7123 N.C.W. Drava 28. Just before midnight

 

23/13/28; 23:59

 

On the day before the 548th Year of the Dragon.

 

It was 23:59... the last minute of the year.

 

Very few people were near it when it happened... but many people saw it. Especially if they lived in the northern province of Xantonia, near the Chervena Sea. There was an aurora that night. In itself it would be later known as an astrological phenomenon... as there has never before been an appearance of one so far south.

 

It lit the starry moonless sky and the sea bellow with a green hue. What came next would astound scholars even more. The varying accounts would  suggest It almost seemed to originate from the aurora. A large shooting star emerged and crashed into the waves of the Chervena sea, it skimmed across the surface before coming to rest inland a bit amidst the rocky coast, leaving a smoldering crater in its wake.

 

It wouldn't be till the next morning when someone would investigate the crash site. Expecting to find moonstone or some other otherworldly treasure that such shooting stars usually bring, this explorer found something immeasurably more valuable.

The new year of 7124/01/01 00:00 N.C.W. was marked by the arrival of potentially greatest find in an age.

 

This event sparks the start... of an adventure.

 

And like many adventures... this one starts... in a tavern. Each of you were brought here for the same goal, but for different reasons. Some for the promise of riches, some for glory, and some to investigate this new thing nature brought forth.

 

It has been many moons since that night that marked the start of a new year... Scholars have been studying the object that crash landed for a while, and up until this day, have kept the specifics secret. Then Recently there has been an ad for body guards or adventurers to assist these scholars with said mysterious object that fell from the sky many months before. People from all over have obviously gathered around.

 

Rumors have spread far and wide. Some say it is a monument from a long dead god, some say it is a monolith, a celestial tomb or some kind of Alien Sky Ship. No two rumors seem to be exactly alike... which has gained the notice of many around the known world.

 

Current Date: 7124/05/12 Lova the 12th.

 

 

Location: Portam Town, The Red Foam Goblet Tavern and Inn.

The Red-foam Goblet:

 

Line of people getting interviewed.

 

Probably bar room brawl.

 

At the end, the PC's are victorious.

 

You're hired!

 

Scholar Dr. James Hewlett is the one that ultimately hires the PC's. He has discovered the secret to the object that has been kept secret for many months now.

 

The Doctor explains that lately, the Wizards of the First Order have been monopolizing ancient artifacts, making it hard for the independent scholars like him to pursue their life's work of studying items like this. That is why they have kept it secret for so long, to keep those Mages away from it. However, with a recent finders agreement signed with the Order and the recent discovery on how this new artifact works, Dr. Hewlett sent out the ads for adventurers and body guards.

 

Why? What did Doctor James Hewlett find? A Gateway... A Magical and ancient

Gateway... The amount of Arcane and Divine Energies that flow through the object indicate that it is an artifact of extraordinary ability. Initial studies of the object itself and the tomb it was hidden inside indicate that the massive Ring has the ability to open a portal to potentially anywhere... even other planes... or dimensions as Scholars call them.

 

He calls it... the Dimension's Gate.

 

Dr. Hewlett comments on how normal teleportation or transversal magic works with today's knowledge is connecting two points through a Dimension coined by the Grand First Wizard himself, the Astral Plane. However, this Dimension's Gate seems to Operate through a different transversal Dimension as yet to be discovered by accepted sciences and arcane knowledge. The Leader of the First Order of Wizards would possibly be able to figure it out in quick order, but then they would have the Gate and the "common people" would not.

 

This sets up the growing distance between the common people and the Wizards of the First Order.

 

The Dimensions gate is an artifact like no other you have seen. Around 25ft in diameter upright ring. along one face of it, around a hundred symbols.

"Your job..." The Doctor explains, "Is to protect me from whatever lies on the other side of that."

 

To activate this Gate, it appears that a combination of 9 symbols are needed in a particular order. Randomly choosing symbols could potential take a long time... longer than they have. The amount of combinations would easily exceed 1e+18 or 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 or over 1 quintillion possibilities.

 

The Tomb that this object was in has some kind of ancient writing on it. After months of scholars analyzing this new data, they were able to finally translate it and derive nine symbols.

 

"Here lies the path to the Ultimate Sanctuary. Within holds Time's most precious Artifacts."

 

The Gate itself started spinning, stopping on a symbol at the top, lighting up before spinning the other direction. First symbol, Second Symbol, Third Symbol, etc.

The earth starts shaking when it reaches the seventh symbol, with the intensity ever increasing the closer they got to number nine.

 

Once number of nine hit, everything went silent and still. And then, in an explosion of energy from the center of the ring, opened a portal of shimmering silver energy.

 

Once more unto the breach.

 

 

You find yourself emerging from a similar gate in which you entered. However, the surrounding area is far different then the climate you came from. You were in some kind of tropical setting. You were overlooking some kind of foreign town with weirdly shaped buildings. This town was in a forested valley surrounded on 3 sides by mountains. The 4th side overlooked the shore... but you could tell that something was off about it, though you couldn't place it. It was quite apparent that you were on some kind of island.