The queen wants the borderlands mapped by midsummer. The borderlands do not want to be mapped.
Between the kingdom of Vael and the empire beyond lies the Unmarked, a hundred leagues of forest, marsh and mountain that no map has ever got right. The queen has sent an expedition to chart it before the treaty talks, because whoever owns the map will own the border. The cartographer has the instruments, the guard captain has twelve soldiers, the guide has walked the Unmarked since childhood, and the court spy has orders that contradict everyone else's. The rivers move. The villages have different names every season. And someone is redrawing the maps each night while the expedition sleeps.
4 roles. You take one; your friends take the rest, and the narrator plays any left over. Anyone can bring a character of their own into a role instead.
The royal cartographer, a brilliant and fussy scholar on his first journey farther than a day's ride from the capital.
A veteran soldier given command of the expedition's escort as a punishment, which she intends to turn into a promotion.
A courtier attached to the expedition as the queen's observer, who reports to the queen, the chancellor and one other person.
A borderland guide who has walked the Unmarked since childhood and knows that its maps are wrong on purpose.