Thus armed with a sketched out map and a plan, our heroines proceed...<br/><br/>It's a few days later.  You've taken a wide sweep around the so-called Troubled Springs rather than deal with the rumored demons that are said to live there.  This has taken time.  It has also involved hearing a litany of supposition about said demons from your traveling companion who (to be fair to her) seems to have all the patience and focus of a young child at least on this particular topic.  While she has eventually fallen quiet for as much as an hour at a time, she invariably comes back to wondering out loud about what sort of demons they are and whether they'd be a challenge to fight.  If there's a bright side to all this, it's that she hasn't made the least effort to break off and go to the Troubled Springs, nor seems to mind that you two do not share her enthusiasm for a fight.<br/><br/>Now, as you come around a bend in the road, you see two things that were not here the last time Mai passed this way several months ago.  First, there's a checkpoint in the roadway with several rough-looking soldiers manning it.  What other traffic there is has lined up to patiently present their papers.  Hmmm.  Not that you have those.<br/><br/>The other thing is a ramshackle teahouse that probably does most of its business selling to the people delayed by the checkpoint.<br/><br/><strong>"Ooooo!  Food!  And booze!"</strong><br/><br/>Three guesses who that is, and where she's going.  But her exuberant cry draws attention, and at least some of those rough soldiers are now paying very close attention to your tiny party.<br/><br/><em>What do you do?</em>