Chapter 1
 

     Raven strolled through the streets of Leafre, looking at the citizens, the strange haflingers. The little creatures had faces like hedgehogs, furry bodies like some sort of stuffed animal, and absolutely nothing worth stealing. They just spent their time watching over dragon eggs. Well, he might as well go visit Amoria again. Now that was a place worth his time.

     As Raven turned around and began heading towards out of town, he noticed something small in one of the many bushes along the side of the path. With a feeling of indignation Raven realized that someone was trying to spy on him, the greatest up-and-coming thief in Maple World. Well, that wasn’t going to happen on his watch. Time to give the person hiding in the bushes a surprise.

     Raven melted into shadow, using his Shadow Travel magic to appear right behind bush, but the person sitting inside looked like he was expecting it. It was a skinny, pale boy in a makeshift tunic. Recognition hit Raven— it was the nameless kid from Ariant.

     “So you came after all, kid. I'm impressed you found your way to Leafre. Did you walk the whole way?” The boy nodded, his amethyst eyes fixed on Raven's face. “Well, if you want to be my apprentice, the first thing you need to know is how not to hide.” Raven leaned in close to the boy’s face.

“Crouching in a bush? That’s a novice’s tactic. Don’t go to an obvious hiding spot, kid. It defeats the purpose.” Raven straightened up. “To hide well, you need to be just part of the scenery, just there, and people’s eyes won’t even see you. But that’s another lesson. Step two kid, is—”

     “I've got a name now,” the kid cut in.

     “Oh you have?”

     “My name's Phantom.”

     “Well then, Phantom, lesson number two is how not to dress…”

 

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     Phantom fidgeted in his new outfit. Raven had shown up with it, and told him that in return for the new clothes, Phantom now owed him. When they went out to steal something, Raven would get first pick of whatever Phantom brought back, in exchange for his mentorship and the clothes.

Phantom wasn’t sure it was a fair deal. The clothes looked relatively nice, it was true, but he was used to makeshift tunics and the pants he was now wearing chafed something awful. How did people put up with these?

     Raven had told him briefly that clothes should convey style and personality, but should be practical and have a way to disappear into a crowd if it was necessary. The clothes that Phantom was wearing now, Raven said, were practical and unmemorable. Which means Phantom would be able to vanish into a crowd, but they had no style or personality. He wasn't sure if he agreed with Raven about the practicality, though. These pants were so uncomfortable compared to his old tunic that he didn't think he'd be able to even walk much without having to constantly shift them.

They were going to go raid the hoard of something Raven called a Cornian, which was apparently some kind of thing called a quasidragon. None of that made much sense to Phantom. The gist of what he did understand was that there were virtually no people in the Minar Forest, and the people that were there didn't have anything worth stealing. But Raven thought Phantom needed to learn a thing or two, so they would go try to steal from a monster that collected treasure sometimes.

     It had been a while since Raven left to go get ready, and he still hadn’t returned. Phantom was getting hungry. There were lots of trees in the forest; maybe he could find some fruit. He peered up at the canopy until he spotted some red against the green leaves. He began to climb the tree, keeping his eye on the bright red fruit above. To his surprise, the pants and shirt turned out to be better for climbing trees. The long pants kept the bark from scratching his legs, and the shirt didn’t twist around and catch on things as much as his loose tunic used to. Maybe these clothes were more practical than he originally thought, even if they did chafe some.

     Phantom had eaten his fill of the crisp red fruit before Raven returned. “Change of plans,” the dark-haired thief told him. “We’ll go out another day. I’m going to be busy tonight and I decided you should learn a bit of magic before going to an area full of monsters. Stay here, I’ll be back in the morning.” Raven grabbed something out of his bag before leaving as abruptly as he arrived.

Miffed, Phantom tried to follow Raven without being noticed. If they weren’t going to go out today after all, why couldn’t he have been told earlier? But it was much harder to sneak discreetly in the woods, with so many leaves and sticks and other noisy objects to stumble over. The desert hadn’t had anything to impede his movements. Phantom had to hang back quite a ways to avoid Raven’s attention, so he couldn’t see Raven very well. After a while of walking, Raven met someone -- a girl? -- who must have been waiting for him, then she and Raven disappeared out of Phantom’s line of sight.
 

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     "So, kid, there's two types of magic," Raven was explaining. Phantom could tell he wanted to finish quickly. Raven obviously wanted to be somewhere else. "You already got the basics of sleight of hand, which isn't real magic, just looks like it. The other kind of magic uses mana. The stronger you get, the more mana you have, which is good because it takes time for mana to recover. Use too much mana at once then you can’t do any more magic till you get mana back."

     Phantom wasn't sure exactly what mana was, but it sounded like the fruit on the trees back in his oasis. You got more as you wait, and it goes away by doing certain stuff. For the fruit, that stuff was eating it, and for mana that stuff was magic. Would this mana take as long to come back as the fruit?

     "A thief needs to know how to fight. Could be to increase your reputation, or get out of a tight corner. Magic can make your attacks stronger. This is an example of an attack without magic," Raven said, and he turned and hurled one of his throwing stars at a nearby tree, where it dug in and stuck too deeply to pull out of the wood. "And this is," he pulled out another throwing star, and it ignited in his fingers, "is an attack strengthened by magic." When the flaming shuriken struck the tree, it flew straight through, leaving a scorched hole in the trunk. Phantom's eyes widened. The burn marks on the wood weren't made by any sleight of hand. Raven had real magic as well as fake magic. "Now I've got somewhere to be. You just see if you can figure out how to access your mana at all." With that, Raven strolled away through the trees, quickly vanishing from sight.

     Phantom walked over to the tree trunk. He touched the burn marks on the wood, and they were warm to the touch. He tugged on the other throwing star stuck in the tree, but it was stuck fast. He wouldn't be able to pull it out. He didn't have any other idea where to start besides Raven’s throwing stars. What was he supposed to do with this one stuck in the tree? Then it occurred to him, the one that went through the tree must have gone somewhere. He walked around to the back side of the tree, and looked around for the one that had caught fire. It didn't take him long to find the weapon, but it was deformed, twisted, and useless, as well as still hot to the touch.

     What else could he use? He didn't have any sort of spiky metal things similar to Raven's throwing stars. The only thing he had even close to the same size were his playing cards, but those were much lighter, shaped differently, and not metallic.

     He pulled out one of his cards and examined it. Maybe he could use it after all. He did throw these like Raven threw stars. Phantom focused on the card. How was he supposed to call up magic? Raven had set his star on fire. Was he supposed to focus on heat? But Raven's shadow travel wasn't hot. Phantom decided to try anyways. He imagined the card bursting into flame, remembered the heat of the hottest summer day in Ariant, recalled the deep, residing heat of Raven's burnt, twisted star…. Nothing happened. The card stayed decidedly cool. Phantom threw it at the tree, irritated. That hadn't worked. He pulled the card out of the tree, not wanting to lose it because he didn't have many cards left. He had lost several in Ariant when he got into the fight with the sahib.

     Phantom took a breath. He shouldn't give up after a single try. It had taken him much longer to learn how to throw the cards. Heat had not worked to bring out magic. Raven had also described it like a fruit tree. But that didn't make sense either. How could he use magic like a fruit? But he would try anyways. He held the card. He imagined picking the yellow fruits from the tree back in the oasis. It didn't do anything. He tried miming it too. It still didn’t work. Phantom was ready to throw his card into the tree again, but he decided to give it one last try. He pictured yanking on a ripe coconut, feeling the bit of give as it began to come free, and then having to recover his balance as it came loose all at once. The card still did nothing. Phantom kicked at a stone on the ground in frustration, and put his card away.

     There was no point in hanging around here waiting for Raven to come back. He might as well go exploring. See what there was around here. This forest was vastly different than the desert he used to live in, and he was curious to see what the rest of it was like.

     Even though he’d been in the forest for several days now, Phantom couldn’t stop marveling at how different it was from the desert. The trees here were huge, towering above with smooth bark and massive leaves-- very different than the rough-barked, sparse trees back in Ariant. Grass covered all the ground, and there was no sand to be found anywhere. Vines hung down from high branches, thick and sturdy enough to climb on. The sunlight here was gentle and golden, dappled by the leaves above, unlike Ariant’s glaring, harsh, burning sun.

     He climbed up onto a tall tree root, and scanned for anywhere interesting to explore. Lush forest spread in all directions around him, full of birdsong and the sound of trickling water. Mostly, the forest seemed similar in all directions. Trees and vines and trickling creeks carpeted the entire area. One area though, the trees seemed slightly different, somehow. Phantom squinted that way, looking closer. Actually, some of those didn’t even seem like trees at all. He looked around again. Only in that one direction could he see any of those tree-like nontrees. That, then, was the place he would explore.

     He slid down off the tree root and headed off. He would have to be careful, though. In the forest, he couldn’t see the monsters until he was nearly on top of them. Back in the Nihal Desert, you could see monsters on the horizon, and avoid them if you wanted. In the Minar Forest, though, the trees made it hard to tell whether there were monsters around. When he’d first arrived in the forest, Phantom had nearly bumped into a gigantic beetle that was twice as big as he was!

     He walked as gingerly as he could, but his loud, crunching footsteps crashed in his ears. How did anyone travel quietly in a forest? He hoped that none of the monsters here would attack on sight, since they had to be able to hear him coming.

     The number of different kinds of plants here was astounding. There were trees with red fruit and others with yellow; there were tall bushes and short; there were soft grasses and broad leafed sprouts. Some of these trees even had pink leaves! Phantom liked the color, so he picked one and pocketed it. The further he walked, the more astounding the forest seemed. He peered into a giant flower larger than his head, and sneezed when the pollen tickled his nose. Soon he discovered a clear stream trickling out of a stump like a fountain, so he tasted the water and found it sweet and clean. Occasionally he saw strange things he supposed must be plants; they had thick stems like plants, but no leaves. Each had a single, round, fleshy top, spread wide over the stem. Phantom had never seen anything like it in Ariant, but there were many things he had never seen in Ariant. Some of them were shorter than his ankle, but some were taller than his head. He reached up to climb on top of one of the tall ones, but to his shock, the top tipped and dumped water all over his head. He didn’t like those fleshy-topped plants much after that.

     It didn’t feel like long before Phantom was able to tell what the tree-like non-trees were. Someone set up long, tall, straight poles, nearly as tall as the trees, and they appeared to be topped with straw. Vines wound up the poles, making the structures feel like part of the forest. Phantom was curious why they were there, and topped with straw too. Grasping one of the vines, he tested his weight. It was quite sturdy, so he began to climb up. As he drew farther up the pole, he noticed the birds here didn’t fly across the whole sky, but never strayed too far from these poles. They were also quite large; their bodies were nearly as large as his torso, and their flowing tails were half again as long. They must be monsters then; the monsters in Ariant had all been territorial, keeping to certain swaths of land despite the lack of physical barriers. It made sense that monsters here would do the same.