Alfaru shook his head in response to Allet's question.  "No, just a feeling I have that something's a bit off with this," he said.  "You go on ahead.  I'll catch up with you later."  With that, he returned his attention to the boy, who was now trying to move a slab of rock that he clearly wasn't strong enough to move.  What was he looking for?  And where were his parents?  The child was all alone, looking for something, and he seemed desperate to find it soon.

Alfaru considered what he should do.  He could just walk away and leave the boy to his business.  That might be the smart thing to do, but was it the right thing?  He could help the child in his search, but he had no idea how the child would react to a stranger approaching and offering his help.  Of course, he could try to help the child without directly intervening.  He was sure the book in his pack had a blessing that would temporarily increase the boy's strength, which should allow him to move the rock he was trying to move.  But then that opened a whole new series of problems.  What if the rock was propping the boulder up, and once it was removed the boulder would topple?  If that happened, it would surely crush the boy, enhanced strength or not, not to mention what might happen if the boulder chose to roll downhill and into the fields.  But then again, the boulder looked to be fairly stable on that side, and the slab seemed to be leaning on the boulder more than the boulder was leaning on the slab.

After a minute of internal debate, Alfaru made up his mind.  He set his pack down on the ground beside him and began leafing through the book he had brought with him until he found the blessing he was looking for.  He stretched his right hand out toward the boy and read the words from the page.  If the spell worked the way it should, it would double the boy's strength for approximately 30 minutes, which should be long enough for him to move anything else he needed to move until he found what he was looking for, whatever that happened to be.  As he muttered the blessing, he was hit with a wave of doubt.  What was the child looking for?  And was it wise to enable him to find whatever it was?  However, by now it was too late to change course.  The spell had been set in motion, the power had been released, and now the spell would either succeed or fail and Alfaru could do no more the change the outcome.