fandomhigh | Sneaky Spycraft: Week 3, Period 4

Aly was wandering around the classroom as the students arrived. As everyone took a chair, she smiled at them all and perched on the edge of the table at the front of the room.

"Good morning. Today is the first day we're going to talk about - and practice - some of the actual tools a spy uses." She grinned, excited. "Lockpicking isn't just used by spies, of course. But an agent can end up in a multitude of situations where a little manual dexterity is helpful." She winked at Seregil ~~if he was present~~. "Some of you already have experience in this of course. Either from another of my classes or outside activities. And for you, I have something a bit more difficult planned."

"But before we get into the actual practicing, let's go over the basics of how, exactly, you pick a lock." With that she took them through a short but information-filled lecture on picking locks.

She gestured them all to gather around the table. "Now, these are all training tools for learning. Take a turn at them, see what you can do. A third of picking locks is the theory, the other two-thirds is practice and steady hands." Aly smiled mischieviously at the class. "And I don't want to hear anyone complaining this is too hard. It's challenging, and those of you who've never done it before may take quite a while, but I learned how by the time I was four. There are sets of lockpicks on the table. Feel free to try out a couple different ones. And for those of you who want or need more a challenge, I have some much more difficult locks over in that corner." She pointed to where there was an assortment of pretty much any type of lock possible. Including one that didn't actually look like it needed a key.

he came back to the main table with a smile. "Right then, any questions before we start?" She paused to answer any that came up. "Now, I have one last thing for you. Part of being aware of your surroundings at all times is knowing who's near you and what they're doing there."

[OOC: ~~Wait for~~ the OCD ~~as is one's wont~~ is up, yo]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

None of them are hugely difficult. If it's all too easy, ask Aly and she definitely has some extra hard ones squirreled away.

Seely picked a lock ~~I kill me~~ a random and started working on it.

Mel surveyed the locks on the table. The one that didn't need a key caught her attention.

Aly's eyes lit up as she saw Mel's attention settle. "What do you think?"

Mel picked up the lock and started to examine it. "Electronic?" she guessed.

"Maybe," she said, pushing herself up to sit on the table. "None of those blinking lights though."

"Hmph," Mel said and shook it to see if it made a sound.

"Where'd it come from?"

[ooc: Could I have a physical description of the lock?]

No sound came from the lock. It seemed like a lump of heavy metal. "My brother gave it to me," Aly replied. Which probably wasn't much help.

Mel turned the lock around a couple more times and frowned. She poked at the front panel a couple of times. "Okay. It's either a trick lock or you need a finger print to open it," Mel guessed. "Any of that right?"

[ooc: Mwah ha ha. Evil Teacher! No biscuit!]

"Close," Aly agreed with a grin. "It's not a trick, but locks of this type are rarely made this way. It's keyed to a particular person so you need something that person's been very close to to open it."

"Well then who is it keyed too?" Mel asked with a predatory grin.

Aly smirked back at Mel. "My brother."

Re: Picking Locks: And the More Difficult Ones

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This was better and Zuko eagerly picked up some of the locks (because he was greedy) and set to.

Yeah, Ino gave the easy locks a roll of her eyes before heading straight to the more difficult ones. Ninja training gave her an edge, and sneaking around was one of her family's specialities.

She picked a lock and settled in to work on it.

Seregil bypassed the easy locks and went directly to the more difficult ones. A few minutes working with some of them proved to him that difficult was a relative thing and he looked around for something more of a challenge.

"Need something a little more difficult for the 'clever fingers' of yours?" Aly teased.

Seregil grinned at her. "I wouldn't mind pitting myself against a harder lock."

Aly reached across the table to snag one of her favourites, curious to see how Seregil would approach it. "This one looks a lot simpler than it is. There are only a few tumblers in there, but there's a trick to it."

Seregil took the lock from her and first examined it visually for any traps or clues, then took a slim lock pick and began testing the tumblers.

He played with it a moment then sat back and stared thoughtfully. A couple of heartbeats, he was smiling widely and sliding the pick back into the lock.

"Trick, indeed," he said as he worked. "Having one tumbler sitting already open so playing with it would keep it locked if you're not paying attention...." There was an audible click as the lock fell open in his hands.

"Very nice," she said with obvious pleasure. "It's a trick some of the more savvy merchants in my world use to keep the more base thieves from pilfering their goods. You need sensitive fingers to realise what's going on."

"Too many people approach locks with a load of assumptions on top of a lack of experience," Seregil said. "There's a language to them that you can learn if you're patient enough."

And on to the harder ones! These were, in fact, harder (imagine that), but Anders enjoyed the challenge.

Luke picked up a lock and a series of tools and set to work.

With his eyes closed.

It was easier for him to sense what was going on inside that way.

Lock picking was fairly childs play for Haku. He hadn't done it a lot while he and Zabuza traveled, but of the gang that they would sometimes travel with Haku had the most delicate touch for things like this.

Picking up one of the more complicated locks, Haku looked it over with a curious smirk.

This was Eve, picking one of the hardest ones she could find and sitting down to fiddle with it.

When magic didn't work on it, she set about glaring while working with the lock picks.