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After a hard night toiling away in my lab, I felt myself waking up to another fine Neathy morning. Bats flapped nearby outside my towering spire. The Zee's waves lapped against the docks below. The light from my fireplace glinted off the bejeweled newt on my pillow. Wines and Spices argued in the room above me. Yes this truly was going to be-
Wait. Of all the many creatures and gems I own, none of them are even remotely newtish. Oh no. My eyes shot open and a rarely heard scream shot from my lips as I kept from my bed, which was loud enough that the two masters above me stopped squabbling out of shock. I could not believe what I was looking at. My eyes stuck open from shock, I found my gaze met with none other than the newt. The one which everyone knew but no one dared speak of. The one that, if the rumours were to be believed, had simply unspeakable things done to it. The one belonging to none other than- Well I dare not even say his name. Doing that alone would be enough to leave me stuck twiddling my thumbs at the tomb-colonies for weeks, meanwhile being caught in possession of his... pet, if it could be called that, would absolutely ruin me. I'd be all but banished from the Neath itself. Now I'm not usually one to avoid a scandalous act here and there, nay I am often found right at the boundaries of the socially acceptable where I do all I can to break through them. But this. This. Not even I could recover from this.
Suddenly, there was a knock on my door. Then came a bout of hushed argumentative whispers from which I could only hear bits and pieces.
"Me?!..."
"You're... socialite...!"
"...do you mean...hangover?!?"
"...fine!"
A moment later, the unmistakable voice of Mr. Spices rang through my door.
"Dearest um... tenant. We heard one of your... human screeches of terror and/or delight and my.... colleague here insisted that it was our duty as 'landlords' to come and check on you. I do not know what a landlord is and most certainly do not think I am one, however I do wish to discover the cause of your unpleasant outburst. Please provide a verbal confirmation that it shall never happen again otherwise I shall be entering under the presumption you have been fatally attacked in someway."
Shit. I could absolutely not under any circumstances let them in my room. The moment they see that newt I am done for, as it's reputation has certainly reached them even at their position commanding the city. Spices actually probably wouldn't be too much of a problem, as it is a bit of a recluse, but Wines on the other hand is a notorious gossip. If it so much catches a glimpse of someone of my standing in possession of that newt, it'll be all anyone talks about at its revels for the next decade.
As my mind raced for a solution my thoughts were interrupted by another, louder knock from Spices
"Hello? Tenant? Must I inform you that refusing to comply, being unruly, or dying are all reasonable grounds for eviction?"
"Hic Heh... Landlord..."
"I AM NOT-! Wines, kindly shut up until this situation has resolved. Ahem. as I was saying, you are dangerously close to eviction. Having not received a response I am afraid you leave me no choice but to enter forcefully."
BANG
With a single kick Spices had completely removed my door from its hinges, allowing it and its companion to float effortlessly into the room. Wines was rather too hungover to do any sleuthing, but Spices' eyes darted vigilantly around my room. First they landed upon my shrine to St. Joshua, perhaps fearing an irrigo based mishap, then its gaze landed upon the sleeping form of the visiting Minister of Enigmas. Had the beast consumed me perhaps? But no, only a moment later it spotted its intended target: me, laying sound asleep in my bed, clutching my pillow tightly. I was of course not asleep, but had simply lept into bed just before they entered the room where I then prayed that they wouldn't attempt to wake me lest I have to lift my head and reveal the scandalous amphibian that lay below it on my below.
I could feel the towering presence of Mr. Spices looming over me, scrutinizing every aspect of my being. Despite being the smallest of the Masters, Spices was easily at least two feet bigger than me in every dimension, so with him this close to me in such a perilous situation it took every fiber of my focus not to allow any sign that I was anything but asleep. Finally, after what felt like enough time for 1899 to have ended, I felt the intimidating presence drift away as Spices said "See, they are absolutely fine. Probably just having a bad time in Parabola, like I said. Of course, we'd know that for certain if you'd let me, someone who's actually responsible, keep track of Prisoner's honey and take a quick jaunt into their dreams."
"Hehe... Hic You wanna sip my hoooooneeeyyyy~"
"WINES! That's not even clever! I swear I have no idea..."
The voices slowly faded away, presumably as the two of them left my room. I slowly and cautiously opened my eyes and sure enough, my room was ransacked but empty. I allowed myself to breathe a brief sigh of relief, before I remembered why that situation had been so stressful in the first place. I quickly shot up again and stared down at the disaster on my pillow with horror and disgust. My mind raced with ideas of anything I could do. Hide it in the floorboards? No, that's too risky. Both my spouses are smart enough to solve that little mystery, and as much as we love each other not even they can be allowed to know about this unfortunately. Hmm. Perhaps it could be burned? Then again, that does seem far too cruel a thing to do to a creature, even this creature, for as silly, yet important, a matter as my reputation. Besides, the damn jewels would probably keep it from burning anyways. So what was I to do? The only person alive who wouldn't be absolutely ruined by even knowing of this newt is it's original owner, anyone else is all but doomed. That's when it hit me. Its original owner. I just had to get it back to its original owner! Of course, I would have to do so without talking to him, being seen in his house, or really even being thought of by the general public for a number of days, but it was the best plan I had yet. I would have to do something so strange I had never even attempted such a thing, Neath or otherwise. I was going to have to perform a reverse-heist.
But where does one start with such a thing? The place to start with a regular heist was quite simple, I'd long ago learned the best spots for casing potential targets of my escapades in The Flit, but this was an entirely different animal. For one thing, I could not risk being associated in any way whatsoever with the heist itself, otherwise the whole thing would be redundant. Perhaps not an issue if I could do this alone, but sadly I knew I could not for two reasons. Firstly, Lord P____'s estate was more well guarded than any residency I'd broken into thus far, excluding maybe the Bazaar itself, and so I couldn't possibly get into his lowest vaults where his most scandalous items are kept without employing at least a little help. The second was the lock on that very same vault, a strange and perverted device which takes the beautiful art of organ playing and mirrors it in horrific, permanent, death. As much as I wasn't about to sacrifice my reputation for this newt, I also wasn't planning on sacrificing my life. I'd need either someone willing to give up theirs or someone whom I could say with absolute certainty was beyond redemption and good in this cavern. It was a tough goal, in a world where death is a nuisance rather than an ending its permanence can somehow be more terrifying to many and thus far only one person I'd met had ever been so thoroughly awful that I'd condemned them with death and even then that was mostly only to ensure that someone decidedly good didn't incur the same fate on herself, but despite these problems I was sure I could think of something. So long as I planned ahead of time, nothing would stop me here.
Ah, that should be the next step, shouldn't it? Come up with an impossibly precise plan. I rose from my bed and made my way to my desk, a chaotic sight even before Spice rummaged through my things this morning. Unsent letters written in ink lightly tinged with irrigo covered every inch of it, waiting for just the right piece to fall into place so they could one day execute an exacting checkmate, but currently I couldn't care less about any of my more professional matters cluttering the space. I dramatically shoved all of them to the floor as I sat myself down and hastily pulled out a new page in which to write. However, as I went to take my quill to ink and begin writing, I realised I had a problem. I'd been exposing all my ink to the Irrigo light of my shrine, to subtly influence the other players of the game to which I wrote into forgetting certain strategic things. This was partially an issue as I didn't want to forget my own plan, but also because it was the exact opposite of what the first step of my plan required. If it cannot be known that I am breaking into this house, yet I must work with people to do so, then it will simply have to not be me that breaks into the house. Of course, I can't just let someone else do it, I wouldn't trust them unsupervised and besides the whole point of this damned plan is so I can put this blasted next back where it belongs, so instead I will need to do so under the guise of an alter ego. Not just any alter ego, but one so memorable that people will not be able to remember a time they didn't remember them, one who could never be considered to potential be someone else because they'd always been around and always been well-known, and one so bold and brash and daring that even the outrageous scandal associated with attempting to break into this particular house would just slide right off them.