More About Bandits 2009-01-12
From Tourmaline
Blaze does some following up on the [bandits-jumping-boats-and-selling-their-crews--in-Agate plot|Trouble Upriver, 2008-10-10].
She goes back to the tavern, disguised as Maria Tanner, and chats with Tavis and Misha. There's some general "Something oughtta be done!" talk around the bar, but nothing seems to be exploding just at the moment. Misha says that the wife of one of the captured people is trying to get up a collection to go try to buy some of them back. Blaze suggests that the King might have a Plan -- after all, it turned out the rangers were dealing with the bandits in the first place...Misha is skeptical.
On Misha's suggestion, Blaze looks up Captain Varrin (but she visits him as Blaze rather than Maria). Varrin tells her that he thinks the King does have some plan afoot to deal with Agate and the people who were sold as slaves there, but he doesn't know what it is. Rian would know, and if Blaze offered to help, he might give her the time of day. Blaze leaves with an ever-improving opinion of the Captain.
Blaze (who has actually dealt with Rian in the past) writes *him* a letter, and he turns up at her stall to chat. The conversation has its prickly moments, but eventually an agreement is reached: Blaze will go to Agate with the people who want to buy their husbands back, and will raise a bit of a fuss (but not too much) in various quarters so Rian can see who twitches; Rian will do what he can to get back the prisoners/slaves (though not to the point of jeopardizing the higher-level goals), and will give Blaze some money for buying slaves with; if all goes well, there will hopefully be some sort of 'ya done good' from the government to the people who went to Agate; they are both in favor of the higher-level-goal "stop this sort of thing from happening in the future"; and no one has to bite anyone's leg off today.
That part of her mission accomplished, Blaze looks up Natalie, the wife of one of the boatmen/prisoners/slaves, who is the one planning the trip to Agate.
