The Thieves Game

"Ach tis all just the game me boy, sad as it is there nary a damn'd thing we can do 'bout it. Nary misunderstand me, o' course I reported it, but weren't nae smash and grab, twas professional. Nary a thing out o' place but what was taken, nary a sign or trace anyone was 'ere, hell the doors and windows was still locked. Then remember the lamps out front were broken and out of order the for a week, an' the lampligher's guild kept givin' us the runaround, tellin' us it could be a couple weeks, cause o' t'e storm above in Sky-Side. Yet anyone we asked said there was barely any damage and Sky-Side's lamps were more or less in working order. But nae, all of a sudden, we got 'alf a dozen folks out there repairing those two lamps, work that realistically two people could do."

"Excuse ma'am, are you implying that the Lamplighter's guild works with thieves?"

"Not just any common thieves Tarin, nae, I'm stating they work with the Shadows and that bitch the Shade Queen, whoev'r t'at bloody well is. However enough chit chat, lets get the forge goin' an' get ta work. Around lunchtime I expect a constable will arrive with an officer or two ta take stock o' the scene, not t'at there is much o' anyt'ing ta find."

A conversation between Anamelia Tizzilen and her metalworking apprentice Tarin Forbridge the morning after they discovered three pounds of raw gold and silver ore they kept for gilding and decorative work had been stolen.

Thief's Game is a common street tale and urban legend amongst those of the city of Geata-Iarainn to explain the strangeness of the regularity of certain thefts, and the patterns of them that seem so obvious to regular folk, yet supposedly are 'just a coincidence' by the authorities counting. The crux of the idea is that a secret group known as 'The Shadows' are responsible for these episodic crime sprees, hitting high value targets for materials and goods that are both worth a lot of coin, but easy to move. Run by the infamous Shade Queen, part of the urban myth is that the Shadows can only operate in complete darkness. Some more outlandish versions of the stories imply they are not truly a thieves guilt, but perhaps even a Greed Cult, though such ideas are outlandish and dismissed by local authorities outright and out of hand of course.

Perhaps too swiftly. Regardless, the story of the 'Thief's Game' is simple. Street lanterns are favorite targets for rapscallion children, orphans and rebellious youths, for vandalism. The myth holds that these youth do not always target randomly, but are sometimes....coerced or perhaps bribed to target the lamps outside specific businesses and establishments. Then the Lamplighters guild gets their palms greased to simply....delay repairing the damage for a few days, claiming anything from a backlog of work and maintenance to a simple delay in part acquisition. Then someone of the Shades strikes that location one night in the dark, leaving no real trace of their activities, regardless of the locks, or other security measures both legal and registered, or illicit, booby-trap like, and unregistered, that an establishment has. These sorts of measures being not just bypassed, but left as they were found. In fact on one or two occasions they were not simply left as found, but were in fact repaired. In the above case, the smithy had set a tripwire system rigged to a Shardgun just beyond the threshold of locked and iron reinforced door that contained the small room where they stored the most valuable of ores and crafting materials. This trap was not merely bypassed, but disarmed and rearmed with a new wire, for the old one had lost some of its tension, and the shardgun had been unloaded, cleaned and reloaded and the entire trap had been rigged up as it had been found. These sorts of activities seem to be of a taunting nature, helping add to the mythos of the 'Thieves Game'. Suspiciously, the morning after such a burglary, without fail the Lamplighter's Guild suddenly will have repair crews present and will have the lanterns in front of that establishment up and running before nightfall.

Some folk believe that the Lamplighters Guild themselves are actually the Shadows, or at least some number of the guild are. However this seems unlikely due merely to numbers. The Lamplighters Guild number some hundred or so individuals with another two dozen office staff within their guild hall and district offices. That number feels unwieldy to keep such secrets and the thefts are not frequent enough to suggest such a large organization. Yet in spite of this logic, many believe both the Geata Police and the Lamplighter's Guild are invovled