The party is a band of newly trained guards from Brightport, sent across the bay to the neighboring city of Phoenix Drop. Commmunication from Phoenix Drop was once common, but had suddenly and starkly dropped a few weeks prior.
The group travels with Visher, the fisher. Jackie actually knows him and his small family fairly well, as she stayed with them until she could join the guard academy and bunk there. He seems somewhat skittish when talking to Jackie, skirting around a topic, but ultimately wishes her luck.
We approach Phoenix Drop's docks...they look a little worn but nothing too bad. Visher drops us off and Jackie leads the group into the forest, attempting to follow the dirt path with faith in her ability to navigate. She had made it from the other side of the CONTINENT to Brightport, after all.
Thank god the rest of the party is with her, because she immediately rolls a NATURAL 1 on Perception (first roll of the campaign!). Because of her halfling Luck, she could have rerolled... but I forgot about that feature lmao.
Thus, Jackie was distracted by the fact that LEAVES change COLOR here??? Very different from back home. There are actual seasons, as opposed to tropical climate.
But thankfully, Trix and Aeyla roll extremely well, and notice a figure in green and black clothing keeping pace with them and parallel to our path. Trix calls out to them, and they sprint away from the path, traveling with supernatural speed.
We speed up our pace towards the city, and meet a fully armored person guarding the entrance. He introduces himself as Garroth. He was going to introduce us to his apprentice...but he can't find him. Hm.
Garroth tells the party in hushed tones that the city's LORD is MISSING. Has been for over a week now. Yikes.
As we walk through Phoenix Drop, it is apparent that this was once a quaint little town...but it's seen better days. We reach the Inn (which is all the signage says) and Garroth talks with a young woman, who seems concerned but mellows the more Garroth persuades her. She introduces herself as Molly, and that we will get room but no board thanks to Garroth.
We each get our own rooms, avoiding the one occupied room of someone who doesn't want to be disturbed, and are quickly told that in case of emergency, wake Molly up ONLY if that emergency is a fire. Nothing else.
The rooms are barebones and somewhat small, but Jackie is excited as she ended up choosing a room with a FULL TWIN BED! Far cushier than a bedroll in the mountains, and how spacious for her halfling self!
Garroth pops in with a list of things he'd appreciate help with, including fixing up The Town's Well, which functions as a community hub but seems like it has taken a bit of a beating.
Jackie and the group survey the damage, and Jackie feels compelled to use 1 of her 5 points of Lay on Hands to attempt to heal the well. Nothing happens, but she takes it in stride.
Jackie and Aeyla head to the outskirts of the city to chop some wood to repair the well. Jackie chops down a 7 foot long log and rolls a 21 to push it all the way back to the center of town, which she does over 20 minutes.
Upon returning with the materials, Jackie proceeds to roll poorly on wood-working (which she has novice skills in) and ends up just chilling for a bit and contemplating the well. Her workout exhausted her a bit (and I was quite tired too), so she eventually ushered everyone inside after making decent progress.
As she does at the start and end of every day, Jackie journals. In part as a ritual for The Wanderer, but in part for her to make sense of her travels.