A rather idyllic little stream flows through a calm forest, its banks liberally flowered with bluebells.

Along the stream here and there are various people, looking mostly human but with some additions - bark patches, vine-like raised veins, sometimes even more involved plant like growths. And a distinct prevalence of facial tattoos, especially one like a thorny branch.

The primary occupation here seems to be panning the streambed silt in search of something valuable.

It is on the bank of this stream that Agatha finds herself, much to the curiosity - but not all that much consternation - of the onlookers.

Someone runs off back down a path; one of the children, maybe seven years old, blurts out, "Are you from Anvil?" 

Hm. The flowers look familiar, that’s good at least. 

-and these are clearly a biospark’s minions, that might be bad,

wait, what?

”I’m afraid I’m not sure where that is! I appear to be quite lost. Would anyone happen to know the directions to Mechanicsburg?”

Hey, might as well try the easy solution.

"Where's that?"

"Sounds like somewhere in the Commonwealth?"

"If anyone knows, Allegra will."

"I think Trys rushed off to get her, she'll be here in a minute."

And indeed, returning down the path at not quite a run but certainly a hurry, a middle-aged lady who also has face tattoos - and a burn on her left cheek - but none of the other physical signs sported by the others; holding a quarterstaff that seems to be somewhat alive with silvery vines and autumn leaves, with a leather circlet holding a single green gem in the centre of her forehead.

If anything she is more scruffily dressed than the rest, in some kind of patchwork robe, but it has 'Allegra' sown across the back of it in big, somewhat amateurish letters, and the way others react to her suggest she is distinctly In Charge.

Commonwealth, hm. That’s interesting, and indicates she’s farther away than previously expected - Asia, maybe?

And she’s the spark, then. Well, that could either be good or very bad. “I’m afraid I appear to be extremely lost, do you happen to know of, hm, the existence of Paris? My experimental teleporting device clearly had some kind of malfunction.”

"That's not a place name I recognise, I'm afraid," replies Allegra. "Sounds vaguely Asavean, maybe? I don't know much about Asavean geography, one of the few foreign ports I never tried."

From the onlookers, someone is heard to distinctly mutter, "Asavea better not have a Sentinel Gate."

“Uh, no… do you know the name of the continent we’re on, by any chance?”

"You know, I'm not sure the whole continent actually has a name?" Allegra looks like she hadn't thought of that before and now it's going to annoy her. "You've landed in what people who aren't in it generally call the Casinean Empire; we usually just call it the Empire, but that's not exactly a unique identifier. Also on this continent: the Jotun, the Druj, the Thule, the Faraden, the Iron Confederacy, the Mountains of the Moon, the Vore, the Axou, and unfortunately the Grendel although they're normally across a bit of water in the Broken Shore. I'm kind of assuming that if you didn't know 'Asavean' then you're going to know precisely none of those place or people names, though."

“I… do not! This is almost certainly either the Americas or a new continent, then! Do you have a globe? Or, wait, is this Skifander?”

"Not a globe, but I've got a map somewhere..." She searches through her satchel bag and pulls out a battered paper copy of this map. "This is the nearby countries, the Bay of Catazar lets out onto a larger ocean from which we've reached several other continents and archipelagos - but whilst we have repeatable trade routes, nobody has a particularly good _map_.

For general globe-like orientation, Otkodov and Tsirku are at the perpetually frozen north, by the time you get to Xira it's hot desert, we're just about under the E on Empire there.

I've never heard of the Americas or Skifander, but they might well be on one of the other continents, or indeed a name for one of them - we have only a vague idea of the larger polities across the ocean."