You have arrived in the city of Xenby. Although you don't speak the language, the people are friendly, and they don't seem as surprised to see you as you expected. You might almost think that people appearing out of thin air is a normal occurrence in Xenby.
As you gradually pick up the language, you learn that Xenby, like Oxford, is a university city. When you mention this coincidence to the locals, they are particularly pleased to see you. You discover that there is a brain drain in progress, with Xenby being the city drained. Several of the most famous professors of Xenby have been tempted away to the bright lights of Atlantis, some thousand or more miles away, by higher salaries, better working conditions, and other such trivia. And the students have followed them. Xenby can't seem to get able students any more.
When you divulge the circumstances of your arrival, the locals go so far as to offer you a job in the university. The job is in the newly-created Department of Wild Magic. The university has enough trouble filling existing posts as professors leave; it is finding it impossible to staff a newly-created department, and they will take more or less anyone they can get. But when you mention that, having learnt that there was a tree somewhere which made people disappear, you tried every tree in turn until you found it, the head of the Department of Wild Magic assures you that you've got exactly the right temperament and scientific outlook, and you'll fit in perfectly.
Don't try to leave the city just yet. This is what happens if you do.
But, assuming that you don't fall victim to a laboratory accident, you're having fun in Xenby, and you don't want to leave just yet. Maybe, in a couple of months, Atlantis will tempt you away with a higher salary. Maybe, by then, I'll even have written up some scenarii.
(Space reserved for scenarii, when I get around to writing them up)
After a few months, assuming that you're still alive, you have acquired a reputation for dealing intelligently with tricky situations. (you have also acquired a working knowledge of the Common Tongue).
So, when a guy arrives in Xenby on a flying carpet, the locals think that you're the best person to go and ask what he wants.
That's not difficult. He speaks the Common Tongue about as badly as you do, so the two of you have no trouble communicating.
The guy explains that he's looking for adventurers to act as a bodyguard. He's the Caliph of Agvhazar, a small independent caliphate in the desert. He doesn't entirely trust his vizier (does anyone?), and he certainly doesn't trust the three large countries which border on Agvhazar.
His original plan was to fly on to Atlantis to recruit adventurers there. He reckons that his flying carpet is fast enough to do the flight from Xenby to Atlantis in a day. The flying carpet seats four.
The flight from Agvhazar to Xenby took two days. It is necessary to break the journey with an overnight stop. On the way here, the Caliph stopped overnight at his Embassy in Thoqmaxar, the capital of one of the three large neighbouring countries. There is a plausible alternative, which is to stop overnight in the more cosmopolitan city of Omnatia; although the Shah of Thoqmaxar nominally rules Omnatia too, his rule there is very nominal indeed. Omnatia, the Caliph informs you, is famous for casinos and for having a large Odinist community.
The Caliph admits to a lack of experience in adventuring matters, and will happily defer to your greater experience if you suggest something plausible and sound as if you know what you're talking about.
Amongst the various options you could come up with are:
A few weeks later, the Caliph turns up accompanied by three sexy women. If you ask, they're Atlantean fencers looking for adventure; he's going to try to pass them off as recruits for his harem. When you look more closely, you notice that they are indeed more muscular than you imagine typical harem recruits would be.
But there's only room on the flying carpet for four, so you don't have the option of changing your mind and accompanying the Caliph and the three sexy women to Agvhazar. Bad luck.
Now you'll have to wait in Xenby until I come up with another scenario.
Presumably, you arrived here while guarding a stagecoach.
Either you can wait here until I write up some other adventure hooks, you can try to get a job at Xenby University, or you can take another job guarding another stagecoach.
If you take another job guarding another stagecoach, only route which may need lookouts is a journey through spectacular mountain scenery lasting five days which ends in Caljanat.