To the Mines

During the night, three orcs make an attempt to slip into the inn to capture the gnomes. In order to do so, they must sneak across the grounds, find a way into the inn, locate the gnomes' rooms, and abduct them quietly. Then, of course, they need to get away.
This is an encounter that can't really be predicted, too much of it depends on the results of each stage along the way. The best way is to make up a floor plan, place everyone, and play it out. The danger of this type of encounter is that with a series of successful dice rolls, the villains succeed and the encounter is over.
The key is to be willing to interfere if necessary to generate something more substantial. There are multiple ways of running this, as hinted at yesterday. One, the villains succeed, and they track them down to rescue them. Two, they are alerted to the kidnapping attempt and get in a fight to protect them. Three, they let it happen and continue on their journey.
My goal is to keep the party dancing around the river for a while yet. To that end, the idea is to lead them up to the mines for some adventure there, more intrigue, treasure chasing, and crawl than the outdoor encounters to date. They can explore abandoned mines, rescue prisoners and free imprisoned workers from their captors. There's fun to be had in those hills, but they have to get there first.
I think having the players foil the kidnapping, with the orcs getting away sets up the best option. The catch is to give a reason for them to care enough about chasing them to do so. Maybe one of the characters can be knocked out or captured, with the orcs taking off with them.
Tomorrow I'll whip up a map and some DCs to make this work.