"So, the next few days I spent preparing by figuring out who went into the Shackleforth manor, who came out and when they did so. I watched the guards making their rounds, looked for potential entry points and—"
"And by the time your 'heist' was supposed to start, the rounds were suddenly different and there were more guards on the premise than before, am I right?" Crystal interrupts Sebarius retelling of the events.

Sebarius blinks a few times, completely caught off guard and finally asks, "Okay, how do you know that?"

Crystal groans and explains, "Goes to show that you're an amateur. These guards are professionals, Sebarius. When the same person keeps hanging outside of the compound, they tend to notice that. What’s more, their master brought a valuable artifact home just the other day, so they’d be naturally on even higher alert than usual. You’ve got spotted watching the house a few days in a row, so they figured out that you were planning something.”
“But...how did they know when I intended to strike? I mean, it was—““Let me take a wild guess, on the day you tried to get in, you rested during the day so you’d be fit in the evening, am I right?”
“Well...yes?”
“And that’s how they knew. Look, they’ve watched you watch them for a few days and all of a sudden, you don’t show up to watch them. That can only mean one of two things. One, that you’ve lost interest. Second, that you’ve learned enough and plan to act on it. And since people like that like to err on the side of caution…”

Sebarius lets out a long sigh and replies, “I really am such an idiot…”“Not an idiot. Just an amateur. I doubt that your mentor ever taught you how to trick people into giving you the information you need.”
“And...how do you go about something like that?”
“That depends on the target, really. Sometimes I buy the information from a broker, sometimes I get someone from the personnel drunk and so on. That I’m fairly attractive is a bonus regarding that, because most men still tend to think with their dick instead of their head. ‘Staking out the house’ is something you can only do, if you’ve got a good vantage point, where you can see without being seen yourself.”
“...should I be taking notes here?”
“No, unless you intend to plunge yourself into even more misery,” Crystal states, nodding to Sebarius’ legs.

Sebarius sighs again, shakes his head and then continues.

As I’ve already told you, the guard rounds had changed and there were more guards and as you’ve just told me, I have only myself to blame for that.
Fortunately for me, I managed to notice prior to actually entering the compound and, because my mentor had taught me to err on the side of caution myself, I did not even attempt to break in that evening, seeing as I only would have ended up being caught.

Instead, I went to the local bar to think about what I was supposed to do now.
Clearly I was not going to get in there unseen.

Over what I can only assume to have been one beer too many, a muse decided to sit down next to me and whisper the solution into my ear.
This muse was a very sad excuse for a servant from one of the wealthy families in the area, who told the barkeep over his own drink, that he just got fired from his job, which his family had been doing for generations, just because of one tiny mishap.
He told the barkeep and everyone allowed who decided to listen, that he had finally managed to secure himself some ‘quality time’ with one of the maids he had been trying for for a while.
Apparently said maid got really turned on by the presence of valuables, the kind of stuff she’d never own herself, and, since the servant had been around for quite a while, he had the key for the ‘treasure room’.

So he lead her in there, but before even properly turning around to her, he got bonked over the head and by the time he woke, he was surrounded by the guards and some of the more valuable items of the collection had vanished along with the maid.

Sebarius clears his throat and asks, “You wouldn’t have had anything to do with that?”

Crystal laughs, points to her ears and remarks, “While I can hide them for a time, it’s strenuous. Besides, the whole ‘infiltrate house’ gambit takes a lot of time and people will inevitably know your face. No, the best theft is always the one, where the victim doesn’t even notice that they have been stolen from, at least until it is much to late to tell who might have done it.”
“I see...I just thought, after what you’ve told me earlier…”
“There are more thieves in this world than just the two of us, Sebarius. And some just happen to be girls. Get over it. Anyway, your face was already known to the guards, so ‘infiltrating’ would be difficult...which I’m sure you already knew. So what did this ‘muse’ inspire you to do?”

Sebarius takes a moment to sort out his thoughts again and finally replies, “I will admit that I am not proud of what I did that evening.”

While the servant was slowly drowning himself in alcohol and wallowing in self-loathing and despair, I turned to him and explained, that I was hunting a female thief, which fit the description he had just given the barkeeper.
I also told him, that I knew how to lure her out, so she’d be brought to justice, which would clear his name.

I don’t know how I managed to actually convince him that I was for real, though I guess in his state he would probably have believed just about anything.
So, in the spur of a moment, I made up the plan, that the poor sap would apply for a position at Lord Shackleforth’s manor, where, as I explained him, I spotted the thieving maid entering and exiting, making it sound like she was clearly there preparing to seduce and use the next poor fool.

The poor guy believed every single word I said, so, the day after he got over his hangover, I paid for a fix of his wardrobe and sent him to Lord Shackleforth’s manor to inquire for an employment as servant.

“Hmm...interesting vector. But I don’t quite see how that would have gotten you into the manor or the ‘treasure room’. Surely the servant wouldn’t have been given the keys for that, right?”
“I am getting to that, don’t worry.”

After that, I met up with Paul every evening in the same bar to hear what he had learned about the security of the compound, making him believe that I only wanted to know because I was concerned for the safety of the artifacts being stored there.
That he did not question never seeing that woman again only suited me all too well...I guess he was just too happy that he had a job again to really think about the details.

After about one week of meeting up with him like that, I came to the conclusion, that I was not getting in there with security being as tight as it were, so I decided to change my plans.

I told Paul, that I believed that the thief had already struck and replaced the Spirit orb with a replica made from glass.
I explained to him, that there was a rather simple way to ascertain that the thing was genuine and that all I needed was a tiny shard to do that, no bigger than the nail of my little finger.

Of course Paul was reluctant at first, but as the evening progressed and his intoxication rose, he warmed up to the idea of making sure that nothing bad had befallen his master.
So he agreed to pilfer the key from the current treasurer, scrap a tiny speck of the spirit orb and give it to me.

When we parted ways, I was very proud of my cunning.
But this feeling of pride did not last very long.