Dashyl's Journey: The Awakening

"Dashyl, you must eat. You lost much weight during your saffira sleep. Eat." Dashyl was having a tough time doing just that. The stranger was feeding him a bitter, bluish paste that tasted of dirt. "This is mashed kalo root. It will give you energy, absorb toxins and is easy to digest."

"You know my name, what is yours?" Dashyl managed to ask between two sticky mouthfuls of the gruel.

"Alerial of the Stone House."

Dashyl studied his caretaker, white hair framed his blue face, black eyes gleamed back at him, he wore pelts that looked like the coats of the slow-moving creatures from Fog Rend. "How do yo know my name?" the boy asked, choking down another spoonful.

"I heard your father calling out to you, telling you to run."

"Where is my father? What happened?"

"I did not see, I heard it through the trees from some distance. By the time I reached you both, you were lying on the ground near each other. You both had been stung by the creature your father referred to as the starskin Carapid."

"What?!?" Dashyl spat as he tried to stand up but instantly felt dizzy and his legs buckled.

"Settle yourself, youngster," Alerial said as he put down the empty bowl and spoon and gently nudged the boy back into a prone position. "You are not strong enough to stand."


Dashyl closed his eyes and after a moment said, "So, he did find it."

"Yes, but it was his end," Alerial admonished. "And it could have been yours, too, if I had not found you so quickly. The carapid would have made a meal of one of you and injected the both of you with a toxin to preserve your flesh so it could devour you when it got hungry again days later. I chased off the beast and dragged both of you back here to my house."

Alerial picked up the bowl and walked out of the room. He soon returned with a stone cup full of cool water and put it to the boy's lips to drink. Dashyl drained the cup and asked, "why were you able to save me and not my father?"


"Because he had already tried to heal himself with unrefined saffira. His body soaked up the negative radia waves which prevented the positive radia waves from my saffira stones to cure him of the carapid's poison. Your body, however, was able to absorb the positive radia waves and counteract the poison. If the poison had reached your brain or heart, my efforts to heal you would have failed, but I found you soon enough." Alerial smiled at the boy and patted his head.

"Thank you, Alerial. I don't know how I can repay you."

Alerial extinguished the glowing stone on the end of his staff and in the darkness said, "Rest now."