Fantasy Faire 2024 – Sunstone Oasis

On By altathiemenIn Second Life, SL Events
A wide, midday view of a paved square surrounding a blue pool of water. Only a bit of the pool can be seen in the lower-left. The pool is entirely surrounded by stone steps that descent from the paved square to the water's edge. The square is lined with palms and shops. The shops are housed in tall stone, single story buildings that form continues borders of the square, except at the corners. Above and behind the shops directly ahead in the view, a second level of buildings can be made out. At the right edge of the image, a heavily tattooed woman with long white hair wearing a black bikini top and large sunglasses stands. She can be seen from the waist up. She has her hands on her hips and is looking to the left over the pool.

SLURL: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Sunstone%20Oasis/89/93/45
Sponsor: Secrets of Gaia
Designer: Nix Onyx

Shops

  • Dinkiewear by Lola Lane
  • Designs by Isaura
  • Sterling Wear
  • The Blue Bunny
  • Mags’ Mini-Mall
  • Peeps Dinkies
  • Twisted Whiskers
  • Nebby’s Naturals For Dinkies
  • Frangipani Garden
  • Dinkie Boutique
  • Weelandia
  • ami’s Dinkie World
  • Aether Chrononauts
  • Tiny Steps
  • Secrets of Gaia
  • Little Big Designs
  • Neo Victoria
  • Touryuumon
  • Onyx Pixel
  • FlyingArts
  • Pax Werx
  • Zan’s
  • Kitty Coven
  • Multifarious
  • Belgroth Emporium
  • Dark Moon Dinkie Fashion
  • Ema’s
  • Nofu’s Store
  • Micachan

A desert region seems to be included with every faire; Opet in 2022, Safe Haven in 2023, and now Sunstone Oasis.

Sunstone Oasis feels more remote and isolated than the desert faire builds of the past, despite being in the middle of the faire. Looking north or east, the desert stretches as far as you can see. The intent appears to be to create a desert oasis far far away from the rest of civilization.

Sun drenches the pavement. The atmosphere of hot and dry is everywhere, except down at the oasis itself. (This region does have a quick day night cycle, so if you want to explore in more comfort you can wait until moonrise!) You can almost feel the heat radiating from the walls and pavement.

Some of the buildings are in ruins. Long ago, some catastrophe befell the oasis, a terrible drought. The waters dried up. The thriving civilization fled. Something attacked the palace and surrounding buildings, leaving them partially destroyed.

An aqueduct carries water from left to right and drains in a waterfall into a large square pool in the middle of a stone square. In the background long stone buildings with archways face the pool. Other, higher stone buildings stand behind those. In the foreground sand and desert grasses cover the paving. A partly ruined building stands off to the right.

So things remained for many years until civilization recently rediscovered the oasis. Now its shops are filled again with merchants and there are people all about the square.

Yet all about there are still ruins. If you explore off the beaten path, you may be able to gather some clues as to what happened.

The view looks down into a tall cylindrical library room. Shelves line the walls tens of feet in height. A spiral stair formed of floating books and scrolls runs up the sides of the room. What appears to be a magical disk of some kind of force forms a sort of floor at the top of this stair.

One bit of exploration you really must do is to find the library.

they were not the only groups that served this ancient kingdom. There were others, a group of warriors called the Lions, and the owls that learned medicine and formed a library.

Head to the east side of the region and look for the tunnel that leads to the library (And accept the experience that takes you there.) Here you’ll find an amazing collection of books. The library is a huge cylindrical room whose walls are covered to an astounding height with books.

Magic may be involved because a spiral stair formed of books and scrolls that float with no apparent means of support runs along the walls. You can use it to reach even the highest shelves without stretching.

Looking around, one wonders just how long this library has been here. It seems to be a holdover from the earlier, ruined civilization. Who has been maintaining it?

The intense sun beats down from the middle of a blue sky with just a few thin clouds which provide no shelter. The view looks up at the end of an aqueduct high above the viewer. The sun is partly obscured by the end of the aqueduct, which runs from the lower-right of the view to the center. A waterfall streams down from the end of the aqueduct to just left of the center-bottom of the frame. Part of a ruined building is just visible in the lower-left.

This is, after all, a shopping region and there is room for a sizeable collection of merchants in all the shops along the square and above it. This being a corner region, the shops path will take you from Harvest Home, all around the square and finally nearly back to where you started at the crossing to Samsara.

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