Hollobodgween

(this whole thread is occurring in a dream)

Many seasons had passed since Madara started to dabble in small time thievery. It hadn’t been as easy a path as she’d thought it’d be but somehow, she had managed to skirt any major consequences of her hobby turned job. This was attributed to Madara’s care in not committing any large thefts which was attributed to her lack of drive. Up to this point she stole only to fund her average lifestyle so there was no need to take on unnecessary risk. She’d realized that she’d gotten rather good at stealing. She thought about times she’d nearly got caught and smirked as she walked amongst the crowds of the marketplace. She thought about how she rarely worried about getting caught anymore. She finally felt confident which was great for her self-esteem and more importantly, her finances.

Her thin, gloved fingers subtly felt the pockets of people she passed by. She still wasn’t great at figuring out exactly what was in their pockets just by touch and pickpocketing in crowds was still a new form of making money for her. She could only feel around for brief moments without raising suspicion. Often times all she could manage was a single tap against a thigh or a quick cup of the waist. What she really was after was coins since they were the easiest to put to good use. They were also the easiest for her to detect. It was hard to mistake the jingle of coins or the feeling of her hand pressing against tiny pieces of metal. Other objects were hard to make out and the few times that she did decide to steal them she usually ended up with junk.

“Yes!” She thought as her fingers felt a collection of small objects that, to her, felt like coins. She pushed her hand deep into the pocket and felt surprise when her fingers curled around something that didn’t feel like coins. Curiosity forced her to pull the objects out and glance at them.

“Marbles?” she thought. She dropped them to the floor where they would quickly be lost in the crowd. Then she shook her head. This was why it was important to be able to detect coins with just a touch. At least she’d learned what marbles feel like and hopefully wouldn’t make that mistake again. Her quest for money would continue.

Madara pushed forward in the crowd and felt pockets as she passed by. This time she made sure to move her fingers in an arc to see if that would help her discern the shape of smaller objects. Of course, there would be no immediate improvement in her detection abilities but she would keep practicing throughout the day.

The people around her were none the wiser, as far as she knew. They just went about their day and wished that the flow of traffic would move a little faster. The usual. Madara didn’t even know where she would end up because she was focused more on pockets rather than where she was going. She would find pockets full of coins here and there, though she wasn’t brave enough to go for many coins at once. She’d decided that morning that she would only snatch a few coins at a time so that she would avoid getting caught. She was eager to see how her plan would work out and it seemed to have worked well so far. The downside was that she had to steal from a lot more people than usual and Madara just hoped that this didn’t cause her to attract unwanted attention.

Madara had a small collection of coins in her pocket before long. She couldn’t tell how much they were worth without looking at them so she decided to slip off into an alley. She’d only planned on staying for a bit but fate had other plans for her. As she counted up the coins, some other people in the alley took notice. Had she not been so focused on her winnings she might have noticed them walking towards her. Before she’d finished counting, Madara was shoved forcefully into a wall. She did her best to hold onto the coins in her hand but the coins went flying. The few coins that she did manage to hold onto were slapped forcefully from her hands. The sounds of coins clinking to the ground went unheard by anyone who might care that a woman was getting robbed.

Madara stood there against the wall with a shocked look on her face. She looked side to side and noticed that she was effectively alone with this small group. Their skin had a blue tinge to it and their clothes had a very “criminal” vibe. It finally sunk in that she was getting robbed. Or rather, she had just been robbed. Now she was just lingering around awkwardly when she should have taken off into the crowd.

“Get out of here!” hissed the assumed leader of the group. He stood taller than the rest and cracked his knuckles aggressively. “Do it or you’ll be sorry. Make a peep and I’ll break that face of yours!” His two lackeys scrambled around on the floor, picking up the coins.

250/750

Madara looked for a moment like she wanted to argue or even fight, but then she realized that she didn’t really stand a chance. Her one trip to the gym and few hours of practice with her dagger were unlikely to allow her to win against three people at once. Three people that had probably gathered a good deal of experience in alleyway scrapes. A chill ran down the woman’s spine and she shivered nervously. Then, she ran back to the crowd and soon after she walked into a pub.

The shaken woman took a seat in the corner and rummaged through her pockets. She felt lucky to have gotten away with her few lockpicking tools and a grand total of four coins that she’d somehow missed when she’d scooped coins from her pocket earlier. She took a deep sigh and laced her hands behind her head before leaning back against the wall. She noticed that her back hurt just a tad from hitting the wall earlier. She grumbled and slammed her foot against the leg of the table in anger.

She let her anger fester for ten minutes or so then she went back to that alleyway to confront the thieves. When she arrived she couldn’t recognize anyone that she saw. The thieves had gone. The only evidence that the robbery even happened was a coin on the floor that she happened to spot when she crouched down to look for any that the thieves had missed. She didn’t know why she came back here. She never got such a temper except when someone robbed her.
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250/1000

There were many people out and about tonight. They paraded around the paper lanterns that they had created. What most considered a time for celebration was usually a good opportunity to pull off a theft. Madara spent the evening avoiding the crowds and trying to find decent neighborhoods to steal from. This was harder than it sounded but if it were easy then there would be a lot more thieves roaming around. Madara found herself spending a lot of time in alleyways avoiding lantern bearers.

As it so happened, Madara found herself at the door of a particularly expensive looking home. The structure was packed tightly against a row of similar buildings. As far as she could tell, there was nobody inside the home, though she typically couldn’t be sure until she was inside the home. She had pressed her ear to the door and couldn’t hear a peep. She’d also peeked inside a window and seen not one flicker of light.

“Coast is clear,” thought Madara as she glanced from side to side. She could hardly see anything in the dark of the night, save from some slivers of moonlight and a feint glow in the distance where the festivities took place. She knew full well that someone might be watching her. She half expected someone to shout at her as she started fiddling with the lock on the door. This was likely the most expensive home she had ever tried to break into after all so she thought surely the rich had extra security measures.

She knew full well that someone might be watching her. She half expected someone to shout at her as she started fiddling with the lock on the door. Nobody called out to her while she worked, so perhaps she was safe for now.

The lock was unlike any Madara had ever dealt with before. Her lockpicking kit seemed absolutely useless for the first time ever. The keyhole did not seem to have a skeleton key type design and that was basically the only kind of lock she had experience opening. Skeleton key locks could be very difficult to pick, but there was a method to it. Eventually, one could crack it open unless they managed to damage it. However, this one seemed oddly empty. From what Madara could tell by feeling around with her tools, the key hole felt like nothing but a hollowed-out cylinder. What was there to pick?

After several minutes of very confused prodding, Madara decided that she wasn’t going to win the battle with this lock. It excited her to know that there were still locks out there that she couldn’t pick. At the same time, she felt angry because she knew there was no way she was going to be able to open the lock. Ideally she would be able to take the lock home with her so she could force it open and study it, but that wasn’t an option. She gave the door an angry kick with the toes of her shoes and then sulked off to find another neighborhood.

It was too dark for her to notice that there was a thin passageway that led to the rear of the home which might have had another entrance point. There was an open window up above, through which the moonlight clearly illuminated. However, it was high up and she would have to climb up to it. She was no climber, though this was the first time she thought that learning how to would be important. The thought crossed her mind to smash one of the ground floor windows, which would have been easy with a proper sized rock, but she didn’t trust in her ability to outrun a trained guard.

Madara ultimately shrugged and walked off. She knew there would be other opportunities to make some money before the night was over with. She walked for another break and found a nice quiet neighborhood. By then she was too fearful of breaking into an occupied home since she had seen plenty of people head home. She walked the streets looking for low hanging fruit but sadly there was none to bee seen. She had overestimated her ability to see in the dark. Spending evenings under a sunny summer sky had spoiled her to some degree.

“What’s a girl to do,” she asked herself. Her options for avoiding human interaction were dwindling. At this point she figured her best bet was to go to an establishment and try to lift some coin off of drunk men. So, she picked the first pub she came across. It was packed in there. There actually weren’t that many people but they had all brought their lanterns with them so there was hardly any room to sit. Madara was not a large person so she still found a spot on a bench to sit anyways. She was wedged between two different extinguished lanterns that still felt warm to the touch.

Ordinarily Madara would have no trouble stealing from people at bars. This was because they were usually filled with drunks who had a little too much energy in them. Today was an exception, at least at this particular establishment. Everyone was so tired from walking around with their lanterns that they just wanted to relax and sip on their booze. This was not the ideal setting for a thief. Madara buried her face in her hands with her elbows propped up on the table top. This whole evening had turned out to be a big disappointment.

“Rough night huh?”

“Hey.”

“Hey!”

A fist pounded on a table. Madara moved her fingers aside and turned her head to see who was trying to get her attention so badly. The last thing she needed was for someone to distract her while she gathered her thoughts.

“Yeah it’s been a rough night,” she said before covering her eyes again.

“I bet, lost your lantern did you? You’re one of the few in here without one.”

“Yeah, I lost it,” Madara said as she wondered how long this conversation was going to go.

“Where did you lose it?”

“I uh,” Madara said while she thought about an excuse. She hadn’t expected to be questioned and now she was sure anything she said would probably be taken as a lie. She finished with, “I dropped it?” As soon as she finished speaking she knew that she had totally botched the lie.

“Are you asking me or telling me?”

“Whatever. Leave me alone. I didn’t come here to be interrogated,” Madara said. She didn’t know if it mattered because she was sure that this guy was going to keep bothering her regardless.

“That’s the thing, miss. I work here and you haven’t ordered anything and the owner said anyone who doesn’t order tonight can’t stay. Normally I wouldn’t care but he’s literally staring at us.”

“It’s alright, I’ll get out of here,” Madara said after spotting the supposed owner across the bar. He was a small man but he cast a very large shadow. He was definitely not the type of person to be trifled with, and Madara was not the kind of person to make a scene. She left the bar and thought on what to do next. She decided to just go home. She would have very much liked to score big for once, but she had failed so many times that she didn’t feel bad about it anymore. She was rather content being a low level thief. She thought her life was fortunate because she didn’t have a “real job”. There was no real need to steal anything of significant value.

On her way home Madara continued looking for opportunities. She tried to spot stragglers in the darkness and when she did happen to see one she would try sneaking up on them. More often than not she would lose track of them. Moving quietly and quickly at the same time was something that she had never been good at. It did not help that she was tired from all the walking that night. She was so tired in fact that she fell asleep within a minute of lying down on her bed.

(this was supposed to be the first post lol whoops)

Madara's strange dream started in the afternoon since she didn’t have anything planned until the festivities started. She would have woken up later had she not slacked off on her preparation for the activities she had planned. She casually bit pieces off of a loaf of bread as she gathered her lockpicking tools together and laid out all the clothes she planned on wearing. They were well worn and Madara made a mental note to replace them, not that she would remember next time she was out shopping.

“whoop!” exclaimed the thief as she tripped over some junk laying on her floor. She fell right onto her bed and got bread smushed all over her shirt.

“Good thing I hadn’t changed yet,” she thought.

She quickly got changed and realized she still had some time to spare, so she wandered around outside for a bit and caught up with neighbors. She knew she would be avoiding social interaction later on and wanted to get her urge to chit chat out of her system. All anyone wanted to talk about was the lantern they had made.
Madara had to lie about why she didn’t have one, or say that she was still working on hers. She was a bad liar but people were so happy to talk about their own project that they didn’t care to call her out. Truth was, she didn’t bother making a lantern in the first place. She had other plans to tend to and she didn’t want to have to manage thieving and carrying that thing around at the same time.