Was not having a routine a routine in and of itself? Ade wondered as he trudged towards a white patch of sand. The last month had kept him busy with constant trips out into the Sands. More plants to replace the ones that had been destroyed and to expand the slowly growing garden was his primary objective, but there were plenty of other requests for specific areas to find and retrieve resources from. Today’s trip was focused on gathering salt. Very few plants could grow on a salt flat, and those that did weren’t useful, so this particular need had been pushed back time and time again. Most other needs were met at this point, and even with rationing the tribe's salt reserve was almost empty. The salt brought back would help flavor the daily meals, but it would also be put to use making salted meat and pickled vegetables. Not only would those dishes add variety to the nomads’ diet, but they would also help extend the food supply by preserving fresh vegetables or hunted meat that would otherwise go to waste, or at least the goats.

There were multiple types of salt that could be found out in the desert, only a couple of which were edible. The others had uses in alchemy and smithing, and Ade took a couple of samples from each location before heading elsewhere to find the pure white salt that was so useful in the kitchen.

“Remember to weigh your bag occasionally.” Ade allied out once his team arrived at the salt flat and confirmed that it was the mineral they were looking for. “It doesn’t do anyone any good if you make your pack too heavy. The camels will help, but we’re all going to be carrying our share back to camp.

“Yes, Mother.” One of the younger workers cheekily responded, before pulling out a shovel from his pack and going to work, breaking off large chunks from the ground that could be easily carried over and loaded into the saddlebags.

“Keep an extra eye out.” Ade warned the guards. “My Path sense is fluctuating a bit. Don’t know quite what that means, but it probably isn’t anything good. Hopefully it’s happening elsewhere and is gone by the time we’re ready to head back.

The guards nodded but didn’t look convinced. The deeper expeditions often ran into monsters. Ade did his best to avoid diving too deep and drawing the attention of something too strong for the group to fend off or run from, but everyone knew they were playing the game of chance with much thinner odds than previously. Ade had had a couple people stay at camp or switch to following one of the other pathfinders, but most had stayed with him each and every time he ventured out, and any empty spots were quickly filled by the nomads he had turned away at first.

The threat of monsters pushed everyone to work quickly, and soon all the bags were filled and the camels were loaded up. There was a bit more sand mixed in with the salt than would be acceptable if the tribe were gathering it to sell, but a little bit of grit wouldn’t kill anyone, and anyone who complained could always be pointed towards the Sands and told to do better.

Ade’s sense wasn’t completely useless, as the warning it provided helped the guards spot the serpents ahead of them before drawing too close. Two titanic snakes both large enough to kill and eat a camel were writhing around each other, biting and hissing.

“Are they fucking or fighting?”

“Let’s go with fighting. Means there will soon be one less monster in the world, and I really don’t want to think about the other option.” Was the quick response and was followed by a wave of quiet agreement. Carefully the team backed away, before picking their way carefully around the titans, keeping a hand on their weapons just in case the worst-case scenario came to pass.

It wasn’t until the sounds of struggle had faded into the distance and Ade had done his best to erase their trail that the party relaxed a bit. There was still the risk of another encounter with monsters, but with their trail secured and with every step leading out of the Sands there was a general air of confidence that they had once again gambled against the Sands and won. The risks they had taken wouldn’t kill them this time.

It helped that there were tangible results to show for the risks that Ade took. Despite being the same size as the other parties that were sent out on occasion his team consistently brought back more resources. A large part of that was his superior pathfinding skills, Ade liked to think, but the other part of the equation was that travelling deeper meant they had a shorter distance to go to find their harvesting location, giving them more time to gather resources and return, and less time spent hauling heavy bags over unforgiving terrain.

The terrain and monsters present might be a constant challenge to the nomads, but the struggle against them had its own rewards. Ade felt his Pathfinding skill improving as he worked to compensate for the size of his group, as he worked to maintain a safe depth level, and as he patiently tried to tease out more information from his sense. Each return trip found Ade with a little bit more energy remaining, energy he put to use practicing and pushing himself further before collapsing in bed to repeat the cycle the next day.

One downside of his occupation was that Ade wasn’t present to really see the Oasis be developed over time. Every day he got glimpses of new construction and of the farm slowly growing towards maturity, but more often than not he had to be informed over a late meal of the changes that had taken place that day, improvements caused by both the villagers and the Oasis itself.

Most of the workforce that remained in the oasis was focused on farming or on building. A few small houses had been built, and had been occupied by the tribe bachelors, but most people seemed happy to live out of their tents for the time being. Each family had had years to gather decorations and customize the mobile homes to their needs and desires. Combined with the novice skill of the builders and it simply wasn’t an improvement switching from cloth to brick housing. The houses built did provide some much-needed space for the single adults to set up in, as it would take a trip to a town to purchase the necessary cloth to create a completely new tent, something that wouldn’t happen while the tribe was stationary.

The farm itself had grown as the tribe slowly figured out what worked and what didn’t. It quickly became apparent that the rapid growth possible with a sudden influx of water was not something that could be constantly used. Part of the magic of the plants was the ability of the seeds and the roots to gather ambient magic for months or years, slowly converting it into stored potential that could then fuel sudden bursts of life. While some seeds from the first cycle of growth were set aside to let this happen passively, other plants were tended to carefully, hoping that continued watering would succeed and enabling a slower, more usual method of growth.

The Oasis itself had also made some changes, while Ade was out and about. The most obvious was another wave of growth for the plants present, as larger plants had sprouted and gained a good amount of growth. The bushes were knee high and thriving. Even if there wasn’t any fruit on them to harvest, they still promised a renewable source of wood for the nomads to use. Not anything durable or large enough to carve or use in construction, but twigs and branches from some of the bushes could easily be broken off, left to dry, and then used as fuel for the nightly fire.

It wasn’t just the native plants that had benefited from the sudden magical growth. While none of the magical desert plants were alive enough to benefit, the children had, in their own free time, planted a large variety of objects. The rocks and leaves obviously weren’t affected, but enough vegetables had taken root and sprouted that there was now a small garden that the kids had taken great pride in showing to their parents. The original farm had been retilled and planted with regular vegetables, which would either grow slowly or would be there to sprout when the next wave of magic occurred. There was an ongoing argument amongst the tribe just how often waves occurred and what effects they had. It was easy to point at the expanding pool or the sudden growth of plants to show that some sort of magic was present, but a sizable minority claimed to feel waves of magic every few days, even when there wasn't anything obvious to show for it. A few viewed the changes negatively, signs that the Oasis was unstable and any effort the tribe put into building and improving things would eventually be destroyed in an instant by unknowable magics. Most though saw it as a positive mystery. It might be strange, but so far it had been beneficial, and they had heard of stranger things in some of the other cities centered around Oases.

For the most part Ade stayed out of the arguments, pointing out that he wasn’t present at the Oasis enough to truly develop a position on the matter, but at the same time that distance gave him a unique perspective. Combined with his Pathfinder sense Ade was more sensitive to most to the pulses of change, and he could tell that there was something more happening to the oasis than just the physical changes. Monsters had tried to attack several more times since the Sand Wolves had chased him home, but none of the attacks had been serious, thanks in large part to the mystical invisible barrier over the Oasis. Without the need to rush out and defend a harvesting group the guards were protected by that barrier. They still engaged the monsters, but they did so with the confidence that they couldn’t be flanked, couldn’t be swarmed and surrounded, as they slowly whittled the monsters away until they were all dead or driven off.

The proven existence of that barrier was a valuable piece of information indeed. Night shifts were always dangerous for guards out in the Sands. Not only were most monsters nocturnal to avoid the heat of the day, but their senses were much better in the dark than human ones were. It was all too easy for the stealthy ones to infiltrate a camp like the water elementals had two months ago, or for a stronger monster to get the drop on a guard at a time when backup needed to be roused from their sleep before coming to help. Towns located outside the sands were somewhat safer, but even then a guard was necessary whenever a group arrived, leaving a trail that monsters could potentially follow.

The sheer security that the barrier offered would drive the asking price for the Oasis up immensely. Already there were very few individuals or parties with the resources necessary to truly invest in an Oasis. The upside for those individuals was that they didn’t need to pay full price for the Oasis, just enough to convince a group of travelling nomads to continue with their regular lifestyle instead of risking it all to build something new. This unexpected benefit would definitely factor into whatever negotiations took place.

Ade didn’t know how he felt about that. He liked what he was doing at the moment, the freedom to pick his own path doing wonders for his state of mind combined with his ability to avoid spending too much time with the elders who had their own plans for him. At first, he had hoped that if the tribe decided to stay at the Oasis permanently it would free up his future so that he could do whatever he wanted. The problem with that dream was that it presumed Ade’s only value as a Pathfinder was leading the whole tribe around. His ability to find needed resources was invaluable to the otherwise stationary tribe. While eventually the Oasis might become a large enough hub of trade and commerce to no longer need Ade’s help to function, he was positive now that the Elders would always have some idea of how he could serve the tribe. In many ways Ade was closer to his dream of freely travelling the sands, but in other ways he was exactly as trapped as he had been when he started. The question always came down to if Ade was willing to abandon the people who relied on him. For now, the answer was no, and Ade didn’t see that changing in the future.

The thought weighed on Ades’s mind as he woke up and started his daily routine. Everyone had been pushing themselves hard and today had been declared a day of rest, where their only task was to help around the camp in a few small manners. It didn’t take long for Ade to finish his assigned chores and for him to then escape out into the desert, where he could think freely. Before he could begin to work through his problems, he saw people on the horizon. Someone was coming towards the Oasis.