The oasis stone flashes again, and the ripple under the pool turns violent. The drake’s head breaks the surface as the runes around the basin burn a sickly, chaotic green.
Slaan
The gate is not safe. It is feeding the disturbance.
Slaan backs away from the warped sand, but the ground pulls at her boots like a tide. The pool bends toward the mountain base, and the air tastes of ash and old storm magic.
Bram
That is no extraction point. It is a conduit.
Kaelith
Move, now. Before it drags us in with it.
The drake lunges higher, forcing the trio to split and scramble as the basin fractures. In the shattered light, the rune pattern matches the Borrowlands gate, and the truth lands hard, the Stranger led them onto a link to Chaos all along.
Bram
He did not point us away from it. He pointed us through it.
Slaan darts for the nearest stable stone as the oasis begins to buckle inward, the old gateway dragging mountain-born instability into the sand.