It was getting better, Spoke decided as he climbed out of the trapdoor. At least he knew whose base it was this time. Ash would definitely be asleep at this time of night, but at least he was sure that it would be Ash who would probably kill him for being in here. Actually, Spoke's track record of sneaking into people's bases without being killed was running pretty strong. Hopefully he could continue the streak, not that it mattered if he didn't.
Spoke didn't really know what he was doing here, he had no reason to be in Ash's base, but every night he just had the urge to explore. Something like this would normally be okay, but given the dangerous nature of Lifesteal members, it was probably unhealthy. Funny how stuff like that changed so easily.
As he walked along, Spoke ran through his normal checklist that he had tentatively titled: "would I be able to recognize the owner of this base without seeing them in it?" It could be shortened to the acronym: "WIBATRTOOTBWSTIT". Yeah, so it was basically perfect.
There seemed to be infinite clues in Ash's base, Spoke was confident that he would have figured it out if he hadn't been here before. This was light work.
First, the entrance to the base was physically impossible to use unless you were Ash, who could clip through the walls. Spoke had only gotten in now because last time he was here Ash had shown him a trapdoor accessed through his crawl space that could let other people into the cabin.
Speaking of that, Ash's base was very much just a simple cabin in the woods. There weren't many material values for a demigod, so it was pretty small, but still had the essentials. The cabin was oddly homely compared to what Spoke expected from Ash, but he wasn't going to say anything about it. Hey, Spoke had his secrets too.
The second hint that clued Spoke into knowing this was Ash's base was the sheer amount of random objects lying around. A gold shovel propped against a windowsill, a pile of sticks laying in the doorway of a room, a pair of iron boots that definitely had some dangerous magical property stood innocently in a corner. Spoke gave those a wide berth, not wanting to be cursed with whatever new Ashswag trick.
Despite the weirdly normal outside of Ash's house, the cluttered inside definitely fit his personality. Spoke stepped gingerly over a mysterious cloth in the hallway and peered into a room. Storage room, he figured, but elected to not go inside because it would make too much noise. While Spoke probably wouldn't be in immediate danger if Ash found him, he'd like to avoid that possibility completely.
Spoke passed a bathroom, the door of it propped open. That was another thing about Ash's base, he had doors. Normally people didn't put doors in their base because it made moving through the base quickly -as one would during a panic situation- very hard. However, Ash's base was so secure that he could afford to have doors. Though Spoke was pretty sure that the doors were ninety percent just to go with the aesthetic of the cabin, it seems like something Ash would do.
Across the hall from the bathroom was another door, this one closed. It was closed last time Spoke was here, but Ash had pointed it out as his bedroom. Now Spoke could hear faint snores from behind the door, implying that the bedroom was in use. That was a little weird, since Ash claimed that he didn't snore, but Spoke figured he probably lied. Lying for fun was very much an Ash thing, Spoke knew that one firsthand.
The room that Spoke had crept into was evidently a kitchen, judging by the countertop and cabinets. To the left of the counter there was a sink, and for some reason two barstools were hanging upside down from the ceiling, their legs clipped into the above blocks. Spoke cocked his head at them, but decided that he wasn't going to ask questions. Ashswag was Ashswag.
