From “Urban Oddities of Aurelthrym,” by Senior Snow-Archivist Pindle Quickquill
(With annotations preserved in the margins for context and personal delight.)
Approximately one hundred and twenty-four years ago, one of the Whispering Arcs near the northern ice-fields did something most of them are very good at not doing.
It activated.
This was, by all professional measurements, terribly exciting.
According to eyewitness accounts (three Kender, one very agitated Deep Gnome, and a guard who later resigned), the Arc glowed, hummed, and tore open a shimmering aperture to another world.
What came through were not conquerors, nor spellcasters, nor emissaries of any known power.
They were mortals.
Very ordinary ones.
They came from a realm they called Midgard Prime, a place of towering cities, moving carriages without horses, glowing signs, and an alarming lack of magic. One city in particular—called New York—was referenced so often that several Kender assumed it was a god.
(It is not. We asked.)
The Arc sealed itself moments later.
Everyone stared at it for a long time.
we simply stared at the mortals before one curious Kender asked to play... to my dismay they did not want to play. Still we helped them as best we could.