Jhod, Kristen and Lisa nodded their agreement to Claudia's proposal. A while later, Oleg's trading post came into view. It stood on at the border between civilization and wilderness, only a few miles away from where the plains ended and the forested Narlmarches and hilly Kamelands began. Originally an abandoned border fort, the trading post was surrounded by a wooden palisade with watchtowers at each corner and a wide wooden gate. It bore signs of recent repair and refurbishment, with fresh logs patching up holes in the old wall.<br/><br/>The gate was open, and a rustic woman came out to meet the group, sleeves still rolled up and soapy suds on her arms from doing the laundry, while a man climbed down from where he had been working on the roof of the trading post, sweaty and gruff.<br/><br/><strong>"Welcome to our humble trading post! You must be the guards from Restov, we've been waiting for you! I'm Svetlana, and this is my husband Oleg,"</strong>the woman introduced herself.<strong>"We've been asking the authorities to step in for months now - what are we paying our taxes for if bandits can roam about like they own the place, yes? Thank the gods you've arrived, the bandits have been robbing all our stock and we can't last another month like this."</strong><br/><br/>Indeed, the trading post looked like it dealt mostly with trappers and hunters who traded fur and game for goods and supplies, but the storehouses were poorly stocked for what was possibly the only place to restock and resupply in the region.<br/><br/><div class="spoiler_container"><div class="spoiler_header" onclick="hideSecond (this);" role="button">Sense Motive DC 10</div><div class="spoiler_body">Oleg and Svetlana were giving the party a friendly greeting, yet trying to politely hide their disappointment at the rather motley nature of the group for what they were expecting to be a bandit-suppressing force.<br/></div></div><br/><br/>(https://i.imgur.com/pUulVhO.png)