“Who am I you ask?”
That’s really the question that’s the center of my life.
And the answer … one answer … is: I don’t know exactly.
Here’s the story so far:
Mar Salac is not my family name. Quite literally Mar mean “of the” and Salac is the name of the dry oasis where I was found as an infant.
The story goes that a troupe of itinerant performers discovered me among the burnt out wreckage of a caravan that while moving south toward Calimport was set upon by raiders and sacked. Not wanting to add yet another mouth to feed to their number, I was taken to the Druid monastery at the Ka’Sumar Oasis.
The all male enclave raised me as best they could. I was trained as a Druid priest to assist in the Ritual of Purification that we used to keep the water supply at the oasis pure for the various travelers that regularly pass through on their way to or from Calimport.
My growth as a Druid and as a man has been driven largely by humility, which is to say I am usually the one being humbled in the face of my own stupidity.
On one occasion, in my fifteenth year, I found that I had some amount of skill on a horse. Over the next few years I rode and practiced constantly learning everything I could from the various peoples who passed by our Water. It made for an interesting style of riding and eventually a style of combat that didn’t conform exactly to that of any race or discipline. As such I availed myself well in an impromptu “contests” with some of the young men from a local nomadic tribe that passed by on their annual trip to the Port. After winning twenty matches, in the final round, I was finally unhorsed by a rider dressed in black who the others mysteriously called “The Outsider”. I got the impression that he wasn’t part of the group, as he didn’t socialize at all with the rest of us. I never saw his face and I got a broken collarbone for my trouble.
That same year I had my first (and it would seem latest) experience with a girl. She came through as part of a toupe of performers (the same that originally found me). She was my age, but seemed older, worldly, which was not surprising since they traveled from one end of the Realm to the other twice a year. I knew her from previous visits, but I never really noticed her until then. One evening the actors were performing on a makeshift stage a reenactment of some famous story, the exact name escape me now. There were the usual heroes and villains and monsters … and the damsel in distress, and oh, what a damsel she was. She was called Alexa, and during her performance, when our eyes met, it was lightning straight to my soul. After that night we spent every waking moment together. We walked around the desert on those warm, moonlit nights hand in hand just happy to be near one another. Then the last night before they were to leave … we kissed. It was soft, slow, unhurried, as if we’d been together forever. Yet at the same time … fire. She left the next day with promises to see me again on their way north. But they didn’t come back later that year … or the year after that … or the year after that.
Then this year, nearly four years later, the troupe came through again. My studies were mostly complete. I had no distractions as I looked forward to their arrival. After they arrived, I waited what I thought was an appropriate amount of time for them to get set up for the evenings performance -- although I don’t think I could have waited much longer … my fellows were undoubtedly chuckling under their breath while I paced nervously in front of the main gate, waiting for the right time to leave. Finally, I left the sniggering behind and walked out of the compound.
As I approached the group, I couldn’t see her anywhere, but that’s not unusual, I thought, she was probably getting dressed. So I waited … and waited. I waited until the end of the first performance (which was oddly enough the same one they had done the last time they were here) and she still hadn’t appeared. I noticed one of the stagehands milling around the side of the stage so I approached him and enquired as to her location. Trying to be as non-chalant as possible. I'd been told that appearing needy was a "bad thing".
“I think we’s left her somewhere’s up the Sword Coast. Don’t rightly recall where exactly though,” he said. After a brief set of questions I was convinced that the dullard probably couldn’t have told me the time of day without a hint.
Anyway, after questioning some of the others whom I’d known from their last visit, I got, at least, a somewhat coherent story.
Apparently, as they left Balder’s Gate she told the group that she must leave them, that she’d found out some things about her family or about someone that she knew … the stories were a bit conflicted here … that she needed to investigate. Then she left. That was six months past.
Very soon after that an elf named Arianna came with her petition on behalf of the Elven community in Mosstone, and I was chosen by the elders to represent us. And just to show I’m still not above a little humbling:
When we finally left the enclave on this mission, I admited that I was feeling a bit cocky about my skills as an adventure. After all, it was I who was chosen above all others to accompany my elven friend to deal with the Arch Druid Balek -- although in retrospect I was probably chosen: A) because I was somewhat expendable to the community and B) the Elders knew that given the news about Alexa and the ichy feet that I was developing, I’d have most likely left on my own anyway. So with excitement in our hearts, our trusty weapons at our sides and riding a pair of fine desert ponies, we set off. Of course, had I been paying more attention and not been so overconfident, I’d have notice that Arianna was miserably picking sand out of her hair and clothing and not entirely paying attention herself, and I wouldn’t have been practicing sword forms on my horse while we stumbled into a nest of giant ants that any child would have noticed, had they been paying attention, in plenty of time to avoid entirely.
They were on us before we had a chance to adequately defend ourselves. Before it was over both mounts were dead, and my scimitar and shield were buried and unrecoverable. The only thing that saved us was Arianna’s skill with a bow … and the fact that when I tripped over my robes, the remaining juvenile ant was distracted by the corpse of my horse and was dispatched as it fed.
Arianna and I healed one another, but no healing spell could repair our pride … or the complaining that I had to put up with because now Arianna had to tromp through the sand and the weed and the brush without the benefit of a mount. Though I had trouble hearing it, after a couple of days I finally made out a little mantra that she sang as walked:
Each grain of sand that gets in my hair,
Is a mark against him then and there.
Each boulder of stone that invades my boot,
An arrow in his ass I’ll surely shoot.
Each bit of dust that blinds my eye,
Assures a night in father’s pigsty.
Each bite of fly that makes me itch,
Maybe a curse from Altheya the Witch.
So these I vow when I get back,
Will count against this Druid, Salac
I’m hoping that she was just bitter … although she did shoot me in the ass with an arrow. Needless to say, until we arrived at the caravan and joined up with a few other worth young adventurers, we (especially me … making sure I didn’t spend too much time with my back turned) were a bit more vigilant.
All I have of my heritage or background is a small tattoo on my forearm. With all of the people that I’ve talked and southern traveling I’ve done, I have never heard anything about the meaning of this symbol. So north is the way for me. Maybe there I will find the answers I seek, the answer to the one question that defines me.
Who am I?
