Oracle Danny of the Desert
Danny grew up a few kilometers outside of the Yellow Wizard Haven, on the shore of Atlanta’s Pool, and in those days, he was no oracle. As an orphan in a caring but unremarkable orphanage in the township there, he didn’t even realize he was a wizard until his late teens on a journey to the Zaros Oasis.
The caretaker that looked after the orphanage Danny lived in was a man named Silas. Now, Silas was everything to the boys and girls in the orphanage, but he was getting old. And in his old age he needed help, mostly with maintenance tasks and the hard labour side of keeping the buildings that housed everyone in good repair.
One spring, Silas asked Danny to help him rebuild the roof on a small building that the orphanage used for storage (it was shared with a local grocer). Normally, the palm wood that made the best roofing material was available in the markets, but that spring the supply had run dry. Silas knew the Zaros Oasis had an abundant amount of palm that people could harvest free of charge, but few folks ever went because it took a full two-day journey, both there and back.
Danny offered to go before Silas asked him. At 16 he was flippant but competent. As the oldest child in the orphanage, he was ready to help Silas with a last large task before he moved on to adulthood. This harvesting adventure combined with building a roof felt like a great way to end one season of his life and transition into another.
His first day’s travel was unremarkable. The journey from the orphanage near Atlanta’s Pool to the border of the Sand was well-trodden and familiar. After crossing the border into the Sand however, the terrain got difficult and Danny began to regret his decision to go. The walking was hard, his calves hurt in the sand, he felt dehydrated even after he drank from his water supplies. But in spite of all the exertion required, Danny made good time and got to the Zaros Oasis before nightfall on the second day of his travels.
What happened next was unusual. Danny started to get a sense that something was wrong. No one was nearby he thought. The weather seemed fine. No sandstorm on the horizon. But he couldn’t shake the feeling. Hours went by, and on his way to collect his first bunch of palm wood is when Danny saw two dead people, killed recently by the looks of it. While he should have felt fear, oddly, even though these were the first dead people Danny had seen in his life, he felt safe, as if danger had passed.
The trip ended uneventfully beyond that, without encountering bandits or wolves… or anything really. Danny harvested some palm wood, loaded up the small cart he brought, and took three days to make a slow journey home with it. Normalcy prevailed. But Danny knew he had to tell Silas.
After a quick lunch to recover and a half hour spent piling the palm wood near the storage building, Danny shared his experience and what had transpired on the trip. Something changed about Silas’ expression, and he said softly, “I’ve been considering this for some time now, Danny, but I think you may have wizard genes. Instead of moving out of the orphanage and taking a job in the market here, I’d like you to consider spending some time with the one Wizard I know personally. He runs a school for magic.”
Danny thought he should have felt shock, but he settled into Silas’ observation like it was already a fact. He was a wizard, he felt sure or it. Danny agreed and was sent off several days later (after getting a good start on the roof he had intended to build).
The school he went to was and is called Alpha. It is located on the island that sits in the center of Dream Master Lake. It was at Alpha that Danny confirmed he was a wizard, and more than that, an oracle i.e. someone who has premonitions about the future. While he never found out what happened that day near the Zaros Oasis, Danny become a competent oracle at the school, and after a couple years of training, the Grandmaster there gave him his official title, Oracle Danny of the Desert.
Entered by: 0xa9fB…66e9 and preserved on chain (see transaction)
