"I wish I looked like you..", the pale dashro admitted to his friend.

"Why?", asked the other dashro, a hint of confusion crossing her saurian face as she scooped up more desert sand.

"Well, just look at you! You're all colourful. Sandy brown and cobalt blue. You look so vibrant in the midday sun!"

"I do?", asked the friend to the pale dashro as she sifted the sand through her enormous mouth. She did not care much for appearances, and she certainly did not think of herself as particularly special. "I think I look just like everyone else..".

Currently, the only thing she wished for was to catch a delicious chunk of agate, or even some crunchy geodes, through the sifted sand.

"Not like me, though..", said the pale dashro, face drooping as he sifted his own sand.

And indeed, it was clear as a summer day in Skarch to see that the pale dashro did not look the least like his friend - he did not look the least like any of his friends, in fact.

Unlike the ridged and sandy-brown skin of his companions, the skin of the pale dashro was smooth and white as freshly-fallen snow. While his friends had a fan of blue skin around their necks, the pale dashro had a covering of light grey skin in its stead. While all of the other dashros possessed dark eyes, the pale dashro's were a startling red in hue.

It did not take someone particularly observant to know that the pale dashro looked quite out of place among his kin in the sandy dunes of the Skarch desert.

He was rather monochrome, the pale dashro thought about himself. Quite bland, and rather dull in appearance. Why couldn't he be like the others?

Every day, the pale dashro would stare enviously at the gaggle of dashros around him, admiring their sun-browned skins as they buried their heads in the sands and merged with the Skarch itself. He would look at their vivid blue neck coverings and wish that he had them too.

The pale dashro had tried everything that he could to look like the other dashros. He had tried to eat sand, rather than sifting it out, so that he could absorb some of the sand's qualities (namely its colour and texture). But while he grew rather weak with indigestion, his skin turned neither sandy nor rugged. His friends had advised him to try eating only sand-coloured and blue agate, hoping to achieve the same goal as his previous plan but with a more positive outcome. Quickly though, he learned that finding specifically coloured desert minerals, much less agate, was quite a daunting task in and of itself. Once, in desperation, he had even humiliated himself and tried to roll around in sandworm droppings! All to no avail.

None of his plans worked (in fact, they only ended up ruining his days even further), and the pale dashro grew dejected and despondent by day. If only he could be as beautiful as his friends, only then would he be truly happy!

One day, the dashro sat by himself, tired and sad and wishing more than anything else in the world that he could be someone else, when he chanced upon the cold beastmaster.

The cold beastmaster, in hopes of attaining true enlightenment, had spent forty days and forty-two nights in the Skarch desert. And on the forty-second night, while everyone slept, he had chanced upon the pale dashro and was suddenly enlightened (Of course, it also helped that in warm Skarch, he was not that cold anymore and his mind could focus more clearly).

In his truly enlightened state, the formerly-cold beastmaster found that he could suddenly and inexplicably converse with and comprehend clearly the various beasts of the land. Which meant, of course, that he could ask the pale dashro what was troubling him so, and he could understand when the dashro replied. In his newfound wisdom, the slightly warm beastmaster was a tad more intelligent than the average dashro and could offer a solution for the creature's troubles - a solution that was actually viable.

And so, from the warm beastmaster, the pale dashro learned about the Illuminati that found their home in Gaudiguch city, how they honed and perfected the skill of crafting flesh, and how they could metamorphose any being to look like any other. Which, of course, meant that these Illuminati would be able to transform the pale dashro into a sandy brown dashro that rivalled the beauty of his vibrantly-hued friends and companions.

And so, accompanying the now uncomfortably warm beastmaster (who, now enlightened, sought to return to Gaudiguch city as soon as possible and relax in the cool waters of the bath house), the pale dashro made its way to the Free City of Gaudiguch, where he met a young Illuminatus who sought to practice their skills in Transmology. Using protoplasms from the fleshpots of Lovashi and Yig, the young Illuminatus was able to thicken the pale dashro's soft white skin and change its colour into a warm, sandy brown. The Illuminatus also took great care to change the folds around the dashro's neck to just the right shade of cobalt blue.

Elated, the pale dashro returned to Skarch, a skip in his steps as he rushed to meet his friends and companions. And reunited with his friends, he felt beautiful for the first time in his entire life. He felt good, he felt happy, he felt -normal-.

As the now-regular dashro frolicked happily in the warm sands of the Skarch desert, his neck a striking cobalt blue against his sandy skin, he noticed a group of adventurers walking towards Dairuchi. Having spent some time with the enlightened beastmaster and the young Illuminatus who fleshformed him into his now-beautiful self, the ordinary dashro was now somewhat able to understand Dracnari speech, and was able to catch the following conversation.

"I told you it was just a myth! We wasted our time..."

"Yeah, let's just go home and eat some lizard kofta kabob! I'm starving!"

"But.. but..Chiryo said-"

"Chiryo was playing a prank on you, Deeobi. We looked all around, didn't we?"

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure that the "legendary snowy-white dashro" doesn't exist. All we saw are boring old ordinary dashros.."