First landing

The wind bites colder up here.

You stand at the edge of the Sky-Pier, a stone platform jutting out from the upper spires of the city. Below you, the world stretches out in a living map—mage-trains humming along glowing tracks, distant airships tracing lines of smoke across the pale sky like a painter’s charcoal. Travel is normal, yes. But never safe.
Especially not today.

You weren’t invited by a noble house. This isn’t a military contract or an arcane expedition backed by gold-stamped writs.
This job is different.

"The Independent" is a ship without allegiance. Not tied to any duke, baron, or high-circle wizard. It flies on crystal, coin, and willpower alone. And today… it’s hiring monster hunters. A chance like no other, a chance you have taken.

Some of the faces beside you are old companions. Others, only faintly familiar—a friend of a friend, perhaps. Yet all of you answered the same call: to sail into the wilds, to harvest magic from beasts the size of towers, and to claim riches—or ruin.

A gull cries. Somewhere behind you, an artificer barks at a malfunctioning luggage porter. The sky tastes like iron and ozone.

And then—a shadow sweeps across the pier.

You look up.

Descending through the clouds, sleek and gliding, comes the ship. The Independent.



She’s about 35 meters from bow to stern, 25 from keel to masthead. Maybe 10 meters wide. Her hull is scarred, but solid. Well-loved. The paint’s peeling a little—but the runes beneath still glow faintly, steady and sure.

The stabilizing arms retract with a hiss. Anchor tethers snap forward and dig into the pier with a practiced thud. The magic holding the ship aloft sparks and flickers like sunlight on water.

Then, something odd.

A smell.

Bacon.

Hot. Crisp. Bacon.
Your stomach growls—unbidden. Someone's cooking belowdecks.

The group makes an odd spectacle and a group of human porters calls out mockingly.
Have you see that freak show?! Calls one of them
What’s this then? A goblin bookworm, a walking fungus, and a tin can with wings?
Careful, don’t breathe too hard—might knock the pixie overboard. Laughs one of the other porters
Hope the beasts in the wilds die laughing—‘cause you lot sure ain’t killing ‘em with steel.

Talin shifted the bag holding his meager belongings as he prepared to board. He gave a quick smile as he spotted some friendly faces, but it shifted back to neutral as soon as the dockhands began yapping. He takes a deep breath before forcing an insincere smile back to his face.

"Perhaps you'll share some of your vast experience with us, then. Tell me, how have you come by such expertise on monster hunting?"

Talin puts some steel in his voice and keeps the forced smile on his face as he stares down the dockhands.

Vethalia raises an eyebrow and watches the proceedings carefully. She is both a woman and a goblin so this kind of treatment was nothing new to her but she thought watching Talin deal with it might be entertaining.

Torrek stands head and shoulders above the others, his heavy plate armor gleaming in the sun as he watches Talin delicately redress these porters' mouths. Without realizing it, he flexes a gauntleted hand... a sharp jab in the mouth was quite capable of changing peoples attitudes. Still, a man in his position couldn't always give in to impulse.

Veth pushes her copper hair back behind an earring covered pointed ear and smirks. "Is this going to take long?" She asks the porters as she nods towards the ship, "I'm really looking forward to examining the engines."

Guesclinbert stands and watches the porters work and jeering, then when they've finished laughing at their joke about "the pixie falling overboard" he flexes the tips of his wing fathers (one casually tickling Vethalia's cheek as he does so) and says quietly "At least if one of us falls overboard, we can simply fly - or be flown - back to the ship. How about you?"

Daedale adjusts the strap across their chest, steadying the satchel of pressed leaves and bound field notes that marks them as a scholar and hunter both. At their hip, a dried gourd rattles faintly with spores, a charm or a threat, depending on who listens.

They turn slightly at the jeering voices, eyes slow to blink, head cocked like a sunflower turning toward a passing cloud.

Daedale speaks low, just loud enough to be heard.

"They laugh, but they wouldn’t know a sky sedge from a marrowvine. They don’t know that float thistle only grows where megafauna have passed, drawn to the magic lee they leave behind. Or that lantern lichen flickers brighter when an apex predator is near. Or that ridgefern only curls like that when the air pressure shifts around something massive."

They gently pat the leather-bound journal at their side.

"The plants will show us where to go. The beasts always leave echoes in the green. You just have to be quiet long enough to listen."

Daedale doesn't turn back to face the jeerers. Their voice drifts out like wind through reeds, even and distant.

Vath swats at Gues' feathers and pokes him in thecribs, *Can you not?* She says with a wiggle of her ears, *It's like being trapped in the back of a wagon with my cousin Raine.*

Each of the fore guys are expecting one of the others to fire back with a retort but as they all fail to do so, and it has now taken too long, they slump off to do some actual work. Like getting the ropes from the ship and securing the ship.

Ohoy lads.. lass When he spots Daedale the middelaged man in the blue hat faulters.
He pulls out a piece of paper and runs through a list calling out names.
Talin!
Vethlia!
Gues...Gueslinbert!
Falka!
Daedale!
Torrek!
He checks his list as you respond.
Are you all here?
He steps to the gangplank revealing his peg-leg.

Torrek will look around for this Falka individual, and make a mental note when they respond to roll call. "All present and accounted for, Sir. Permission to come aboard, Captain?" It was a moment where those mind-numbingly boring lessons in etiquette Torrek had suffered through in his younger days actually mattered. He doesn't so much as set foot on the gangplank until given permission, and he will ensure his friends don't either.