Skip the lockers

Even the best mercenary guards will have little wealth compared to Orestes, and if they do have valuables, they would not leave them in a common locker area. You doubt you'd find much more than some warm outer clothing, or some rations to make the night pass a little faster. The room is very dark inside; only the little moonlight that filters through the open door you climbed through lets you see any of the guard room.

Kneeling on the floor next to the hatch you let your fingers be your eyes. You can feel a heavy iron ring used to lift the square slab of stone. The slab sits on a rim of weather worn wood and the hinges on the far side of the ring indicate that the trap door lifts up into the room. Testing the hatch slowly you lift the ring until your fingers have a firm grip on the handle and slowly apply pressure increasing the level of strength you use gradually until you feel the slab shift slightly upwards. After the slightest shift that a less trained thief might not have even been aware of, the hatch ceases its motion.

Barred, or locked from within. Disappointed, but not surprised you gradually let the hatch slip down the hair's width that it had lifted. Looks like you will need to look through the lockers after all. After closing the door to the walkway, you light one of the torches with the tinderbox on the table. The light is still dim, but compared to before the room feels like it is lit by the midday sun. Opening lockers at random you quickly find a heavy cloak. Hanging the garment over the door will decrease any light that might escape through the cracks.

More lockers opened and you find a few more useful items. A second cloak is tossed to the floor near the hatch, a heavy dagger and hand axe are placed quietly on the cloak and two wool hats join the pile. In one of the lockers you find a jar of olives floating in a thick layer of olive oil. Sitting on the folded wool cloak you pour a liberal amount of the olive oil on each of the hinges. Tossing a few of the spice olives in your mouth you start to work with the heavy dagger clearing the wood near the hinges.

It takes a few minutes, but as you work you can feel the center rod move a little, the hinge is made of bronze - no doubt to avoid rusting in the rain back before the top room had been built - and as you worked on loosening the rod you could see the gleam of fresh metal where the dagger bit into the softer metal. After ten more minutes of work you worked enough of the wood casing away from the hinges to make room for the center rods to slide from the hinges.

Now for the tricky part, placing the sharp tip of the dagger against the end of the rod you covered the pommel of the heavy blade with one of the wool caps and used the hand axe as a hammer to chisel away the head of the rod until nothing blocked the core from sliding from the hinge. Each blow of the axe made a dull thump, but you feel confident that unless a guard was listening with his ear on the other side of the hatch you could not have been detected.

The second hinge took even less time as you got better at using your makeshift tools. A few muffled taps knocked each of the center rods from their hinges and the hatch was ready to be moved. Standing again you put out the torch and moving slowly to let your eyes adjust again to the darkness you put the hand axe olives and cloaks away into the lockers slowly and carefully. Using the heavy dagger as a lever you pried the hatch up from the hinges until there was enough of a crack to slip a knit cap into. Repeating the same procedure on the other side lifted the hatch completely out of its framework and made enough of a gap for you to feel warm air rising slowly from the room below.

Even with your eyes completely adjusted again to the darkness you can see nothing from the room below the trap door. Sliding your strong fingers into the crack by the hinges you lifted the stone slab until you could feel the resistance of the bar that prevented you from opening the door fifteen minutes ago. Carefully wiggling the heavy rock door you are able to slide it free of the barrier and now only the weight of the stone keeps you from opening the doorway the rest of the way. Once again your biceps tense and this time you lift the hatch free of its frame and gently slide it onto the floor under the table.

Using your hands as your eyes again you can feel the top step of a stairwell under the hatch just as you anticipated.