“Alright, so what's the plan? There is a plan, right?” Tesilim said as the party stood at the edge of the clearing, watching the cave entrance.
“Of course, we aren't just blindly going in there,” Alyx answered.
“The plan is for me to go in alone as a scout. Then, depending on what I see in there, we can formulate a proper plan.” Lili explained.
“Alright, I will also go ahead and roll my weapon so I am ready in case something goes wrong, and you get chased out of there by a giant rabbit.”
Then they all watched Lili make her way towards the cave entrance as she slowly vanished from their sight and overall senses.
“You know, Arelion is going to have to ask for some tips on stealth from her,” Jasmine commented, seeing Lili disappear.
“Sounds like a good idea. Stealth is a very interesting aspect of magic that contains several annoying things.” Stated the gnome.
“What sort of aspects?” Tesilim asked for both him and Jasmine.
“Well, at its base, you have to keep your own soul and magical emission hidden from the enemy. Of course, if the enemy's presence perception is stronger, you will be spotted as they pierce through your stealth bubble. Thus comes the more intricate aspect of having more finesse over your presence and will so you can hide what's in plain sight.”
“Okay, I understood the first part, but the second part sounded like you were speaking nonsense,” Tesilim answered, getting a giggle from Jasmine and a sigh from Alyx.
“Look. Just know that stealth is all about mind games, trickery, and experience. You can do a bunch of things. Like making yourself appear to the enemy as a mouse. That, however, requires lots of skill. Usually, it is just more effective to repress your own energy emissions and pump a lot of mana into your stealth ability and techniques that use concepts of nondetection or other things like shadows to keep you hidden. It is a tricky balance between keeping your energy from being spotted while tricking everyone to ignore you as much as possible.”
“That still seems dumb. Would you still get spotted in someone else’s presence via their will?” Tesilim continued.
“Sure, but how often are you paying attention to things with your presence while in battle? Or again, not everyone’s will is equally strong, or are they at the same rank, or have the same training. Additionally, a guard bored out of his mind is less likely to notice stuff or have the endurance to constantly spend mana to keep their presence active. You have to remember that even though stealth requires skill, those who focus on that path have the skill. They aren’t a bunch of stealth noobies like the rest of us.”
“Alright, I understand. For some reason, it's hard to remember that not everyone is an elite member of society or has incredible magical training and teachers.”
“Exactly. Though there are a lot of D rankers in the world since getting to the rank isn’t necessarily hard, it doesn’t mean they are all out being adventurers or soldiers. Also, you have to remember everything that magic can do can be countered by it.”
Anyways Tesilim’s die landed on a one, meaning his daggers appeared in his hands. Now, he hoped they would last long enough to use them in the coming fight.
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Lili left the party behind as she focused on the task before her. She knew there was almost no chance of someone strong enough inside the cave that could actually spot her, but it was better to be safe than sorry.
First, she activated her invisibility body enhancement. One of the most important aspects of stealth was hiding from plain sight. Afterward, she activated the sub-enhancement for invisibility, knowing it would cause her to appear more as a blurry translucent shimmer as it took power from the first main enhancement. However, the sub-enhancement was meant to reduce the noise she made from walking, breathing, etc. She could have also used a normal invisibility spell, but in the end, they both accomplished the same thing, though the invisibility spell didn’t reduce noise.
It was hard to believe that melee combatants could really become as varied as casters, if not more, through enhancements and techniques, and she reminded herself to increase Tesilim’s training. He liked casting spells, but the more she saw him fight, the more she realized that he liked to tumble up and close. She needed to have him make some more techniques so he could realize that they would become the real power behind him. Especially since she was sure he could empower them with his Chaos Mana.
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Realizing she was losing focus, Lili smacked herself lightly as she stepped into the cave. There, she began to retract her presence until it was only a second skin around her. Next, she flexed her soul and extended her will to match her presence as she began to consume the magical residue released by her invisibility enhancement. She was glad she didn’t need to use her last enhancement on that and thanked her parents for the gifts they had given her, even if they weren’t the most upstanding individuals. Finally, she pushed herself further as she concentrated on a second enhancement.
The second enhancement was also activated along with its sub-enhancement. She used the main one to release concepts of non-detection through her will. These concepts would help ensure weaker wills would simply wash around her. If that failed, then it was up to her to stop it, but a multitude of things could go wrong depending on what and who was watching. The sub-enhancement was there to attract the fey mana and have a constant flow of it around her to make it look like nothing was disturbing it as she passed through. All in all, it took a lot to be stealthy.
Moving in, the cave got much colder, though not enough to put her in discomfort. The cave walls were still littered with small vine-like silvery plants. These plants had tiny bulbs that emitted silver and white light. Outside of these plants, the tunnel was relatively empty and wide enough for a horse-pulled carriage to pass through, which meant she easily made her way in.
Not even a minute into the cave, Lili came upon the first split. To her right, the tunnel turned into a larger expanse filled with grassy plants with the same color scheme as the plants on the walls. The exception was that these plants were actually grass and rather overgrown, allowing them to hide the bunnies within. Even so, she still spotted a few as they hopped on silver-gray rocks that were strewn about. Of course, the most obvious thing that she spotted was the silvered-eye bunny on top of a particularly large rock.
Just a few dozen feet from that expanse, the tunnel split. One went right, and the other left. Lili went right.
As she walked down this tunnel, the temperature dropped again, and she could see ice begin to form on the walls. The plants still glowed with silver and white lights but were slightly dimmer than before. About three dozen feet into this new tunnel, the floor became covered in snow. It was a light dusting, and she quickly saw where it came from.
Carefully, looking through the large cave opening, she found another open space. In this one, however, snow slowly fell from the iced ceiling. It was obvious magic at work since iced stone did not equal snow.
Much like in the first room, a bunch of bunnies were hopping around, except all of these had silver eyes and fur and were a bit larger. There were ten in total, and they lightly hopped around the snow-covered ground, disappearing every now and then into holes in the snow.
The expanse still had the plant lights, but the entire area was brighter than the rest of the cave due to the snow, which amplified the light. This area also had rocks. At least that's what Lili hoped those clumps on the ground were. Out of everything, the most concerning part was that she could see another opening at the back of this cave, and the only way to make it past these bunnies was to spend more mana.
Slowly but surely, Lili made her way around the cave, and thankfully, the noise of the snow crunching under her feet was stopped by her enhancements. After a few minutes, she reached the back of the cave and peeked through the opening. Needless to say, she didn’t like what she saw.
Wererabbits.
She had seen them before in the continent of Betis. They were hunched humanoid rabbits with powerful hind legs like their normal counterparts. However, their front limbs were too elongated to be normal and ended in silver sharp claws. Matching their ancestry, they had sharp canines protruding from their elongated wolf-like maws. Most disturbing were their front-facing glowing red eyes that stood out incredibly well against their pristine white fur coats.
Looking around, she spotted one but didn’t believe for a second that-that was all of them.
Snow fell down from this area's floor as well and the cold had increased in power once again. She was still fine, but there was a good chance it might have a negative effect on the rest of the team. One good thing was that the area was still decently lit by the combination of snow and the plants on the walls. The problem was that she couldn’t really see very well into the place since large rocks and even snow-covered pines blocked her sight, only spotting the wererabbit through a gap between the rocks and trees.
Lili was tempted to head deeper in and get a complete count, but that meant there was a higher chance of them spotting her, and she couldn’t take that risk. So, instead, she headed back out, deciding to check out the other path.
Thankfully, the second path didn’t lead far, and it ended at a single cavern almost as large as the wererabbits. The cavern also had snow falling from its roof, and rocks were everywhere, along with a few snow-covered pine trees.
Lounging around this area, their white furs splattered with red were nine red-eyed wolves. The wear rabbits weren’t known for their stamina, so they used the wolves as mounts and fighting companions. Having completed her scout mission, Lili headed out of the cave to inform her companions about what they were walking into.