5 The Oasis

Few people truly resided at an Oasis- only the businessmen and the truly powerful could stay. For the most part, the population of an Oasis included whoever wanted to spend the night at some place safe. There were only two safe spots- tall dunes; especially the ones that were near permanent, and the Oases. The Oases were uncommon in the Desert, yet there were enough of them for nearly everybody. Their rarity had more to do with how large the Desert was rather than how many of them were there.

The smaller Oases had no true owner; only the businessmen that stayed there and risked their lives to own them. But even if they had little no power, it was a well-respected tradition for all residents of an Oases to not to commit a crime- at least until the night had passed. Few outlaws disobeyed the unspoken rule. Those that did disobey- it sufficed to say that things did not end well for those outlaws. Waters' hadn't come here expecting to become one.

The Oasis had first become visible early in the morning. It was a welcome sight- a glowing blue pool roughly 200 meters in diameter. Surrounded by rows of wagons and carts, hundreds of them in all, the place was crawling with activity. From a distance it was like a beehive; hundreds of sweaty humans about, making purchases and selling goods, committing crimes and others still getting caught. The Oasis was worse than the Docks in many ways. It made Waters' skin crawl; all the lowlife on the outskirts of the desert gathered up in a single place.

Since sundown was approaching, it was especially crowded. People swarmed about, retrieving water, setting up tents, and waiting. As they watched the Oasis from afar, he turned about to face Durn. The Mechanist's hair blew about his face- it's brown color almost a shade of gold with the dying light.

"Why're we going towards an Oasis again?" Waters' questioned. He rarely headed towards the center of the desert. His business brought him only to the outside, and no further. He'd been to an Oasis a few times before- one a hundred miles North of here; but such occasions were few. Only a high-paying customer with too many guard- one he couldn't scam- only then did he go to the Oasis. He'd heard of enough mysterious tales of the proper desert- monsters and the like, and if he could help it he didn't venture inwards any further than he needed to. "If you want to patent the gun, you ought to go back to civilization, you know. The closest city is-"

"I know where the closest city is, Waters'. We're here for something else. Tell me, you know how an Oasis never dries up?"

"Well I've heard it mentioned in rumours and all that, and I've never quite heard of one drying up myself, so... I suppose I do?"

"Well you don't, because they goddamn can." Durn paused for a second as he pulled out his Flask. He drank heavily before sighing satisfied. He continued- "How do you think this flask works?"

"Well I presumed that it's some spacial magic or the other- like those porta-pouches that Passfe, I mean the corporations sell. Only you fill this one with water?"

"Wrong. It's got an Oasis inside it kid."

"Wait you fucking fit an Oasis inside that? That's got to be some serious spatial magic. Some fucking serious spatial magic. Hell even Pas- the corporations only managed to fit a container inside a pouch once, and that was with half the academy professors helping out in the demonstration, and they needed an elder from the tower top it off. Heck they couldn't even"

"I'm going to interrupt you right there kid. This isn't spacial magic at all. This is far, far simpler. You do know how it works, because you don't know how the Oases work."

"Well I mean from what I understand, they're all connected to the Black Heart or something- at least that's what I understand the mages of the tower did- they proved the Heart exists using the Oases or something..."

"That's complete and utter bullshit. They're dimwits, the folks at the academy. You'll want to try something else instead- to see how it all works. They got the basics right. The Oases are powered by intense mana. The mana turns into water if it gets concentrated enough. The mana concentration at the outskirts are lower than that at the center. Thus the outskirts have more but smaller Oases, while Oases are larger and less frequent at the center. They tell you that the Oases are connected to the Black Heart- and they aren't wrong.

But- they didn't dig deeper. The Oases exist because of mana, and most mages know that mana doesn't fare very well over range. Hell I bet half the world knows that. The Tower chalks it all up to the Heart, but that's bullshit too. See- there's a problem. You remember the Armstrong study of eighty-two? Said that the larger dunes accumulated mana from underground channels of water- all fuelled by the Black Heart" Durn paused and took another gulp of water. "Thing is there're anomalies all over the place- large Oases, where large Oases shouldn't exist. Remember The Mound? Why's there a shitload of mana over there? If everything in the desert is fuelled by the Black Heart- it makes sense that The Mound shouldn't exist."

"Well I mean what else can you explain it away by? It's no coincidence that things are weaker the further away they are from the Black Heart. Doesn't make sense to me that it would be otherwise. Anomalies exist everywhere you know- you can't call it all bullshit..." Waters paused as he looked at Durn's bemused expression. The man chuckled lightly as he tossed Waters' the flask. They were closer towards the Oasis now- Waters could make out the people around the Oasis. After cresting one more dune they would reach it.

"You see kid, anomalies don't explain themselves by being anomalies. If there's anomalies in something, that means you havn't explained it well enough. The cunts at the tower won't dig too deep- too concerned about their budgets. Well what they won't do, I'll do. I've gone to the depths of an Oasis before. I saw what those asshats saw. And I dug deeper. And guess what?"

"What?"

"There was something there. It took an age and a half, but I found that the rocks at the bottom of an Oasis were strange. High iron content, but there's no iron vein anywhere nearby. Sure go ahead and chalk that up to the black Heart too, but that's fucking stupid. If you dig deep enough, things get crazy. Mana disrupts entropy down there. The improbable happens. The concentration gets even higher. If everything was powered by the Black Heart, then it sure as fuck means that the mana shouldn't get stronger the further you get from the base of the Oasis. And that's the thing. The shape of those rocks- the ones with the inexplicable iron content? Spherical. And that means there's got to be a goddamn source to all that mana. A source that's different from the Black Heart."

"Well then what is it? And you're telling me you've got one of those sources inside your flask?" Durn chuckled again at Waters' inquisitive tone.

"Patience kid. Patience. It's spoil the whole thing if I told you know wouldn't it? I'm pretty sure that you'd want to see it first hand anyway- and I sure as hell don't want to disassemble my flask. Besides- we're about to find out tonight." And with that, Durn grinned- Waters' had to admit few things gave him such a bad premonition as Durn smiling.

"Oh hell you've got to be kidding with me." They had crested the last dune between them and the Oasis by now. It was getting late as well- there was still a few hours till sundown, but hardly enough time to traverse the distance between another Oasis and the one that Waters' was at. Nowhere near enough time for a caravan to resupply.

For those reasons alone, most tried to make it to an Oasis while leaving plenty of reserve time in the day- for emergencies. It was five hundred meters away from the first camp, and Waters' could already see a flock of businessmen crowding towards him and Durn. When they saw Durn's Trawler, and the obvious looking toolkit they hung off of it- Half the tinkers in the crowd left grumbling.

Waters' had been to this Oasis once or twice before. High paying customers demanded that he actually deliver them to the location. And most of them had decent enough backgrounds that the investigations following their disappearances wouldn't let him make any clean getaways. As one of the closest Oases to the docks, most low-level caravans stopped here. The more powerful and expensive ones simply steamrolled through whatever dangers the Desert offered.

Durn probably could steamroll through the desert- but he sure as fuck didn't look like he was in any hurry to get to the center. A prod from Durn's end pulled him out of his thoughts.

"Hey, can you make these asshats fuck off?" Waters' looked at Durn's indecipherable expression, and then at the approaching merchants. He grumbled and walked towards the merchants with intention of hopefully making them fuck off. Fat chance.