The Rossem Project is close to success, and will allow a hand picked expedition to explore other worlds, searching for the threat that faces the planet Tharia, but as they begin their mission they discover that there are many other threats out there...
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The Great Western Ocean was far too wide for them to fly across on their magic carpets. Even at the narrowest point the journey would have taken at least two days, and there was too much danger that one of them would fall asleep and fall from their carpet. They also couldn't teleport directly. The interference affecting long range magic was dissipating fast, and it would only be a few more months before wizards could once again teleport anywhere in the world, but right now such a long journey was still out of the question. They used the Fellowship's network of teleportation cubicles, therefore, which took them to the city of Lech-Deh, in the Kingdom of Saprach, which left them with only a five hundred mile overland journey by magic carpet.
The southern extremity of the Great Western Range curved around to run parallel to the island continent's south coast, and the fifty mile wide strip of country between contained a line of low hills, dividing it lengthwise into two narrow ribbons of fertile farmland.
The city itself lay on the coast, and as Saturn brought his carpet to a halt, hovering a couple of hundred feet above the undulating grass, they saw a moderately large walled city, similar in its essentials to a hundred others they'd seen around the world. Lines of wagons and caravans filed through the open gates, waved through by bored looking guardsmen, and the harbours were filled with fat merchant ships. Some riding high in the water, bobbing like corks in the waves, others lying low, weighted down by full cargo holds. Either only just arrived from or about to set sail for any of several dozen other small cities scattered along the coastline.
Everything was boringly ordinary. There was nothing to suggest that they were farther from home than anywhere else on the surface of Tharia they'd ever been. Further even than they'd been in the Southern Continent. No doubt the inhabitants of that city spoke the common tongue with a strange accent, and maybe a large proportion of the population spoke Garonian as a second language, but the layout of the city and the architecture of the individual buildings was completely familiar. They had no sense that they were in a far distant country, and they had absolutely no sense that this insignificant little city had the distinction of being the oldest known human city in the world.
They decided they'd get more cooperation from the authorities if they made a grand entrance, and so they flew the carpets right into the city and landed in the middle of the busiest square, an open space surrounded by the largest and grandest buildings of the city. The townspeople drew back in fear but watched in fascination as the wizards rolled their carpets and Saturn shrank them to a size where they could be stowed in their backpacks. This was not an approach that Thomas and Lirenna would have attempted had they been alone. They would have landed outside the city and entered quietly, posing as mundanes so as not to draw attention to themselves, but now that they had Saturn with them, a wizard so powerful that they couldn't possibly be in any danger, they found they enjoyed the attention.
The rapidly growing crowd was staring in awe and wonder, buzzing with excitement as they asked each other who the new arrivals were and what this meant. After a few moments guardsmen arrived and pushed their way through to form a barrier between the crowd and the wizards, trying to pretend that they were holding the crowd back but in reality eying the new arrivals warily in case they meant trouble while desperately hoping they didn't.
