Tikram bound

First Day of Nymph Moon, Year of the Knife
Carrier Hawk Memorandum from Loremaster Walaka
To Sir Sveinn of Hilltop, Paladin Emeritus of Toesch

Preliminary Report, Incident 1106

I wanted to get this message to you as soon as possible, since you expressed such interest in the current challenges facing the league.

The Inner Council has acted with remarkable alacrity. Within hours of the return from the Tablelands of the party that eliminated the gnome insurrectionist Gruenwald (not incidentally discovering the diary that contained the highly interesting information), they had met and planned a course of action. Thor took personal charge of the situation and left immediately for Skalder. He took with him agent Kioska, the odd druid who comes from some distant land.

Further developments will be forwarded as known.

In the meanwhile, the party, joined by the warrior witch Belit, was dispatched to Tikram to follow through on Operation Library.¹ After hurried investigations² and intense negotiations, the bona fides of the "merchant" D'Kath were established to our satisfaction and the recovery effort is currently proceeding apace. Sir Trimwick personally briefed the party and sent them to Tikram by boat, along with Cousin Perch to handle negotiations and administration. Initial reports from Tikram indicate that D'Kath acted true to form for his type, throwing some thugs at the party in a foolish test of their mettle with no regard to the injury or death of his own men. Once that obstacle was overcome, the party breached a former residence of the master thief, Villi Suttin, and has apparently recovered some goods and, even better, strong leads to the recovery of the target item. No DuChamp involvement or resistance was encountered, although the party had to fight off some magical beasts who seemed to have set up housekeeping in the structure.

Further developments will be forwarded as known.

Detailed report sent under separate cover.

¹ Ref. LSSR Strategy Document 49.121
² Ref. LSSR Intelligence report 55.989.1

Personal Note:

You can probably guess that crafty Thor knew that only a stranger in a strange land was guaranteed to have no possibility of any conflicting loyalties - something he may have to rely on. I both hope that we are right and pray that we are wrong in our assessment. Percival took the party into his confidence and told them our usually untold history - at least as much of it as they needed to hear to calm some anxieties. I think that some of these agents have a long future with the league and deserve to know the truth; I leave the details of their management to Percy, who I know has your faith as well as mine. And the Tablelands still smolder behind all this... were things always so flinty? Wasn't there a time we fought dragons?

On a brighter note, the new fireball birds seem to be working very well - that's how Cousin (who sends his regards) got me his field report. Imagine communicating across Carpathia in a matter of hours or less! It seems like just yesterday that you and I were marveling at our first carrier hawks, replacing those stupid, slow, and smelly pelicans that league used for so long. I wish there were not so few of these fireballs, so that our communication now could be so swift, but I am told they breed very slowly. Perhaps too old men don't have that much to say anyway.

Oh - and Cousin says the party encountered a sea-cat during the passage! I'll bet you're still knocking the waters of Beldar Bay from your ears! Oh, that fishing trip. A sea-cat!