... are very much not readily available at all to Lower residents. There's not even a Literate Beggar in the Beacon you can mug for blank scrolls (by the way, a Literate Beggar to scribe notes would be awesome). At the very least, give Thomas a few spare blank scrolls to sell out of.

I don't know much about the marketplace and how it is set up but if something is not there with NPC's the logical choice is to go to PC's.

Perhaps you need to pay someone to go to Upper for you to get a written document. There is bound to be someone who would do that for coin.

Otherwise you would not have to leave home to buy everything you needed. Hmm, the Underdark needs E-Bay.

You do raise a few points, but then there's the matter of sensitive information. Should you get a DM to possess an NPC just to make sure no other player knows what's going on? Certainly, the scribe in the library isn't the only one in Sanctuary that can write, or he'd have emotional breakdowns before each election.

(As an aside, I don't suppose it's possible to name scribed notes yet? >_> That really would be swell!)

[Edit] Kind of got off on a tangent there. I could understand that no merchants in Lower might sell parchment of good enough quality for scribing scrolls, but there are few enough places where acquiring these is possible as is. I still maintain that at least Thomas could sell them.