"Prepare for transport."

The rest of Bea's team stand back as she enacts Door to a New World. The lock on the door, which she's using as a ritual focus, unlocks itself as it becomes suffused with Opening energy. She's done this many times before, but she still approaches the ritual with the same trepidation she did when she first cast it. Not very Open, but she is who she is.

She opens the doorway, and rather than merely showing the back of the room – the door has been placed in the middle specifically to be used as a ritual focus – it shows an opaque shimmering screen.

The rest of the people run through soon after. The shorter she has to maintain the threshold, the lower the energy consumption will be.

"Bea, this not an island. Where did you take us?"

"I...I don't know...it should have been the right place? I felt the link to the other waystation threshold."

"Okay, well, we can figure out what's wrong with Bea's Practice later. Right now we need to figure out where we are."

Deep breath.

"I don't want to try doing an unscaffolded portal again, I'll get too tired, and it might send us even farther away from Quartz Island. Proposal: go to the village to find out more."

The rest of the team give their thumbs up, literally. The village seems close enough, so they'll simply walk.

The whole team is wearing practical hot-weather hiking gear with boots and coats and backpacks, without much regard for fashion, except for Feli's, who color coordinated her outfit to be green and brown, with a pink cloth flower on her hat. Their clothes suggest they're from someplace with a preindustrial tech level. 

A few farmers glance over as they walk towards the village. One waves and calls a greeting in an unfamiliar language.

None of them know that language! Not even Dia, the most well traveled out of all of them, knows it.

"Feli, can you reach out to them with Telepathy?"

"They're too far away, unless you want to do a ritual about it. Should we get closer?"

"Hmm...perhaps not here. They look busy."

Is there a more central or more densely populated part of the village? If there is, then they'd rather try their luck there rather than bother farmers.

If they continue directly down the road, they’ll soon reach a basic palisade, surrounding a cluster of wooden buildings. 

Oookay. End of the road for them here. Is there a guard? The palisade doesn't seem very strong, she or Daryus could get it to open to them (destructively or otherwise), but there is no reason to do that. Alignment to the Way of the Open Door just means that you get more l'appel du vide impulses. She's learned to suppress them.

"Is there anyone here who speaks Towaň? Hello?" Towaň is the trade language of the Federation – if there's no one who speaks it or at least recognizes it, then it means she really fucked up and thrown them somewhere truly alien.

There is a guard! Or a person who will open the gate after looking them over for a minute, anyway. She tries asking them something, tries asking them something in a different language (very slowly and carefully), and then shrugs and lets them through. She keeps an eye on them, however.

Bea is very happy that the guard is letting them through but would really like to have someone to talk to, so she'll gesture to Feli to cast Telepathy.

She's happy too! She makes a fist, and then opens it and splays her fingers, letting her arm rest at a forty-five degree angle in front of her. A thread of Flowers energy reaches out to make contact with the guard. The energy is invisible, but it might be felt by them as a sense of connection unity coherence beauty gently washing over her. More likely if she's done something similar to Practitioner energy sensitization exercises you have to do to get your General Practitioner's License.

:Hello. I am Feli, speaking for Bea, who is the leader of our team.:

The women flinches back, confused.

My lady? Are you- can I- what is- apologies, my lady!  If the connection can sense emotion, she's clearly terrified, although she's doing a decent job of keeping it off of her face.

Can I assist you in any way? she attempts, kneeling.

The Way of Flowers is the Way of emotions and expression. Feli senses the woman's terror, and she frowns. Not of disgust, but of concern.

:There is nothing to apologize for. Please call me Feli; there is no need for such formality. And you don't need to kneel either. We were wondering where we were. What is this place called? Could we borrow a map from you?:

And then, wordlessly, she sends a feeling of be at peace, you are safe, no one is mad at you.

She carefully stands up, her head still lowered respectfully.

…This village is known as Cidell, Lady Feli. It is in the south of the Blessed Isle. A thousand apologies, Lady Feli, but we do not have any maps. Perhaps a temple might? 

The sent-emotion calms her down a little, but she’s still very much on edge.