Valis

Session 0/1: The Gate

You'd never seen Valis before, nor even heard a description of the city, nor anyone from Valis. Your expectations were fantastical and what now stands before you is certainly fantastical, just not what you expected. Along your journey, to this seemingly new Mecca of freedom, you've met a few others traveling there as well. You travel along a winding road separating two forests, as the road starts to widen, above the treeline you can see the start of a massive glass dome. As the Party gets closer the sun reaches high into the sky, reflecting off the dome and causing some of the sigils to be visible. They shimmer under the blinding radiance, looking almost as if they were beasts wriggling, being kept out by the translucent turquoise dome of Valis. As the sun moves on, so does the Party and soon you stand before Valis. The dome, if you can call it that, is a cylindrical semi-sphere topped, crystal clear glass "dome"; a quarter-mile in diameter and nearly double that in height, If the size wasn't striking the color was, the Turquoise to seafoam green gradient of the dome stood out from the near-black waters of the MAANZEHIONTOR, which Valis must come in contact with as the beginning of Valis starts right before the hard ice-packed ground turns to a craggy but still tan sanded beach. To the immediate west of Valis is a cliff face with lush forest on top. To the Immediate east is the continuation of the forest you had been traveling adjacently to, it seems to end at the Terruk Mountains. There is a river that runs in front of Valis and the bride going over it, but other than that there are no structures. That has not stopped a large crowd of people, at least 300, from gathering just past the bridge going all the way to the Gates. Some people have set up small makeshift tents and stalls, while others have set up entire magical fortresses supporting from the ground. Most annoyingly the density of the "disposable" habitats seems to increase the closer to the Gates of Valis one becomes. Soon it's almost as if you as going through a very odd market of great variety.