Deacon Almet, an aarocrocka male in fine garb, meets you on the street and asks if you are mercenaries. Replying yes, instantly, he asks for your discretion in meeting him at a tea shop, A New Leaf, in a half hour.

Deacon has had a family heirloom go missing: a fabriege egg of considerable monetary and sentimental value. He is hoping to hire some well meaning and discrete adventurers to investigate the eggs whereabouts and Deacon’s suspected culprit.

Deacon is a member of a well known merchant family in Wildemount; he and his cousins run a vast trading company that works with the Dwendalian Empire and the Clovis Concord in the Menagerie Coast. As the operative in Trostenwald, he is the lynchpin of the network, handling communications between the Empire and the Concord.
Recently, his merchant ships have been under attack by pirates drawing closer to the Menagerie Coastline in an unexpectedly brazen display (he suspects that the Pirate King of Darktow is losing his control on the pirates; Amira knows that this typically happens when another pirate is gaining power and readying to challenge the sitting king).

As a result, his management of the trading network has been called into question. This is the main reason he needs discretion; sharks in both Trostenwald and his own family will attempt to push him out if they feel he is weak. They’ve sent someone to monitor him: Grozz Gobtax, an ally of theirs from Berleben, who manages trade down the Eisfus River.

Deacon has reason to suspect that this other trade manager, the hobgoblin Grozz is dealing with his own money troubles and stole the egg to repay some of his debts. He asks that you find the egg, though if you can also find proof that Grozz stole it or has the debts to support Deacon’s theory, that would be permissible to get this interloper out of Deacon’s business.

On Deacon’s advice, you travel to the home of a Crownsguard general that Grozz has been renting while staying in Trostenwald. Deacon has set up a meeting with Grozz this afternoon which should keep him away from the house for a couple of hours. Posing as a cleaning crew to service the well-furnished manor, you manage (somehow) to steal a key and gain entry, bypassing the outer defenses only to discover that the interior is equally defended by a floating staff of frost and several suits of animated armor. Dispatching these and leaving quite a mess, you discover the conspiracy:

Grozz’s rented desk has several copies of payment requests addressed to various stores and merchants. The only one you recognize is Errenis Antiquities, from Nicodranas, which is the cart that took the weird orbs off the ship. All the payment requests are from Gobtax Mercantile Supplier, Grozz’s shipping company. All the requests are crumpled and dated last month. One of them has a response, which states that this payment has been completed, “given to your representative”.

Another letter, forwarded to this address, formally conscripts more mercantile ships of the Gobtax Supplier Fleet into the Dwendalian Naval service against “the rising Kryn threat in the east”. To date, the Empire has not had nor needed a naval presence.

Finally, you find two letters from someone titled The Hollow Corsair. One of these letters, dated two months ago, confirms a successful attack against the Almet fleet., as Grozz requested. The Hollow Corsair expects payment. The second letter is more direct and harsh in tone, confirming that the Hollow Corsair’s agents and fleet are in place to move against Almet. However, the Hollow Corsair makes a not so subtle threat that they expect Grozz to come through; they’ve already had to collect his owed payments from his customers and it would be a shame if he could not deliver now. Perhaps his husband and daughter would need to be aware of Grozz’s money problems. but, once the egg is received, the fleet will be destroyed and even the money taken from his customers will be returned.