After the hunt on the goblin camp, the old man started teaching Teclos his ways in earnest.
He did not begin with normal lessons like every other mentor.
He began with suggestions on every hunt.
Small things, at first. Casual remarks slipped into their conversations as though they were important, but Teclos could decide for himself if he wanted to follow his advice.
Pointers about his movement—how he could evade sight better, how he could be stealthier, about positioning, even about the way Teclos approached problems.
"You rely too much on brute force when you don't have the strength to back it up," he had said once, after a completed job.
Teclos hadn't thought much of it then. Just the old man's rambling again.
One day a merchant had arrived in Kolma, agitated and loud, speaking of stolen goods and a figure they had seen slipping through the treeline at dusk the night before. Not a beast, but also not quite a man either.
