HEIST! Welcome to the Desmonian Institute of Art and Science

Raferties could appreciate Zenthim was upset. Solaris knows he himself was quite distraught the sole time someone actually managed to break into his Heavenly Library and take a single scroll. How much worse would it have been if everything was taken?

Though that didn't stop the frown from forming on his face as his beloved was bellowed at.  

Thankfully a cooler head stepped in and prevailed. He did flick a wing around his mate's shoulders, however, just to help settle himself. Guardian Solarian, protective by nature, and it seems this also pertained to the honor of those they chose to protect.  

The information that followed brought a new... concern to the table.  

"Cursed?" He echoed quietly, a bit of worry in his eyes. "This could be far trickier than I first thought! Not only shall we have to content with thieves – as slippery as they can be on their own – but depending on the items we may have to deal with their mechanizations as well."  

Well, the elbow hadn't come from his corner, though he did give Belial's hand another squeeze in a silent plea for a little bit of tolerance. Or perhaps it was sharing a bit in the brand of humor he rather enjoyed from his devil, by the faint smirk on his lips.  

"Yes, my love," Raferties replied. "Lets see everything that was taken, so we have some idea what we are up against."  

And if when they were in the office he tried to steal a small kiss to erase the annoyed lip twist, well, who could blame him?  


Belial was touched by his mate's concern but really getting bellowed at was something of an entertainment specialty.  That it amused Belial that Zenthim seemed to think he had the place did not prevent the archdevil from reveling in Raf's attention, however.  He was going to revel in Raf's attention whenever he could and for whatever reason happened to be on hand in the moment.

Raferties' attempts to steal a small kiss in the office were thwarted by Belial pulling Raf in for a much longer, it's-been-too-long kind of kiss.

Which could have gotten awkward fast if the door wasn't strategically kneed into Belial's back.

Nahlie waved the others in.



Glanding around the gathered people, because all her training as a lieutenant of the Watch told her that those who were closest to the scene of the crime were in general the first ones she should interview (and had a chance of being the thieves themselves; what better cover!) the Junior Weyrwoman caught a glimpse of Telmaril in his finery, and her mind actually all but utterly shut down on her.  

Oh my!  

Somewhere in Haven Weyr several of her Bondeds were having a laughing fit as to borrow a word from a different realm she suddenly was quite twitterpated, mouth going dry and utterly unable to put together two thoughts much less a sentence.  

That is until her brain snapped at her to get a hold of herself – time for admiring later! - and she caught the tail-end of the curator's tirade against the little fuzzy fae.  

And she seemed to be the next target!

Oh, Zenthim had better be grateful to Nahile for stopping him from saying anything rude or thoughtless to her! At even the first glare her back had been straightening stiffly, her eyes narrowing with preparation to defend herself and Anari more than well knew how to give as good as she got! Thankfully the pointed lecture, such as it was, was delivered for her and with considerable effect. She took in the information given, what little there was, and was considering doing some looking around when Kemori was abruptly assigned to her.  

Well. This was... a turn.  






'Supervise this one?'  

Kemori snorted, ears tipping slightly down.  

Then he looked at Anari and suddenly he didn't feel so bad about this after all. A mystery to be solved on a glorious night, and such loveliness to view along the way.  

Zenthim was brilliant!  

With a grand bow to Anari, the Kitsune introduced himself.  

"Well, my dear, for you I shall promise to be on my best behavior, and all my magic is at your disposal! I am Kemori of the Kitsune Clan."  

"I am Anari, Junior Weyrwoman and Rider of Pureblood Gold Oroveth."  

Well, quite a title! And one he understood every nuance of. But nowhere in there did he hear anything that directly would ward him away from a little harmless flirting every now and then, nor did he see anything on her to signify she was taken.  

And she seemed like the sort with a shell of iron around her. They were fun ones!  

"Shall we trail after the rather dashing pair and take a peek at the artifact list? Or would you rather just trust in good fortune to light our way?"  

Anari closed her eyes for a moment – she'd heard about this one from Sandasa and a few people in the village, relatively harmless overall but a charmer and endless flirt – but glanced at Raferties and Belial.  

"Perhaps seeing the manifesto might yield some clues. Goodness knows they might as well have had a janitor clean up after them when they left."

"Then shall we?" Kemori bowed to her again, gesturing he would lead where she followed, and thus the pair trailed after the Lorekeeper and Lord of Rivers.  

"Right this way," Nahlie was quick to say.  "Manifest is in my office, I can show you where it is..."

She gave the office door a serious Look, and then a hard shove with her knee.  There was just enough of a fleshy thump and startled flailing on the other side to inform her that she had guessed correctly, so she grinned at the flustered-appearing Raferties and the glaring Belial as she waved Kemori and Anari into the office.

"The manifest is right here, displayed prominently on my desk for the purposes of this event," Nahlie narrated, sweeping into the room and using her wings to counterbalance herself as she leaned over her desk to pluck up the manifest.  All thirty sum-odd pages of it.

((Putting Raf, Anari, and Kemori here until Anari breaks away; I'll post at the bottom for that. Also color coding their names for future use.))

Sensing Belial's amusement - and the kiss - did much to settle the angel's mind that the devil wasn't too offended by the man's behavior.

Alright, the kiss going for longer than the quick one he'd intended was nice. Very nice. It was so nice in fact that Raferties momentarily let where they were slip his mind and leaned in for more... until Belial was thumped in the back by the door.

Oh yeah.

Raferties felt his cheeks flush a bit in embarrassment. Not that he ever minded PDA with Belial, but it really was neither the time nor place. He gave a sheepish grin as Nahlie showed Anari and Kemori into the room, clearing his throat and nodding as she moved to the table and picked up the manifest. Anari kindly pretended she didn't notice their reactions; Kemori was outright grinning.

"Quite a hefty list!" Kemori made his way over to stand by the desk, as did Raferties and Anari after the angel composed himself. "Hmm, where to start?"

"Perhaps if we focus on something that is hard to conceal," Anari suggested. "Or something that can only be carried out of the building in so many ways. Large or unwieldy items, things that would take multiple people to carry, also might help us verify a guess on how many thieves we're dealing with."

"And if any have particular magics, that might be detectable as well." Raferties' mind was already running with possible routes of finding their quarry that might lie in that particular direction.



A theft.  

This sort of thing was definitely WAY out of Cobalt's usual expertise. But ironically enough for her rather imposing form Cobalt was one of the few attendees that avoided a scolding by the curator.  

Lucky her.  

This gave her time to look around and see if she spotted anything useful (which she didn't, the downside of not being forged to be an scout). For a moment she felt utterly at a loss...  

Then her Schema pinged, and without even looking she knew who had drawn near.  

"Commander," she greeted Arieh when she turned, straightening to proper attention even as she added a second greeting to someone no one present could see but she could feel. "High Commander." He was with three others, she noticed, that she'd never met and that she felt no resonance with. But as a Warforged she'd been trained to read body language especially between units, and the way they moved told her they were all equals to one another. Thus, though Arieh would always be 'Commander' in her mind, Susan, Gwandoya, and Dima received the ranks of Commander in her mental sorting.  

"As you wish, commander," the walking weapon replied in return, laxing her posture slightly but still clearly attentive as she joined their group.  

A part of her buried deep was actually a little disappointed that Arieh went off on his own, but even though the exact nuances of both his rather obvious interest in the – was Dust some kinda of advanced Warforged? - other individual and the others' teasing was lost on her she was still savvy enough to get the message.  

Yes, Arieh, the genderless Warforged can tell you're smitten. Take that as you will.  

"How should we begin?" The eternal soldier, awaiting orders!

"Well, if he's just going to ditch us like that, I suppose we should start by having a look around," Susan offered as an initial suggestion.  "I mean, that woman found a belt in that wagon by the door, but did she actually check the rest of the wagon after she found the belt?"

Cobalt thought back. No, she didn't think that Aletha had searched further. And it made sense that a thief, dropping one item perhaps because of full hands, might have dropped others at the same time, perhaps even accidentally kicked them underneath or into shadowed corners.

Taking the comment as a near-order, Cobalt just nodded and with an 'I will search the other two wagons," headed out to do just that. In specific she checked beneath the wagons as well, as there were shadows cast by them that could conceal smaller items, and if the thief dropped the belt - perhaps because of full hands - he may have dropped others, accidentally kicked beyond available sight.



When Zenthim turned towards her, Taki realized that she had said exactly the worst thing ever. She barely had time to mentally brace before he snapped at her, and while she could easily get the why of things it still startled her to be yelled at like that – seriously, that kind of thing just didn't happen to Myrgwae, as a general rule! - and his anger and frustration and all the other emotions that were gushing out of him like a fountain weren't helping much either, tangling up one with the next like several really knotted yarn balls.  

Ah, but someone made everything better! Taki was actually quite glad for Nahlie's intervention, almost instantly perking right back up again, and cheered even more when she was addressed directly.  

*Oh! You know about Myrgwae?!* Taki's turquoise eyes fairly sparkled with delight. *I can do that! I'll get started right away! But please don't go anywhere – I might want to talk to you later about Myrgwae!* And even before Nahlie could reply the little furry fae was off running to another room, to get clear of the emotions present before she tried throwing out an Empathic net and looking for someone feeling sneaky! Ooh! Maybe if she could find them she could make them feel really guilty and they'd return everything they took! That would make Zenthim happy, wouldn't it?  

Of course it would!  

Plan merrily in place, she found a quieter side room, equally devoid of exhibits but also clear of the tension in the previous, sat down, and got to work.

It was a bit of a broad net to be sorting through an entire village all at once, but about seventeen likely candidates stood out as feeling suspiciously triumphant, smug, or scared.  Some of them in some combination.  At least one of these candidates was startlingly close by.

Taki was thrilled at her results! While yes seventeen was a large number, it was a start and for one to be so close was even better! With all the bravado of her fae kind, Taki began sneaking as quietly as she could in the direction she sensed the emotion from, wanting to observe her subject first!



Keldos had once said that when Raferties' oft-restrained anger came to the surface, it actually frightened him.  

He would be lying if he didn't admit he felt a thrill of terror as his Litlte Brother's beloved was the target of some over-emotional reaction, and the Archangel caught the spark of anger in the Lorekeeper's eyes. Sometimes Keldos thought Belial was something of a corrupting influence, in a sense.  

Things settled down, thankfully, and even though he reaised a skeptical eyebrow at the 'opposites attract day' comment he mentally shrugged it off as stress-induced dry wit.  

And to be honest, with both Solarian and Archdevil 'brother' pairs present, it might seem like 'Opposites Attract Day.'  

"Well, at least our task is an easy one," Keldos quipped to Raviel in answer to the silent words. (It was something Keldos enjoyed how good he'd gotten at interpreting the often-silent General's expressions and looks, so that they could hold a conversation with only one voice at times.) "Though depending on how much they resist and what forces they have, the not killing part may be a struggle." He smiled. "Let's see what we can find."  

As they headed out, Keldos did pause to give a greeting wave to Nec and Shrayla, noticing two he considered rather good friends had been paired up. Given their canine companions that would be quite tactical, and he hoped they did well.  

To be honest, he hoped they all did well.  

Raviel was happy enough to follow instead of lead for the most part, though in returning to the courtyard the archdevil seemed to be evaluating the whole place in a new light.

His eye caught on the colorful tents to the right of the refreshment tables, two of them red, a purple tent between them.  Antlered head canted to one side, Raviel gave Keldos a wordless look of questioning.

They wouldn't have, would they?

Raviel wasn't alone in his evaluations, for Keldos was also looking over the scene much as he would a battlefield before the battle began. Only instead of looking for ambush locations and fortified barriers, he was looking for hiding places for either people or items.

When the Grand General caught the High General's eye, the Archangel merely nodded. It was close, and it was a place to hide. At the very least it was good to clear the closer targets and then work their way out. Not wanting to give anything away should a thief lie inside Keldos gestured to the purple one to be the first place, and for Raviel to go to one side of the entrance and Keldos to the other. With a few war gestures he added that if the center was proven to be empty he would move quickly to the red tent closer to himself, and that his lover should do the same to the one close to him.

Hopefully they could catch some thieves off-guard!


Well, they didn't quite catch any hiding thieves in their tent, but they did find three objects tucked away, hastily rumpled into some bedding as if that would disguise them from sight. A very fine garment, a harp, and an attractive but ominous pair of moccasins.
((Word Count: 1500+, Crochet Away – yarn, Grab Bag – Janitor COMPLETE!!))