There are rumors that Cheliax is planning something next spring. This is not nearly as concerning as it sounds — there were the same rumors last year, and nothing came of it; some people will read just about anything unusual as a bad omen, even when it's just as likely to portend yet another round of inter-Henderthane infighting — but it's not a good idea to completely ignore it, either.

In a bustling town in Sirmium, one of several people scattered across the archduchy who thinks he's getting paid on the sly by an Abadaran trade consortium reports the current local going price for several different scrolls (and various other items of potential military relevance) over a Scry. Those are more suggestive; something is clearly cutting into the number of scrolls being produced for the general market, and it doesn't seem like the number of wizards employed at piecemeal scroll shops has mysteriously collapsed.

Some careful reconnaissance later, they've managed to acquire more specific information, and confirmed that there's been a sharp increase in the numbers of specific scrolls requisitioned for military use. Some of them are uninformative (the Web scrolls could be going anywhere), but the newly requisitioned scrolls of Fireball are much more likely to indicate plans involving large groups of mortals than anything convenient like a reallocation of additional forces towards the Worldwound.