The bang of the door shutting and the lock falling into place made my eyes close and my shoulders slump. Even in the darkness, the bouncing balls haunted me. I’d defeated ten of these bastards before but there was no way I could manage fifteen. A lock that tight shouldn’t even exist. I had to succeed though, Stella was trapped on the other side of the door with nothing but Old Man Wellington to keep her company. I’d dragged her into this place when she shouldn’t have even been able to cross through the front door. It was my responsibility to get her back out.

I eyed the lockpick count in the corner of my field of vision. I only had twelve. I cursed the fact that I still hadn’t found a shady merchant who sold all the tools a thief needed. Red occasionally sold them but the Traveling Trader was hard to locate. Maybe I could plant some kind of tracker on the elusive Arachnes. That or I suppose I could send Frank to Kendrick begging the man for his personal contact. I assumed he of all people would have one.

All of that was inconsequential if I couldn’t defeat the stupidly decorative padlock.

Fifteen bouncy balls on the wall, fifteen bouncy balls. You take one down and pass it around, fourteen bouncy balls on the wall.

One after one my lockpicks broke until my forehead was drenched with sweat and my fingers shook on the padlock. I was down to my last two and I’d only managed to get past the tenth bouncing ball twice.

I exited the minigame and dropped onto my ass on the icy cold floor. I scrubbed at my stubbled head with my hand until there was an odd warm patch amid the chill of my scalp. This wasn’t working. I needed to find another way to get out of this place.

The breeze wailed and stung the back of my neck with hundreds of tiny ice needles.

Get out…

“For fuck sake, can’t you see I’m trying?” I snapped to the invisible force tormenting first Old Man Wellington and now me.

The breeze disappeared leaving me alone in the stupidly cold room. I clamped my jaw to keep my teeth from chattering but there was no stopping the shivering.

I reached out, tracing an intricate line of carved wood along the rim of the chest. Whoever had carved it had put a lot of work into it. I’ll admit, I was impressed. Although, the images they’d carved were a little odd for something so large and beautiful. All I could see were a bunch of toilets, wheels of cheese, and hundreds of mice. I’m not sure how those things would go together unless you were lactose intolerant, addicted to cheese, and had a serious rodent infestation.

I followed the lines. All the mice were crawling around atop vines above the mess of toilets and cheese. I was starting to question my earlier compliment to the woodworker.

The breeze came again along with the wailing and what could only be described as the rattling of heavy chains. The poltergeist seemed unoriginal in its ability to spook. I almost felt bad for him. Maybe this was his first time cursing a building? I’d give him points for trying.

There was something strange about the mice on the box. Most of them seemed happy trotting along by the rim of the lid but every time one was depicted near a toilet or a wheel of cheese it was on its back. I assumed that meant it was dead. So, cheese and toilets are bad? Got it. Shame neither of those things was in this walk-in freezer of a room with me making the depictions completely useless.

Despite the gloves, my hands were beginning to ache. The tip of my nose was burning which seemed at odds with the cold. I was running out of time to break into this chest. I’d gone from the threat of being skewered by bolts to the threat of freezing to death. Yay for me.

I was missing the simple problem of fighting off a monster. Sure it would have been a difficult task without Stella by my side but I’d gotten used to fighting beasts. There were so many, from the Toilet Crocs themselves down to the stupid brown scorpions. It was probably a bad thing that a thief preferred fighting over sneaking and lockpicking for treasure. It was something I should probably work on, just not right now when death was not too far away.

“Come on, Joe, get it together,” I said to myself.

I let out a hard gush of air and picked up the padlock, letting the bouncing balls assault me all over again. I sang my song and worked my way up, the speed turning them into a streak of white before I’d even reached the tenth one.

Focus, Joe. Focus.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

Eleven… Twelve... Thirteen!

The sound of my lockpick breaking cut through me like a knife. The count in the top corner ticked down to one. I was screwed. So unbelievably screwed. One last try. I had to win. There were no other options unless I wanted to curl up in the corner and accept my frozen fate. That sounded like a pretty shitty option, not gonna lie.

Thirteen… Fourteen… Fifteen!

The padlock clicked and swung open. I dropped to my knees, not even flinching when the solid ground bit into my knees. My whole body was shaking with pent-up energy as the droplets of sweat beading my forehead froze in place. I couldn’t even care that I’d burnt through my small collection of lockpicks. I could fix that later. Just so long as none of the other rooms required one I would be fine.

The cold came back with a vengeance, stabbing through my leather armor and deep into my muscles. I tossed the padlock over my shoulder and gripped the carved chest to pull myself up off the floor. The top of it was carved with a giant mouse lifted up on its hind paws and reaching for the sky. I grinned at the thing, feeling the wave of excitement flowing through me. There was treasure in here and it was all mine. I’d earned it. I unlatched the chest and threw back the lid, my smile making my cheeks ache.

It was empty.

I roared and kicked at the thing, my anger turning to agony. The wood was as hard as stone and unsurprisingly my big toe was now bent at an unnatural angle. My health dropped by a small fraction. More than you’d think over a smacked toe but not enough to have me trembling in my hopefully not blood-filled boots.

The wailing came back with its icy bite, stinging my face and howling in my ears.

Get out…

“Tell me how!” I bellowed.

Funny how the poltergeist could talk when it served its own purpose but not when it would help me. I knew from the quest itself that the poltergeist was the bad guy in this place but somehow it just didn’t put off that kind of vibe for me. If anything I’d go for harmless prankster over actual evil. There was no telling if that would change if and when I made it to the third door.

I rubbed at my short hair as I turned away from the lying chest. The were no skeletons littering the floor in this room which meant either the others who had made it this far had all moved on or no one had made it this far. My ego would like to believe that I was the only one that could make it this far but I knew deep down in my gut that that wasn’t true. Let’s be honest, it's much more likely I was just an idiot compared to the other thieves.

I marched to the heavy drapes I had hidden behind the first time I’d slunk in here and threw them back, looking for the secrets behind them. All that was there was a solid wall, defeating the purpose of the drapes to begin with. I wasn’t a decorator but it seemed counterproductive.

There were three sets of them and all of them were false and pointless.

“Fucking hell,” I snapped.

Stella’s distant whine sounded on the other side of the door. I ran to it, depressing the lever in hopes it had magically unlocked itself. It had not.

“Stella, break down the door!”

She whined louder this time but as there was no explosion of splintered wood I guess that meant she either hadn’t understood me or the poltergeist had protected this place from skill attacks like Bash.

Get out…

“I swear to my Goddess if you say that one more time I’m going to strangle you.”

My ear itched. I lifted my fingers to scratch at it and froze. Stella wasn’t the only one with mouse ears anymore. Would the cold take me first or would the transformation? Probably the cold. Damn, it was intense.

Get out…

I swore and lifted my head to scream at the ceiling where the blasted breeze and the wailing voice were coming from. Before the words escaped my lips I watched in horror as a tiny grey mouse skittered across a wooden support beam and out a small decorative window.

I sighed and pinched the bridge of my nose, furious with myself. Some heated fist clamped around my heart, boiling my blood as Kendrick’s disembodied voice laughed hysterically inside my head. It was a classic Kendrick move and one I should have seen immediately. What kind of scout was I if I didn’t look in every direction including up?

Muttering and cursing under my breath I gripped hard to the drapes closest to me and used them to climb the wall in a matter of seconds, swinging over onto the support beam. I had to crouch to fit on the thing under the ceiling but it was easy enough to run across it and slip out the decorative window back into the main hall. When I did a small chime rang out, letting me know I’d done good. It didn’t help to assuage my anger. All of this bullshit with the chest had been nothing more than an unbelievably cruel waste of lockpicks.

Look up. Was that so hard to do? Kendrick almost always appeared from overhead. That might not mean that all thieves did but it was a practical means to stay hidden and scout out treasures or information. Hell, I’d done much the same thing when I’d slid through the filthy pipes of Perth’s sewer hunting Theo.

I dropped to the ground, my knees almost buckling from the force of my fall. Stella barked and leaped up, placing her paws on my shoulders so she could lick my face. I scruffed up her fur before forcing her back to all four paws.

“Come on girl. We have two more rooms of bullshit to wade through.”