The roads to Ys are jammed with traffic.

It's the migration of tourists, people from every corner of the Nine Kingdoms, bumper to bumper in places. The rains have been heavy this year and parts of the road are flooded or muddy, and the convoy grinds to a halt as people get out of their cars to help push. You're in the middle of all the people in the world, united by the common trials of travel.

There upon the rooftop of his car sits a grinning man in a hideous black and white hawaiian shirt and mirrorshades, huge map spilling over the side of his knees. The car is driven by a tall, slender and nervous man with scales of blue and the kimono of a high lord. Past them walks an ancient giant, ten feet tall even in his hunch with a flowing white beard that drapes along the floor. He sets his shoulder alongside two women in lab coats pushing the car - one young, fierce, with violet hair and one old, wily, in black - and puts his shoulder into the work. From the interior of the car a man with a chiseled politician's smile and red-and-white prize ribbon on his shirt leans out to give them a grin and thumbs up. In the passenger seat, the lady in the silver suit meditates with her eyes closed.

An angel flies overhead, armour of gold and a cascade of gemstones, holding a strange green rabbit in his arms. A tired looking man in a black vest sits side by side with a glowing suit of Burrower armour, skipping stones across the floodwater. Before their stones lose their momentum they're shot from the air and disintegrated into flashes of steam by the laser sniper rifle of the blonde woman who kneels on the distant hill. A beautiful captain, uniform blue and braid against ebony skin, rubs his bald palette awkwardly as his compliment to the elegant blue-suited woman in a gas mask falls flat. A duelist in white leather tosses a dagger back and forth to an enormous woman in a fur cloak and crimson flame hairpiece. In the distance, down the line of cars, comes the sound of music from a band of squidlike monsters. An engineer in crystal works on laying the structure for a bridge as a man in a brown suit takes measurements and provides suggestions. A queen with a half her face hidden behind terrible scar tissue chats with a young soldier with a skull mask and a teenager with eyes of murder. The sky is thick with flight - a woman in red with the wings of a phoenix, a boy with the wings of an insect, winged horses in purple, in yellow, in white. Bears in armour haul wagons filled with kobolds in the colours of the rainbow, gazing in awe at everything they see and reporting hurriedly back to a wolf in gold. All these characters and thousands besides, all on the road to Ys.

They are going because of the war, of course. This is the greatest show on earth - Princess Qiu against the combined forces of Princess Ysel, Princess Yin and Princess Jezara. This will be a contest of armies and technique the likes of which the realms rarely see. And so comes this crowd, the splendour of their lives and stories distant but inspirational, to see what new marvels will bless the Nine Kingdoms.

You drive through a crowd of ex-champions and forgotten legends. You wait in line with them and share their stories for a moment. 

When it comes time for your own story to end you know that you'll be welcome into these exalted ranks. But until then, they're all cheering for you.