Among the Special Intelligence Service (SIS) of the Crystal Empire, a towering figure is SHINY BUTTONS, legendary for her role in averting military conflict with Yakyakistan with nothing but a steamed vegetable dumpling, recovering the Imperial crown jewels from gentlecolt gem thief Halfbeard the Mad Vexillologist, and, it is rumoured, bringing back various secrets of crystal magic that the Equestria hegemons had unfairly held back from their Northern ally.
Early this year (703), terrible four-dimensional monsters called Squamous Horrors plundered the Secret Archives of the Empire, taking numerous and priceless tomes. Among them was the comprehensive treatise on directed scrying of the future written by Crystal Ball, considered so dangerous that no one had be authorized to access it in over three hundred years. After the attack, the Squamous Horrors escaped Imperial security forces effortlessly, taking the books with them. It appears that the Crystal Empire had become the latest victim of a string of extremely sophisticated and violent acts of library theft, joining many other famous libraries and archives who had their special collections plundered in the last few years.
The Empress Penumbra placed the SIS in charge of the investigation after the Magic Police had no success tracking the monsters to their source, suspecting a rogue statue and reasoning that the international crime spree would fall more into their area of competence. The suspicion of the SIS fell on one Eldritch Lore, CA, MV, Loremaster of the Arcane Helix.