Marauder

The Marauder — the entry to the path of Error, and it begins with a craft far more mundane than one might expect from a path that will end in mastery over time: with theft.

The body gains moderately, but the hands change noticeably — the steadiness and flexibility of the wrists and fingers make them known for their quickness. To this is added the skill of handling short weapons: the dagger, the short sword.

There are two abilities, and both are functional:

Excellent Observation — the Marauder directly senses valuable things within ten meters around him, though he does not determine their exact location: he knows that inside a box or a wardrobe lies something worth taking, but he does not see exactly what it is;

Theft — things from other people's pockets pass to him unnoticed by their owner.

There is nothing mystical in this at first glance — an ordinary thief, only a very good one. But it is Theft that will become the seed from which the entire path will grow: later it will not be purses that are stolen, but otherworldly forces, thoughts, other people's identities, time, and in the end a place in another's deification ritual.

It is also telling what the Marauder did not receive. Neither charms, nor protection, nor spiritual sight: against the Otherworldly of the combat step he remains an ordinary man with quick hands. All he has at the ninth step is the ability to find himself where he is not expected and to leave with something belonging to others before anyone understands.

Such a beginning sets the character of the whole path. Error never strikes head-on: it finds a gap and makes use of it. The Marauder finds a gap in another's pocket; the peak of the path — in another's deification, but the method is one and the same.