Thread: Heist (Gift of Gab + MachineHeart)

Once his cousin joined Greg, Luke dug into his messenger bag, pulling a ghoul mask on over his face and latex gloves over his fingers. Next up, he pulled out a flash light to play over the ground and found his cousin and best friend. Put these on, he whispered, pressing gloves and a balaclava into her hands. There was no reason to leave any fingerprints, and if they continued to play it right and in the dark the witnesses would be too confused to really know what was going on. One might latch onto the wolf, another onto the scary hairy guy screaming, another onto the balaclava, another onto the screaming white ghoul mask. The police would never be able to unravel the twisted narrative. He moved away, towards the door that lead to the vault, hating how hot and humid the inside of the mask was and how his lips pressed flat against the voice modulator he had installed in the mask. Somehow, in the middle of all this, that was what he was thinking about. In the middle of his jackhammering heart, the sweat beading down his forehead and the fact he was breaking two different sets of laws and that they were going to get away with it. So far, so good. Everything was going to plan. When Cedar brought him the bank manager he was taken aback for a moment, silently peering down at the man with the flashlight in his face. Then something kicked in and Luke brought the flashlight down closer to the managers eyes. There are three realities you need at address. Lukes voice came out modulated and abnormally deep, uninflected and monotone. One you are our hostage. Two your life depends on the whims of myself and my colleagues. Three how are you best going to ingratiate yourself to us? Luke turned the flashlight to the ground, hauling the now night blind manager to his feet by his collar and unceremoniously hauled him towards the bank vault, signaling Sophia to follow. Her turn was coming up. The sorcerer laid his hand on the door handle, weakening the lock enough that a sharp kick to the door caused it to burst open to reveal an open gate and the vault. The safe was huge, the door a thick circular porthole with a wheel on its right side. Nestled in the middle of the vault was a keypad with a red LED bar above it currently reading LOCKED. Vault code, now. Luke pushed the bank manager to the vault. But you need two Vault code. This was where Sophia became so crucial. The vaults electronic lock worked off of a dual authorization system where the bank manager and certain bank customers and bank officials both had to enter their respective codes to open the vault. However, due to a flaw in the vaults electronics entering the bank managers code followed by a large electrical surge would force its system to enter maintenance mode, automatically unlocking and opening the door. Now it was just time to see if the vault manager would enter the door, and if Sophia had the voltage necessary to make it work. Meanwhile, while Luke had been dragging the bank manager to the vault Greg was herding the crowd to lay facedown on the carpet with their fingers laced over his head. Along the way he learned several important lessons about being a bridge troll. First and foremost being was that there was no not roaring at people in his truer selfs form. As giddy and excited being able to satisfy his desire to intimidate and extract compliance, he found that the experience was getting to be unnecessarily traumatic for the assorted hostages. Yuh thdun heb du Greg grunted through his overabundance of rending fangs, realizing that he couldnt be intelligible through these things without full on yelling. The room already reeked of fear sweat and for all that Greg was enjoying stomping around and screaming at people, he didnt enjoy making girls cry. There was one girl sobbing softly into the ground, like a beaten, broken thing. The giant loped away, his apish hairy arms swinging low, bent forward with a certain tiredness, only to turn back around and patrol around the group in an irregular circle. The second important lesson was that after the shift between human and troll forms there was a period of adjustment. With his stride elongated Greg found himself barely dodging walls, accidentally shoving his hand through partitions and tables when he wasnt paying attention and making an absolute mess of things. Not to mention a lingering sense of vertigo from his perspective suddenly changing. The third was that being a troll felt good . It was so rare to get an opportunity to cut loose these days, you usually had to go deep into backwoods. With the proliferation of drones and smartphones even that wasnt safe anymore, and the sasquatch nuts kept you on your toes. Now that Greg thought about it, he hadnt been in his troll form since he was a teenager at his adulthood ritual. This felt like his real skin. All his little aches and pains had faded away, leaving him feeling suddenly more free and light than he had in years. This was exactly how he was meant to be.