Maybe break up the plot into several smaller ones in the future, after this, so that even if one is held up, you won't feel like nothing new is happening? I'm sure it'd make people happy to have more opportunities to sign up, and then if they do sign up and go AWOL for whatever reason (I'm sure Burning will come back later tonight or tomorrow and go "wtf why was I bumped?!") you won't feel like everything's hanging on them!
Also, maybe put disclaimers on missions that you want to run with the time that you'll be on for them, and how strict you'll be about people being there for it?
eg) "Mission will run from 2pm Mountain Standard Time (GMT-7) until 8pm -- be there for the entire time or be bumped!"
Yeah seriously, we'd ditch her in the middle of the fight so she gets raped and we will run back to the inn and say that we were attacked by over 9000 monsters and Shiva didn't make it.
The simple fact is, the director (dictator) bitch is evil.
Azure found out about it and isn't going to rest until she's dead in a ditch somewhere.
The fact that the director is going so far out of her way to harass Azure is even more reason to do so, just the sheer number of things that she's done to fuck with Azure has pretty much guaranteed that even if the director turns out to secretly be good and just a stupid bitch, Azure is still going to kill her as a matter of defending her honor.
Oh well though... Still hoping Azure gets her pleasant surprise eventually.