<div class="floatright">(https://i.imgur.com/b45b8gH.jpg?1)</div><br/>Danala.<br/><br/>Those who knew the name of the city knew the immense power and potential of the massive city.  Some even used it's name as a curse or a blessing.  There were even a few who worshiped the city as if it were a living deity. Certainly the city could make or break fortunes, lives, and fate.  So overwhelming was Danala that many refused to even utter it's name, as if doing so might invoke it's wrath.  Instead calling it by one of it's many nicknames; the city of markets, the city of portals, the jewel of the planes, tradershome, or most often simply "the crossroads."  All of these names were accurate for Danala sat in a pocket dimension separate from other planes of existence, floating in the ethereal sea, but with many fingers, paths, gaps, that connected it to countless other locations in existence.  Journey to Danala could be as easy as knowing the right phrase to utter when passing through an enchanted arch, or as difficult as completing a magical ritual of dark intent.  The path to Danala was fraught with whatever peril the home plane put upon such travel, but once you were in Danala, the sky was the limit.<br/><br/>Some found themselves trampled down to the dregs of society, ending in the mines and underground farms of the cruel drow overlords, used in every way imaginable before their usually short and brutal lives came to an end.  Others joined the ranks of the city defenders, serving the enigmatic empress's whims and laws.  Some found themselves tasked into inter dimensional guilds of like minded adventurers, setting off across the multiverse on some task or another.  Many were merchants bringing rare and exotic goods from their home worlds, or locales that they knew secret routes too.  One could find, with a good deal of luck, that they could rise to great station in Danala.  But the greater the rewards, the greater the risk, and Danala as a city had little mercy for those who failed.<br/><br/>Sometimes, just sometimes, a being came to the pocket dimension of Danala not by plan, but by chance.  Usually one took a wrong turn and passed through a portal, or enacted an ancient spell of travel, but occasionally, just once in a while, there was a being who came to Danala by means completely unexpected.  Was it the will of the city acting out?  Was it just a strange circumstance of fate and alignment?  Was it the will of the mysterious semi deity known as the Empress?  Who could say?<br/><br/>But this, this is a story about one such individual, and their unwilling journey into a new life in the magical and fantastic city of Danala.