How to safely break into an Innocent’s house?
Let’s talk about a hypothetical dabbling practitioner with an innocent friend. If the practitioner feared that something sinister were happening in their friend’s house, but could not get the permission of the house owner or indeed any residents to enter, how would our hypothetical dabbler best enter the locked building?
Assume no resources or skills beyond that of someone freshly awakened, as to not lean on any specific practice too greatly. Any good advice or ideas would be appreciated.
I will begin the discussion. The practitioner could search for an unlocked window, most likely on an upper floor, and open it from the outside. Then, the dabbler simply guides a bird through the window, and sees exactly how the house owner treats the animal. However the animal is treated for its actions can be assumed to be the same standard to uphold any guest coming in through the open window, and the rule of hospitality is preserved.
Thoughts? Also, could this idea or others below also apply to Others?
Student Initiation
The McMansion stood halfway up an obnoxiously steep hill that Nolan already had to climb three times today. Once going up last night to confirm the address and take some photos, then again early this morning to lay down some warding cards that would grow in power over the day, collecting the energy from their slowly lost value to the elements. Now he was up here under a waning crescent moon, and the wards had done their job perfectly.
The wards were his take on the old ‘untouched lucky penny’. If anyone had picked up one of his wards they’d have gotten a Magic card worth at least five dollars, but the lack of pedestrian traffic in this awfully hilly neighborhood meant few people set foot near them, and the few joggers that did were too old to realize their worth. So now the cards had a little bit of power, and with the rise of the moon that unnoticeability was being redirected into the runes on the back. He’d have connection blockers running active around the house for the night. It hurt him to see the cards fading away in the sun and soaking in the mud, but he’d get plenty of value from their sacrifice.
He had a foolish idea late the previous night involving a wild bird and an open window, but it was one of his crackpot overcomplicated late night schemes. He rarely followed through on those.
He was fully kitted out for this mission. Three rabbits’ feet hung from his neck, and his hair was braided up with four leaf clovers set into the braids. For offense, he passed on the dead dice, he was too low on luck and his target was clearly loaded with the stuff, instead he did his research during the day into the man, Elmer Deluna, and had prepared seven curses to lay on him tonight.
He held the mask in one hand in front of his face. It was a major hamper to his abilities, not seeing what was directly in front of him, and not being able to use both hands, but at the end of the day he would be free of his burdens.
The McMansion itself was the standard affair, clearly made in the early nineties, no sense of cohesion or style. Nolan could spot three completely different window stylings, and that was with the mask blocking the front of his vision. The sprawl of the building and three door garage filled his entire field of view.
He walked with great care, watching the ground so he wouldn’t trip on any loose tiling. Luck like his meant getting a lot of stubbed toes if he wasn’t constantly vigilant. He kept his footing all the way to the front stairs, which lit up as he approached. He was certainly being recorded, just one more reason to appreciate having a mask. The door was locked, and picking it open with only one hand free was going to be a pain. He ran his fingers through the rabbits’ feet, enhancing his fingers’ dexterity and giving him a steady hand. The lock wasn’t very high quality, but few house locks were. He had it picked open a minute in.
The door silently opened, and Nolan got to work. He’d have to act quick, laying his first curse on Elmer as he slept.
“Deluna. I curse you for the wealth you earn in your sleep, selling goods overpriced to those who could not afford them, with payment plans that bled them dry of their money as you lay on your silken sheets. Break my word by showing me the rest you have lost to your misdeeds.”
The words were carried through the house by the spirits, and would be heard even in the dreaming man’s head. He would rouse soon, by the third curse at the latest.
He punctuated his word by knocking a vase to the foyer floor, shattering into pieces. He checked its twin for a price tag in his sight. Three hundred dollars down the drain already, with just a sweep of the arm.
He had to turn his head wide to catch the entire room in his peripheral vision, but it was a simple enough layout to keep in his mind. A staircase arced across the left wall leading to the second floor, and straight ahead was the main dining area. To the right was a large open doorway to the living room. Assuming the bedroom was upstairs, he’d start in the living room and work his way from right to left.
The living room was perhaps one of the greatest misnomers Nolan had ever seen. The sterile nature of the space felt as though nobody had lived in it for at least a decade, and the style of furniture implied another thirty years since anyone cared to decorate it. Red leather sofas, mexican patterned rug, and an awful chandelier hanging low in a way that made it clear there used to be a coffee table in the middle of the room. There wasn’t even a tv, all the chairs instead facing a glass cabinet full of assorted fine china and silverware.
“Deluna! I curse you for the wealth you took from your family, who you never cared for in their final years. Break my word by showing me the care you have given to their belongings!”
This curse was punctuated by Nolan toppling the entire cabinet, wish crashed so loudly that Elmer would surely rouse soon.
He had to move faster now. He stubbed his foot on the couch as he circled through to the kitchen. It was the most recently improved part of the house, with stainless steel appliances and granite countertops, and a series of barstools Nolan bumped into before he noticed them. He had one more curse he wanted to lay before he directly confronted the man.
“Deluna! This is your third curse! I curse you for the gluttony and pestilence that reeks from your kitchen. Break my word by showing me the meals your hand makes for guests!”
“Who’s there!” A voice shouted from above. Nolan grabbed a knife from a magnetic rack and scanned the room for something fragile. He was drawing a blank. He decided to shove the knife into the microwave, and pressed the popcorn button. Sparks from the device joined the electric hum, and the lights and sounds drew Elmer Deluna to the kitchen.
“Who the hell are you? I’m calling the police!”
“By the curses laid and unbroken upon Elmer Deluna, his phone will not connect.”
“Are you crazy?” His eyes shot to the sparking microwave. “Are you trying to get me killed? You’re done. Don’t even try running, I’ve got cameras all around this house.”
Nolan ran. His shoulder crashed into the wall that awkwardly jutted out to form a doorway to the dining room, and he nearly dropped the mask.
“Deluna! I curse you for the crimes you committed and the consequences you escaped with wealth! Your drunk driving as a minor should have barred you from ever sitting behind the wheel! Break my word by never driving again!”
He tore a picture from the wall and smashed it over the back of a chair.
“You freak! Get back here!” Elmer Deluna could move much faster, traveling in familiar territory with both hands available and not having to stub his toes near constantly. Nolan made himself space with his next trick. He tore a rabbit’s foot from his necklace and tossed it behind him. It had enough fortune left to find itself perfectly underfoot and make him slip, the fur sliding frictionless across the waxed wood floor.
He made it out of the dining room, up the foyer stairs, and out of sight of Deluna. Slipping into the bathroom he held still, and let himself catch his breath. He still had three curses to deliver, and valuables to steal. He listened out for Elmer downstairs, who was dialing 911.
“Deluna. I curse you by the blood of your ancestors, who settled their wealth on land unceded. Break my word by forsaking your family name and seeking forgiveness for their lingering crimes.”
Nolan knew better than to smash the mirror. He was barely holding his luck together as it was. Instead he lifted the heavy porcelain lid atop the toilet, and tossed it through the glass shower wall. He was getting tired, tossing and pulling and breaking all these things with his one good hand. He swapped to holding the mask with that hand, and would finish the job with his off hand.
He slipped deeper into the upper areas of the house, and was now standing in a lavish office. The most valued objects in the whole house were in here.
“Deluna! I curse you by the wages stolen from the workers who make your wealth, both near and far! Break my word by granting a thriving wage to all the labour that supports your empire!”
Elmer Deluna was standing in the doorway, though Nolan could only see his bare feet. With the amount of glass shattered to the floor in the house, it was a wonder that he hadn’t a single cut on his soles.
“Okay, you got a problem with me, huh? You some crazy anarchist here to take it out on me and my family? The police are coming bud, and you’re not gonna fucking get away with this.”
Nolan responded by smashing a paperweight into the glass computer case on the desk. He didn’t let go of it however, and continued to batter the electronics with the solid metal figure.
“You don’t think I’ve got insurance? You’re just getting yourself a longer sentence. You have nowhere to run.”
He dropped the paperweight to the ground, and walked around the desk. He bumped his hips into the sharp corner of the solid wood, and his sore arm faltered. The mask fell to the floor, and rolled to the feet of Elmer Deluna.
“It’s a nice mask. Let’s see how you feel when a jerk decides to break your shit.” Elmer raised his foot to stomp on the mask, and time seemed to slow to a crawl. Nolan was too far from him to stop him in time, not physically.
“Elmer Deluna in the name of Long Shadow of Claw I bind you!”
His word couldn’t truly hold an innocent motionless, and he had no sway with the Oni he called upon, but somehow still, Elmer faltered, his stomp became a shifting of weight, and off balance, the mask slipped underneath him, and he was toppled to the floor for a second time.
Nolan quickly ran by the collapsed man and picked the mask back up, holding it up with both hands gripping tight. He sprinted to the end of the hallway, where a door ajar led to the master bedroom.
The bedroom was clearly the most lived in and least cleaned space. Cardboard pizza boxes had piled in a corner, and the sheets on the bed may have been silk, but they were also clearly stained with grease and sweat. No matter. He had only one curse left to lay.
“Deluna! I curse you by the luck you were born with! May it all fall to pieces around you, and may karma alone judge what you are worthy to earn! Break my word by accepting the losses tonight as a balance of fortune, without any attempt to regain what was lost!”
He smashed the television standing high and mighty in the center of the room with one high kick, and adjusted his grip on the mask. He still had to take something of value for himself.
On the wall, clearly neglected, was a brass mechanical clock with flowery patterns detailing the edges. He could just grab it with one hand, and took it with him to the balcony. He stepped out into the moonlit night, and heard from behind him Elmer charging forward. He leapt from the second story balcony, and gave the last shreds of luck to granting himself a safe descent. Elmer didn’t seem to be willing to risk the same thing.
He sprinted off into the woods, a park that sprawled around the neighborhood wherever the hill was too steep or rocky to build housing back in the day. He had made his escape. The curses had done well. Elmer Deluna had stayed agitated and aggressive through the encounter, unable to act nearly as rationally as he otherwise might have. He might’ve seen his face, but the spirits were able to cut him off from outside assistance, and now they would make sure the punishment stuck in one form or another.
Not that any of that mattered too much to Nolan. He had a meeting to catch.
Student Orientation
The minutes were dwindling away. Nolan had been given a strict twenty-four hour time limit on his task, and he pushed the action to the last hour. While he was very thankful for the prep-time he had gained, it meant he had to bike even harder than usual to make it to the beach in time.
His lungs were stressed, and the humid summer air made his sweat linger on his skin. He was pushing himself on an empty stomach, and the nausea was building in his throat. The anxiety of everything that had just happened was falling in on him.
Elmer Deluna had seen his face, almost certainly gotten it on camera. He was still a rich and powerful man in town, even if all the curses stuck and drained him of his luck. The crime would certainly make it to the local news, if not provincial. His face, and especially the mask caught on all the home security cameras, would be a public menace. The things he left there as well, one of his rabbit’s feet, the magic cards spent of their energy, would be collected as evidence that closed the hunt in on him.
Would he be evicted? No, if his landlord connected his grey haired tennant to the criminal he’d be arrested. He’d have to leave before it hit the news. How long would it take? Normally the police released photos after a few days of investigation, but with him at large, the hunt could’ve already started.
He crested the top of a hill he was fighting hard to climb, and let himself catch his breath as he coasted down the other side. He’d worry about it later. This whole mission was about changing his ties. He didn’t need to focus on anything else but this coming deadline. He would make it in time, and leave the rest of his worries behind.
The beach was even emptier this time. He left his bike on the grass and went straight to the jungle gym. The hooded Rakshasi was buried up to her waist in the woodchips that covered the floor of the playground. Her hood was unzipped, and her dark eyes somehow stood out even in the darkest corner of the night. She stared straight at him.
“I did it.” Was all that he could say, still gasping for breath.
She exposed her sharp teeth in her familiar wide grin. “Good. Follow me, and follow my instructions.” She kicked her legs out from the woodchips she had piled over them, and crawled out of her dark hiding spot.
Her bottom half was dressed much more heavily than her top, which only had the zipper hoodie. From her legs down she had cargo pants, a utilikilt, and three fanny packs. Every pocket seemed to be bursting full as well. She walked with a jangling waddle to the bottom of the tube slide.
“Hold your breath and close your eyes as you climb up. I’ll tell you when to open them.” She gestured for him to go ahead.
He wasn’t very fast to make his move, but he pulled in a large breath and made his ascent. He seemed to be climbing a distance longer than the slide itself. He heard through the echoing plastic as overloaded pockets followed him up.
“You’re at the top now! Open your eyes, but don’t look back!”
He did as he was told. The slide made a sudden reversal of direction ahead of him, going back downwards at an incredibly steep angle, though he couldn’t know where it would take him. He hesitated at the fall, slowly getting his feet in front of him without turning back.
He was grabbed from behind and shoved down. He screamed.
“WHEEEEEE! YOU’RE DOING GREAT!” She yelled straight into his ear, her hands still grabbed into his backpack.
He screamed more. He had come to a stop in a dark room, and his scream trailed into a whimper.
“Welcome to my workshop! Take it in!”
He couldn’t see a damn thing.
“Right, you can’t see a damn thing can you? I’ve got a light somewhere here…” The grinding sound of scrap metal being rummaged through filled the tight space. “Aha! Got it!”
A few short clicks, and an old incandescent bulb hummed to life, spreading meagre light to the tiny space. Piles of metal and plastic garbage piled to the ceiling, and not a single flat surface was clear. There was the slight smell of gasoline, and the floor beneath him felt sticky. It wasn’t quite as tiny as at first glance, considering the amount of stuff that was clearly stored in here, but it was clearly meant for a single child sized Other to work in.
“So, we have a lot to talk about, where should we get started?” The excitable young woman said.
“Can we start with names?”
“Oh! Of course, of course. You may call me Bite Maker, or just Bitey if the hood’s off.”
“My name’s N-” He was interrupted by an obnoxious beep from Bitey.
“EEEEEP! Birth names aren’t important here! I want a name you came up with!”
He paused. He didn’t really identify with any other name. Was he Ink-Eyes? No, that was a cardboard reflection of who he could be. He wasn’t sure what his name should be.
“I don’t know then.” He answered.
“Fuckin’… fine. Figure it out soon though, the ritual is happening as soon as I finish the mask.” She waved a long thin handled hammer through the air as she spoke, like she was conducting the sound of her voice.
He took off his backpack and got into a crossed legged posture. He passed Bitey the mask, and she poked his chest with the pointy tip of her hammer.
“I need the stolen treasure too. You did remember that, right?”
“Yeah. I grabbed this clock thing. It got a little battered when I fell from the balcony, but it’s being taken apart for scrap anyway, right?” He passed over the metal box, the hands on the face punched into the mechanism and jamming the whole system.
Bitey let out a low whistle. “Whew, this is an old mask. Let me just…” She whipped her hammer into the face, and the clean white surface shattered.
“What the hell?”
“It was hiding its age. Your mission gave it the strength to survive me waking it up.” She took a delicate hand and tilted it to face him. The once slightly faded white surface was now covered in cracks and voids, and the bright red paint was gone, now a dingy brown.
“How old is it?”
“I’m still figuring that out, give me a damn minute.” She said, holding a pair of childrens binoculars to the surface. “It’s old.” She scratched at the surface with a claw. “It’s really old. It’s kinda familiar too.”
“Familiar?”
“Can you keep quiet and think of a name? I’m trying to work and you’re doing a great job at preventing that.”
He shut up.
He was never great at coming up with names. When he played D&D, he would just get something randomly generated online to name his characters. He ran his eyes over the piles of trash, looking for inspiration. Rusty? Flint? God he sucked at this.
He thought about the names of the Rakshasa he knew. Grasping Roots, Always Behind You, Long Shadow of Claw, Bite Maker. They had names that didn’t even sound like names, just descriptions. Which was fair, since the name was for the Mask, and not the wearer. Not that there was much distinction for the more powerful Rakshasa.
He worked with luck. His mask and master were connected to the moon. The common connection was pretty clear.
“Magician’s Rabbit.” He said, hearing it out loud made it feel right.
“Shut up, I’m listening for the story.” Bitey replied, holding a toy stethoscope to the mouth of the mask. “Uh huh. Uh huh. Shit, really?” She pulled herself from the mask, giddy with excitement.
“Guess how freaking old this thing is, and where it came from.”
“Maybe-”
“EEEEEP! Wrong! It’s twenty thousand years old!”
“That can’t be right. It would’ve decayed into dust by now, I know it’s a little rough, but that’s beyond explanation.”
“It’s magic peabrain. I don’t have to explain shit.”
“Magic?”
“It’s older than the practices in this part of the world, or even people being here. It was made not by long lost humans, but by long gone Others! Others like me! They lived on an island north of here, had a rich and full community that supported artists who made things like this! The island sunk into the sea a long time ago, whatever remains of the village lingers in the abyss, but this mask happened to stay afloat on the surface. So long as the moon pulled the tides, the mask kept moving, didn’t decay.”
“Others like you? I thought you were Rakshasi, and Oni don’t go that far back.”
“You can’t tell what I am when the mask is off?”
“Not really. You’re too cute to be a goblin, too grounded to be a boogeyman, and clearly you aren’t of faerie make. Those are the only Others I know of that are as material as you clearly are.”
“Too cute to be a goblin huh?” The hammer point was once again shoved into his chest.
“Not a high bar to clear I know. I didn’t mean to offend with the comparison-”
“I was born in the warrens, in a place not too unlike this. I was forced to work a forge until my hands turned to stone, my fingertips like iron pokers,” She dropped the hammer and pulled back the sleeve that covered her right hand, her fingers were bone thin and charred black. “While the others slept, I kept working. I made the tools for my escape, and I was on the run from that point on.”
She took a deep sigh, and got back to work.
“I guess I’m oversharing a little, but flattery can do that to a lady.”
“Thank you Bitey.”
“For what?” She said, using both hands to pull the hammer from the sticky floor.
“Everything. I’ve been on my own since my old teacher died, and I’m happy to have someone who trusts me.” He smiled. When did he last smile at someone like this?
“Whatever. Don’t act like we’re best buds now. You’re still a fuckin’ practitioner, and I ran into some real bastard practitioners in my time.” She wailed her hammer into the brass clock over and over until it resembled the rest of the metal in the workshop.
“So, you’re a goblin.”
“I was born in the warrens, I have no fuckin’ clue what I am. They don’t give you a handbook on that shit.” She bent the flat metal flowers around the mask, adding an ornamental trim along the entire circumference.
“So, Magician’s Rabbit. You’re going with that as your new name.” It wasn’t phrased as a question.
“There’s no getting around the fact that I’m a practitioner. I wanted it to be clear up front.”
“Makes you sound more like a familiar, but it’s already done, no changing it now.”
“The name stuck that fast?”
“I dunno. I was talking about this.” She lifted the mask to show him the back. She had carved along the top, right where it would touch his forehead ‘Majishins Rabits Mask’.
“Ah. No changing the carving, huh?”
“Nope!” She smiled at him. Was she trolling him? He couldn’t be sure if this wasn’t some practical joke.
“How much longer will it take?”
“Eh, could be a while really. Lie down over there, in the soft plastic, and get some rest. You need it, little rabbit.”
“I’m vetoing that nickname.” He snapped back.
“Okay big rabbit.”
He smiled again. Where was this coming from? He decided to go with it, and lay down in the loose plastic shreds. A few dull bits of metal had made it into the pile, but nothing too pokey.
“Are we in the warrens right now? It’s cleaner than I expected”
“No, some goblin king or another would find this place and wreck shop, literally. We’re in the near-abyss. Don’t worry, I did a good job at defences, anyone strong enough to make it here wouldn’t expect it to be worth the effort.”
“Near-Abyss?”
“Shush, sleep. I’m working and you need the rest.”
Nolan listened to the frantic work as he rested his eyes, and eventually he fell asleep. He couldn’t be sure what he dreamed of, but it was certainly pleasant.
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