“What kind of thief would I be if I trusted every piece of information that I receive. The only thing that you can trust are your own two eyes, and even then, there’s plenty of illusions out in this world,” Grizz looked Orou in the eyes and spoke to him as he gestured to the grand palace in front of him. It had taken much longer than they had hoped to get here, Grizz reassured Orou that he knew where to go, but they had gotten lost more than once, having to aimlessly wander around until they found a notable landmark or an area that Grizz actually recognized.

The palace was majestic. Various beautiful and exotic flowers grew beyond the palace gate, colorful birds landed on the luscious trees and various beastmen were doing their best to keep the exterior of the palace looking impressive. Grizz nonchalantly strolled around, pretending to be talking to a beastman that was walking next to him. He circled the entire palace and counted exactly twenty-four guards. As Grizz returned back to the palace gates as he once more spoke to Orou: “These guards are trained to catch anyone trying to sneak into the palace and keep anyone from entering it in case of chaos. Keep in mind where they’re usually located, just in case if we have to escape from the castle.”

There were countless beastmen passing by the palace every minute, most of them sparing the palace only a single glance before returning to their duties. Blending in with a crowd of beastmen, most likely tourists that were examining a statue next to the palace, Grizz made his way to the right side of the palace and pointed at one of the windows closest to the ground. Whispering to Orou, he said: “We’re not going to get your greater spirit by any usual means and I’ve always wanted to try my hand at stealing something from the palace. This here is the king’s shaman’s room, our destination when we get into the palace.”

As he said that, he pulled out a piece of paper and started drawing the side of the palace in all of its glory, incorporating both the trees in the way and the guards that were silently staying there. It took him a few minutes to draw almost a perfect drawing of the palace before he put the piece of paper down and started making his way to the back of the palace. It was strange, while the rest of the palace’s exterior was decorated with various flowers and bushes, the back of the palace was empty. Grizz pointed towards the empty space and spoke to Orou: “The rumors say that while the king’s shaman isn’t seen in the palace, he’s hanging out in the invisible gardens, casting various curses on the king’s enemies. Can you see them?”

Orou guided the spirits to his eyes and took a glance at the world of spirits. He was shocked beyond belief when he truly saw an entire garden, hidden from the naked eye. The garden seemed to be trapped in a box, the outer edges of the box being completely devoid of any spirits. Inside of the box were numerous flowers, trees and leaves made entirely out of spirits. Two beastmen made entirely from spirits were drinking spirit tea, sitting on chairs made from spirits and resting their hands on a table made from spirits. It seemed like a separate area, isolated from the rest of the world for spirits to have their fun and experience what it was like to live a lavish life on their own.

Orou’s will seemed to be completely rejected from this place as he simply couldn’t influence the spirits within the box. He was half-tempted to conjure the blood serpent in order to see the reaction the spirits would have but then he remembered the guards that were guarding the palace and their reactions once something like that appeared in the sky. Orou looked to Grizz and flickered his tongue at him in agreement. Grizz whistled in surprise and said out loud to Orou: “It would make the news if it was confirmed that it existed.”

Grizz stalked the palace for another hour, drawing it from different angles and plotting out his path of escape. During this hour, Orou got to see the guards in action. One of the tourists had decided to approach the gate and sneakily pluck off a ripe apple off of one of the closer trees. He didn’t even get the chance to touch the apple as one of the guards sprinted with surprising speed, considering the guard’s heavy armor. The tourist was tackled to the ground and handed off to the guards in gray metal armor, escorted to who knows where.

No more incidents followed that one as most of the people kept their distance from the palace. Grizz was done a few minutes after, motioning for Orou to follow him. It took only took them fifteen minutes to reach the shop now that Grizz had memorized the path and to his credit, they took the exact same path they did last time, minus all the detours. Grizz went off to the bedroom in order to write down notes while Orou grabbed a random book from one of the bookshelves and got to reading.

Three days passed like the wind as Orou kept trying to read this book. It proved to be much greater of a challenge than he initially thought as he often had to approach Grizz with the book in his mouth and point out the specific words that he didn’t understand. Grizz did a phenomenal job as a teacher, patiently explaining what each of the words meant as well as associating them to certain examples in order to make it easier for Orou to understand. It was a book about fortune telling and what it entailed. Apparently, fortune tellers used magic in order to manipulate the spirits and seemingly “communicate with them,” learning more about the person that was trying to get his fortune read. Some of the more powerful spells could make use of spirits to peer into the distant future, but unfortunately, no formations of any of the spells were described in the book.

Besides learning to read and practicing his spells, Orou followed Grizz as he wandered through the city, visiting various shady bars and the hideaway of thieves to trade his cache of drugs for various secrets and blood crystals, which he traded for various things like new daggers and armor, clothes to fit in with the local citizens and poisons of various kinds. Orou had no idea how he knew so many people, but it seemed that word quickly spread amongst the thieves that a beastman from Onilia had brought several “goods” with him. Of course, this entailed several ambushes from the darkness, all of which Orou easily repelled. They were treated with various wines and foods, so during these three days, Orou got to taste so many flavors that he never had experienced.

At the end of the third day, Mar was knocking at the front door, holding in his hand several papers. Grizz excitedly let him in and as Mar stepped inside of the shop, he heavily sighed and said: “You don’t know how much effort it was to procure this information, it’s strangely difficult to spy on the king’s shaman, one moment he’s there and the next moment, he’s just gone.” He passed the stack of papers to Grizz as he continued talking: “The security of the palace is pretty high if you wish to go after the king himself, he has countless guards surrounding him at all times and he himself is the best warrior the kingdom has to offer, so it wouldn’t be the greatest move.”

“The shaman was elusive but we noted down his general pattern. He spends most of his time in the gardens, though who truly knows how much time he spends there.” Mar shrugged his shoulders as he continued: “Of course, we’ve noted down activities of the nobles and the various gangs that want to get their greasy fingers on the action.” Grizz started pouring through the papers, making sure that everything was in order. Orou saw Mar stand there for a bit before he started to stealthily make his way out, seemingly proud of what he had accomplished. Grizz didn’t even notice Mar leaving as he spent several more minutes going over the papers. Grizz looked outside of the window and sighed, saying to Orou: “We’ll go and visit the palace at dusk, nearing the end of the time when the king is accepting visitors.”