Hiding Things in Plain Sight (solo)

On a cold, windy winter day, Avari sets about thief-proofing her cottage.

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Center of scholarly knowledge and shipwrighting, Zeltiva is a port city unlike any other in Mizahar. [Lore]

Hiding Things in Plain Sight (solo)

Postby Avari on February 5th, 2012, 9:21 pm

Season of Winter, Day 57, 511 AV

When Avari awoke in the early morning to hear fierce winds howling around the walls of her cottage, she knew with a sinking heart that she did not want to go outside on a day like this. Sliding out of bed, she wrapped a blanket around herself and shuffled over to the window for a look outside. The Konti pushed aside the drape and winced when she saw the trees outside beeing bent almost nearly double by the famously harsh, freezing wind off the bay, known locally as the Bonesnapper. A little of the wind seeped through the window frame, so chilly that Avari shivered and sneezed mightily. Dark storm-clouds loomed on the horizon in the distance, and the shrill whine of the wind only grew louder as she listened.

She let out the drape fall back into place with a long sigh of resignation. The Konti had lived long enough in Zeltiva to interpret its moods and maelstroms, and she could tell that today was no day for strolling through the market filching coins or exploring the city casing buildings and warehouses for burglary. She hugged the blanket tighter around her body, thinking of how cold it must be outside, and grumbled at the Bonesnapper, the weather, and Morwen herself for her frigidity.

Well, there was nothing that Avari could do about it. She knew she should be grateful that she had four stout walls to protect her from the wind and rain, as well as a small store of food and firewood. Still, the Konti couldn't help pouting a little as she shed her blanket in favor of tunic and breeches -- for there was no going back to sleep with the thunder and rain outside -- and started preparing breakfast and laying a new fire in her small hearth. Avari had never taken well to confinement, even when she'd had an entire family manse in Mura at her disposal, and she liked it even less now that she was stuck indoors inside her small, one-room cottage.

To be sure, her cottage was snug and sturdily built from wood and stone, even if it did smell faintly of fish thanks to its previous owner, a weather-beaten old fisherman, despite her half-hearted attempts to clean it. When she heard rumors that the fisherman was tired of trawling the sea for his livelihood, Avari had needed only a brief, bare-skinned handshake and some unctuous arguments to persuade him to retire from fishing, settle down and marry the way he'd always wanted, and, incidentally, sell his cottage to her for a low price. Delighted by the weight of her grandmother's mizas in his pocket, the fisherman had moved out within days, leaving her only a narrow bunk bed, a squat table and chair, and a moldy-looking old chest. At the time, the dim, frowsty cottage -- little better than a hut, really -- had seemed like paradise to Avari, a place that belonged wholly to her and no one else.

Today, though, she fretted and paced the floor impatiently, listening to the shriek of the wind. Of all the times for the Bonesnapper to strike! Avari had been planning the heist of a warehouse that received a thrice-seasonly shipment of food and supplies intended to provision the University's pampered scholars and students. The University's pantries were deep, and no one would miss a few loaves of bread and tins of dried meat that would mean much to Avari. She'd been watching the warehouse for a moon's turn now. What if the shipment of food arrived today, and she not there to greet it with her lock-picks?

She'd had such good ideas for breaking into the warehouse, too! Unconsciously, just thinking about her plans, Avari shifted into a creeping, skulking walk. The warehouse had small, latched windows set high on every wall, as well as piles of crates scattered anyhow outside.

When the city grew dark and quiet, she'd climb onto a pile of crates -- just like this, she thought, climbing on top of her table -- and pick the latch on the window. She stood in the middle of the table, closing her eyes and pretending she was just outside the warehouse. Picturing the high window in her mind, Avari lifted her hands above her head and wiggled her fingers, pretending to unfasten the latch. Then it'd be a simple matter of swinging herself up toward the windowsill and jumping in…

Wham! Avari had jumped in the here and now, and her feet landed sharply on the table, knocking a plate to the ground. It shattered into a dozen pieces on the floor.

Guiltily, the Konti climbed off the table and slowly picked the pieces up. She had too few belongings as it was to break them in the middle of imagining a heist that wasn’t going to happen anytime soon. It was a good thing that her cottage had only the one window and one door, she thought, or else she might have to worry about more than her own clumsiness breaking or ruining her possessions. Instead of worrying about how to acquire more riches, Avari would have to fight just to hold onto what was hers.

Struck with this thought, Avari suddenly lifted her head and began studying her cottage with a greater attention to detail. If I were a thief trying to break into this place, she thought, looking at the bare floorboards and the plain wooden door, how would I go about it?

Avari

"Everyone wants something... And when you know what a man wants you know who he is, and how to move him." - George R. R. Martin, A Storm of Swords
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Avari
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Joined roleplay: August 10th, 2011, 6:25 pm
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Hiding Things in Plain Sight (solo)

Postby Avari on February 6th, 2012, 6:55 pm

The thought lingered persistently in Avari's mind, touching upon the strings of her possessiveness and fear and calling on her expertise. What if someone did try to break into her cottage? How could she stop them? Could she protect what belonged to her?

Well, if I can't, then I don't deserve to have it, the Konti thought matter-of-factly.

A year ago, even, the thought of someone breaking into her little cottage wouldn't have bothered her as much as it did now. Since Avari had first arrived in Zeltiva and moved into her cottage, though, she had worked hard at honing her skills as a thief and grifter, and her profits had grown proportionally with her improving abilities and knowledge of her trade. At first, she hadn't known the value of the money she was stealing and it had poured through her fingers like fine sand as she frittered and gambled it away. Now that Avari had learned to save more wisely since then, though, she'd managed to hoard a goodly store of mizas in her cottage, enough to live on for a few seasons even if she never lifted a finger to pick a pocket or a lock.

And the thought of someone sneaking in and taking all the money that she had worked so hard to get... It was unbearable. The howling wind outside seemed to echo her frightening thoughts. What if? What if? it hooted and whistled, like a jeering crowd shrilly mocking her frailty and helplessness.

Avari narrowed her eyes in thought, looking over the four walls of her cottage. If she couldn't use her skills today to break into someone else's building and steal their belongings, perhaps she could still put them to good use by figuring how to protect her own money from people who thought, planned, and worked just like her. She knew how she would break into someone's home or warehouse, and she was fairly sure that her ways were quite effective and not terribly uncommon. The same eye that found chinks and vulnerabilities in other's defenses could look for those same weaknesses in her cottage, and the same mind that took advantage of others' chinks could find ways to shore up her own defenses.

Feeling a little better about her lost day, even though she would have much preferred to be clambering through a window into a fully stocked warehouse at this point, the Konti strode over to the door into her cottage and bent forward to examine it.

Hmm. The door itself was solid pine and sturdy-looking enough, if somewhat crude and blocky in its construction. The hinges were in fine shape as well, as one of the first things Avari had done after taking possession of the cottage was to oil the hinges and clean the rust off them to rid them of that dreadful squeaking sound whenever someone opened the door. She prodded the door with a toe and nodded. Surely, were anyone to try breaking into her cottage by main force, her door would hold. Not unless the hypothetical thief brought a massively muscled friend would they be able to simply kick the door down and get inside.

"You're stout," she informed her door aloud whimsically, patting it like a friend's shoulder. "You'll do."

Now, though, came the less reassuring part. Avari knelt down to examine the lock that fastened her front door and frowned, with the expression of a wine connoisseur confronting an inferior, vinegary vintage. She had practiced on it first, before moving on to other people's locks, and it had yielded readily to a few tries with her hairpins and even more swiftly to her lock-picks. An expert would probably turn the tumblers inside in an instant, even with a fingernail instead of a pick and wrench.

"You could use a few more pins," she told the lock, making a face, "and better-fitting ones than what you have now. I'd clean you, but the rust might actually make you harder to pick. More stubborn, at any rate."

The best thing she could do, of course, would be to purchase a much better-made, higher-quality lock with more security features and have it installed in her door. Yes, and maybe I could get a wizard to put a spell on it too, so only I can open it, Avari thought sardonically, peering through her keyhole. It wasn't going to happen. Even a slightly better lock would cost more than she was willing to spend, with so many trifling expenses like food and firewood troubling her. Perhaps if she saved a little more, Avari could spare the mizas for a new lock, but for now, she would have to put up with the one she had.

Next, the Konti moved over to the window, the only other viable entry point into her cottage. She didn't even bother about the narrow chimney that led down into her hearth, which always had a little fire in it that would make for a scorching landing for anyone small and agile enough to slip through the chimney in the first place. Even the slenderest Konti girl-child would scarcely fit inside, let alone a normal-sized human. She knew she needn't worry about her chimney.

Avari's window, on the other hand, consisted of four panes of leaded glass set in a wooden frame hung with plain linen drapes. It was certainly large enough for someone to squeeze through, assuming that they could get it open. The glass itself was cloudy and quite thick, making it rather hard to see through clearly but also more difficult to shatter or even crack. From long years of use, the window's wooden frame had swelled and warped, so that Avari's strongest, most desperate efforts during hot summer days could only open the window a crack to let in a faint sea breeze. That was one advantage of living in an old home, she thought; everything had settled in comfortably and tightly with each other, making it harder for an intruder to get a toehold inside.

"But," she remarked wryly to the thick glass window, "you and I both know that anything made of glass can be broken, if they bring a hammer or throw a rock hard enough. That's just your nature, though, isn't it? It can't be helped."

With a shrug, she simply drew the drapes over the window again. Looking over her cottage again, she knew there was only so much she could do to secure the exterior of her home. Someday, perhaps, she might able to afford an entire castle with a moat around it or a manse with tall gates, or perhaps even a small island with a single bridge leading to the mainland, and then she would feel truly secure. For now, though, Avari would have to do her best with the few natural defenses offered by a humble fisherman's cottage.

Avari

"Everyone wants something... And when you know what a man wants you know who he is, and how to move him." - George R. R. Martin, A Storm of Swords
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Avari
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Joined roleplay: August 10th, 2011, 6:25 pm
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Hiding Things in Plain Sight (solo)

Postby Avari on February 7th, 2012, 7:51 pm

In the end, Avari decided that the cottage's best defense might be its unassuming appearance, rather than the durability of its walls or the complexity of its locks. Without even needing to step outdoors, she could imagine how it looked from the outside in her mind. Built of grey stone and adorned with vines of green ivy, the cottage might be described flatteringly as "cozy and picturesque" and realistically as "tiny and dilapidated." The first time that Avari had ever laid eyes on it, she had guessed immediately that its occupant probably wasn't rich enough to be worth robbing. For the fisherman, the cottage's rundown appearance was probably due to simple laziness; for her, though, it could serve as a sort of protective camouflage.

Still, the Konti wasn't willing to trust wholly to the cottage's outward appearance for protection. Venal men and desperate ones had been known to steal from poor beggars, and she wouldn't put it past them to look longingly at her home someday. A clever man might also look past the cottage's shabbiness and wonder if it held more riches than it seemed.

If someone were truly determined to break into her cottage, Avari knew that the simple lock on the door wouldn't deter them. It probably wouldn't even stay closed for long. She paused and then turned around, walking unhurriedly to the door.

Placing her back against it, she faced straight into the room. After all, if someone broke into the cottage, this -- the single square room with a bunk bed in the corner, an old chest beside it, a scarred table and chair in the middle, and the small hearth on the other side -- was what they would see when they came through the door. If she wanted to guard her property against whoever broke into her home, she would have to see what they would see, think like they would, and react the same way they would. Covering her eyes, Avari tried very hard to clear her memory and forget the knowledge of where she had stored her possessions. She imagined her mind pouring like water down her body and outward from her feet and evaporating into the cool winter air. The exercise was so scary that the Konti had to reach up and grab her head with both hands, just to make sure it was still there.

Opening her eyes, Avari stared into the room with new eyes. Her gaze went immediately to the chest beside the bed, the natural place to store things. For the sake of verisimilitude, the Konti glanced quickly out the window to make sure no one was approaching the cottage and crept across the floorboards to kneel before the chest. Flinging back the cover, she saw only a folded woolen cape and, underneath it, some spare undergarments.

Of course I was wise enough not to store my valuables in the obvious place, Avari congratulated herself, grinning.

As she turned around, though, her shoulder brushed across the foot of the mattress atop the bed and nudged it, triggering a muffled but suspicious jangling noise. Quickly, Avari lifted up the mattress and made a sound that was half-triumphant cry and half-rueful groan when she saw a plump sack stuffed into the far corner of the bunk. She reached inside and tipped out a handful of gold and silver mizas.

"Damn it," she muttered softly. "That was too easy."

Any thief who did what she had just done would be able to make off with all her savings. She couldn't afford to be so careless. Avari sat back on her heels, still holding her mizas, and thought about what to do.

First, it was the height of foolishness to keep all her mizas in a single place. It would be much wiser to keep smaller portions of her money secreted in several different places throughout her cottage. That way, a thief might find a little bit of her money and still be satisfied, instead of walking out with all her savings. Second, she would need to find hiding places that were as well-concealed as she could manage without making them entirely unreachable. After all, she didn't particularly like the idea of someone else making off with her money at all; she wanted her money to be spent entirely for her own benefit, not for someone else's.

The thought was parent to the act; she scooped up the sack and tipped out another handful of mizas, which she put back into the corner of the mattress. The rest Avari took with her as her gaze swept over the walls and furniture, looking for places that combined security and easy access. The wind outside still howled harshly, like a whistling counterpoint to the jingling coins she wanted so much to keep safe.

"Easy to get, but difficult to find," she murmured aloud, staring across the room at the hearth. "Easy to get, but difficult to find..."

Walking over to the hearth, she grasped the sack of mizas in one hand while prodding at its bricks and stones with the other, feeling for loose pieces. One brick came loose in her hand when she tugged at it, sliding out to reveal just enough space for another handful of mizas. She poured some into the empty space and wedged the brick back into the hearth, doing her best to make sure that the surface looked unaltered.

Following the same idea, Avari turned back to the rest of the room and crawled along the floor, trying to feel for loose or empty spaces under the bare floorboards. When she found one that lifted up slightly on one end, she carefully poured about a dozen mizas into the crevice, no more. Floorboards were a fairly common place to hide things, as she had found out herself through firsthand experience, and a single step in the wrong place could cause a metallic jingle that might possibly give away the hiding place. She replaced the floorboard and stamped heavily on it several times, making sure that it fell back into place as neatly as possible and looked as flat against the ground as its neighbors.

This still left her with a little less than half her savings still be hidden or stored away. Where else could she hide it? And how else could she secure her cottage to keep her possessions safe from potential thieves?

Avari

"Everyone wants something... And when you know what a man wants you know who he is, and how to move him." - George R. R. Martin, A Storm of Swords
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Avari
Insightful trickster
 
Posts: 246
Words: 296184
Joined roleplay: August 10th, 2011, 6:25 pm
Location: Zeltiva
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Hiding Things in Plain Sight (solo)

Postby Avari on February 8th, 2012, 6:50 pm

Pacing around the cozy confines of her cottage, Avari tried to think like a thief breaking into the cottage again, to look where they would look and act the way they would. It wasn't as though she hadn't broken into a few locked buildings herself, so it shouldn't have been difficult to get back into that mindset. Yet, for some reason, it felt different when it was her own home that she was contemplating burglarizing. Not only did the thought of being robbed still evoke an instinctively horrified reaction from the Konti thief, but Avari also had the problem of being so familiar with her own home that she couldn't easily imagine how a stranger would respond and what they would target first.

If it were her breaking in, though...

She'd look in all the obvious hiding places, like the chest or under the pillow. Then she'd check the rest of the meager furniture in the house, checking under cushions, feeling for hidden drawers, and looking for concealed safes or secret compartments. Avari glanced around the room, wondering where else they would look.

Wryly, she thought to herself that the thief that broke into her house might be somewhat grateful for the lack of ornate, or even existent, décor. Avari had been inside wealthy homes before, though not yet in Zeltiva or in the capacity of a thief, and she knew how elaborately their rooms were furnished and how cluttered they could become. In her grandmother's house in Mura, even a wastebasket might be covered in colorful cloth or adorned with layers of fringe and silken tassels. One could hide any number of costly accoutrements or caches of mizas among the myriad pigeonholes of a fancy writing desk or inside an ornamental marble urn. Momentarily, Avari despaired, for her cottage lacked even a cupboard or set of shelves where ordinary objects might be stored and valuable ones artfully concealed. A false panel inside a cabinet, a decorative vase with flowers in it, or even the pages of a book would all make excellent non-obvious places to store tiny, precious items.

She bent over to look at the table in the center of the room. If she had a carpenter's tools and the skills to use them without cutting off her own finger, she might carve out a niche in a table leg or under the tabletop to hold her remaining mizas. Having a stonemason's skills would be even better, for then she would be able to create little hiding places in the masonry of the small chimney or even the stone walls of her cottage. Any thief who broke into her cottage would have to rap or knock every surface in sight just to have a chance of coming upon her hiding places.

With another sigh, Avari looked around one more time. Then, suddenly, a broad smile dawned across her face. All this time, she had been looking down at the floor or at eye level at the furniture or walls, peering into shadows and poking into corners in search of good hiding places.

She'd never thought to just look up.

Craning her head upward, the Konti couldn't help smiling a little brighter as she studied the vaulted rafters that supported the roof. Mighty timbers they were not, but they were wide and solid-looking enough, and the thick layer of grime and soot that covered them made the beams nigh unnoticeable beneath the shadow of the peaked roof. Positioned above eye level for even the tallest humans, their upper surfaces would make fine places to hide something where no one would think to look.

If she could manage to place her sack of mizas on top of a rafter, it would be the definition of putting them somewhere easy to find but difficult to detect.

Eager to test her idea, Avari quickly climbed on top of her chair to see if she could reach the top of the central rafter. Stretched high above her head, her hands brushed only empty air. Carefully, she stepped on top of the table and planted her feet on the surface. This time when she reached up, her fingertips just brushed the dusty rafter. The Konti gave a tiny hop, causing the table to rattle beneath her, and managed to tuck the sack of mizas on top of the rafter. Pursing her lips, she hopped again and gave it a little nudge away from the door, so that the sack wasn't directly above the center of the room.

The deed accomplished, she jumped off the table and gazed upward to inspect her handiwork. The small brown sack blended in perfectly with the darkened, dusty rafter. She was sure that only someone who was specifically looking for something hidden up there, and looking quite hard at that, would ever notice that her sack was there. The theoretical thief breaking into her house would have a hard time getting his dirty paws on the bulk of her savings.

Avari gave an anxious sigh. She felt much better having divided her money into smaller portions and secreting them into different, well-hidden places throughout her cottage. Even if she couldn't do much to strengthen her defenses, she could make sure that someone breaking in would find nothing of value unless he looked very, very hard. Still, she would need to be vigilant about keeping every hiding place well-concealed, and she'd have to find new places to hide her money whenever she earned more.

Even a thief had to guard against other thieves, after all. Every miza she saved would be just another miza to lose if disaster descended, whether in the shape of a fellow criminal or a dreaded tax collector. She had to be careful, so very careful. To live free, to be independent the way she wanted, she wanted to have as much money as possible to bulwark her against the world's greed, hostility, and misfortunes.

Money was freedom, Avari could see it clearly. She had to protect hers the best she could.

Avari

"Everyone wants something... And when you know what a man wants you know who he is, and how to move him." - George R. R. Martin, A Storm of Swords
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Avari
Insightful trickster
 
Posts: 246
Words: 296184
Joined roleplay: August 10th, 2011, 6:25 pm
Location: Zeltiva
Race: Konti
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Hiding Things in Plain Sight (solo)

Postby Avari on February 8th, 2012, 8:43 pm

Was there any more that she could do?

Avari felt reasonably comfortable for the moment with her current methods of hiding her money. The only other valuable objects that she possessed were her little roll of lock-picks, which she carried with her at all times; her whalebone dice, which she also kept safe on her person; and her supply of food, which was never large in this city of recurrent food shortages and rationing. At the moment, she only had some packets of dried fish and a block of cheese in a hollow in the floorboards beneath her bed. She doubted the food would be much of a prize for any thief, and if she couldn't protect her own self -- or run away, which was far more likely -- then she might as well pack everything up and sail back to Mura with her tail tucked between her legs.

She shook herself out of visions of submitting meekly to her grandmother, her head bowed low, and checked over her hiding places for her mizas with a critical eye. They seemed good enough for now, she grudgingly admitted, but somehow they felt too obvious to her. It might just be because Avari knew where they were, of course, but the sack on top of the rafter was a little too centered and the place under the loose floorboard had nothing to prevent someone from simply walking over it and hearing a telltale squeak or echo. She rubbed her chin thoughtfully.

Then, with quick and decisive gestures, the Konti walked over to the table and chair and began pushing them to one side. Instead of resting in their aesthetically pleasing position in the exact center of the room, they now stood slightly off-kilter on one side of the cottage. The altered arrangement had some practical benefits; she wouldn't have to walk as far to bring her food from the cook-pot to the table, and her back would be warmer when she ate. More importantly, though, the chair now stood directly above the loose floorboard, and she felt the asymmetrical position was more likely to draw the eye to one side of the cottage rather than up and down along the middle.

Thinking of her cook-pot, Avari pursed her lips before walking over to her hearth. With a grunt of effort, she slowly and laboriously tugged the low metal stand for the heavy iron cook-pot away from its usual place. Her shoulders burned as she carefully dragged the stand to block the loose brick in the hearth that concealed the hidden mizas from easy view. When she was done, Avari had to rub her shoulders and arms, which were sore with the exertion of simply moving the pot and metal stand.

There! That should help keep each hiding place a little more obscure, without making them too much difficult to reach. Eyeing the arrangement critically, Avari used her foot to sweep away the soot over the old spot, making it less obvious that it had been moved.

In the same spirit, she jammed her bunk bed even more tightly into the corner and pushed the mattress down as firmly as it would fit into the bed. She could only hope it would make the coins jingle less if the bed were ever disturbed by an unfriendly visitor. She'd also have to remember to keep the blanket piled and folded over the foot of the bed, rather than neatly spread across it, to conceal any lump the money might make and to draw such a visitor's eye to the pillow on the other end.

"That's better," she muttered aloud. "Even if it is just rearranging furniture."

She paced around the room, adding finishing touches to the placement of her meager furniture and dusting off bits of accumulated grime.

"If only I were trying to fortify my house from being attacked," she mused quietly. "It would be so much easier than defending against a thief. All I'd have to do is get a better view of any danger, make my walls sturdy, and surround myself with weapons to fend off attackers. Instead, I have to be smarter, because I have to assume that my thief will be just as clever as I am. Damn thieves," she mumbled.

When her voice faded, Avari gradually noticed that it was much quieter than before. She listened closely and realized that the omnipresent shrieking of the wind outside had finally fallen silent. Dashing over to the window, she pulled aside the drape and beamed when she saw the trees standing upright as nature had intended them to, rather than swaying violently from side to side or being bent nearly in half. The Bonesnapper had finally dissipated! She could walk outside and check out that warehouse she'd had her eye on without worrying that her fingers, toes, or nose would turn black with exposure or frostbite.

It was about time, she thought, watching the clouds disperse in the sky to reveal a few pale, slanting sunbeams. Judging from their angle, it was already early afternoon. Half a day was gone already. But at least it hadn't been entirely wasted, and now it wasn't quite as cold outside either.

Taking her cloak out of the chest and swinging it over her shoulders, Avari hurried to the front door, eager to get outdoors and breathe in some fresh air. Just as she opened the door, however, the Konti glanced down at the lock, remembering how she'd dismissed it contemptuously earlier as too simple to deter any thieves. Now would be a most opportune time to test just how well that lock performed as a security measure, while she remembered and already felt secure with the measures she'd already put in place today.

Closing the door with a shiver, as the crisp winter air assaulted her senses, Avari took out her roll of lock-picks from inside a pocket of her cloak. With far more ease and efficiency than when she'd first arrived in Zeltiva, she selected a hook pick and a slim tension wrench and inserted them gently into the lock. Her eyebrows shot up as she delicately felt around the innards of the lock and realized the pins were smaller and more elusive than she'd remembered. She actually had to take the hook pick out and chose a smaller half-diamond pick, whose smaller tip would let her move the pins inside.

Rust made the pins squeak perceptibly as she tried to prod them and lift them into place above the constantly turning tension wrench. Whether from the cold or the rust, the pins proved surprisingly stubborn, and each took several tries to feel out and manipulate. Avari didn't know whether to grimace or chuckle at her own struggles. Sometimes, a pin would even slip out of place as she moved on to the next one, forcing her to go back to lift it on top of the keyhole again. She didn't remember it being so tricky before! It was supposed to be a cheap lock, after all, hardly a challenge for a good thief.

Sometimes, it seemed, cheapness and simplicity could make for a startling amount of complexity.

Finally, after what she guessed was at least ten minutes of simply nudging and raising the pins into the proper place, Avari finally heard the tiny click that meant she had managed to pick her own lock. Beads of sweat were actually forming on her forehead, chilled to coolness by the cold air. She twisted the tension wrench clockwise and the rusty mechanisms inside the lock sprang open, letting her open her own front door.

"Not bad!" she told the lock, as she pulled out her picks and slipped them back into the little cloth roll. "Not bad at all. You might frustrate someone one of these days, especially if they're expecting you to open easily and quickly. Maybe even make them give up. How lucky!"

With a pleased smile, Avari pulled her front door firmly closed and gave the lock a friendly pat, before heading away from the cottage.

I've done my best to keep my things safe with what I have, she thought to herself, walking down the worn gravel path that led toward the docks and the city beyond. I've squirreled my savings away in the best hiding places I could find, rearranged my furniture to hide them, and tested my lock to see if it will hold, which it just might. I just hope that it's all been enough.

Avari

"Everyone wants something... And when you know what a man wants you know who he is, and how to move him." - George R. R. Martin, A Storm of Swords
User avatar
Avari
Insightful trickster
 
Posts: 246
Words: 296184
Joined roleplay: August 10th, 2011, 6:25 pm
Location: Zeltiva
Race: Konti
Character sheet
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Medals: 1
Featured Thread (1)

Hiding Things in Plain Sight (solo)

Postby Paragon on February 9th, 2012, 10:17 am

Image


Avari :
Avari

Skill XP Reward
Larceny +2
Investigation +3
Acrobatics +1
Observation +2

Lore: Concealing Money, Varied Hiding Places, Rearranging Furniture, Checking One's Door, Thiefproof

Other: 1 x Job Thread Completed!



Tick, tick, tick. Full marks Miss Avari! As we discussed before, I love the concept of this thread. A thief, defending themselves from other thieves. What a unique way to earn larceny! Well done, I enjoyed this a lot, and I'm happy to accept this as a job thread - if you have ANY questions or concerns about this grading, don't hesitate to PM me.
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Paragon
The Gordian Knot
 
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