To the curious reader: I am Tamarin, Healer, now of Puddleby, Lok'Groton. This journal chronicles my process of personal discovery, which I happily, humbly share with you. In these pages you will find the record of my exploration of self as well as the island I now call home. You will read how I started with only the most meager of possessions and a handful of dim memories and built myself into the Thoom I am today. If by reading my tale you can derive some personal benefit, than I am grateful for it.
I did not keep a journal during my first few weeks in Puddleby. I'm ashamed to say, during this time I did very little of anything other than sit in the tavern, slumped over a mug of warm ale, feeling sorry for myself. My record of these early days is reconstructed from hazy memories, conversations with those who remembered me, and what few odds and ends I managed to keep with me.
My earliest memory of Puddleby is waking up in the infirmary in the back of Town Hall. I had nothing. No possesions, no clothes, not even a name. Healery, the medic on duty at the time, told me that when I was found on the beach I was dressed only in rags so pitiful they were burned immediately. She told me I babbled in delirium frequently in the month during which the healers treated me for hunger, thirst and exposure, and they were able to learn a little bit about me. Healery has since become my friend, and together we have pieced together much of my past.
I grew up in a fishing village named Mer d'Syl, on an island off the coast of the Western Continent. I must admit, I never truly cared for fishing. But let me not digress. I was writing of the first days after my physical recovery (my spiritual recovery took somewhat longer). Since it has no proper place in my Puddleby chronology, I have recorded the history of my "old self" on a separate scroll.
To be quite honest, in the first four months after I joined the exile population of Puddleby, I was more dead than alive. Friendless, homeless, impoverished, knowing no more than my name, I wandered from one inn to the next, drank myself into a perpetual stupor, and wallowed in self-pity.
Although Healery gave me a map when she discharged me from the infirmary, I often got lost. I would occasionally stumble into one of the rat-infested structures about town and be unable even to find my way out. Sensing an easy meal, the rats would swarm over me. I could beat off no more than one or two, whereafter in my inebriated state I would be so overextended that the rats had no trouble overwhelming me. I still have nightmares of blacking out under the press of furry bodies and razor fangs, their gleaming, beady eyes burning into my last conscious thought.
Were it not for the generosity of the healers of Puddleby, I surely would have perished many times over. I do not wish to know the number of times one of these blessed souls would chance across my wretched, inert form and revive me, sometimes even giving of their own meager earnings that I might enjoy a proper meal. I do not believe that I thanked my selfless benefactors even once. To this day, I still do not know who they were. They doubtless know me, but I believe professional pride causes them to remain anonymous.
After several months of this slow suicide, one evening I found myself in the tavern of Kandrus, down in the southwest corner of Puddleby. I was at my accustomed table in the darkest corner (speaking relatively; there are no truly dark corners in Kandrus' inn), with my head in my hands and empty mugs and scraps of parchment littering the table before me, trying to sort out the ruins of my life.
"You will not find what you seek in here," said a gentle baritone voice behind me. I started, reaching instinctively for my club. I had not heard Kandrus approach. "Why don't you try the library," he suggested with a mysterious smile. I thanked him, paid my tab, walked to the exit, and closed the door on the bleakest phase of my life.