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Some call it the Dark Continent. Other's call it Desarke in the old Basilean tongue. There are a few who even speak its name 'Watchite' in the language of the natives. Colloquially, it's known the Southlands. No sane man travels there, I've heard. It's a wilderness of steaming jungles and deadly rivers. Deserts and hoodoo rock formations touching the skies. Even the land of the God-Kings is located here, where sorcery of unimaginable depravity is performed and children are sacrificed to heathen death-gods. On the west coast, the mysterious elves make their homes and live as seafarers and await the return of their deities.  

Below that is where men call the Black Delta. Where vast jungles cover the corpses of dead empires and men hack away at the forest until the forest bites back in return. I don't know about sane, but only the fool hardy or the very desperate immigrate, as beasts beyond scholarly knowledge lurk in the waters and stalk beneath the tree canopies. Diseases of unknown origin proliferate and eat at the very flesh, and that is only the beginning of one's troubles. The Southlands are dangerous, and known by many names. 

For me? I call it home. 

Thornton was abuzz with activity. I had been here many times, but I felt fortunate I didn't live here. The streets, many of them wooden planks set up by supports over the Sarka river, were packed with desperate refugees and irate locals. The Inns had been filled up for a week, and it was all the mayor could do to keep order in the streets. He had finally found an excuse to let his local thugs have 'fun' and beat anyone who was caught with a minor infraction, throwing them out of town to die in the wilderness or buy their way out of the jail cells located beneath the town, where water seeped into the floor and men had been known to drown there. Once, long ago, I heard of a man who had disappeared. Something had broken through the wall from the water and had taken him. I had fond memories of this place, and though the ownership had always been cruel, it was a reliable stop before one had to hop from outpost to outpost until there was any semblance of civilization along the coast. But something had happened to Bloodmud. Some cataclysmic mudslide or a rampaging tyrant-beast, but whatever had happened, the way there was shut, and the last barges to go upriver had gone days ago. 

I was all there was left. My raft and my services. 

The locals knew me well enough. I made berth here a few times a year during the wet seasons where the rivers overflowed and made passage easier, and I'd come here since I was a small boy. The shopkeeper and dock-men were always kind, and I saw new people every visit with tales of far off lands to the north. I had never been anywhere but in the delta, and though I had read of knights, castles, and snow peaked mountains in my books, I knew I would never appreciate it as much as this land. Despite its unforgiving nature, there was a beauty about it I could never put to words. 

Now I waited on the deserted east docks, where old man Filden had set himself down to fish and his hound Humphrey sat just beside him, panting in the light of the noonday sun. I sat beside the crates, out of sight of any eyes that scanned the scalding wooden planks just above the jetty where the craft lay. The mayor nor his men had ever had a problem with my services before, but he was squeezing these people for all they were worth. He wouldn't want my lightening the load. And so I waited under the sun, closing my eyes and lounging by the last bit of flour the last barge had left, letting Filden act the part of guide until all were there. 

I had a contact in the town, one that would find the best money to be had for the most desperate to leave. Whoever they found, I would take. Some might say I had a bit too much faith in other locals, but people born here were so rare, there was a kinship there others couldn't understand. In my defense, I had not been expecting to go to sleep, but I did drift off. Little did I know I would wake up to get my first look at the vivacious lady Emmaline Von Morgenstern and company, and it would change my simple life forever.