"The story so far? One of our friends is apparently trapped inside a house we've never seen before and we need to break into it to free him." The white condor recited to me as we finally arrived at the house in question, a million kilometers away from anything. How did he even get here...?

The house itself was colored white and made out of brick, with a flat top and a flagless flagpole in the middle of the roof. A small yard with some plants adorned the front, and beyond that was the gate, which we peered through curiously. "You know," I spoke, "for a supposedly abandoned house, this place is well kept."

"That's probably the memory at work," the condor replied. "Perhaps this house means something to him, and we're just seeing it like how he remembers it."

"Here I thought we knew everything about that tiger already," I scoffed, now backing away and looking all across the gate in a curious manner. "Also, how do you even trap yourself inside your own house? Seems like a... how does he say it? 'Skill issue?'"

The condor chirped with laughter. "To this day I still don't know what that means..."

The both of us looked around the house to see if there was any way inside. This house was connected to an extremely long row of other similar houses, so attempting to get around from the back wasn't an option. However, the condor did manage to fly above to the roof and look around for a bit, but unfortunately, this also proved to be fruitless.

"Okay, so, there's a large patio in the back, and a door that leads in, but it's locked from the inside," the white bird explained as soon as he had come back from his investigation. "All of the windows have steel bars around them, so climbing in that way isn't an option either. Our only bet is to have you crawl in from the bottom of the door and see if it's possible to get me inside."

"Hm, figured," I sighed. I still don't know how to control my own powers, but if it's to break out a friend then I suppose I must. The jet black dragon appearance I took on quickly melted away to a chrome color as I ran and dived across the gate, completely falling apart into a silver puddle with a loud splash once I landed on the other side. I managed to gather myself again as fast as I broke apart into this ooze form. In some ways, I'm lucky to have such a versatile form for any situation, but it actually really stinks since I temporarily lose my vision while I'm stuck as the puddle, even with the heightened sense of touch to make up for it.

"Okay, go straight ahead, you should pass two doors!" The condor instructed. Thankfully he knew how hard of a time I had with this body, so in times like these, he had to play Conductor and guide me to where I need to go. I pushed forward, slightly climbing a steel door which I remembered was in front of the wooden door, but I couldn't find a way past the wooden surface.

"Uh, doesn't seem like I can get past it..." I had to shout, which prompted a grunt from the condor.

"Right... oh!" The condor seemed to have been surprised by something, and only a few seconds later, after I had backed up from the two doors, he would speak up. "Go to your right, you should climb up a single step, and then stop when I tell you to. There's an open window you can go through."

Moving my large mass as instructed, I eventually got pretty far along this sidewalk before the condor told me to stop. If I remember the visual correctly, this appeared to be the right window, located near the edge of the house, and indeed, this window was wide open as I climbed in with no issues, and descended onto a new marble tiling. Unfortunately, this meant that it was all me now.

"Yeah, can't see anything from here, sorry!" The condor bickered back. "I'm gonna climb over the fence and I'll be with you!"

I didn't have to wait much longer, however, as I managed to actually form my head again from the goop, allowing me to see the world again. Or at least, the bedroom I was now stuck in. It was rather small, all things considered... Just beyond my sight, however, I caught a glimpse of a pure silver object underneath the large bed in front of me. I snuck one tendril underneath to snag it... and they were keys of some sort. Perhaps these can open the front door...

I slithered forward for a bit before finding myself in front of another door, though this one I could go underneath with no issue. My head emerged from the puddle again to find an alleyway, one that lead to a living room which contained the other window. I pressed forwards, hearing the ruffle of some feathers as I got to the front door just to the right of the living room and fumbled about with the keys. After finding the correct one, I unlocked the door successfully and got the condor inside.

"Nice job! Did you find anything else?" The condor looked down to me, and I shook my head.

"Not really, but I think I heard some snoring coming from the room I was in." We both creeped over to the hallway I was in previously and found three doors. The door to the right was the room I came from, which was locked, while the other two were open slightly. The open door to our left was another bedroom, which had a smaller bed... and a sleeping tiger.

"There you are, you doofus..." The condor replied as he went to go check on him, but I stopped him in his tracks.

"Hold on, don't do that. I think I know what's happening here." As the condor turned around in confusion, I pointed one tendril over to the third room. This middle room was a computer room of sorts, which also held a large whiteboard behind a wooden table, on top of which was a closed laptop and a lot of tossed and crumpled papers. The whiteboard had a large arrow, in black marker, pointing to a small piece of paper taped to the board.

Upon closer inspection, the note read:

"Stayed up all night writing important thing. Tell Prompters I gotta sit this week out."