New refugees and arrivals tend to settle closest to the water, finding shelter in makeshift shacks and shantytowns while they gather their bearings and find employment. The Waterfront, as this large sprawling area is known, is a bustling place of commerce and activity, both legal (fishing, transportation, trade) and criminal (pretty much everything dark and shady). Here desperate people do desperate things – eager to get ahead or to remake themselves, entrepreneurs, con artists, and pickpockets abound at every corner and pub table. Religious orders seek new converts. Security forces and adventuring companies sign up eager recruits here as well.
Author: admin
Strangers in a Strange Land – Episode 1
Moments ago you were passengers aboard Flight 710 bound for Tokyo from Los Angeles. Although the odds of a plane crash are slim, somehow you won that lottery. A freak lightning storm, an engine failure after a lightning strike, followed by a fire that filled the cabin with smoke and flames, all while watching the dark dark sea rise rapidly into your view, filling the entire window. You don’t recall the actual moment of impact. Nor remember what happened afterward.
What is clear though, is that you are no longer on the plane, and likely no longer in the world you once knew. You wake with your back against the green grass of a clearing in the middle of a forest. You’re certain it’s a forest, because you can hear the birds chattering and a wind stirring the leaves. Where is the plane? Where is the ocean? Where are all the people who were right next to you screaming for their lives?
You look around and find that you are not actually alone. There are five of you, all vaguely familiar to you as fellow passengers. All looking equally confused and overwhelmed. As you look around, you see that you are actually lying in the center of an ancient stone circle. Each stone in the ring bears some strange runes which were glowing, but now have begun to fade. Much like the lingering cloud of light and some sort of energy that still clings to this space. You’re not in Kansas anymore.
After some brief introductions and a quick assessment of what each person has on them, you conclude that you have been “transported” to a new world, just like the standard isekai trope that is running rampant in anime and manga at the moment. Andrew, who looks fairly tall and sturdy, seems especially excited — as if, perhaps, he’d been secretly hoping for something like this to happen. For most of you, it’s still very surreal. You do take Andrew’s suggestion to check your phones. You find that there is no cell phone service here, but your devices still seem to work – or at least, some of the apps still function after a fashion, albeit now with some semblance of magic or fantasy, consistent with many of the usual isekai tropes.
Trouble
The party hears a bloodcurdling scream coming from some distance away. They grab some sticks and stones and go investigate. They find three goblin scavengers robbing the remains of a merchant wagon and the bodies of the merchant, a bard, and two guards. They fight the goblins. Andrew is knocked unconscious by repeated attacks from goblins (scimitar + arrow). Josh slays one immediately, but gets shot twice and falls down.
Thanks to Elaine and Alex, Andrew and Josh are healed.
They beat the goblins, grab swords and crossbows, and defeat the wolf that the goblins had brought with them. Then they loot the bodies, search the wagon, find a secret compartment and a hidden chest. They loot the chest and discover within it a strange amulet that feels cold to the touch, as well as a few other trinkets. They note that the chest is lead-lined, as if to prevent any detection or scrying.
Surveying the wreckage and aftermath of the battle, they decide to pile the bodies on the wagon and push it into a ditch and set it on fire. Then they head back to the stone circle to camp and take a long rest.
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