Stealth took a lot of math. People didn’t understand that. They’d talk about how soft a good rogue’s feet were, how quickly they moved over the ground, or how they melded into shadows. What they didn’t talk about was how quickly the rogue could solve a quadratic equation in their head, which was approximately four tenths of the job, and easily nine tenths of the training.

As Corbin saw a Hawk-Demon Architect coming down the road, he ran that equation so fast it would have made the head of anyone else his age spin, except maybe Spiky.

And they call us rogues.

If people had any idea the sheer complexity of mentally estimating the detection capabilities of people whose stats you had never seen, they’d never think to associate the stealth classes with mere criminals. If they knew that he was mapping a series of complex Euclidean equations to the real-world terrain, they’d probably be shocked. But Corbin wasn’t only doing that. He also ran a completely separate group of formulae on various objects to determine how much cover they might provide compared to the detection ability of his target.

Corbin did all of this so fast, he still had time to dive behind a barrel and avoid the house-builder bird breaking his stealth and ruining an hour’s work. If they knew, they’d call him a nerd. An academic.

It didn’t matter.

The most important jobs in the city required stealth. When the city needed to scout a monster wave, it needed someone who could cut through thousands of monsters without catching a single eye and make it back to the town’s more secret entrances. When some pill-jockey needed a hard-to-get flower, they needed someone who could run into the forest, pick a few mushrooms, and make it back to the city without anyone being the wiser.

He couldn’t do any of that yet. But one day he would, and he was proud of every bit of the mental prep-work that was moving him towards that goal, whether people acknowledged it or not.

There were also some immediate advantages to being stealthy.

Cowering behind a barrel full of seeds, Corbin thought back to the day before, when the new, pink demon had approached the blue water girl. People really didn’t understand how great it was to be able to have a clear vantage of entertaining moments like that. Where others had to observe from afar, he was able to close the gap and see every moment of Arthur’s discomfort in glorious, beautiful detail. He saw the tension in his shoulders build as he dealt with water-elemental awkwardness for the first time.

Of course, everyone got that much. No matter how far away they were, they could see Arthur’s awkwardness.

But only Corbin was close enough to watch the subtle but real way Mizu’s eyes tracked the new kid as he left.

Mizu was pretty. Real pretty. But for anyone who knew her, it was an open question of what her romantic fit would be. Judging by the fact that she never looked entirely away from Arthur again after that, Corbin knew she had found it, whether she knew that yet or not.

Corbin had considered telling Arthur how much better he had done than his own pink-ape estimates of success, then decided against it.

Eventually, stealthers heard a lot and saw a lot that they shouldn’t. There was no way to avoid it, and the only reason everyone forgave them for it was that anyone with a stealth class learned to be absolutely discreet about what they saw. If he was going to be a good at his job, and he intended to, he would need to get good at that sooner rather than later.

The hawk was now far enough down the street that Corbin could leave cover, but he waited a few moments before he did. One of the most repeated pieces of advice his mentor had given him was to never, ever start moving again before carefully examining his surroundings. Letting impatience choose your movements was a recipe that eventually got stealthers killed.

Instead, Corbin carefully looked up and down the street, assessing each person on it, running some numbers, and making sure he could get back in motion without destroying all his potential experience multipliers in the process.

Stealthers gained experience based on several factors, but the big ones were the number of entities he was hiding from, how skilled those entities were at detection, and how much time and covered ground fit into a single sustained session of undiscovered sneaking. Right now, he was ten minutes from a brand new personal record, and the difference in experience he’d get if he broke that time barrier was probably a multiplier of… five? Six? It was big.

That made what happened next even harder to handle.

As he panned down the street, he saw a rabbit woman herding her two small children to the city square while carrying two large canvas bags filled with her day’s shopping. She was distracted watching other things and would have been beyond easy to hide from, up to and including the moment her money pouch dropped from her belt to the street.

The dilemma was real. First, he wasn’t a jerk. He knew that woman needed her pouch. Even if she didn’t particularly need the money in it, she had enough kids that going to look for it would be a pain, and she’d have to worry until she found it. Normal unstealthed Corbin would already have his hands on it by now and would be a second from pressing it into the woman’s hands.

But with an entire session of stealth on the line, the decision was much harder. And someone else might see the money pouch. If they didn’t, she probably had some identification in it so it could be returned to her. Most people did.

It would very likely be fine without him touching it at all, and he had a lot to lose by doing so. And yet, he glanced at the street one more time, jumped from behind the barrel, and scooped up the wallet.

Now he had another decision. He could destealth, giving the woman her wallet with zero risk of misunderstandings. Those kinds of mishaps happened from time to time with stealthers. As much as you might be careful, you couldn’t always control just when and how people spotted you. When you got noticed, sometimes it was near someone’s door. Sometimes, it was just behind someone. And sometimes, it was near a merchant’s goods.

Crime was rare, and most stealthers were good people. But not all of them. Stealth meant people couldn’t see you, and even those who were well-off sometimes fell prey to the impulse to steal, to listen to things they shouldn’t, and to go places they shouldn’t go. Everyone had heard the stories. For not the first time, Corbin wondered how many of those stories were fake, or at least misunderstandings.

Because I’m about to do something stupid and if it goes wrong, I’ll become one. Probably.

Creeping up behind the woman while sticking to the shadow cast by a row of buildings, Corbin waited until she turned a corner and darted forward into her blind spot. That much was easy. The rabbit was still distracted by her two bunnies, and none of them had the perception to notice him unless he literally tripped over one. The trickier part was going to be tucking the purse back in her belt. Physical contact was the best and quickest way to break stealth, and if he was going to manage this, he’d need to be quicker, smoother, and overall better at it than he’d ever been before.

But there was no time to worry about that, at least not if he wanted to do this before she got to the city square. There, people would break his stealth easily no matter what he did. Twisting the mouth of the cloth bag into a narrow, rope-like shape, he darted his hand out and shoved the wallet through the belt, counting on the tension of the belt to hold it once he did. Then, darting back to cover, he winced. As quick as he was and as smoothly as he had got it through, he still felt the catch.

Hiding was not a thing that always made sense.

With a big enough level and skill advantage, he could walk directly through someone’s line of sight and still not have them notice. When someone did notice him when he was stealthed, it wasn’t a battle between his skill and their eyes, at least not entirely. Instead, it was system-screen against system-screen battle of stats. The catch was the feeling of that battle engaging, a kind of friction against his system-augmented concealment. And nine times out of ten, it meant he’d be discovered.

At the very least, he was glad it wasn’t happening with his hand on her purse in full view of the street. If she pushed for it, she’d find him here, and that would be it for his training day. A good deed done, and a lot of experience to be made up for tomorrow.

And then, like a miracle, the best possible thing happened. One of her kids stepped on the back of another’s shoe, something that was taken as an immediate declaration of war. The smaller, weaker-looking stepped-upon child immediately turned, let loose a lagomorphic cry of rage, and bit the shoe-stepping offender on the arm.

The catch immediately let go, and Corbin ran into a back alley, stealth unbroken. A few minutes of low-risk prowling later, he got the achievement he had been waiting for.

Ready to Pounce (Improved)

You have once again managed to increase the time you can spend undetected in populated areas. In addition, you’ve managed to do so while having an up-close-and-personal physical interaction with one of your targets.

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Rewards: Skill generation, Experience

Hot damn, he thought. A new skill.

He was excited. The only thing that kept him from fumbling the act of opening his system screen was that it was technically impossible. He ignored the absolutely massive amount of experience and the few level-ups the experience had given him, going directly to his new skill.

Help from the Shadows

Rather than harm, you slink through darkness trying to find opportunities to help. Rather than theft, you look for lost things to return to their owners. While some do good in the full sight of others, you do it in ways that might well never be rewarded, or even noticed. But you do good all the same.

When you are using your stealth in service to other individuals or the greater good, you get a bonus to both your stealth skills and any skills that operate in conjunction with them (Example: Feline Pounce). The effectiveness of this improves with your primary stealth skill and your dexterity and perception stats.

This is a best-case scenario skill. Every sneaky guy helps other people eventually. This skill just makes that easier. It’s keyed to both primary stats you’re focused on.

It’s a big, big day for hiding. And this does change the game a little.

Before, he wandered around, soaking in the experience he needed from whoever was nearby. Now, he’d need to find ways to help people while doing it. And there were only so many dropped wallets to sneak back into pockets. He’d have to get more organized.

But he knew just the guy.

—

The wolverine commander was just then sitting down to his lunch, satisfied to have at least one break. It had been a long day maintaining the wall, organizing what few volunteer troops he commanded, and generally making sure there weren’t exploitable gaps in the city’s defenses that would get someone hurt or killed. He did all that and made time for when Pico needed him to apply small buffs to a wizard, cleric, or a suddenly very important locksmith trying to open a flammables depot door without blowing anyone up.

It was a long-hours, high-stress job. But this sandwich was going to fix all of it.

Every once in a while, a day’s schedule lined up just right to take him to his favorite bread store, the best roast meat vendor he knew, the produce market that had the best fixings, and the one store in town that knew how to make his favorite condiment just right. He had shaved the meats, prepared the cheeses, piled everything high, and stared down at a work of perfection that required the efforts of ten skilled masters to create, whether they knew it or not.

His mouth watered. He let it.

And then, the peace was broken. He felt his system catch on something, the same way a hair might enter an eye. His arm shot out into the nothing before the system even had a chance to resolve the conflict, dragging a young, terrified predatory cat into view.

“I’m sorry! I…”

The wolverine growled.

“I do not care how stealthy you are, Corbin. If you touch this sandwich, I will sew bells through your hide myself. Can’t do much hiding then.”

“Old man, I’m not here for the sandwich!”

“Then you’re a fool.” The wolverine looked back down to his meal. “Look at her. She’s glorious.”

“She?” Corbin asked. “I don’t think you can assign genders to a sandwich, old man.”

“I can do whatever I want. Especially in my own house. Which you are burgling.” He sat down, holding up a quieting hand as he pulled half of the sandwich towards his mouth and took a bite. The bread was even crustier than he had hoped. He chewed away, finally satisfied. “Now, I do have to say it’s impressive you got this far. New skill?”

“Some levels and a new skill. I got lucky on my last prowl.”

“I bet. Of course, that leaves the question of why you chose to use those new powers here.”

“The new skill says it works better when I help people. I figured you might have some ideas.”

“Ah, one of those. Yes, I can probably think of something.” The old man chomped into his sandwich again, taking a bigger bite this time. Corbin waited a good ten seconds before the commander’s mouth cleared enough to talk again. ”There’s always monster waves.”

“Sure. Glad to help when one comes. But that could be months,” Corbin said.

“I don’t think so. The air smells… ready. Probably one coming sooner than you think.”

Corbin had learned not to question the old man about smells. It wasn’t even a skill thing. The old man could just tell when things were going to happen. Corbin had once seen him successfully predict a marriage proposal from the odor of the local atmosphere. He had no idea how the man did it.

“Fair enough. But what about in the meantime? And after?”

The old man looked at the sandwich in his hand lovingly, sighed, and set it down before walking to his kitchen and retrieving a pencil and pad. Sitting back down, he scrawled a note.

“Take this down to the church. You know Itela?”

“Not well.”

“Not sure anyone but Karbo knows her real well. Doesn’t matter. Give her this. Tell her it’s for the problem we talked about.”

“Which problem?”

The old man paused mid-bite, fixing his one good eye on Corbin with a glare that could have burned a hole in a chunk of granite.

“Do you really think you need to know more and interrupt me eating this sandwich?”

Corbin didn’t even consider the question.

“No, sir. My apologies.”

—

“So it’s courier work?”

“Basically. Really, it’s rumor suppression.” Itela was working on a lunch of her own, but was much more laid-back about when she snuck her bites in. “The church is in plain view of everyone. When we send out communications, or ask for them, people tend to get ideas. Sometimes wrong ones, sometimes right. And they talk. But if you did it…”

“They wouldn’t see the courier, and they couldn’t gossip.”

Itela smiled.

“I’m glad to see you get it. Now take this.” She pulled a small leather messenger’s pouch from behind her desk. “You know the smaller alchemist’s shop on the west side of town?”

“The one with all the flowers out front?”

“That’s the one. Give this to the owner. Then come back. I’ll have more tasks by then.”

“Do you think you have enough to keep me busy?”

“Oh, you’re worried about leveling? Don’t worry, Corbin. I won’t run out. From here on, the church officially intends on working you to the bone.”

—

Itela wasn’t kidding.

Corbin found himself all over the city, maintaining stealth better and better, except when meeting the insane high-level demons who Itela tended to communicate with. Even that wasn’t without its perks though. He tried out all his new ideas and approaches on those guys, judging how good they were by how quickly they failed. Soon, they’d be the only people he could use as a yardstick at all. A few more levels and he’d be able to sit on the shoulders of an average person in the city without them knowing he was there at all.

As a result of all this, he was leveling fast. And before he knew it, he was facing what other stealthers had told him was coming. The crisis, they called it. For every stealth specialist, there came a moment when they realized the real impact of spending more time invisible to the world than participating in it.

While they could always unstealth, there was a sensation that built up in all of them that they had at some point become less tied to the world than they used to be. It was like standing outside of a glass window and looking in. According to them, it was the main cause of class failure in their professional realm. Some people just couldn’t take the loneliness.

After a quick trip to the forest with his class, one where he might as well have not gone at all given how many people could tell he was there, he felt the weight of that lonesomeness fall fully on his shoulders. He was a cat-demon, sure. Independent. Self-sufficient. But that didn’t mean he was immune to being alone. The funny thing was, he assumed he’d be just fine. But over the next couple of days, as he watched his peers pull together to help Arthur set up his stand, he felt that disconnect.

He was close to the action, but not quite part of it. The plot, as it were, was advancing without him. The world was becoming someone else’s story.

Just as things were about to come to a head, he saw her. If he hadn’t been on a particularly long-range delivery mission, he would have missed it. A family of cat-demons were moving into a house on the edge of town, unpacking furniture and bags from a big wagon into their small home.

And with them, doing more than her share of the work, was the most beautiful demon he had ever seen. If Corbin was a predatory cat, she was as much the opposite as you could get. Smaller. More delicate. More domesticated-looking, somehow, although he knew better than to describe her that way. She had simple clothes, almost to the point where he thought that was what she was shooting for. But her eyes were a different story. Those were complex, not only in their multi-faceted glory but also in how they moved. They were quick. They went from object to object, taking their attributes in, and she planned on the fly where every bag that still needed to be carried would go.

They were intelligent, knowing eyes. And then, all of the sudden, they were on him.

Caught? Impossible. She’s too far away. Corbin glanced around, convinced someone closer and higher level must have snuck up on him. There was nobody. And when he looked back in her direction, she was already headed his way.

“It’s rude to stare, you know.”

“That’s amazing. How did you know?”

She reached her hand up and tapped her temple, just to the side of her eye. “High perception, for one. But also my class. I’m a finder.”

Finders were not scouts. Scouts went out to see what they could see, maybe to find big things like armies or monster swarms. They covered a lot of ground, getting the lay of the land. Corbin, eventually, would probably work as a scout. He was suited for it.

Finders, on the other hand, found needles instead of haystacks. If a marriage bracelet slipped off, if a key fell down a grate somewhere, finders were the ones who could track them. Some of them even worked with combat teams sometimes, helping to spot tricky camouflage monsters before they became an issue.

“That explains it. Still though. Good catch.”

“I feel like you should still explain why you’re standing across the street staring at my family.” She looked stern, but he could see a spark of mischief in her eye.

“Oh, yeah. Sorry. Just curious, I guess. First day here?”

“Yeah. Mom and dad are enchanters, and… well, they move a lot. I think they get itchy.” She waved around at the surroundings, lazily. “I think this is just the next place to scratch the itch.”

“Ah. Do you like that? Moving all the time?”

“I used to. Now it’s a bit harder. You lose friends, you know. You can write letters, but it’s hard when they can’t see you.”

“I get that.” He really did.

“Anyway, I need to be getting back. I’m Dilah, by the way.”

“Corbin. Can I help you unload?”

“No.” She waved down at his couriers bag. “Unless that’s full for no reason, I think you have work to do.”

“Oh, right.” He had completely forgotten. “I guess I do. But I’ll see you around?”

“Sure.”

Corbin smiled and nodded, turning to walk away before his impulsiveness got the better of him.

“Where can I see you around?” he asked. “If I were trying to do that on purpose, I mean.”

“Oh, don’t worry,” she said. “I find lost things, remember? I think you count.”

—

The document got delivered, the workday got finished, and just like that, Corbin’s crisis was over. He laid on his bed in the last of the waning sun coming through his bedroom window, searching for even a little bit of the loneliness he had been feeling before. It was gone. Dilah had somehow flushed it out.

He could sort of understand how other stealth guys got through it now. He wasn’t really part of the obvious story, but it almost didn’t matter. Most people couldn’t see him but some people could and would, no matter how sneaky he got. And if he couldn’t be part of the main plot, he thought, that didn’t matter.

It was looking more and more like he could just write his own story.