NEMO: Into The Depths

Chapter 11: A Quick Heist before Brunch

The sky hung in an inky shroud as the resonant tolling of bells echoed through the city. Last call. The pubs, their once lively interiors now dimming, spilled their patrons into the cobblestone streets. Only the soft glow of street lamps illuminated the throngs of people as they walked under.

Chryse, nestled opposite the capital city, lay in the shadow of Mount Caelispelagus, formerly known as Hrafnafjall, a mountain whose summit pierced the clouds. Based on the structure of a honeycomb, Chryse was one of the most reputed centres of research, serving as a prestigious hub for both magical and mechanical research. Beyond its myriad of colleges, the city also boasted the renowned 'Museum of Artefacts and Automatons,' It showcased the largest collection of magical devices, relics, and weapons that the public was allowed to view.

Elyza had spent the last day roaming inside the museum, looking for infiltration points, trying to see where they could place guards, familiars, mechanical eyes, tripwires, and according to Alex, even the holding glyphs that they create after closing. Most of all, she had to figure out where they were holding the most powerful of the artefacts. In the last two months, he had dragged her around behind him, teaching her how to read people, how to lie to them. All the while, they helped sort out the problems of whatever town they were in, along with continuing to spar whenever they could.

Till they reached here. Alex just told her that they would be stealing something from the museum, dove into his shadow, and that was eighteen hours ago.

Now, she was sitting on the bench across the street from it, The bells having rung ten minutes ago, waiting. It was the perfect time to break in – just between when the night owls finally went home, the bars closed, the guards were nearing the end of their shift, and just before the earliest of workers woke up.

As Elyza perched on the bench, a bag of sunflower seeds in hand, she scattered them before the birds, acting as if it was a daily habit. Suddenly, she felt a shift in air pressure beside her.

"I can't stress this enough – pets are really hard to fit into this type of lifestyle," Alex remarked, his abrupt appearance scaring away the birds.

Elyza let out an involuntary sigh, "Took you long enough."

Alex simply stated, "Really? How much money is left?"

She muttered, trying to avoid the topic, "You could have told me how long you were going to take."

"I apologise," he said, bowing slightly in his seat, "Something personal came up during my visit." Rubbing a red stain off his cloak, he asked, "So, are you ready?"

"First," she interjected, addressing the question that had been gnawing at her for the past day, "Tell me what we are stealing."

"WE're not stealing anything; you are," He corrected her with a wide smile.

"What?"

"Technically," he added, not even trying to hide his amusement, "You're only going to be replacing something I have already stolen."

Elyza went silent, grappling with what frustrated her more: him or the museum, "And they have realised one of their prized artefacts has been missing for... how long?"

"Been a month and a half," he revealed, and tried to defend their incompetence, "and I did put a handmade replica in its place."

Rather than exhaling her frustration audibly, she took a deep breath and spoke, "If you already have broken into the museum once before, why can you not return it by yourself?"

"Because," he drawled out the syllables in his reply, "I was busy preparing things for you in the capital, and a few surprises as well."

"Why were you at the capital?" she questioned, momentarily distracted by a more pressing concern, "More importantly, what did I tell you about surprising me?"