The Bleak Oasis is a short story I wrote over the course of about October 2020 to March 2021, acting as a sequel to The Unwelcome Visitors. As I mentioned before, I had an interest in revisiting many of the characters introduced in the previous work, and I chose to write a second story starring them. With several months having past since their previous, ill-fated mission, The Bleak Oasis has the group of Bryce, Marcel, Tanneke, Felicity, and Agnés travel to Ostend, another far-off city to try and convince a new, bustling city to build a library where sorcerers like them can continue to hone their craft. After a heartwarming reunion, a walk through town, and a brief history lesson, they finally come face to face with one member of the monarchy, Empress Theresa; the resulting meeting, however, causes them to realise how such a city came into existence.
The Bleak Oasis can be downloaded as a PDF in the following formats:
The above photograph is that of the real-life Ostend,
a coastal city located in the Flemish-speaking region of Belgium. I felt the
seaside setting, busy architecture, and dense crowds seen above provided a
good reference for what I felt the city would look like; furthermore, its province in Belgium, West Flanders, is somewhat bilingual, and the postcard above features French text on it, which provided a good excuse to make the town relatively bilingual.
I still have a few more ideas for stories involving this cast, and once again, we may see them again soon. In which case, I'd probably have no choice but to find a title for this series. We shall see.
