Arkady shrugs. "It isn't the first time." Then he thanks the fellow in front of the store, and gets ready to drive when ever the other truck is good to go.

"That makes a certain amount of sense, I suppose," Felix says. "But how do I know what you can't, won't, don't, or don't have the energy to do? I'll have to ask as time goes on, I suppose."

Felix is ready to move on whenever.

By the time the rest of the group gets to the truck, Felix is alone in it again.

And so the group gets moving once more. Will you:

- Continue straight along the road without stopping for a couple of hours, ignoring turn-offs, in the hope of gaining ground on Ivan?
- Stop at every hamlet to try to ask someone if they heard a horseman pass recently, whether by day or by night, so as to ensure not losing his trail, and simply accept the continual delays?
- Pursue some other strategy?

Presumably the hamlets are several kilometers apart; the trucks will cover ground enough faster than a horse can that even if we stop for a few minutes every other hamlet we'll be gaining fairly rapidly.

Arkady: Empathy: +5 Roll: -3 Total: +2
Felix: Empathy +3 Roll: +1 Total: +4
Roger: Empathy: +3 Roll: +0 Total: +3

Target: +4

At the next hamlet, you ask the stablekeeper; he is adamant that absolutely nobody passed this way by horse in the past week. He's super convincing in person, though Felix spots a few little things which suggest that he might be suffering from an even worse case of xenophobia than the woodcutter from earlier and outright lying to the foreigners simply because you're all foreign.

At the third hamlet, you speak with a young boy who remembers the rider, and remembers that the hunchback had passed through here only one night ago. You're catching up!

He also mentions that there's been a 'large army' moving through the area in the direction you're heading towards. He doesn't seem at all concerned about them, and a couple of questions reveal that the army in question is formed of friendly Elenes, and is currently recruiting in order to lead a campaign against the Rendors and their desert fanatics. Indeed, the boy's only army-related regret is that he is too young to join up, himself.

Felix thanks the kid for the assistance and lets him have one of the spare plastic magnifying glasses from his tool kit. He makes sure the other is on hand just in case Piper wants to play with that one, too.

"Well, that seems as good a place to look as any," Felix says. "If we're lucky they might know where he went."

Arkady looks somewhere between thoughtful and disturbed. "I hope someone with money and a brain is organizing this 'army'. Otherwise a 'people's crusade' could easily be ending up very badly."

The boy you're talking to is a farmer's son. He hasn't the faintest idea who is organising the army, but "they're over that way, you can't miss them".

'Over that way' is approximately the same direction as Ivan is suspected to have gone...

"Tally ho, ladies and gents," Felix says.

And so off you go!

Halfway to the next hamlet, you spot a hunchback riding on a horse with two white socks up ahead. A large camp is visible, even further up ahead; Arkady would probably be glad to notice that the tents are arranged in neat rows (and there are tents to be arranged neatly in rows).

And how does the hunchback on the horse with the two socks respond to the probably less than utterly stealthy arrival of two trucks?

Plus a guy standing behind a bowless ballista waving at him from the back of one of said trucks?

He glances back, presumably notices you, and moves to the side of the road so that you can more easily pass. He continues riding ahead, letting his horse walk at a calm, unhurried pace; though the horse itself seems a little nervous of the approaching trucks.

He does not wave back.

Still in the second truck, Arkady contemplates whether vodka would make time behave better around here. Or at least seem to. Either way, it's Felix' show when they first overtake the horse

Felix waves down Ivan as they pull up beside his horse.

"Hey Ivan, where ya heading?"