October 17, 2020

The two of us were assigned to investigate a house in the middle of the night. I left my bike on the side of the street as we climbed over the metal gate. Our objective was to find a magic artifact that looked like some kind of watch. We figured that since it was a time piece, it should be somewhere in an office on the upper floors. It was rumored that the owner of the house was responsible for the murders of several children but was never proven guilty. Either way, we didn’t even know if the owner was inside.

The house itself had some kind of enchantment, which meant that we couldn’t use any kind of magic ourselves. We resorted to navigating via candlelight and the light from our phones. There didn’t seem to be an obvious way up, there was no central staircase and each room had varying heights. We entered a particularly tall bedroom, which seemed to provide access to another door around 3 stories up if you climbed over the layers of mattresses, shelves, and ladders protruding from the walls.

We pocketed some documents for a patent on the way up that we thought could be useful information when we heard some noise coming from the hallway we entered from. The bed was way too shaky to make a dash for the top so we decided to make our way back down and hide instead. The only place we could find in the short amount of time we had was right behind the door, which opened shortly after and before the lights were switched on.

We were almost certainly caught but no one had looked our way yet. Once the sentry took a couple of step into the room, we took our chances to dash out the door behind them and found ourselves in a very bright and lively dining room. The servants were minding their own business, preparing food and arranging the table while the two of us tried to walk as casually as possible to not arouse suspicion. My partner suggested that if anyone looked our way, we should simply smile back and flash them double peace signs. Somehow that idea seemed to work until we found a way out of the house.