Component Research — Bloodwell Vial +2

Bikaji had been chasing the right material for the Bloodwell Vial's casing for weeks. A vial of a caster's own blood demanded glass that was more than ordinary — something that could hold magic, conduct it, breathe with it. Standard glasswork wouldn't do. She needed something extraordinary. The correspondence that found her desk this week came from a long way away.  

Seren Duskhollow — a gnome glassmith of considerable reputation based in Jasris, a city of sandstone spires and shaded marketplaces in the vast desert nation of Qahila — had heard, through the particular invisible network that connects craftspeople who care deeply about their materials, that someone in Springreach was asking the right questions. Seren wrote with the precise enthusiasm of someone who had spent decades thinking about glass in ways most people never would.  

The letter was long. Bikaji read every word. Seren described a phenomenon known among Qahila's deep desert travelers — an oasis that does not stay where it is put. The Wandering Oasis, as locals call it, shifts position across the deep desert on a schedule that corresponds to no map and no season anyone has successfully charted. It appears, rests, and moves on. Those who have found it describe water so clear it looks like air, and at the bottom of its pool, a fine luminous sand that exists nowhere else in the world. This sand, Seren wrote, when worked by hands that know what they are doing, produces glass of extraordinary magical conductivity — the kind that doesn't just hold enchantment but amplifies it.  

The kind that could make a Bloodwell Vial worthy of the blood it carries.  

Finding the Wandering Oasis means going to Qahila. It means venturing into the deep desert with guides who know the terrain and the patience to wait for something that moves on its own terms. It means trusting Seren Duskhollow's information and the rumors of travelers who may or may not have seen what they claimed to see.