87. This Place

The Oathgate malfunctions catastrophically, transporting Adolin, Shallan, Kaladin, and Azure through a blinding flash of light. They crash-land on a stone platform in a surreal realm dominated by an ocean of glass beads beneath a pitch-black sky, where they encounter three mysterious spren and two enormous sentinel figures.

The Oathgate's control building shakes violently before a blinding light and ripping sound engulf the space. Adolin falls through the air and crashes onto a white stone platform, then tumbles into an ocean of glass beads that nearly suffocates him until Azure pulls him to safety. Upon regaining his bearings, Adolin discovers they have been transported to an impossible landscape: a circular stone platform island surrounded by an endless sea of tiny glass beads, beneath a pitch-black sky streaked with strange cloud-roads leading toward a distant small sun. Thousands of tiny lights hover above the beads like candles. Two enormous, thirty-foot-tall spren stand in the air like sentinels—one pitch-black, one red—their clothing and forms shifting slightly as they observe the arrivals. On the platform are three additional smaller spren: one wearing a stiff black costume with a shifting, geometrically impossible head that speaks in distress; one with blue-white skin in a filmy dress; and one with ashen brown cord-like features and scratched-out eyes. Adolin counts only four humans present: himself, Shallan, Kaladin, and Azure. Azure, recognizing this place, expresses dread, suggesting the Oathgate has transported them somewhere she knows and fears.