Dante was the caretaker of an old Gnome wizard. Felwin Kassybar.

Due to his old age, even by gnome standards, Felwin had a hard time getting around,
in and outside his home. Dante volunteered as a way to get to know the wizard
better, and help him in any way he could. He had a fascination with hearing the
impossible to believe stories of such a small person. Tales of immense grandeur,
epic fights, creatures of nightmares, deals in the dark, and travels beyond our
realm. Anyone else would’ve dismissed them as ramblings of a senile man, but
Dante would lose track of hours listening to his master.
. They met through Dante’s parents who are merchants of rare and exotic materials.
Dante served as an errand boy in his early years, but was set to inherit the business
one day.
Instead, Dante would fall under Felwin’s wing, who showed him the ways of arcane
devotion. He served as the mentor figure Dante never had. After all what is a master
without students; old Felwin used to say. He had a way of seeing magic and the
world, as the true and only gift the universe gave the world, and in a way even
beyond the Gods. He taught Dante as much as he could, more than spells his way
of thinking, his philosophy, his faith. He believed Magic was the way the universe
changed, renewed, and repaired itself. And that we were merely conduits of that.
Neither good nor bad, just balanced.
He told him the tales of Azuth, the wizard who became a God. A patron of those
who are always looking for the truth of things, and always reminded him to stay on
the path of knowledge. The world could be a chaotic mess, and the people even
more, but if you know yourself, there was nothing you couldn’t do.
With time, Felwin’s health started to dwindle. His daily walks became a burden, lost
weight, and would ramble even more. He would sleep for hours, day and night.
When he did have energy, he would spend it in his studio, buried in mountains of
book stacks and forest of scrolls. Always writing and reading. Searching it seemed.
A week before his passing, Felwin began acting deranged, talking about the danger
that would come; Of secrets that if spoken out loud would torn the world asunder,
visions of beast awoken, and the death of magic. In his panic induced frenzy, he
guided Dante to his basement where, after dispelling what seemed like hundreds
of magical wards, he pulled out an old and tattered book. The book had intricate
symbols, none of which Dante understood, they seemed magical, but mundane at
the same time.
He instructed Dante to take it far away, to [INSERT FAR AWAY CITY], to one of her
old colleges. She would know what to do with it. In tears, he entrusted Dante with
this, as he had no one else, his pupil, whom he loved like a son. After that incident,
Felwin didn’t speak, slept all day, barely ate, and would pass away the morning of
the seventh day.
Dante knowing what he had to do, left all of Felwin’s belongings safely locked in
the gnome’s home, and burned his body and spread his ashes on the Norther River,
per his instructions. And embarked on his way to fulfill his master’s last will.