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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Cerebral Paladin" data-source="post: 3272261" data-attributes="member: 3448">Later the same afternoon, Lord Ocelot attended upon Alistair.“You wished to speak with me, your eminent grace?”“Indeed.  I wanted to inform you of a matter of grave mutual interest.  One of our armies engaged a force of twenty heavily armed and equipped warriors in the forests to the northwest of the capital.  The warriors were more like what you would expect from adventurers in ability and magic than common troops, and they inflicted fairly serious casualties on our army.  The reason this concerns you as well is that they all bore a tattoo depicting a vulture.”Lord Ocelot’s equanimity broke, and he quickly began, “Your grace, I cannot believe…”Alistair held up a hand.  “We do not think they were from Masque.  However, we believe that whoever their true master is wanted us to believe that they were.”Lord Ocelot nodded.  “That makes sense.  I was confused at first.  The Vultures are a huge order, but they are a lousy order.  I cannot imagine that they would have been able to stand against your troops in battle.”“Do they receive the Vulture tattoo upon initiation?”“Yes.”“Then that’s another reason to believe that these were fake Vultures.  They received their tattoos immediately before the mission.  Although I suppose they could have been experienced adventurers who had newly joined the Order…”“All but impossible, your grace.  The Vultures could not recruit skilled adventurers.  The dreams that Vultures have are small dreams.  It is the nature that every nation must deal with those within their culture who are less driven.  The Vultures are ours.”“They were, we believe, intended to assassinate the One of Ones of Tang.  Whoever is behind this sought to start a war, at least between Tang and Masque, and possibly with us as well because of the new alliance.  We thought that you would be as interested in uncovering the truth as we are.”“Of course.  We will help you as well as we can, but our spies are not very effective at infiltrating foreign lands.”  Lord Ocelot moved one hand so that, without directly pointing at it, he alluded to the mask on his face.“I understand,” replied Alistair.  “Our principal suspicion is that Hanal was behind it.  They left clues pointing to Thar Ingmath directly, and then more subtly pointing to Masque.”Lord Ocelot nodded.  “I know something of Hikbar’s organization, probably as much as any other great power would know.  Tang and Thar Ingmath both have difficulty conducting any external intelligence operations for reasons similar to, but even worse than, our own.”</blockquote>

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