A white-robed acolyte entered the small, sombre office high within the
crystalline Citadel of Light. He bowed low before the pale, cowled man
who sat behind the desk, and proffered a sheaf of parchments.
"Intercepted from Ashtan, sir," he murmured. A slender hand spotted with
ink took the parchments and waved away the acolyte, who withdrew
quietly.

"In Lupar of the year 604, I was the officer of the guard on the scene
for the investigation of a murder committed in the streets of Ashtan,"
the man read, a slow smile spreading across his face.

"We discovered a corpse, dead several months, in the back alleys of
Martin's Sorrow. Our investigation of the reason for death indicated
that the individual in question, a scribe in the Nicator Archives, was
killed with a sharp instrument, possibly a quill, through the eye. He
was dumped into the sewers, where he floated for several days before
being washed out in a storm.

"We speculate that the purpose of the murder was to allow the suspect to
take the scribe's place in the Archives. There, he gained access to
privileged information, and was able to make use of a distraction in the
Mhojave Desert to break into the House Estate of the Occultists. Though
their internal regulations prohibit sharing precise information on the
nature of the break-in, we were able to ascertain that an object was
stolen from their Estate and taken away by the suspect, who then fled
the city.

"At this point, our information is less than clear. It is likely that
the suspect fled to the now-empty village of Petra, where he attempted
to signal Shallamese allies as to his location. Our Overseer was able to
follow Silas Maynard into the empty keep, where he witnessed the
Shallamese assisting the wounded suspect, who appeared to be a cloaked
scribe, to escape. The Easterners took the murderer into their Citadel,
where we could not follow.

"Subsequent information from our informants in the city indicates
rumours that a certain official of the old Church, the scribe Cenys, has
reappeared after a long absence and taken up residence in the city.
Further information is curiously difficult to obtain, and I leave that
up to the Archonate and its designated deputies."

Cenys nodded, the slight, satisfied smile remaining in place. Setting
aside the intercepted report, he took a single moment to relax and
focus, then retrieved his quill from its inkwell and bent to his work.
Above his shoulder, upon the shelf, the slender form of a sleek white
dagger gleamed with barely suppressed power and menace. Cenys paid it no
heed.

Penned by My hand on the 5th of Valnuary, in the year 607 AF.