"Not good, ohhh.... this is not good" Rivendell muttered as he stared at the empty table. "Not good at all"
The tiny nocturne circled the table repeatedly, looking under the cloth draped over it and then back into the box as though his invention may have reappeared while his back was turned. This is what I get for trusting Athos with the delivery. Scatterbrained Wildclaw, he probably got distracted by something shiny and put it in the wrong room.
"Hey! Your thing-y is gone!"
Rivendell spun around and glared at the Wildclaw who had accompanied him to the Faire. Athos was standing behind him wearing a ridiculous hat and eating ... was that an ice cream cone?
"First of all Athos, my invention is not a THING-Y. It's a sophisticated machine that I personally designed to deliver optimum caffeine levels to tired dragons at the perfect tempature. While not sacrificing any needed time or taste. And yes, it's missing. And as you were the one who was supposed to deliver it, that would be your fault"
Athos grinned and then shoved the rest of his ice cream in his mouth. "OK, so it's not a thing-y. It's a coffee maker. And I didn't lose it, I delivered it exactly where I was supposed to. If it got lost after, well that's hardly my fault mate"
Shaking his head at his friend Rivendell glanced quickly around the room. There didseem to be a lot of rather frantic looking dragons. Clearly he wasn't the only one here suffering from this problem; perhaps his missing invention wasn't entirely his companions fault. Still he wasn't about to tell Athos that.
"Your fault or not, we still have to do something about my missing invention."
"You mean your missing coffee maker? Not sure why this is a we thing, I'm not here for the inventions mate. I'm only here for the food, savvy?"
Rivendell inhaled sharply and counted to 10. I could have normal helpful friends like everyone else, but no, I had to befriend an irritating Wildclaw who thinks he's a pirate
"First things first. If I've told you once, I've told you a thousand times. It is NOT a coffee maker. Coffee makers don't operate via a psychic connection and then deliver the coffee to a busy dragon ensuring that no tired dragon will ever need to stop what they are doing in order to get a perfectly brewed cup of coffee. And it's we because you promised to help me with the Faire in return for my not telling that you were the one who caused the cave-in back home."
"Ok. Fine. Look there's lots of inventions around here. Some of them look awfully lonely. Like this one... look. It's covered in dust. Clearly, unwanted and unloved. We'll just commandeer it."
"You mean steal it."
Athos sighed, shrugged and tipped his hat down over his face. "Stealing isn't a very nice word. Pirates don't steal mate. We're commandeering it. Or if you would prefer, we're liberating it. Saving it from abandonment. Giving it a loving new home and a chance to win you a shiny prize."
"Athos really. Stealing is wrong. And you are not a pirate. I am not a pirate. We live in the shifting expanse. Miles away from any water. But... we also don't have enough time to build something else, and even if we did it looks like a lot of other dragons already had that idea. There's probably not enough scraps left to build a mousetrap let alone my invention. So I guess there is no other choice, we're going to have to steal... I mean commandeer something."
"YES!" Athos' head perked up and he started looking around the room looking for the an unguarded invention. "Hey that one looks pretty shiny. Probably does something really cool too. C'mon matey lets go. We have pirating to do!"
SUNDAY: OPTION A - Steal an invention
