"Winds of Change"

[Kaelon]

Early Winter, Year 15 Post Fractum

The rickety barge lumbered across the serene, chilled waters outside of Aelyria Prime. Lumbering and rocking back and forth on the waves, it traveled with the grace of a giant and the speed of a turtle. Its stone grey wooden planks were crusted over with bits of solid ice and crumbling snow; they journey from the east had been unforgiving, with the harshness of the Aelyrian Everwinter castigating the vessel for its daring sojourn. When the Harbormaster in Ostward was awakened before dawn about the strange tiny ship, he rushed out to his balcony overlooking Houseboat Row. The odd flotilla of houseboats and civilian docks crowded the delta of the River Ioannes, choking its access to the rest of the city and spilling out into the bay. Through a simple spyglass, the Harbormaster could see the vessel moving to the northwest, towards the docks near the Shipwright's Guild and the Light House.

The Barge's name was the Fortunate, a small merchant trading vessel that was barely seaworthy and could traverse lengthy distances only by the grace of its caravel reinforced sails. By the time it had docked, the stevedores busily went to work unloading crate after crate of supplies, mostly silk linens and fine cloth from lands that few people had ever heard of. "Tribal Masks from the Umbukku? Where is that?!" reacted a local guard exchanging gossip with a seaside soldier. "I don't know, but they've also brought silks from Sekfenya, claiming that they have been as far as Shalimar!" The guardsmen exchanged a chuckle of disbelief, tolerating the merchants as harmless profiteering charlatans. But the real winds of change came bellowing into the taverns and pubs, the restaurants and parks of Aelyria Prime, where the word had soon gone out. Eventually, the name of the originating city crossed the lips of every other inhabiants of the Ancient Capital of Aelyria.

Freeport.

Once considered too fantastic a place to possibly be real, traders and explorers had come to accept the "City of Adventure" as an inevitable fact. It made sense: the pirates which had plagued the coasts of the Continent needed a safe haven somewhere, and despite the best efforts of the Navy to destroy small enclaves and pirate hideouts, the real treasure had never been found. Expeditions in the past had been sent to establish basic communication and fundamental understandings with Freeport, but no formal diplomatic relations ever emerged; the City was "too unruly, too uncivilized", as diplomats would often say. Yet, that never stopped various factions from employing mercenaries hailing from the distant city to the far East.

Viceroy Andy Carabino had once written on his ill-fated and mysterious voyage to colonize a new land in the name of Aelyria that "a small city on the edge of a large island chain" hosted him before his final departure, and described it famously as "the most wretched hive of villainy in the world". These traders who had come basking upon the winds of fortune and the stream of chance found themselves unexpectedly greeted by a curious and not entirely inhospitable audience in Aelyria Prime. And why wouldn't they be hospitable? This was some of the best gossip to emerge during the year. And at night, the children who had eavesdropped on their parents exchanging rumors about the fabled "pirate city" would dream of becoming buccaneers and being free to command their own destinies, the world as their oyster.

Note: Characters in Aelyria now have a fundamental understanding that Freeport (see: Pirateopedia) exists to the East, and because vessels have historically had contact between the Continent and the Serpent's Teeth, companions can attempt the journey provided that they have a seaworthy vessel capable of traversing the open oceans.