First appearance: Into the Mirror 17, The Way Out · watch it on YouTube
The Oasis has one of the least honest names in the Void. It was whispered about as a place once connected to the land of the living, a possible way out. When the party finally stepped into it in Into the Mirror 17, The Way Out, they found broiling lava and the smell of sulfur everywhere.
Description
The Oasis is a field of lava, thick with heat and with the smell of sulfur everywhere. Rising in the distance is a large structure with great rings arcing over it in different directions. It looks a lot like the party’s orrery, and that is no accident: the writing on it matches the orrery’s.
Up close, the ringed structure sits at the meeting point of four bridges laid out in a cross over an opening into the lava. At its heart is a round central platform carved with runes. The structure works together with the orrery as a key, but only once. Its bridges are now partly smashed.
Getting there is half the trick. The only known route runs through a small cave where part of a soul gem has been polished into a reflective surface. Sky wasn’t sure whether people or nature did the polishing. Looking into it shows travellers themselves standing somewhere else, and with a blink they are there.
History
The Oasis entered the story as a rumour. A mage whispered to Sky that “there is one place that was said to be connected to the living. At one point… not anymore, certainly not unless you possess some sort of power to open a portal. It’s called the Oasis.” The mage called it “an adjoining of worlds,” and older folks still claimed it led to the land of the living. Cerys had the nagging sense that she had heard of it before.
Sky was less hopeful about the legend but willing to help. He led the party to the cave with the polished soul gem and told them plainly: “If you’re looking for the Oasis, this is the only way I know how to get there.” He added, “The stories of the living world, I think, are just tales.” Just as they had once found themselves on a snowy mountainside through a mirror, they looked into the gem, saw themselves elsewhere and arrived in the lava field.
The welcome was underwhelming.
Flynry: “Oasis, my behind.”
Toddleheim agreed that “this is not what I was expecting either.” Cerys was the first to spot the structure ahead: “That thing up ahead kind of looks like our thing.” Then the party had to fight the Oasis’s guardians. Today the bridges around the ringed structure lie partly smashed. The structure itself works with the orrery as a key, but only a single time.
Notable Figures
- Sky: guided the party to the polished soul-gem mirror, the only route he knew to the Oasis.
- Cerys: felt she had heard the name before and noticed the structure’s likeness to the party’s orrery.
- Flynry: gave the Oasis its most honest review.
- Toddleheim: also expected something rather different.