Thoughts Awry

"Oh yoohoo, my darling grandsons," she said with a smile and a cheeky little wave. Two large boys, the kind that look like they could carry a sick calf over their shoulders and not break a sweat (look you grew up on a farm sometimes the colloquialisms are really stuck in) come out of the house. "It seems like we have a prowler."

"We got it grandma," says one of them as they advance on you.

They pick you up like you're a sack of potatoes and take you outside town.

You pick yourself up, grumble extensively, and go home. For now. You'll be back. That dumb old woman won't best you.

You spend the next few weeks scouting the house, spying, learning routines, putting in the kind of legwork that you'd need to put in to case a manor-house for a paranoid noble.

That same damned old woman spots you six different times. Each time she sends one of her grandsons over to toss you out. One time they even came with sugar cookies.

Finally, you think you found a brief window. The old woman is a night owl, she stays up very late for an old woman. Someone else in the house is awake very early. But every few days, there's an hour or so gap that you can exploit to get inside when the blasted old woman goes to bed.

You sneak in, climbing roofs, sneaking through alleyways. You used six different disguises.

Finally, for the first time, you get within 50 feet of the house when you step on a piece of dirt that seemed entirely unassuming and a particularly well hidden trap sprung to life. A hard piece of wood suddenly springs up and whaps you hard in the shin. You bite your lip as hard as you can to keep from yelling out. But it's all for naught as the trap also triggered a couple of warning bells.

A mousey-haired young woman, probably a granddaughter, sticks her head out of the house you're trying to sneak into, and looks right at you. "Granddad loves his traps. There's a couple dozen all over the place. We've learned where they are over the years. Good luck," she said with a wave before closing the window and going back inside.

Damn them!

You get escorted out, this time by the granddaughter who also hands you a small medicine pouch. It helps with the bruises she says from experience.

It takes another four weeks of watching, mapping, and casing for you to get another route into the house.

Just when you are feeling confident that this time but you realize that the route you have to take in will take you right through the old woman's eyeline and her routine means that they next opening won't be for another six months!

ARGH!

"You know, you missed one of Alexander's little mines," said a figure that snuck up on you in your hiding spot outside of town. "He likes to hide them every four feet."

You jump out of your skin. No one ever sneaks up on you! You're the master thief here!

The mysterious figure is clearly an older person, the wear the shadows like a cloak and it makes them hard to really make out. They hand you a bowl of stew.

"And Muriel is a night owl so she's always up late. Unless one of the grandkids are sick then she'll be taking care of them."

"Who are you?!" you cry out.

"Stew delivery," they say with a sly smile. "And I just wanted to give you some friendly advice. You still don't know what's up within the house. So you should prepare for anything and everything. Getting in is hard. I would know."

"How could you possibly know?" you demand. You've been trying to crack this puzzle for like a year now! Well not that long but it feels like it has been that long.

"Well Muriel was Grand Captain of the Palace Guard, so she's used to the late nights. And spent a long career catching thieves."

You gasp. The Thief Catcher General! Is here! You've been trying to rob her house this entire time???

"And sweet Alexander really valued his privacy so he spent his lonely years in his tower building traps and labyrinths and what have you."

You gasp again! The Recluse Prince! The tower he was locked in (or locked himself in, the stories are very unclear) is still considered a nightmare for anyone trying to get in and see what valuables are left. The traps and puzzles are the most cunning and ruthless you've ever tried your hand at!

And he's here? He's married to Muriel??? They have GRANDKIDS???

"How do you know all of this?" you ask again. This time in awe and reverence.

"Am I not supposed to know my wife and husband?" they ask.

You sputter. What? How? But at some point in your confusion they disappeared.

You spent the next six months studying everything you can on The Thief Catcher General and the Recluse Prince to learn everything about them. They both seemingly disappeared from public life forty years ago, but their reputations are still alive and well. But nothing about their marriage prospect.

Finally, you had an opportunity, a way in. The window was brief so you had to take it. The job experience so long ago, but this was for pride.

You even managed to get on the porch.

But the front door lock was such a pain to pick. You've never met a door like this, or a lock like this.

"You've got to set the second pin first," the mysterious person whispered from behind you. "Yeah it's weird. But Alexander got bored a few years back and made this one. Supposedly unpickable. Only took me two months to crack it, but still a difficult one."

You managed to suppress your reflex to jump out of your skin at the sudden appearance behind you.

You try to focus on the lock, but you feel the lockpick bend in your hand as the lock tears it up.

"Ah, it happens to the best of us," the person behind you says as they put a reassuring hand on your shoulder.

They slip a key into the lock and open the door.

"Come on in, at least have something to eat. Steak out food is always the worst. And you can at least sleep in a bed before you head back out to try and break into my house again," they say.

The door opens and you see into the house for the first time. It's warm and inviting and there's a smell of delicious food that makes your stomach grumble. You cautiously step one foot over the threshold and see there, on the mantle, the legendary coat of arms of the family Ferrian, the supposedly unstealable artifact that was held in the unbreakable Bastion of Solitude! Just stuck on a mantle!

That would mean that this mysterious third spouse was... no way.