There was a carriage rolling smoothly along the long, windy dusty road. It had gilded wheels and pristine purple velvet curtains. If you looked inside you would see a fat man sleeping in it. He had gold and silver rings all along his stubby fingers, and his clothes didn’t quite look like the type you would find in a thrift store. There were a couple of other people huddled up in the corner, making sure they didn’t touch or disturb their master, the fat man.  But outside the carriage something was happening. A shadow darted past the window, and then there was a yell of surprise outside from the driver, and then there was silence. Then, the carriage stopped. One of the men in the carriage got up quietly, careful not to brush against the master. He would not take kindly to being woken up. He slipped the door open, and stepped outside. Then he dropped to the ground instantly, and only just in time. Some sharp claws sailed past his head, nearly shaving off the top part of his head as the man dropped. Another man came out of the carriage, but he wasn’t quite so lucky. He did get away, but only once he had been hit hard on the head. The first man who had come out of the carriage had commando crawled over to the front of the carriage. There he saw the driver lying dead, in a pool of blood. The man cried out, and ran into the forest. From there he saw the third, and final man come out of the carriage. He also saw what had been attacking them. It was a dark blue Jaguar. He had heard of them, they were called Jaglions. But what he didn’t see was a second shadow moving silently out of the forest. The unseen shadow slowly made it’s way over to the carriage, and then it slipped inside. The inside of the carriage was beautiful. There was a beautiful picture painted on the side of the wall. It looked like it had been painted with the most expensive types of paint, gold leaf, and silver nitrate. This slightly confused the shadow, who wasn’t actually a shadow, but a man in a camo cloak. He was confused by the silver nitrate, because it can irritate your eyes, and skin if you touch it. But the cloaked man was glad that it wasn’t Silver Fulminate. If it had been that, then even one tiny joult of the carriage would have been a disaster. Silver Fulminate explodes. The man looked closer at the sliver, and gasped. It was Silver nitrate, mixed with a little bit of fulminate to give it a pretty shine. It wouldn’t be quiet as reactive, but it could explode. The man was careful to keep away from the silver. He had thought this man was stupid, but this was a whole different level. Maybe it was a clever trap. They would assume that burglars wouldn’t notice it. Yes! That must be it. He had thought that this was all too easy. It still was quite easy, but just slightly more difficult, meaning, one wrong move could make the whole carriage explode. The man shrugged, and reached up to the baggage rack. He pulled down two bags. He opened them, and peered inside. In the first one, there were hundreds of golden coins. They were called Krins. The cloaked man knew that in this bag alone, there was quite a big fortune. The man moved on to the second bag. It was stuffed full of more Krins, and a few pretty golden rings. There were also two necklaces, and one silver anklet. The man smiled, and hauled both bags onto his back. Then he heard a shout outside, “He’s gone! Quickly, let’s get out of here!” The hooded man silently jumped out of the carriage, and ran into the forest. He had not been noticed, and he doubted anyone would notice the missing bags until morning, when the sun came up. The man had come, and gone unnoticed. You couldn’t see any of his features under the cloak, apart from two spiky ears sticking out. Then the man suddenly disappeared behind a tree. He had gotten away with a fortune.

Vaegon yawned. He knew that he should get up, but he was just so warm, under his warm blankets with the sun streaming through the windows. He stayed in bed for five minutes, and then finally managed to wrench himself out of bed. He quickly got dressed and had a shower. He walked downstairs and sat down at his table. He said “Hi” to all his pets, and then started making breakfast. He ate it quickly, and then pulled the two bags he had stolen towards him. He yawned and opened the first one. He tipped the whole contents out on the table. Coins went all over the table, but not one of them spilt on the floor. He needed to count his newly acquired money, so he could know how much was fifty percent, and also because he liked to keep things simple. He found it annoying when he had no idea how much money he had. Vaegon liked giving away forty percent of his money to orphans, or really poor people. Though especially orphans. There was a special reason for that. When Vaegon had been four, his mum had died, and then, three years later, his dad had died. Vaegon had become an orphan at the age of seven. He went to an orphanage, but he ran away from there when he was nine. It had been a horrible place, so you could understand why he did that. He wandered by himself for a few years, learning how to shoot a bow, throw a knife, move unseen and a lot of other useful skills for a robber. But when he was thirteen he was accepted into The School for Gifted Elves. This was kind of exciting for Vaegon, as he had never met an elf other than himself before. But when he got there, he found that it wouldn’t be quite like he had hoped. The School for Gifted Elves turned out to be worse than the orphanage. The only tiny upside to it was Lykil. Vaegon met his best friend there. Lykil was the only non-animal friend he ever had. But he was also his best friend.He had thick wavy blind hair, and was tall, and quite handsome. Though he wasn’t quite as skilled at fighting, and the things that robbers would want to be good at. Which was a bit of a problem, because that was exactly what Lykil wanted to be.  At the school, they got taught to not be scared to kill, to fight without getting hurt, and the history of evil. Those were the names of the three main subjects. They were literally the names. There was also a strict rule about contact with the outside world. The rule was: NO CONTACT TO THE OUTSIDE WORLD. THEY ARE EVIL. WE ARE TEACHING YOU HOW TO COMBAT THESE THINGS. The school was a terrible, evil school. Almost every pupil there hated it. And they had a very good reason to. Vaegon was soon planning to escape. But he knew that he had to plan everything out, and do a very, very thorough risk assessment. He was going to escape with Lykil. They spent months planning, making sure everything was right. If they were caught, they would probably be tortured. After almost a year of planning, Vaegon and Lykil escaped. Vaegon was free once more. He had actually learnt quite a bit about humans, and their weaknesses. That was what the school wanted to do. They wanted a huge elven army to conquer the world. Starting with the elves, but then turning on the dwarves (which would be quite hard since no one had seen a dwarf for a few decades) and then finally the humans. If they attacked the humans first, then the elves and dwarves would probably find out about the, but the elves were hidden away, so the humans and dwarves wouldn;t notice if they got attacked. But when Vaegon and Lykil escaped, they decided to postpone it for ten years, so that Vaegon would forget about it, until it was too late. Vaegon was happy, learning, stealing, getting rich, helping orphans. Now, back to the present Vaegon, the twenty one year old one. Vaegon started counting the coins. Two hours later he was finding it very hard to concentrate. He was getting bored of the shiny coins. He managed to push on for another hour. Finally he had finished the first bag. He decided to take a short break. He would go for a walk, and then eat some food. 

Soon Vaegon was walking with Diablo, his Jaglion. Diablo was one of his three pets, the other two were Juniper, the green bush viper, and Gluteus Maximus (Glute) the Blue Glaucus. But right now Vaegon was walking with Diablo. They were chatting about how life needed to become more exciting. Vaegon could talk to his pets, so this was something that he enjoyed doing. “Ugh. Life is getting really boring. All we have done in the last few weeks is steal from old men!” said Diablo. Vaegon groaned, “Here we go again!” Diablo smiled and said, “Maybe I wouldn’t be so restless if you planned something more interesting!” 

“You think your life is boring? Look at Glutes life!”

“My life is still boring, even if Glutes is even more so.”

“Okay! I will ask Juniper if she can find someone more “exciting” for you!”

“Thank you!”

Vaegon was about to start walking home, when he spotted some movement behind a tree. He pretended not to notice, and signalled to Diablo to pretend he also hadn’t noticed. They carried on walking. As the tree got closer, they both saw even more movement. Vaegon sighed, he knew who this was. Then suddenly Vaegon jumped, tackling the person behind the tree to the ground. “Hi Lykil. I saw you from about ten miles away!”

“No you didn't! You just guessed I was here by chance.” said Lykil indignantly. “Haha you were always so funny. Did you see me jumping behind all the other trees on the way here?”

“No… But maybe you thought that there was more of a chance of someone being behind this tree?” said Lykil hopefully.

“Sorry mate, that’s not true. I saw you about two whole minutes before I jumped on you.”

“Ugh. I have spent two whole weeks practising this!”

“I think you mean, I have spent about two hours practising this over the last two weeks. You move too much! In fact, even if you hardly moved at all, I would still notice you! Movement attracts the eye.”

“Okay, okay. Enough with the lectures. Can I come back to your house for lunch?”

“Okay, come on! I was just about to have it!” 

Vaegon, Lykil and Diablo walked home. A couple of minutes later, Vaegon and Lykil were talking over two hot bowls of stew. “You know, if you spent two hours a day practising, then maybe you would be able to out wit me, or at least sneak up on me once or twice!”

“But I find it hard to concentrate, unless my life depends on it, or something.”

“I could make your life depend on it.” said Vaegon grinning. 

“You always loved your threats, didn’t you Vaegon.”

“Yep. They are fun!”

When they had both finished their lunch, Lykil left Vaegon to his money counting. The second bag would be a lot harder. The coins have a set amount, but rings, necklaces, and just all jewelry. He had to figure out how much he could sell them for, or, if he wanted to keep them, how much they were worth. That is basically the same thing, but not quite. 

It had been five hours since Lykil had left, and Vaegon was finally done. His back was aching, and his brain felt as though someone had wrenched it out of his head, whacked them against a chopping board, and then put them messily back in again. Vaegon decided that some tea would be good for his brain, and a short walk, for his back. He had his tea, and then started on his walk. But then, when he had only been going for a couple of minutes, he turned back because he wanted to get some practise done before it got dark. Some things he wanted to start before it got light. He got back to his house, and grabbed his knives. He decided that he hadn’t been doing much knife throwing practise lately, so it would be good to spend an hour or two practising it. He walked outside, and carved a target onto a tree. He walked ten feet away from it, and threw all his three knives one by one. He got all three of them dead on centre. He collected them, and then walked fifteen feet away from the target. He got all three of them bang on centre again. He collented them once more, and moved twenty feet away. He threw the first one thwack and then the second thunk and then the third thump. Then Vaegon frowned. The third one had been half a millimeter away from the exact centre of the target. Most people would have been thrilled by this, but not Vaegon. This meant that he was not perfect. He needed to practise until he never got it wrong, not until he got it right. That was what Lykil did, he would practise until he got it right once or twice, and then decide that he was perfect, and then he would simply move on. This was not the way Vaegon worked. He was a perfectionist. If he wasn’t, he would probably be rotting in a prison sell at that very moment. So would Lykil, for that matter. Vaegon had bailed Lykil out of jail seven times before. That one half a millimeter could be the matter between life and death for Vaegon. So he collected the knives again, and tried all three of them again. This time he got all three perfect. He smiled, got the knives, and then went from twenty feet again. He needed to never get it wrong. He got all three right this time as well. He moved on to twenty five feet. He got all of them right. He laid down his knives. He was going to practise unseen movement. He whistled to Diablo. Diablo came running over. Vaegon told him what they were doing, and they headed into the forest. Vaegon remember when he was young, running into a forest like this, away from the orphanage. That had been the best day of his life. What Vaegon was going to do with Diablo, was basically hide’n’seek. But it would be pitch black, in a huge forest, and the seeker didn’t need eyesight to catch the hider. Vaegon would have to be really quiet, and cover his smell. They got to a clearing in the trees, and Diablo stopped there. Vaegon started running, silently, through the trees on the other side. In five minutes Diablo would be after him, and Diablo was deadly. Diablo was fast, Diablo could track without eyesight, and Diablo didn’t ever feel like stopping to go toilet. Vaegon found a lemon leaf bush. The leaves of a lemon leaf bush smell lovely and citrusy. He grabbed grinned, this would help Diablo lose his trail! He climbed up a tree a little way beyond the bush, and climbed to the very top, so that Diablo wouldn’t be able to catch as quickly. The longest it had taken Diablo to catch Vaegon was seven minutes. Vaegon needed to up his game. He knew that most humans would not be able to find him, but some elves would, and if the humans or elves had dogs, then he was a goner. So Vaegon knew how important it was for him to learn how to do this well. But Vaegon didn’t know that one day, there would be someone even more deadly than Diablo chasing for him, searching for him, in a forest, just like this. Vaegon didn’t know that in just a few months, he would need to have mastered this hard skill.