“So, what’s our plan here?” Sten asked in the morning. He had made some sort of cakes from the insect meal for breakfast, and I was rather surprised with the outcome.

“We have a lot to do, and a lot arrayed against us.” I said with half a mouthful of breakfast. Pausing a moment to chew and swallow, I continued, “I’m not sure how the idiot that used to have this body managed to actually get a second tier. He was supposed to scout out a potential mark for security and ended up getting caught. The added security has ensured that several high quality magic items will have nearly zero chance of getting pilfered.”

“So that’s why he was down here in the slums. Any idea on how we are going to get back into the good graces? I’m assuming that that we are going to be looking into the Thieves guild?”

“Yeah.” I said with a sigh. “And we can’t use you to try and infiltrate. There’s no way the mark would be stupid enough to hire an unknown demon from the street.”

“So what are we going to do?” Sten asked. “And how can I help?”

I sat there thinking. Sten was great at following orders, but had very little initiative. That severely limited his usefulness. “Well, this body has some stealth skills, but the idiot failed to develop them properly. I’ll have to rectify that. Then I’ll steal the items, despite the security.”

“And me?” Sten pressed.

“We’ll need some contacts on the proper side of the law as well I think. Since we could use some cash, why don’t you join some of the adventurers around here? Work some protection details, or do some of the more dangerous hunting. With our command of magic, you would be invaluable in hunting some of those rust monsters.”

“Rust monsters?”

“A corrodean.” I said, referring to our world’s similar monster.

“Very well. I will see if there are any groups needing assistance. What are my restrictions?”

“Try and limit to advanced spells, maybe a few master levels. Use up to 60% of your power. You’re shooting for the upper 70 to 75% in strength, but don’t pull too much attention to yourself if you can.” I explained. Sten seemed content with that, and we settled in to eat in quiet.

“Why don’t you let me clean up then sir.” Sten said after we ate.

“All right.” I agreed. It wouldn’t take him too long, and he probably wouldn’t get to join a group just yet. “I’m off to work on some skills then.” Sten nodded, and I headed out.

Once I hit the streets, I immediately started trying to boost the skills. Shadow Infiltrator. It seemed like the perfect class for someone of my world, but this fool only got most of his skills to an intermediate level before getting complacent. Others, he simply ignored. To start with, I decided to boost his crowd blending. I moved around the busy streets, joining and leaving groups of demons at different times. To my frustration, I couldn’t receive any alerts that my skills had increased. However, if I paid really close attention, I could feel a sort of subtle energy surge pass through my body. If I had to describe it, I would say it was the feeling a split second before you get a full body shiver.

While being able to disappear into a crowd would be a helpful skill, it wasn’t one I needed to be the absolute maximum. So I only spent two hours on it, enough that it felt like I was nearing the plateau all skills reached before getting pushed through a bottleneck. Once that happened, I moved on to the second, and far more important, portion of my training. Heading off to a secluded corner, or as secluded as a busy bazaar ever gets, I activated two skills. Active camouflage was exactly what it sounded like. Mana was used to mimic the surrounding colors. Low level skills were only good for blended backgrounds, while higher levels could mimic much more chaotic backgrounds. Another drawback was the delayed reaction. Unless one was moving as if they were in molasses, perceptive people would notice a blur.

The other skill I would be practicing was a double edged sword. Erase presence. While it seems simple, it has a huge drawback. You have to lower your perception of the surroundings, unless you want to give yourself away. Colors become muted, words blend together and your reaction times drop drastically. Ever felt like you were walking somewhere, and felt eyes watching you all of a sudden? That’s what happens when someone’s perceptions break their erase presence skill. Nearby enemies are instantly put on guard, and have a general direction of the hostile presence. Despite this drawback, it was still essential. It consumed stamina instead of mana, making it much easier to multitask. If the user was skilled enough, they could slowly deactivate the skill in such a way that nearby individuals were not alarmed. It truly was the perfect skill for when you knew the guard patrol times.

On to practicing. I started by trying to close in on nearby guards. I started with the stationary ones, as they were far more likely to be, not quite bored, but mentally dull? Yeah, that sounded right. Mentally dull. That fuzzy feeling you get when you are stuck in a repetitive task. This training was much harder than the blending. I had to judge how close I could get without alerting the guards or even setting off the senses of a passerby. I was also trying to figure out some of the body language tells.

Most of the guards hadn’t advanced their species, and their tells were similar to my homeworld. Nervous people would shift in place, and their hands would fidget. Anytime I saw that, I would slowly stop moving. If possible, I would also get something between me and the guard. Waiting it out was a painful process, but a necessary one. It also helped the skills grow rapidly. The few second tier guards were much harder to sneak up to. Their effective detection range was often double, too far for me to notice their much subdued tells. One would simply clench and unclench the muscles in his back. Another must have had some skill with shadows, as his became more active.

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

“Ugh, that sucked.” I groaned as I stumbled in and flopped down into a chair at the end of the day. Sten still hadn’t returned, but that was fine. A small part of me hoped that he would already be on a quest already. He was great in small doses, but his adherence to some of the Apophis doctrines was annoying at times. I relaxed for nearly an hour, then decided to make some dinner just as dusk was falling.

“Sten will probably be gone for a few days.” I muttered to myself as I made some more of those insect cakes. “I think one more day of training in the bazaar, then on to make the heist.” I was fairly quiet while I finished cooking and eating, simply wanting a break. While the insects were fairly bland, a bit of fresh fruit really did change everything.

“Ugh.” I said, flopping onto the bed. “Let’s see, what do we need to do.” Sten would be having a fit right about now, as my tendency to talk through my plans to myself always annoyed him. Oh well, at least he was mostly over it by now. “Right. One more training day, but I will have to split it. Shadow mimicry will be useful, but I will have to practice it in the afternoon when the light is a bit lower. I’ll have to find and steal some high quality mana stones, and implant them into the fakes from the Thieves guild. But can I move with the mana stones? Will erase presence work on them? Gah, better assume not.” I growled, annoyed. “That means a lead lined bag. At least I can make that myself, but lead wire is going to be slightly costly. I should have enough though, and stealing it would be a bad idea. Too little reward for the risk. Right, so day after tomorrow I buy the lead and mana stones, crafting the bag. Steal the forgeries from the guild after that, nobody will suspect it in the middle of the day. Sleep away the afternoon should do it for recovering, then a simple break in and swap. Hopefully the mana stones will be able to fake the magic aura of the artifacts long enough that nobody will realize exactly when they were stolen.”

I sighed, closing my eyes for a bit and mentally running through the plan. There were a few points where things could get dicey, but it shouldn’t be that bad. While the increased guards would be an issue, they would also probably be less sharp by the fourth day of nothing happening. Even if they were at their best, they would have minimal chance of catching someone like me. Hiding in the dark was a necessity at home.

“At least I don’t have to listen to Sten’s mumblings.” I chuckled. By now he would be going over some obscure verse in the book of Apophis. He was devout, though taking it to annoying extremes. I knew for a fact Apophis existed, but the longer I stayed here the bigger my doubts about him grew. He says that his scales were darker than the blackest midnight, to better hide his faithful from things that would eat at night. His vast appetite was set to devour all our enemies. Typical church stuff really. The issue I was seeing, was that we didn’t have truly active enemies. Even if draining our world of magic was all they were slowly doing, I could see some issues. First, why drain it slowly? Especially after we knew the ploy? Surely by now they would have increased the rate rapidly. Not only would it make their world stronger, but it would cripple our ability to react. Even a slight increase in the draining rate would nearly double the time required for our world to craft another of the Greater Shadows. Second, why haven’t they attacked? As far as I was aware, there had never been an attack launched from this world into ours. Not even a scouting mission. If they had never entered our world, how were they draining us? If you wanted to get crazy, you could accuse the dragons of leaving something behind, but that didn’t make sense. They had been gone for millennia. Why had we not found them and destroyed them?

Then there were the spell chants. I didn’t use them much, but their wording still niggled at the back of my head every time. Dread Apophis, the snake that consumes all. What was more plausible? That we had an inept enemy, that was content to slowly drain our world and never send forth an excursion, or could it be the snake that consumes all was slowly consuming the mana in our world? Sten and most of the others had been raised in the church, where all inquiry had been stifled at a very early age. I grew up at the edge of the wilds, where survival was more important than the teachings of the church.

“Well, this isn’t getting me anywhere.” I muttered. “Wish I could just shut my brain off.” Sleep would be a long time coming, especially as my fears started roaming. They always did when Sten was away, and a part of me worried about that. Did he have something that was influencing me? Mind magics were incredibly rare and zealously guarded, but that didn’t rule anything out. Protecting a God’s Chosen was important enough that it might warrant their use. If so, then killing Sten would be a lot harder, especially when it turned out the demons didn’t have one of their draining machines.