I've been struggling with framing my current story idea so I decided to draw out the setting and flesh it out from there. So far it's been good. But I've got one issue. My story starts in a valley. The main river pools in the hills before flowing down into the valley. I want this pool to be sacred to the local druids and a site of annual rites. My best idea was a fey spirit, the valley is a earth magic leyline nexus so nature/fey is the theme of local magic, that lives/visits there once a year and grants prophecies. After the first part of the story this spirit will provide the MC the motivation to travel out of the valley and continue his journey.

But how do you handle prophecy without giving to much away? I was thinking vague visions, because writing prophetic verse is hard and the spirit doesn't talk, relating to MCs current goal but I'm having a hard time coming up with something that isn't just a neon sign saying "Hey go here!". I don't want it to be the equivalent of a fancy scrying spell or cheat code. But then I went to far the opposite direction and it barely made sense. Any advice from those of you that use oracles in your stories? Should I just use some other mechanic?