[WP05] 2. You awaken on the shady side of a towering sand dune, near an oasis. Birds with long, brightly-colored tails fly overhead. If you are a native Acha, you recognize this as your homeland. A strange, smooth-sided tower of red stone rises in the distance. Native Acha may or may not recognize it as a landmark. Warm. It was so ungodly warm. Murkcrow rolled over and groaned. Summer must have come early, he thought, until he realized his tail was brushing against ground that was decidedly not swamp. Murkcrow opened his eyes a crack and peered around him. Sand...lots of sand. Murkcrow thought he must be dreaming and rolled over again and went back to sleep.
When he woke again a couple hours later to the same barren, sandy expanse, Murkcrow figured there might be something strange going on. He sat up and took stock of his situation. He had heard tales of this place from Acha who had migrated to the swamp. The desert. He could see sand in every direction, and the distant mountains of the Totoma. Murkcrow didn't know how far the desert was from Matope, but he was pretty sure even a kin at a hard run would take several days to travel this far in...and that no kin would be so foolhardy as to attempt to run across the desert. There was no way he wouldn't notice a kin dragging him through the swamp and across the desert while he was sleeping, so the only logical conclusion was that this was still a vision, or a dream. Or some unnatural force had brought him here, but that was so unlikely as to be considered impossible.
Either way, it was sweltering. The sun had risen high while he slept. And it was dry, bone dry. Murkcrow could feel his lips cracking in the heat. He gazed at the oasis, wondering if it was some sort of trap, but finally gave in to his thirst, trotted over, and jumped straight in. He felt refreshed instantly in the crisp, clear waters. After a few minutes spent paddling around in the oasis, Murkcrow climbed to the top of the sand dune he had woken on to see what there was to see. In the distance he could see - he squinted - the narrow, branchless trunk of a tree struck by lightning, or a thin protrusion of rock, some object that jutted straight out of the landscape like nothing he had seen before. That strange landmark, the distant mountains, and the oasis were the only features the vastness of sand seemed to possess.
"Alright, alright," Murkcrow muttered. If the Motherfather wanted him to examine bizarre desert landmarks, he would do as directed. Murkcrow pulled a branch laden with fruit from a date palm growing near the oasis - vision or not, he knew he would be thirsty - and set off towards the tower. He soon learned it was much, much larger than it first appeared, and much, much farther away. It took Murkcrow the better part of the day, and most of his dates, to reach it, and he slumped next to it in exhaustion. This was by far the longest and most vivid dream he had ever had, he reflected. After a quick rest, he stood up again to examine the thing. It was certainly unusual: it appeared to be made of red stone, and it was perfectly smooth. Murkcrow walked around the girth of it, looking for...anything different, but he found nothing but smooth stone the whole way around. And it was tall, taller than the tallest trees in the swamp. No kin could have made it, but it was clearly not a natural object either; there were no more tall stone trees ("tree" was the only word he could think of to describe it), or short ones, or broken ones, anywhere to be seen, and as smooth as it was...
"Well, I saw it." Murkcrow groaned and stretched out on the sand to wait for whatever was going to happen next.
