The Books of Blutora

18 : Captain Kentian

The year is D-532, and within the cold and snowy northern landscape of Kyn Alora, in the city of Filantalos, there is one name that reigns supreme when the topic of sailing the seas is at hand. Whether for good reasons or bad, every citizen of the northern city knew of Captain Kentian.

Veylu Kentian was born a Yimaro in the city of Melelune in the year D-491 to his parents Breya and Lenn. For the early years of his childhood, Veylu watched his parents and learned the merchant trade as they would frequent the city markets to sell their crafts. Within Melelune, Breya and Lenn Kentian were known for their extraordinary ability in carving wood. The act of trading for profit interested Veylu quite a bit, and by the age of ten he was haggling away trying to sell his parents' carvings. 

In Melelune, the most profitable and respected career is that of a captain, sailing the seas. Many of the elves attempt to take to the seas whether as a merchant, fisherman, or crewmate to another captain. This is only furthered by how successful Melelune is as a trade by sea city, and how renowned the city is for its naval presence. Veylu caught on to this young, and found himself increasingly more intrigued at the idea of sailing and conquering the seas. To his surprise, his parents actually supported the idea of taking to the water, as long as he carried on their ways of the merchant trade. 

At age sixteen Veylu approached a merchant captain docked in the city and requested a spot within the crew so he could learn the sailing ways. The captain had to be convinced as he wasn't looking for any crewmates, and so the ambitious young lad agreed to no payment, accepting only the experience and knowledge from the future experiences. The ship he was now a crewmate of, the Deyulia, delivered a variety of different items rather than focusing on one specific trade,  Alongside the captain and Veylu were nine other crewmates all far more experienced than the young lad. 

For the next three years the crew of the Deyulia would trade all across the northern and western coasts of Blutora, as far as Antairi in the south and Filantalos in the east. They had their fair share of hiccups and obstacles during these years, no more or less than the average merchant ship. A handful of instances in which they were attacked by pirates, a couple times where they were taken advantage of by corrupt officials, and a few sea creature scares. All of this went a long way for Veylu however, who studied every move of the captain and crew for the three years on the Deyulia. He had become very well versed in captaining a ship despite never having done so himself yet, and of course had become the hardest working crewmate. At the conclusion of those three years, the captain of the Deyulia decided to retire from sailing and decided the most worthy of his livelihood, his ship, was Veylu, and as such he named the hardworking young lad Captain Kentian. 

The year Veylu became Captain Kentian was D-510 and for the first years as captain of the Deyulia he would continue in the path of his predecessor, trading a variety of good across different ports. It wasn't until seven years later in D-517 when he would make a big change. Feeling as though he had become very successful as a sailing merchant and holding a desire to master different types of captaining, he decided to turn the Deyulia and it's crew into a mercenary band. For his years as a merchant, Captain Kentian lived in Melelune, returning on occasion. Now turning to the mercenary life, he moved south to the coastal city of Grezia, known primarily for it's abundance of mercenaries, pirates, and bounty hunters. The crew from the merchant days decided not to join Captain Kentian into the more dangerous adventures, and as such ten new crewmates were brought in from Grezia. 

During his tenure as captain to a mercenary ship, Kentian would oft find death knocking at the door, losing a crewmate on average once a month, he saw a large sum of different people during the years. The most common jobs they landed were hunting down pirates, which sometimes proved more dangerous than others. Despite the challenges however, Captain Kentian was a natural, learning the mercenary life and flourishing. At sea he was extraordinary, navigating storms of all sizes and strengths, out maneuvering enemy vessels and having an extremely strong ability to read the skies and seas. In combat he was no pushover either, often times boarding the ships he was hunting down, he was expertly skilled in blade combat never in question during a duel. The mercenary life of Captain Kentian and the Deyulia lasted thirteen years until the captain reached the age of thirty nine and decided to stop while he was ahead. Captain Kentian opted to return to the life of a merchant at sea as he was aging more and more and wanted to leave the dangerous life of hunting on his own terms. 

The year being D-530 at this point, Captain Kentian moved again, out of Grezia and into the cold northern city of Filantalos, a city that had lacked the presence of a notable sailing merchant, just asking for somebody to move in and become very successful. It didn't take long for the captain to get settled back into the life as a merchant, recalling his younger years well, and still piloting the Deyulia all this time later. As predicted, he found success very quickly in Filantalos due to the lack of a previous sailing variety merchant. He spent the next two years sailing all along the eastern coast of Blutora as far south as the city of Basator. 

In the year D-532 while docked in Filantalos and gearing up for another trade route, Captain Kentian was approached by a young Berimaro lad who had seemingly up and left home with his most important things. The kid requested a spot on the ship as a cabin boy to earn some money for his ailing mother back home. Captain Kentian saw the drive in the kids eyes, and knew he needed to pass on his experience to the next generation, and so he agreed. He told the kid he didn't know how long the route could last, it could be days or it could be months, but the kid agreed anyway, desperate for money for his mother. 

For the next month the Deyulia sailed down the eastern coast of Blutora and back, experiencing little issue, a single pirate attack and some minor storms. Upon returning to Filantalos and docking in the harbor, the kid was in a hurry to return home to his sick mother, he thanked the captain greatly and set off to Tyldet. Little did Captain Kentian know, the young lad would return again before he set off on another route. Upon the kid returning to the captain, and informing him that his mother had passed already and he was chased out by his father, he was welcomed back aboard the Deyulia this time as a crewmate rather than a cabin boy. Captain Kentian had only one request though, and that was to know the kids name, to which he got the response Fidril. Fidril Khalmar of Tyldet. 

For a number of years the Deyulia completed routes along eastern Blutora with young Fidril learning the ways of the sea and captaining a ship. By the time Fidril had turned twenty in the year D-537, he had learned everything there was to know about captaining a ship, and he was ready to take on the role. Seeing this, Captain Kentian, now forty six years of age, decided to use a sum of his life's earnings to get Fidril his own ship to captain as a merchant. He had come to respect the kid greatly, and thought of him as a son, on top of that though, he had one final goal in which he desired to take on before retiring and he needed the Deyulia for it. 

In D-537, Captain Kentian set sail on the Deyulia out of Filantalos straight into the heart of the Vildryr in search of the mythical lands of Endenxul far to the northeast of Blutora. Just as any who had taken on the Vildryr prior, Captain Kentian wasn't seen again from that point onward.