Mission Info:

Now having the key card to get inside the mansion and knowing the general layout of the grounds as well as the guards that patrol it, Ringo made his way along the southern wall of the mansion. Climbing up onto the roof of a neighboring home, the courtyard and the path leading to the front door of the mansion were in clear view. The new shift of guards had just started their patrol of the grounds and the front gate was much too far away from where Ringo stood to be of any concern. Waiting until the two guards in the courtyard were busy checking on the northern wall, Ringo made his move jumping across the small street from the roof to the wall and then softly landing on the well kept lawn.

He was in it now. The courtyard was full of hedges grown into the design of a family crest. Having seen what the hedges looked like from above, Ringo was able to navigate around the hedges, hugging the southern wall until he approached the mansion. By the time he had arrived to the mansion’s southern corner, the two guards in the courtyard had moved from the north wall to the south. Ringo stepped quickly along the mansion’s front face, keeping low to the ground and out of sight from the windows and the guard’s eye line over the hedges.

Crawling slowly through the grass, he eventually came up to the front door. He got up to a crouch and pressed his ear against the door softly to avoid rattling the door. A moment and a held breath later, Ringo was satisfied with what he couldn’t hear on the other side of the door. Feeling that it was quite empty, he slid the key card through the card reader and opened the door once the reader gave the green light go ahead. Swiftly, Ringo opened the door and squeezed inside, closing it just as quickly as he had opened it, only slowing the door just before it locked back into place.

Once inside, Ringo noticed that he was in the genkan of the house. Two archways on his left and right let him enter long hallways that extended down, straight ahead of him was a stairway hugging the right wall leading up to the second floor and a closet for guests to hang their clothes on the left side of the stairs. The floor was a well polished tatami and the paper screen doors to the hallways also showed the mansion’s traditional Japanese style. Ringo quietly stepped forward, looking both ways before crossing to the stairs. No guards immediately watching the front door but he remembered seeing guards on all of the three floors of the mansion.

Everything about Ringo was slow and controlled. Inside he was nervous, knowing one mistaken step could lead to his discovery and change the manner of this heist. His goal was to find the study that the two guards from the front gate had talked about. The more talkative one had mentioned that the study was guarded the heaviest of all the areas, All he had to do was find a place in the mansion that was heavily guarded and he would find the study that was rumored about holding something very valuable.

About halfway up the stairs to the second floor, Ringo heard voices coming from below. Two men were talking but he couldn’t make out their words. Either way, he now knew that two guards were on the first floor. Being careful, he stepped up to the second floor nearly having a heart attack as he got to the final step. Just to the left of the stairs, looking out the window, was a guard. Ringo froze in place, his eyes doing all the moving for him as he glanced around to get his bearings. The stairs went to a closed hallway that ended quickly at his left where the guard stood looking out the window and extended farther down to his right. To the left however was the stairs leading up to the third floor which sat right above the stairs that had brought him to the second floor. Peeking down the hallway, Ringo saw two guards cross in intersecting hallways, each appearing and disappearing as they moved on through the house. That made three guards on the second floor.

Needing to go left, Ringo would have to get rid of the sightseeing guard before turning around and spotting him. Ever so slowly, he pulled out his trench knife with his left hand as he crept up behind the guard. In a sudden burst of movement, Ringo stood up behind the guard, wrapped his right hand over the guard’s mouth and nose, and stabbed the man in the throat with his trench knife. Ringo let the man lean against him and dropped back down to a crouch. He dragged the bleeding man to the stairs and let him rest along them, face down in a poor attempt to look like the guard’s death was an accident of falling on the stairs.

Taking the opportunity of an unguarded hallway, Ringo quickly moved down the hall to the next set of stairs. Climbing up, Ringo realized he could become quickly exposed as the stairs led straight to a wall, forcing him to turn to the left and face whatever was there. Thankfully the stairs were walled in, so no one on the third floor would see him come up until he reached the very top. Reaching that top step, Ringo hugged the left wall, ready to face whatever lay beyond, his left hand gripping tightly to the bloody trench knife. His nervousness battled against him as he hesitated to turn the corner. He knew he needed to check how many guards were on this floor so he could determine where the study was and that he needed to move fast before someone found the body on the stairs, but the corner was so well lit from the hallway that he couldn’t get himself to do it.

Ringo had to take several deep breaths to calm himself down before he had the nerve to peer around the corner. Directly beyond the stair’s entryway was a hallway that ran parallel with the stairs, but also right across from the stair’s entryway was an archway leading into an open room full of plants and aquariums. In that open room were two guards that obviously had never run into trouble before on their shift of watching the third floor as Ringo observed them tapping on one of the aquariums trying to get the attention of a blowfish. Turning his attention away from the distracted guards and down the hallway, he noticed one guard moving down an intersecting hallway and calling out to someone that was further down the hall. Assuming that the other person was a guard, Ringo decided the study had to be on the third floor as it had the most guards from what he had noticed.

A quick side step slid him into the hallway and against the right side of the archway leading into the garden room. Going further down the hall and away from the two fish-loving guards, Ringo made his way to the second hallway and moved to the right corner, peering slightly around it to see what the third guard was doing and who he might have been calling out to. There just a few meters down was a fourth guard that was standing in front of a beautifully painted sliding door. The two were talking about some plan of the boss that had been fouled up by a visiting ninja. Ringo waved it off as unimportant and focused on how he might get around the two guards and find out if the study was behind those sliding doors. He already assumed that the study very well was behind the guarded doors, but there was no way of knowing for sure until he got in there.

While pondering behind the hall corner, Ringo realized the hallway intersection was right at a door to a room adjacent to the study. Seeing as the two guards were very engaged in their discussion, he quietly moved forward and entered the room, closing the doors silently behind him. He was close to his goal, his mind racing with thoughts of what prize might lay on the other side of the paper screen wall that separated Ringo from the study. Using his trench knife to make a long, vertical cut down the wall, he was able to create a slit of an opening to slide into the adjoining room which to his satisfaction was indeed the study.

Looking around him, the study definitely fit it’s name. A large desk and leather chair lay facing the gaurded door with bookcases behind them. The bookcases left a square slot for a painting to be mounted on the wall directly centered behind the desk. Thinking it odd to have stubbed short a bookcase just for a painting, Ringo decided to take it down. For all he knew the painting was worth a million in ryo. To his delight upon taking down the painting, a wall safe was revealed, the painting only a covering for what truly hung on the wall.

Once more Ringo placed his ear close as he turned the combination lock to it’s right keys, listening for the soft clicks in the locking mechanism slowly unlock itself. Opening the safe let show that a neck mannequin was being kept safe. On that neck was a black pearl necklace, the shiniest and most expensive pearls Ringo had ever seen. Immediately he grabbed it and held it out before him. He took a moment to relish the pearls’s beauty before pocketing it safely in his coat pocket. The job was done. The pearls would be the most expensive thing he’d most likely find, at least they were the most valuable to their previous owner.

Ringo closed the safe and hung the painting back up. The nerves of the heist had left him ever since he had touched the pearl necklace. He stepped through the cut slit in the wall and opened up a window in the adjacent room. It was much too risky to leave the same way he came in so he decided on leaping from the third floor and out into the hedges that outlined the house like a garnish around a cake. The hedges proved to be a safe buffering for his landing, allowing him to jump up onto the outer walls of the mansion and out into the streets of Kumo.

Post WC: 1795
Mission WC: 1795/1500 -DONE-