Jake Omaze

Jake Omaze was an "accidental explorer" and adventurer who lived during the Fifth Age. He is most notable for surviving over thrity-one years lost on the Duat.

Early Life

Jake was born in the city of Sun's Beacon where he lived into adolesence. He was the sun of a middle-class banker and home-maker. He and his friends would often play and excplore in the ruins interpsersed throughout the city, paying little head to "Warning" and "Keep Out". "Danger" typically necessitated the use of flashlights and, on rare occasions, closed-toed shoes.

He was about twelve when he and his friends first stumbled upon what he would later know as the entrance to the Duat. On the surface the place looked like little more than a vacant lot with the scant ruins of some ancient building. In a small corner, a game gone wrong broke through the slab and revealed it to be a rough. Or, rather, what was thought to be the building's foundation, was actually the ceiling of it's first floor. The road level had changed that much. The boys had found an abandoned building, filled mostly with debris and garbage. But they explored it all the same, and found their way into a basement with similar, if lesser, trappings, and finally into a well-preserved sub-basement.

It was mostly empty, but the presence of rusted cells told them this had probably once been a guard house of some sort. At the far back corner, three stories underground, behind a rotting book case, Jake and his friends found a deep, rock-cut passageway that extended into the earth. This, Jake would later say, was where his adventure began.

Duat Expedition

For three years, Jake and his friends played in the guard-house ruins, building forts and inventing games. Only occasionally, usually on a dare or to impress girls, would they take the steep decending passage that opened, over a hundred feet beneath the surface, on a natural cavern. With his friends he never dared venture more than a few steps into that deep sub-terrace world, but alone Jake would sometimes explore the passages for hundreds, even thousands of feat. At this time, he still did not know what he and his friends had carelessly discovered, and he made a rather juvenile mistake: he believed that the caves could only go so far, and that, properly equipped and provisioned, he should be able to explore them.

He told his friends of his aspirations many times, but could convince none of them to accompany him. Enamored by the cave, he resolved to go alone.

Jake packed a bag with food, water, camping equipment, and lots of flashlights. He was by no means an experienced caver and had not even camped in real wilderness. Had he told his parents or anyone in authority, he would not have been allowed to go. A few friends knew, but were sworn to secrecy. Having told hi parents he was spending the weekend with a friend, Jake set off.

"A few thousand feet from [the natural cave] entrance, I found the remains of a wooden wall and door, and what had been a store room. A bit past that, I found a brick cistern. All the while I was walking on packed earth or paved with rough cobbles and shards of shale. The place clearly hadn't been touched in forever, but this presence of human workmanshape had me re-assured. This wasn't a mysterious cavern, it was like being in a park!"

Jake walked for hours before he found himself on the beach of an underground lake. A rotted-out rowboat sat on the sand while the remains of a wooden peer disappeared into the inky black waters.