I’m the Dungeon Master and I have an extra week to work on the story. Last time in our first session, the players were given a quest: to find the fragments of a sword for an old man. Each fragment is with a different person who will turn out to be a boss. They scraped together some money by doing odd jobs (eradicating a basement squid infestation, delivering a parcel, etc) and bought a boat out of their home village to search for the fragments.

The next location they’re visiting is a sea-level port city called Oase County. It’s surrounded by a ring of inward-pointing crags but has a gate entrance, and the waves crashing against the rocks make for a misty setting with seagull calls above. However, I don’t know how to introduce the first boss into the story. He’s named Anu the Trickster, and is a rogue slowly being corrupted by possessing the sword fragment. Any ideas, y’all?

Some more information about Oase County and the player characters if it helps: 1) Oase is governed by a Lord-Noble named Coward of the Mists 2) in the center of Oase is a tall bell tower-slash-lighthouse. Maybe the bell sounds at sundown every night for some reason? 3) one player hates being disrespected 4) one player is biased against religion and instantly judges anyone faithful 5) one player really likes good food 6) one player really likes to stargaze and learn about the cosmos 7) all the characters are 15 years old novice adventurers. The idea of the campaign is for it to be a coming-of-age story along with a sword-swinging quest with pirates and sea serpents.