Take a bird’s-eye view of the world of Gaia. It looks much like our own.

Imagine if you were to photograph it from space with an orbiting satellite. With all the Earth-like clouds between you and the planet’s surface, you might not even know the difference between the two.

Get further down in the atmosphere and you’ll discover that this planet's technology and mores are firmly in the Middle Ages. You’ll also find, though, that the people have access to magic. A typical Gaian can use all twelve elements of magic: light, fire, electricity, psyche, nature, soul, air, distortion, metal, water, earth, and shadow. As you can see, these aren’t analogous to elements of matter—they include elements that manipulate minds, hearts, atoms, and the senses.

Mortals have very limited access to these elements. The races of man can light fires, or, more accurately, turn a finger into a low-power blowtorch. It’s enough to get a campfire going. It’s not enough to guarantee you’ll kill a bear or, worse, one of the many monsters dwelling in the fields. They can manipulate light in the vein of lanterns. If they have the time and the focus, they can make a quarter-cup of water. They can make others’ eyesight go a little fuzzy. They can mess with minds, but only at such a low level that, beyond parlor tricks, they can't even wrap their own minds around how to grow more adept.

So most people of Gaia are jacks of all trades, masters of none. Whether human, dwarf, or elf, this is their universal truth.

Some break the mold not through higher magic power, but through study and perseverance. This group includes witches and warlocks, who commune with monsters and, depending on where they live, may be embraced or shunned. They include certain orders of monks and esoteric devotees.

Then there are those who have no choice but to specialize. Unable to use most magic, they end up masters of one. Mind readers. Purifiers. Natural arsonists and living lightning rods.

These people, though rare, have prestigious futures ahead of them. They defend villages, lead armies, storm dungeons. They become heroes. They become adventurers.

For these powerful people, the center of the world is Arkadia, which is the central capital of the central continent Darshanna. City of adventurers! Headquarters of the great Arkadian Guild!

So while some will remain in place, humbly defending their hometowns, and others will circulate through several neighborhoods performing valiant tasks for those who need them, many will hear from a messenger on horseback that the capital needs their help. It always needs their help. Their world is plagued by vermin, beasts, monsters, and, rarest and worst of all, demons. They who turn Gaian lakes to blood. They who promise fairy gardens, only to kill the tempted at the gate. Adventurers, feeling the call tug at their conscience, often move to the big city, join the guild, and devote themselves to saving the world from the biggest possible vantage point, bit by bit.

At least, that’s the simplified version.

But this explanation hasn’t even touched on the phenomenon that you might informally call “isekai-ing.” The supernatural, supermagical force that, one fateful year, sent the souls of dead humans from Earth to Gaia.

“It wasn’t long ago,” said Kyara.

She was still sitting across from Dodd in a shadowed underworld bar, at a leathery booth whose chairs were lined with the weathered hides of wyrms who had lived in Gaia’s core—millennia ago. The empty abyssul cup stood between them. It glittered whenever a piece of light from another group's magma bubble shone on it.

“When the twelve humans from Earth showed up, it was in the middle of a great war,” the crow girl continued. “You may have heard of it. It started on Gaia, but a lot of demon soldiers actually got pulled into it. And it was serious. Bigger than anything we’d have for, what, maybe three centuries?”

“I wouldn’t know,” said Dodd. “I was working all that time.”

“Figures,” said Kyara with a chuckle. “The wondrous, high-flying life of a menial. The important part is, these twelve humans showed up, and everybody took notice.”

“And this was when?”

“Three years ago.”

To someone who’d lived a bit over eight hundred years, that was a drop in the bucket. “So my lord must be...very young.”

“Yes, astronomically young. But keep in mind what they must have lived through, and how quickly all twelve of them had to adapt. Rumor has it that nobody had magic on Earth, so these twelve came in with no experience. None whatsoever.”

It was all so hard for Dodd to picture. She wondered about all the stories of their struggles that could’ve been written...but never would be.

Dodd shook her head. “It sounds like whatever glory my lord had in that war...like that's as far as they'll go.”

“What do you mean? You’re saying they peaked too soon?”

“Essentially. After all, no mortal that becomes a demon stays around for long.”

Saying this unsettled Dodd more than she’d expected it to. How much could another demon lord, another employer in a string of the same, have possibly meant to her? Not much, right?

But the more she heard, the more she felt sorry for these twelve humans.

“Poor things,” she said. She might not have had the wisdom to say it, but she certainly had the years. “My master has started to cry for Earth...in front of me.”

Kyara almost laughed at this, but hid it behind her hand. “It makes you wonder,” she said, “what exactly they’ve got over there.”

The imp just nodded.

There wasn’t much left to explain. And if Dodd’s estimation was correct, there wasn’t much time left to burn, either.

Kyara shared a few last details. She asked if Dodd had seen any strange treasures in Nightfall Castle, or any mementos that the lord kept close. Dodd said she hadn’t—she was telling the truth, and the abyssul still swirling in her mind testified to it.

“Aw, that’s alright,” said Kyara. Dodd, seeing all the silver Kyara wore, had a feeling that it wasn’t. “It’s still pretty thrilling. Thrilling that they’re back, you know. I’ll have to pass it on.”

That sounded ominous. Dodd had come to Hellfloes knowing that to get information, she’d have to give information. At the very least. (And she had come out of the exchange very well, considering that her arms were regrowing and the right one had almost re-developed its fingers.) But if this meant anything cataclysmic was about to happen, like, say, a war between Lord Nightfall and the salamanders...and if Lord Nightfall learned which “loyal” underling had brought this danger down on their head...

Dodd couldn’t think about that right now.

It was time to go back and move on.