Once an objective's attached card has been dealt with, are you obliged to pick up the Objective, or can you leave it in the staging area until you wish to take it? It's just all the Objectives in the core set hurt you big time, so it would be handy to leave them where they are until you're ready to move on to the next stage of the quest.

scottindeed said:

All of the core objectives have the text "Action: Raise your threat by 2 to claim this objective when it is free of encounters. [snip]". So as long as you are capable of taking an Action and the objective is free of encounters then you claim it. You could also leave it in the staging area until you need it (and avoid all the bad stuff) but then a Dungeon Jailor might come along and force you to pick it up or losing it.