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A bright new world, that's all I have ever asked. To this day, I am amazed that since leaving my coastal village, everyone has been so kind and helpful. Not once have I ever had anyone not go out of their way to help me.

Yes, I left my village upon my father's advice. Let me see, how did he phrase it? Oh right, it was, "You sank the boat AGAIN! You blundering idiot, when I catch you I'm going to wrap your nose around your ankles. If you want to know what was good for you, you would get as far from me as possible!" So, always the dutiful one, I took my father's advice and went looking for what was good for me. I miss my dear dad, but I'm sure he's happy that I am doing what is good for me.

To leave our island without a boat (I had a little accident) might have been a problem had I not had so many helpful friends. When I mentioned to one friend that I would like a ride, he immediately told me yes by saying, "The only way I'd let a curse like you on my boat would be if you hid in the fish gunk for 3 days!" With an offer like that, what can I say, and no, it is not true that my robes still smell like fish gunk. That's just what Thooms smell like normally.

Unfortunately, for some reason, well, ok, for a particular reason, my friend's boat sank also. I guess I really shouldn't have been playing with the knots in the wood of the hull. I really didn't think one would pop out.

And gosh, that water came in awfully fast. Fortunately, I put a bag over it so nobody noticed. Maybe I should have mentioned something though.

The good news, of course, was that we were close to the Darsharks. Never have I seen so many friendly people going as fast as they could to help sinking Thooms. For some strange reason, my friends were all swimming away from our rescuers. I don't know what's wrong with them. The Darsharks, of course, fished us out of the water. They comforted us with lines like, "Are we going to have fun with the slime or what?" I was really looking forward to playing with slime, whatever that is, it sounded like fun.

They lined us up, and unfortunately, I was last. I'm not sure of the rules of slime, but it seemed to consist of cutting off toes and fingers, one by one. I never really got to find out why they thought we would be having fun also, but there was a lot of cheering and so on, so I guessed the fun part wouldn't come until my turn.

Unfortunately, I never got a turn because some other people came and interrupted the games. At that point, I got my first nickname, "worthless newbie". I was quite proud when I got 2 more nicknames really quick, "idiot" and "loserboy". The darsharks and the new guys got into a big fight over me, which I thought was strange, because can't we all just be friends?

But, the new guys, which I later found out were exiles, won, so I went with them.

Upon arriving at Puddleby, immigration asked me my name. Before I had a chance to reply, unfortunately, I sneezed and instead of thooming, I mooothed. The guy looked at me, and he said, ok, Moose, head on in. So, here I am.

Thoom healer Moose still suffers from chronic allergies.