The first thing I remember clearly was the shouting. Then the smell; an acrid, bitter, sulfurous wave rolled through the tents. Flames and lightning pierced the night sky, aiming not so much to kill or destroy, but to corral. I can only suspect they were after somebody in particular, as we were too far from their mountain for the Red Wizards to be attacking caravans heading east.
I remember scrambling from the tent and hiding in a dry gully. As suddenly as it started, silence reigned. A sulfurous pall hung over the camp, punctuated by the reek of burnt flesh and hair. I think heard my mom calling for me, panic in her voice.
I was too afraid to move. Sleep overcame me.
As near as I can tell, I was between thirty to forty years of age. I don't know how long I slept. A light rain had begun to fall. The gully had begun to move water towards the oceans and seas and I was in its way. Instinctively, I scrambled out and headed for higher ground. The campsite was a wreck. The elves and humans that had been in the caravan were all gone. Carts and wagons were overturned. Dogs ran about.
A small band of people I didn't recognize stood among the carnage. They were picking through the debris, recovering anything of value. I remember one of the women turned to look at me in surprise as I appeared from the mists. There was only sadness and pity in her young eyes. I probably cried, and though they didn't have much, they took me in.
Her name was Orbei. As I was to come to now, she was probably half my age, but human years run quickly. She had seen much; her husband had already disappeared, and her only child had died of some malady of the steppes the year before. So, she took me in, to fill a void in her heart. I was lost, but her kind eyes allowed me to trust her. We traveled north and east, away from the red mountain.
Time passed. Orbei grew old so quickly. She wasn't permitted to remarry, instead, she grew into one of the wise women of the tribe, inducted into the class whose only membership requirement is sorrow. She learned much, and taught much. She treated me as her own.
I was the oldest in the band of nearly steppe nomads. Though I was to my own kind just a boy, the nomadic lifestyle forces one to age quickly. I wasn't as strong or as fast as the human boys, but my decades of time with Orbei taught me how to make poultices, to set bones, and to listen to the animals.
There is not much food on the steppes, we had our cattle and horses for milk and some meat. We traded for honeyed goods on occasion. When times got lean, we'd raid the settlements on the borders of Hordelands or caravans passing through. Our goal was survival, not riches. The towns of the far east had stockpiles far beyond their needs.
The raiding was a right of passage. Killing and terror was never the goal, though in mind sight I can imagine what it must seem to people outside the tribe. In my 70s and 80s, I went along, serving as a scout or tending the sick and wounded. The knowledge imparted by Orbei was invaluable.
As I began to mature, it became obvious that while I was a welcome friend of the tribe, I was not really a member of the tribe. This realization dawned slowly, as several generations of boys became men while I was still a boy, yet I'd done all they had done, and more. It was Orbei's passing that loosed me from my bonds to the tribe.
It was about 10 years ago, so she would have been maybe 70 or so. The youth was gone from her eyes, her black hair now the color of moon-touched silver. She was dying; we both knew she had no more than a day or so left. She called me to her yurt, and bade me retrieve a small leather satchel from among her belongings. With her waning strength, she opened it, and dug out a small charm, as would hang from a necklace. It was a tree, the type she didn't know. I now know it to be an oak, of the type that grows in High Forest. She explained I was wearing it around my neck when she found me, and that it was time that I return home. She tried to apologize for perceived short comings, but a coughing fit stilled her speech. I attempted to soothe her with a calming tea, and did my best to thank her for all she had done to the strange little elf boy she found in wreckage.
I left about a year after she died. I was welcome among the tribe, but the ties of blood are powerful on the steppe, and I realized I would never truly belong. We had a great feast to celebrate my departure. I promised to return. I realize that in the 30 to 40 years when that may happen I will meet gray-haired versions of the robust men and women I left behind, I do fully intend to. To find my people I turned westward.
A life of raiding and subsistence on the steppes doesn't prepare one for cosmopolitan encounters. My first visit to an inn for food by myself almost got me tossed out of the city for misunderstanding the barmaids friendliness. After that, I decided it was best to simply live of the land, supplementing my diet where necessary with a bit of petty theft or barter.
I took a few odd jobs to build up a bit of coin to pay learned men for their time and knowledge. I've learned that the charm belongs to 'a fallen family of Eaerlann' and is very old. My path pulls me west slowly. About 5 years ago I arrived in Highmoon on my way to Arabel. I met an elderly half-elf at an inn that relayed a story of a pool that granted visitors their most heartfelt desires. It is with a mix of trepidation and hope that I began my journey to the city of Phlan