• PM To Join • Safe in the House of Woe

[Woe]

60th of Zi'Da 722

The seas frozen over, and sailors forced to stay inland had led to some rowdy behavior among the locals. Accusations of stolen jewels and stolen virtue of wives and daughters by filthy seamen had flown all across town, and across the island by all reports. Yet there were some who might take advantage of the chaos to plunder the shoppes and homes lining the streets. As the Elements were stretched beyond endurance, it would be easier with the jails overflowing for a few enterprising and capable thieves to skulk around where they didn't belong. The sailors set the bar low for success, as it was their modus operandi to smash windows and take what they wanted.

Woe for his part was set up in his house across the inlet between the Harbor of Scalvoristown, and the unusual plateau upon which the house itself was built. It was covered in frost and snow. One might have trouble opening the doors, had Woe not eased the way for them, by shattering the ice earlier. Still, there was no telling what difficulty an intruder might have infiltrating the place. But for now it seemed, unoccupied as the place was said to be, that it would be unprotected, unguarded, and most importantly bearing a treasure trove of nels in the safe in Woe's study.

The mortalborn didn't know if the girl thief he'd met in Almund would actually do her research to find out who lived here. That would be another revelation, should she make it as far as his study.

Woe had sent Sage to watch over his cabin in Egilrun for the tentrial. So he was alone, no dragonling to keep him company, as Soz had been sent along with Sage to guard Egilrun. He only wore his clothes of velvet, and the blackened suit of Sorellian steel, with his face covered by the masked helmet. Over it all, a cloak was draped over him. He stood stock still, barely breathing as he pretended to be a standing maniquin, bearing the armor. Nothing more than a statue for the time being.

He sensed the larcenous intent of someone come to plunder his home. Through his Grifter's Eye, he knew what they sought. The contents of his safe, situated several meters across from him, in the study. Yet he would not move until the time was right. He wondered if she'd remember not to travel through the caverns, as there'd been many small but primitive snares, sound-alarms, and pitfalls set up by him along that way. Then again, perhaps she'd treat this as a proper challenge and try that way anyhow. If she did, she'd find it easier to get into the house proper, without going through the ice-laden door, after picking its lock.

But from the start, the way before Eternity would be perilous that night. The rail cart that carried people across was of course available to go on, if she wanted to dare the ice that had covered over the railway. There was not much choice in the matter, unless she had a method of conveyance that could move through the air, and fly. Otherwise, the seas were frozen from a few days past, with the chilly weather coming on strong late in the season. There was only one way across, either walk over the icy rail, or trust the cart was sturdy and secure enough to move over it.

[Eternity]

High Risk High Reward

(OOC Note: feel free to interrupt at any point in my story. I’m not trying to god mod your house lol)

Today was the big day. Eternity was finally going to be tackling a job so large that it had the potential to put her in jail or get herself killed. She’d gotten some intelligence from The Bones about a certain home that was supposedly vacant and had a safe. If one were to ask her why she was even taking the risk, she doubted she could give a good answer. It wasn’t as if she was struggling financially. She was doing just fine actually and was finally branching away from theft. She knew that someday she would likely be able to make money with Ensorcelling, or at least that’s what the university had led her to believe. She had every reason NOT to try to break into this supposed safe… but a burning desire to challenge herself and to crack into a safe was too strong to ignore. It was as if thievery was a part of her soul that would never be satiated even if she someday became one of the wealthiest people in Idalos. Perhaps people never really could change, no matter how much they might want to.

Eternity had struggled for quite some time deciding whether or not she would actually go through with her plan. In hindsight she realized that she ought to have jumped at the opportunity as soon as possible because the frozen path before her would have been a lot easier had she not waited till the later part of the season. She didn’t feel nimble at all while bundled up in her thickest of coats and carrying a bag full of tools, and bread if she somehow needed food. She had been wise enough to plan for the possibility of going hungry but hadn’t the foresight to know that if she was in a position to need food she was likely going to die anyways.

Eternity had intended to walk to the home, but she ended up taking the rail cart. She assumed that her disguise was going to be good enough to be unrecognizable to anyone at the harbor since she’d only been there a dozen or so times over the course of her life. Her hair had been tied up in tight bun and was largely hidden underneath her thick hat. She’d also used a lot of purple and black makeup to fake a black eye. It was a hard thing to make look realistic though and the makeup smudged at the edges because of the snowy weather, so it left a lot to be desired. Lastly, she wrapped a scarf around her mouth and nose so that not much of her face would even be visible.

During the ride Eternity went over the instructions she’d been given in her head. She’d forgotten much of the details but she thought she remembered the important parts: The home was supposed to be abandoned, she ought to not go through the caverns, and the safe was in the study. Who’s house it was didn’t end up being a concern of hers. She thought it was best not to know, lest her nerves get in the way. Not that she was well versed with the important people in the city anyways.

She also remembered bits of her fortune. Something about meditation and forethought. She was generally not superstitious but she thought that if this might be her last adventure then she ought to give it some credence. With regards to forethought, Eternity had left a note on her bed. It was a will of sorts, basically a description of who she wanted her stuff to go to if she never returned home. It was a long list of basically all of her neighbors, except one that she hated. It was also a confession of sorts that she was a thief, as if somehow that would clear her karma.

With regards to meditation, Eternity certainly felt like she needed some when she got off the cart. It’d barely made the trip and she was shaken from the experience. She was glad that there were many, many steps leading up to the home because it gave her time to calm down and focus. She told herself, “You’re almost there. If the house is empty all you have to do is open the door and find the study. It can’t possibly be that hard.”

The lock to the front door, at the very least, had not been that difficult for her. It’d taken her the better part of ten bits to get open but that was due to the fact that she was working with gloves and the door was icy. She noticed that the door was suspiciously lacking ice that was seemingly everywhere else. She wondered if rich people had some kind of design in mind that took care of that. Had she known the home was occupied, this would have been a big enough red flag to cause her to leave… but she pressed forwards.

Eternity shoved the door open and stepped hurriedly into the home. She didn’t see any lit fireplace and the home was cold so she assumed, finally, that this place was empty. Though it was cold it was still much warmer than outdoors because it was shielded from the snow and wind. She welcomed the shelter as she removed her scarf and outer jacket so she could move around a little easier.

She spoke to herself while looking around the home for anything resembling a study. “Fek, if this place is empty I might as well start a fire and make myself cozy… Wait, never mind. What if the owner’s put traps in the house? Didn’t that Bones fellow say the caverns were trapped? Fek” She hadn’t remembered that the study was on the top floor nor that she needed a ladder to access it so it was a very long time before she found the study. She didn’t feel the need to be quiet so her movements around the home would be fairly easy to pick up on. It was frustrating because there was a time where she thought there wasn’t even a study and she’d been the victim of some elaborate prank. However, when she finally poked her head into the study, she felt at ease.

If Eternity hadn’t been alerted to Woe’s presence by now then she would have absolutely no reason to believe that he was in that very room. If allowed, she’d poke around and try to find the safe. She’d never encountered one before so she only had a vague idea of what she was looking for. Something made of metal, probably around the size of a crate. And heavy, she’d heard they were very heavy. She paid no attention to Woe’s armor and instead went around the room pushing and pulling everything that looked like it might fit the bill until she met something that simply would not budge even a little.

“So he wasn’t lying,” she said as she knelt down and started running her hands across it. “I wonder if I can even get it open…”

[Woe]

Eternity would find her way unharmed and mostly unheeded throughout the house. Or so she thought. Even if she tried to sneak around, her intent to steal gave her away to his Grifter's Eye, or senses in this case. He could hear her fumbling around in the areas below the study, easily enough. Whether this was due to a certain lack of skill or his blessings from Chamadarst wasn't entirely clear to him. He'd only tested the ability to track his stolen goods once, in Quacia, and then it'd not been on purpose. Did intent to get stolen from matter? Was what Woe did here a charity, or payment for a job that he himself put Eternity up to? The philosophical implications of Sombran as interesting as they were, were not as important as the fact that Woe could just about sense where Eternity was by the sound she was making through the house.

He stood stock still, nevertheless, as he waited in the study, trapped or so it would seem in a suit of armor on the display stand. Finally, her noise through the house gave way to the opening of the study door, which groaned lightly on its hinges. She'd approach the safe, which Woe watched over, just a few feet across from where he was situated. He wondered if she did have the skill to make good on her larcenous intent. The safe itself, while not trapped, was locked and needed cracking. That took more than a deft hand at larceny but also required some ability to listen to the gears and mechanisms that kept the treasure inside - for lack of a better word- safe.

Woe didn't disturb her as she worked, not yet. Although it was within his power to do so, it'd render this whole exercise a pointless endeavor if he gave away his location. He just watched and waited for her to unlock the safe.

If Eternity tried, she'd hear the gears running in a certain way as she turned the dial. A reasonably competent skill at appraisal or detection would be enough to suss out the quirks in the safe. It wasn't altogether that high quality a mechanism, afterall, but enough to challenge one who was perhaps an expert at breaking through locks.

With a bit of fiddling, and listening and feeling out the mechanism, Eternity would break the lock. Inside, she'd find the promised onyx nels that had been said to be there. Along with a note.

The note read as follows:

Dear Thief,

If you've ever a need for a regular job, one that could benefit from your particular talents, see me at Egilrun Confidential in Egilrun. I might have use for a safe cracker sometime and it'd be good to make your proper acquaintance. Consider these onyx nels an advance on the potential for a regular salary, doing my work.

Woe Morandi, Egg of Egilrun.

Woe held his breath for a moment as she opened up the letter, and read it. He wondered what her reaction might be upon the reading of the note, but then soon he supposed he'd find out. All of the information he was gathering would be bent toward appraisal of her suitability for employment.metus vulputate. Posuere lorem ipsum dolor sit amet. Arcu felis bibendum ut tristique et. Malesuada bibendum arcu vitae elementum curabitur vitae nunc sed. Faucibus nisl tincidunt eget nullam non nisi est.

[Eternity]

Feking dial

Eternity took several minutes to inspect the safe and confirm that it was indeed what she was looking for. It was a safe and it was more or less what she’d expected: A heavy, locked box. An entire season of anxiety had led up to this moment and it was time to see if it’d all been for nothing. She began to sweat despite the temperature. Her slippery hands passed over every inch of the safe, trying to figure out how exactly it worked. As far as she could tell, it was a lot simpler than what she was expecting. The stories she’d heard led her to believe there’d be some elaborate puzzle to solve. Yet, this seemed to have nothing of the sort. There seemed to be no secrets on it, physically, at least none that her fingers could detect.

“Where’s the feking keyhole? What the fek is this spinning bit for?” she said absent mindedly as she discovered the dial. It was a mechanism she was completely unfamiliar with. She took off her bag and laid out her kit of tools on the ground so that she could at least get to work on the keyhole portion. She would have very much liked to have bypassed the spinning mechanism altogether, but that didn’t seem to be an option.

“Nobody said this would be easy,” she told herself as she got to inspecting the dial more closely. She knelt down and put her eye right up to it so she could examine it for clues. She could see a series of numbers going around the dial which told her that she likely needed to know the right numbers in order to open it. It was a clever design, she had to admit. Thankfully, Eternity’s expertise in larceny told her that she didn’t actually need to know the right number, just like she didn’t need the right key to open a door. She pressed her ear to the safe and tried to discern what exactly the dial did to the inner mechanisms as it was spun.

With her ear pressed to the safe, Eternity was able to clearly hear the clicking sounds the dial made. They’d been audible before, but with her ear pressed up to it she could actually hear that the clicks were nonuniform. Most of the time they sounded one way, but sometimes they sounded another way. Instinct told her that this meant something. She chuckled to herself and pushed her tool kit aside when she realized that she wouldn’t even need it. She wondered if it was good or bad design to have a mechanism that a thief’s tools couldn’t solve but was also solvable without any tools at all.

What proceeded Eternity’s discovery was an absurd amount of trial and error. She learned that it was a great design after all because it would have been impossible to crack in a noisy environment and it was a very lengthy process, especially for someone who wasn’t well versed in safe cracking. Eventually, after about half a break’s worth of time, Eternity figured out which numbers were special and how many of them went into the combination that eventually opened the lock. Not only that, but she developed a strategy that would significantly cut down on how long it’d take her to open a similar mechanism in the future.

Eternity’s moaned, “finally,” as the safe finally clicked open. She’d strained her body to be able to press her ear to the exact right spot and now her back and arms ached something fierce.

“Now what do we have here?” she asked as she placed the onyx nels into her bag. She was pleased to see them, but she also saw a note. Was it some kind of valuable secret information that she could sell? No, it was an invitation to whoever broke into the safe.

Eternity didn’t know how to feel in that moment. Had this all been an elaborate set up? A job interview of sorts? Her brain was too exhausted to fully process what the note was implying. She decided not to think on it too much for the moment and to just be thankful that she’d pulled off the most valuable theft of her life. She tucked the note in her bag with the nels and packed up her tools. She left the safe open before she left, thinking that it might be nice to let the owner know it’d been broken into, so they’d know to expect a meeting with her soon.

[Fate]

Your Review

Woe

Hello Woe. I loved it. Woe is at his tricks once again and I just love when he does that. Him standing as a silent observer is full of fun, and entertainment. He set the situation up perfectly and reacted very well. I will say this is the first time that a pc NOT doing much was the perfect touch to the thread. I would have included Deception as a skill used as he worked hard to deceive Eternity about the nature of the armor, and possible Endurance for standing there for who knows how long before she left. Thank you for the Read. Fate

• XP: 15
• Knowledges:
  • Intelligence: Speculative analysis of a person's actions, and inferring according to their actions and reactions
  • Intelligence: Having eyes on several places at once.
  • Intelligence: Using Sombran's Grifter's Eye to tell if someone means to steal from you
  • Detection: x1
  • Discipline: x1
  • Intelligence: Allowing one to complete their larcenous act in order to learn their process
  • Intelligence: Leaving a note for an expected thief that manages to crack one's safe, as an invitation to earn a job.

Eternity

Hello Eternity. I love that Eternity took up this challenge. You played her inner struggle well. The thief trying to justify that they steel because they are poor, but when the opportunity presents itself and they don’t need the money they will still take up the challenge. I will say I find how trusting Eternity is of the Bones and interesting aspect of her personality. Eternity did well as she worked her way through the house. Though paying closer attention to the instructions would have made the whole thing smoother. Still she got away with it. Please be aware that for two of your knowledges you literally copied the text from the post as your knowledge request so I have awarded it as a numbered knowledge for each. Thank you for the Read. Fate.

• XP: 15
• Knowledges:
  • Cosmetology: Using black and purple makeup to fake a black eye
  • Detection: Noticing suspiciously broken ice
  • Detection: ”Feeling for oddities on the surface of an object
  • Larceny: Cracking open a dial safe
  • Larceny: x1
  • Endurance: x1
• Wealth Points: 5

If you have any questions or concerns regarding this review - drop me a PM.