Evolution: A Warlock's Rise To Power

Chapter 80: Nolan’s Return

Lucan found Silent in the command room the next morning.

"I need to head to Vertshadow today. Do you want to come with me, or do you have other plans?"

"What do you need to do there?" She asked.

"I have to steal 150 gold or items of equivalent value and then I need to take a thief quest. It's been 50 levels since I took the class."

"Oh yeah, I almost forgot since you pretty much never use your thief abilities."

Lucan awkwardly rubbed the back of his head. "Yeah, I really need to get better with that. I kind of never use the melee moves I picked up and I always forget to trigger my evasion ability. It's not like this is a computer game with buttons on the screen to remind you, but the passives are nice, I am always using those. I will use the active moves more in the future."

"Yeah, okay, I believe that like I believe you are going to craft a fishing pole and drop a line some time." She said with a snicker.

"Hey, I will, just you wait. I will make the best fishing pole ever know to man then I will catch the biggest fish possible with it. Just you wait and see, but that is a task for another day. So do you want to join me?"

"I have plans with Bud today. But let me know if you want help with your quest later."

"Who is Bud?" Lucan asked sternly.

"Don't act jealous." She said with a grin while hiding her joy. "That is the name I have given the pixie in the astronomy tower. We are good friends now. You should visit him sometime, he is always asking about you every time I see him, even if I only leave for a couple minutes he always asks how you are when I return."

"Alright." Lucan said relaxing. "But before you go play in the garden do you mind helping me with a bit of redesigning?"

***

Lucan, or should I say, the sneak thief Nolan walked out of the teleporter in Vertshadow with a brand-new face that Silent had helped design. Their goal was a completely average and forgettable face. He was satisfied with the result.

Nolan walked down the crowded streets while looking for an opportunity. He spied a man cursing at some children who were playing on the side of the street. Nolan casually bumped him as he passed.

"Watch where you're going punk." The man said before going back to shoeing the kids away so he could set up his stall.

Nolan checked his interface logs.

[Pickpocketing activated]

[1 silver, 3 copper, and a bent paper clip obtained.]

'Oh man, this is going to take forever.'

But unlike the skills he bought from Raze, his thief skills all came at the lowest level. Right now he was a novice pickpocket but if one day he became a grandmaster he could take somebodies whole coin purse in one go, or even relieve them of their weapons without them noticing. But who knows how long it would take to get to that level, and he could only imagine how many times he would get caught before getting there.

Nolan kept walking down the road with no particular destination in mind. Every couple of minutes he would activate pickpocketing if he saw somebody who looked better off. After an hour he had only stolen a little over 50 silver and even had to activate ethereal step when his mark had caught him in the act. Sprinting down an alleyway and stepping through the wall diffused the situation and allowed him to escape.

'Hmm, I should go burgle some place. That would be much faster.' He thought to himself.

Nolan decided to contact Raze. 'Hey, is there anybody in Vertshadow that has pissed you off recently. I need to practice my thieving.'

'Ha, you think someone would be stupid enough to piss me off in my own territory. Let alone the capital of my territory?'

'Damn, okay, I will keep looking then.'

'If you are looking for a place to steal from, stay away from my palace.'

'Old man, I may be an insane warlock, but I am not dumb.'

'Ha, good.'

Nolan checked his bags to see what he needed. He could always use more wand cores, but he didn't like the idea of stealing form a wand vendor. They were already marginalized compared to staff dealers and he didn't want to make their troubles worse.

'That's it! I will steal from a staff dealer. They probably have similar supplies anyway and who knows maybe I will find a recipe or two.'

With his mind made up, the sneak thief headed towards the magic district picking another 20 silver from pockets on his way.

'Damn, three staff shops on one street and they are all busy while the one wand shop doesn't even have a customer. I guess they can stand the loss.' He though with a grin.

He pulled up the hood on his cloak and entered each of the shops, scouting the three shops for the easiest target.

After checking all three he decided to steal from Total Staff Emporium.

He left the building and circled around the block. Coming to the back of the building he activated telekinetic cling. Since no one was in the alley out back at this moment he didn't hesitate to crawl straight up to the top of the three story building.

He rolled onto the roof and kept low in case anybody was looking from another building. Activating heat vision, he found several heat signatures moving around the top floor.

His goal wasn't a robbery (stealing with the use of force), he wanted to burgle (stealing without being detected) but he didn't know how things would turn out. If things really came down to it, he could just smash and grab, he considered his fleeing abilities top notch.

From what Nolan could see from the outside he suspected that most of the staves were made in the upper floors, which meant the materials required were probably there too. At least he hoped so.

Little Brown took to the sky and flew a circle around the building, letting the thief see through the windows.

When he found his spot, Nolan activated tread lightly before toggling ethereal step on then off, falling through the roof and silently landing on the floor. He looked around. It was an empty workroom. Unfortunately, all the cabinets and drawers were empty too.

'Damn it.'

As Nolan cursed to himself the doorknob began to turn.

In a flash he activated acrobatics and telekinetic cling and stuck himself to the ceiling as a half-orc came into the room with a bag of supplies.

The half orc was whistling a jolly tune while pulling out a long piece of wood and getting his knife ready. When he started to cut into the wood, Nolan stretched out his hand as a telekinetic hand grabbed the bag and slowly raised it up towards him. Without looking inside, he stored it in his inventory and activated shadow form while seeping out of the room through the crack around the door.

He didn't have much time in this form and had to act fast.

He was in a large area where several employees were checking the finished products before they could go on sale. There were three people at the counter while the workers were lined up to turn in their goods. If their staves passed inspection they were paid, and the clerk would take the staff into a room behind the counter and come out empty handed to deal with the next worker.

Nolan only had 3 seconds left in shadow form when a worker came out of the woodworking room next to the counter. The thief took the opportunity to slip under the door of the empty room.

Regaining his physical form, Nolan moved to the wall that was shared with the storage room. He activated ethereal step to jump into the next room.

*Bang*

His forehead bounced off the wall.

'Crap!'

The storage room was protected by a formation that dispelled magic, rendering his walk though walls ability useless.

"Hey, what was that?" Someone said before opening the door and entering.

Nolan sighed. It was just like when he played those assassin games on his computer. He always wanted to sneak in unseen and complete the mission perfectly, but it always ended with several dead guards stuffed into closets. He just couldn't pass up this opportunity.

Nolan dropped from the ceiling with a wand in each hand. Shadow magic muffled the area while Night's Whisper preformed a back stab, followed by a concussive blow, stunning the clerk who just entered. Telekinetic slashes and several swipes of his knife ended the clerk's life.

Nolan dragged the man to the corner, unfortunately there were no closets in this room. Nolan stripped the man of his clothes as fast as he could and activated advanced disguise.