Muhar Oasis
Among the sun-bleached dunes and lifeless plains of Har’Akir, only one place offers genuine reprieve: the Muhar Oasis—a shimmering lake of brackish water cradled in a vast bowl of sunken rock, surrounded by whispering palms, stubborn reeds, and the bones of failed pilgrims.
To many, it is a miracle, a gift from the gods.
To others, it is the last illusion, left behind by a world that moved on.
To Ankhtepot, it is a chalice he allows to exist… for now.
Muhar Oasis is the fragile heart of life in Har’Akir—a place of illusions, mysteries, and hard-bought survival. It promises water and safety, but delivers dreams that bite, gods that lie, and secrets too deep for light.
“Drink, traveler. But know this:
The water remembers more than the living do.”
Geography
The Muhar Oasis stretches nearly half a mile in diameter, though the waterline shrinks slowly each season. Its waters shimmer gold at dusk and dawn, often mistaken for a mirage. Despite its size, the water is brackish, metallic, and faintly glowing with necrotic energy—but it is life compared to the dead sands beyond.
Surrounding the lake is:
- A stand of ancient date palms, some of which speak in broken whispers when the wind is still.
- Crumbling statues, long buried in silt, depict faceless pharaohs and forgotten animal-headed gods.
- Salt flats and mud terraces, which trap the unwary under thin crusts, pulling them into sun-warmed quicksand.
- The Oracle’s Hollow, a grotto hidden beneath the northern bank, where dreamers sip the waters and speak prophecy in tongues not their own.
At night, the oasis glows faintly green, and some claim to see shapes walking just beneath the surface—never surfacing, never drowning.
On the southern edge of the oasis rises the city of Muhar, a sun-bleached stone settlement carved partially into the bedrock of the basin. It is the largest congregation of living people in Har’Akir, and the last outpost before the desert claims all.
Muhar is a place of:
- Cracked towers and walled terraces, each layer of the city more fortified than the last.
- A thousand shrines, both to Ankhtepot and to the countless minor gods whose names have not yet been scoured from history.
- The Garden of Last Offerings, where water-thieves, heretics, and oath-breakers are buried up to the neck and left to the mercy of the sun.
The people of Muhar live deeply ritualistic lives, dependent on access to the oasis and bound to the city’s rigid caste of priests, scribes, water-bearers, and tomb-speakers. The ruling authority is the High Mourner Anuset, a veiled priestess who claims direct guidance from Ankhtepot himself—though rumors say her visions come from something older than the Black Pyramid.
Ecosystem
Despite being the largest oasis in Har’Akir, Muhar Oasis is not natural.
- Beneath the water, ancient mechanisms and glyph-etched stonework suggest the oasis may be artificial, a forgotten work of divine magic or ancient artifice.
- An order known as the Oath Keepers believe the oasis is the sealed mouth of a god, eternally weeping its divine ichor.
- Others say the water is drawn from another realm, and that those who dive too deep don’t surface in Har’Akir at all.
From time to time, bodies float to the surface—mummified, marked with runes no local scholar recognizes, and holding offerings meant for kings long dead.
Tourism
Muhar Oasis offers a rare moment of respite—but also deception.
- Tomb raiders gather in secret here, using the city as a staging ground for forbidden expeditions into the desert.
- Assassins and cult spies pass through under the guise of pilgrims, seeking lost lore or targets for sacrifice.
- A recent drought has caused panic: the water level is falling faster than usual, and some whisper that the oasis is dying.
- A young orphan girl has begun sleep-speaking in ancient glyphs that reshape stone—and stone tablets are appearing in the Garden of Last Offerings, written in her hand.
Comments