My dear,

I write to you from Lansk once again. I have returned from my journey to the south, in pursuit of the Senan. Once more, our hopes have been dashed, though in a most curious fashion. The Senan was indeed flown to this southerly depot for evaluation and refitting, but shortly before my arrival a person unknown broke into the Company’s airfield, whereupon they boarded the Senan and retrieved an item of great value, previously undiscovered by the Spires. This can only be our sacred treasure. All this information I gained from rumour and hearsay around the Depot and the nearby village of Uple.

The scant information the rumours held of the suspected thief is as follows: seemingly a man, he came to the village from the south, travelling by foot, and claimed to be a trader despite having no pack animals or wares. Though this tale seems fanciful, as nothing lies to the south of the village except the mountains and their many dangers, it was repeated by all I spoke to.

Who can this thief have been? None of our people can have come from that direction, and who among us could have single-handedly stolen into the Depot and taken our relic without being detected or captured? But yet, who outside our small circle could known where to look and how to retrieve the treasure from within the Senan? And what do they intend with it? My heart is greatly vexed by these questions. The last rumour of this thief is that they proceeded North, rather than returning to the south whence they came. How this is known or why this is believed I cannot tell, though I suspect its origin may lie with the unsettling intelligence of the Company’s Weirds.

With our treasure taken, the vessel and its fate no longer concern me, and the perfidious Spires are welcome to it, and may it fall from the skies and scatter its crew upon the plains.

And so I returned to the North, to Lansk, where I hoped to find further rumour of the thief and our stolen relic, and once more rely on the passage granted by the Erthani. Every day I thank the skies for their aid and alliance since the day the Erthani captain saved us from the banks of the Abga. But it was not to be so – a few days before my return to the city, a great massacre took place in Lansk. The Bailiff of Lansk, a butcherous wretch by the name of Eintov, ordered a Temar vessel and a company of marines to assault an assembly of workers gathered to demand better wages and conditions. The dead numbered near a hundred, or so I was told, and many arrests were made. An orator by the name of Yethara has been accused of riling the crowd – they call it a mob, though I doubt it was so before the Company began to fire upon them – and she is due to be tried in the coming weeks. But I am stranded in this vile city, as the Erthani were too accused of complicity in the dispute, and will no longer dock here. The Company’s patrol vessel had the temerity to fire across the Erthani boats and keep them from reaching the shore to assist the assaulted crowd! And so I am keeping low and seeking an alternative means of travelling this hostile land without making my presence known to those who oppose us.

My nights have been sleepless with worry for the fate of our people. I will not return to you until I have secured our relic once more and can deliver it safely to its rightful place among us.

With love,

Vistan