Trapped Like a Rat in a Maze
GM Wakefield leaves a Trader Jorshim post a few hours before the Relief Wagon left from Vornavis on Tuesday Night. ‘Trapped Like A Rat in A Maze’
Category: Towns
Topic: AnnouncementsDate: 01/17/2017 05:27 PM CSTFrom: GS4-WAKEFIELDSubj: Trapped Like a Rat in a MazeJorshin drummed his fingers idly against the dingy table, his chin resting sullenly on the end of his other hand with an elbow propped for support. He was back in the same seedy tavern he had schemed in when this whole fiasco first began, and his mind was racing once again. There would be no simple slip behind a giant flirting with a barmaid this time. Men from his guard, from Kormack’s guard really, sat at no less than four tables throughout the establishment. The guardsmen coincidentally just happening to be dispersed in such a way that Jorshin wouldn’t be able to leave his own table without being seen from some angle.He was convinced that word had somehow reached his father that he wasn’t taking a big enough cut of the money being donated to help those in need to the north. Jorshin played dumb, and feigned not to notice the shuffling of men that Kormack had slowly been executing over the past month, since their somewhat public argument had taken place. Anyone that had ever been on friendly terms with Jorshin in Kormack’s employ had been either reassigned to the wagons, or let go. Furthermore, Jorshin now counted at least a dozen more men, locals by the look of them, than they had with them when they had first departed on their mission. Kormack was definitely taking orders from someone. Despite his bluster and rudeness, he wouldn’t have had the initiative to do something like this on his own.
Then there was the matter of the troubles the supply wagons heading to the camps had been having lately. Sure, everyone had said at first it was just a hard winter and bad luck that resulted in a few blocked paths and delayed deliveries, but with this most recent incident, a creeping dread began to gnaw at the pit of Jorshin’s stomach. A faceless assailant, a crossbow, and a stern warning. How far did his father’s reach extend? Jorshin knew Kormack would not have sent one of his men to hide in the woods on the off chance that he had been on one of the wagons that was visiting the aid camp that day. Jorshin had intentionally kept a very regularly irregular schedule with his trips to make sure that his presence could not have been predicted too far ahead of time. Kormack wouldn’t have had the time to send a man out to wait in ambush, given the little warning that he had when Jorshin would announce his intentions to accompany a shipment to the outpost.
Squinting slightly and staring off into nothingness, Jorshin continued to ponder the situation from all sides. He knew from long years of trading that the deals that ended in you holding the short end of the stick never ended up being what they appeared to be on the first or second look. It had been a long time since he wound up with the short stick, and he feared if he did so this time it may be the last stick he ever held.
If it wasn’t one of Kormack’s men perhaps it was one of Martohck’s? Jorshin forced himself not to dismiss the thought out of hand but rather to continue the line of inquiry. He had met the Captain on a few of his trips to see the camp and thought very highly of the man. Twist his motives however he could, Jorshin could not come up with a scenario that made the Lady Kasendra’s guardian fit the mold of a would-be assassin. Martohck and Kormack may be in the same line of work, but those two were as opposite as two guard captains could be. One a sneaking weasel of man who would sell his own grandmother for two coins to rub together… and the other the kind that would pay the ultimate price to save someone’s grandmother he had never even met.
No… Martohck wasn’t involved with this. If anything he would be appalled to discover the situation existed entirely. That presented some interesting lines of thought that Jorshin found himself eager to wander down and begin exploring, but no. Not yet. First he had to finish the mental exercise in front of him before he ran off to work on another.
Jorshin furrowed his brows, and a thought suddenly struck him. There were a lot of people to the north that needed help. The Lady Kasendra and Lord Salnim had done a great deal of good so far in distributing the aid that had been collected, and Jorshin was proud that some of that aid had come from him. The camp was located a bit aways from the affected areas, but definitely closer to those than it was located to where he was in Vornavis. Not everyone that needed help was going to be a poor widow or orphan that needed, or even wanted, a helping hand. Some of them would be men, and some of them would be angry. Some of them might view help from the Baron of Vornavis to be an unbearable insult given the circumstances that led to their current situation. Perhaps Kormack had found sympathetic ears not among the guards and soldiers in the camp, but scattered amongst the refugees and survivors of Chaston’s final betrayal.
His mind made up, Jorshin decided that he would accompany the next supply wagon he could out to the aid camp. He may not have been the only one to come to the conclusion that there may be those out to harm others, but he knew of at least one man who might help him, if shown the paths of thought Jorshin had wandered down. Kormack might want him injured, or worse, but Jorshin forced his face to stillness as he felt a smile start to form. He would find a way out of this yet.
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