Emissary Exposed
Lost Legacies Event - Week 4
With the Envoy on the run in possession of the missing treasure, time is ticking to track her down before she disappears for good- and it's up to Aurelia to find her. What is the missing treasure? And will Aurelia find it in time, or will Marina disappear entirely?
After her classes ended on Friday afternoon, Aurelia was immediately consumed by the mystery of the Envoy again. Where had she gone? What was the treasure she was supposed to find? What was she supposed to do next?
After a little bit of debate, Aurelia decided to go back to Magnolia Blossom Park. Marina seemed to hang around Willow Creek a lot, maybe she would find something there.
This was... far from what Aurelia had wanted to do today. But she rolled up her sleeves, and into the trash can she dove. It surprisingly wasn't as nasty as she feared, mostly old food wrappers and broken toys. After a moment of rummaging through the rubbish, Aurelia found Marina's phone buried beneath an old pizza box.
Maybe investigating the phone would lend some idea of what the Envoy was planning.
The phone's initial passcode was easily bypassed, Aurelia knew enough about hacking for that. There was nothing suspicious in her correspondence- her role as Royal Envoy seemed legitimate, at least, based off the copious amounts of mail from the Capps and Thebes. After a little more investigation, she found a file entitled "My Retirement Master Plan" that required another passcode to access.
Maybe Marina planned to sell the treasure?
On her way out of the park, Aurelia was pleasantly surprised to bump into Eirwen at the park entrance. After catching up on the usual pleasantries and family small talk, Eirwen revealed that she was also investigating the Royal Envoy!
"She kept showing up outside my shop, wouldn't leave until I agreed to help her find some treasure. She must've sent us both on the same wild goose chase and ditched us."
"Have you found anything so far?"
"I caught up to her for a minute, I don't think she saw me. She was laughing, saying something about buying a fancy house she'd always wanted? Before I could confront her, though, she ran off towards Crawdad Quarter."
Fancy house? That certainly lined up with the file she'd just found. "Well, we should investigate then!"
"I can't." Eirwen admitted. "I have to get back to Iverstad, I've already spent too much time away from the shop on this wild goose chase. But I can give you what I found in my investigation."
Eirwen handed Aurelia another key, another gold one with elegant engravings and filigree around the handle. "I found this in my investigation. I'm guessing you have the other ones? I'm pretty sure this is the Thebe key, but it's the only one I found."
"I do. Thanks, Eirwen. I'll let you know what I find."
To be on the safe side, Aurelia returned home first. There she safely stowed away the Thebe key, and then took a moment to decide what to do next.
It would be one thing to catch and confront Marina, but she had no actual proof of wrongdoing yet- just suspicions and the Envoy's flaky behavior. She needed more, especially if this had any chance of getting back to the royals.
She had Marina's phone, the obvious answer seemed to be to hack the file.
After a little while of attempting to hack the file to no avail, Aurelia was about to give up in frustration when her gaze landed on the scrap of paper from the museum- the code she had found by Princess Cordelia's statue in the museum. Running out of ideas, she tried entering it, and viola! With how much effort Marina had put into finding this treasure, Aurelia was surprised she hadn't thought of this before.
The file revealed all of Marina's plans in detail. As Aurelia had concluded, she was planning to steal the missing treasures for herself. Treasures which included an ancient family portrait of the Darongs, crown jewels belonging to the Capps, and a chest of gold and jewels belonging to Cordelia Thebe. She had lists of potential buyers, all under pseudonyms of course- who in the world would call themselves Trashley, though?
The plans also included plans for a massive house, with a strange number of hot tubs. This certainly explained the Envoy's shady behavior, and couldn't go unanswered for. Eirwen said she had been heading towards Crawdad Quarter, so it was time to go back to Willow Creek.
Aurelia decided to try the Blue Velvet Night Club first. The bartender seemed annoyed to see her at first, but laughed when Aurelia asked if she had seen the Envoy. "Oh yeah, she just couldn't wait to get out of here. Rambling about the lake and the ferry. She was in such a rush she tipped her drink all over the bar."
"I'm sorry about the mess she caused." Aurelia apologized before rushing off. The ferry left in half an hour, she had to hurry!
"Marina!" Aurelia shouted, spotting the Envoy by the edge of the lake where she was waiting for the ferry. The Envoy whipped around in shock. One eye was now covered with an eye patch- was Marina a pirate?
The Envoy started to run away, abandoning her luggage along the shore. Aurelia took off after her, chasing her back towards the nightclub before she managed to get around in front of her.
For apparently being a pirate, Marina wasn't a very fast runner- at least compared to Aurelia's ballet conditioned muscles.
"Wh- What are you doing here?" Marina stammered out.
"What am I doing here? Don't you think I should be asking that question?"
"Listen, this isn't what it looks like-"
"Don't take me for a fool." Aurelia scoffed. "I found your phone, and your whole little plan."
"Oh... well, can you blame me?!" Marina blustered. "I'm stretched so thin between these families. What about my happiness?! I just wanted a nice hot tub to go home to when I'm done with this job."
Aurelia stared at her, unimpressed, as Marina continued desperately trying to convince her. "Listen, if you report me this could cause great upset in Ondarion. I bet the royals would never trust some random girl from San Myshuno anyway, and I would never be able to show my face again! But if you forgive me, and let me go, I promise I'll just stop and walk away. The Simoleons I would get from these treasures wouldn't make up for the scandal and losing my job, anyways."
Aurelia weighed her options carefully. On the one hand, she sympathized with Marina's position. After all, she also knew what it was like to want to crumble under the weight of expectations. But on the other hand, these were substantial treasures. Her Uncle Philip wouldn't have hesitated for a second to turn someone in for a theft of this magnitude. And, well, that about covered it didn't it?
"I'm afraid I can't let this slide, Envoy Corsair. Not with the size of the treasure you stole. I will be reporting this, and returning the treasures to Ondarion's royal families. Especially the Darong family portrait. What were you thinking? That's like stealing my mother's family photos!"
Marina stared at her in shock, then fumed. "I will remember this moment, Aurelia, mark my words! Take advantage while you can, I will have my revenge one day!"
And with that, Marina raced off again. This time, Aurelia didn't chase her. Law enforcement would catch up to her eventually, and she had more important things to do: the royals of Ondarion waited for their missing treasures.
Aurelia was rewarded with a sum of 10,000 simoleons for the safe return of the royal families' treasures, with the gratitude of the Darongs in particular. They had also told her to keep the keys as mementos of her adventure- they'd made new copies long ago. She had brought the attention of Ondarion's royals to the Espinoza Dynasty, something which would certainly make her parents and Aunt Vanessa happy.
The adventure was over, and Aurelia could properly settle into her university life, and she'd made her family proud... so why was she unsatisfied?
For now, Aurelia put the thoughts out of her mind. She had a date to get to, after all. She'd found a lovely little bistro near Pepper's Pub, and Eren had agreed to meet her there.
A night out was exactly what she needed, after the intense week she'd had. Her phone rang in the other room with the ringtone assigned to her mother, but she ignored it.
As much as she loved her, she just wanted to get away from the expectations for a couple hours.
The bistro was absolutely lovely, but the staff were rather rude. Aurelia didn't think she'd said anything wrong, but apparently she had given the way the host was glaring at her. Maybe they had something against students? Probably best not to try and use her university discount.
Regardless of the hostile staff, Aurelia was very glad to see Eren and vice versa. They spent a little time talking generally about how their week had gone, and Aurelia brought him up to speed on the whole situation with the royal Envoy.
Eren was just as proud of her "ingenuity and quick thinking" as her parents, but it felt like it... meant more, somehow, coming from him. The way he watched her as she talked, like she was the only important thing in the world... she wanted to stay there forever.
After a while, as the conversation deepened, Aurelia had an epiphany: this right here, what she had with Eren... this was the happiest she ever was. She didn't want to become a famous actress, or marry an Ondarionan noble, or become queen. She wanted to travel the snowy peaks of Mt. Komorebi with him by her side, wanted to see the night sky from the top of the mountain.
And if she didn't change her path now, she would never get to do that, would she? She would go to Del Sol Valley, or Ondarion, like her parents wanted.
And just like that, Aurelia realized why she was so unhappy: she feared never getting to fulfill her dreams.
As their food came out, Aurelia poured out her heart to Eren. "I don't want to study Drama, I want to travel! I want to see the mountains, and Sulani's waterfalls, and I want to do it with you."
"We can make that happen." Eren promised her without hesitation. "You don't have to follow the path your parents set out for you. It's only your first semester, there's time to back out."
What had she done to deserve such a supportive, understanding boyfriend? With their dinner finished, it was almost time for them both to head home, but Aurelia wasn't ready to say goodnight yet. She just wanted to be near him.
She could've invited him back to the apartment, but where was the risk in that? She didn't care if they were found out anymore. Eren's family knew about them already, and if Aurelia's found out this way... it wouldn't be ideal, but she was going to disappoint them anyway.
Their first time had been in the storage shed behind a coffee shop, anyway. Variety is the spice of life!
It wasn't until afterwards that Aurelia realized that public WooHoo was considered a scandal now. This could have an affect on the family at large if she wasn't careful...
When Aurelia got home, she still felt restless. She wasn't ready to rest, she couldn't focus on her schoolwork, and her mind was whirling with the emotions of her realizations. Pacing about the tiny apartment, she found herself out on the back balcony, where she'd set up her telescope.
She hadn't stargazed in so long, now... maybe it would settle her mind.
Aurelia stared through the telescope up at the stars for hours, until clouds finally covered the sky. She'd forgotten how much she loved the stars, loved space...
Maybe she could be an astronaut? The idea seemed silly, but... it wouldn't hurt to start learning a little bit about rocket science, now would it?
Thanks for following along, everyone! This concludes Aurelia's arc, and the Lost Legacies Event. Next Sunday, we will be revisiting the Bellerose family, and starting to explore a little bit of Royalty and Legacy's gameplay!
Bye for now!
- Paxxie
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