Most beloved Zann,

Lord Clear hadn’t given up. He couldn’t use the Beast of Crideon to hunt down any rebels, but he had other ideas in mind.

The first thing he did was to release a flock of prosecution grouse. These were some medium-sized pink birds who would fly around the city until they found someone who was guilty of something. The bird would fly around their head, and squawk, and follow them home, until one of Lord Clear’s squads of greenfolk soldiers came along and took the person away.

Well, of course, there are two big problems with this plan. First, Crideon is a relatively law-respecting city, but even so, there are thousands of people around who are guilty of something. The birds didn’t get ten feet out of their traveling cotes before they were harassing some poor street vendor or truant kid. And second, there are plenty of people here who know what a grouse tastes like when you season and roast it properly, and were eager to demonstrate their knowledge.

So that didn’t work. Neither did the mirror puppets, the soup mice, the sauntering traps, or the fart magistrates. But as little success as he was having, Lord Clear was no fool. He had been studying the laws of Crideon, and he had found something that really seemed like a winner to him…

Love,

Ybel