around him.  Hues that were like nothing seen from this world.  And his hair.  His damnable hair.  The normally mundane brown locks would begin to writhe with life, if not bound or under a covering.  The color would change, as well.  Black like the expanse between the stars.  And should he have to focus on a spell for a prolonged period, it was akin to asps made of the Void hissing and thrashing about.

As he continued to clean himself, his hair only barely waved as if in a light breeze and brief phantoms of indescribably-colored light softly shimmered about him.  The intensity but a small percentage of what occurred when he cast an actual spell.  Looking on, his mind couldn't help but return to that morning.

Waking to find the estate empty... no blood, no bodies, no evidence of anything except a strange ritual in their Grand Salon and an even stranger energy that seemed to thrum in time with the pain of the migraine that wracked his skull.  He remembered the soul-rending pain that had come when his newly-awakened mind touched something.  And sense nearly left him as an alien language was inscribed into his brain, and it was then that that Something or Someone from beyond his reality spoke to him, revealing truths, imparting knowledge, and...

Making promises...