Jacques Bonnet, Remy Hernandez, Mercutio Routledge, Samuel Linkletter, Josephine Baxter-Smith, Nathaniel
As your host, Lawrence Matthews, poured the cups of tea, exchanged formal introductions, engaged in the pleasantries expected of any but the lowest social strata in Britannia society, he listened to your sense of urgency with calm indifference. At first, you suspected that Nathaniel had overstated his acquaintance with Lawrence, but you soon accepted that objective impartiality was an innate trait of Mr Matthews. You were in a hurry, but Lawrence was going to take his time no matter what.
Resolved to the inevitable, word was sent to Jo to shut down the boilers and join you. Antley Knob Light was a source of information … both good and bad.
First the good news. Every KEEPER, the TAS term for the Mechanic-Scholar that operated a Communication Light, both maintained a general library and was an expert in some field of study. Antley Knob had a KEEPER and an ASSISTANT KEEPER. Lawrence Matthews (age 263 cycles) was a Scholar in the general study of Social Sciences with a specialization in Commerce, communications, and transport. He would make an interesting and useful contact and person to know in the future, but his library would be more useful in the immediate quest for maps to coordinates than his knowledge. In a slightly risqué turn of events, Lawrence was engaged to his much younger female assistant keeper. Candace Buchannon (age 208 cycles) was a Scholar in the general study of Geography and history, which made her an expert on exactly what you were looking for … information on maps and map coordinates.
Now for the bad news. The TAS is not charitable or egalitarian; it exists to serve ITS INTERESTS and those of its MEMBERS. Lawrence was no longer part of the ‘Society’ and for a lifetime Society Man like Lawrence, had somewhat betrayed his oath and duty. Most of your party was clearly not ‘cut from the right cloth’ as the SOC conscious Britannia Society would put it. Jacques was a Gentleman and a Nobleman, even if not a TAS member, and THAT is what interested Lawrence enough to assist you all. The cooperation of the TAS would cost more than money, it would cost a quid pro quo of information.
Lawrence cared nothing about your quest and pried for no secrets of what you wanted at those coordinates. He was fascinated with what brought people with such diverse backgrounds together to form a common commercial venture. Lawrence will question each and every member about how they met, why they formed a social group and what your individual and collective commercial plans are. The process takes all of shift 1. Then Candice will provide you with the information on the coordinates and sell you a general navigation map to the location.
Jacques can decide for the group if you wish to delay 8 hours to answer questions, or choose to sail without a map and trust the Navigator to “dead reckon” a course to the coordinates. It just makes the task a little harder so it may increase the time to find it.
Assuming that you stay 8 hours: Each party member must decide for themself if they have any questions for either Lawrence or Candice and if they will make any attempt to befriend them. You can do nothing and they will remain like a shop clerk that waited on you once (no relationship). You have the option to attempt to make an ally or enemy by interacting and generating a reaction.
