Ade wasn’t completely sure that Ramses believed his explanation about the Oasis spirit and the message it was trying to convey to the Nomads. Which was understandable, if somewhat frustrating. The training required to become a mage involved learning a large amount of magical theory, some of which stated certain magical phenomena couldn't naturally occur. If Ramses had been more awake Ade was positive the foreign mage would have done more than roll his eyes in disbelief at the explanation, but fortunately for Ade’s sanity the worst he received was a dismissive snort.

“Is that it?” Ramses asked. “A few lines drawn in the sand and you vagrants start losing your minds. Now unless work has been canceled for the day, I have places to be and magic to cast. Those buildings won’t make themselves, especially given the magical nature of the terrain.”

Finished speaking the mage set off before Ade could respond to either his insult or his question. Making a rude gesture behind Ramses' back might not have improved relations if the mage had seen it, but it did help improve Ade’s rotten mood. Being stuck in a tent for long periods of time always had him on edge. Normally the tribe would be preparing to move out, and Ade would at least get to enjoy traveling or even solitary scouting, but he was stuck at the Oasis for the moment. The tribe was beginning to pack up in preparation of leaving when Pathfinder Ahten returned, but with no way of knowing when that would be they didn’t want to sanction any trips elsewhere, even short ones.

Ade was still tempted to simply head off into the nearby Sands for some training, staying close enough to the Oasis that he could quickly return if needed, but he couldn’t quite convince himself it was the best use of his time. He had utilized his Pathfinding skills almost constantly over the past month. While more practice wouldn’t hurt, it was hard to argue that it was more important than helping harvest the vegetables and other plants from the farms or helping pack up the resources he had helped find into more travel convenient containers. Large piles of ore might make sense in a stationary environment, but not when it needed to be carted from one stop to the next. Someone needed to calculate how much ore was needed, and then bags or crates needed to be found before being loaded up with the richest samples. Some parts of that process required a certain level of expertise, but for the most part any adult capable of lifting heavy objects could help out.

Not wanting to spend the day hauling rocks around, Ade made his way out of the Oasis over towards the farm, or at least to the place it had been. Without the protections that the Oasis provided everything was buried under a thick layer of sand. Fortunately, that state of being wasn’t hazardous to the plants in question. Some of the plants would simply wait for the wind to carry the sand away and return the desert to its original state, while others managed to free themselves, either by growing upwards towards the new surface or by somehow displacing enough sand to clear the area around them. The latter were quickly plucked from the ground and put aside for Healer Elan to dry or otherwise render down into useful ingredients. For everything else, there was a pile of shovels.

It was hot and sweaty work. The desert dwelling plants had been spread out over a large area to avoid any interference during watering sessions. While it meant that the nomads hadn’t had to worry about any plants choking the life out of their neighbors, it now meant that they had a lot of sand to move to recover anything useful. It didn't take long for those digging to decide that the five-day beans did not qualify as useful.

The only thing that made the work tolerable was the presence of the Oasis. While water taken out of the Oasis quickly lost the magic that kept the pool clean, it wasn’t any less refreshing. Full water bottles helped keep everyone hydrated and energetic, and when the heat became unbearable no one commented when a worker would slip off to splash around in the pond for a few minutes.

It was easy to get lost in the simple work, and before Ade knew it dusk had fallen. Satisfied with their progress for the day everyone made their way back to the camp, eager to eat whatever meal the cooks had spent their time preparing. With full plates, everyone began chatting and swapping stories.

“You should have seen the look on his face when we suggested moving the walls out to the new edge of the Oasis.” A nomad who had been working on the building team was currently taking center stage. “He didn’t say anything, but you could see Ramses’ left eye start to twitch at the idea of starting all over because the Oasis decided to grow some.”

“What did he end up saying again? ‘This is close enough to the new boundary, and it’s not like the Oasis grows all that quickly. Someone else can build another set of walls a decade down the line.’” A few people chuckled at the exaggerated attempt at replicating Ramses' accent.

The mage looked up from his own meal. “If you’re going to mock me at least use my actual words. I said that if you thought a few feet of grass outside the walls was such a problem, you should go ahead and build another wall yourself. I’ve already done the job I was hired to do.”

That response quickly shut the topic of conversation down, and after an awkward silence everyone began discussing where the tribe would head next. The general consensus was that a long stop at a city was bound to happen relatively quickly, in order to turn the gold and other valuables the tribe had received as payment into a more useful form. Some people argued that everyone would quickly head over to Luxor to purchase supplies, with it being the closest city, while others argued on travelling between villages to eventually reach a city that hadn’t heard of the Oasis and its sale. Merchants were far more likely to try and overcharge their customers if they knew that a customer had the wealth to fleece away.

The emotions Ade felt as he listened to the conversation and occasionally contributed his own opinion as a Pathfinder were bittersweet and surprisingly complex. He was happy that everyone was taking the sudden change in plans with good humor, but he was also resentful that people weren’t more attached to the Oasis. There was more emotion towards the move that Ade held, but it was harder to tease them out of the whirling pit of his heart. Promising to pry them apart later, he did his best to answer the most recent question that had been posed to him.

“Most traffic goes through the major cities because they are the only places guaranteed to have pathfinders who can guide you further on towards your actual destination. Look.” Ade grabbed a stick and sketched a crude map in the ground, a couple of large dots with lines radiating out from them, connecting each other in a spiky web.

“Right now, this Oasis is a new location, so there’s no guarantee that a Pathfinder would be able to get you here. Knowing that it exists gives them a chance, but they could just as easily end up taking you to another oasis, or put you on a path that takes months to arrive. Each city keeps a list of places that its local Pathfinders can navigate to. This includes most of the cities that are a short distance away, a few cities that are a longer distance away, and then a lot of the small settlements located nearby. So when someone asks to travel to Ashwan, for example, they’d ask to look at the list kept in the merchants’ guild or the Pathfinder office or whatever other organization has purchased a copy, and then they figure out what cities can reach Ashwan, and what cities can reach those cities, and so on until they have a route with a guaranteed Pathfinder at every stop that can get them one step closer to their destination. It’s not perfect, Pathfinders might be out on another journey, or they might die so it might take months to track down the one Pathfinder who can lead you to dirt crack, but you can usually get there. That’s the way things usually work, and none of that holds true for us.” There's a fair amount of elbow nudging as Ade begins his rebuttal for why they would have to stop at Luxor first.

“The Pathfinder network is handy when you need to hire a Pathfinder to take you to a specific location. Our tribe has access to five Pathfinders, two of which can freely navigate the Sands and we don’t need to head to any specific city to buy goods. Sure, we might get better deals on iron wares at Rojore, and I’m sure no one would object if we found ourselves at the Temple of Ing for one reason or another, but we don’t need to head for a specific city. In fact, by keeping our options open and heading to any city that isn’t Luxor we might end up having a shorter trip across the Sands. Does that answer your question?” Ade could have gone on further, but felt like he had made his point and then scored a few extra while he was at it. The miner took it in stride though and gave a cheerful nod.

“Guess that’s why you’re the Pathfinder and I hit rocks for a living.” He joked cheerily.

“Nah. Be honest with yourself Gen. You’re not smart enough to find the right rocks so you just pound sand.” A friend of Gen’s ribbed him.

“Jeth! I didn’t know you’d given your wife a new nickname!” Gen exclaimed in mock surprise. “I guess ‘Sand’ was too busy moaning to tell me herself.” Everyone laughed at the witty response. A tip of Jeth’s cup acknowledged the verbal hit and the conversation moved onwards, but the good mood and light humor remained for the rest of the night.

Everyone was up slightly earlier than usual the next day, curious as to what the next message from the Oasis would be. The arrows had served their purpose, and instead of trying to draw their attention the Spirit had focused on creating a complex piece of work next to its altar. Unfortunately, complex didn’t mean easily understood.

“Can we at least agree that this is meant to be a person?” Kane, Navigator in training, argued. His friend Amy took great pleasure in contradicting him.

“No, we can’t. Yet, it looks like a stick figure from that perspective, but I still think you’re looking at everything upside down. Look, from this angle you have a ‘t’, and an ‘o’, and this squiggle here could be an ‘s’. If we assume that these are words the Oasis hasn’t managed to complete yet then that would make your person the letters o, t, and c, which is clearly part of a larger word. Scotch maybe. That’s a drink right? Does the spirit want scotch to drink?”

Kane growled as Amy began to wander off on a tangent, and forced the conversation back on topic. “If the spirit knows how to write, why did it waste all this time drawing arrows instead of just marking out a single word? Listen, stop, danger; there’s lots of words that don’t need large amounts of context to make sense. And where would a spirit even learn to read and write? Drawing pictures is obvious enough that anyone with half a brain could figure it out.”

“At least words only can be read one way. Yes, we know that the spirit exists and is unhappy. You have people who think the spirit is unhappy that we’re leaving, or is unhappy because we’re building all over the Oasis, or is unhappy that we’ve been drinking the water instead of leaving it for the wild animals. Each and every one of them has their own idea firmly fixed in their mind, and these drawings aren’t going to change any of that. It’s just too easy for everyone to interpret them in a way that supports the beliefs they already had. It makes me glad I’m not an elder who has to figure out what exactly is the right thing to do. No matter what they decide someone is going to be unhappy with the outcome.” Amy nodded firmly, not quite conceding that Kane had made a good point.

“Nope.” Kane responded easily. “Even I know the answer to that one. If the decision is that difficult to make the only thing to do is to push the decision back. They can give themselves another couple days to work with by making a public show of asking the Oasis to give them more information to work with. Simpler pictures, perhaps. If the spirit keeps on drawing the same thing then they can make a decision after giving everyone a few days to calm down, instead of picking a side now when everyone is ready to argue.”

“Cheater.” Amy muttered a few minutes later. “Ade, tell Kane that he’s a cheating cheater who cheats.”

“I’m not sure that he is, Amy.” Ade replied, not wanting to be drawn into the friendly bickering. The situation had played out much like Kane had predicted. Unable to come to a consensus even amongst themselves the Elders had asked for a simpler message before shooing everyone away to begin their work for the day. A few people had stayed to clean up the ground and see if there would be an immediate response, but nothing seemed to be happening.

“He was supposed to pick a meaning for the symbols. Then we would find out if he was right or wrong, and I could laugh at him or praise him. Not this silly ‘I decide I won’t decide’ business.”

“I’m sure if you keep reminding him he’ll come to a decision sooner or later.” Ade kept his tone even. Kane sent a betrayed look at Ade for refocusing Amy’s attention on him, and Ade took the opportunity to part ways with the pair of Navigators, ready to work and curious as to what would happen next with the Oasis.