If you know this, please forgive me for explaining it.
When people are trying to write together, they sometimes set things up where someone else needs to do something so they can continue their story thread. This is very common in games with really short posts. Here is what I am seeing.
1) I put my character in contact with the Queen in hopes to be moved along to the party. By throwing her in prison, she is blocked till she can have an appearance before the king. I could unblock her by escaping, but I don't picture her as being a serious criminal type.
2) The queen is blocked because she is preoccupied by something, I assume getting to the party but more likely not having the king there to deal with the situation.
3) The party scene hasn't happened because, you are blocked waiting for the player to set the scene for the party.
I am a new story teller and running my first game, what I am learning is that even in a sandbox game, I need to setup NPC's and help fill out situations so that characters have a reason to interact. They need clarity of purpose and some direction. Normally this can be determined through dialog with the NPC's or by direct communication by the player. There is a whole bit of communication theory, in that we assume other know what we are hoping for and want. Most of the time we don't. Because we shorthand things and make assumptions. For most gamers, the struggle of decoding and meaning making, is solely placed on the module writer and story teller. They know details about the world that the characters would know but the players don't. Right now, I think the queen's posts (when she gets others around her) should focus on the big questions:
How will we know when we find this new element?
Where did the knowledge come from?
What is this element going to do?
Why do we need it?
Is there a ritual that needs to be preformed to release it?
What were the instructions for dealing with this new element?
You the story teller know how you would like the story to go and details we don't know.
When people post short, couple line posts, you have to assume a lot of detail and that is harder.
My other comment that was passed on to me also. "Remember even sandboxes have boundaries."
Sorry, If I am rambling a bit.
