Chapter

Twenty-Six

“Idon’t know, maybe we should switch to Vitality?” asked Brin.

“Nah. Today feels like a Dexterity kind of day,” said Hogg. “Let’s get some more of that low-hanging fruit before we move on.”

Brin shrugged. This was more help than anyone had ever offered with gaining attributes. He wasn’t going to turn his nose up at it, even if it wasn’t in the exact order he would’ve chosen.

Hogg took him through the ne’er-do-well masterclass. How to walk down the street without seeming suspicious but also not letting anyone see your face. How to case a house or a business. How to tell if someone was home. The psychology of stealing: how to get yourself in the right frame of mind. How to predict where someone would hide their most precious possessions. How to steal enough to get by, but not enough to get caught.

Then they moved on to more practical applications. First was pick-pocketing. It started with a game. Hogg put two gold coins in his hand, one on top of the other, and then closed his eyes. Brin’s job was to take the one on top without letting Hogg feel it. If Hogg felt something, he’d close his hand and Brin would lose.

It wasn’t easy, and after several hundred tries over the course of two hours, Brin started to get frustrated.

Hogg called a break. They ate dinner; Hogg cooked, and it wasn’t stew. He made a roast, covered in a spicy rub, with steamed vegetables on the side.

After dinner, Hogg brought out a finely carved wooden barrel. There was a smaller barrel on the inside, and Brin was surprised to see he recognized the device. This was an ice-cream maker!

Hogg filled the outer barrel with saltwater and ice and the inner one with heavy cream and sugar. “What flavor?”

“Not pork,” said Brin.

“Not really a fan of savory ice cream, either,” said Hogg. He suggested blueberries, which in this world were actually baby-blue berries, which tasted more like blackberries. Brin agreed.

Making ice cream wasn’t a fast process, and Hogg didn’t go out of his way to speed it up. Instead, they sat and chatted about normal things. About Davi’s obvious and inexplicable crush on Myra. About Marksi, and how cute he was. They talked about town gossip, the safe stuff, who was going to marry who, and what businesses had recently leveled up.

The ice cream was transcendent. It was perfect, thick and creamy, like the good stuff from an Italian ice cream parlor, not at all like the crap he’d had the few times his parents tried to make it at home.

Generally, he tried not to get nostalgic about things from his old world, but this broke down a few barriers. He was back again, and it felt oh, so good. How long had it been since he’d had a treat? Something good, just because he wanted it? Had he even done it a single time in this world?

It almost broke him down and made him tell Hogg to forget training and that they were in vacation mode. But he didn’t. Vacation could wait. He still wanted those achievements.

After the ice cream, Hogg had Brin put the two coins in the palm of his hand and close his eyes. Brin said, “Ok, I’m ready,” and prepared to close his hand at even the slightest brush of air. Hogg immediately answered, “Open them.”

He opened his eyes, and both coins were gone. He hadn’t felt a thing. He found himself rubbing the palm of his hand with his thumb, just to check it hadn’t gone numb.

Hogg put the coins back into his own hand and closed his eyes.

Before trying again himself, Brin had an idea. Marksi had been getting antsy, wanting to join the fun. Brin picked up the snake and carefully brought him near to Hogg’s hand.

The snake watched his target with full concentration, the way he looked at a dragonfly he was planning to snatch out of the air.

Brin wondered what he would try. His mouth wasn’t quite big enough to grab the coin front-wise, and he couldn’t imagine being able to grab it from the side without brushing Hogg’s hand.

Marksi delicately let out his tongue. It twitched back and forth, testing the currents, and stuck out further and further. He had a really long tongue. It just kept coming.

He delicately brought it around the rim of the coin, propped it up, and then in an instant it was in his mouth and the snake was retreating up Brin’s shoulder.

“No way,” said Brin.

“Did you finally get it?” Hogg asked. “See, it’s like I keep saying, you have to think about pressure and⁠—”

“Marksi got it,” said Brin.

Hogg stared at the snake with his mouth open. He finally gathered himself and said, “Well of course he did! I told you Marksi didn’t need this lesson. He’s already a master of stealth.”

Marksi preened, and they had to take a break for snake-appreciation time, but when Marksi finally got his fill of scritches Brin was ready to go again.

It was possible. This wasn’t some weird kind of punishment; there really was a way to do it.

He reached out slowly, feeling the pressure of the air the way Marksi had. He felt the slight body heat from Hogg’s hand, the slight movement in the air. Slowly, delicately, he reached down. His fingers were on the rim of the coin and starting to pull it away when Hogg pulled his fingers shut.

“Keep trying,” Hogg ordered.

Brin kept at it, until finally, finally he managed to pull the top coin from Hogg’s hand.

Hogg immediately jumped into the next lesson.

This time, it was about pulling coins out of a pouch that Hogg kept at his side. No one had external pouches like that to keep their money in, especially not with a dangling flap that would come right open. Most people had pockets sewn onto the inside of their clothes and rarely carried more than coppers around. Shopping would usually involve running up a tab to be paid off monthly, or swapping credit.

Still, he understood the assignment. Just for fun, he had Marksi go first, and the snake leaned down to the pouch from on top of the table and immediately came up with a mouthful of gold coins. The little guy was a natural.

Brin didn’t find it too hard either. Compared to pulling a coin off Hogg’s hand, this was a lot easier to manage. He just had to make sure he didn’t move the pouch at all. Harder was taking without changing the way the weight applied pressure against Hogg’s side, but it didn’t take him too long to figure out.

Even after succeeding, Hogg had him keep trying. He needed to be able to do this quickly. No one would sit still and let him pick their pockets over the course of thirty seconds. He kept practicing, getting better and better. A notification interrupted their exercise.

Through training you have increased the following attribute.

Dexterity +1

“How do you know all this?” asked Brin.

“When everyone thinks you’re a [Rogue], you need to know how to do [Rogue] stuff. It wasn’t easy. I didn’t have the System to guide my fingers; I had to learn all of this on my own.”

Brin expected that to be the end of it for now, but Hogg kept going. He had Brin sneak around the house, telling him where to step and how to tell which floorboards would creak. The sound detector was still active, and Hogg had him do things like open and close cupboards, clean and put away the dishes, and sweep the floor, all without making any sound.

He randomly threw spoons and forks, and Brin had to catch them without dropping the broom or the sponge he was working with, and without making any sound.

Honestly, he probably should’ve figured it out sooner, but it wasn’t until Hogg showed them how to silently jimmy locks that it finally occurred to him why they were doing this.

There was an achievement for stealing stuff. Hogg wanted him to sneak into Hammon’s Bog and steal something.

“Not like that,” said Hogg as Brin tried to jimmy the lock to the house. “You’ve got to do it silently. If you can’t get into the house, you can’t do anything.”

Marksi slithered under the door, and an instant later, the door silently swung open. A smug-looking rainbow snake rode on the doorknob on the other side.

Hogg stared for a moment, then shrugged. “That works.”

“Can I ask you something? Did you predict this entire thing, or are we just taking advantage of an opportunity?”

Hogg crooked an eyebrow. “Now, how would I have guessed that Elmon would ban us from town? He should’ve had me whipped.”

“Could he have? Would you have let him?”

Hogg laughed. “Course not. Well, that’s enough Dexterity training for now. Let’s do what you said and work on Vitality. Run to Hammon’s Bog and back. Six times.”

Brin blinked. “Really?”

“Yep,” said Hogg. “Don’t let that sound circle get to yellow while you’re out there.”

Brin took off running. The distance was a little much, but he was in fabulously good shape. He was careful not to make a sound, but the road was free of branches and leaves, and as long as he didn’t let his concentration slip, he managed to keep up his stealthiness. Night fell as he ran, and he didn’t get a Vitality. He didn’t get a Dexterity, either.

When he got back, Hogg started the day over. He took Brin out into the woods. He gave Brin the exact same speech about stealth as before, then left Brin with the same instructions.

In the dark, it was harder to move in the forest without making a sound. Much harder. He couldn’t see what he was stepping on; he had to guess based on what he could see. The vague outline of trees meant that the nearby ground would be solid, but not necessarily empty of twigs or leaves.

He had to sort of feel with his feet if he was going to step on something that would make a noise and quickly readjust where his foot was going to fall. It was hard to do through his leather shoes, but not impossible.

Running made it even harder, but again, not impossible, not completely. When he finally got to the place where he was comfortable, it was late into the night and he was getting so tired it was difficult to concentrate.

Through training you have increased the following attribute.

Dexterity +1

He went inside, and it was pitch black. Hogg magicked up an orb of light so that Brin could see that he was holding two coins in his hand. Then he made it dark again.

“No way,” said Brin.

“Find a way,” said Hogg.

Brin moved his hand slowly, reaching out into the dark. He brushed up against Hogg, who immediately said, “Fail. Try again.”

He tried slower this time. He concentrated on the air, on feeling the currents. When he felt Hogg’s body heat, even without touching him, Hogg said, “Fail. Try again.”

This time he did the same, but stopped when he felt the still air, air that was near the body heat, but not warm yet. This time, he touched the coin before Hogg said, “Fail, try again.”

He tried again, and again, and again. The darkness and the stillness tried to lull him to relax, but he fought against it. His exhaustion warred against his concentration, and when he finally got the coin he wasn’t sure if he’d learned something or if it had just been a fluke.

The next part with the pouch was easier, and he got it in a couple minutes.

Through training you have increased the following attribute:

Mental Control +1

It wasn’t over. Hogg had him do things around the house again, and again he threw things at Brin. Brin had to catch forks and spoons after they hit him but before they hit the ground, and Hogg would even ding him if the forks made too much sound when they hit him. He had to roll with the hits to soften the blow.

Hours passed, and Brin thought he could see the glow of dawn in the distance. All in all, he had to say it had been a good day. He’d gotten a frankly absurd number of attributes. Hogg’s hellish training was exactly what he’d been asking for.

He tried to keep that in mind, but when Hogg finally told him it was enough, he didn’t even say goodnight. He went to his room and was asleep the second he hit the bed.

He woke up the next day feeling bleary and sore. Hogg made him breakfast, though it was late in the afternoon.

“Davi came by. I told him to let you sleep,” said Hogg.

Brin mumbled “Thank you” through a mouthful of eggs.

“So listen, tonight I have a lot of stuff I need to focus on, so I won’t really be present for the rest of the day. You can shake me awake if you really need me, but other than that you’re on your own. You should do your regular workout before dark. After sundown you are absolutely not allowed to go out of the house. I’m saying this as your legal father. Do you understand?”

Hogg wanted him to go rob Hammon’s Bog, but he couldn’t give him permission. “I understand. But I still have to know. What is it you do every day with your illusions?”

“None of your concern. You just focus on tonight,” said Hogg.

“I will, but I still need to know. You promised you wouldn’t treat me like a child,” said Brin. “This is part of that.”

“Some of it is business. I have a lot of contacts all across the country, and being able to coordinate them all in real time can be very lucrative for trade,” said Hogg.

“What’s the real project? You’ve been consumed with something,” said Brin.

Hogg bit his lip. “I did promise. This is the issue: someone is surveilling the Boglands. There are invisible watchers everywhere. There are ways for invisible illusions to find each other, and we’ve been playing a never-ending game of cat and mouse. Against a less talented [Illusionist] I should’ve been able to pinpoint their location by now. We have a range, we like to have more illusions closer to us, and new illusions need to come from where our physical body is, so you can use that to kind of narrow it down, but so far I’ve got nothing. Whoever it is, this person is very, very good. You remember that Phasmid? Its level was absurdly high. Well, whoever is watching us is better than that Phasmid was.”

“Arcaena?” asked Brin. “One of her people?”

“Not necessarily. Olland and Prinnash both have [Illusionists] who could do something like this. It might even be our own Court [Illusionist]. It might be more than one country; actually, that’s more likely. It would explain why it’s so hard to trace the source. One thing I do know: this isn’t about Hammon’s Bog specifically. I think they’re looking for something here in the Boglands.”

“Like what? The army of undead?”

“Could be. I’ll tell you something else. Prinnash is invading. I don’t mean to worry you, but you have a right to know. Galan is already fighting, sort of as a mercenary since Olland isn’t involved, and Lumina is on the way. I’ve got a hunch that this war is related to that undead army somehow, but right now we don’t have enough information to even make a guess.”

“So now instead of just worrying about an undead army destroying the town, we also have to worry about a real army?”

“If Prinnash invades it’ll be bad, and thousands will die. But if they somehow march on Hammon’s Bog… then obviously we’ll surrender without a fight. The worst that’ll happen is that they loot our storehouses and we switch who we pay taxes to. Prinnash is a civilized country; they won’t waste the lives of people with Common classes. Rare Classers might get culled but commoners are much more valuable alive. Me and the Prefit will have to duck out of town, though. Probably Tawna, too.”

“Can I ask about⁠—”

“No!” said Hogg. “That’s enough for one night. Go chew on that news that you can do nothing about and that’ll just distract you from what’s important, and stop trying to get more for five minutes. We only have three weeks until System Day. We need to make every second count.”

“Fine, fine, I hear you.”

Hogg was right about one thing: there was nothing he could do about that. In his old life the news had always been full of apocalyptic portents of doom, and he’d still managed to put all that aside and focus on his own life. He was lucky that the skill seemed to transfer over.

Tonight he could do nothing about war or the undead. He had an achievement to collect.