faderift | Lock-Picking 101

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Lock-Picking 101

WHO: Character(s)
WHAT: Mandatory training on how to pick locks
WHEN: Various times this month
WHERE: Wherever
NOTES: A catch-all for RP about this training. OOC post here. People who didn't sign up for random pairings are still welcome to use this post to RP about their characters attending.

Trainings will be held periodically at various times of day, often in the unused dining hall in the Mage Tower but occasionally in various other classroom spaces. Teachers vary, generally members of the Scouting Division but not always, and the curriculum of the initial lecture is generally aimed at beginners. For them, they begin with identifying different types of locks, and display a few deconstructed examples to show how the internal mechanisms work, before demonstrating basic picking technique. If the attendance is mostly those with more experience, this might be skipped in favor of talking through more complex locks and trickier situations like makeshift picks, locks you can't see, avoiding leaving a trace, or detecting traps and failsafes.

Much of the time is spent in one-on-one instruction, and then studying in small groups made up of people with roughly similar skill-levels. There are a variety of locks and tools to work with (for those who haven't brought their own or want a new challenge), ranging from extremely basic to examples of rare and expensive locks from around Thedas, apparently from the Scoutmaster's own collection. At the end of the class, they are finally paired off to see how much they've learned by being—surprise!—shackled together until they can get themselves free. Each pair is sent off with orders not to neglect the rest of their work day(s) and bring the cuffs back when they're done.

Effort will be made to scale the challenge to fit, so those who are more skilled will be given more complicated cuffs to work with that may include enhancements like: requiring multiple locks to be unlocked simultaneously, enchantments that deliver a mild shock to the wearers if an unlocking attempt takes more than ten seconds, designs that tighten the cuffs when an unsuccessful attempt is made, and so on. If you feel your character is simply too good to be held by any such mechanism for long enough to make this fun, then feel free to make up additional complications, like being cuffed back to back, including leg manacles, whatever (within reason).

Note that use of magic (or rifter powers or any sort of unorthodox ability) is strictly forbidden in all parts of this course. If people have magical means they're willing to demonstrate or able to teach, there will be a portion of the class where they're encouraged to do so—particularly if it involves careful use of native magic that other Riftwatch mages could learn—but the purpose of the lessons are to learn how to pick locks, not destroy them, and any evidence of magical tampering will otherwise get frowned at.

Teacher ↠ Student
Yngvi ↠ Gwen
Petrana ↠ Matthias
John ↠ Darras
Nikos ↠ Kostos
Fitcher ↠?↞ Bastien
Teren ↠ Laura
Derrica ↠ Jenny Lou
Yseult ↠ Ellis

Study Groups
Fitcher + Darras + Derrica
Kitty + Petrana + Nikos
Lauralae + Laura + Kostos
Gwen + Matthias + Sidony

Stuck Together
John ⛓ Kostos
Sidony ⛓ Ellis
Darras ⛓ Kitty
Nikos ⛓ Lauralae
Bastien ⛓ Wysteria
Matthias ⛓ Nell
Petrana ⛓ Laura
Jenny Lou ⛓ Six

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a. a very important realization (ota)

It's not like Jenny Lou like... Hadn't been aware. Like it wasn't screamingly obvious just by like existing in proximity to these people. But also she hasn't really been around that many of them in like. A group setting. Where there wasn't anything actively trying to kill them. So now she's dealing with this.

"Oh fuck, everyone is super hot..." she mumbles to no one in particular, trying really really hard not to stare at any one person and. Kind of failing. Just. Wow.

b. we are here to learn. (specifically for Derrica, ota for observers)

Okay, she's coping, she's got this. Her teacher is like insanely pretty, but that's cool, super not the first time she's had to think around the brain breaking thought of lady pretty before. Except she hasn't caught anything Derrica's told her in the last like five minutes because she's been trying really hard to listen to her, instead of actually like... Listening.

"Um... Sorry. Could you go over that last bit again?"

c. help. (specifically for Six, but ota to observers)

Okay. So. Her boss might be trying to kill her.

Or like... maybe she can get past this whole thing by exposure. Cus like... wow. Her partner is. Very tall. And she looks like she could snap Jenny Lou in half. But she's got this, Jenny Lou is here to put into practice the things she's learned.

"Hey uh... If you flexed, do you think you could break the cuff?"

Fuck.

( darras )

There is a little pile of locks on the table between them. John is spinning a small brass lock between two fingers as he watches Darras' progress.

"Gently," John advises. "You can make quick work of most once you have the hang of it, but getting the sense of it is a delicate business."

Things John does not say: Why hasn't your wife taught you this already?

But then again, it isn't really essential for a pirate. Once you've taken a ship, there isn't much point in trying to work open a lock when you can simply crack open the container and take what's inside.

( kostos )

"Stop moving. I can't work on the lock when you're pulling on the cuffs," John admonishes.

He's said this twice already. In fairness, the fault isn't entirely with Kostos. Something's wrong with this lock. John can feel the way one of the tumblers is sticking, and he can't decide whether or not to risk breaking the tools by forcing it.

Magic is certainly off the table. Even if it were only him and Kostos in the room, John knows for certain that Kostos would feel even John's most minor spells.

( free for all )

Having survived Kostos, John has retreated to observing. Want his advice on a tricky lock? Alternately, care to bet on the outcome of one match-ups? Pull up a chair.

"This'd be about the part where I'd decide to be indelicate."

The lockpick feels particularly slender in Darras' hand, and light as a bone needle. He's not especially adept with fine work like this. Nor is he known to be particularly patient. If he were in a blacker mood, he might suspect Yseult of having designed this challenge with him in mind. Planted the seed when she told him about the cuffs in the bathtub, let him get used to the idea of helping, mentioned the lesson, acted surprised when Darras said he would join in--

Luckily, he's not in that black a mood. And he's not so self-centered as to think this is about him. Truth be told, Yseult likely barely thought of him. When there's a job, that's her focus. He knows that much.

So. He twists the lockpick, slow and careful, listening close for the next little click.

"Y'know, I stopped trying to pick locks when I was ten years of age. Didn't see the point."

"Am I going too fast?" Derrica asks kindly. In her hands, the lock springs open. Derrica shoots her a little smile. "We can start over. Here, take the lock pick."

Mostly oblivious to Jenny Lou's internal crisis, Derrica leans over to put the lock pick into her hands. She shuffles through the little pile of locks, making sure there isn't an easier option to direct Jenny Lou to work on.

"Just remember, we don't have to figure it all out today. So don't feel like you have to walk out of here having cracked all of these."

"No! It's cool!" Said too brightly, with a nervous energy running under it. Fuuuck, girl, keep it together.

She's pretty sure she doesn't blush at least. Like she's trying not to be a gross perv or anything, but also Miss Derrica has nice hands and Jenny Lou doesn't avoid the brief touch when the lock pick is placed in her hand.

"I'm just better when I can touch something, ya know?" She pulls on a smile that tries for charming and falls a little short, then ducks her head so she can focus on the lock, "Like things makes more sense when I have something in my hands." It's a little like palming cards or rolling a coin over her knuckles. Light touches, precise movements. Confidence in both.

Athessa, having donated a pair of cuffs but oddly not getting assigned to be cuffed or teach or learn, has also decided that watching is the only remaining option. Maybe she's practicing, per bard training, or maybe she's just passing time, but she knows which pair of cuffs is Qunari-made and which ones aren't and that gives her something of an edge in betting.

"Did you see that little finger-trap they gave to Fitcher and Bastien? Pretty adorable, right?"

( YSEULT )

"I'm sorry," Ellis says, just a heartbeat before the soft click-click-click of the lockpick skidding over the internal mechanisms of the lock fruitlessly. He breathes out hard, then lays both on the table. "I can feel it going wrong but..."

But nothing. There's nothing for it, he supposes. Looking at Yseult across the table, he can't tell whether or not her patience for his missteps are dwindling.

"I'm worried I'm likely to break the pick in the lock."

Not necessarily out of frustration, but it's a close thing.

( SIDONY )

So, this has gone wrong.

"I think we're better off trying to break them," Ellis advises, watching Sidony wrestle with the lockpick. "We've been here for some time now."

His tone is very patient, but Ellis' ability to buy in to the value of this exercise has dwindled away.

( RUBBERNECKING )

Ellis has taken up hanging around, observing, to try and pick up some tricks. Feel free to distract him from his attempts to study what everyone else is doing.

Nikos ↠ Kostos
"You're a fucking druffalo."

Nikos stops drumming his fingers on the table and holds his hand out for the lock instead. He's not smirking, but looks very bored instead, if only because he knows it will piss Kostos off. Just think: five years ago, he couldn't have said unequivocally what would piss Kostos off, because their chief correspondence were the stilted letters that they very occasionally exchanged, and whatever word made its way to Antiva to be deployed like an exploding glyph at a family dinner. Now he knows how to piss Kostos off. It turns out there's not a trick to it at all.

Their mother would be, perhaps, proud.

"I'm not even good at this and I can crack it faster. Give it."

Kitty + Petrana + Nikos
Fortified by a quick drink in the corridor, Nikos is now fiddling with one of the trickier locks set to him. Or, them. Paired with a known quantity (Kitty) and a largely unknown quantity (de Cedoux), except by reputation (because no spy network can tell anyone fuck-all about Rifters, even Rifters that have settled themselves into the world the way de Cedoux has), he has been largely reticent. Not that he's peaceful in his silence. There's a tightness to him, winched in his jaw and in the lines of his body.

Working at this, he hisses a swearword through his teeth as he twists his fine little lockpick two degrees to the left. It feels particularly fragile in his stupid fingers. There's an itch in his palms that he is trying very hard not to think about. This lock will be done in a moment.

"I think she's a sadist," he says, to the lock. But he means the scoutmaster.

Nikos ⛓ Lauralae
Why not, with the handcuffs. Nikos raises his hand and then drops it, so the chain clinks loudly. He sighs.

"Let's get it over with," he suggests, "quickly, if you can."

If he can. This exercise has been a test of his patience more than anything, which is by now wearing thin. The itch in his palms has spread up to his arm. He resists the urge to flinch or scratch at it, and instead rubs his free hand over his mouth, which is very dry. The rasp of his fingers against his own stubble is annoying to him. The Rifter he's been paired with looks positively cool by comparison, pale and somehow ethereal. But of fucking course. Why not.

Fitcher + Darras + Derrica
"I asked if we could make it a drinking game." Darras tosses the lock he's holding and catches it, then holds it to the lamplight to peer at the tiny notch that is its keyhole. "And the scoutmaster, Maker love her, said yes, as long as we agreed on the rules up front."

The pile they have to work through is rather sizable, an assortment of locks and cuffs and two small boxes with delicate little mechanisms that will be painful to undo. A challenge. Unfair, Darras had complained, when the scoutmaster--his wife--knows full well how little patience he has, to which Yseult had only smiled and said yes, she did know full well, and that was that.

At least a game will make it bearable. Darras tosses the lock up and catches it once more, one-handed. "So it'd be... a drink for each time you picked the lock, or a drink for each failure?"

Darras ⛓ Kitty
The cuffs set to challenge them are broad, more like manacles. Darras plucks at the chain that joins them like the string on a lute. The metal clanks, dully, with hardly any music to it at all.

He gives Kitty a little smile. "Am I your punishment?"

He doesn't mean anything by it but as a joke. Knows only a bit about her, largely by reputation. Rifter, loud, not unlikable but not likable, either. And likely better at picking locks than him.

Petrana ↠ Matthias.
For the third time, there is a soft sharp twang as the small and sensitive lock-pick gets stuck on some inner working of the lock. Tension bows the thin tool before rocketing it out of Matthias' grip and across the table, where it plinks down before Petrana.

"Shit," Matthias mutters, for the eighth time, and scrubs a hand over his face. He has been pink nearly this entire lesson. Petrana--Madame de Cedoux--looks somewhere between perfect cake and beautiful sculpture sculpted perfectly by a master sculptor. He doesn't know where to look when he looks at her, so he's kept his head down nearly the whole lesson.

As the lockpick is right in front of her, Matthias now has no choice but to look at her. A little more red creeps into his cheeks. He raises his chin, stubbornly, fighting against the urge.

"You should do it," he says, and then, "please," and then, "m'lady," and maybe that's right? She's a Rifter, isn't she? What if they've got other terms? What if he could stop being an idiot, for twenty seconds? Imagine. "If you do it I could watch, like. Maybe."

Gwen + Matthias + Sidony.
"Right, so. This one's shit."

Matthias shoves the lock across the table for one of the others to try, and scratches his fingers at his scalp, mussing his hair. When he pulls his hand away, his hair has fluffed in size, all curls and waves, badly in need of a trim. There's a small pile of locks and cuffs on the table for them to choose from. He grabs for another one, a fine little thing, plated in gold, styled like a padlock. Matthias frowns down at it, and turns it over in his hands a few times, as if he might make it reveal its secrets or otherwise fall open after sheer scrutiny.

When neither of those things happen, he sighs, picks up the lock pick again, and shoves it into the keyhole to have a go.

"D'you think any of these actually can be unlocked? Wouldn't surprise me if they were all trick. Teach us patience."

Matthias ⛓ Nell.
Now would be a good time to ask Nell Voss--something. Now would be a good time to ask Nell Voss how she gets her hair to look like that. Now would be a great time to say something seriously cool and casual to Nell Voss, something that will make her really see him. Or, barring that--now would be a decent time to as how she managed being Forces assistant.

Now would be a really brilliant time to, you know, say anything to Nell Voss. But, Matthias reasons, if he says something, then there is over half a chance that he will say something stupid, and she'll think of him as stupid, which, all right, just kill him instead, thanks. Death would be a better fate.

Well, not actually. But nearly actually.

But he's got to say something, now that the handcuff has been closed over his left wrist, and her right wrist, joining them together with a slender chain. He's not said anything for far too long already, he's starting to look like a serious weirdie, he has got to stop--

"Are you," too loud; he swallows, hard, tries again-- "Are you any good at this, then?"

Her response to that is a keen, unsmiling gaze. Kitty's not sure the exact relationship between Darras and Yseult, but the Gallows are too small and the quarters too close for her not to have a few guesses. So he's smiling as he says it, but the question makes her wonder: how much does he know? Is he a punishment? Did Yseult task him with raking Kitty over the coals? He's got a sweet enough face, no doubt of that, but Kitty's known plenty of smiling traitors.

"You'd probably know more about that than me," she replies, dropping her eyes to her task. There's a faint stiffness to her fingers as she starts exploring the lock affixed to her wrist.

Kitty doesn't really laugh except under the most extreme circumstances. But that makes her snort, and makes her mouth twist a little to the side, and makes her nose wrinkle, so that her appearance is one of amusement even as she avoids actually smiling.

"Let me give it a try." She holds her hand out for it.

"What have you brought for us to drink, would be my first question." This from the dark haired woman on the other side of the pile of locks. She has not touched a single lock nor pick since sitting down.

"It will be much easier to decide whether the game is worth winning then."

Tough crowd.

Darras observes Kitty a second longer, then turns his attention the lock on his end of the cuffs, and tries to imitate her scrutiny.

"I meant the lock," he says, after a moment, in way of explanation. "I feel sorry for you getting stuck with me when I'm only about half clever at this, if I can boast that much. There's a small chance that you're worse than me. Very small."

Derrica is spinning one lock between her fingers, eyes on Darras.

"And how productive we care to be," She adds. "Drinking for each failure might be more fun, but I think we'd get through less locks."

And Derrica still very much wants to make a good impression on Yseult, uncertain of whether she'd accomplished that on their previous outing. Being tasked with imparting some knowledge to both her partners feels slightly daunting, in spite of her own ability.

Thankfully, Derrica isn't prone to innuendo, and lets both those statement pass.

"It took me ages to get used to picking locks. I was carrying one around with me to practice on for months when I first started."

Is there a way to put her more at ease? Derrica isn't entirely sure how to diffuse nervousness in any other way than just being very patient until something shifts.

"Maybe the Scoutmaster will let you borrow one. Once you get used to listening for the little clicks that happen when you've done it right, it's much easier."

BASTIEN;

There are a series of picks, hook nosed and flat sided; and there are big heavy square padlocks for gates and storeroom doors and little finicky delicate things like as to be found in drawers or on boxes filled with the most secret sorts of correspondence (secret shipping manifests, or especially passionate love letters to someone's married cousin, et cetera et cetera). Of the options available before them, Fitcher has promptly stuck them with the best.

Literally - by sliding it onto Bastien's ring finger.

"I think a Rivaini finger trap sets off your knuckles marvelously. You should ask the Scoutmaster if you might keep it once we've finished here."

Lauralae is too busy staring at their cuffed hands to make any kind of note of what Nikos is saying to her.

There's a flare of panic in her eyes, her fingers flexing open and closed, gloved in dark black silk. It's clear, as the seconds tick by, that there's a real agony to her, something she can barely swallow as she tries, pathetically, to slip her hand through the cuff and remove it. It's almost as if it pains her to do it, as if the very notion of having something tight against her wrist, near her fingers, is a brand new kind of agony.

"Quickly." She repeats the word almost breathlessly before she fumbles, made with jerky motions, to try and start picking the lock. Her hands shake as she does it.

It's difficult for her to resist the urge to reach out and smooth down the child's hair; he's precious, in a way she has not often felt, and there's something of a smile on her lips as she lets herself watch him. Being here with Gwen is, too, a comfort - there's familiarity in that, a secret shared between two women that has brought them closer together. It makes this whole venture seem more acceptable.

Leaning forward, she picks up one of the locks and turns it in her fingers, head tilted. She is well versed in using small, fiddly tools - surgery does allow for such a thing - but this is different. This is something that she must know in case of capture once more, but... It seems complicated all the same.

"That would be pointless," she admits finally. "We're to learn how to free ourselves from capture, not how to sit and wait for someone to save us from our own demise."

"That defeats the purpose of the exercise, does it not?" Sidony frowns, looking down at their hands. She was beginning to get better at this, but Ellis' rebuttal makes her feel as though, perhaps, she is failing at the first hurdle. She ought to ask Byerly to help her with this (her rogueish husband must be skilled at this, surely) but she has a sense of pride: she wants to earn this skill herself.

Eyes lifting to look at the man beside her, her lips curl down.

"I am doing my best. It should not take much longer if you have a mote of patience left, ser."

Six, on the other hand, is barely aware of the fact that she might seem somewhat intimidating to her partner. She's a little more occupied with the fact that she has to try and figure out how to pick this lock - it was never something that was in her skillset. She had travelled with rogues and bards, of course, who were more adept at this sort of thing, but she always simply... Broke down doors, or whatever else stood in her way.

She snaps out of her thoughts when Jenny Lou speaks to her, eyes widening for a moment before she looks down at the cuff.

"I do not think so," she admits quietly. "My wrist is not as strong as the rest of me." She could, however, likely lift Jenny up by the cuffs, but that doesn't seem appropriate. At least she's not wearing her full Paladin armour. "Would you like me to attempt this first?"

Thankfully indeed, since Jenny Lou is fully prepared to walk into the bay than have her tutor think she's flirting (that kind of thing can stay tucked deep in her wildest fantasies where she's crazy smooth and able to actually flirt with girls).

In the meantime, Jenny Lou focuses on the lock and lockpick since it's just easier than actually looking at Miss Derrica.

"That would be cool," she says, spinning the lockpick over her index finger in an unconscious, fidgety move. It's shape and weight are different than the pens she usually fidgeted with, but the motion is soothing all the same, "I used to carry around a pack of cards when I was first learning to- Well. Yeah. That'd be cool. The bad clicks sound the same as the good clicks right now."

Okay, she wants to see that. Like really desperately. But..

"Nah. It's probably not like in the spirit of the lesson, ya know." And she doesn't actually want to get in trouble with her scary spy boss this soon. Jenny Lou spins her lockpick in one hand, frowning down at the handcuffs, "Okay... So you're way taller than me, sooo... Lemme try to get me out first and then you try."

"I'm happy to wait," Ellis assures her. And he is, technically. He volunteered for this, so he'll see it through to the end.

Whatever the end looks like.

"But at some point I think we should consider asking the Scoutmaster for they key and taking another run at it."

For all the good this approach is going to do him. He observed the stubborn set of the lady's jaw, and knows exactly what that means in relation to giving up.

"Admittedly, there is a time and place for indelicacy," John agrees. "Unfortunately I never really got the hang of that part."

Mostly because when you break a lock, someone comes looking for you all the faster. John had always banked on being long past gone by the time someone noticed what had gone missing. And it had usually worked.

"Though I suppose if there's one virtue I learned from a young age, it was patience."

Does that balance out all the other flaws he'd absorbed? Answer unclear.

"What were you trying to break into at ten years old?"

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Lock-Picking 101

Jenny Lou

a pirate.

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ffa

a warden.

Nikos Averesch

Darras Rivain

Matthias

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its me

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me!

C

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