4/4/283- Not even a week into the Deadlands Exhibition at the Imperial Palace Museum in Oeil de Fleur has passed, and some sort of derring-do has taken place.

Imperial Guardsman claim that an urn, believed to contain the remains of Some Important Person, went missing late Mornsday night from the museum’s examination rooms. They believe the theft was an inside job.

“The piece wasn’t on display, nor was it publicly listed as one of the items in the museum’s possession,” said Guard Captain Mauricio Nicez. “Because of this we believe a member of the museum’s scientific staff to be the culprit. At this time, however, we have no leads beyond staff members who were on duty that day. And since all of those staff members showed up to work for their subsequent shifts, and given the nature of the artifact, we’ve hit a brick wall, pending further investigation.”

The nature the Guard Captain speaks of is the Urn’s origin in the Deadlands.

“Since the Deadlands are, well, dead lands from half a world away, and no known descendents of this lost civilization are known to exist, we have no way of pursuing a theory of ancestral claim as a possible motive, as in the case of the Dagger of Xian Qoluon from a decade ago, or half a dozen other high profile artifact thefts over the years.”

Which makes the fact that the urn was the only thing taken more puzzling. If the theft was motivated by monetary gain, why take only a chipped, clay urn, and not other artifacts believed to be more valuable?

“It could simply be a theft of protest,” Nicez said. “There’s a been a groundswell in recent years against the removal and display of indigenous artifacts from extra-colonial sites around the globe. Just last year we found some well meaning fool of a University student suspended from the ceiling, caught up in a rope he’d been using to descend from an overhead skylight.”

Nicez went on to say that the Guard was looking into other leads, but couldn’t say what those leads were. He also said that security around the museum would be increased, but that the exhibit would remain open.