The quarry was a two-hour walk east of Megiddo, just as the quest description had promised. The well-maintained dirt road eventually petered out into a game trail, and the forest grew thicker, darker. The air turned stale, tinged with the foul, coppery smell of goblins. They were messy creatures, and their territory reeked of filth and old blood.
I found the entrance to the caves easily enough. It was a massive, ugly gash in a grey cliff face, surrounded by crude wooden barricades and sharpened stakes. This wasn't just a nest; it was a fortress. And crawling all over it, like green-skinned insects, were the goblins. Sentries stood on rocky outcrops, patrols of three or four shuffled along the perimeter, and the guttural sounds of their language echoed from the dark entrance of the cave.
The old Stephen, the raid leader, took over. Charging in was suicide. That was what the silver-ranked party had done, and they'd been chewed up and spat out. This wasn't a single boss fight; it was a dungeon crawl. And the first rule of any dungeon crawl is to not pull the entire room at once. I needed to thin the herd. I needed to pick them off, one by one, without alerting the whole damn nest.
The problem was, I was about as stealthy as a man in plate armor falling down a flight of stairs. My Agility was decent, but it was for dodging, not hiding. I could be quiet if I tried, but I wasn't invisible.
A thought, cold and clear, formed in my mind: I need a stealth skill.
And with my cheat, that wasn't a wish. It was a to-do list item.
I pulled back from the edge of the clearing, melting back into the deeper shadows of the forest. The grind for this skill wouldn't involve killing anything. It would be a different kind of practice.
I started by just observing. I watched the patrol patterns, memorizing their routes, their timing. Then, I began to move. I forced myself to slow down, to think about every single action. I slowed my breathing until it was a shallow, silent rhythm. I stopped walking flat-footed and rose onto the balls of my feet, letting my legs absorb the impact of each step. Every movement was deliberate, calculated.
My intent, my focus, was a single, repeating thought: Be unseen. Be unheard. Disappear.
I used the terrain. I moved from the shadow of one thick tree trunk to the next, my back scraping against the rough bark. I crouched behind a dense fern, its fronds tickling my face, and waited for a patrol to pass. When the wind picked up, rustling the canopy of leaves above, I used the sound to mask the sound of my own movement, darting to a new position.
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It was excruciatingly slow. It was boring. It was perfect.
For over an hour, I did nothing but this. A painstaking, nerve-wracking circuit around the goblin encampment. Once, I put my foot down on a dry twig. It snapped with a sound that seemed as loud as a gunshot in the tense silence. A nearby sentry grunted and peered into the woods. I froze, my heart pounding, every muscle tensed. After a long moment, it turned away, and I let out a breath I didn't realize I'd been holding.
I kept at it. Move, stop, listen. Focus. Be unseen. I was no longer just hiding; I was actively trying to project the idea of not being there, pushing that intent into my every action, just as I had pushed mana into the rock.
And then, as I was crouched behind a mossy boulder, it came. That beautiful, melodic sound.
Ding.
[Through repeated action and focused intent on moving undetected, a new skill has been created.]
[You have created the Active Skill: Stealth Lv. 1!]
A new sensation washed over me. It was subtle. The world didn't change, but my relationship to it did. The shadows seemed to deepen around me, to cling to my leather armor like a shroud. The sounds of my own bodyâmy breathing, the rustle of my clothesâseemed to mute themselves. I felt like I was wrapped in a thin, invisible layer of silence.
Time to test the new software.
I waited. Soon, a lone goblin sentry came shuffling down the path, its crude spear dragging in the dirt. It was probably heading back to the caves at the end of its shift. I activated the skill, pouring a tiny bit of my will into it. The feeling of being hidden intensified.
The goblin walked right toward my hiding spot. Ten feet away. Five feet. It passed so close I could smell its foul breath. Its beady eyes scanned the forest, but they slid right over the boulder I was behind, completely blank. I was just another part of the scenery. I didn't exist.
A cold, immense satisfaction filled me. This was true power. The ability to shape reality to my will, one skill at a time. The system was everything I had ever dreamed a game could be.
The goblin passed me. I rose silently from my crouch. My movements felt fluid, unnaturally quiet. I followed it, my footsteps making no sound on the leafy ground. It was completely oblivious.
I raised my new iron mace. I didn't need a fancy wind-up. My Strength stat was more than enough. One simple, efficient, overhead blow.
There was a sickening crunch as the mace connected with the back of the goblin's skull. It dropped like a sack of rocks, dead before it even knew I was there. No cry, no alarm. Just a quiet thud.
I looked down at the body, then out at the sprawling encampment. I could see them now, not as an overwhelming army, but as individual targets. Dozens of goblin patrols, dozens of sentries. Each one a little sack of XP waiting to be collected.
A slow smile curled my lips. This wasn't a suicide mission anymore.
The hunt was about to begin.