​Continued from Part 5  (Read from the beginning Here)

So Ava is now short on prospective customers she wracks her brain trying to recall others she could visit.

In the meantime she returns to the Veck’En tribe to pursue that avenue…

I had dealings with Mina one of the girls there, she had been loaned to me occasionally to help in my tavern so I knew her quite well. I left some samples with her for her superiors to try, there was mention of a tavern opening nearby and I could possibly supply it. However not everything was so smooth. She told me that while I was probably safe on the trade dock area there,anywhere else might be dangerous. 

Apparently at some point I had supposedly shot at Mina’s Mistress by the name of Hazine. This had led to her capture because she was injured (low hit points on her GM meter)  when a slaver attacked her. Now those of you that have read my story from the beginning will know I don’t  like combat in SL and that is why I play a non-combatant role. So this accusation was quite a surprise to me to say the least!

However the facts of the matter did seem to stack up against me. Being a non-combatant doesn’t mean I had no weapons though, it would have been stupid not to have something to protect myself in Gor. As mentioned in part 1,I kept hold of my sheath of throwing knives for when travelling far from my tavern. The description of the alleged shooter and the location of the incident did point at me.

 “A woman in Red near the Last of the Sa Sheku camp.”

My red dress had been extremely distinctive in green forest country, the Sheku camp was a 2 minute walk South-West of my tavern and I had to pass it frequently.

I vaguely recalled an incident there when I had been caught in crossfire between a raiding party and the Sheku,but didn’t realise any of my return throws as I left in haste had done any damage. So it appeared Hazine was justified in being out to get me if I was caught in the wrong place, since she had escaped the slavers after some time.

If I wanted to trade freely with the tribe, I needed to fix this. The apparent fix? Get Hazine’s name off the top of this slavers hit list! Not an easy challenge, given any woman of Gor having dealings with a slaver could quite easily end up as merchandise.

With the name of this slaver, Ricka, and roughly where he may be found, I went in search of him. Rather unwisely, on my own. On my first visit to the area I encountered local man and I asked him about the slaver. At first he appeared to be showing me the way,then it became evident his intentions weren’t so good for my health and I ran. I made it to a dock and jumped into a boat just ahead of him,making a very lucky escape!

I should clarify here about Docks in SL Gor. They are safe areas where people are safe from attack,allowing time for the surroundings to load or change any outfit or settings on arrival. This doesn’t apply in both directions though. If someone is leaving via a dock and there is already rp or combat in progress, like a raiding party being chased off or in my case being pursued, they are not safe. If my pursuer had shot at me, I’d have been fair game until my avatar was actually inside the boat and I rped pushing off from the dock. I frequently had to settle disputes over things like this, since my tavern was at the Elation dock and I was a sim moderator.

So I headed back to the Outpost to find myself an escort for my next visit, I didn’t want to risk a repeat of those events.

While I was able to find a willing volunteer to accompany me there next time,the Head Merchant of the Outpost, his busy trading schedule (real-life timezone issues)  put those plans on hold. So I’d have to think of something else. This is where spending time with panthers and customers loose tongues in taverns pay off.

In the Gor book series there are only a couple of panther girl tribes. They rarely had anything to do with each other, if they did it was usually hostile. In SL Gor there are approximately 29 panther tribes at the time of writing (March 2019). There are shared SL groups and other community links such as the Gazette of Gor blog. So it was fairly short work to find out which bands operated in that area, so I could go talk to them. In rp terms I could have got this information from asking around at tribes I was friends with, so isn’t too unrealistic.

However in this case not all the information came from panther gossip. I needed an alternative male bodyguard for my next trip so I inquired with my friend the Blacksmith, Olavi. He was based in Mirkwood (a few SL sims south of my tavern) but had often come and done work at my place. So Olavi escorted me to slavers trade area that I hadn’t been able to find safely on my own before. Here’s what transpired:

Start RP log
Olavi: “there is the current list..”