Cassandra never considered herself a country girl. She loves the cities and nightlife. After thirty years of performing stage acts and puppetry, she would go out on the town to get drunk and wake up in some cute guy bed with a hangover to remind her of her night. Sandra found sex at a young age with the boy next door and always enjoy it since then she never stops having fun. She did get married at the age of thirty. She was both physically and mentally abused by her husband. After many visits to the hospital, She had a child who died at birth and one surgery later. She could no longer bear children. It ended her marriage with her ex-husband going to prison with a sexual assault charge that left her feeling broken inside. She no longer sought long term relationships. No longer seeing that type of relationship was needed when she could not make her own family. Sure she could have adopted, but juggling her job and a family became an excuse not to raise a child. As she got older, she uses sex to fill the empty void in her soul.

But the fact that Sandra Hope is a sixteen-year-old girl and could have children changes everything. Life has changed for her, a new life that has fifty years of knowledge and experience. She already lives fifty plus years, and she could have the next hundred or more years to live. Yes, a hundred or more years of life for a magic user as they grow stronger, they can live longer, especially those that can heal. She needs to live this life and build a family, but the first thing she needs is money. Adventuring will make her grow in power and give her money to build a nest egg. Investing in a puppet theater in the future will help continue what she loves doing. Maybe owning a few businesses would help too. She would have been retired and not killed if she had the knowledge that she knew now had she invested her money long ago.

Cassandra bar the door to the shed, cast an illusion spell showing an empty room and went to sleep with thoughts of tomorrow. A few days later, Cassandra found herself outside of the county seat of Korda. The Korda family runs the county of Korda. Count Grayson and his wife Countess Florence are an older couple that is well-liked by the people. Unfortunately, their son is not so well-liked from his bullying and heavy-handedly abuse of his power. The county has taken a turn to the worse as it citizen are finding it harder to live as they once did. She was lying in the back of a wagon under the illusion of a mound of hay. The cart driver had tried to have sex with her several times when she first got a ride. Considering he has twelve children and two wives, both of whom are sisters. She decided it was best to hide using her illusion during the day and slept in the wagon when they were stopping for the night various villages along the way. Only a few times did she almost got caught stealing food.

She slips off the wagon about an hour or so before dawn outside of the city. Taking with her several loaves of bread and a chunk of cheese, she swung her patch up backpack on and disappear into the morning twilight. Figuring she be at Korda in an hour or so, she was able to hide as the farmer rode by on his wagon that is moving faster than her walking. She did get the ride she needed to the capital, having no fear of the farmer remembering her. She has been using an illusion on her face to keep him from seeing what she looks like when she first hitch a ride with the man. Even added a white streak in her hair to throw him off. Women in this world have very little right unless you're a mage or a Ki Warrior, so in the end, you have to become strong enough to keep what you got. Her only fear is that someone still wants to kidnap her or enslave her since she is a young girl. Her magic could handle a few problematic people but not a large group.

Sandra snorted to herself she doesn't plan to have some man or woman protect her, but she not above marrying for money if they are near death's door. Joke! She laughed at that thought, considering the last marriage she had was to a guy she thought would protect her from the world. He was also a sweet-talking type that completely bamboozled her. Several hospital visits later, she no longer believes in love or getting something for nothing. Fifteen years after that made her blind to other people manipulation that brought her down. She realizes that now, she doubts anyone will come to her funeral. She will have to find good friends who are loyal and will stand with her no matter what happens. Until then, she will be on her guard. Business first, a family later. Love is not on her radar.

The city of Korda is more like a town to Cassandra and less like a city. The population seems to be about ten thousand people. They are crammed together in a small area. The town itself is placed along the banks of a river, much like the Mississippi River. Three walls surround the city. The inner wall is where the Count lives with his troops, the old city wall that surrounds the older part of the town. And the outer wall that protects the outer town and warehouses along the river. The walls are square, as are the towers that run along the wall every three hundred feet. The river side wall sets back from the river by about two hundred feet. The river docks are floating docks full of river barges ready to go downstream with the fall harvest. Outside the city's walls is the slum, which is about two-thirds of the town's population.

The trees around Cassandra have yet to change to their fall colors. Some of the trees look strange and are different than those she seen before, but then again, she was not an outdoorsy type of girl. Yet it was not what caught her attention. It is an airship floating in place above the town. It reminded Cassandra of the movies of the old steampunk airship that were made from wood and canvas that the heroes would fly in to save the day. Instead of blades that push the ship along. There seems to be a ball of gray-like energy that spins at the back of the enclosed wooden ship. That ball of energy is attached to the bottom of the cigar-shaped balloon. If she did not know she was in a magical world, she would have thought the vessel was a blimp from her world at first sight. Looking more closely at the spinning ball of gray light behind the ship, she can see that it is attached to a rudder inside of an enclosed iron cage that is ball shape that allows the ship to move right or left. While she was watching, the rudder tilted the ball of spinning gray light upwards at an angle forcing the ship to slowly move down to a raised platform outside the city to the north side.

A half-hour later, the ship touches down as men and children. No, they are not children, but gnomes and dwarves are scurrying around, grabbing lines and tying them off to poles that li up on both sides of the blimp to hold it in place. About three dozen men and women with children disembark while other dwarves were unloading baggage onto carts to follow after them into a nearby building. Cassandra took a breath and felt that maybe life would not be so bad here. If they have at least have a flushing toilet, even though she not seen any toilets in this world yet, only outhouses and chamber pots from Sandra's memories. She was using leaves and scrap cloth to clean herself after using the bathroom and then having to clean the cloth after using it. Make her want to gag several times. Looking back at the airship, she thought maybe she could influence a few dwarves or gnomes into making magical items like a car, a train, or a toilet.

From her position on the road, she decided to enter the north gate. It doesn't matter if anyone knows she is alive now. Considering she will have to use her Adventurer card soon to enter a dungeon if she wants to make money. The County seat has golem dungeon that is rumor to be ten levels deep and have been around for one hundred years.

By the time she got to the northern gate and got in line while watching the blimp being loaded. They pile up a stack of crates on a large cargo net that is attached to the bottom of the gondola. More that she looks at the ship, the more it reminded her of a smaller version of the Zeppelin from the World War I era. The only difference she can see is that they use magic to move the ship instead of blades on an engine, and it is about half the size. Tall wooden poles lined up on both sides of the ship drop to the ground with a resounding thud as a bell tolls out three times. Slowly the ship rose as a chain attached to the bottom of the airship pull itself taunt from the cargo net around the crates. Ten minutes of watching gnomes waving different color flags until all of them wave a green flag. One gnome in front of the gondola looks at all the flags being wave pull out two green flags and signal the ship to leave. The ship slowly lifted the netted crates high above the city and slowly did a turn and headed south with its net of cargo.

By the time Cassandra got to the North gate. Dozens of wagons and carriage have already passed her line going into and out of the city. A Shadow of a man in uniform blocks the sun as a deep voice spoke up.

"Business?" She hears the man ask her while she was watching the airship. Shaking her head, she turns and looks at a man who seems to be in his forties with a scraggly beard. His brown eyes stare at her as she took in his appearance. He is wearing a yellow military jacket and brown trouser with a yellow strip down both outer sides of pants legs. The jacket had brass buttons. The uniform looks a lot like the English uniform during the Queen Victorian age with a more roman-like helmet to top it off. She felt a little pity for the man having to wear something that heavy all day long. Behind him at the gate are two more men dress the same standing at attention on both sides of the gate with pikes.

"Business? Or are you an adventurer?" he asks again.

Pulling out her slate card with her name as Sandra Hope and handing it to the man. "Adventurer hoping to delve into the dungeon here." trying to sound confident.

"One-moment miss," he said as he took her card and turn smartly and enter a small building. Well, more like a shack next to the gate. Cassandra watched as men and women in the early Victorian age to a later Renaissance age garb enter through the gate. The style was more of a blend of the two. What shock her were the small people. Some were as tall as she is but were stocky and built like they could tear down a mountain. Those were dwarves; they had long beards on the men and some of the women too. Gnomes were smaller than dwarves with no hair on their chin and wore bright color clothing. They all pay to enter after showing their cards. Some people, the guard, stop like she is and check their cards. The big guard returns with two other guards, and he was frowning. The feeling of dread seize her heart. 'Please don't tell me I have warrants!'