As the Searing Plague spread throughout the land, blighting city upon city, many throughout the lands of Elyria took drastic measures to limit its spread. Castles and palaces barred their gates, hoping to protect the illustrious lords inside from catching the plague. Adventurers explored far and wide, to the highest peaks, the darkest depths, and the most distant islands, seeking anything resembling a cure. Physicians and priests braved the streets, offering what solace they could provide. Some, however, sought to simply get away from it all.

A man named Terentius Terranova decided, before the plagued refugees began to stream into his hometown, to take his family, and some close friends and their families, and head into the wilderness. The comforts of city life were but a small price to pay for not dying a horrific and disfiguring death. Terentius and his motley crew travelled through the forests, foraging and hunting to survive, seeking to get as far away from the towns and cities as possible. As they wandered, further and further away from civilization, the children began to tire, and Terentius knew that they had to find somewhere to settle down and wait out the plague. On the third week of their travels, as Terentius was climbing a hill to get a view of the surroundings, he saw a clean, unblemished river. As fresh water is pretty vital to not dying, Terentius, after consulting with his fellows, decided that they'd stake their claim there.

The Virtues must have smiled upon Terentius, as the river was not only a source of water, but was also teeming with fish. Not one to insult the Virtues when they chose to favour him, Terentius built a small, rudimentary shrine on the top of the highest hill. Around the shrine Terentius and the villagers built a watchtower, which over the months was expanded into a central, fortified hub of the settlement. As the months turned to years, and as the families grew and multiplied, the small fortified refuge turned into something resembling a proper settlement, with numerous houses, an alehouse, large fishing docks, all surrounded by a sturdy wooden palisade. The citizens of this new village began to refer to their settlement as Terrock, after the rocky outcropping upon which it was built.

Then one early morning, after no contact with the outside world for years, the watchman on duty shouted that he saw a group of unidentified menn approaching Terrock. The bell at the top of the central keep was rang, and the villagers scrambled to grab their arms and armour and assemble for combat. They were not about to all die from the plague after they went through all this trouble to avoid it. The villagers with bows manned the walls, and those with spears and axes stood tensely behind the gates, ready to repel a breach with their lives, and the children were hustled into the keep. But, as the approaching plaguebearers came into shooting range, the bowmen noticed that they didn't actually appear to be all that plagued.

The bowmen, perhaps against their better judgement, held their arrows and let the foreigners approach to shouting range. There, the foreigners explained that the plague hadn't been seen in this area for months, and that they were merchants looking to trade. Although suspicious, after a brief but heated discussion, it was decided to let the merchants in. The villagers of Terrock were now keenly interested in how the world around them had evolved over the past half-decade, and there were many goods from far and wide that the villagers had missed from their old hometown.

The gates were opened, and trade was had. After a few days of chatting and haggling, it was agreed that two Terrock hunters would join the merchants' party, where they would re-establish contact with the brave, new, plague-free world.