Kairen had had enough shocks for a while. So when he realized he was trapped he simply pushed the information out of his mind. He would either deal with it later, or something would change and it wouldn’t be a problem anymore. It could wait for another day. Now was when he should be relaxing and recovering. Setting down on the ground he began to look around himself in earnest.

The night was more active than he had first imagined, although it made sense given the oppressive heat of the sun. As Kairen patiently observed his surroundings he saw more and more creatures coming out to go about the task of staying alive, from ants carrying sand away from their anthill to floatpuffs following the breeze, trailed by a small flock of flying bugs hoping to grab any seeds that might fall. There was larger wildlife too, if more scarce. Kairen watched as a small rodent cautiously made its way towards his body, flinching at every change in the wind or far off noise, but steadily growing closer. He watched amused as it took a small bite, before seeming to consider the sheer difference in size between itself and the relatively gigantic corpse. There was a comical moment where it tried to bite into an arm and drag it away, only to give up after struggling for a few seconds. Instead, the desert rat seemed to decide that if it couldn’t bring this supply of food home, it would move its home to the food.

Kairen hadn’t ever really had the free time to watch animals go about their lives and he was amazed at the speed the rodent was able to burrow. It wasn’t long before it was completely out of sight, after which it returned to the surface in irregular intervals, pushing pile after pile of sandy dirt to the surface.

In the wider scale of things the desert rat might be irrelevant, but its antics and actions amused Kairen until dawn arrived.

With dawn came another surprise, one that Kairen was unable to quantify as good or bad. A magical window appeared in front of him.

Kairen had never experienced this before, but he had heard of it. Judgement stones could be found in some of the larger settlements, and were key elements of more than a few stories he had heard growing up. It was common for the hero to be tested by a Judgment stone, only to be rejected for being too weak, only to surprise everyone by saving the kingdom anyways.

It wasn’t quite like what he had expected though. Instead of a single box, there were three, and there were a lot more words than he thought a Judgement usually contained. On top of that, Kairen realized he had a slight problem. He couldn’t read. He’d picked up the absolute basics from hanging around town, enough to make out common words and prices, but his family needed him working more than they needed him studying something he wasn’t going to use. To be fair to his parents, he didn’t think anyone would have predicted that his current situation was a possible path for his life to take. It still left him facing three intimidating walls of text without any idea of what they said or what he was supposed to do with them.

Kairen tried stepping backwards, hoping that would move him away from the screens and let him get back to what he had been doing, but the screens followed him. It certainly looked like they wanted him to do something, probably choose between them, but he wanted to figure out as much as he could before making that mysterious choice.

He slowly read over the leftmost window. Most of it was gibberish to him, but he did recognize the word for monster. It showed up a couple of times, but what about the monsters Kairen didn’t know. Were monsters born in oases? Kairen did his best to recognize any other words that might give him more context, only to startle backwards when the text shimmered and changed. It was a lot shorter now, and the words seemed to be simpler. Still mostly unrecognizable, but Kairen was pretty sure it had something to do with weak and strong monsters. It seemed whatever was behind these screens recognized his confusion and all three screens shimmered, before being replaced by moving images. It was like the illusions the traveling entertainer created, only far more clear and smooth. Kairen knew he was probably going to lose out on some nuance that had originally been present, but he could at least get some idea of what choice he was supposed to make.

The left window had all sorts of monsters wandering around, from sand elementals to scorpions, rattlesnakes to rocs. In the middle of the image a bubble of sorts formed and expanded outwards. When monsters were on a path to collide with the bubble they seemed to go around it, leaving the area inside clear of monsters. The roc flew through without seeming to notice the bubble and the sand elemental managed to drag itself through the barrier with some effort, but everything else stayed outside.

The middle window probably had the simplest sequence. It displayed the area in front of him, complete with dunes, rocks and the small animals that made it their home. All of a sudden the ground in the center of the area began to darken before sinking downwards to be replaced by a small pool of clear water.

The third image on the right started off the same, a picture of his location as it was now, but instead of a pool of water forming what changed was the number of creatures present. Hordes of rodents chased around swarms of locusts, as everything seemed to multiply.

The middle image was the hint needed to clue Kairen in to what was happening. Somehow this location was turning into an Oasis, and he had some degree of control over its growth.

An Oasis was not a small thing. While there were many areas of safety in and around the Shifting Sands, most were simple things. Solid rock underground, with perhaps an overhang or two to provide shade. On very rare occasions water might be present, or people might put the effort into digging a well. All such places still had to post a guard against monsters and keep an eye out for any storms that might threaten them. Really, the only consistent feature of the many settlement locations were the ability of Navigators to consistently travel to and from them. As such, it wasn’t uncommon for some groups to be completely nomadic, taking advantage of the ability to travel away from storms and a constant stream of new places to harvest from in exchange for an inability to maintain constant interaction with other groups.

Oases were different. Not only did they provide a steady source of water without need for priestesses or wells, but their innate magic allowed them to grow over time. This growth meant that an oasis could provide enough water to sustain entire cities, and most oases would develop secondary benefits as well. From reduced monster attacks to restful sleep for everyone in the city, the benefits were varied and random. Some cities claimed to be able to guide their growth, and Kairen wondered if every Oasis had a ghost secretly controlling things behind the scenes or if he was the exception and there was some other mechanism elsewhere.

More than anything though, Kairen developed a sense of hope upon seeing the screen. He might be stuck in this place where he died, but while he couldn’t travel elsewhere, an Oasis would bring people here. Maybe not today or tomorrow, but Kairen could afford to wait. The animal antics would keep him busy for now, and sooner or later a Pathfinder would stumble across him.

Of the three choices available to him, Kairen decided to go with creating a spring. Less monsters or more animals were nice benefits, but a source of water was a true prize that would attract people far more quickly. With his mind made up, Kairen pressed his invisible hand against the floating image and everything changed.