Slodius Rex
A Quick Autobiography
Being the foremost scholar of our time, I figured it best to try to talk about myself in the least prideful way. Knowing that that is impossible, I will, in good humor, try to steer the sled into the skid, as they say in the Southern Wastes.
So, what is there to know about me? Well, I was born and raised in Hlee, the capital of Evoria. My father and mother were both scholars, so I had a scholar's upbringing. Deep in books and libraries they would find me, feeding on the morsels of the pages of other scholars until I cut my teeth on some harder stuff. Once, I didn't see the sun for a month. My father called my "Drow" because of it. I liked that name.
After spending my schooling years back-breakingly bent over a desk, scrutinizing every detail of text allowed, I worked as scrivener, copying documents here and there. My mother actually got me the job as a full-time scholar. She, a headstrong woman, took me straight to the king, by the collar mind you, and demanded I work in the studies. He, being amused, allowed it. She thanklessly left his chambers and sent me right to work.
And work I did. For forty years until their faces began taking on the look of the parchment they studied and the backs creaked like the same weary spines of the books they pored over for their entire lives. They did not stop studying, writing, researching, and writing. My father produced more pamphlets and short treatises on various topics while my mother devoted her time to deep, in-depth papers that were as thick as his pamphlet stack. She wrote a few dozen papers in her lifetime, but he wrote a few dozen a year.
Thanks to their opposite styles, they grew fond for each other's writings and encouraged one another in their various areas of study. No matter who or how much they have read, I wager my conical scholar's cap that I learned more from them than anyone who read all their papers combined. They taught with their actions about love and embracing the mysteries of life, seeking them out and rooting them in reality. They exchanged few words when they studied, but their eyebrows and smiles conveyed more than enough. Truly, we lost great thinkers when they passed that Midwinter day.
But let us get back to the topic. I do not like talking about myself, but in the spirit of things as I stated earlier, I will try my best.
In this fruitful tutelage I grew to be a respected scholar. I chose to publish my papers under my pen name, Slodius Rex, because I thought the name was grand and demanded seriousness. It did so indeed, my parents congratulating my with every paper or article I published. I fed on those compliments until bursting. Once, a library in Mirdrinda offered an all-expenses paid visit to them to usher in my article on Half-elven history. I declined, out of fear of seeing all the other people there and what they would think of a twenty-something with fresh, red acne showing up and claiming to be the Slodius Rex in the papers. Mother and Father understood, I think they each had their own sort of experience like that.
So on and on I kept writing and writing, paper after paper until I realized my father was bedridden. My mother tried to keep up her studies but couldn't leave his side. I brought her books and papers and quills and ink bottles. She scribbled away, but eventually her hand writing failed. She was too stubborn to ask for a scribe as well. She stayed by his side until he breathed his last. One year later she did the same. I miss them.
The new king, Manaron, a young pup, younger than me even, granted me a whole two years of paid leave to travel, transportation included. Of course I took it, eager to be away from the pain in the city. I traveled all over Daeg, well, all over the peaceful places. The Riverlands, Samba Ka, Weirland, Manduskain Range, Deep Golog, Felia, Greccia, Brin Balo, Southern Wastes, Oasis in the Deadlands. I even witnessed Dragonborn, those cryptic and somewhat reviled race from the deep north, on a journey across the scalding desert, the heat waves like a furnace making them shiver in the distance. Once fully satisfied, and acquiring knowledge like a sphere of annihilation, I returned home to begin my longest stay.
I spent four years writing about the things I witnessed. Monsters I saw fighting, persons more vile than Asmodeus or Baphomet, creatures so curious I cannot begin to fully remember them or speak with words their nature, darkness and light so profound they both blind me, waves so tall they could knock over the Ylter Tower. So many adventures, so many stories, so many things that words to describe even the things I saw, are paltry. How do you capture a rainbow going to a Cloud Giant's home in the clouds? How do I describe the effervescent waves under the sea, riden by merfolk? How do you capture the heartbreak of a mother losing its cub to a horrid monster? How can one relive the darkness of the Underdark, seeing so many things that would make a general cower in fear? How to tangibly say the spiritual feeling of being touched on the forehead by a god you never knew existed?
All of these and so much more, dear reader, I tell you so that you can begin to imagine my task. I will likely never complete, but know this, dear reader, that I will do my best. That's just how I was raised.
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