You could have the protagonist help the people who saved her accomplish a goal of their own that they put on hold to save her? Said goal might even take them closer to your intended destination, even. The goal itself doesn't even have to be huge, like maybe finding a rare-ish component or reagent or what have you.
Edit: On a slight bit more consideration, I'm going to crib the first thing the main quest tells you to do in Morrowind: Go do LITERALLY ANYTHING ELSE and come back when you're stronger, richer, more intelligent, overall more capable. Have the team go off on an adventure elsewhere, establish their bonafides, then have them go to the mythical super mysterious place. And I don't necessarily mean make another 10 chapters of fetch quests, just a few impactful moments with enough detail to show the characters growing meaningfully and getting to know each other along with the reader.
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[quote]Edit: On a slight bit more consideration, I'm going to crib the first thing the main quest tells you to do in Morrowind: Go do LITERALLY ANYTHING ELSE and come back when you're stronger, richer, more intelligent, overall more capable. Have the team go off on an adventure elsewhere, establish their bonafides, then have them go to the mythical super mysterious place. And I don't necessarily mean make another 10 chapters of fetch quests, just a few impactful moments with enough detail to show the characters growing meaningfully and getting to know each other along with the reader.[/quote] Well, there’s no gatekeeper or anything. The supposedly magical city is totally abandoned. That said, they won’t be reaching it any time soon—it’s just the destination they set, that they don’t find their way to for a while. There’ll be plenty of time to grow before then, I just need something small to pad out the intro. :p
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Ooh, I like that idea! I don’t know what that task would be quite yet, but if it’s something that helps the protag see that they are good people at heart, then her asking them for a favor would definitely feel a lot less awkward! I’ll just have to come up with whatever it would be!
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I editted my reply if you didn't see that, which I now realize was basically what I said but wordier. Ah well, you win some you lose some. Hope it helped!
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I saw the edit right after, yeah. Still, good ideas. Thanks. :p