When he finally cracked the code, he learned that the hoard was almost certainly buried on an island in the Serpent's Teeth, and he resolved to find the fabled treasure himself. Panorin spent a few months in the libraries of Celephais researching cyphers. The book also hinted at his contacts with monstrous sea races and at the location of his long-lost hoard, and contained many passages in code that promised to throw more light on these secrets.

The diary gave many revealing details about the Hellcat's last few voyages (including a daring raid on Panorin's hometown of Rinar!). He soon realized that the book was more than a simple crewman's record, but instead belonged to the Freeport pirate captain Quentin 'Hellcat' Cantor, who was a dire plague on the Cerenarian and Southern Seas for many years, until his mysterious disappearance about 200 years ago. About two years ago, the gnome scholar Panorin Soldshort found a sailor's diary moldering in a bookstore in Hlanith, and bought it for his haphazard collection of travelogues.

Stalker winds of time