Mumewin Letters 3

12th day of the First Spring, 2,001 (ADZ)

To my esteemed colleagues at the Great Library of Annalow,

For 2 and 3 bits* I have purchased a Sky-Blue Carrier Ibis, able to fly long distances with a load up to a full pound in weight. He's a strong bird, average in size (roughly a foot tall), and he greedily eats any fish I put before him. I will call him Steve Jr. I imagine Chumkin must still smell of the sea, because the first things Junior did was to try eating him. Ah, to watch a long friendship begin.

The Ibises here are strange and semi sentient birds that spend most of their time either looking for fish and frogs in the marsh of the river's delta or grooming themselves and their tree nests. They are all Carrier Ibises, I've discovered, and they all decorate the bushy trees surrounding Gustwind. To look at them, you see just their eyes, beak, and feet devoid of feathers, giving the illusion of them wearing long curve-billed masks. All of them have wobbly necks, like a crane, the shorten and push out in feathers when they perch.

I call them semi sentient because I've talked to the locals about their behavior. The Ibis here seems to know the common tongue (Ixxarian) and plot and plan to steal fish, berries, and anything edible from the merchants, and only the merchants. The flock together like bandits at the docks and market, and the town guard eye them not with contempt, but uneasy dispossession. While not violent, they are wily birds as I've come to learn with Junior, but a bit of kindness yields, I think, a grand loyalty.

Or I'd like to believe, as Junior is eating us out of our grant gold. Here I was worried about Chumkin's whore habbit.

Yours,

Professor Steven Mumewin,

*Short hand for two pieces and 3 bits. Basically 13 bits.

Carrier Ibis (Creature)

Fit: 0 Awr: 1 Crv: -1 Res: -1 Luk: 2 Dis: 3

Athletics(Novice), Fishing (Proficient), Pick Pocket (Novice)