Friday night, two and a half days after the burglary occured, I acquired new information about the crime committed at my business, BatCave Games. I learned that the crime was likely personal. This is everything I can think to share.

The TV still had a glow from being recently turned off. My lack of sleep had caught up to me. Sleeping in hotel rooms, no matter how often I do it, is something that almost always causes my sleep to be less refreshing than sleep at home. The phone ringing, whether my cell or the room phone, the alarm clock, in any shape or form; always confusing. My phone was ringing, my cell phone, and I knew it. The number, a three-six-oh, was unfamiliar. I answered.

"This is the Vancouver Police Department with a non-emergency call. Is this Matt Parker?"

My initial thoughts were that of concern for someone in my family or perhaps my girlfriend. I had that moment of shock, that feeling of dread, the uncertainty of not knowing what a simple "yes" would bring to the conversation. I almost wanted to deny my existence to avoid hearing what I heard next.

I felt helpless as the words were absorbed by my ears. Here I was, over a thousand miles from home, unable to leave my client for three more business days. I gave them the number of my girlfriend, Andrea, who has done so much to help with the business and keep me going while I'm on the road.

Seconds felt like minutes and minutes felt like hours (the math on that totally checks out). I called her to find out what was going on. She hadn't received the call but rather a call that she ignored from someone in another time zone regarding business outside the store. The perils of phones and timing.

They had left her a voicemail and she was on her way when I called again to check on her moments later. She told me she would reach me soon. I was back to counting the seconds. I was having a hard time breathing and I didn't know what was next. I couldn't wait any longer; I had to call her.

She was still talking with the officer in charge of the scene. She would talk with me more soon but I had so many questions. I wasn't sure if I wanted to condemn or continue the business. I wasn't sure how to answer the questions I knew I'd receive. I felt terrible. I could hear the sadness in her voice and I knew she was there, by herself, sweeping up broken glass, trying to return things to "normal."

We know there was at least one thief but there might have been two or three. One if by car, two to three if by foot. How do we know? Two garbage cans were missing. Ironically Andrea did not have to clean up garbage from the floors though. For some reason the burglar(s) decided to neatly remove the garbage bags and place them on the floor to not make any further mess.

Our cases were emptied but they weren't damaged. One shelf containing all of our Scars of Mirrodin block sealed product gone. Everything else was allegedly there. She was distraught, I was ready to bulk everything out. This was the end. She told me we'd find a way.

I started to spread the word. My employees all already knew. Reddit.com knew by virtue of a post to r/magictcg and had been cross-posted to both r/portland and r/vancouverwa (a subreddit I moderate). A call went in to the owner of our "rival" store who was a friend several years before I had taken ownership of the cave. Finally I posted notice to Facebook (and updated reddit with the information shared).

At first I didn't want to disclose details as I figured anyone who would have done this could find the information we shared and avoid matching that description. Either way we needed to act fast. Ryan, my shop manager, made his way to the shop thanks to his roommate and heavily-involved-in-the-store friend, Alex. They started making a list of game stores. They put the list in an order to make the most important calls first and that is how their day started.

The volunteers started coming in around 10:00am and offered their help. Sorting cards in the back, helping us find anything we could put in the cases up front, doing anything they could to help get us back on track even if it wasn't directly related to the crime. And that's where this all gets interesting.

At this point I was already on site with my client after several irritating calls with my insurance claims department (they couldn't route me correctly to save themselves). I had prematurely assessed the value of the goods stolen in the range of four to six thousand dollars but fortunately had tasked my staff and volunteers with creating a list for insurance purposes and identification purposes beyond the few semi-unique and unique things that were taken.

The afternoon had come and I'll never forget the feeling I had reading the message. I was notified that my roommate and a friend had come by to donate a stack of a few hundred dollars in rares. I'm not 100% on them being the first but I know they weren't the last. For several days we received donations of trade binders, boxes of rares that had been sitting without finding a Commander/EDH deck to call home and anything else our community thought might help. We even received a box of snow lands and full art lands. I'm getting ahead of myself though.

It was overwhelming.

It wasn't even 3pm and I knew that instead of close our doors we had to do something different. It was time to expand. Andrea and I had been looking for a new space. We wanted a place where we could maintain an office. We wanted to work on our other business ventures from the backroom. We wanted to hold larger events. We just wanted to be a better gaming store for the community but weren't sure it was the right move. This was our sign.

That's right; someone breaks in and steals thousands in merchandise and we decide it's time to improve our business instead of throw in the towel.

I cannot thank the entire Magic: The Gathering (and other gaming) community enough for their support. Between calls from the media (which at this point we have not gone on air for an interview) and even job offers from local game stores (had I decided to close doors) it was obvious we belong here.

One customer pointed out that our break-in was oddly close to the upcoming prerelease of Avacyn Restored. And likely there was a correlation. Wednesday was chaotic but by Thursday afternoon someone had noticed all of our promos (stored in a nice box above the computer at that time) had been stolen as well.

A small box, easily unnoticed, containing so much value, now gone. Add that to the list we managed to put together (probably missing several cards by my estimate of what we could hold) and honestly we were now missing around eleven thousand dollars in singles alone.

The top dogs being a slightly played Unlimited Volcanic Island (with a sticker pricing it at $150), a near mint Revised Tropical Island (priced at $125), an Alpha Copy Artifact that was so close to near mint but accurately priced at the slight play value of $50 (an absolute bargain), and something no other shop had, a Sharding Sphinx that had made its way home to me from the person I gave it to three years ago.

The sphinx had Sharpie over the art, "DON'T FORGET ABOUT ME -MP," and was the common subject of question. Most people wanted to know why we wanted $50 for it. It had a story and that was enough of a reason.

Back to where I was in the story, though. We were facing our prerelease weekend with no promo cards, a Friday Night Magic with no promo cards, a pending box release in a week with no promo cards and all of the ones we had kept due to events not firing (with the intent to give out later but never sell) were all gone. At least we had our Helvaults or so I thought.

Around 10:30pm Thursday night I received the call from Alex. Andrea and Ryan had searched everywhere including the house (because she had taken anything she could find related to Avacyn Restored to the house) in hopes to find our second, sealed, Helvault. It was nowhere to be found. Panic was setting in.

Here we are with a bit more than 24 hours before people would be piling in to my shop, expecting a Helvault all to themselves but we needed to now share it between two events. We needed to let them know there might not be promos. Fortunately I wouldn't be troubled with trying to fall asleep since I was working an all-nighter for my client in an attempt to help combat paper and turn them paperless.

Twelve hours later I'm driving to my hotel to collect my belongings and take a shower. On my drive back to their office I receive a call from Wiards of the Coast. A wonderful representive there was assuring me we'd receive our cards sometime early the following week and was trying to secure us a second Helvault. This was the customer service I feared we might not get but was assuming we would. Wizards cares about their gamers even if some of their choices do not reflect this.

I made it through the rest of the day with my client and left for the airport around 6:00pm. The wait at the airport seemed long and I was hoping to sleep on the plane. The sleep never came and around 11:00pm Andrea and I were in each other's arms outside the doors of PDX. I was home, I was on adrenaline; I was ready for our first prerelease.

She wanted me to go home and see the cats; maybe take a moment or two to put myself together but I was driving and we were headed straight to the shop.

There was lots of hugging and kind words. I was so happy to see everyone. There were some faces missing but I knew I would see them sooner or later.

This is where everything changes.

It's around midnight and I'm standing behind the counter, looking at a small stack of Chosen of Markov. I was thinking to myself that it would have been odd had the binder I was filling disappeared. I had probably 200 regular printings of her and around 20 foil or foreign printings all in a binder with one English printing that was crimped in the packaging process.

You see, it was a joke, about how she was the "hottest chick in magic" since Elvish Ranger (also known as "Cleavage Elf") which was a personal favorite of mine since I was a kid first starting the game.

Andrea approached me and told me, "Matt, we can't find your binder full of Chosen of Markov. We just started looking a little while before you landed because people had been giving them to us tonight."

We went out back to talk and both agreed; this break-in was personal. There was no way around it. The choice was too specific given where the binder was kept and the person obviously knew it was just a common. There was no reason any person would think to take that binder when there were so many other more enticing choices nearby in the back.

It was time to start the prerelease. I stood there, holding back tears, letting a few slip for the first time in almost a year, as I told my customers and friends how much they meant to me and how much their support of each other was what would keep BatCave Games alive.

So here I am, an hour and a half into writing this and you're probably wondering when it will end. That's what this is. This is the end of the story. This is where I close the doors on the case. Sure the police would love to arrest someone and I'm sure the entire community would too but I'll be honest; the person who did this wants to see me squirm. They want to see me fear for my store and they have a personal reason which I don't know and I do not want to know it.

I'm above that. Our store is above that. Our players are above that. We will come back stronger than ever and May will be a month to put in the BatCave Games history book as the month we Purified the Grave to forget a Faithless Looting.

We will stand together, BatCave United.

-Matt D. Parker, Owner

If you would like to donate any Chosen of Markov to our new collection please mail them to BatCave Games, 7415 E Mill Plain Blvd. #A, Vancouver, WA 98664. Feel free to customize them with Sharpies, paint, glitter or any other craft supply allowing your donation to fit uniquely into our new collection. Also a special thanks to Steve Argyle for creating the art for one of my favorite cards and another thanks (this one in advance) for not asking me to take down the flyer that was created by Ryan Guard at RockBandParts.com.