chat i dont think i’m gonna finish all these before the week is up
Day 2 Hero/Villain
The ninja team are on a museum heist and Lloyd’s on distract duty. Problem is the security guard he’s meant to distract is kind of cute.
Around 2652 words :) i don't know how museum security works and im not doing the research to find out
“Would’ve thought there would be more people back here.” Cole muttered.
“Not too much interesting about a bunch of pots.” Jay responded over the radio.
“I’d have to disagree.” Zane argued. “The design and history present in them can be quite fascinating.”
“Tell that to this empty ass room.” Kai scoffed.
“Pottery history is great and all, but,” Lloyd cut through the conversation. “Any updates on the statue?”
“We’re still working on it, Lloyd.” Nya informed. “We’re getting real close, though. Jay’s almost cracked the last password you’ll need.”
Lloyd huffed. This was possibly one of the most boring ways a heist could go awry. Well, boring for those on the floor. It was probably hectic as hell for those behind the scenes.
The original plan was for Cole, Kai, and Lloyd to go into the museum during opening hours, steal some real expensive sculpture that was being held in a storage room, sneak it out the back, get away in the van, and get it to the buyer.
In and out like that. No more than an hour should’ve been spent in this building.
Yet here they were, on hour four in this place because someone decided to switch which room the sculpture was in.
For once, they had every detail of the plan laid out to the letter. Every guard, every password, every exit had been figured out and accounted for, but the one thing that they hadn’t thought of, the one thing that they thought couldn’t go wrong, went wrong.
So now Lloyd was stuck wandering the museum with Cole and Kai, while Zane, Jay, and Nya were in the van, scrambling to figure out the new location of the statue and how to get it out of the museum before the place closed.
No, of course, they couldn’t wait until some other time to grab the sculpture. The buyer wanted it by tonight or else they’d back out of the deal. And the sculpture might not even be in the museum by tomorrow.
Kai stuck his tongue out at one of the old vases he was staring at. “It just gets repetitive after a while, doesn’t it? Staring at dusty old pots. I’d’ve rather tripped a wire than have this relocation stuff happen. It would’ve been more exciting than just waiting around.”
“Really.” Cole agreed. “That would’ve at least led to some high speed chase or maybe some kind of stealth escape.”
“Can we not openly talk about our crimes in public?” Lloyd asked.
Cole spread his arms, gesturing to how empty the room was. “Who’s gonna hear it, Lloyd? No one’s here.”
“Yeah, everyone’s at the space exhibits or the dinosaurs.” Kai added. “Y’know, the cool stuff we could be looking at instead of ceramics.”
“Well, it’s not our fault the museum decided to relocate the statue near all the pottery.” Nya chimed in, over their earpieces.
“Where even is that storage room?” Kai wondered. “You guys said it was around here, but I haven’t seen anything.”
“The entrance out of the public area is in the next room over, but there’s a few more hallways and doors after that.”
Kai beelined to the spot she pointed out, eager for something else to do. He looked around the corner for a second, then beckoned the other two over.
“We lucked out.” He told them. “It’s just one guard standing next to the door. No one else in the room.”
“I’ll distract him.” Lloyd offered.
“I’ve got it!” Jay shouted in excitement, cutting off Lloyd’s time to detail a quick plan. He lowered his volume. “Sorry, sorry. I’ve got the last password. I’m sending them to Cole in the order that you’ll need them. I think there’s also a lock or two you’ll have to pick.”
Cole checked his phone. “Got ‘em. Is everyone ready?”
“Been ready for the past three hours.” Kai patted Lloyd on the back and shoved him towards the entrance of the next room. “Go get ‘em, Lloyd.”
“Cameras are going down now.” Zane said. “I’d say you have about twenty to thirty minutes before they figure out how to get them back online.”
Lloyd stepped out into the room, with no real plan in mind. If it was a bigger crowd, Lloyd would fake an injury to draw attention to himself, but that would probably be suspicious in a room with just two people in it.
He figured he’d act casual and peruse the ceramics in this room before trying anything.
…Kai was right. All the artifacts just kind of blended into each other with no real distinction between one and the next.
At least the ones in the last room were decorated and intact, these ones were just plain, broken fragments. If you got lucky, one would have a legible pattern scratched into the surface, but that seemed to be it.
But he wasn’t here to complain about pottery, he had to figure out how to get that guard away from the door.
Lloyd supposed he could always go up and talk to him, but that probably wouldn’t get him away from the door. He could also call him over somehow, but he would have to figure out how to and that might not even work.
“Are you interested in the bowls?”
Lloyd spun to find the security guard calling to him from across the room. He was still standing by the door, but his attention was now on Lloyd.
Now, Lloyd was not at all interested in the bowls. In fact, he didn’t even know he had been staring at bowls.
But, in his time of distracting security guards, never had the guard themselves set up the bait.
“Are these bowls?” Lloyd asked. “I figured they were something else.”
“The ones you’re looking at are bowls, but there’s other kinds of kitchen items in here.”
Lloyd could see the broken pieces in front of him coming from more bowl-shaped objects. “I guess they are bowls. Do you know a lot about these things?”
The guard shrugged. “A good amount.”
Easy catch. “You mind telling me more?”
The guard looked left, then right. A useless action, no one else was in the room, but him and Lloyd. He picked himself off the wall and walked over to the display case Lloyd was standing in front of. His back was to both the storage room door and the entrance to the room.
As he got closer, Lloyd picked out a few general details about him. Black hair and a little taller than Lloyd’s height. Lloyd still figured that he could take him in a fight if it came down to it. He had a standard security jacket thrown over his clothing and no other gear besides a walkie-talkie.
The guard leaned over the glass display case. “Well, for starters, everything in this room is pottery from a bunch of ancient eastern villages.” The guard motioned across the room. He brought his hand back to the display in front of him. “These ones specifically were used for religious purposes.”
Cole poked his head into the room, noticing the guard abandoning his post. As soon as the guard’s eyes were off Lloyd, he motioned with his head for Cole and Kai to move.
Lloyd fed him a question or two to keep him talking. “Religious purposes? How can you tell?”
The guard pointed at the little plaque beneath the case, which stated all the stuff he said very clearly
“Oh.” Lloyd knew he looked dumb, but that was the least of his worries.
Kai and Cole shuffled across the room as quietly as possible, reaching the door that was meant to be guarded. Cole began to figure out the keypad, while Kai kept watch for him.
“I mean, besides that,” the guard continued, “you can tell by the etching on the bowls.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, you see those patterns on the bowl?”
Lloyd could. They were the same ones Lloyd had dismissed earlier as barely legible scrawls.
“They’re images of old gods, or what people thought they looked like.”
Lloyd pointed to one. “That one doesn’t look like a person.”
“Because it’s not. Some people thought the gods appeared as snakes or other animals.”
Lloyd looked back up to check Cole and Kai’s progress. Cole had figured out the password and gotten the door unlocked with minimal noise. The guard didn’t notice as Cole and Kai slipped through the door.
Hard part was over. Of course, Lloyd couldn’t bail immediately. The longer the guard stood over here, the more progress Kai and Cole could make without the guard noticing something was off.
“These guys thought that this god in particular appeared as a tiger sometimes. He was a god of the hunt, though, so that makes sense.” The guard kept talking and Lloyd listened. Not much else to do.
“And so what was this bowl used for?”
“Ah, there could be a bunch of things. Maybe they used it for prayers before a hunt, maybe they used it to sacrifice their winnings from a hunt to thank the god. Some people think they used it for rituals to commemorate hunting games.”
Lloyd nodded along, feigning interest. Or…well, he thought he was feigning interest. Some of the stuff the guard was talking about was kind of interesting.
“Hey, Lloyd. You’re free to go now.” Jay radioed to him over his earpiece. “Kai and Cole are making enough progress that we’d be gone before anyone finds anything out.”
Lloyd could not respond to Jay, but honestly, he wasn’t paying much attention to anything besides the guard.
As the guard rambled about all the uses of a bowl, Lloyd did not miss the way his eyes lit up when bringing up the different possibilities. The guard’s enthusiasm for the subject was clear on his face as he kept talking.
Lloyd liked hearing people nerd out about stuff they liked and he would be lying if he didn’t find it a little adorable.
…
Holy shit, there was no way he was catching feelings for a security guard.
“Oh, I didn’t mean to talk your ear off, though.” The guard stopped his ramblings and apologized. “I’m sure you’ve got other exhibits to see.”
“No, no. It’s fine.” Why was he saying that? “I was boring myself to death staring at this stuff. But I hadn’t thought about all the things you brought up. Makes it a little more interesting.”
“Lloyd, that was the perfect opportunity to get away.” Nya remarked.
Unhelpful commentary aside, Lloyd had come to that realization himself. Why was he even still here? Kai and Cole were probably out of there by now and him staying here would only hold up the mission.
The guard looked at him with confusion. “Then why are you back here? You’re like three rooms deep into this pottery exhibit.”
A fact Lloyd was painfully aware of. He played dumb. “I don’t know. I was just wandering.”
The guard bought it, thankfully. “That’s fair. Not many people come all the way back here. It’s so deep into the museum and they don’t keep anything too exciting over here.”
“It seems exciting to you. How come you know so much about this stuff?” Why was he perpetuating the conversation?
“Lloyd, I don’t mean to question your tactics,” Zane radioed in, “but are you flirting with the security guard?”
Lloyd ignored him. He was in too deep now. The guard seemed shocked at Lloyd’s comment. “Oh, thank you. I work in the museum, so I usually get to spend a lot of time with the stuff.”
“So you don’t usually do security work?”
“Not really. I’m usually the info guy and I’m posted farther up, but apparently they moved something important behind that door.” He pointed to the door that Cole and Kai had disappeared behind however long ago. “It was a quick switch and they were short on staff so they just told me to stand by it for a few hours.
“Keep this between you and me,” the guard leaned in closer to Lloyd, “but the museum said that caught word that someone was gonna steal whatever they put back there.”
Lloyd feigned shock. “Really? Shouldn’t you still be over there if it’s so important?”
“Eh, if it was that important, they’d put more people back here. But so few people come back here, I guess they thought one guy was enough.”
“Or maybe they thought that you were enough to handle any threat.”
The guard laughed at his joke and Lloyd would definitely be willing to hear that laugh again. “You’ve got jokes. Although, you are right, I should get back over there, eventually. Is there anything else you wanted to know about anything in here?”
Yes. He almost said that, but Zane reminded him of reality. “Lloyd, I appreciate you finally trying to find a date, but you need to get out of there. We are not sabotaging the mission because you have a crush.”
A harsh reality, but Lloyd supposed he could always come back. “I’d love to, really, but I’ve got somewhere to be. How about I get your name so I know who to look for if I return?”
An idiot, he was. He may or may not have walked right into a trap he set up himself.
“You’re not the most perceptive, are you?” The guard gestured to his nametag. In Lloyd’s defense, it was slightly hidden behind his jacket. “It’s Brad. Brad Tudabone, but just Brad’ll do.”
Then, the guard asked the question Lloyd regretted setting up. “What’s yours?”
Nya, oh so helpfully, chided Lloyd. “I don’t care how cute you find the security guard, Lloyd. You are not going to give him your name.”
Now, Lloyd could’ve given him his real name and just hoped that the mission went so smoothly no one would ever consider him as a part of the heist. Lloyd could’ve given him a fake name, but it probably wasn’t the best move to start off with a lie like that. Lloyd could’ve also given him no name at all, and just bluff his way out of the situation, somehow, but that would’ve probably been the most suspicious thing to do.
His silence was going on for a beat too long.
“It’s Lloyd.”
He gave him his name. It seemed like the easiest option.
He could hear shouts of disagreement over his earpiece, but he just had to ignore them once more. Maybe Lloyd was a common enough name that he wouldn’t remember it. Or maybe he’d luck out and Brad wouldn’t tell anyone that he had seen Lloyd around here.
Brad looked Lloyd up and down. “Lloyd, huh? Alright, well, I guess I’ll see you around then.”
He waved Lloyd off and Lloyd waved back as he left the room to make his way out to the nearest exit of the museum.
“Lloyd, that is the dumbest thing you've ever done for a mission.” Nya stated once he had gotten to the van.
“He didn’t even do it for the heist,” Kai called from the back. “That conversation could’ve lasted five minutes and everything would’ve gone exactly the same.”
“Why’d you even give him your name?” Cole asked. “I feel like getting his number would’ve been so much easier and also wouldn’t have given up identifying information.”
“I didn’t think about that,” Lloyd admitted.
“No, no.” Jay responded from the shotgun seat. “I think Lloyd did the right thing by not getting his number. That would’ve been moving too fast.”
“Getting a number is too fast?”
“For this situation? Yes.”
The truck descended into conversation as to whether getting his number would’ve been jumping the gun, and also the fact that Lloyd would probably get implicated in this crime, but Lloyd couldn’t find it in him to join.
He was about to gain a much greater interest in pottery.
Hey everyone! A few days are left before the very first prompt! (Sorry I couldn't get to announce it sooner, some things came up.) It starts on August 1, the official air date of the episode ever, Double Trouble! You can post entries and tag #GreenflowerWeek2024 ! (o´∀`o)
The prompts were chosen by what was most voted on, in order!
Listing it here anyway just in case:
August 1: Childhood/Present/Future
August 2: Hero/Villain
August 3: Stars/Flowers
August 4: Healing/Hurt
August 5: Punks/Nerds
August 6: Comicbooks/Candies
August 7: Free Day
You don't necessarily have to follow these prompts! If you do, it's completely up for interpretation how you want to use them! You can even use this prompt list after the week itself! Even better if it's in the tag for others to see! Don't stress and have fun! (ノ*°▽°*)
I do have a poll for anyone who wants to participate! It will be under the cut to keep this post shorter if reblogged!
I was thinking it'd be fun to turn this community week into some kind of public zine! My friends and I will format pieces into a scrapbook/photo album aesthetic with everyone's art being polaroids on the pages, of course with proper credit! (Written works can be added too if any are created!)
It will look something like this:
Lovely art belongs to my friends @twigs-sprigs and @marsipain! It's not the best draft but I hope you see the vision!
This is just an interest check so I just want to figure out if some people are down for the idea before giving out too many details that could muddle up the post ( ´ ▽ ` ) ! If this does go underway, you can choose not to display your art at all if that's what you'd prefer!
What do you all think?
Community Greenflower Zine:
★ Sure!
★ Nah!
Voting ended onAug 5, 2024
Feel free to send an ask if you have any!
Thank you so much for reading this far and have a nice day :)
