On the Road (OOC)

Did you, or your house, maybe invest what little money they had in the caravan?

Let's say its her House that invested (to separate Alycine's personal finances with her house somewhat, makes things easier for me :))

Perfectly correct. :)

Will give Rook an opportunity to do something before responding (else we can come back his actions in a flashback).

We don't have to have an investment if that makes your life harder. Invested money also makes any attempt to deviate from the route/plan a challenge, but that can be a good thing. :)

I don't think Alycine intended to say something insulting in her statement, when she changed "trouble" to "gentleman", but I think Rook mistook it that way. He's got a little bit of class based resentment, I think

Rezzart: Toss us a Die of Fate to see if there is anything that your sky-check could reveal.
This will also dictate if the captain is peeved by your actions. :)

Done. We'll see what happens with that before I respond in the IC thread. Though Rook actually does have a bit of a theory about what's going on, though it's based more on what he's observed recently.

Have Rook tell us what you think you discovered by your ingenious test, and what you think is going on.

Let me know if that's too much.

Unexpected wrinkle is unexpected. :)
The merchant is now tied up in what comes next, this may make it easier to branch off. (or more complicated... who can tell? not even time can tell.)

OK Rezart, I love this! Just to clarify before Meht responds, to make sure I've understood: Rook's accusing the merchant (and maybe the captain) of plotting to get someone kidnapped, and the most likely target for that is probably Alycine? Or have I missed something?

And also to check where the other characters are, Gusset is another guard and Cook is unconscious somewhere near our camp? Or is Cook near the bandit's camp?

..or have I gotten confused re where everyone is?

He's not accusing directly - he's just saying that someone with access to their records is involved. He doesn't actually know who all they have handling their stuff, which is why he's not accusing anyone. Like there could be a partner or a clerk or someone else he doesn't know about. If the paper was stored back in town, it might be someone in town.

Privately, he's still very sure that Calum is up to something shady, but he's not bringing that up because it was shot down hard by the merchant and the captain before.

He's moderately confident in his map theory (the starting point thing) there's no real proof though. He threw that out there because he was trying to impress Alycine with his "deductions".

I am interpreting it as 'someone is threatening the merchant' more than 'the merchant is the bad guy'. You are signed on to help the merchant, I am not a fan of 'betrayals by your employer'.

The 'next of kin' documents are meant to be back in town, safe in the event something happens to the caravan. Someone back there needs to pay your family, and that gets hard if the documents get burned up by the same dragon that ate the caravan... um, ignore that last bit. The merchant at least got that bit right.

More evidence of Calum's nefariousness will come to light as you look into where the map leads. He was also the last to sign on and the last to handle the paperwork, and you all saw the (not very well guarded) pile of papers as you were signing up. Why is he so highly regarded by the captain and merchant? Who back home recommended him? Does the merchant have enemies? ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

I doubt the captain would have called Alycne (different spelling on the Character Menu?) to look at the map if she knew she was the target. The rest seems reasonable, but there is very little to suggest a kidnap rather than a theft, we will need to play to find out.

paladintodd and Bigvyner: There may be better opportunities to introduce new characters once we leave the camp and go to wherever the map points.

Cook and Gusset need not be attached to the caravan (yet). If they are though, let us know when you want to bring them in and what they are doing, before we leave preferably.

Myrddin: Take your time. As soon as you are ready we can work out how to get your character into the story, based on whatever is happening at that time.

Oops, I think it should be fixed now.

Yep.
Silly to have names in two places, but there are historical 'reasons', and we are working to make it display the actual name everywhere.

Nanoka: What does Alycine think about the map? What does it say? Anything important or just general information?

Has Alycine seen anything like the tattoo?

[ref]

Oh I just remembered there was going to be another line or two in my last post. I'll add it as a separate post to avoid it getting missed as an edit, though it means two in a row from me.