"Clever thieving, oh yes! Not just any thieving—smart thieving! The kind where no one sees, no one hears, and no one knows you were there! Ha-ha! The best thieves leave no trace, no clue. In and out like a shadow, quicker than the blink of an eye!"

"You don’t just take, no, no! You wait. You watch. You listen! Know your mark, know the traps, know where the eyes are and where the eyes aren’t! Be light as a feather, quiet as a breeze. Pick your moment, make it count! One wrong move, one sound too loud—snap! The game’s up! But not for the clever thief! Ha! The clever ones slip through cracks and vanish like smoke."

"And what do you take? The small things, the valuable things, the things no one will notice are gone until it’s far too late! Shine, sparkle, jingle-jangle! Not too much, no, no—just enough to fill your pockets and leave them wondering. What happened? Where did it go? Ha-ha! That’s the clever thief’s secret." Parroting the Wise.

It started by raining snakes. Small, very venomous snakes. They were dropping on us from above like somebody had opened the bottom of a snake pit. They were everywhere, and they were vicious. They didn’t like the cold, and I didn’t need shadows to crank up Umbral Cold as much as I could. Because they were falling on us and were amongst us, we all got multiple bites, and their venom was stacking up.

I was cranking up Rejuvenating Aura as much as Umbral Cold, and we were stomping and brushing snakes off each other. Full armour helped, but there was no guarantee of protection. I was hardening my armour with Medium armour as much as possible. I know my Toughened Skin was also helping. Minor Regeneration was like fire in my veins when it came to counteract the poison.

Others were not as lucky as I was and had to drink potions. This is where we wish we had the Healer in our group. Rob was doing it hard, and I helped him a lot. I was close to absorbing him into the tattoo. His Regeneration was better than mine, and my Rejuvenation was helping him. His Crushing Bite was working well, but his tongue was getting too swollen from the venom where the snakes had bitten it.

When the small ones eased off, the bigger ones started dropping. These had a rattle in their tails, designed to incite fear, and those with low Willpower started to panic. I was close to panicking. Is Willpower a secondary attribute like endurance? If it is, I should have gotten it in Burning Lake. Is that something else I was cheated out of?

Walter collapsed from the poison. Suda and Barnard were also looking close to collapse. They had all been taking potions as much as they were able.

“Hist and I will start harvesting,” Alistern said. “We need anti-venom drops.”

My Toughened Skin made it harder for the snakes to penetrate both the armour and my skin, and when they did, my Toughened Body made it harder for the poison to spread, which gave Minor Regeneration a lot longer to work. The fire in my veins didn’t help, though.

These larger snakes were too tough for my Helping Hand to penetrate, so I sliced with my Haladie and Lightreaver in the confined space, but my biggest contribution was still Umbral Cold and Rejuvenating Aura.

“Sir,” Hist said, “a potion!”

Alistern appraised it, “Anti-venom, feed it to Walter now.” He got back to harvesting. A little while later, I heard, “Ah, fantastic. An ability stone for Poison Resistance to go to Suda.” He reached over, and then the stone dropped out of his hand and rolled to the edge of the branch. He scrambled after it, but even with all his speed and dexterity, it seemed to just be out of his reach, and it fell off the branch. I had never heard him swear like that. He was cursing the genitals of multiple gods.

“By Rindell's shrivelled nuts, what the … of all Terah’s wrinkled genitals I missed it; I can’t believe I missed it.”

“Lieutenant,” Myantha called, getting his attention. “That wasn’t your fault. I felt Air Manipulation that was stronger than mine.”

“Somebody stole our loot?” he said.

I was impressed. I knew Air Manipulation would be good. It is a real shame I couldn’t learn it.

“Why are you both looking at me?” I said, dealing with another snake off Rob’s back. “I don’t have Air Manipulation. I would’ve if I could’ve.”

Myantha looked away to deal with a snake, but Alistern said, “My father always said the best person to catch a thief was a thief, and he would know.”

I didn’t know who Alistern's father was, but my Intuition indicated that this was what I was seeking. I nodded, and we both went back to work. We both knew we wouldn’t get the stone back as the thief would have learned it.

Hunt a hunter was the Quest. The Thief was definitely a challenger to the trial—a challenger with Air Manipulation. The thief was probably in here alone and was using us to buffer the Trial and get the loot they would not normally get access to. If I were here alone and came across this group, I would probably do the same thing.

When did Ryan lose his pipe? Wait, a knife was lost at the start of the Ape’cot fight. I am betting other things were missing that hadn’t been noticed yet. I thought this through a bit more. The things in Storage would be safe from a thief, but the spatial bags would be vulnerable, but probably not from a distance. The thief would have to get close to open the bags.

What did the thief want? Skill and ability stones, certainly. Knives. Did they take off with Lightreaver? Probably. Would they want tobacco for Ryan's pipe? Why steal the pipe? Is it practice? Just because they could and needed to level a skill? I used to do that with my Pickpocket Skill.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

To catch a thief here, we need to bait a trap. Myantha would be good to have with me to sense Air Manipulation, although my Mana Web might be enough. She has good stealth skills, so she would not be detected.

I need the right bait. Lightreaver might work. Is it a person or a beast? I think it is a beast. There are so many people on this team with the skills to detect people, whereas a beast might slip through undetected. That is still some good skills. I have some Skill stones that might bait a trap better than Lightreaver. I have Poison, Paralysing Howl, Diving Attack and Nightsight. I think I might learn Poison, but the other three are options. Would a beast be able to tell what a stone was? I don’t know.

Ouch! First, we need to get through the night and get rid of these snakes.

Alistern and Hist got a couple more potions, so nobody was in danger. There was another skill stone, but it was Viper Strike, which sounded like a specialised version of my Quick Strike. He made sure to keep a good grip on that one as he passed it to one of his guards.

The snakes eased off. The loot contained several snakeskin items, some of which had piercing resistance and some that boosted poison resistance. None except the Poison Resistance Ability stone interested me, except for the monetary value. Said stone was now gone for good.

I bought all the monster cores, but these were empty.

We were recovering from the poison when the hit-and-run attacks started. A group of fast predators planned to wear us down. Several attacks were fended off, but then two guards were severely wounded, needing emergency care and potions.

It was some sort of agile cat, bigger than a house cat but smaller than a panther. Their claws and teeth were very sharp and tore through leather armour and gaps in plate armour. I thought cats were lone hunters, but these weren’t. I guess lions aren’t, either.

Necks were a vulnerable target. I guess that is what gorgets and arm cops were invented to protect, but a double or triple-coordinated attack by these monsters showed they were not enough.

It took me a bit of time to set up. It has been a while since I have done an area illusion. The darkness helped.

Guards appeared in front of where they were, and my short spears and Joe’s Caltrops were there instead, the guards behind them. That was so the smell and heat from actual bodies were close and therefore strengthened the illusion. Those with Stealth were hidden nearby.

I am not sure that my Create Traps knew what to do with this trap. It was a trap, but it was not one of the almost pre-prepared traps it was used to. It went up when the first Leocat was killed and then again with the second. The fifth levelled it to 9.

Create Traps maxed out on the eighth kill. I got a new skill called Maiming Decoy, which adds to the damage of my traps, especially when I use illusions. That was a good skill. Illusions are my thing and ideal for traps.

The Leocats were persistent, and all three image skills were levelled. Alistern said I could keep all the loot from the twenty-four Leocats we killed. None of the Monster Cores had a skill. There were some nice pelts, and there was a skill stone with a Lacerating Claw attack. I wasn’t sure that I could use it if I learned it, but it might boost the claws on my Helping Hand. I stored it for now, as it might be good bait in a trap for a thief.

There were still a couple of hours before dawn. We were all tired but tense. I was still pumping out Rejuvenating Aura.

We waited for trouble. And waited. And waited.

As we waited, I thought about my senses. Spectral Vision has two specific uses. In this trial I am concentrating on sensing body heat as it is more useful. Mana sight helps with specific types of mana signatures and Mana Web takes mana sight beyond what my eyes can see.

I know there is a skill that senses air movement and another that senses vibrations in the ground, or tree, in this case. My focus is light and, conversely, shadow. Eyesight is essentially sensing variations in reflected light, and Nightsight enhances that in low-light conditions, but it is essentially the same thing, just enhanced.

Is there such a thing as shadowsight? Can I use Shadow Manipulation to sense things hiding in the shadows? I am soon going to be hunting something with high camouflage-type skills. This place is full of shadows even in the day.

I extended the Shadow Manipulation to a concentrated piece of darker shadow. I could move it, extend it, or shrink it, but I don’t want to do that. I want to sense what is in it. What is hiding there?

When I bend light with Light Manipulation, I create a shadow. When I extend the shadow, does it bend the light from the negative side? One is working to do the same thing from one side, and the other is doing the same from the dark side.

Or maybe extending the shadow doesn’t bend the light but absorbs it. I should be able to test that. The light is dim, but it is there. I extend the shadow…

…

…

There is not much light there, and extending the shadow is easier than in bright light. Shadow is the negative or absence of light, but Shadow Manipulation is not the reverse of Light Manipulation. Shadow Manipulation does absorb light if it has to. That is why using Nights Embrace in full light is so expensive in mana. It absorbs the light. It doesn’t bend it.

It can bend the light as well. If I reduce the shadow over there, the light bends around the leaf and shines in the spot. But Shadow is more than the negative of light. This is big. Shadow absorbs light.

Shadow absorbs light. But think about it. Shadow absorbs more than light. Umbral Cold is more than Shadow Cold. Shadow is absorbing the heat in the area.

Shadow Phase absorbs matter. Me, in fact. I Shadow Phased my hand while looking at it. It is partly incorporeal, or, should I say, the corporeal part of me has been absorbed into the Shadow temporarily. Shadow is like a different realm. Bending light reveals the doorway, but only Shadow Manipulation can open that door.

This is going to change how I use Shadow Manipulation. It is so much more than I have been using to date. If I thought about my skills, Nights Embrace, Umbral Cold and Shadow Phase this should have been obvious.

Nights Embrace restricts senses. How? By opening the door to the Shadow Realm and it sucks in the sound, light and matter when restricting movement. To make it more effective, I need to open that door wider. It is the same for the Shadow Phase. I need to move more fully into the shadow realm.

I am going to go out on a limb here and suggest the only way to survive in the shadow realm is with mana. If I run out of mana, I will die. Well, with Shadow Phase, if I run out of mana, I become corporeal again, as it is a partial transformation. If I had chosen Ethereal Shadow, it might be different. That is probably why the Shadow elementals shone in Manasight.

Now, with this new understanding, what can I do with it?