The players deliver the food to Lusan, but a group of thugs try to intercept it.  They kick a kid, triggering the players to attack them and slaughter them.  They quickly drop off the food then skedaddle.  On the way back to Arlong, a group of duerger catch up.  The players slaughter them too, but 1 escapes after watching the entire fight.

The players return to home in Arlong.  They hear about some various rumors.  Kevin looks for a way to spend his earnings to help others, and finds and invests in Faeda, to help her feed people in local farmsteads and villages.  As part of the deal, she leads them to the village Lucan, because she can't go there, so they need help the best.

Maetil sends each of the players a letter offering to hire them and asking them to join at a specific time and place.  Due to plot, they listen.  He convinces them to help him with a standard escort quest.

The players escort him to a portal in the grassland west of Suiniea.  They guard the portal while he goes to talk to the Spirit of the Land, but the only thing that surprises them is the portal closes early.  Maetil reopens the portal from the inside and rejoins while they discuss what to do.  He informs them that the Spirit asked him to clear out a roaming party of Gnolls that's basically killing everything and raising some humanoids as undead to further the slaughter.

They set a trap for the gnolls and wipe most out (1 escapes).  After healing up, resting, and looting, they return.  This time they're attacked by a couple types of plants.  As Maetil re-emerges from the portal, a fireball comes blasting in from an unknown place, he later tells them it came from miles to the West, and that the plants must have been sent by whoever sent the fireball.

Hundreds of years ago, there was a war that ravaged the entire known world.  A great man named Farad gathered a group of people from a mix of races and traveled to the outskirts of the known land and settled there, naming his city Suineian.  He set up magical wards and protections to protect the city and the surrounding land from invaders, and they've been largely free from external conflict ever since.  There's farmland in the protected area, but its mostly used for growing herbs for magic and medicine, and most of the food of the city comes from magical means.  There are groups of adventurers that travel short distances (usually only a couple days at a time) outside of the protections, but often they don't return.

After hundreds of years, not much has changed in the city.  Farad still rules, but almost no one knows anything about him.  He rules in seclusion, being seen by only a select few, including his foster son and heir Maetil.  Magic is common in the packed metropolis, everything from streetlights to mechanical carriages.  Racially the city is almost fully integrated, with hundreds of different races found commonly on the streets.

The players are chosen by Maetil to help him further his quest, to re-unite Suineian with the outside world.

Out of Game: the first adventure w/ Maetil is only a starting point to introduce everyone and the world.  After that if it's like most of my campaigns, you can choose to continue helping him or not.  I expect lots of travel, and lots of wilderness though.