Sweat poured down Sahar’s brow as she nearly tripped. Five days, she had been travelling five days non-stop to find this magical, mysterious healer she had heard of from the elves.
After the battle at the Storm Spire, Sahar had taken at least a few hours of recovery, not that she had allowed even that much. Kasef was still missing, and she refused to rest until she had at least found his body. The first miracle was finding his body hidden beneath rocks of cliff that he had fallen from, the second miracle came when she realized he was still breathing. Despite the fact the spell had worn off on all of the soldiers, he was still in his lava monster form, the yellow cracks still singed into his rocky skin. The healers determined it was probably the only thing that kept him alive all this time, and though they had managed to remove the arrows, his monstrous form remained, and with the Sun’s primal stone in Lux Aurea still infected, it was impossible to find a way to revert the condition.
But she couldn’t accept that. She was not waiting for months, maybe even years, for them to find the answer that would fix their primal stone, and she would not return to Neolandia without Kasef by her side and human again. She had asked around for a different solution to this problem, which is when she came across the rumor. There was a Startouch healer that lived deep within the forest about three miles north of the Storm Spire. It was said she could heal any wound, and perform any magic, if one dared to enter her forest, and her domain could only be reached by crossing over three stepping stones along a river.
The soldier had been searching through the thick forest for days, having not even heard the sounds of rushing water. Thus, it came as a surprise when she nearly tripped herself into it. But there it was, the wide, rushing river, and after walking alongside it, she had managed to find three stepping stones to cross it. Relief and anxiety roiled in her gut all at once as she jumped onto the first stone. This was either about to pay off extremely well, or she had wasted precious time just to cross a river.
Once her feet had landed onto the other side of the river, she paused. The ambience of the forest had changed from before, everything outside of it felt distant and far away. Sahar took that as a good sign and stumbled forward still, panting heavily from her exhaustion. But this atmosphere was so relaxing, and she had traveled for so long, the only thing keeping her on her feet was her will to help Kasef. But she could no longer move when she had come across a garden, collapsing just before it, and she let out a quiet curse. “Healer,” she called out in a final act of desperation, voice cracked and hoarse from dehydration. “Is there a healer here?”
@draconic-interactions
